Looking For Mercy

Every night, before I close my eyes
I say a little prayer that you'll have mercy on me
Please dear God, to live inside the divine
Not like I want to die
Teach me to forgive myself
Outlive this hell
Is it really love if it hurts?
Is it really pain if it's inside?
On the outside, I'm strong
Hold my hand, please sympathize
Hard enough tryna forgive
Hard 'nough tryna live
Please don't criticize, yeah
Please, please sympathize, yeah
Somebody to teach me to love
Somebody to help me rise above
I need to survive
I'm looking for....

Sometimes I feel myself praying for redemption. I pray that I will be forgiven for all the mistakes I’ve made, bad choices, and fuck ups. I’ve come to the realization that karma has not worked out in my favor. I feel like I’m being punished for everything I’ve done wrong over the years. I mean we all make mistakes, we are all human, right? But these past few years have had little to no relief for me, and I’m really exhausted. Mentally and physically. 

I am an asshole. I don’t think I was before everything that  happened to me. But I’ve become an asshole. I don’t reach out to people that much anymore, I don’t care to talk to anyone, I am a loner and I only enjoy spending time with myself. I think it’s because I’ve been hurt by so many people and I’ve gone through so many friendships throughout my life that I currently don’t feel the need to interact with anyone, socially or romantically. 

This has been going on for quite some time for me which is why it’s been so easy for me to social distance throughout this pandemic. It’s difficult for folks to comprehend why it’s so important for people to stay home and stick to themselves during this situation but for me it comes so easy. I don’t need to see friends or family constantly. I don’t need a significant other to get through life. Maybe it’s sad and pathetic but I’m content being this way. 

What I’m more upset about is the things I’ve had planned to do by myself this year that won’t happen. I was supposed to see Alanis Morissette in concert for the first time, already got postponed for next year. I was supposed to see Janet Jackson, and Lady Gaga as an early birthday celebration in August being that I turn 30 in September. And hopefully was going to take a solo trip for my birthday. 

These things aren’t happening and I’m bummed but I am happy to be alive at least. To survive while working hands on with this virus and being sick back when it started. For that I am grateful. But my point is, I like to do things alone and I’ve become such a loner. Does anyone else relate? 

Recently I made the mistake of getting somewhat romantically involved with someone I met online. He was handsome and tall, Latino guy with a thick Staten Island accent. I thought he was cool and as usual, I was in shock that he was interested in me. That happens every time an attractive guy is into me. I always am in disbelief or want to know what it is they want from me exactly. Self esteem issues much? 

Well it seemed he was starting to get intense feelings for me right away. And I was iffy about it and felt weird but I really wanted to give him a chance and get to know him and I figured maybe it’s was not so bad. It’s about time I move on with my life anyway and have something exciting happen in the middle of all this darkness. 

Unfortunately for my liking he did too much. He called me constantly keeping me up late when I have a stressful exhausting job (well that’s my fault for allowing it not his). He was calling our FaceTime interactions “dates”...He has literally 100 friends, no lie, he listed every single one of them to me by name. I used to have that many friends when I was younger but now my circle is so small that one hundred friends sounds intense to me. He told me he told every single one of them about me. Showed them my picture and talked all about me. 

I fucked up here. Because I should have been honest and told him that I wasn’t okay with that, but I didn’t. I did tell him I wouldn’t show his picture or say too much about him to my friends until I knew for sure we’d be going somewhere. But I did tell him the very few friends I did mention him to so that just lead him on a little bit I guess. 

But from there I was starting to feel turned off for many reasons. He told me his friends asked all types of questions about me, for example “can he chop wood?”...I was confused by why they would ask that but the more he spoke about them the more I realized what he meant. They were questioning my masculinity, they wanted me to prove to them how manly I am. And I guess he wanted to know too....He basically told me they’d probably test me out to make sure I fit the standards of being a man that they felt would be a good match for their friend. 

That was a turn off for me. I am not the most flamboyant nor am I the most masculine. What has always annoyed me though is the amount of times I make friends with people and they feel the need to bring up how they feel that I’m not like most gay guys, they didn’t know I was gay at first, and they feel they are complementing me by comparing me to other gays and letting me know I’m not like those other gays. 

I hate that because it’s homophobic. Point blank. But it’s something I’ve grown to accept because it’s been said to me basically my entire life and I’m over it. But I am obsessed with pop culture, Britney Spears, Madonna, Lady Gaga, and Beyoncé. I go to pop concerts several times a year and travel the world for these bitches. I am still as gay as can be, and no I cannot chop wood, nor do I ever want to chop wood. And if I did know how to chop wood it wouldn’t make me anymore of a “man” or any less....So fucking stupid.

But of course....I didn’t say any of this to him. I just said “I don’t care and I have nothing to prove. I’m not scared of your friends”. But I can tell he wanted me to be manlier than I am. He hates Britney Spears ::GASP:: how anyone can hate her I don’t know. I mean it’s not a deal breaker for me if I meet a guy and he’s not a fan. But he didn’t seem to like that I was a fan. Like I’d joke and say for my birthday or Christmas I would want something Britney related and he was like “hell no” he was serious. And I couldn’t help but feel like he’d be happier if I asked for a tool box, an ax, hammer, or a gun. 

