Gone to Find Myself (At least, in My Mind...)

Greetings, Readers.

Well, after yet another extended hiatus I have returned once again. For how long this time, is anyone's guess. While I do sometimes regret not having put as much time and effort into keeping consistent with my originally intended schedule and purpose of posting this blog, it is still comforting to know that it is always here ready to listen when I need to talk.

So, not too long after I had posted about my recent progress down the path of self discovery, I posted about a loss of self-identity. As confusing as this may sound, there really is no self-contradiction in that. It seems that in the process of discovering the truly masculine part of my being, I have come to realize how little of myself I really know.

When I think about it, I can identify the source of this problem, but cannot think of a feasable solution. Some of the problem is of my own doing, some of it not. All of it is in the past, leaving me with uncertain feelings about my future.

In my youth, I was often the target of peer abuse. The class bullies (or anyone else feeling superior enough) would typically gravitate towards me before finding any other targets for their amusement. This lasted through most of my elementary school years, and didn't let up until nearly halfway through high school.

I may never fully understand what brought it on, or what finally stopped it, but what I do understand now is the damage that it caused. During those years, and for years afterwards, I was a social recluse. I would usually be the one finding some obscure corner in the cafeteria for lunch, dropping it all down the hatch as quickly as possible, then disappearing to the library or somewhere I could be by myself. (Sadly, now that I look at it again, I still do that at lunch most times.) Anyone I would "hang out" with would usually be connected to some special interest group (Band, NJROTC, Chess Club, FCA/Student Venture) and I would usually only be around them when those groups were meeting.

An interesting thing about this period is that not only was I secluding myself from others, I was also pretty well shut down inside. For some time during my teenage years, I often wondered if I even knew what emotion was, let alone how to feel it. Later, any time I would take to learn about myself, I would usually be taking from others. That's not necessarily a bad thing, when you are by nature (and years of "training") careful about selecting the friends and groups that you allow to feed this to you. But still, it's not the real deal. When you don't even know you, how can you expect others to be able to know you well enough to teach you about yourself?

Fortunately for me, my trust has always been with God to some degree or another, and also with His people. When they would try to feed something into my life, I would usually listen. The upside is that the food there is usually good, but the downside is it's not your own food. You can only survive off it so long before you start to die for lack of being able to feed yourself.

The second problem I've had is lack of isolation at home in my lifetime. I can't be sure since I've yet to really experience it, but it would seem there's some things that just can't be learned when living in a busy household or sharing that life with someone else. When I was 18, I moved out of my mom's house and in with my dad. Dad's house was pretty empty, being a three-bedroom house with just him and me there, but I was still working on reclusivity at that time so that didn't help much. A year later I had to move back in with Mom, over which I won't go into detail.

During this time and some time before, I was involved in a long distance, internet-based relationship that would eventually lead to marraige and fatherhood. However, neither of us were financially prepared - individually or collectively - to live on our own. So, we rented the extra room in my aunt's house. It was a relatively small two bedroom house that was also crowded with animals. (To this day, there has never been less than two cats and two dogs in that house. Often more.) There was where we had our daugther and (skipping more details) a couple years later had to move out, but again before we are financially ready to do it on our own... back to Mom again.

Now the house is pretty crowded and almost always busy in one way or another. It's a four bedroom house occupied by my family, my mom and her husband, my sister, and my step-brother. Rarely is there a moment's true peace before 10 PM. Definitely not an enviroment conducive to self-exploration. On the upside, our financial situation is improving although we're still not to a point where we're ready to move out.

Wow. This has turned into a long post, and I fell like I've barely scratched the surface. Guess that's what I get for only posting on blue moons. I'll leave this here for now, and pick it up later.

- Iszi