riverlightning
trying to figure it all out
You could call me a liar if I ever thought I would be sitting here writing these life events on a public forum, but I've had little place to express my thoughts without bogging down the people in my life who care about me. While anonymous on RPN, except to those that I RP with, I am a bit of a public figure in my community. Full disclaimer, nothing in the successive sentences are to "flex" or to seem arrogant, because if I had it my way, I would strongly reconsider my standing in the community and my life path if I knew what I was getting myself into. For eight years, I've been a journalist. A fairly successful one, I managed a website on my own and became of the leading authorities on my beat. I know things that I should've never known and could write a Pulitzer Prize winning work that would get a lot of people fired or put in less-than-stellar situations. My following in what's considered a niche market in my industry is larger than I ever could've intended. I just crossed 10,000 followers on Twitter - a platform I haven't even posted on in nearly a month. In the last year, I've moved out of journalism (at least for one of my two jobs) and into more of an administrative role in sports. The firm I work for is relatively new because laws allowing us to exist were recently passed. But because of my history and the path that my career has taken - I get stopped everywhere. The airport, bars, bathrooms, at events... I've had my name chanted down a street in a town I live in. Again, I wish I was making this up. When people come up to me, it's mostly positive, but it's always something.
"Hey man, I don't know you, but..." and usually it's a message of support or a request for information that they know I know the answer to but either I didn't write about it or the answer is not for public knowledge and needs to be circulating in the world. Then, these folks go back to their friends and boast that "they know me" from one interaction.
They know my online persona. They know the work I do. The podcast I've run. The articles I've written. The photos I've taken. They don't know me. And that's the hardest part. Because if they did know me, they would know struggles I have daily. That the last 10 months have been difficult to get out of bed after being broken up with in July with someone I thought I had a strong chance of spending the rest of my life with. That my relationship with my biological father is awful and it has been a constant tug-of-war to get him to be consistently present. Meanwhile, my stepdad - who's been the father figure that I should've recognized sooner - has less than 12 months to live after being diagnosed with terminal liver cancer. I don't seek validation from the masses. I never have and I never will.
The crossover here that has been bothering me and causing me to write these words is that I feel so empty in every other aspect of my life. People would love to be in my position - they've told me that. In September 2022, I was in a place where 88,548 people would have paid a lot of money or done a lot of things to be at. So, why do I feel so empty everywhere else, when I have these amazing, great experiences under my belt that only a couple thousand people in the entire world can say they have? I think a major part is that I have chased so much in my personal life that I've wanted for years. A normal life. A normal relationship. A family unit that actually can all get together on Thanksgiving. I understand that people say that normalcy sucks, and to a degree it does, but because I live such an abnormal lifestyle, I yearn for the ability to be normal for a week. I want to be able to go out with my friends on the weekend and not worry about how much I'm drinking because I know when I get home, I'll start hysterically crying because my life is a mess. I want to date someone that is as proud to be with me as I am to be with them. I want to have Instagrammable day trips and birthday get-togethers with friends.
All of the people who have left my life in recent years have gone on to - as it appears - live happy, beautiful lives. The woman that I still love appears more self-confident in herself than ever before after coming from a spot where she felt she wasn't self-confident whatsoever when she walked away from me. My high school sweetheart that I cheated on multiple times, because I was too much of a coward to break it off when I needed to, now has a boyfriend who isn't me for the first time in her life and is happy with a man that she deserves. Another ex-girlfriend is married, and another is engaged. One of my friends from college is living in Australia and in a veterinarian school. Another, one of my best friends from high school, who graduated with her master's, is living her best life and refused to have me back in her life after we sat down and talked things out.
1,000 people could at me on Twitter right now and say that my takes suck, I'm bad at my job and that I'm a horrible person and I wouldn't blink.
But the handful of people that I've let into my life and have ripped out my heart or decided to walk out of my life haunt me every day.
"Hey man, I don't know you, but..." and usually it's a message of support or a request for information that they know I know the answer to but either I didn't write about it or the answer is not for public knowledge and needs to be circulating in the world. Then, these folks go back to their friends and boast that "they know me" from one interaction.
They know my online persona. They know the work I do. The podcast I've run. The articles I've written. The photos I've taken. They don't know me. And that's the hardest part. Because if they did know me, they would know struggles I have daily. That the last 10 months have been difficult to get out of bed after being broken up with in July with someone I thought I had a strong chance of spending the rest of my life with. That my relationship with my biological father is awful and it has been a constant tug-of-war to get him to be consistently present. Meanwhile, my stepdad - who's been the father figure that I should've recognized sooner - has less than 12 months to live after being diagnosed with terminal liver cancer. I don't seek validation from the masses. I never have and I never will.
The crossover here that has been bothering me and causing me to write these words is that I feel so empty in every other aspect of my life. People would love to be in my position - they've told me that. In September 2022, I was in a place where 88,548 people would have paid a lot of money or done a lot of things to be at. So, why do I feel so empty everywhere else, when I have these amazing, great experiences under my belt that only a couple thousand people in the entire world can say they have? I think a major part is that I have chased so much in my personal life that I've wanted for years. A normal life. A normal relationship. A family unit that actually can all get together on Thanksgiving. I understand that people say that normalcy sucks, and to a degree it does, but because I live such an abnormal lifestyle, I yearn for the ability to be normal for a week. I want to be able to go out with my friends on the weekend and not worry about how much I'm drinking because I know when I get home, I'll start hysterically crying because my life is a mess. I want to date someone that is as proud to be with me as I am to be with them. I want to have Instagrammable day trips and birthday get-togethers with friends.
All of the people who have left my life in recent years have gone on to - as it appears - live happy, beautiful lives. The woman that I still love appears more self-confident in herself than ever before after coming from a spot where she felt she wasn't self-confident whatsoever when she walked away from me. My high school sweetheart that I cheated on multiple times, because I was too much of a coward to break it off when I needed to, now has a boyfriend who isn't me for the first time in her life and is happy with a man that she deserves. Another ex-girlfriend is married, and another is engaged. One of my friends from college is living in Australia and in a veterinarian school. Another, one of my best friends from high school, who graduated with her master's, is living her best life and refused to have me back in her life after we sat down and talked things out.
1,000 people could at me on Twitter right now and say that my takes suck, I'm bad at my job and that I'm a horrible person and I wouldn't blink.
But the handful of people that I've let into my life and have ripped out my heart or decided to walk out of my life haunt me every day.
