Old Beginnings and New Endings

Blatantly ripping off the title of this post.  Like blatantly, obviously, cruelly stealing it.  Shut up, it fits particularly well for what I have to say.  Anyhow, I'll give credit where credit is due: this is where I'm stealing from.  I really do wish I could come up with a better title for this, but really...this fits better than anything I can think of, so instead of trying to be creative (me? creative? what the hell?), I'm just going to steal it anyway and write this introductory paragraph apologizing.  If you want the link removed for whatever reason, just let me know, you know how to reach me.  Moving on to actual content now...

So it's the 31st of December...again.  It's odd because I almost feel like I'm writing the same post twice, because it's probably going to be fairly similar to this one.  Except it's not.  Because a lot has changed in a year.  Hell, I think even my writing style has changed significantly enough to indicate the changes I've undergone.  So I think now is the time I reflect on 2010, even though I did this in a way a couple of days ago.  I still like a permanent record of this on my blog, though.  So here goes nothing.

Arguably, this has been a very good year.  I've gotten better.  Well, I guess I could say that I got worse, then I got better.  But it's what happened in the end that matters, right?  Arguably, yes.  I've caused a lot of pain, drained a lot of blood (literally and metaphorically).  I've been to hell and back, and there have been days when I just wanted to disappear.  But that happens every year, so I can't use that as a defining analysis of the year.  I want to say it's been a good year because the end has been good, but that really isn't much of a guarantee of anything.

It's going to be the start of a new year now.  It's not really that significant because it's only an artificial break for the artificial concept of time.  But it is what it is.  And I might as well use it for something significant while I can.  For once, I actually made a resolution.  One that I don't honestly expect myself to keep, not for more than half the year anyway.  That's a sad thought, but it's me being a realist.

The reason this title is so fitting though, so appropriate, is that it's true.  In a way, I'm starting 2011 the same way I start every year, looking forward, hoping it's better than the last year was (although it's hard for me to imagine that), working to improve myself, trying to be happier.  In that way, it's an old beginning.  This is how every year has begun for me since I've been old enough to hope for change.  At the same time though, I don't want this year to end.  For the first time since I can really remember, I don't want to completely move into something else, I don't want to turn my back on everything that's happened.  And in that way, it's a new ending for me, a particularly bittersweet one at that.

I don't really know what more to say here.  I seem to run into that issue a lot when reflecting on things.  So here I am again, having hit a dead spot.  I could write about something else, but everything else really seems to fall outside the scope of this post.  I guess this is where I wrap it up, then.  I'm sorry to everyone I've hurt in this past year, I'm sorry for all of the mistakes I've made and for all of the pain I've caused.

I wish all reading this (and all those not, as well) a Happy New Year, and a fresh start, if that's what you're after, or a continuation of the happiness you may have found.  I hope everyone gets what they're looking for out of this artificial transition of time and date, uses it to make any commitments they need to or establish new goals.  I hope everyone finds happiness in one way or another, be it in stability or in change, in ways they expected or ways that take them completely by surprise.  I wish you all the best.  Enjoy the last few hours of 2010 and have a wonderful 2011.  Goodbye until next year.

Alliance

Individuals come together, make alliances, for all sorts of purposes.  It's reasonable for people to strive to work together for a purpose.  When one person can't accomplish something alone, it makes sense to join forces with others who believe in the same thing.  The particularly interesting aspect of this, to me at least, is what happens when the purpose is worse than questionable, when it is downright bad.

The example that comes to mind is murderers.  How do such individuals come together?  You can't exactly go up to someone you're friends with and say "I really hate that guy, want to head over Friday night and kill him?"  Well, I guess you technically can.  But then you'll get a lot of confused looks, a couple of people asking if you're alright, and possibly one very worried individual recommending you get professional help.  The thing is, nobody is going to say "yeah, sure...you want to use a gun or a knife?"

So how do these people get together?  How can people become part of a team of murderers, something that is so rejected by society?  How is it possible to be so open as to admit wanting to kill individuals and mean it?  You can tell I've been watching too much Criminal Minds lately.  That is, after all, where these questions originated, so I felt it was only right to include this here.  That and I'm fairly certain that if I didn't mention that, I'd have at least one concerned individual asking me if I'm certain I'm alright, and if I need to talk to anyone about these thoughts...

The show mentions (I'm not sure with what factual certainty, although it makes sense) that most criminals who work together have known each other since childhood, oftentimes grown up together, coming to hate the same things.  I guess if you're that close to someone and have shared enough terrible, terrible experiences with them, it might make sense to me.  But people who met and happened to have similarly messed up minds, similar desires to kill...that never made sense to me.  

How do acquaintances come to share such information, even if they do both have twisted minds?  The closest thing I can imagine is that first you start talking about your mutual dislikes.  And then you progress to how much you wish certain people (in the case of murderers at least) would just...go away.  And maybe you go hunting together, or explore some other violent activity.  And the idea comes up by pure chance that you want to kill, and somehow, because you are both twisted, it ends up happening after a while.

That's still hard to imagine though.  It also relies on a lot of circumstantial good luck and fortune.  But then again, teams of murderers don't really come around that often.  So I guess that makes sense.  The psychology involved in becoming part of such a team is absolutely fascinating to me.  

Kisses

A kiss can be a comma, a question mark, or an exclamation point.

A kiss can mean just about anything really.  People kiss because they love and because they hate.  Kisses tell stories and reveal secrets.  Each kiss, in and of itself, can mean everything or nothing.  It's everything around the kiss that sets the meaning.  As is often the case, context determines how something is to be interpreted, what course to take in the future.

A kiss can be a beginning or an end.  It can be an up or a down.  Kisses can be soft and caring or deep and passionate.  They can make things better and they can make things worse.  It all depends on the context of the kiss.  In that, kisses are beautiful and marvelous and extraordinary.  A kiss is one of the most powerful demonstrations of emotion.

Never laugh at a kiss.  A kiss was mysterious and powerful, fragile and invincible.  Like any spark, a kiss might fizzle into nothing, or consume an entire forest.  A kiss was no laughing matter.  Not for the wary.  A kiss could change the world.


Kisses don't always change the world.  More often than not, the world would go on the same whether the kiss had taken place or not.  But kisses change things.  They almost always do.  Kisses change lives.  No matter how insignificant to the rest of the world, every kiss that happens between two people changes them, not always noticeably, not always quickly, but in some way, no matter how small, it always does.  The real beauty of kisses is in their power to transform, to make better, to show love.  

Forgiveness

People will say, "forgive and forget."  But most often, that's the wrong advice to take.  Enough of the time, it is brought up as a caution--and then they say "forgive but never forget."  Regardless, more often than not, it seems that good ideas involve forgiveness.  The question comes up though, of how much is too much.  "Once a cheater, always a cheater" it is said.  And that implies that forgiveness should not be granted.

I find myself disagreeing with that.  I'm hard on myself and hard on others in my expectations.  But I am very much soft on them when it comes to difficult situations.  I sympathize with people easily, perhaps too easily, but I understand that.  I believe in forgiveness.  And second chances.  And third.  And fourth.  And so on and so forth.  People make mistakes.  I have made them myself, and I've changed and become a better person.  As a result, I don't let myself count people out because of simple incidents.

It happens.  Things don't always go as planned or as desired.  People mess up.  The thing is, you can't change what happened in the past.  So after a point, all you can do is move forward.  I believe in forgiveness.  I believe that people change.  I've also been known in the past to hope and believe that I would be *the one* to change a person.  I don't think I've succeeded in doing so.  I don't know that I ever will.  That's not going to deter me, though.

I'm not in this to change someone.  I'm making my life work.  And to do that, I believe in forgiveness, I believe in trust, and I believe in letting things happen.  Maybe I do forgive too easily.  But I'm getting as much out of my life as I can.  I'm not being oblivious or letting emotions get the better of me--this is cold, solid rationality.  I have no reason to dwell on it.  All I can do is let go of the incidents that happened, and deal with things as they come up.

This is why I forgive as quickly as I do.  This is why I let things go seemingly without a second glance.  My mind is still working through it all, analyzing the facts quietly in the background.  But the rest of me isn't going to get stuck on a finite number of occasions that cause more pain than anything.  I'm willing to move forward and do what it takes.  The rest is up to you.

Making

Making things better.  Making things worse.  Making things up.  Making, generally.  Making things takes effort.  It may be conscious or subconscious, but it is always there.  Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's hard.  Almost always, it involves making decisions.  Then again, the argument can be made of whether or not those are conscious or not themselves.

Regardless, sometimes things just seem to get worse.  But they don't just get there.  They're brought there by something.  That something being decisions.  It's a decision whether or not one complains.  It's a definite decision if one says something stupid, careless, worthless.  Or, one can go the other way, and say something conscientious, intelligent, caring.

Altogether too often, we seem to forget that this is a decision that can be made.  One word can determine whether or not the day goes well or poorly.  It affects not only the person making the decision but also the people around them.  I made some unfortunate decisions today in that respect.  But that's alright.  It happens.  I've been working to fix it.  That's what matters in the end.  I hope.

