Feeling: concave
Listening to: Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah
Reading/Watching: Charmed season premiere

I don't know why I torture myself like this.

If I had a friend who treated me the way I treat myself, I wouldn't put up with it. Nobody deserves to be reminded of their vices and weaknesses so constantly, no one should be able to rattle off detailed lists of my shortcomings without severe retaliation. And yet I cuddle it so close. I deserve better.

But what am I doing? Sitting awake at 1:15 in the morning, reading random journals by insipid teenage girls who couldn't spell "you" if you spotted them the "y" and the "o", thinking of all the things I am not and never will be.

But let's not elaborate on that, eh? It really can't do any good.

I just wonder when the last time was that I was someone's first choice. Not their default option, not their backup plan. Not "good enough for now." Not their consolation prize.

I wonder how many times I've known I wasn't someone's first choice... and not cared. Too many for me to be comfortable with.

I shouldn't settle for that, for being tolerated. The people in my life are there because I genuinely want them there, not because nothing better came along. Sometimes something better has come along and I passed it up because what I have is what I want. People called me an idiot for it, but... it's not about pros and cons. I probably could find friends who were funnier, smarter, happier, whatever. I don't want them. I want mine. Because there's no one else like them in the world. How much of that is reciprocated, and how much am I airbrushing in? How often do I tell myself, "he/she wants me," when in reality, they just want someone?

I shouldn't settle for that. I am many things, even if the combination is odd and disjointed and somewhat jarring to handle all at once. I am many things, and each of them taken separately is a good thing (I... think), and yet, I find myself wondering why people waste their time on me. With all the things I am not, all the things that are lukewarm when they could be fantastic, all the things that are boring and substandard or just plain nonexistent. Why waste time on that? I'm not going to enrich your life. I'm just your warm body, your "someone." I'm better than nothing.

Right now I am up in the wee hours, reading the words of people across cities and continents, and cutting myself into little shreds (metaphorically, of course). Piece by methodological piece. Subtracting all the things that I am not, without including the things that I am. Always winding up with negative numbers.

And no human being on earth should have the power to do that to me, take me apart so completely, discount me so entirely. So why let myself get away with it?

Seriously, I want to know. I learned not to let other people do that. They might sneak it past me for a few minutes at a time, but eventually I catch on, and I don't put up with that shit. Not from friends, not from strangers. Not even from my father, even though he has the patent on Katie-deconstruction. He can speak all he wants, but that doesn't mean I believe it. Not anymore. How can I stop believing it?

But who can you believe, if not yourself? And so we come full-circle.

Going to stop this train of thought before it derails off a cliff... or worse. Somebody just hug me until I shut up.

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