Got time?

There is a lot here, but do not worry. My life story is a compression algorithm's dream.

It all started when I first woke up. One moment I'm dreaming, the next, I'm standing in the living room conceiving awareness. Like holy shit. No seriously, if I had those words, I would have used them. It went like this:

"I'm awake" - cool
"I know that I'm awake" - even cooler
"I know that I know I'm aw-" - someone calls my name
"Oh hey that's my name! I know that!"

Quite the Hollywood intro, eh?

Of course, this is a translation of my feelings from back then into thought. I didn't have those words back then. Altogether it makes up my first memory, which is less about sight than it is about insight (oohooh), by which I mean introspection. Based on the fact that my fourth birthday came soon after, I know my first memory occurred when I was three years old. Thus began the narrative of my life.

I narrate my life. I have met one other person that I know does this, but I'm sure lots of people do. An example:

"I then walked across the... the pathway toward the building front main entrance. I looked around for any oncoming traffic and pulled open the door and stepped. I stepped inside without a clue what I was looking for."

Hey, I could be a writer. Lots of filler.

I don't know when exactly it started, but that was my life basically since second grade. It has since faded into the background.

Summary of my school years:
First/kinder: I was home-schooled. I know and yes, we were "conservative," and yes, home-school is largely criticized, but there's no way to know what would have happened if I started out in public school. Home was very safe and I did have friends. As you can imagine, I kept very well to my tree studies. It hurts if you fall out of them. Most of my time was spent outside, and I barely understood why I had to go inside. I learned the alphabet pretty well, though.

Second: Ooh second. My favorite. Private school. No, seriously. Every week, there was some kind of academic challenge and the reward for doing it earned a snack. I was known for being very prompt about this, at least in my class of ~20-ish, grades 2 through x, and missed only a few weeks. I can see a sweet tooth developing. Aside from weekly challenges, I burned through my workbooks. Got made fun of for not knowing multiplication. They were saying 3rd grade was harder than 2nd grade. It's not. I didn't know it back then, but I was pretty smart. Throughout my life I have aspired to be this, and the quality we can debate later. 2nd grade was convenient in all ways except for the teachers. They allowed the other kids to make fun of me. I hated it but I'm also grateful for it. Still hurts, but I'm already swaying, so no surprise there. I'm already emotionally unstable.* This was also the grade that my dad retired and we moved out of town, 'whereupon shortly thereafter' my mom left my dad. That single quote is cool.

Third: It was okay. I spent most of my time outside, again. I would make castle out of bricks and rocks and then throw the same at them, like it was under siege. It was VERY satisfying. I made makeshift bows and couldn't figure out how to get an arrow out of a piece of wood. I thought about philosophy, specifically the stuff my older brother spewed nightly with me in the motor home, where he slept. I thought about other stuff as well. Around this time, my dad hooked up with some lady that I didn't mind at all because of my ability to be numb to most things. I know this is an unhealthy coping mechanism, but anything in place of it would be.. a coping mechanism. I use it to my advantage, which I will explain later. My teacher was a very attractive woman. She was gone most of the school year because she was pregnant. Most important, she was very nice, and I respect her very much for the patience she had with me. Yes, I was that kid.
To give you an idea of how much I hated bullies, I used to half dream, half fantasize that I was some kind of demonic sage that could turn into a walking corpse at will and eat hearts. I saved one bully's heart in a plastic bag for later :3. This is why I don't freak out when my younger siblings share similar things: It clues me in on what they are going through, and it is unfair of me to make assumptions about that before investigating. Simple courtesy. Anyway, school was boring, but I discovered children's books at this time. I can still remember the first K.A. Applegate book I picked up. Never again would I be the same. Nor my grades, as pretty much all I did was read and I literally forgot about my homework consistently. No one believed that last part. I missed my mom. I think I was able to sooth myself at this point, but I got through it and dealt with my emotions as they came, sort of "unpacked," as I've heard counselors say.

Fourth: It was like third, but worse. Kids didn't like me, no one trusted my math capabilities, and my teacher, a male, was a total douche. Forrealio, what is so hard to understand about, "Leave me alone, I'm trying to read."? In his defense, I was an unruly kid with a tainted history, but gluing my workbook to my desk was a little far. I think about the only things I learned in that class were that alchemy is, well, alchemy, cells are the "building blocks of life," California has missions that people sailed to (that was a very fun project) (wish I had been more involved), the gold rush was hard and it is illegal to use giant hoses for excavation. The VP took me into his office and showed me some of my fucking achievements from 2nd grade, and asked me what was going on. I was so deeply ashamed of myself that I was mad and then I didn't want to talk. What would I say, anyway? Back then I thought the whole world was against me, literally, and barely understood how to express my emotions, if at all. It's amazing how far I've come.

