Musings for the day...

My high school ex boyfriend is a friend of mine on FB and he's been posting about missing someone and realizing they'd never be together again, etc. I figure it's his most recent ex-girlfriend.

Today he mentioned that he took himself to the same spot he went after his long-term relationship ended in 2004 (that was me) and tried to jump like he did then.

Yes, he's been suicidal since the day I met him. I actually dated him after he'd been institutionalize twice for trying to kill himself after his girlfriends before me dumped him. And I still dated him because I just knew I could fix him.

Yeah... We all know how that story goes. I tried. He was a smart kid, reading Dante in high school, writing horror stories that blew your mind and understanding complex principles that went beyond high school. Yet he graduated 99 out of 101 students. He had the top ACT score in our class while showing up to the test stoned out of his mind and from being up for over 24 hours. He blew me away and I'd studied and had taken the test countless times to raise my score. Okay, he beat me by one point... But still. He didn't even study or sleep or even try.

He graduated high school because I did his homework, I let him cheat on me on tests and I took every class I could with him so he'd pass. He'd failed strength training three times. All he had to do was dress out to pass. I took that class with him and made him dress out.

He's almost 30 and he's living with his parents, hasn't held down a job since I made him work at Wal-Mart with me (I used to work 10-12 hour days, he worked part-time for two weeks before demanding time off since it was too hard).

Yet today, he's whining because no one will love him. Every day, he posts about waking up, seeing that God didn't give him a girlfriend yet, so he goes back to bed to sleep the day away. He's waiting for the Universe to give him what he thinks he deserves.

He doesn't work because fast food and retail is above him. He should be given a great job with no work experience or education. He used to think I should work fast food, but he was better than that. When we lived together, he quit his job on a whim and refused to apply for anything that paid minimum wage. I had to work to support us because retail wasn't above me.

But this leads me back to something important.... The world doesn't owe you good things. A great job, a happy relationship, doesn't fall out of the sky and into your lap. Money, happiness, fun and adventure aren't given to you... You have to seek it out. That means getting out of bed and away from the TV to LIVE.

That's when you'll find happiness. You'll find pain and heartache too. Sure. But failing and making mistakes are worth the feeling of happiness when you LIVE your life. You have to seek out opportunity, push aside your fears and take the plunge before good things come your way.

Even winning the lottery requires that you buy the ticket. Nothing worth having comes free without some legwork attached.

I wish I could shout this at him, but you know what? I spent years telling him this and even forcing him to fight for himself. Which you can't do. He has to do it himself.

I'm doing it for me, that's all I can do. Are you doing it for you? Or are you just a bystander too afraid to live?

It makes me sad to see people like him who really aren't doing anything to improve their lives. I wish something I could say would wake him up, but I know it won't. He needs counseling. He needs to get his mental illness under control. Otherwise, he may never know joy outside watching a good movie or TV show.

There's so much more to life than that. There really is. Don't let it go to waste.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.