Filling Space

I've had this "New Post" page open for a solid three or four hours, fully intending to blog the entire time.  As you can see by this first sentence, that hasn't actually happened yet.  At this point, I'm starting to realize that I just don't want to write.  So, sorry to disappoint you (not that anyone should really care considering the terrible quality of my posts lately), but this one is going to suck.

I'm not sure exactly what it is.  Perhaps a few to many questions.  Perhaps way too many people.  Perhaps too much travel.  Either way, it's been a long day, and my mind is determined that it really doesn't want to think right now.  As a result, it is even less willing to do any legitimate writing.  That leads to me, here, right now, filling up this space with words only because I know it means I'll keep writing every day.

I've been given a subject for another post.  But it's one of those that I want to write well or not write at all.  It's one of those things that deserves to be treated well.  As a result, I am not writing it today.  This is completely the wrong state of mind to be in for it.  Perhaps tomorrow, or if not then hopefully in the next couple of days a post will be appearing that covers that.  In the meantime, though, I'm tired.  I'm going to go back to not doing anything.

Trusting and Doubting

Trust.  It is important.  You hear of it absolutely everywhere in just about every instance.  It is the foundation of a positive relationship in any sense of the word.  Between two friends, lovers, coworkers.  Even in uneven circumstances such as between parent and child, boss and employee.  Trust is the most important element of it all.  It keeps things together.

When that trust isn't there, problems begin to spring up.  Suddenly (or perhaps not suddenly at all), issues develop in communication and things fall apart.  Sometimes trust is lost over one particular incident, other times it slowly seeps away over bits and pieces here and there, hidden suspicions and unvoiced concerns.  Then one day, that trust something was founded on is no longer there.  And once the foundation is gone, everything starts to fall away.  First slowly then gradually faster and faster until there is nothing left.

Then occasionally, there is doubt.  I don't mean doubt that comes from bits and pieces of suspicions or is built up from mistakes.  I mean the doubt that just appears and eats everything away.  That just hurts.  Because there's no reason for it and you don't want it to be there but it's there.  And it eats away your life and dominates your thoughts and messes up everything you hoped worked so well.

After a while, you come to realize that if you want it to stay together, if you want it to work out, if you want to be happy, sometimes you have to let go.  You have to throw away all of the doubt, let go of everything and just trust that it will work.  Sometimes it won't, sometimes you'll get hurt.  But there are those few rare times when it will pay off, when it will work, when everything clicks.  They happen rarely but they make all of it worthwhile.  All of the pain and panic.  It will all be worth it in the end.

Broken

I don't want to admit it.  But sometimes, sometimes I like being broken.
They say it has to get worse before it can get better.
There are days when it starts hurting.  Then I just need to break.
And I hate that.

I hate having to throw myself at someone for that.
But I don't have the control to fix it.
That scares me.

Because I hurt.  Then break.  And then you dry my tears.
I hate having to do that to you, and I hate what it lets me do to myself.
No matter what you tell me, it isn't okay.
Not the way this happens every time.

Every time, I lose a little piece of myself.
I forget more and more how to deal without breaking everything.
And every time I wonder if you mean it.
Or if it's just that all over again.
I believed it.

I don't want to fall into that hole again.
So I don't know if I can trust.
If I can believe.

If I can really be weak.
Or if I have to remember to carry myself.
Because I don't want to repeat that.
I don't want to turn into a pitiful mess.

I'm sorry.
I just don't know.

Fear

Fear can be rational or irrational.  It can make sense or not.  Any number of causes can be attributed to it.  It can be something rational, it can come from unexpected chest pain, where the source is not understood and it is known to be a possible cause for concern.  Or, on the other hand, it can be irrational, like walking into an elevator and being afraid that the doors will never open again, where there is no reason to fear such a thing.

Irrational phobias carry with them a certain burden.  Because they make no sense, it is difficult to come to terms with them, to fix them, to do anything about them.  Sometimes they come and go, they appear or vanish seemingly without cause, without reason.  It may have been one bad experience, it may have been nothing at all. Nobody ever really knows.  Some realize this is something they will have to live with forever, others find themselves free of such things at some point.

The line between rational and irrational, however, is a fine thing.  The question is constantly present of where exactly it lies.  Is an ache in the hip reason to worry?  Or is it simply paranoia?  Is it rational or is it not?  Where does a fear go from being something that makes sense, like hitting a finger while cutting a carrot too quickly, to something absolutely nonsensical, like refusing to ever handle sharp objects.  One makes sense, the other seems insane.  How does one go from one thing to the other?

Everyone has fears.  There is logic in certain such things.  And there appears to be nonsense in others.  It may or may not make sense.  But that's how life it is.  It makes sense one minute, and none the next.  Or maybe none of it makes sense at all, ever, and it's just easier to believe that there is something reasonable about bits and pieces of it.  If nothing more though, nonsense explains irrational fear.  It doesn't help it to make sense, simply explains it.  Then again, how is sense possible in a world of nonsense?

Frustration

So of course, when I finished going through the more recent past in events of which I wasn't fully aware, I had to go back through my own past of two years ago and try to come to terms with all of that again.  Needless to say, that is, at least for me, a very messy process.  I don't really know what to think of all of it, I don't know what to say or do.  I'm confused, and it's vaguely frustrating.  More than vaguely.

I don't want to say much on it at this point.  I thought I was smart, was so goddamn brilliant and intelligent and wonderful.  I thought I had everything figured out and made sense of and I was carrying myself around arrogantly and pretentiously as though I was the best thing that had ever happened in this whole goddamn world. 

I know better than that now.  But I only know it that way because I messed everything up in being foolish as I was and trying to be superior.  I messed up.  I messed so much up.  And I really shouldn't go through any of this right now.  I shouldn't write anything, I shouldn't look at any of it.  But here I am, my insatiable curiosity pushing me to do so anyway.

I give up on this writing.  I'm done. 

Concern

This post is going to be a compilation of a ridiculous number of things.  I've relived about five months in less than a day in a parallel universe.  Some things have hurt.  Some things astounded me.  Enough things shocked me in any number of different ways.  In a sense, I'm at a loss.  I'm not sure how to react, to respond, what to say.  There have been any number of thoughts in my mind, any assortment of emotions going back and forth.  I'm not sure even where to begin.  But as this is freshest in my mind (albeit entirely out of order and pattern with the rest), I will start with responses to the most recent, knowing that there is a good chance I will not address the older things in this post at all.

I'm sorry.  I know I messed up then.  I know I've done it often enough through all of this, and I know that sometimes it seems as though I don't deserve this, shouldn't be here, should stop messing up.  It all carries weight.  I'm sorry for all of the pain I have caused, to everyone.  It's an apology that doesn't deserve to be accepted, but I mean it with all my heart.  I am a different person than I was.  I grew up, I fixed the way I live my life.  I'm not perfect, nor are the things I do.  But I'm better than I was then.  I don't know if certain people will want to simply believe it.  I can't change that.  One thing I promise for certain, though, is that I will never do that again, so please don't let me, anyone who is willing. 

I fucked up.  That's the only way to put it.  I'm so sorry for not having thought about it then, for having been foolish enough to not realize how it would affect me and people around me in the future.  I don't deny it, I was wrong in everything I did at that time.  I'm so sorry.  But I can't change it.  I've dealt with the consequences of those decisions and I'm done with that.  This is all I can say on the subject.  That's honestly not what I was going to write about in the first place.  And with respect to things I am not supposed to know, I appreciate the sentiment.  For some reason that I can't quite place, it means a lot to me. 

But this is what I was going to say: thank you.  I realized today that I've started remembering how to feel, how to be concerned, how to take care of people, myself and otherwise.  Even though I didn't realize it, I lost more than I expected.  I lost bigger pieces of myself than I had thought, or so it would appear.  Today, it hit me that I had found some.  I found that I could care.  I don't know what changed or really how, but I didn't hurt in the same way and I cared in ways I hadn't for years now.  Thank you.  I don't know how you did it or how it worked.  But something happened and somehow, I don't know how but in ways I can't deny, I've gotten better.

It almost scares me because I don't know how to deal with being better like this.  I'm not sure what it feels like anymore.  It's been a long time.  I don't know quite what to do with this much happiness and I don't know how to react to it.  I still make mistakes.  I think I'm getting better about it and making fewer of them, I'm learning, I'm working on it.  I'm glad I at least have the motivation to do as much by this point in time.  Thank you for giving me the strength and the inspiration to actually want to get better.  Thank you.  Thank you for absolutely everything you've been and done, for being the amazing person you are, for accepting me as I am, and making me as happy as you have.  I couldn't have done it without you.  I love you, you are amazing, and no matter where this goes or what happens, I want to thank you so very very much.

Return

Well, I'm back.  And not necessarily so happy about that.  Then again, compared with the panic I encountered considering the prospect of this return, I'm more than pleased about it.  The fact remains, though, that I do not particularly want to be here...I've got plenty of other places, in both space and time, where I would rather be.  This weekend featuring prominently on that list.