I don’t care about presents, but I do care about my significant other supporting my interests and being accepting of them. He also is an intense gamer and kept pushing gaming on me. Trying to make me feel like we have to play together and we’ll keep trying games till I find one I like and he’ll teach me how to play them right. Despite how many times I said I was not interested he was trying to push this on me. 

I basically was starting to feel like there was no connection. Just somewhat of an attraction but nothing beyond that. And the more he was telling me about his day the more I realized he was breaking the rules and not social distancing. At first he made me feel he was taking it very seriously. He made me feel like he understood, because he knew my job description and my stance on the importance of social distancing.

Then he tells me he’s hanging with friends every single day. Going to their houses, cooking together, drinking, basically not following social distancing at all. At this point I just am numb to people’s selfishness and stupidity. Because you can’t change stupid or get people to comprehend. 

Then he told me he didn’t care and that we were gonna meet and he was going to kiss me. He was very pushy about it. At one point I liked fantasizing with him about cuddling, hugging, and kissing. I’ve had an intense past few months and each day it gets worse and keeping it real, yes I’m a loner, but lately I’ve really needed a fucking hug. Like a really good hug. And I haven’t had one since my ex and I broke up. I forgot what a good hug feels like. But I’ve been going through hell and I really need one, and just talking about it felt nice. But I guess that lead him on even more. 

So he basically was trying to quarantine and chill I guess. Even though I’m terrified for my health every single day now. He also was confused about why people need to wear masks. Anytime he let something slip that sounded uneducated and ignorant and I explained it to him he would pretend like he understood but kept doing whatever he was doing. 

I just felt done. But as usual mentally I start to think it’s more mean to cut someone off and end things than tell the truth. Because the guilt eats me up alive. But just like with every single guy I was talking to over the past year and a half, I did just that. I cut him off and ended it. 

I’m better off alone. I’m still not over what I’ve been through. I keep trying to force myself to be, and every time I come close to it and feel fine, something happens in life that triggers me and I relapse. I also am awful at expressing my feelings. I hold everything in and it’s done more damage than good for me. I constantly battle with validating my feelings and get panic attacks about coming off as crazy. It’s a struggle with any and every situation.

As Alanis Morissette sings in her new song, “these are the reasons I drink”. “These are the reasons I pretend I am fine even though I am not”. But no matter what, I “keep on smiling”. Because I can’t let my misery get me down... 

This is a life of extremes
Both sides are slippery and enticing
These are my places off the rails
And this, my loose recollection of a falling
I barely remember who I failed
I was just trying to keep it together
This is my first wave of my white flag
This is the sound of me hitting bottom
This my surrender, if that's what you call it
In the anatomy of my crash
And I keep on smiling
Keep on moving
Can't stand still
Me, the notorious bottom dweller
Me, the ceiling-less brave explorer
Lured to the ends of overwhelm
This is my first wave of the white flag
This is the sound of me hitting bottom
This my surrender, if that's what I call it
In the anatomy of my crash
And I keep on smiling
Keep on moving
Can't stand still

I just keep fake smiling all day every day. I put on a show to act like I’m fine. It’s the only way I can do my job and have a life....

I’m not sure what it will take for me to get closure. It does not help that life keeps having its downs more than its ups. I mean this pandemic is truly a nightmare, it’s something that is ruining all of our lives. And it’s made me more vulnerable and sad and hurt. It’s difficult having to see certain people at work, they are the exact reminders of the pain and hurt I’m trying to move on from. But yet I “keep on smiling”....

I’m literally gonna be like Ariana Grande and just say “fuck it” and scream from the mountain tops “FUCK A FAKE SMILE” cause as she stated in the song, she’s been through way too much, so why bother faking it anymore? The song is seriously an anthem to people who no longer care about how they come off. But when I do have my days where I can’t fake it and I want to stick to myself, people don’t respect it, instead they want to know what’s wrong and will keep asking till I tell them. But sometimes I don’t want to hear advice that will only make me feel worse, so that’s why I make myself keep on smiling....

As I stated, I have a serious issue of needing my feelings to be validated. And I think the biggest struggle I have with everything is knowing my feelings with everything that happened will never ever be validated. I’ll always be the crazy one and the bad guy. I’ll always be insane and nuts. It’s made me lose myself entirely. I don’t want to be involved with people, I don’t care to have friends, I get annoyed and overly sensitive easily, which have always been major flaws of mine but it’s worse now if it’s possible. I’m constantly on defense mode even if people are playing around or joking with me. And of course the more defensive I get the more they’ll push my buttons. 

I wish I knew how to cope with my feelings better. I guess I keep day dreaming of the people that hurt me coming to me and apologizing and meaning it. Coming to me and saying they fucked up and that I’m not crazy. I fantasize that they admit that if they cared about me they would’ve taken my feelings into consideration and that they know that they messed up. I’m not saying I want this because I want to be friends with them. I just want to find closure. No matter how much I try and look for it I never can get it. And as usual as I type this out I have to question myself. Am I playing victim? Am I actually crazy? Should I have spoke out instead of cutting them out? Is it my fault? 

