Slow Days, Lonely Nights

I think that sums up my weekend as well as anything else could.  It was pleasant.  And by that I mean very, very, very pleasant.  I don't believe I've had a weekend that good since, well...the beginning of July, I'm afraid.  But I'm certainly not complaining about the quality of this weekend.  It has in fact been thoroughly enjoyable (I feel like I'm using that phrase rather often now, and I'm not entirely certain why).

But pleasant weekends are also often unproductive.  So here I sit, trying to figure out just how much work I've avoided getting done and how much I really need to start getting done, and what needs to happen in the next couple of days so that I don't drown.  It seems like I might actually come out of this alright.  I know I've very much been living weekend to weekend for a while now, but it seems like things might possibly be calming down a bit.  I hope.

In any case, it was pleasant.  I'm starting to remember what it is to be happy, which is very nice.  This weekend also calmed me down a good bit.  I've been worrying a lot lately, about all sorts of things, some of which deserved the concern, others which were certainly not relevant.  Those things seem to have lost a bit of their power over me at this point.  I'm calmer now.  I'm not an emotional wreck.  Sure, I still have ups and downs, but overall, I feel better.

I guess I caught up on sleep a bit too, although it really isn't much.  Then again, I've slowly been getting just a bit more sleep than I was before, and it seems to be helping somewhat.  In the end, I don't really know what I'm thinking.  Or maybe I do but don't know how to adequately express it right now.  If I get it later, I'll be sure to write about it then.  But in the meantime, that's all.  I know I've come out of this better than I was coming into it.  What happens from there...I guess we'll see.

Sleepy

Alright, it's late...again.  I put off blogging...again.  I guess it happens sometimes, especially in the past couple of months.  In large part, it's due to circumstances of enjoyment, so I'm not exactly complaining.  After all, I have had a few at least moderately decent posts recently, so I'm good with that.  In any case, I guess I have to now finish off this post and then do some other things.

Today was a good day, for the most part.  It had its moments of not-so-excellent mental condition, but the thing is...those evened out smoothly into other things.  Tears turned into smiles, and that's what matters in the end.  Things went fairly well.  Alright, I didn't get much work done...at all.  Well, actually, I started adding a couple of sentences to something?  But I don't think that really counts.

Anyhow, I'm extraordinarily tired tonight.  And yet, I will not go to bed like I know I should.  Instead, I will sit here watching a documentary with a close friend for the sole reason of "because I can."  This should be fairly enjoyable for the most part.  I'm just hoping I make up some of the sleep I missed over the past month or so...although that's not likely to happen.  Oh well.

Pathetic

Apologies, I think I'm back on this streak.  I don't know what to say anymore.  I don't know how to maintain conversations or how to come up with things to talk about or how to ask questions.  And while I don't mind silence, I do very much object to my own failure at talking to people.  That is frustrating to me.  Because I hate that just about every day, I sit there and don't have any clue what to say.

I am an introvert.  I haven't been much of a talker since I was fairly young.  But it has reached this point that is absolutely ridiculous.  I just don't have anything to say.  And that makes me feel pathetic.  What the hell do people talk about?  I don't even know anymore.  I don't know how to keep a conversation going or come up with something to talk about.  Maybe I'm just sick of thinking, or maybe I'm just that much of a goddamn failure at life that I can't speak.

Either way, here I am, feeling pathetic again.  Pathetic and bitter.  I wonder why I even bother trying anymore.  At this rate, it would be easier to curl up in my own abode and disappear from the rest of the world.  It's not like I have anything to contribute anyhow.  And yes, this is bitter and pessimistic and irrational and I don't give a damn right now.

Last night I realized that the only reason I didn't apply was because I was fairly certain that I wouldn't get anything anyway.  Damn.  That thing called self-confidence is entirely lacking here, and with it has gone all of my motivation to do anything at all.  So here I am, letting everything slip by, feeling too miserable to bother trying, not miserable enough to bother making a change.

Cold Silence

"Because even though it scared me - that you might be just a bit upset at what happened - I wanted you to talk to me. Even if you were mad, even if it was just an argument...I guess I wanted it more than a cold silence."

This is taken from the blog of someone I know.  I am not currently going to attribute credit because I do not know if this person wants their writing credited in so public a manner, but if the author decides to read this and would like credit, I would be more than glad to put up a link to this post and/or the blog itself.  Anyhow...on to actually writing what I was going to say.

I know how that feels.  I know altogether too well.  Because every single time that we have a disagreement, this is what goes through my mind.  This is how it goes:

one of us says something small and insignificant
the other gets hurt...neither of us knows why, and we both know it hurts
someone lashes out, it doesn't really matter who
and then it goes downhill
because we hurt each other back and forth
until both of us are broken, scarred, cracked

And then we try to fix it.  Usually I try to apologize, to make it go away before anything else falls apart.  Sometimes I don't.  Sometimes I'm too hurt and I need you to tell me that I'll be okay, I need you to be the one to apologize.  I'm sorry.  I'm sorry that sometimes I need that, that I can't always be strong and make it all work.  I'm sorry that I can't fix everything, and can't make everything whole again.

I try.  So even when I do something that I know will hurt, I find that I never mean it, because sometimes even as I'm doing it, sometimes only a bit after the fact, I realize that I don't mean it, that I would rather turn that blade against myself before it strikes.  I hate inflicting pain on others, especially you, but I still do it sometimes, and that hurts me, too.