Today has been an odd day.  There have been more ups and downs than I want to count, and significantly more than I can realistically be expected to keep track of.  On the whole, it seems to have turned out fairly well.  I'm still alive, not extoradinarily depressed, and generally taking care of myself at present.  So I guess we'll see how that turns out.

These next couple of weeks will be odd.  I really don't know what's in store for me at all, but hopefully it will be more or less tolerable, if not pleasant (that's rather unlikely knowing how these things go).  But I guess we'll have to simply wait and see how it all turns out.  I just hope that everything that needs to get done will get done and everything that I am afraid of backfiring won't. 

Independence

One paragraph should probably sum up the entirety of this weekend fairly accurately.  Or perhaps even one word.  But I'm not certain what to choose: amazing, wonderful, incredible...I could go on.  Either way, it was thoroughly enjoyable.  I can't really think of many ways (if any at all) that it could have been any better.  Three days and three nights of utter relaxation, productivity, good food, happiness, company, and generally wonderful existence.

And then today throws me back into what is my "real world."  The beginning went well enough, the memories from the weekend consistently providing the necessary satisfaction for the time being.  And then one rope was loosened and the whole system completely fell apart.  Because I guess that's what happens when I get thrown out of a lovely system of freedom into an entirely too convoluted of one.

Honestly, I had a weekend where nobody told me what I could or couldn't do, where I could or couldn't do it, where I did and didn't have to be at times A, B, C, and oh by the way, D as well.  I hate things like that.  I hate being told what do with my life and how to do it, not to mention when and where, coupled with consequences that, while capable of ruining my life at present, have absolutely no bearing on the world as a whole.  Things like this bother me.  Significantly.  Particularly after weekends like this of freedom, where nobody tries to take control of my life.

So most of my night has been spent in a less than ideal mood, trying to come to terms with this whole lack of independence and all that.  I've done it fairly well for a couple of years now, but...after a point, it seems to hit a limit of "too much," and it seems that this limit has been transcended after a weekend like that without such ridiculous restrictions. 

But anyhow, that's enough of my ranting.  I think I'll stop now.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better (in some way or other). 

Lovers and Other Strangers

In the end though, does it matter who you love?  Or who you talk to?  Or whose arms wake up in each morning so long as there is someone there, someone to hold you and listen to you?  Does it really matter if tomorrow morning, I wake up and kiss someone I've never met instead of someone I've lived for, someone I've loved?

Of course it does.  Because there's something in that familiarity, in the shared experience, in the ups and downs of the past that brought you where you are today.  There will always be those moments, those memories, those bits and pieces of the past that carry into the present and the future.  The arms aren't just arms and the lips aren't just lips.  Those are the arms that held you when you cried because you didn't know where to go in your life.  Those are the lips that pressed against your cheeks when you needed the pain to go away.

Strangers give you views into lives that aren't yours and worlds to which you do not belong.  They give you one day, or one night, or one hour in an entirely different situation, with an entirely different set of priorities and rules.  With a stranger, nothing matters, everything goes.  But with a lover, everything matters yet everything still goes.  There are no secrets, there are no spaces for shame.  Every touch means something with a lover, where with a stranger it may only be there to fill a gaping void.

Some days we need lovers to hold us together, and other days we need strangers to help us fall apart.  Perhaps we need neither, but each brings elements of their own into our lives.  With each acquaintance, new or old, we discover something more about people and something more about ourselves.  There come days in our lives when lovers become strangers and strangers turn into lovers.  Everything comes and goes, everyone serving their own role in this everchanging world, this eternity full of people.  Filled to the brim as it is, with lovers and other strangers. 

Comfort

I'll be perfectly honest here.  I guess that's what I try to be in this blog generally, but that's a phrase I use to preface things that mostly pertain to rather simple thoughts, feelings, emotions, or...probably some other things, too.  Regardless, on to that honesty thing I was talking about.  I don't really want to write tonight.  It's just not something I'm in the mood for at present.

I think that part of it is probably because blogging is now a part of my routine--I do it in familiar places, sometimes surrounded by familiar people, and it's simply one of those things I do in an average day.  The thing is though, today hasn't been average at all.  It has been absolutely wonderful.  It's been calm, productive, happy, satisfying, enjoyable, worthwhile, unusual, and just about everything else I needed to get out of it, plus maybe a little bit more. 

And because this isn't a routine day and I'm not in a routine mindset, I don't have ideas coming to mind.  I simply want to continue sitting here, maybe getting some work done, maybe simply relaxing...anything so long as this day maintains the pace it's been going at for some time.  It's thoroughly enjoyable, and it appears as though this weekend is indeed giving me the break I very much needed.  I will be thoroughly displeased once it ends, but the bits of it I've had thus far have been lovely.  This is good. 

With that in mind, I wish all a good night and pleasant dreams, as well as a stress-free ending to this weekend. 

Plans

This weekend.  This weekend should be very nice.  It will be precisely what I need.  I will get the opportunity to relax, and be productive, and be happy.  Possibly, I may even get the chance to get a bit of sleep, which is indeed a much-needed change.  So here's hoping that it will be thoroughly enjoyable and pleasant and productive and generally satisfying.

Here's the catch though.  There is a very good chance that I will not have internet until Sunday night (or possibly Monday morning...I'm not entirely certain at this point).  This is basically a warning that I will likely not be blogging tomorrow or possibly even the day after.  Even if I do regain internet on Sunday, I may or may not write anything depending on the state I'm in.

Hopefully, everything will go well.  But if only because of just how well this is supposed to go, I find myself almost expecting everything to go terribly.  I'm just going to pretend I didn't have those thoughts and continue to look forward to this.  This is going to be pleasant, I think.  I'm looking forward to it.  I'm not here, I'm not there...it's exactly what I need in the way of getting away.  I guess I'll be back in two days. 

Apologies

Why do the apologies hurt more than the events from which they stem?  That was my thought a couple of hours ago.  Because the actuality really hadn't bothered me much at all, it stung a bit, but only a very little bit.  The thing that really hurt was the apology for it.  I don't know why.  I rather wish I understood, because it would be nice to be able to make some amount of sense out of it.  It doesn't make sense to me, although I'd generally like to understand.

But now there are things nagging at my mind.  Things other than bygone hurts and apologies that stopped affecting me hours ago.  I'm afraid of what is going to happen with respect to something in the near future.  I'm fine though.  I will be fine.  It's one of those nagging feelings that will come to pass, I know, but that doesn't stop it from bothering me this little bit.  Deep breaths.  I'm trying to calm down over it.  And I know that in the end, I will be fine. 

I think I've gotten better recently at dealing with problems and intermediate issues.  I've calmed down about things, especially when they're not final, and I'm learning to take things in stride instead of letting them throw me entirely.  This isn't so much me rationalizing as it is me trying to make sense of it all and relax.  I've also learned to start acting, to explain circumstances, to make sense of things before I panic.

That's what I've done now.  So I'm calm.  Rather exhausted just because of how this week as a whole has been, but regardless, doing fairly well.  I'm figuring things out, making them work, generally coming to a reasonable point and comfort with my life as it stands.  That's good.

I'm sorry.  I know this post has rambled to no end and had absolutely no coherence whatsoever, but it's all I've got right now, tired and scatterbrained and all.  There are probably errors galore scattered throughout this post that I haven't noticed, and at this point, I'm not in the mood to go back through.  Anyhow, I'm just going to post this before I ramble some more and leave it at that.  Good night.  Hopefully I'll make more sense tomorrow.  Or something.

History

The past.  Maybe it's just me, but in looking at a person, an individual, considering their personality and their merits, one of the things that interest me the most is their history, their past, where they have been.  In part, this is because I don't collect people as they are, I collect lives and I collect stories (if that sounds unfamiliar, this should clear it up a bit).  And lives, in my mind, are a collection of everything a person has been and done, not just who they have become. 

I don't let myself judge simply based on the past, the events that took place, the things that shaped an individual's life.  Hell, I try to not judge at all.  People will be people, they all have their own thoughts, concerns, experiences, foundations for decisions, and circumstances I really don't know.  Even if I do know them, I still don't want to base anything on them because there's probably something else to be taken account that I don't know, or something I just can't understand.

But that's enough justification for my fascination with humans.  The point of this post isn't an explanation of how I do or don't analyze people and how that does (or, as far as possible within my limits, doesn't) affect how I treat them.  Actually, I don't honestly know what the point of this post was at any point.  I guess what it really comes back to is my intense curiosity, this insane obsession with people and their lives, and just how much the past changes them.

I'm not so picky as to pinpoint the cause and effect of everything and anything, but I do in fact very much enjoy tracing things back to how they began.  Among those things, of course, are the lives of people.  I don't mean the beginning as in their birth, but I do mean childhood, or really any events that were particularly significant to them, no matter how recent or how long gone.  So in that way, part of what I want to know most isn't simply what is now but also what was, what came of it, and even what could have been.

Sure, the hypotheticals aren't really part of the story, but that doesn't make me want to know them any less. 