Fifth: Now we moved out of state. The first half of my school year began in one school, then I transferred to a much closer school. At first, it was just like every other grade, and I felt like all the kids hated me. But after the transfer, I was actually able to learn division. Probably because I started new and so felt better. The year passed without incident, I think.

Sixth: Ugh. Lol. So once upon a time I was a jerk who said dumb things and made dumb jokes. Some of those dumb sayings/dumb jokes were very offensive to certain individuals, one in particular a girl... Yeah. Over the course of a week, I looked back at how I behaved in the previous years, how I treated other people. One thing stuck in my head back then, a quote from Bambi:

"If you got nothing nice to say then don't say anything at all."

Seeing how my actions affected that girl shocked me into changing my ways, and by seventh grade I was practically a new person (comes complete with FIRE SUPPRESSION SYSTEMS!!! )

Seventh: Well? I was nice. Basically. Nice in training. The girls certainly noticed a change in me, and gave me slightly different attention than they did everyone else, something I was very proud of but didn't dwell on too much. Err, at least, when I did, my- erm... experiments failed. Fantasies. NO nothing weird- just embarrassing, for me and hopefully everyone else, Lol. The weird shit comes later, but I'm going to be frugal with how much I share on a public forum. Or thrifty. Depends. Probably thrifty. Distraction! ha. Aaannnywayy, I'm not making it up about being seen differently by girls or anybody. It wasn't just the gals. Some of my male peers saw the change and both male and female alike have remarked about it in at least one instance each. So yeah, seventh grade, I owned it- err except for the grades. I don't know, I like to sit and think, watch, not take notes or do something thousand times. Why do it a thousand when I can be decent in ten? I'll make up the extra skill when I put it to use, easy. In fact, it might be better if schools just tried to cram as much knowledge down our throats instead of repeating the same thing over and over. Sure, retention goes way down, but I don't give a rat's ass about retention when all that really matters are the number of neural connections made. HMM....... *surfs wikipedia* -story of my school life

Eight: Back in Cali! : Okay so I was so confident about seventh grade that I thought eighth would be a breeze. I was so goddamn wrong. Tip: Do not eat only oatmeal for all your meals two days prior to a race. You will LOSE.
Aside from that, I made some really cool friends here. Very cool, and I got to follow them into high school, so SUPER COOL. I literally just kind of floated around. At this point I was really only focused on girls, when I should have been focused on gu- err I mean uhh... r/non-sequitur, right? hehe. Anyway... If I can stop being weird at 23:33... So around this time I was focused on the idea of selfishness. This was where I learned that there is no such thing as a non-selfish act, but there are still such things as selfless acts. I think I went into detail about this in a text to my girlfriend. I used this concept to gauge how well I was treating others with context to my ability, or something like that. Dating wasn't an issue because any girl I got close to I pushed away with my clinginess/constantly-in-need-of-positive-attention/character-depth-of-the-serial-killer-chick-from-raising-hope. Lol. I laugh at my own jokes. Sometimes I joke just for my own benefit, and this is why I am terrible at writing resumes. So yeah. The worst/best/who-am-i-to-say thing happened to me. A girl walks up to me and says Chickafina (name censored) wants to talk to me.

"Who?" -she then rolls her eyes and says follow me, so I follow her

She leads me to a classroom and... Well, there she is, someone I had actually met, observed, and talked to before, and even learned and put to face the name of. In my defense, I barely knew her (woo-ooh! foreshadooooooowww...). So it was literally June, end of year and whatnot... Ugh.. This is where my heart feels heavy and my hands feel sluggish. Probably mostly due to exhaustion but also likely because of my negative emotional reaction to reminiscing about this time. Lugh.

That Summer: So, we talk.

"Oh, like normal people over the phone?"
"Well, no, not exactly."
"Oh so face to face?"
"No it's worse."
"What?"
"Facebook..."
"What's wrong with that?"
"I'm a horny, deranged, noncommunicative, mentally unstable 14 y/o with anxiety issues."
"Ohh yeah that ought to do it. So what did you talk about?"
"Breakfast and how much we love each other."
"Oh what else?"
"Um.. That's it."
"FOR TWO MONTHS?!"
"Yeah, and you wanna know the worst part?"
"It gets WORSE?"
"Well, uh, that was about all the talking we did. Even after school started."
"..."

