The B3.0 Initiative, my summer-long continuous improvement plan, has thus far been a spectacular failure, and it's taken me this long (two full months and some-odd days) to admit defeat.
The honest truth behind my reasoning for starting my B3.0 Initiative is based on something that I should not admit: Lacey. Although generally a thorn in my side now a days, a sizable portion of the initiative has been based the concept that "future possibilities exist." Long before we ever broke up - hell, even long before we ever dated - Lacey lived by, and bore unto me, a motto: "it will happen if it was meant to happen, no matter the time or place." This, of course, sounds suspiciously similar to the idea of fate, which Lacey has always believed in. I typically wrote it off as a quasi-religious statement. For a brief while after our breakup, this became my solace; knowing that her and I were at one time too close to not come together again. What I never believed would happen is exactly what has happened: the complete separation of her and I. Being completely apart from one another makes it seem as though we'll never so much as talk again.
She has her life, which I am not in the least bit a part of, and I have mine, which quite frankly, is sucking right now. It would be easy to say that a lack of Lacey is the reason for my misery, but that would sound like I'm stuck in the past...
In recent memory, however, I have come to find myself reaffirming more and more in the old adage that Lacey taught me: despite our past and current troubles, and no matter the space or time, there is always a chance that things might work out again one day. It was not until a full year after our breakup that I really understood all of the reasons for my mistakes during our relationship. I blamed much of the breakup on her... now I'm well aware that much of my attitude and problems are behind it.
I couldn't just change and hope for the best... we were too far removed from one another, and she was quickly creeping up on a new boyfriend (her current one). Instead, I assumed it best to let her have her space, knowing fully well that deep down inside I was a jealous ex-boyfriend who still suffered from many old problems.
Without Lacey in my life, I've pushed onwards to better myself as a person in many respects. Leave it to my friends, then - those that care about me the most - to point out to me that I really haven't changed. Fifty-percent of the reasoning behind the B3.0 Initiative was to improve old faults that I still deal with, to become a better person, clinging onto the hope that "it was still meant to happen" with Lacey. At one time in my life I was impatient. I counted the progress of my life in days and weeks. Now I count progress in months and years, knowing that serious change and life-defining events take a long time to manifest. The B3.0 Initiative was supposed to be for Lacey, not myself.
Over the last couple of weeks I have begun to question the direction that I've been planning to take - the direction the initiative is taking me. Yesterday, I came to terms with what some of my friends have been trying to tell me: I still have problems. They might deny that nothing is wrong with me, that it's just my actions and words not always matching up, or being as nice as could be. Upon reading this anger-filled writing, I was taken back to November 5th like it was happening all over again. I haven't been happy since.
It's not that I fear deeply-buried feelings for a former love, or newfound fun with current friends, or the potential disaster that could come from a few bad decisions. It is none of those. Ultimately, what's been proven to me is that in two years, I have not fundamentally changed. Everything that made me an asshole back then still makes me an asshole today. I do lie about many things, I do tell people different things (although it's amazing how twisted things still get when I don't), and I do say one thing and do another very often. My problem is that I don't know why I did it then and I don't know why I do it now.
If I can't tackle my own problems myself, then where, how, and when do I get help?
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