Monday, October 14, 2002
What a day.
Days like today make me stop and think how happy I am to be alive and to be doing what I am doing in NYC.
I have had to deal with some very complicated and impossibly difficult situations in the past two years. Sob sob. I know. But really...I haven’t been happy with who I am, since, well, I graduated college in May 2000.
Every day I go through moments that make me want to run to the bathroom and vomit out all the shit that is dragging me down.
Very often my alarm goes off at 7:15am and I think to myself “Today I will come right home and go to bed.”
Most of the time, people in my life, in ways that they don’t realize, change my perspective and I find myself hanging out and laughing until 9pm that same evening.
But when the sadness is too strong...when no one can pull you out of it....when you feel as though you would rather have something awful happen in your life just so that you have a reason to be as down as you are...
I want to be an actor.
Very badly.
I want to have the life I KNOW I could have if I could just get my life together and try.
I am so scared.
I have never been this scared in my life.
I am 25.
It’s time to make something of myself. Every day I dread the next day. A day closer to me not doing what I want with my life.
Change it you say.
Stop wallowing in your self-pity and do what you should be doing.
Grow up already.
While I hate you for thinking that, I agree with you.
It’s weak and useless to sit in your miserable life and not make any attempt to change anything.
I give this advice out to every single person in my life.
“Why aren’t YOU doing what you want with your life?”
“Why are you YOU sitting there and letting life stomp on your face?”
Why?
Because I am sitting here doing the same thing.
I have moments where I feel deep down that things are going to change.
I feel better!
I feel strong!
I feel alive.
Then something happens...
The littlest thing.
Paul calls and we have a stupid argument.
That’s it...home to bed.
I have a fight with one of my housemates.
Well, can’t be an actor now! I have to worry and stress over how to fix this new problem.
None of this is anyone else’s fault but my own. I know this.
I have GREAT days
and
I have HORRIBLE days.
The days that are “nothing” are wonderful, refreshing, and few and far between.
Do you ever feel as though you have too much emotion?
Sometimes I feel like I am the only one in the world that feels as deeply about EVERY little thing that happens in my life.
Sometimes it makes me go undeniably insane in my head.
I know my close friends analyze everything as deeply as I do or we wouldn’t have formed the bonds that we have.
But even they would admit that they feel alone when it comes to society understanding how deeply affected they, as individuals, are by every moment of their day.
If you are reading this right now, odds are that you understand what I am talking about.
In my opinion, one of the reasons we read others’ journals is to find someone else who makes us feel not as alone.
Horrible sentence structure, but you understand.
I want to be strong again. I want to feel self-confidence. I want the esteem that I had when I graduated college. I was at the top of my game.
I always scoffed at those that left college and let their life turn to crap.
I mean, SCOFFED.
Now, I am worse than any of them ever were.
You want to talk about turning your life into crap?
Growing up I was always ETERNALLY optimistic.
I was THAT gay kid. The one always in a good mood. Hey! Wanna laugh? Come hang with Joe the gay kid.
Even when I struggled through the most horrifying moments of my childhood, I found a way to smile and laugh despite.
Rita knows this as the “Happy Boy Syndrome”.
One day, all of this optimism ceases and you start to doubt who you are and begin to wonder why you were ever so happy to begin with.
I went through a full year of (as only I can understand it) hardcore depression.
Prozac, therapy, the whole nine yards.
Okay, maybe 7 yards, cuz I wasn’t fucking crazy.
Just burning myself sometimes.
HA~!
Right?? Cuz I did that.
However, let’s talk about being dramatic...
Joe burns himself, but sits here today with no scars, minus one POSSIBLE scar that probably happened when I was shoving my face with donuts while taking a shit on the toilet.
Oh man. Don’t get me started with what a loser I was when I was a fat little happy gay boy.
So whatever. I was bad. Kelly was there through all of it and that is where a lot of the understanding in our friendship comes from.
She gets the “sad” part of me.
As does Rita...
For reasons of her own.
For Ritas of her own.
giggle
snort
boof
In any case, when I went through that tough time, I lost my optimism. I lost myself. I was sad beyond the point of repair. Optimisim was for fools.
It sucked.
Cuz that is not me.
