The way I’ve been thinking about the things that have happened to me throughout some recent years has felt a bit like the chapter in Watchmen that’s entirely dedicated to exploring the complex mind and memories of Dr. Manhattan. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, a quick explanation is that he sees his present and past as happening simultaneously (he also has the ability to see into possibilities of his own future). 

I’ve been experiencing the whole past-events-looping-through-my-head-while-the-present-rolls-on bit (though I’m working on the whole pre-cognative bit). 

I recently went to a party/get together where there were lots of people I hadn’t seen in months. People I’ve literally always had a great time with. This party was no exception.  It was Adventure Time themed and everyone had to come dressed as one of the characters. We watched several episodes, had rainbow cake, and people did covers of songs from various episodes. It was pretty freakin great.

Later in the evening, after things had settled and mostly everyone had gone home, I was talking to a friend of mine (one of the people I hadn’t seen in a long while) for a little while. I ended up talking about how I have been/currently feel about a handful of other friends (one’s I see frequently) that she knows too. 

Of my fairly large network of friends, friendships range as far back as early childhood experiences to as recent as post-high school meetings, but most of us know one another from high school. Arguments, problems, romantic relationships, sub-group formations; they all come and go. But one thing that hasn’t changed is a certain amount of drama that is present. Who the drama involves is pretty much always changing, but it’s always there.

I can think of big stuff and little stuff drama that happened within this group. The who’s and why’s. Playing over and over in my head. Just remembering it all. And then I’m sitting right here. Typing this out at 12am on a Tuesday night. 

I can’t shake the feeling that there’s this underlying resentment between so many people that’s built up from a weird kind of platonic incestuousness where you come know a bunch of people for so long that you find out more than you’d have liked to. Some people hold onto reasons and facts about others to keep a little pilot light of hate burning in their heart. Not enough for any kind of terrible passion, but just enough to keep up chronic negativity. 

Others mask their problems with others by means of defense or coping or passive-aggressive mechanisms. Others just cut themselves off for large periods of time all-together. 

I think of all this—a field of buried hatchets and wars that started yesterday while sitting in a kitchen, in an apartment, on the south side of Chicago. Blogging about a problem that doesn’t even involve me. Not directly at least. I get along with everyone. But for the past months, people are just completely avoiding one another. Making it a point to tell me to not invite specific people because of personal grievances. This summer has escaped me in some way and it’s not because time feels quick when you’re older. Does no one actually want to put aside all the things, be logical, and just be friends? 

This all feels like it’s happening at the same time. Like a thousands of VCRs are playing tapes on tube powered, curve screened TVs that I can see all at once while the live feed that is my life continues. And the only feeling that I can fathom about how I feel about my overall group of friends is…sadness.

Sadness because people are so harshly judging others for crimes long since past. They’re carrying on hate on principals. Principals that they claim are better than those they do not find agreeable. People are doing this without even thinking to take a step back and look at themselves and say, “wait, haven’t I done wrong? Am I really any better than any one else around me?”

We all do wrong unto others at one point or another. But we build bridges with one another. We get over it. And then it becomes just another thing we don’t talk about, but have moved on from because we accept whatever it was that happened. 

I can safely say that too many people I know have burned bridges and are relishing their negativity. Maybe not consciously, but it sure seems like a lot of these people can’t seem to live without hate.