In Summation.

I've done it. 100 entries. I didn't think I'd make this many, but here we are. I think it'd be important to take a look back now and reflect upon the things I've said, and the feelings I've felt.

There was originally a purpose to this blog, and that was to give myself a place to keep track of and document the ideas I had from a purely creative standpoint. As I grew more comfortable with the medium I started to branch out making social commentaries as well as comments about my personal and social life. As I read back on my posts several things are very clear to me. It's evident I'm angry. Angry at a life I don't feel entirely in control of. I know I've hidden behind sarcasm and stubbornness in order to regain control of my feelings. I thought that if I spent enough time convincing myself that there weren't things I needed in my life that I would eventually stop needing them.

First of all is a acceptance. When it comes to my physical appearance I'm intensely self-conscious. I am constantly aware of how I look even when I have good days. It changes the way I walk, move and talk. It affects me day in and day out, and I just feel so overwhelmed by it. It's affecting my romantic life. I've told myself I don't want a relationship because I know if I wanted one right now I couldn't have one. I really couldn't, and I don't think that until you've had that kind of a freedom yanked out from under you do you begin to understand how I feel. I can't love because it won't be reciprocated. It feels fairly crushing some days, and it makes me feel very alone. I feel angry and jealous when I see my friends in relationships and making plans for the rest of their lives. It makes me want to just get up and leave the conversation I'm having with them.

Part of that is also my relationship with Steph. I don't know why it affects me so much, but it still does. It's such a feeling of being used and misguided, of never being loved despite being in love. It's the part of me I haven't fully healed yet, and I don't know when I will. It's made me terrified of love and being in a relationship. Coupled with the fact that I don't feel as though I'm attractive or desirable it makes for a potent depressant. I've had to take control of these feelings and say I want to be alone, and I don't want or need anyone. All lies, but lies I comfort myself with as I go another year single. I hate her for the way I feel today and I can't see myself forgiving her or myself anytime soon. So much of what went on in that relationship is my own doing as well, so I have very few people to blame for it.

Also there's the intelligence. I'm not a dumb person, I know that. I also know that I use my intelligence to gain superiority over other people, and that can make them feel bad. I don't have much to support myself up with in social settings, so I compensate with charisma and wit. Both of which feel somehow tinged by the poison I lend them. I want to be the best person I can be, but until I agree to myself that I need to turn it down a few notches I don't think I'll be anything more than a brain. It's nice to feel smart, but it's very lonely at times.

I think about my friends, both new and old that I hang out with. I am subject to so much information and personality that I feel somehow lost amongst all of it. I am not the centre of attention, as much as I'd like to be. Other people are going through situations much more momentous than I am, and as a result my own issues seem to get lost in the mix.

I don't intend for this post to sound self-deprecating. Instead I want to illustrate to my readers (however few or many that is) that I'm still human. I still have the same feelings and flaws as anyone else. Despite my best efforts to be more than human, to be constantly funny, or constantly successful I am still intensely flawed and complex. Like all people I have things about myself that I know I need to work on, I just don't know if I have the strength of will to do so.

As I read my comments about science or history I feel like my life will never be long enough to learn and know all the things I want to know. In one of my earlier posts about the comic book I wanted to write about the man who knew everything it was made clear to me that his was truly an enviable situation. To know everything, and to be mere mortal seems like the ultimate life. I'm caught somewhere in the middle between a fear of death and a general malaise towards the subject. I don't want to die, but I do know that once I do it's really a moot point. Death is scary until you die. There's things I want to accomplish with my life before I die. I want to fall in love, earnestly and true. I want to travel, to witness as much of this world as I can; land, air and ocean. I want to create art and let my words and message carry on for all humanity. I don't know how much of this I will accomplish, and it is the prospect that I may not accomplish any of it that scares me, not death so much.

I love my friends, but I love myself more. I want to spend enough time with them so as to be part of their life, but not a key player. I'm afraid of commitment like that, of any kind for that matter. I don't want to be the focus of someone's life because that makes it so hard to slip away unnoticed when you need to. It's another reason I fear relationships.

I would love to go through this entire blog, edit it for grammar and spelling and publish it as a small book to hand to my friends. I know not everyone in my life reads this blog, and it honestly saddens me. I am baring my soul, my being onto these pages and I am giving people an extensive insight into what makes me John. I would relish the opportunity to have all my friends write blogs so that I could learn more about them. I don't want to have to pry and question the facts out of them. I'd like them offered up free of charge. The words I've written down in this blog are important to me. This blog is my canvas and each word a stroke of the brush. By not recognizing my blog you are not recognizing a piece of myself.

I wish I wasn't as angry as I am about so many things, and conversely I wish I was more proactive about things I should be energetic about. Is this the flaw of humanity, to be caught at polar opposites?

All I want is to be John French; son, brother, friend, lover and artist and to be the best I possibly can be at each of them.