y’know how people you’re tight with have some lame qualities that effect you negatively?  I find it anxiety provoking and just plain hard to confront a person with those things  so I’ve become the type of person who’s willing to let those things slide and just focus on all the good qualities and all the good reasons why I choose to surround myself with their company.  But lately I’ve been ruminating on some of those things about some people that bring me down.  I’ve known I need to stick up for myself when my cousin/roomate covertly belittles me in the guise of "joking around".  It’s been on my mind for quite a while, yet somehow I always let it slide for the sake of harmony… and the fact that I’d obsess on exactly what I’d say and how I’d say it… which is exactly what happened…   Ultimately though, this is a success story.  Maybe even a small milestone.

See, Steve and I are good friends and spend a fair amount of time together, but he’s an insecure person and tends to jokingly burn people wherever he goes.  He’s got a damn good sense of comedy and really knows how to deliver a story/joke/antecdote and exacute the punch line perfectly, but if he throws in a diss, however sarcasticly, it can really annoy a person, and in my case belittle a person (or at least that’s how I feel sometimes).  The other factor is that he smokes a ton of weed.  Daily.  Morning noon and night, probably 6 joints a day minimum… so that make him much more tolerant than i, and thus when we smoke together I tend to get a little higher than and thus make more "stoner mistakes" which he then jumps all over and sometimes makes it personal.

So anyway, the other night we were partying with a couple buddies and playin a round of 4 player Tiger Woods golf on PS3 and it was my shot but I had zoned out and didn’t realize it was my turn until Steve reminded me and went to announce that I’m a really smart guy, but really dumb when I’m high…. well this annoyed me since it’s been building up… and it reminded me of the fact that Steve likes catagorize people as either smart or dumb whereas I disagree with that whole notion.  Intelligence has nothing to do with zoning out while high or not, so I told him just that.  And I also threw in that I think it’s a product of his own insecurity… which wasn’t the time to mention that, but I was annoyed so I did (live and learn).  And he replyed something to the effect of I’m not insecure I’m just pointing it out.  To which I responded " oh thanks man!, THANKS FOR POINTING THAT OUT". 

And instantly he was silent for a few minutes.

He was thinking, analyzing, obsessing… He’s silent when things don’t flow his way, or people don’t respond they way he thinks they should.

And now I’m completely triggered… compulisvely analyzing, too in my head, socially anxious, can’t focus on anything, and feel like I did sometihng totally wrong and our friendship doomed (of course it’s not, that’s just how i feel).

And so that changed the course of the night for me, and led to one of my greatest accomplishments of 2008…  normally I’d ditch the situation, panic, get higher, go to sleep, wake up, and repeat.  But I felt a sort of freedom from asserting myself (even if it may have been untactful) which I’d never felt.  Normally I’m very passive, or very agressive… but in this case I just kind of said what I wanted, but didn’t disrespect him or do any sort of name-calling yet I relayed my emotion to him which obviously affected him.

The rest of the night I felt crazy.  By crazy I mean I felt a constant flux of emotion and analyzation.  I didn’t have anymore beer that night, and didn’t smoke any more weed and instead focused on breathing and staying mindfully in the moment without ditching the situation.  I faced it, faced how I felt and still had a good night.  I was anxioius as fuck, but it was till weirdly good. 

And so, It left me empowered.  Reminded me why I must assert myself in reasonably ways rather than passively or agressively, and taught me that mindfulness can be as helpfull as weed, without the side-effects.

It’s funny, I’m starting to feel really stressed just recounting these emotions… and in this moment i feel like I’m leaving out critical details and I feel like just stopping typing, leaning back in this chair, and ruminating over that evening and this blog until I "feel right".  Obviously OCD is kickin in right now, but I feel good about that night, good about this blog, and good about the fact that I’m ending it now.  I’ve been reading "whereever you go, there you are" by kabat-zinn and it’s really helping me with my daily meditation practice… so I think it’s that time of the day now…