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Friendly Neighbourhood...

And guilt and guilt and guilt. It's tricky, when I start feeling guilty about something, I begin to feel guilty about everything. I feel guilty about stuff I haven't even done, stuff I might have thought about or even had a passing conception of. I felt guilty this morning about not having talked to Sonja in over a month. I've tried to have conversations with her, emailed her a couple of times without getting responses and even showed up back in Cold Lake early to hang out with her for a little bit. But she avoids me now, and I feel guilty about it. I feel guilty about reaching out and getting nothing from her. Then I felt guilty about making an effort to get back in touch with Sonja, knowing that Diane would hate it. Diane's jealous of my relationships with my friends, since most of them are women. So I don't talk about anything that has to do with Sonja (or any of my female friends for that matter), and THAT makes me feel guilty.

A co-worker (Jen) asked this morning about concrete fasteners to attach her satelite dish to her apartment, and I offered to help her, since I got the feeling she really didn't know what she's getting into. Not that I have any practicle experience, but I tend to be ok at figuring stuff out. Then I felt guilty. How would Diane react, I wondered. Should I be worried about alterior motives? Do I have alterior motives? No, I don't. I try to help people, and try harder when I feel guilty because it helps take away some of the guilt for a short time to do something for someone. I've decided that I have a Peter Parker complex. Something terrible happened once to Pete that he figures he could have prevented, had he done more. He struggled for years with the burden of guilt, responsibilty and power to help and how to use it, many times putting his own needs, his own relationships on the line to help people. Am I Spider-man? No, not really, but I understand what it was that drove Peter in those days. I understand hiding and secrecy, masks and costumes, helping strangers while lying to loved ones.

posted by September @ 7:37 AM