Ninth:
"Hello?"
"I'm here."
"Okay good, I don't want to lose you too."
"C: I'm just jerkin' your chain. What happened next?"
"Well, I stalked her home a couple times, gave her very awkward lunch times, you know, with me all holding her hand and smiling and saying NOTHING and feeling GREAT about it."
"Wait, stop, you stalked her home?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. I'm guessing it was an awkward breakup?"
"Holy crap I got problems. I even tried to blame it all on her, telling others anonymously that she wouldn't talk to me. I might have actually crap-talked a few times, but I think that stuff was overwritten or smooshed. But man, I would not let go. I ended up punching the guy that was 'dating' her next, and immediately felt like a total jackass."
"Well.. Okay. And then what happened?"
"And then I met the one.... over Facebook."
"I'm starting to notice a pattern here."
"No stop! Quit making judgments before you have all the facts!"
"But I do have all the facts. I'm you, remember?"
"Well, yeah, but for the reader's benefit, just play along, okay?"
"Lol. Calm down dude."
"You always do this."
"Keep going."
"Sick sigh. So then I meet Chickafina2.0-"
"Over Facebook."
"Yes, over Facebook. But it was cool because she lived back in my old town! You know, out of state?"
"Okay?... And?"
"And, I was moving back there at the end of the school year."
"Huh. So you talked to her on Facebook? Since when?"
"Since about November or December, actually."
"How did you find her?"
"Well, I clicked on a profile picture I thought was cute and uh.. got to typing. I still remember the first thing I sent to her."
"What was it?"
"I can't share that here."
"Okay. So for ten months you ask about her breakfast?"
"Actually... Yeah I did. I considered it to be my thing. More painful now. My own damn fault, but we'll get to that later. Also, that wasn't the only thing. While I may have over used 'I love you' (pshhh whaaat? naww), at the time I did feel like I was able to talk to her. I really liked how well she understood me and she seemed very smart. I was sooo happy. And then I moved back."

Tenth:
"Dialogue?"
"Yep."
"Which one is which?"
"You talk, I interject."
"XD Okay smartass. So I'm back in my old town. Err new old town."
"Uh-huh."
"And well... Some of my fondest memories are of those first few weeks. The only problem is, a house built out of air isn't a house. Or something."
"Right. I get that. So it was like with 1.0."
"Well, it was definitely better. I was trying really hard to improve upon my behavior with 1.0, however, none of it mattered because I was still too insecure, too selfish, too narrow-minded."
"Wow you're basically just a jerk at this point."
"Uh, sure, but let's not get ahead of ourselves."
"Okay. What's up?"
"Well, she was basically my equal in that regard."
"Ohh. Interesting."
"Yeah. So the relationship became caustic. We got into this cycle. It was horrible. I stalked her and she avoided me. There were times when things went really well, but then..."
"But then what?"
"Well, she would get mad. AND DON'T THINK I'M BLAMING HER, CAUSE I'M NOT. Like the other version of me said, I was basically a total jerk. I can understand why she would be upset, and how I was so focused on making sure I was perfect I couldn't see what was right in front of me. Err, keep in mind, I was only sixteen. Not the end of the world. But like I said, she was my equal in insecurity and some other things. She also did seem to have an anger problem, which she admitted unsolicited."
"Right. You just care very deeply about what happened."
"Yeah. There are all sorts of ways, so many goddamn ways that I could have done better."
"Wanna hug?"
"Why?. Yeah."
"Thanks."
"Yeah. Do you love her?"
"Uh. Well yeah. Just.. not the nice way, or the mean way, just the way that comes from pain."
"WOW that is kind depressing."
"Thank you."
"Lol. So you broke up?"
"Haha yes we did. Yes we did."
"Details?"
"No."
"Okay. What happened next?"

Eleventh: So eleventh grade was all about soul searching. And changing. So was twelfth, but I'll get to that. Here I will only include what I had done in progress of that.