After the year ended, I got my optimism back. It just kinda happened. My life took some drastic changes (switching majors to theater, coming out of my closet (closet? I had a very EASY coming out of closet experience thanks to surrounding myself with beautiful people prior), and letting my insecurities drop regardless of what anyone else thought-----and I became that optimistic Joe once again.
The Joe that had way many more good days than bad days. It was exactly who I wanted to be.
Then without realizing it...after college...the bad Joe came back.
The Joe that didn’t know how to succeed without a handbook. The Joe that allowed himself to dive into a hole too big to climb out of.
Now that I am here, I find myself clawing at the side of my (I picture it dirt) hole, making some ground, and before you know it...slipping right back to the bottom.
My prayers have been filled with such intense passion and helplessness.
I have started to make my way back to God.
It’s funny...
When things are going your way, you have to work even harder to keep the communication lines open with God.
Yet the minute things get bad, there you are begging and pleading for an answer.
While I have prayed every day my whole life, I see now that I need to do more.
That I shouldn’t expect him to help me unless I am doing it for him and with him.
It’s hard to explain if you find yourself atheist or not believing in any sort of determined deity.
It’s okay.
Please. Everyone needs to figure things out in a way that will make sense to them.
But I know what I believe.
I believe that I need help.
I need an answer. I pray, I write in this journal, I talk incessantly to my friends and boyfriend about all of this.
Where is my direction?
What can’t I find MY path???
I am confident that I will find it eventually. How could I live on this earth if I didn’t feel this way?
I’m just scared that I have followed the wrong path up until now.
What if I was supposed to be a teacher?
What if I was supposed to be in a secure job in a nice suburban city?
OKAY WHAT? OKAY...WHOA WHOA WHOA
See...even writing those words makes no sense to me.
That’s not me.
I am meant to be an actor.
LOL.
I try to sit here and type what my fears ultimately are...
But I see the words and I die laughing.
I am still optimistic enough to think that I am going to go somewhere with this theater thing. As sad as I get...be a teacher in a suburban school?
BOO WAHHHHH!.
No no no no no
I LOVE me some teachers.
But I don’t be me some teachers.
I hate it, but I am always called back to the horrible adage of:
“Those who can’t do, teach.”
I do NOT agree with that at all!
But I refuse to ever fall into that category.
Unless I am 40 and still struggling to get my first audition.
Then maybe it’s time to teach nursery school dickheads.
hahahaha you think. Joe be a nursery school teacher? NEVLE!
But you know what?
I got that knack for kids. It has always clicked with me.
I started my own “Babysitters Club” when I was about 12.
Yes, member?...I was gay.
I played Ken in the neighboorhood show (that I produced) “Barbie and the Rockers”.
Ok enough.
Can this journal be any more self-effacing?
Well, if self-effacing is a bad thing.
Enough.
Time to go to bed.
Tomorrow I will not be going to work.
I get to suck up my fear and go see a doctor.
You see, Joe has something that he has to take care of.
Hells if you will ever know what it is...
But for those of you who do know.....YIPES~!
Hey, It’s my own fault and I face it with courage and dignity.
Stupid Joe. Stupid Joe.
Besides that, I have about 101 Dalmations to figure out tomorrow.
No I didn’t.
Yeah I did.
So much to do. I hate using sick days as real life days.
Sick days are meant for smoking pot and watching scary movies.
Oh yeah. I do that every day anyway.
Sick days have now become productive days. It happened HERE folks! Sick days are productive days.
Oh yeah again!
The reason I had a good day today are because of the following reasons:
1) I acted like a smarmy bitch at work and people seem to respect it and love me more for it. Balright.
2) I had a fight with Paul and he fixed it in two seconds flat by allowing, ONCE AGAIN, me to be a psycho and him to just understand that I am a lunatic.
3) Rita’s impromptu invite for drinks at Jake’s Dilemma.
While I fought to keep a smile on my face all day, tonight I sit with a genuine peace and contentment.
My life could change tomorrow.
Right around the corner is the little dirt paved road leading to my success.
My optimism kicks in and I realize that it is my time.
For clarity.
Joe will do this ya’ll!
Just give me some time.
Eventually all of my entries will be about this and that soap opera star that is really gay, but pretends to be straight while on ACCESS HOLLYWOOD.
You just wait!
Wow.
I feel better.
Good feeling.
I gotta remember this.
Write in your journal and by the end, you can once again take on the world.
