The Prodigal Child - I, Catalyst

Rebellion, Recklessness, Realization, Repentance, Restoration
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I've been becoming more and more convinced recently that my function is more catalytic than anything else. It seems sometimes that I exist to make things better and/or easier for other people and I can't seem to make things better/easier for myself, nor can anyone else succeed in doing so. I don't pretend to pin the blame on everything or everyone else, I won't say in earnest that it's all their fault because that's not true. A lot of it is my fault, but for reasons it's not easy to change. When I try to relax or do what I need to do I feel selfish because I'm doing something for myself and not for someone else. In order to alleviate the guilt, I just don't do things for myself, choosing instead to bury wants, feelings, and acts in favor of the well-being of other people.

I don't have nightmares, I have dreams that are too upsetting for me to stay asleep. I couldn't sleep last night because of a dream in which somebody who worries about how well I don't sleep was being sexually assaulted and she liked it. I'm afraid this coming summer will turn into what last one turned into, with myself afraid to sleep because the dreams are so much more vivid and intolerable than the dayvisions and the exhaustion. But I won't do anything to prevent it because quite frankly, it would be selfish to stop the cause of the dreams.

I had a pretty decent crush on a girl who doesn't know (I don't think she knows, but she will if she ever reads this I suppose) that I did, and I had to smile and congratulate her when she met and started dating a guy who's, "so great, he reminds me of you, Child." As far as I know, she's still dating him, and I rather honestly hope they're very happy because she deserves it more than a lot of other people. It's hard to know that maybe I could have made something of that crush, but I don't let myself think about that because we're friends now, and I don't want to lose her. Or maybe I just read too far into a few things she's said to me. Who knows?

I'm developing a kind of empathy for one of my friends who (time for me to be extra-vague) found a set of problems overwhelming. It's hard. I'm in a position myself to deal with that set of problems and I don't know if I'm strong enough to do it. But catalyst me can't turn away because it's my job to make other things easier for other people and selfish not to do my job.

So if I weren't a catalyst, what would I want? Tough question, because I don't even know. I know what I think at this moment would be ideal, but I'm never going to get it. Never. Because time and my very nature both tend to destroy it. If I ever got it, I would warp it so badly that it wouldn't be what it was, and I can't destroy anybody else like that, for their sake and mine. I shan't have more innocence.