Hard lessons in life part 2

Things always seem clearer with time, but I am still so confused on what I want out of life these days. I am so confused on what is right and what is wrong and who are friends and who aren't. I thought I knew, but I don't anymore. I thought I was doing good here, but most likely not.

I guess I am at a crossroads here because I feel like I'm on the edge of discovering something about myself that I was trying to ignore before. Maybe I try to appear optimistic, but really, I had lost my faith in the human race years ago. Maybe I never had any. When I first discovered that Santa wasn't real, I feel the whole world was a lie. I guess metaphorically, this week, it feels like finding out all over again. This world is an ugly ugly place with evil and corruption and evil corrupt people all around it.

There has to be some beauty somewhere though right? There has to be something to bring peace.

Yes, religion is an obvious choice, but that doesn't restore my faith in humanity. That just assures me that there is a light at the end of the tunnel to look forward to. I want to see beauty again. I want to believe in Santa again.

Is it just the adult in me telling me to grow up, that he's not real?

Or is it the inner child in me that is yelling "Life was so much better when you believed"?

I am at a crossroads.

I want to believe but the evidence is overwhelming that humanity is lost. Time and time again I try to believe in people, but their true selves come out of the woodwork not too long in.

Heck, it wasn't too long ago that my own "friends" called the base and had me placed under gun point.

It's my own "friends" that almost landed me 20 years in prison for being a drug mule and using my trust to carry "gym bags" for them without looking inside them.

It's my own "friends" that have smiled in my face but then gone behind me to mock me as if I were a joke.

I would like to think that there is something wrong with *them* and not me, but I'm the common denominator right? I let these things happen because I smile and invite them to my home and open myself up, trusting that all they want from me is friendship as well. That's not necessarily the case.

I hate how dramatic I have become but right now it feels like I have this cut, in my soul, that closes up and mends on its own but each time a supposed "friend" lets their true colors show, that the wound opens again and my emotions pour out. It's not so much as venting, but as literally they drain out and I am left with nothing.

I feel nothing as of now, except disgust for people in general.

To fill that gap, I need to see beauty. I need to see the basic charm of life and from the simplistic viewpoint of a child. I think if I don't retreat away from all the negatives that all of the emotions I have left are going to drain away and I will have nothing left but a shell.

Life is so unfair. Why teach our kids about fairy tales, good deeds, knights in shining armor, santa clause and happy elves if when they grow up, the only thing they are surrounded by are evil witches, mean devils, and soul suckers? Where have all of the prince and princesses gone?