(also Joe...remember to have 3 glasses of wine while conquering the world)
Days like today make me stop and think how happy I am to be alive and to be doing what I am doing in NYC.
I have had to deal with some very complicated and impossibly difficult situations in the past two years. Sob sob. I know. But really...I haven’t been happy with who I am, since, well, I graduated college in May 2000.
Every day I go through moments that make me want to run to the bathroom and vomit out all the shit that is dragging me down.
Very often my alarm goes off at 7:15am and I think to myself “Today I will come right home and go to bed.”
Most of the time, people in my life, in ways that they don’t realize, change my perspective and I find myself hanging out and laughing until 9pm that same evening.
But when the sadness is too strong...when no one can pull you out of it....when you feel as though you would rather have something awful happen in your life just so that you have a reason to be as down as you are...
I want to be an actor.
Very badly.
I want to have the life I KNOW I could have if I could just get my life together and try.
I am so scared.
I have never been this scared in my life.
I am 25.
It’s time to make something of myself. Every day I dread the next day. A day closer to me not doing what I want with my life.
Change it you say.
Stop wallowing in your self-pity and do what you should be doing.
Grow up already.
While I hate you for thinking that, I agree with you.
It’s weak and useless to sit in your miserable life and not make any attempt to change anything.
I give this advice out to every single person in my life.
“Why aren’t YOU doing what you want with your life?”
“Why are you YOU sitting there and letting life stomp on your face?”
Why?
Because I am sitting here doing the same thing.
I have moments where I feel deep down that things are going to change.
I feel better!
I feel strong!
I feel alive.
Then something happens...
The littlest thing.
Paul calls and we have a stupid argument.
That’s it...home to bed.
I have a fight with one of my housemates.
Well, can’t be an actor now! I have to worry and stress over how to fix this new problem.
None of this is anyone else’s fault but my own. I know this.
I have GREAT days
and
I have HORRIBLE days.
The days that are “nothing” are wonderful, refreshing, and few and far between.
Do you ever feel as though you have too much emotion?
Sometimes I feel like I am the only one in the world that feels as deeply about EVERY little thing that happens in my life.
Sometimes it makes me go undeniably insane in my head.
I know my close friends analyze everything as deeply as I do or we wouldn’t have formed the bonds that we have.
But even they would admit that they feel alone when it comes to society understanding how deeply affected they, as individuals, are by every moment of their day.
If you are reading this right now, odds are that you understand what I am talking about.
In my opinion, one of the reasons we read others’ journals is to find someone else who makes us feel not as alone.
Horrible sentence structure, but you understand.
I want to be strong again. I want to feel self-confidence. I want the esteem that I had when I graduated college. I was at the top of my game.
I always scoffed at those that left college and let their life turn to crap.
I mean, SCOFFED.
Now, I am worse than any of them ever were.
You want to talk about turning your life into crap?
Growing up I was always ETERNALLY optimistic.
I was THAT gay kid. The one always in a good mood. Hey! Wanna laugh? Come hang with Joe the gay kid.
Even when I struggled through the most horrifying moments of my childhood, I found a way to smile and laugh despite.
Rita knows this as the “Happy Boy Syndrome”.
One day, all of this optimism ceases and you start to doubt who you are and begin to wonder why you were ever so happy to begin with.
I went through a full year of (as only I can understand it) hardcore depression.
Prozac, therapy, the whole nine yards.
Okay, maybe 7 yards, cuz I wasn’t fucking crazy.
Just burning myself sometimes.
HA~!
Right?? Cuz I did that.
However, let’s talk about being dramatic...
Joe burns himself, but sits here today with no scars, minus one POSSIBLE scar that probably happened when I was shoving my face with donuts while taking a shit on the toilet.
Oh man. Don’t get me started with what a loser I was when I was a fat little happy gay boy.
So whatever. I was bad. Kelly was there through all of it and that is where a lot of the understanding in our friendship comes from.
She gets the “sad” part of me.
As does Rita...
For reasons of her own.
For Ritas of her own.
giggle
snort
boof
In any case, when I went through that tough time, I lost my optimism. I lost myself. I was sad beyond the point of repair. Optimisim was for fools.
It sucked.
Cuz that is not me.
After the year ended, I got my optimism back. It just kinda happened. My life took some drastic changes (switching majors to theater, coming out of my closet (closet? I had a very EASY coming out of closet experience thanks to surrounding myself with beautiful people prior), and letting my insecurities drop regardless of what anyone else thought-----and I became that optimistic Joe once again.
