THE MORE THINGS CHANGE

Why is it that the same patterns seem to exhibit themselves no matter what the circumstances? Maybe each of us emulate Sisyphus in that no matter what we do or what we try, our particular rock will still go crashing back down the hill just before we reach the summit. What sucks is, like Sisyphus, it is even more frustrating and painful when you can see the summit prior to having the rock elude your grasp.

Everyone within my circle seems to find it so easy to relegate me to a specific role without really having a whole lot of regard or understanding for whatever it is that I might want or need. I am not bitching, I have made it easy for everyone to do this. I pretty much want to provide the people I care about with whatever it is I can give them, and do this willingly. As such everyone pretty much expects certain things from me, and it should not really be all that surprising that they don't really view me as perhaps anything more than a reliable source of whatever they need, without a whole lot of thought about what might be important to me.

I guess no matter what I do or how hard I try, I will never really reach my particular summit. I guess that is ok, I occasionally get close enough to glimpse it anyway.

But it still leaves me with a bit of an emptiness when I am relegated to bystander status in everyones life, including my own. My family members pretty much engage with me only when they want something or need money, the woman I care about gives me what I need when we are together, and has a bit of a disregard for me when I am not around, and also seems to think that I don't realize or know or care about the fact that she seems to find old habits hard to break, and seems to think that the only time she needs to talk to or communicate with me when I am not around is if I reach out to her first, as if I am just a kind of annoying placeholder.

Oh well, the more things change- but it gets harder to start pushing the rock back up the mountain everyday. I wonder if Sisyphus ever paused for a moment and said "fuck it- that rock is fine where it is, and I am tired as hell, so maybe I will just stay down here a while"?

Probably not- but I bet it crossed his mind once in a while.