Lives

I obsess.  I feel I've written this any number of times before, and yet I'm writing it again regardless.  Obsessions carry me away and occupy my thought processes until there is no space for anything--reasonable, intelligent, or otherwise.  My mental processes simply become overpowered by one element.  And altogether too often, the center of this obsession becomes human, be it one human being or an aspect of the human mentality.

I get obsessed with people's lives.  That's part of the reason I read so many blogs and try to find out as much about anybody as I can.  It doesn't matter whether it's someone I know or not, whether it's someone I really care about or not, so long as it is a person with a life and a story to tell, I want to know everything and anything. I try to find out as much as possible even about people I dislike, if only because I want to know as much as I can.

It fits my introvert nature, in a way, I guess.  I like being quiet, I like listening.  I've never been much of a talker, although once I start, it is occasionally next to impossible to get me to stop.  That's just the way I am.  I'd rather know other people's lives and opinions than my own.  Somewhere along the way, I fell in love with people's lives, and since then, I've been trying to learn as much about them as I can.  This collection is for me and nobody else.  I keep tales and secrets for nobody to know but myself.

In this way, I learn about people and about life.  I sit here and absorb as many stories as I can, discover as many lives as people are willing to let me.

Tell me a story, show me a secret, bury me in your fears.  I want to know.  I want to understand.  Thoughts, emotions, opinions, reflections, philosophies, favorites, passions, pains.  Anything and everything, I want to know, about as many people as possible.  Some people collect stamps, others collect spoons, still others have more arcane interests, others perfectly tame.  Some show their collections, others keep them hidden.  Certain people even shell out more money than they could expect to repay for valuables.

In this same way, I am a collector.  I don't collect objects, I collect stories of lives.  I put together fragments of people to try and understand them, assets and flaws alike.

The Cosmic Egg Theory

I read once (during the more prominent phase of my obsession with astronomy) that what we now know as the Big Bang theory was initially proposed as the Cosmic Egg theory.  It's a thoroughly amusing name for an idea that most people have become thoroughly familiar with.  It also seems to make virtually no sense.  After all...an egg?  How is an egg (even a cosmic one) even remotely related to the origins of our universe?

The thing about it is that it was made to represent how the universe began as what is effectively a singularity (I apologize if I'm incorrect, it's been a while since I've read up on that), a tiny "egg," so to speak, and then burst out of it, exploded outward and began cooling.  It has continued expanding to this day, and many believe that it will continue to do so for a while at least, if not indefinitely.  The premise of the Cosmic Egg theory (to the best of my memory) is that the expansion will slow down, then stop, until the universe begins to recede and condense, right back into that cosmic egg.

It is a theory of big bangs and big crunches in this sequence going infinitely forward through time, altering the property of space.  That makes me wonder, though.  In our own way, are we not merely a series of big bangs and big crunches, from the simple satisfaction of being so close in the singularity of the cosmic egg, to the massive explosions and tenuous bonds that with each time seem more and more strained as we hit a big bang, until we once again cool down enough to recede in a big crunch, to the solitude and peace of a cosmic egg.

In an odd way, is not the history of our universe really simply the history of us?  Or rather, is the history of us not a minuscule, fragmented representation of the greater, eternal history of the universe around us?  Even as we speak, or don't, when we are about to fall apart, the universe continues to expand around us, in the eternal pattern ascribed to it by those who profess of the accuracy of what is now known as the Big Bang Theory, but which I still prefer to see in terms of the cosmic egg.

Truthfully, astronomy has fallen out of my life to an extent where I could no longer reasonably pretend to be knowledgeable about theories of the beginning of the universe...I don't remember enough of the science to speak reliably on the subject.  This particular theory merely came to mind because of the beauty of language with which it was conveyed in the text I had read it and in its oddly appropriate correlation with my relationship.  For those who don't know, I'll attempt to delineate it as much as is possible in the space of a paragraph or so (for what is probably the first time I blog about this particularly clearly).

It's one of those things where we're either really, really good for each other, or really, really bad.  I don't know how else to describe it, and most anyone else who knows us particularly well agrees.  Things are either splendid or terrifying.  The past three days have been a span of time with ridiculous ups and downs, tremendous oscillations, and a couple of fears I don't want to have even considered not to mention written up on my blog.  With that, I will leave description behind and return to the elegance of universes expanding and collapsing upon themselves.

It's really a rather beautiful thought--universes moving, changing, expanding and collapsing, breaking and rebuilding, all of these vast and magnificent spans of time and space that we can't even fathom, all of them changing around us.  It's paralleled oddly well in everyday occurrences, in interactions between mere human beings.  Yet on whatever scale, there are cycles, there are patterns, there are vast movements and trends, the elegance of which is simply astounding.  The thought, in truth, greatly surpasses the homely name of the cosmic egg.

Happiness

I'm not quite sure what it is about today, nor frankly, do I care.  I'm in a good mood.  So my space heater broke, and I have obligations for tomorrow that I didn't actually bother getting around to this weekend.  But the thing is...that's quite alright.  I don't really care right now.  I'm in a good mood.  So there.  That's all that matters in my mind at present.

Yeah, I think I will wind up going back and taking care of some of those things later, but now is not the time.  I'm going to be up for quite a while, I have a feeling, in part because I'm in a good mood, in part because I have in fact left myself with quite a few things to do before I go to sleep tonight.  I'll figure it out though, I know that...so I'm not overly concerned. 

I'm happy.  Ridiculously, unabashedly, shamelessly, happily, wonderfully so.  Today is a good day.  It has been and will continue to be a good day.  I'm not concerned by other people or obligations or things I really don't care about.  I can ignore them.  I've got exciting plans for the near future, and what will hopefully turn out to be a happy week ahead of me.

I plan on enjoying every minute of it all.  That, and I definitely intend to get away with quite a few things before this particular experience is over for good.  Planning those out is extraordinarily fun and I am thoroughly enjoying myself right now.  Sorry this isn't much to read, but I'm in a good mood and this is just what's passing through my mind.

Fog

Wading forward, eyes as good as closed.  Not truly wading, although it certainly seemed that way.  Swimming through the fog, perhaps being a more accurate word, although still an entirely flawed description of the movement.  Really, it was simply walking.  Walking in confusion, walking nobody knew where, knowing only what was being left behind, the terrors that were escaped.

No shapes could be distinguished, no destination the least bit construed.  Ultimately, it was a passage into nothingness itself.  For all the fog, there may have been no source and no destination, no location and no time.  As far as anyone and anything was concerned, there was no path, no journey, no passage.  Nothing happened, merely infinite identical motions through infinite identical space.

The defining characteristic of fog was precisely that--the lack of a defining characteristic of any sort.  It simply was.  It wasn't really white, it didn't feel overly heavy or thick or damp, it wasn't a presence of cold so much as an absence of warmth.  Fog didn't mean anything.  Acting as an opposite of a black hole, it was a colorless vastness spreading its nothingness over the entirety of the world.

It was thick and deep and desolate.  Nothing held meaning and nothing was felt.  It was neither pleasant nor unpleasant.  It existed.  That is all.  It did not pretend, it did not lie, it did not hide.  The fog was a matter so simple it was complex and so complex it rapidly became very, very simple.  In the end it came down to everything in the world, but so could be expressed as an entity of one.  Nothing.

Forgetful

Yes, that there is me.  Forgetful.  Very much so, it would appear, considering that I forgot that I had to blog until well, just about now.  So with 20 minutes left before midnight and my own unofficial "due date" for a post, I now have to crank something out.  Here goes nothing is what I'd normally say, but considering that my ears are ringing and I can't breathe, this is a good bit more than nothing.

Today...today was lovely.  I find that I've been using that word a lot more lately, and I honestly have absolutely no idea where I picked it up (unlike most phrases I acquire, which I can trace back to their origins quite nicely).  But that's probably the most adequate way I can think of to describe just how today has been.  For the first time in a long while, I'm less stressed and I feel like I'm starting to get things back together, starting to be able to breathe again (literally and figuratively).

That's one of those things that's also looking up.  I can actually physically breathe, which is thoroughly enjoyable.   This makes me very much happy.  I'm hoping that tomorrow, I will not feel sick or be in any variety of pain, because that would be the first time in two weeks now.  Needless to say, it would be a much appreciated change, and I am looking forward to it.

Alright, that's all my mind is willing to process right now.  I'm done.  I'm going to go make myself feel better from the chilling cold and go to sleep and wake up feeling better in the morning.  Good night.  Be happy.

Habitual

I do this to myself.  I know that.  I tear myself to shreds by way of my insatiable curiosity, and then I break myself still further by letting it affect me.  And this happens in every case.  It happened then, it happens now, and I know it to be my own fault entirely.  So why don't I stop?  Why can't I just make myself stop this dreadful continuation of thought that leads to so many messes?

It is this ridiculous curiosity, this need to know, this fear of everything...that's what ends up ruining it all in the end.  And I don't know how to fix it.  I just know that I really should.  Because this won't sustain me for much longer.  I know that.  Knowing this and that and something or other...that makes me not only feel like a terrible person, but makes me also think that I am one.  To put this in perfectly frank terms, that sucks.  In thinking that I am a worse person, I become one.  That's how thought influences actuality.