"Ooh! Ooh! Dialogue?!?"
"Oh yeah!"
"Sweeeet."
"So at first I was totally like way into getting back together with her. I wasn't taking her decision seriously at all. However, I managed to stay away from her and that was the only way I was able to get done what I needed to be done. I lost something when we broke up, or so I thought. And I really wanted it back. Regardless, 90 days later, and I started to fall into the pattern: blaming her."
"Anything else happen?"
"Yeah. I almost stopped living."
"YOU WHAT?"
"NOT LIKE PERMAN- well, okay, not by means of death, though I'm sure that could have happened. I did try a few times, however."
"Then what? And oh, I had no idea."
"Really? You had no idea? You were there!"
"I'm sorry."
"No it's fine. Thank you. Say thank, not sorry, remember?"
"Yeah! c: Thank you for reminding me. Heh. I just felt so sad."
"Yeah. I forgot you don't like to think about that stuff."
"It's okay."
"Okay"
"Phew. So how did you almost stop living?"
"Well, I was mad at myself. Now listen close, 'cuz this is pretty amazing."
"Uh-huh."
"So I told myself, 'You screwed up. Now I have to take over.' I said, 'Who are you?' 'I am the logical part of your mind' 'Why are you taking over?' 'Because, you messed up and now I need to take over, permanently.' 'Okay.' At this point, I was too sad to fight back."
"I still don't see how that means you almost stopped living."
"Well, if the logical part of... our mind were to try to take over, and it considered every action but breathing to be pointless, how actions do you think it would commit to?"
"Holy crap, who taught that thing?"
"I did, on accident. Don't worry, it's harmless now. So basically I sat there for a good five minutes and did nothing. My leg itched, I didn't care. Eyeball got dry.. pain.. didn't care."
"Oh my god, how did you get out of it?"
"Well, I plead to the 'logical' part of my mind, saying, 'But if you do it like this, the body itself will not feel comfortable. Even if you train it to feel comfortable and manage to get it to live forever, it's still not natural and you have no right to treat our body that way.'"
"And then what did it say?"
"It said, 'You're right. You can have control back. But I'm warning you-' yadda yadda dotta"
"Hehe. So then you got control back?"
"Yas I did."
"And then what happened?"
"Well, I read a few books on Buddhism, some self help books. Very confusing stuff. I didn't like how the Buddhist books talked about not having desire. That didn't make sense to me. They said I could achieve enlightenment via meditation, and while I do believe I have achieved it, I did not do so through meditation. WELL, not the expected form of meditation. I did it through philosophy."
"Philosophy?"
"Yeah. Love of knowledge."
"Ahh."

Twelfth:
"Haha. So I realized that they don't actually mean be desire free."
"No?"
"No! They mean don't get worked up about your desires, don't invest in them. Don't take things for granted by assuming they are good, have patience and the will to say 'Maybe' instead of judging things based on your experience. I also learned that there is a balance to things, yin and yang, chaos and stagnation. I've thought about what it would be like to have an unbalanced universe and concluded that it would have to be unbalanced all the way down but then that even the concepts of having imbalance and things being consistently imbalanced were inherently balanced, so this 'unbalanced' universe would fall apart. Go figure. I also learned that It's best to keep my emotions my responsibility, that way no one has control over them and I'm not blaming people for something they can't control. I've learned not to assume people's intent, as that will only produce fear and thus anger. For example, when my girlfriend did not text me for two weeks, I may as well have not cared. I called her on a Thursday and she explained that she was afraid to text back, in a word. It's none of my business why she is afraid and assuming is only gonna make me afraid, or doubtful, and that's not fair to this woman I love. I believe that love should be free and unconditional, even if that means that I believe that I owe her nothing and she owes me nothing. Whatever we provide each other is solely because of our feelings for each other, but there is no expectation of reward. That way, no one is responsible for the other's emotions, and thus less anxiety. Oh and about using numbness as a coping mechanism? It is both good and bad, or neither good nor bad, depending on how you look at it. There are times when it will desensitize me to important things, like how big a deal what someone is going through is. But at the same time, who am I to judge and say that it is a big deal? I'm just some guy. Lol. So it all works out, see? The numbing coping mechanism has the same effect as the idea that I'm not going to prejudge, except adopting the 'no-prejudge' idea means that the bad feelings don't even have to exist in the first place! And that is why numbing is a coping mechanism, and practicing patience is state of being."
"Wow."
"Yeah."
"I'm really tired."
"Goodnight. It's 01:04"
"Oh sh-"

Edit: sometimes I feel like I'm the same person now as I was when I was three.
I feel so different from everyone but a few people. I get this weird feeling all the time like what I see about people is only a tiny fraction of their existence, which I guess is true. My existence never seemed so small in those moments. What am I?