Stream of Consciousness, in Vagueness

Stream of Consciousness, in Vagueness
I know I am flawed. Flawed so deeply most people would be frightened to know the true extent. While I certainly take ownership of my flaws and try and change and improve on them, there's an extent to which the flaws are not mine, but given to me. My flaws are, in large part, a byproduct of my life experiences, although I'm pretty damn sure I started out with a few. So to some extent, people have to accept my flaws and respect me that I'm trying to fix them, and if they care about me, want to help me along in my task.

I'm so tired of trying to appear perfect. And, I'm bad at it. I say stupid things all the time, things that come off sounding mean and stupid, but mostly mean. I like to think that I am a good person underneath it all, that I care and I love and I have good intentions. And I'm doing my best to navigate this life, inflicting as little hurt on other people as possible.

And somewhere along the way, tired of getting hurt, I shut people out, and I leaned on myself and a select few quite heavily. And it's kind of momentous to let someone new in, but sometimes it must be done. Inevitably, I find myself hurting. It's hard to distinguish between pain that I'm inflicting on myself because of my flaws, and pain that someone else is (unnecessarily) inflicting on me. Either way, I'm tired of hurting; I imagine perfection is hurting less. Where flaws match up with flaws in such a way that it creates a diminishment of hurt. I believe this can happen.