I have nothing against opinions, especially not at points like right now when I'm starting to think them to be true myself.  But damn.  Just...damn.  It's my own fault, I know.  If I didn't know, it would all be so much simpler.  Ignorance is bliss, after all.  This makes me very much believe it.  Assumption...is it better than this or is it worse?  Perhaps it gives me more to fear.  Yet even in this, I find myself wondering what I still don't know, what remains for me to fear.

Really, this leaves me no choice but to face the music, as is often said.  Here I am, trying to make sense of my goddamn life and messing it all up as I go along.  Isn't that just lovely?  No.  It's really not.  I'm sorry.  For my behavior and for the vagueness and fuzziness of this post, because I rather doubt it makes the least bit of sense.  I'm sorry.  Oh, and in case it isn't clear yet: I'm sorry.  Really.  Seriously.  Very sorry.  It'll make sense at some point, hopefully, although I doubt it's going to work once it does.  Sorry.

Brevity

This is going to be a short post. And by that I mean a very short post.  A very, very, very, very short post.  Get the idea yet?  No, actually it's not really going to be any shorter than some other ones I've posted both recently and not so recently.  But it's going to be written one hell of a lot faster because I have way too much to do in the next couple of hours to have the time to blog.

Because considering the number of things I am overwhelmed with at present...I don't know if I'm even going to finish everything I have to before I go to bed tonight, and I do in fact need to go to bed at a reasonable hour because not only am I still sick, but I also have a ridiculously busy next couple of days full of stress and a need for concentration.

So here's me hoping to finish this post in the next three minutes, and at the rate I'm going, I have a feeling that this will in fact wind up happening.  Regardless, I am exhausted, stressed out, and generally frustrated because this is not the amount of work I would like to have running on almost two weeks now of being completely and totally ill.  Okay, done filling up space now.  Good night.

Ill

I've been feeling terrible for the past week and a half now.  That's really not helping matters.  On the whole, I've been somehow able to keep my head above water.  But beyond that, I've been floundering in a mess of pain and bitterness and mostly just pain.  From colds to aches to headaches and back and forth, every single day it has been something and I'm getting rather sick of it.

So here I am, fairly late at night (not really, actually, it only feels late because I'm sick and it would be really nice to just collapse into bed right about now), realizing that I still have to post.  This here is my attempt at a post.  It is failing.  Rather miserably.  And yet somehow I am not overmuch concerned, probably because my mind is more on the coughing and the sneezing and the runny nose.

Yes, this is one of those "I don't feel well but I'm still making myself write something" posts.  I'm sorry.  But really, I have been feeling quite awful lately.  Much as I would like for it to go away, I am finding that this illness and general feeling of being unwell does not want to leave me be.  So I'm sorry.  You're stuck with my diseased ramblings for now.  Hopefully they will improve when my health does. 

Eloquence

Truth never parades out boldly to bare itself to the world.  Rather, it stumbles out and stutters over itself.  It finds itself without a voice, unable to meet the eye, incapable of coming forward.  It is fragile and tenuous, it forgets itself and turns around again and again on its way forward.  All bravery lost, every desire to make sense abandoned.  In a frenzied rush out of the mouth and into the world, truth is torn between an incomprehensible desire to escape and a vicious anguished fear of being discovered.

Real truth does not know eloquence or elegance.  Not the truth that really matters, that which really hurts and scrapes and grates.  This is the truth that is planned and anticipated and repeated in preparation for its entrance into the world.  No matter how well-rehearsed, how practiced, how carefully arranged and neatly tidied up to include only the barest necessities, it falls flat.  When it finally escapes, the tone is not as it should have been, it was said too quickly or too slowly, it may have skipped a word or three.  No matter how, the truth tumbled out and didn't quite hit the points it meant to.

Truth does not follow neat lines or smooth laws.  It grates and scrapes to the very end.  It is full of blades and agony fashioned in such a way that it could really only hurt.  The purpose of letting truth out of its cage is to heal, to improve, to make better, to fix problems and arrange the messy elements of life into something that makes sense.  But truth is cruel and it is harsh.  It has a bitter power to hurt unlike any other because there is no sugar-coating, no elegantly arranged particles to make it easier to handle.

So when truth has finally emerged in all its lethal glory, there remain no other options than to swallow it whole and see what can be done about the damage after the fact.  There are no ways to stop it from hurting.  The most beautiful of words will crumble before it and the simple, painful realities will find a way to emerge from every coating imaginable.  Truth emerges eventually, never as neatly as it was planned.  It occasionally falls to pieces, sometimes collapses into piles of rubble, and every once in a while bursts into flames, destroying everything it was meant to ameliorate.

But that is the awful game that truth must play.  From being hidden bitterly to being coughed up agonizingly. It is the one thing perhaps that is feared the most, and the one thing that is sometimes the most necessary.  Truth knows no such thing as eloquence.  It knows only the simple, harsh realities which, by its nature, it cannot hide.

Let Go

I have the odd feeling that I may have titled a post this before, even thought I really can't recall having done so.  Likewise, I don't know when I would have.  But that's precisely how I feel right now.  Like everything is fine and everything is going to be fine.  I'm not worried.  At all.  There are thoughts floating around in the back of my head at ridiculous rates, but they somehow really don't bother me at all right now.

It's really nice on certain days to just be able to sit back and not care at all.  I know it's not at all the case right now, but that's how it feels, and I'm glad.  I'm sitting on a floor, music washing over me, eating more crackers in an hour than one should reasonably consume in a week (or five), and thoroughly enjoying it.  I don't care.  Not in the oddly apathetic and confusing way that afflicted me yesterday, but in a much calmer, more satisfied manner.

This is pleasant.  It is enjoyable, and it is a nice change.  I'm in a place where I don't have to care.  The earlier parts of the day were odd.  Many of them didn't make sense.  There were odd grating tensions in certain places, strange unexpected interactions with people I hadn't expected to see at all, and then all of a sudden things suddenly started to make sense.

I don't know what happened or why or how.  I don't really care, either.  If nothing more, this here is a lesson that some things and moods come and go.  In the long run, it doesn't really matter.  Might as well make the most of it.  Yes, I'm in a good mood.  It really has been a while, hasn't it?  Oh well.  I'm not complaining.

Restless

I can't think anymore.  I don't know what the hell this is or why it doesn't make sense.  All I know is that more than anything else, I'm just frustrated and irritated and I don't know what to do about it.  No, that's not really it.  And maybe I've got it all backwards...maybe the entirety of the problem resides in the fact that I can in fact still think perfectly clearly, and that everything is entirely too transparent.

Something about life has become too easy in a sense.  I can see what is needed, sometimes even what is wanted, and I can determine entirely what I should do or could do or would do in given circumstances to make things better, or perhaps to simply make them work at all.  It's not really that it's too easy.  The thing is, it's particularly mundane, peculiarly repetitive, and ever so simply boring.  Parts of it seem almost to require no effort anymore.  At the same time that it is in a way a pleasant relief to be drifting through the universe in this familiar haze, part of me feels trapped and unable to actually act in it.

I'm here, just somehow trying to get by, because even though I'm able to make sense of it all somehow, it feels entirely unreal to sit here and not feel anything.  Because in all honesty, it's been easily more than several days since I have actually been victim to legitimate sensation, real emotion, anything beyond a dull ache and a simple clarity of mind, and an altogether too reasonable resignation to letting things be as they will.

It has been nice while I haven't been feeling quite myself, but all the same, it would be nicer to be able to make sense of it again, to be able to actually affect the way things go in my life rather than simply watching it float by and participating only through routine motions and simple rhythms.  Now that I've (hopefully) more or less slept off the worst of the pain, misery, discomfort, and whatever more may have come of it, I would like to start regaining control of it all.  That would be rather nice.  Really.

Minute Reflections

I don't have much to say.  I really haven't had much to say this week at all.  Yesterday's post was entirely fictionalized, the couple before that were entirely lacking in actual content, and I have a feeling that this one is going to turn out no better.  The fact of the matter is, it has been a downright shitty week.  I don't think there's been a single day when I've actually felt well to any extent.

The thing is, I don't feel like it's overly damaged me.  In ways, it has been absolutely horrifying and excruciating.  But what it comes down to is that I haven't really lost a significant amount of time as far as work and other things are concerned, and I've been able to enjoy people's company as well as a bit of extra sleep all the while.  In a way, I still feel largely overwhelmed by everything that I haven't been able to do in the past couple of days.  At the same time, I have a feeling it's something I can in fact deal with.

So I'm sitting here now, enjoying a bowl of vaguely spicy ramen, hoping that tomorrow will be somehow better, if only in my ability to finally actually get something done, which would already be a lovely change from the past week.  But I guess I'll figure that out tomorrow.  For now, today has not yet ended, and I will enjoy every last minute of that until I have to think about work and other things again.

