5 posts tagged “friends”
I love painting pictures of my friends. They never turn out looking quite like the person, but that's the point. I used to paint really normal things. Things we all looked at and saw. Then I thought well, that's boring. So I decided from a certain point forward I would only paint things as I see them. Which is why I can't paint a landscape without an alien or a flaming cow, etc. Strange things. Things that are in my head. I paint what I see, but what I see just happens to be unapparent to the casual observer.
Which is why I love painting pictures of my friends. Showing them how I see them. And it's never to be taken as an insult. The first portrait I ever did I made my girlfriend look like an alien on Jupiter. She didn't get it. The moral of the story is that if someone paints you to look like an amazing alternate being, you should take it as a compliment. How nice it should be to be thought of as something besides what everyone else thinks you are.
Those that have known me know I don't create online groups for nothing. I have to feel that a group of bloggers really needs something. And VOX certainly needed a group about Las Vegas! I just got done making VOX's [apparently] first Las Vegas group! It's called Las Vegas Life and it's for those that work or play in Vegas. It can be found at lasvegas.groups.vox.com/ so please join it if you have any interest in the city at all. I wouldn't mind those of you who have been here lately and posted about it joining and adding your posts to the group. (Apparently you can go to your Vegas posts and click "Add to group..." and it'll add it. Though I'm new at this. LoL)
So many people here always are saying it's such a lonely town. I've always wondered why no one ever stopped to make any friends. I haven't had too much of a problem. You just have to ... you know ... leave the house (and stay away from The Strip!).
Some of the best most comfortable-in-their-skin people can not seem to be happy with themselves. It is bad enough that we have the sheeple that are raised to be unhappy with themselves. Yet on top of that we have people who preach acceptance, but yet don't practice it. While it is hard to practice what you preach, that depends on what you preach.
Over time I have learned to just say this is who I am. I suppose I'm ahead of my time since not only was it a decision I made based on true self acceptance, but it was also because it's just too tiring to be anything else. The latter being why I'm ahead of my time. Usually it takes people far more decades of living to get tired of being something they aren't.
It's a lot like sucking in your stomach when you're around someone you like. After awhile you're going to have to stop sucking it in and let them see you've got a belly. I guess a lot of people have good abs to keep that up for a long time. I can only do it so long to take one or two snapshots. Hah! Much like living that same facade.
I'm also more comfortable being myself because I know that I will have love and acceptance from others no matter what I present. It doesn't matter who you are, how you act or what you look like; you will find someone to love you (friends and more). The problem is sometimes the people you wish would love you would not love you for who you really are. But that's no fun anyway. That's a great key to unhappiness. Knowing everyone around you loves you for what you present, but that it's not who you are at all. If you can't let someone love who you really are then how can you love yourself? Not well, that's for sure. You should ask yourself why you want certain people to love you. It's usually not about love but power. Power over others or power over yourself. When someone you love loves you that gives you incredible strength to easily accept things.
When I was in high school I tried my hardest to be accepted by the popular crowd. It was an impossible endeavor. Smart people can rarely fit into the dumbfounded popular crowd. It's like plugging a three-prong plug into a two-prong outlet, sooner or later it's clearly not happening. But in my endeavor to push myself into the popular crowd I pushed away all the other people who did accept me. If I couldn't have what I wanted then I'd have no one. And that was not the path to happiness or self-acceptance.
I'm happy with me. And I'll tell you that the key to that being an honest statement is I found my self-acceptance and happiness on my own. No one came around to make me happy with myself first. I was alone and found peace with me. Too many people need others first before they accept themselves. Find acceptance from others and then you can be sure if you can or can not accept yourself? That's a horrible way of thinking. It's good to have some support, but it's important to remember you are on this planet on your own. You will be the only person that you live with the longest. Learn to get along.
While my friends and loved ones have been with me for the most part through that transformation, it was I who learned to live happily with myself. I did not have "real friends" until I began being the real me. The more real I became the more friends I got. The more real love I found helped me see I was pretty cool just the way I was. Even if I didn't fit in the three-pronged plug. I did not find warm love from others until I truly found it within myself. Things get better as you progress along learning about who you really are versus who you were told to be.
It's really not as scary as it sounds. It's okay. You can come out from under the bed now.
Show us what you're thankful for.
I've never been very good at making real good friends. Like the type where you call each other a lot and go over for tea every now and then? Most of my friends have always lived a very good distance away that we only had to deal with each other when we planned it. That was cool, but over time I have acquired some slightly local good friends. At least they say they're good friends. This is where it gets confusing.
I will never really understand how people say they want to spend a lot of time with you and then don't. I actually find that to be a cheap lie as to not hurt my feelings. In reality if it is a lie then it hurts me more that they are stringing me along. I'm not your average creature. If you don't like me and don't want to be around me then I'm more than happy to find someone to replace you. Do you remember that "there's always more fish in the sea" saying? I am level with that statement. Most people say that and don't want to believe it, but I believe it. I know it. I live it. I don't have time to gripe over someone leaving me, because there's far too many people dying to fill in where they left off.
This scenario happens a lot to me with local "good" friends. They love me, they miss me and they keep saying we have to get together. But they don't answer my messages and they won't call my phone. I am so over that phrase, "the phone works both ways." No shit and yet I seem to be the only one calling. For as much as I don't call, I still call more than they do. You can only bother someone for so long via phone until you feel like you're really bothering them. If I have to throw a 2x4 at you every time we should get together then I'm eventually going to think you don't want to really be around me.
I think if it's an honest statement then they feel I'm too busy for them. That they're afraid to get in touch with me as I may be busy. I don't know why everyone always thinks I'm so damn busy. I am the complete opposite of that. I will take more time to spend with friends even when I don't have the time! It's silly. It's backwards. I don't dig people who do this.
