Worthy

I realized today that I've been going about this whole "life" thing all wrong. I have spent so much time trying to convince myself that I am worth it, that I am worthy - whether it be for love or success or happiness or whatever - that I've lost sight of an inherent truth which is that I will never actually be worthy of those things...at least not in my own eyes. I can't be, you see, because I know all of my faults, all of my shortcomings. I know my failures and my weaknesses. I know my insecurities and my doubts. I know my crazy. So what I figured out is that it's less about me being worthy of them and more about them being worthy of me. Rather than focus on my worth I have decided to focus on theirs.

Let's take, for instance, the two guys who seem to derive some amount of pleasure from causing me emotional discomfort. Do they do it on purpose? I have no idea. My focus must now be what their worth as human beings is rather than why they don't seem to think I am worthy of them. What do they do? How do they do it? Where does their focus lie? Are they driven purely by selfish desire or do they have even a teeny ounce of humanity existing within them?

I don't know. But what I do know is that I can't measure my worth according to their grading scale any longer. It hurts because I know I was wrong when I thought we could ever be friends. Ryan said to me this week regarding one of the less than worthy, "He's not your friend. Friends don't hurt each other. He's not your friend." (Now, I admit, Emilie and OhioDave have been telling me that for MONTHS, but for some reason it just made sense all of a sudden when Ryan said it.) More than anything else that I have ever thought or that anyone has ever said, that is the one statement that helped me find my strong place. I am not strong when it comes to him but the pain I'm experiencing right now from the loss I feel at maintaining this strength is going to be worth it. I have to believe that.

And the other one, well, he's just an ass. That loss hurts me. I think not because I ever felt something deep for him but more because I did almost lose a super power during that situation. And as Emilie says, "It's all fun and games until somebody loses a super power."

So for right now at least, I'm going to borrow some of Emilie, OhioDave, and Ryan's strength and focus on the fact that "he's really not my friend." I would do anything within my power to help any of my friends simply because they are worth it. So I guess if they are not worthy of that loyalty and devotion then they really aren't my friend.

Man, one-sided closure can really suck.