Moments

In that moment, I knew.  It was then that I felt my heart break, shatter into tiny pieces, because I knew that I would never have that again.  Inside of what had once been wonderment, there was now only emptiness.  Because all that was left was that empty shell...the pieces of a broken heart reforged into a tenuous receptacle, not capable of bearing any force.

But all it was was force.  In pure emotion, there is nothing short of that power, that force, which could break the strongest of people and build kingdoms in the right hands.  What was left when that force couldn't be sustained, the only remnants were broken pieces of empty shells.  Everything had fallen away and what remained was simply that--nothing.

As quietly and suddenly as it had come and filled the soul with marvelous emotion, ceaseless energy, and eternal wonder, so it was gone, leaving in its wake a trail of destruction and emptiness.  There wasn't even any pain, just emptiness.  Because emptiness does not allow itself to feel pain, to make sense of emotion, to bring to light any sort of force.

There it sat, a broken heart, lying empty and powerless, waiting for something, anything, to come to light.

Nothing did.

So Much Adorable In One Tank

The beautiful thing about it all is that we've changed a lot in a year.  Last year, it looks to me as though we were there for each other, to help each other, to make sense of our lives and stop our stupid mistakes.  We saved each other's sorry asses when they needed saving.  We were there because we needed saving.  And we saved each other somehow.

We needed that.  I needed you.  You needed me.  Or maybe we didn't need each other but we both needed somebody, and somehow we were there, as a matter of circumstance, in the right place at the right time.  That's how we got where we are today.  That's what led us to the place we're at now.  The thing is, that's not necessarily what happens next, though.  Because the thing is, we're both getting better.  You are, I am, we are.

So maybe there will be days and weeks and maybe even months when we don't need each other, when we don't need saving.  The thing is...that's not as far off as it seems.  We already have days like that.  We both already have happy days when we don't need to be taken care of in the same way we needed to be a year ago.  The fact remains that I love you no less than I did then, and I want to spend time with you still, be it for the same or different reasons.

I read once that the best kind of love is when your want for someone is greater than your need for them.  Maybe it wasn't that way to begin with.  But it's certainly getting that way if it hasn't hit that point yet.  Because the thing is, I've figured out that I could be just fine without you, I could take care of myself because you have helped me get to that point in my life.  But that doesn't mean that I want to.  I am happier with you, whether I am taking care of you or merely enjoying your company.  And the thing is, there are always going to be things we both need help working through, although they may not come as often or as seriously as they have in the past.

I intend to be there for you, no matter what happens.  If you don't have a single sad day for the rest of your life, I will be there and enjoy your company and your happiness.  If you go through hell and back, I will be there every step of the way helping you and doing anything I can.  Whether you--or we--are hurting or not, I am still going to be there.  I still want to be with you, still want to spend time with you, no matter what.  I don't just love you because we can or have or will save each other.  I love you because I enjoy spending time with you, happy or sad or somewhere in between.  That's good enough for me.

I Wanna Hug You Like A Zebrafish

I think I'm getting sick.  If the two days of headache and the general pain weren't a giveaway, the sore throat this morning might have been a tip-off.  The cold isn't really helping anything, nor is the massive pile of work I find myself drowning under recently.  Not being able to think does not make any of this easier to deal with, and as a result, I find myself making the best of it regardless.

Zebrafish help.  To explain the title of this post, I have to explain something I ran across a couple of days ago about zebrafish.  In any case, apparently they can be depressed, or at least exhibit symptoms of depression.  And people (or animals, so it would appear) that are depressed make me want to give them hugs and make them feel better.

So I have been going around for the past two days, talking about wanting to hug zebrafish, because just about any mention of fish or animals or depression makes me think of zebrafish, and every time I think of zebrafish, I want to hug them!  As a result, I have had people offer to be replacements for zebrafish (although hopefully not depressed) and thoroughly available for hugs.

Perhaps it has been an entirely unproductive day or mostly lost in a fog of headache and pain and general fatigue.  All the same, it has been a fun day.  One spent full of conversations concerning zebrafish and hugs.  It has been nice.  And I don't seem to have very many such simple, sweet days.  But today was rather one of them.  It was a lovely change, and I'm glad it happened as it did.

Thank you to all who have made the day so enjoyable and I hope that the future is no less wonderful for all.

Ow...

Alright, I've had a splitting headache for pretty much, well, just about all of today.  It started out early in the morning and has continued through now.  As a result, I have not been in much of a mood at all to blog.  So here I am, shortly before going to bed, trying to figure out something with which to fill the space so I can get to bed sooner and make it hurt less.

Surprisingly enough, it hasn't been an entirely terrible day.  It has been difficult, certainly.  That's what happens when it feels like your head is going to fall apart.  But I've still been able to enjoy certain aspects of it and make the most of the day as a whole.  I'm not sure how that worked out or why, but then again...I'm not exactly complaining about that.

In any case, I'm going to go to bed shortly and hope that this goes away, because I still have plenty of work to do but its clear to me that it's not going to get done right now.  I think there was something else I was going to write, but I have no idea what it was anymore, so I'm not going to burden myself with that.  As a result, I am now off.  Apologies for the terrible post, but I need the rest.  Good night.

Anxiety

So I'm sitting here with my legs bouncing up and down at a ridiculous rate, wondering just what is going to happen in the future.  And part of me is still caught up in a panic.  An irrational one, I'll give it that, but something that is rather a pain to think about regardless.  Then again, at least I've calmed down from several hours ago when the panic was coupled with tears and legitimate freaking out.

But I've calmed down.  The pessimist in me was yelling that everything is going to go terribly and the world is going to fall apart and I will have 30 incurable diseases and die in horrible pain in five years.  Even though most of that has absolutely nothing to do with anything.  Regardless, I think I've finally managed to get my brain under control, the rational part has begun to reason it out and make sense of it.

And yet, no matter how calm, collected, satisfied my brain may be, it seems that my body cannot take into account.  This may in fact be screwing with me even more.  Regardless, I know that I will be fine in the end.  I know that I will be able to deal with whatever it is or isn't, I know that I will be fine.  The thing about being a neurotic is that everything becomes a point of panic.  I'm working at getting that under control.  I think I'll get there.  Eventually.

Forget

Be There

I will be there.  I promise.  When you want me to be, when you need me to be, and sometimes quite probably even when you don't.  And if you ask me how I can be so certain of this, I can only really say that I know.  I mean, I really know.  I learned sometime in the past couple of years that people mean more to me than just about anything else, sometimes even more than myself.

That's how I know.  I gave up a hell of a lot then, whether anybody was aware of it or not, and I would give up a hell of a lot more in the future.  Because people mean a lot to me.  In some cases, more than I will ever admit.  But that's how I know that I will be there, no matter what.  Maybe I can't be there in person, maybe I can't fix it, maybe I can't make the pain go away.  Regardless, I will be there in any way that I can, I will help with anything as far as it is possible.

Maybe that won't be enough.  Not enough for you, not enough for me, not enough to make it better.  But if you honestly think the possibility of that is going to stop me, you are so mistaken.  I've learned a lot about people and I've learned a lot about myself.  As a result, I've come to understand that I will always be there, no matter what does or doesn't happen.

That is one promise you can expect me to keep.  Maybe it's not necessary, maybe it's the one thing in the world that really is.  Regardless, it stands.  If you need anything, you'll know how to find me.  I will always be there to be found.

I promise.

Smile

I want to fall asleep in your arms at five in the afternoon, wrapped in your warmth and a soft blanket.  Then get up in the middle of the night and run outside in pajamas and run through the falling snow.  And when our fingers froze and our noses stung with frost, we would go in side and curl up again, holding each other and laughing about the night and the cold and the warmth and everything and nothing at all.

We'd fall asleep again in the early hours of the morning and sleep until noon.  The only thing to wake us would be the sun streaming through the cracks in the blinds, and we would open our eyes and lie together under the sheets for several hours more, just enjoying each other's presence, reveling in the warmth of a sunny morning indoors, with the cold winter leaving crystals on the windows outside.

You told me to write about things that made me smile.  It's simple really.  You make me smile.  Everything you do for me, every moment I spend with you.  All of it makes me so happy.  Certainly, there are other things in life that make me smile.  Like sunshine in the mornings and warm summer rain.  But all of those are better with you.  Everything I do, you make it better.

Things that make me smile are often simple.  They can be as simple as a smile or a pretty leaf on the ground as I'm on my way somewhere.  Sometimes the flame of a candle or a moving song can make my day.  It's not that hard to make me smile.  But you seem to have a particular knack for it.  So thank you for that.  Thank you for making me smile and giving me good reason to.

Restlessness

I'm tired.  I'm very tired.  And unlike usual, it is not from a lack of sleep.  Well, I assume that plays into it a bit too, but it's really not the primary cause.  Actually, I have spent most of the day doing next to nothing.  Or rather, being productive to an extent, but in the most boring of senses.  I've been lying around here and there, words flashing before my eyes all day.