I am sure if I wanted to be the first person to try and reach out some would agree to make peace. I’m sure some would ignore me. The problem with all of this is that when they were hurting me I chose to not speak up. Now I’m holding in all this pain and hurt that I’m worried I will carry with me for the rest of my life. I guess I wrote this blog to release everything I’ve been holding in. 

It will forever break my heart that I couldn’t have a talk with my ex about all of this. It will forever break my heart that so many things were left unsaid after so many years. It will kill me inside for as long as it takes to move on. But I was tired of being ignored and feeling like I was a psychopath. Mentally I could not handle that anymore. I knew just letting go and cutting off was better for me than trying to say anything or trying to salvage anything. I had to break the toxic cycle, but sadly it still does kill me inside sometimes. Most times...

The thing is, I usually don’t ever have pride, but with this I do. I’ve been put through too much and I refuse to be the first person. I guess my problem is I need to accept the fact that these people think I’m crazy and don’t feel an ounce of remorse for everything that happened. 

Through this though I’m the one feeling remorse. I’ve decided I need to learn to stop looking for remorse from people who hurt me, to stop fantasizing about situations that will never happen. To accept things that occurred almost two years ago now. And move on with my life. 

I feel remorse for letting this drag out as long as I did. I feel remorse for drinking so much, over eating to cope with the pain, and making all kinds of terrible mistakes to try and deal with everything. “Here are the reasons I eat.  Reasons I feel everything so deeply when I’m not medicated”....I feel remorse for feeling embarrassed about how I look, every time I see these people I feel like I look like shit and I dwell on that. I feel remorse for not doing the right things in order to better my life yet complaining and being miserable about it.

I keep begging for forgiveness from god and the universe. For all the stupid things I’ve done, all the stupid things I do, and the things I struggle to change. People literally joke on my weight and the food I eat and I’m almost 30 years old. This has been a battle since I was a kid. I used to want to kill myself when I was a child and was tormented for being overweight. And even though we are adults now, when people do it to me now it’s very triggering. But I try to laugh it off and pretend like it doesn’t affect me, especially since I’m doing nothing to change it,  but I also feel like I shouldn’t have to be thin or skinny for people to respect me. I’m just so over this world and this is part of why I social distance. 

I just feel like I’m looking for mercy from God. As Madonna sings on her album Madame X: 

Every night, before I close my eyes
I say a little prayer that you'll have mercy on me
Please dear God, to live inside the divine
Not like I want to die
Teach me to forgive myself
Outlive this hell
Is it really faith if I'm weak?
Can you tell the truth when you live lies?
I'm just looking for the signs
Hold my hand, please sympathize
Hard enough tryna forgive
Hard 'nough tryna live
Flawed, flawed by design, yeah
Please, please sympathize
Somebody to teach me to love
Somebody to help me rise above
I need to survive
I'm looking for (looking for, looking for, looking for, looking for) mercy

I think this song fits my life perfectly and speaks to my soul. I’ve been struggling to forgive myself, to forgive others, to accept what others did, to accept things I’ve done. I want to be loved, I want to be accepted for who I am. At this point I’m looking for mercy. Is it from those who hurt me? Yes. But more importantly from god and the universe. To guide me through the pain and suffering I’ve been enduring the past few years and throughout my life. To help me be strong through this pandemic and finally move on from the past. I’m alive after all and so is everyone I care about, and I’m trying to be grateful and hopeful but it’s oh so hard right now. The constant fear is getting to me mentally. 

I clearly keep looking for love to realize I’m not quite ready for it. I don’t think I ever will be till I move on from the past. I keep giving the wrong guys chances and then I become the asshole when I realize they aren’t a good match for me. I’d rather spend my Saturday nights at home alone not talking to a single person all day and night. Blast music, light incense, put on my essential oil diffuser, and enjoy some alone time with wine. Putting effort into men and relationships has become a job when it should be fun and exciting.

I will continue to reflect, write, cope through all this darkness. I think this pandemic has just set me back. The world is beyond scary right now. I don’t know when it will ever be normal again. I am truly scared it never will be the same. That all the things I love to do won’t ever happen again in my lifetime. People keep calling this the “new norm” and it kills me to even think it possibly could be....

I am trying to just mentally hang on and I think it’s definitely playing a role in all these feelings I’ve had. I’m sure almost every human feels the same way right now. This is my way of dealing with it. I write about it, I listen to music, I use songs that inspire my posts, and that’s my healing mechanism. Until I finally learn to better myself and make changes, this is one way I deal with everything without going off the deep end. What is yours? Stay safe folks.

Songs to go with post:

Madonna Looking For Mercy
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMG6HVRd8lA

Alanis Morissette Reasons I Drink
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWHpIP1-kUI

Alanis Morissette Smiling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4La1o-lwGb0

Ariana Grande Fuck A Fake Smile
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rx0ClyaN3Ww