Now With 40% Less Angst

I was having a conversation with Elizasmom via email the other day. We were discussing some of the books we have been reading, and she dropped a line that really resonated with me. It captured into words, an idea that I had been trying to understand. She described a sense that one author had captured.

..." teenagers' sense of the world as this perpetually near-apocalyptic place."

Growing up, I certainly had that sense. It felt like society was absolutely on the brink of collapse, thermonuclear war was tomorrow, and the world's inequities and injustices were so horrifying that everything just had to STOP.

Oh... it FELT. Everything felt so horrible and so much was hopeless, and I was positive that the adults around me had gone numb. They couldn't feel anymore and had shut down into the little niches they had carved for themselves... like they had created these identities as a protection, but then forgot who they really were and started to cling to the persona's out of habit.

Heh. ahem.

First I'd like to acknowledge that I may be a person who is a bit... mmmm, oversensitive? There is this little personality test thingy that is making the rounds of the bloggernet. It's a personality test that gives you the straight dope on who you really are, in terms that are not so flattering. Like Borefest, Scumbag, Crackpot and Loser. It's based on the four main Jungian categories of personality... and I have taken that sucker five times trying to see if I could jigger that thing about to get a different result than the one that I got. Every question that was not an absolute, I tried other answers... and yet every single out come had me labeled as an ESFJ. A Sap. A Crybaby.

Excuse me... I had to go blow my nose.

Just last week I was out to eat with some friends, one of whom was my own sweet sister. For some reason I informed my friend sitting across from me that I could take her out (beat her up) if need be. First, it should be said that there is no question in my mind... I really would win if it came to throwing down with any of the women who were there that night... with the notable exception of my sis, and then I think it would be a pretty good fight. I made my statement for a laugh, I like to clown around a bit, but my sister started snorting, and informed me that I was a sap, and couldn't hurt a fly!

Huh.

I'm thinking that it may be true, and I am a sap. I have vivid memories of crying a lot as a kid. One time in particular was when I was about six or seven, sitting on the lower bunk in the room that I shared with my brothers. I was, of course, crying... and I was trying to remember a day, any day, when I had not cried, and I couldn't recall one single day.

But then, how clear are the thought processes and memories of a kid that age? I don't know, but I was probably just feeling sorry for myself. In any case, I have never been suicidal. Although once after my divorce, I had a moment or two when I felt bad enough that I admitted I could understand why some folks DO consider it.

Wow... this is a whole load of introversion for a supposed extrovert! Is that a bit of lint in my navel?

This whole post is a lead up to informing you that you may be subjected to some poetry soon. I can't help it, it's on it's way... it's bubbling around in my innards and it will come OUT! I figure it's best to give in to the need to poetry in small doses, so that it doesn't all come spewing out on some poor, unsuspecting soul. Take comfort in my adulthood and deadened sense of near-apocalypse, hopefully it won't all suck too bad. And if it does? There is always that little red "X" you can click.