While the rest is nice and much appreciated, I must admit, it is wearing on me.  Believe it or not, this is becoming boring.  And so, as a result, I want to curl up and sleep and not wake up for three days.  This would let me catch up on the sleep-debt and make some sense out of life and generally feel better...in all senses of the word.  But no, I know myself and I know that such rest is, alas, impossible for me.

I'm twitchy and unstable.  I want to do something, I want to move...but I have nothing to do and nowhere to go. So I lie here some more, while my body begins having issues adjusting to the temperature of my surroundings, and I wonder if I may not, in fact, have some deadly disease.  Realizing full well how unrealistic this is, my mind continues to paint vivid images of horrible maladies and most painful deaths.

Thus I remain, listlessly, only barely trying to stay awake, waiting for food to assuage the begging of my stomach for nourishment, and lazily ponder how pathetic I have truly become.  Because certainly, if I so desired, I could get up, and I could go places and I could do things.  But I know full well that I am not going to, so I once again resign myself to the oppressive warm of the room and the monotonous trickle of water, waiting for the hour after dinner to come, waiting to sleep once again and wake up another morning.

Questions

What do I write?  I make this an obligation for myself.  I force myself to sit down every day that I have access to a computer and internet and write.  I put down words that shape themselves just so and construct paragraphs to elucidate my meaning.  I throw emotions out upon the emotionless screen through the impassioned pressings of my fingers.  And more often than not, I have absolutely no idea what I want to say when I sit down before my computer for this daily ritual.

So I sit down with my hands on the keys and ask myself questions.

What can I say?
Am I going to tell a story?
Will I hide this or that?
Have I said this before?
Why do I feel like this?
Am I writing for anyone?
Did anything interesting happen?

And so on and so forth.  I try to figure out what I'm going to say and how I intend to say it.  I've mentioned before that I do not think or feel in words.  It is hard for me, thus, to put down thoughts and emotions in neat sentences and paragraphs.  But I make myself sit down and do it anyway.  In certain ways, posting on a blog is entirely an exercise in communication.  It teaches me to express the things I am not certain how to explain and enables me to lay down the inner workings of my mind in a rigid, definite construction.

In other ways, this is such a blank canvas.  It is a space for me to throw out all of my ideas.  There are many conceptions of my mind that never have touched and never will touch the pages upon pages of this blog.  That is fine by me.  The number of ideas that I have spilled out of my mind and through the keyboard is quite large in and of itself, and as such, I feel no need to put down everything in the form of a post.

Sometimes I write for others.  I write to thank them or tell them how I feel, whether they will read my writing or not.  Sometimes it is because I cannot say things and other times because it is on my mind and I want a clear record of it all for my future self.  Other times, I write for nobody.  I spew words and emotions at will, disregarding anyone who may come upon them, putting them down only to get them out of my system, only to free myself from haunting thoughts.

I have learned in over a year of blogging that some days are better than others.  Sometimes, posts are hard to write and other times they will just flow.  Through the hard times, I've made myself press onward, through the easier ones, I have allowed my fingers to tap away at will.  I have learned about myself and those around me, as well as about writing and communication.  Blogging has not made me a better writer, per se, but it has helped me come to understand any number of related and unrelated things.  Because of this, I am grateful to those who helped me make the decision to start a blog in the first place.  It has taken me to unexpected places and left a clear path for me to follow again.

Not A Good Start

This so-called break from life has not exactly started off particularly well.  On top of the fact that I am exhausted and wish I could hibernate for a week here, I am just about ready to murder something.  Especially since I left at four thirty and just got home right around nine pm.  I could have been back and happy by five, but no.  Of course not.  Because, you know, everything has to have something to make it suck.

So honestly, I really don't want to write right now.  My fingers still feel frozen, not that I was even outside for very long at all, and yet they're still too stiff for me to type properly.  I rather want to throw something very heavy through a wall and create a lovely dent, but I know altogether too well that that's not going to happen (rather unfortunately at that).

I'm sorry.  I'm not quite feeling myself right now.  We can just pretend that tonight didn't exist (yes, just about any of it from four thirty onward) and everything will be better.  I'm sorry for anything I said or did or ranted or blogged (or failed to).  It's been a rather miserable day and I'm not much in the mood to do anything except for bitch and whine.  My apologies.

Nightfall

It is almost eleven pm.  That leaves me with a little over an hour to fill up this desk and make sense of something, to write up an explanation or a description of me, the way I am, the way I feel.  I don't want to scream or shout.  "Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm."  I guess I could see that.  Considering where I was at a point yesterday and where I am now, the level of enthusiasm has dropped significantly in the space of twenty-four hours.

I'm better now.  Today had its very low points.  And it's also had a couple of high points.  It's been odd on the whole.  Nothing was excessively terrible about it at the start.  And yet it was just one of those that slowly seemed to worsen until it hurt, and even a hot shower couldn't help.  It happens sometimes.  But I've calmed down now.  Which is nice.

But now I'm in this oddly contemplative mood.  I'm sitting here sipping hot chocolate thinking about the duality of life, nature, emotions.  Of love and hate, joy and sorrow, ecstasy and agony.  It's thoroughly interesting to consider.  But anyhow, my computer has now decided that it hates me again.  So I will return to these musings later.  Good night. 

Happy

I feel better now.  Today has turned out the way I really needed it to.  Please don't worry about me.  I'm fine and happy.  I promise.  I just have moments of depression.  But I get better.  Like right now. 

Truth

What am I supposed to say?  Hell, what can I say?  Nothing.  Just simply that.  I can't put things down in words to explain them or express them in any way.  I can pretend that they don't bother me, that I don't know, that I'm alright, but who am I kidding?  Well, the rest of the world, for one thing.  I've given up on pretending that for myself, though.  In the end, I don't blog to tell pretty stories or talk about my life, I blog so that I can put down the truth and make myself understand.  Or at least try to, because I really don't understand.  I don't write things for anyone else, I write them for myself. 

People are going to read this and people are going to ask me questions, and I don't know if I can answer any of them.  Because this post isn't something I want to talk about, it's not something I'm writing for people to learn about me or for me to discuss with them.  I'm writing this for myself.  This past week has dragged me back into the past, pulled me back to last year, and it seems to keep forcing me harder and harder until I can't resist anymore.  That makes this hurt.  I've started writing longer posts again, more vague and obscure ones, more incomprehensible things that I don't want inquired after.  I'm falling back into the patterns I was in then and feeling some of the same tensions I had experienced at that time.

One year ago today (oh the irony), I wrote Regression.  And it's odd, because now, sitting here as I am, the  most fitting word to describe my condition would be one and the same.  There is so much for me to scream at the world, so many emotions I want to shout.  I'm not crying, which is perhaps progress, but I am in approximately the same mental state I was then, only for entirely different reasons.  Because despite all of this, everything that has happened around me, I still feel as though I am living a lie, as though this isn't mine, as though it's only a grand illusion I have created and really things aren't any different in my life than they were a year ago.

This isn't a post for today.  It's more appropriately a post for tomorrow.  More appropriately still, it is a post for one week from now.  This is something I should not be putting down into words, generally, but if I have to, god knows it shouldn't be today that I do.  And yet it is, here I am, typing.  And all the while, I'm thinking, this is going to be a stupid thing to post today, I should just leave it and not post it until tomorrow, or better yet, not post at all.  But that's not happening.  I know myself well enough to understand that this is in fact something I am going to finish writing, after which I will hit the "Publish Post" button and wait for the consequences to mess everything up. 

It's not that I don't care.  I care.  I care one hell of a lot about this, especially right now.  I care what happens as a result of these words, and I know it's not going to be pretty.  But hell, I'm writing more about the consequences of this post than the post itself.  I'm trying to avoid putting to words everything that I want to say.  Because I am firmly of the belief that somethings really are better off not known.  I likewise know just how much things bother me when they shouldn't and how much it hurts when I let it all affect me to that extent.  These are thoughts that have been going back and forth in my mind for a while now; this isn't anything new.  This is just me finding words suitable to match what is in my head, or approaching that, at least. 

This is me trying.  This is me attempting to work out my issues.  The problem here is that I'm doing it all in the wrong place.  I know what the outcome is going to be of writing this post, I know that the words will come out of me...and in part, I'm writing this because I want that to happen, even though I really, really don't.  This would have worked a year ago...the cryptic post that nobody would ask about, which would let me put everything down and let it go.  But now, it's going to start something and something is going to escalate and I'm afraid of where it might go.  Regardless, I'm going to write one paragraph now that will effectively be the entire purpose of this post, because the following words are all that I meant to say:

I feel as though I am in the same place I was last year.  The sensation that none of this is mine and all of it is just a lie is overpowering.  It is as though I am a temporary convenience in this game, and that ultimately, I don't matter, I mean nothing, I am worth nothing.  So yes, this does go back to self-worth issues.  But it also deals with how much anyone really cares.  And that hurts, because I find myself doubting things I hate to doubt.  Yet here I am, doubting.

