I wonder if anyone has ever been surprised by me. It is no doubt that I regard myself as one of the most boring people on the planet -- I cannot stand me, so I highly doubt that anyone else could. No one has ever said, "Wow! I didn't know you were awesome at _______!" No one has ever said, "Wow! I didn't know you had really good taste in _______!" No one has ever been surprised by my ability to do anything. I have friends who paint and sing and write and play instruments and photograph and listen to great music and are loved by any animal they meet. I don't think I have anything like that. I am good at school, and "well done, me!", I get lots of academic awards every year. But 1) Why couldn't I keep that up in the only year that counts?, 2) What sort of worthwhile skill is "being good at school"? And 3) It is neither exciting nor surprising. I set myself a precedent, and the only way I could surprise people was by failing the great expectation that they and I had placed upon myself.
I am so tired of living the life of a cliche. I am a cliche of myself. Even if I haven't, I feel like during high school I became a stereotype of myself, hence, to be "M." seemed to hold some mythical sort of meaning. And whether I am the only person that sees that, or feels like that, it doesn't really matter, because this image has influenced my life beyond belief.
It is difficult these days to even know what I want to do, because I cannot tell whether my motive is my own desire, or my desire to destroy this image. Why do I get drunk - because I want to have fun or because people expected better from me? Why do I want to travel next year - because I want to see the world or because people expect that I would go to uni? Why do I want to get a tattoo - because I want to remember something or because it would shock people? I don't even know my own motives anymore, because I am expending so much energy trying to break down something that I created, held onto, and now, desperately want to destroy.
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