Chapter 341: Talk To Me

Okay, so tonight’s blog is going to be a little bit different than my usual blog. You see, in a lot of different ways, the past two days of my life have followed a bit of a theme. It is one of those things that is a little weird to discuss here because it involves a lot of business that is not my own. You see, this running theme for the past two days is exactly that – people confiding in me. I don’t know what it is exactly but, for my entire life, people have a tendency to turn to me for emotional support. There just seems to be something about me that makes people feel like they can trust me or like they are able to talk to me about their personal matters. This has been, in many ways, both a blessing and a curse that I have lived with for my entire life. It is strange but even when I was just a kid I can remember people much older than I was, adults even, telling me things that they didn’t want to tell anybody else. It was always a weird thing for me because I was never sure of why this information was being shared with me or what I was supposed to do with it. In my younger years, I had a tendency to not be very good at keeping secrets or keeping my mouth shut about anything, which made me a very bad person for people to tell these things to… but they always did, anyway. I am not sure what it is about me. I have contemplated this a lot over the years and still haven’t been able to settle on any common theme or any particular quality that I have that would cause people to consider me such a trustworthy, sympathetic character. At the end of the day, though, I am glad that this is the case.

It hasn’t always been the case but sometime over the past few years I have come to realize something about these interactions I have, in which people confide their personal issues in me. What I have realized is that what these people are doing, whether they realize it or not, is offering me an opportunity to be the very best version of myself possible. The past few years have been a very big time for me, in all honesty. They have been extremely difficult at points but have also been extremely worthwhile and had moments of beauty that I never imagined before. It is a lot to explain but, more than anything, these past few years have probably been the biggest period of growth that I have had in my life. I have learned so much about what is really important to me in life and what exactly it is that makes me the very best version of myself. More than anything, and I believe this applies to everybody, I am the very best version of myself when I am being of service to others. I don’t mean doing volunteer work or any of that but more when I am finding a way to be an inspiration to others or to change the ways that they look at the world or something along those lines. I don’t know how to explain that without sounding like I think of myself as some sort of guru or something. That is definitely not the case – I am just getting through this life as best I can, just like anybody else. I think it all stems back to this story that I shared on the blog a while back.

You see, a few years ago, I received a message on Myspace, which is an indication of how long ago this was, from some random guy who lives here in Sarasota. He was really cute and had a profile filled with these gorgeous artistic photos and poetry and such. He seemed like the type of guy who I would have a lot of respect for/interest in, and I was really in awe of all of the work he shared on his page there. Mainly, though, I was taken aback by the message that he sent – it simply read, “You inspire me. Thank you.” I wrote back and said thank you and some little blurb about how nice it is to be told something so wonderful and positive like that and how important it is for us to express when somebody has that kind of effect on us. He wrote me back this long message about how some people were put on this earth to serve as an inspiration to others and how I am one of those people. He even went so far as to call me a muse. It’s a long story, that whole thing, but what I can say is that this message that he sent REALLY stuck with me and I have taken it to heart in most of my interactions since that time. I don’t know whatever became of that guy or how he even found me, or how exactly I inspired him but the whole idea of it has stuck with me ever since. I don’t even remember what was going on in my life at the time exactly but I do remember that when I read that message it was exactly what I needed to hear. What I didn’t realize at the time was that it would wind up drastically changing the way I live my life and the way that I interact with the people I meet along the way.

So, like I said, I truly believe that when people open up to us and seek our advice, assistance or just our shoulder to lean on they are actually providing us with an opportunity to be the very best version of ourselves. I guess, with that in mind, I have to say that I have been given a lot of those opportunities over the past couple of days. In one case, yesterday evening, a very good, new friend of mine basically just let herself explode on me. I don’t mean that in an angry way, by any means. It was, honestly, more of a bonding sort of experience. She basically shared her entire life story with me and really gave me a new insight into who she is as a person, which I was really grateful for and it did make me feel much closer to this person. It also allowed me to open up to her in ways that I hadn’t before, which was a very cool thing. Another friend of mine confessed something pretty major to me this morning. I haven’t known this particular person all that long but we have gotten increasingly close recently and they have turned to me for a lot of advice, which also makes me feel much closer to this person in a very positive way. It is a really interesting dynamic in this case because I do feel a bit like some sort of guru or mentor to this kid and, as silly as it may seem, it is a role that I take very seriously. I feel a certain type of obligation to this person to make sure that I am not leading them astray. I mean, not that I am actually leading them at all but I can see that they take my opinion very seriously and take the things I say to heart, so I try my best to be cautious of what I do say to them. Like I said, these are both cases where I feel like they are not only allowing me a bigger insight into who they are and really letting me in, but they are also giving me the opportunity to be a positive role model and an inspiration, which I truly appreciate.

Of course, I have only talked about the “blessing” portion of this whole thing. As I mentioned before, it can also wind up being just as much of a curse. This afternoon I got roped into a conversation that I really had no interest in having and didn’t really want to get involved in. You see, there is this woman who I really only know in passing who has recently been sort of forced upon me. Within mere moments of sitting down next to one another I was already being roped into this big ball of crazy that is, apparently, this woman’s life. There was a lot of drama and extremely personal information that was shared here and it all seemed horribly distasteful and tacky. More than anything, though, it seemed like something that was completely unnecessary to share, particularly with somebody who you know as little as this woman knows me. It just seemed wholly unnecessary and incredibly inappropriate. I was really not happy with the whole interaction and am very concerned with the fact that I am kind of stuck dealing with this person for an undefined but likely pretty long time. I have had many experiences like this in the past, as well, and it is simply always awkward and uncomfortable. I don’t like it one bit. I think it probably has to do with the fact that I actually give a shit about the other two people I mentioned above and have an interest in seeing them happy. This woman, on the other hand, is not someone that I genuinely give two shits about. I think that may be the reason I could manage to feel so grateful to those two people and so weirded out by this one. Seriously, though, it is a pretty uncomfortable situation because she explained to me, at great length, a whole onslaught of information that I absolutely never wished to hear and hope never to hear about it again.

Anyway, it is 11:34pm now and I am exhausted. It was a bit of a long day. I am glad that it is finally over and that I can simply go to bed and get up in the morning, finish off the next two days and be at the weekend again. I feel a lot of excitement for this weekend but I’m not entirely sure why as of yet. In the meantime, though, I am having a lot of trouble keeping my eyes open here, so I am going to bed. Goodnight.