That is all.  To those who wonder: it isn't as bad as it seems.  I have gotten better from last year, I have made progress and this doesn't hurt as much as it did then.  Don't take this as an indication of anger on my part or failure on yours.  It is merely my emotional instability taking advantage of me when I am most alone.  I'm deeply, sincerely sorry if this hurt in the least, it wasn't meant to.  However, it did accomplish what I had intended for it to do--I feel better now.  I put my thoughts down and so dealt with them.  I am happier than I was when I started writing this (signficantly so).  I am alright.  Everything is fine.  I promise.

Morning

I figure I might as well write right now.  I went to bed at three last night (or rather, this morning) and woke up at seven, then couldn't fall back asleep.  Since then, the one even remotely productive thing I've done has been taking a shower.  And I don't know that that counts as anything even remotely productive.  In fact, I rather doubt it does.  So I'm just going to do at least something worthwhile and write.

Why does it always have to be weekends that I wake up early and can't sleep in?  I got four hours of sleep, damn it.  I would have very much appreciated either not waking up or at the very least being able to fall back asleep.  But no, apparently I don't have that kind of luck.  So here I am, wondering how exhausted and unproductive I'm going to be today and waiting to go grab some brunch.

I've really got nothing to say, nothing to write.  I don't much have the desire to be sitting here spilling thoughts out into a box.  But I'm doing it anyway, because I should...or something like that.  I don't know.  I'm tired, I'm sorry.  I can't think particularly straight, nor can I say that I really want to at this particular moment in time.  So instead, I'm letting my fingers flow over the keyboard and put letters down that turn into words which combine into sentences as time goes by.

It's interesting how I can tell precisely what mood I'm in by the way I type.  I've had those days when I pound on the keyboard and flood the page with aggression, and then I've had those when I'll tap gently at each key, selecting the most perfect letters to most precisely express what I want to say (I haven't had many of those lately, truth be told).  And then there are days like today, where my typing is fast and fluid and I wonder why the hell it never works out like this on those days when I have things to say, when I could craft something interesting or wonderful out of my typings, why it has to be days like this when I'm throwing empty thoughts onto a page, thoughts that nobody needs to see and nobody will care about even if they do.

The thing with being tired is that my restraint of myself is lessened.  I let myself get away with saying things I otherwise wouldn't.  But I don't have much of that sort to say today anyhow, so perhaps it is a pity that of all days, today was the day when I got only four hours of sleep.  I'm really jealous of those who know how to sleep in, who are capable of going to bed at five am and waking up at one pm.  Alas, I get to deal with myself the way I am.  I hope this is a thoroughly pleasant day for anyone who reads this and all others too, of course. 

Write

Why does it hurt?  I don't know exactly what it even is anymore, but I just know that it does.  Perhaps I'm looking back too much, perhaps I'm trying to see too far forward.  But it hurts.  And I don't know what to do about it because I can't say anything about it.  I can't even write about most of it.  Winter is hard.  Winter brings me back to some of the worst times I have put myself through.

One year ago, I remember where I was.  Four days after that, I know what happens and I still have the marks to prove it.  Why would I want to prove it?  I don't know.  I doubt I would, to anyone else, at least.  But no, that may have been because of someone, but it was never, ever, ever for anyone but myself.  I'd say I've been through hell and back, but that would be a lie.  I have put myself through hell, and that would perhaps approach the truth.

This brings me back to where I was then.  Everything was different.  I was different.  I don't want to go back to that.  But somehow, inexplicably, I feel as though a part of me is being drawn.  Maybe I have spent the past few weeks barely going a day without crying over one thing or another or anything else.  But that's not it.  I haven't broken.  And I am of the sort who needs to break. 

I need to break not only to feel whole, but to be whole.  I need to know that I can still put myself back together.  I haven't done that lately.  I haven't been able to.  I haven't been afforded the opportunity.  I hate knowing that, I hate being brought back to that point in my life, I hate realizing how much I hurt then and how much it makes me want to hurt now.

From a rational perspective, I don't want to hurt.  But some irrational, incomprehensible, entirely bitter part of me needs to hurt.  So here's some news...I'm still broken.  I'm better, I have been getting better, and things have hurt less.  But I am still not whole.  There are still pieces of me that I don't know how to put together, and one of those is digging into me right now.  So right now, I need to break.  I feel like I'm trying to find a way to do it no matter how much I don't want to. 

So instead of letting myself go, instead of breaking myself because I need to and I know I can, I'm writing.  I'm frantically pressing down on keys, hoping more than anything else that I won't drive myself back to where I was then.  It feels unreal to me that I am writing this.  It's hard to believe that this is true.  I don't know how I feel this or why.  I just know that I am still broken, and I want to fix it, and I don't know how.

All I can do is take a deep breath and let it pass.  It will be alright.  Eventually. 

Her

I once wrote something titled this same way.  I wrote about her and said things that nobody else would ever know.  Indeed, to this day, nobody has yet read that page.  I doubt that anybody ever will.  I've written a few blog posts about her already, so if you know me really damn well and have particularly good intuition, you might be able to understand.  But this one isn't about her.  This post is about someone else, someone I have in fact also written a couple of posts about, but in far from the same context, expressing far from the same things.  From here forward, "her" refers to one individual, and not the one I wrote about a year and a half ago, for those to whom this makes any sense.

I am curious.  This is a commonly known fact by now, among those who are my closest friends.  One may go so far as to say that I am obsessive and creepy.  If nothing else, this compulsion toward inquiry is thoroughly well manifested in the inspiration for this blog.  I want to know her.  I want to know who she is and who she was.  Part of me would prefer the latter, to come to understand what set her aside then, why she played the role she did, how she was where she was in her life.

To an extent, I feel bad about this.  I, who from years of experience and bitterness have learned not to dwell on the past, seeking to understand it more than I do the present.  But that's not all that influences the desire to know more of her in the present.  I want to know who she is, I want to know the role she plays in this world. I want to know everything and anything about her, her thoughts, her feelings, who she is and why she is so.  

I've never so much as met her.  I've never exchanged words with her in real life or even in real time.  And the sum total of words we have exchanged at all probably numbers under a hundred.  So why is it that I want to know so badly?  Because even though I've never interacted with her directly, she has changed in so many ways the course of my life.  And anyone who has that much influence on me, directly or otherwise, is going to take up a significant portion of my mind, is going to lead me to excessive curiosity and perhaps even extraordinarily creepy mannerisms.

I wonder what I'm trying to get out of this.  Because at the same time as I am curious, I don't have anything to say to her.  I don't know that I have any more words to exchange.  I'm more curious as to what she could say of me, what she thinks of me...but that's a ridiculous curiosity and an entirely irrational desire to know.  And yet, this is how I am curious.  I am writing now because I found these thoughts running through my mind.  I wanted to put them down, to put into words what could be clearly articulated and made sense of in letters on a contrasting background.

Part of me wants her to read this.  Part of me fears that possible outcome, knowing full well the chances.  I don't know what more to say.  I don't know what I'm looking for.  I just know that this was in my mind and something compelled me to write.  So here I am, writing.  I learned a while back now that things don't always go well, in fact they often don't.  Words often mean things we don't want them to or are perceived in ways that we had hoped could be avoided.  But it happens.  And on the whole, I've learned that there are risks that have no severely negative consequences for me, that cannot break me or shatter me, that can lead to interesting things or may fizzle out and fall flat.

This is one of those.  I don't know what I hope to gain, if anything, by writing this.  I've repeated this several times already and I'm going to say it again: I don't know why I'm writing this, except that I felt compelled to, I wanted to.  So here I am, typing these thoughts out, preparing to post them and see if anything comes of this.  If something does, wonderful.  If not, I am no worse off than I was before.  This blog has always been about my true and honest thoughts.  Right now, this is it--the fragments of curiosity running through my mind and melding into words and phrases.  Enjoy, perhaps?  If not, then my apologies.

Almost

It's almost enough.  You almost got there.  You almost made it.  Almost.

"Almost is an accomplishment," they'll say, "it set you out from everyone else because you got a step further than they did."  But almost doesn't matter.  You can't take credit for almost.  Almost doesn't really mean much of anything to anyone at all.  It's nice padding, it can give a polite sense of comfort, it may be useful as emotional support.  As far as actual value though, almost carries absolutely no worth at all.

Almost means something only to those for whom it would not matter if it was almost or definitely or not quite or not even close.  Almost bears weight and significance among those for whom there is no need for such.  It impresses those who do not seek nor need to be impressed.  Where it matters, almost is worthless.  Almost does not mean a thing.

Almost is quite that--almost.  It is not enough.  It will not get you anywhere and it will not save you.  It may serve as the greatest source of progress and encouragement, or as a downright indication of absolute failure.  Which it is does not matter, for it can just as easily be either or both.  Almost enough is not enough.  It does not count.  Because where it fell short, it wouldn't have mattered if it had almost made it or if it had been off the mark by eternities.

Almost, then, is that commonplace beast that we come across so often in our search for the most elusive of creatures--accomplishment.  We spend hours of our lives searching, and all we get sometimes is this god-forsaken almost, that which allures us yet can do us no good.  Pity that, perhaps.