The Joe that had way many more good days than bad days. It was exactly who I wanted to be.
Then without realizing it...after college...the bad Joe came back.
The Joe that didn’t know how to succeed without a handbook. The Joe that allowed himself to dive into a hole too big to climb out of.
Now that I am here, I find myself clawing at the side of my (I picture it dirt) hole, making some ground, and before you know it...slipping right back to the bottom.
My prayers have been filled with such intense passion and helplessness.
I have started to make my way back to God.
It’s funny...
When things are going your way, you have to work even harder to keep the communication lines open with God.
Yet the minute things get bad, there you are begging and pleading for an answer.
While I have prayed every day my whole life, I see now that I need to do more.
That I shouldn’t expect him to help me unless I am doing it for him and with him.
It’s hard to explain if you find yourself atheist or not believing in any sort of determined deity.
It’s okay.
Please. Everyone needs to figure things out in a way that will make sense to them.
But I know what I believe.
I believe that I need help.
I need an answer. I pray, I write in this journal, I talk incessantly to my friends and boyfriend about all of this.
Where is my direction?
What can’t I find MY path???
I am confident that I will find it eventually. How could I live on this earth if I didn’t feel this way?
I’m just scared that I have followed the wrong path up until now.
What if I was supposed to be a teacher?
What if I was supposed to be in a secure job in a nice suburban city?
OKAY WHAT? OKAY...WHOA WHOA WHOA
See...even writing those words makes no sense to me.
That’s not me.
I am meant to be an actor.
LOL.
I try to sit here and type what my fears ultimately are...
But I see the words and I die laughing.
I am still optimistic enough to think that I am going to go somewhere with this theater thing. As sad as I get...be a teacher in a suburban school?
BOO WAHHHHH!.
No no no no no
I LOVE me some teachers.
But I don’t be me some teachers.
I hate it, but I am always called back to the horrible adage of:
“Those who can’t do, teach.”
I do NOT agree with that at all!
But I refuse to ever fall into that category.
Unless I am 40 and still struggling to get my first audition.
Then maybe it’s time to teach nursery school dickheads.
hahahaha you think. Joe be a nursery school teacher? NEVLE!
But you know what?
I got that knack for kids. It has always clicked with me.
I started my own “Babysitters Club” when I was about 12.
Yes, member?...I was gay.
I played Ken in the neighboorhood show (that I produced) “Barbie and the Rockers”.
Ok enough.
Can this journal be any more self-effacing?
Well, if self-effacing is a bad thing.
Enough.
Time to go to bed.
Tomorrow I will not be going to work.
I get to suck up my fear and go see a doctor.
You see, Joe has something that he has to take care of.
Hells if you will ever know what it is...
But for those of you who do know.....YIPES~!
Hey, It’s my own fault and I face it with courage and dignity.
Stupid Joe. Stupid Joe.
Besides that, I have about 101 Dalmations to figure out tomorrow.
No I didn’t.
Yeah I did.
So much to do. I hate using sick days as real life days.
Sick days are meant for smoking pot and watching scary movies.
Oh yeah. I do that every day anyway.
Sick days have now become productive days. It happened HERE folks! Sick days are productive days.
Oh yeah again!
The reason I had a good day today are because of the following reasons:
1) I acted like a smarmy bitch at work and people seem to respect it and love me more for it. Balright.
2) I had a fight with Paul and he fixed it in two seconds flat by allowing, ONCE AGAIN, me to be a psycho and him to just understand that I am a lunatic.
3) Rita’s impromptu invite for drinks at Jake’s Dilemma.
While I fought to keep a smile on my face all day, tonight I sit with a genuine peace and contentment.
My life could change tomorrow.
Right around the corner is the little dirt paved road leading to my success.
My optimism kicks in and I realize that it is my time.
For clarity.
Joe will do this ya’ll!
Just give me some time.
Eventually all of my entries will be about this and that soap opera star that is really gay, but pretends to be straight while on ACCESS HOLLYWOOD.
You just wait!
Wow.
I feel better.
Good feeling.
I gotta remember this.
Write in your journal and by the end, you can once again take on the world.
(also Joe...remember to have 3 glasses of wine while conquering the world)
