This thousand miles is far, far from over

I thought once I got past this road block, it would be easy sailing. I should've known better, my brain even told me better, but common sense said otherwise. Since finally being able to move on, I've actually begun to care a little bit more about myself. I brought a bunch of things from my house to decorate my room so it wouldn't be so drab and depressing from the blankness of it all. I've got boxes to organize things (a shelf wouldn't fit in the car). This is no big deal by any stretch of the imagination, but considering where I was it is. My dad has always said that a thousand mile journey begins with a single step. (Amazing considering he like, NEVER gives any advice that is meaningful.) I'd say I'm probably 100 ft down the road from where I began. Am I over my mother? Of course not. I never will be. But I'm not letting it control my life and ruin everyone else's. That's not the biggest of my problems anymore. I had issues before she ever got sick. For example:

Trust: I have a hard time trusting anyone. And I mean anyone. Family, friends, etc. In 23 years of life nobody has ever given me a reason to trust them, and therefore it's hard for me to arbitrarily trust someone new who comes along that others deem trustworthy. It's nothing against anyone. It's just something I need to get out of my system.

Short Temper: I yell. I yell a lot. Most people don't know this about me but I go from calm and placid to straight to the throat. Most people have steps in between this, but for some reason God forgot to install this feature along with the OnStar. I'm not a physical person. I haven't gotten into a fight since I was in the fifth grade. Seriously. But I seem to have mastered the art of psychological warfare (once again, a gift from my father.) this is nothing I am proud of. It just happens. It flares up and people get hurt. Kind of like Chuck Norris walking down the sidewalk with an erection. There are no survivors. I think, and I could be wrong about this, but I think my short temper stems from the fact that I got blamed for everything. EVERYTHING. Automatically I was the first one accused for doing something bad. And of course, I'd tell the truth. The schools always stressed that if you told the truth and admitted your wrongdoings, things would go easier for you. The few times that it was my fault, I would. And I did. And I got crucified for it while my cohorts lied through their teeth and got off Scot free (which for the record, Scotsman never got off "scot free" so I don't know who the hell came up with that.) And so I began down a dark path of lying and deception and manipulation in order to get that Scot-free feeling™. And that probably explains why my temper is so short. When you've spent most of your life being blamed for shit you didn't do, you'd probably go straight for the throat too. It saves time. It also ruins friendships. I need to add those steps inbetween into my system if I ever intend on reproducing.

Insecurity: I don't really know where this came from. I'm sure it's tacked onto self-esteem issues. It's really hurt me and others in the past, and it really hasn't gotten much better. I can hide it better, but it's still there.

Jealousy: It's there too. It also stems from self-esteem. Let's just keep the details to self-esteem

Low Self-Esteem: Much like trust, nobody's really ever given me a reason to have high self-esteem. Family wise or otherwise. When your father tells you in the middle of the grocery store, "Fine! Die of a damn heart attack see if I care!" just for begging for a microwavable can of Dinty Moore beef stew to take to your first grade lunch... You see where this is going. That's only one of a long line of many similiar incidents. Never being told you do anything right. No good jobs, only "it would've been better had you done this." An "attaboy" would've been nice every now and then. Some encouragement. Getting pissed off at a four year old because he couldn't figure out the math flash cards is not encouraging. That shit hurts. Even now. And it's affected who I am to the point that I see myself hurting other people in the same way. Being patronizing to people because people made fun of me being smarter than them when growing up. They don't understand something I say and suddenly I'M the dumbass. So I began to make people feel stupid for not understanding what I was talking about. Is that mean? Yeah, it is. Do I still do it? Yeah, I do. At this point in my life, do I care? A little bit more than I did, but no. Not really.

My flaws while growing up were only accentuated by my being spoiled by my mother and being put into a homeschool program, which only made the social awkwardity worse. Do I blame her for what she did? No, I don't. It made me smarter because you didn't have to deal with the bureaucratic bullshit. But at the same time it made me less adaptable into society once it was time to push me out of the nest. Which in all sincerity never came. Because of being babied for so long, even at 22 (at the time), my mother's death was comparable to a small child being orphaned. Seriously. I am not a very mature person. I realize that. I'm trying to change that. And I think I've made considerable progress. Am I there yet? Not in the least. But I tend to believe that I'm more mature than my father (which is sad considering he's 65.) The question of Nature versus Nurture is very clear. It's just as much one as it is the other. People have the natural predisposition to behave a certain way, but there are different ways of triggering it. Is it fate? You can call it that if you want. But the sad truth is that more often than not, the sins of the father are in fact the sins of the son. The question is, can you wash away your inherited sins before your son has to bear that cross?

That's what I'm trying to figure out.