So then the question comes up of why the hell I do that.  Why do I hurt you, hurt me, hurt us?  Because when I'm hurt, I lash out.  I need to take the hurt out somehow, and either I take it out on myself, or I take it out on the world around me.  Usually it ends up being the world around me, especially the people closest to me...namely you.

You probably already knew all of this, or at least assumed something similar to explain this, to explain part of me.  So I don't really know why I wrote this.  It was in effect a reaction to having read that phrase of my friend's blog; that's what it made me think of because no matter how upset I am with you, no matter how much it hurts, I want you to be there...I would rather you be there and dig blades into my heart with your words than that you walk away and leave me as I am.

I keep writing these posts practically as letters.   Knowing me and my trends within this blog, it is only a phase.  Just like I had a phase of writing about depression and being overloaded, and a phase of writing really late at night that consisted largely of "I'm sorry I have nothing to write about" in three paragraphs, so I am probably also in a phase of writing posts to you, not even about you, just directed straight at you...sorting out my thoughts about you, in a way that points them in your direction.

I guess this is probably better than the late-night worthless posts, or the ones about how I feel pathetic and incapable.  Right now, I'm not in a terrible mood.  I'm tired, I have a lot of work to do, and some things are not exactly as I would like them to be.  But things seem to be working pretty well with us.  It's been a [comparatively] long time since we've gotten into a major disagreement, and the small arguments we've had have passed more quickly and smoothly than they had before.

This makes me think that it's working.  That it's getting better.  That maybe, just maybe, we are getting better, bits and pieces at a time.  Maybe that's why I want this to work so badly.  This is making me better, this is giving me a reason to smile, this is keeping me together when I feel like my life is falling apart.  Someone once said they dread what happens when this ends...not just to you, but to me.  The thing is, it'll hurt, certainly...it'll hurt a lot.  But I think I'll be fine.  I think that you are helping me becomes someone who doesn't need to be with you so much as wants to be with you.

I think this is good.  I don't remember how I got from silence and hurt to being a better person and strength, but that's alright.  This is, after all, my blog.  I am allowed to ramble.  I hope this is worth something to someone, be it me or you or anybody else who happens upon it.  Enjoy.

Something Pretty

"Write about yourself."

I asked what to write about, and you said something pretty...so there you have the title of this post.  And then you said to write about myself.  Well...damn.  I'm bad at that.  But then again, isn't that what this whole blog has been?  It's been ranting and raving, cracking and breaking, laughing and crying, me.  Every last word has been about me.  Or that's what I initially thought, at least.

And then I realized that it really hasn't.  If anything, the majority of this blog has been about you.  I started writing on November 8, 2009.  It has almost been a year now, and in all honesty, it is very strange for me to think that I've written something every single day (with the exception of a couple here and there when I didn't have internet or whatnot) for almost a year.  And that most of it has been about you.

Has it really?  I'm not sure.  Some of it has been to you, plenty about you, certain things I only wrote because of one thing or another you said.  But still, most of the writing in this blog, most of the three hundred some posts...it's had something (if not everything) to do with you.  Then again, so have a number of my thoughts for the duration of this past almost-year (or admittedly, entire year, since before I even started this blog).

So what do I say about myself?  What can I say that you don't know or haven't heard or read before?  What can I tell you that you haven't yet found out for yourself?  Because in all fairness, remarkably few people read this blog (with the exception of those 39 hits from the Netherlands that one day...yeah), and most things written here are, as I've mentioned before, to or about you.  So here I'll extend an apology to all of my other readers, who keep getting all of this nonsense, some good, some bad, about this one person who is not you.  I'm sorry, hopefully there's enough here to keep you entertained (or you've learned to ignore the things I post).

I'm at a loss for what to write.  I don't know what to say about myself right now that doesn't involve you in one way or another.  Have I lost my sense of self?  Has it forgone all definition without you there to make it work?  Perhaps.  For the most part, I rather doubt it.  I will still be alright if/when you disappear.  It's merely nicer now while you haven't, if only because it gives my mind something lovely to occupy itself with.

Fixing

Ignorance is bliss, they often say.  I haven't often been a fan of that statement, although my opinions on it have in fact gone back and forth quite a bit.  Regardless, it has never had my full agreement.  It still doesn't. With one possible exception, that being my own health.  Because there are some things concerning that aspect of my life that I really would rather not know.

One such thing would just happen to be my recent investigation into the nature of sleep deprivation.  Yes, the health consequences of such endeavors as mine with regard to lack of sleep, late nights, and oddly pleasant conversations (despite the lack of coherent thought) are thoroughly horrifying.  This is in fact one of those things that I do not in the least want to know.

Unfortunately, I am now aware of these terrifying things.  Most anyone in their right mind would take this horror into account and react particularly appropriately, namely by getting more sleep, getting their sorry asses to bed early, whatever it took.  However, in part because of this sleep deprivation itself, in part because I am just that far from sane, I am not likely to do any of those things.  Even though I really should.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely certain (not the least bit certain, in all actuality) why this isn't going to happen.  But I know that it should.  I need to fix this.  Fixing my sleep is undoubtedly one of the first steps to fixing me, and that's something I've been meaning to get around to for a significant while now.  Maybe I'll wind up succeeding at some point, maybe I'll get my sleep schedule back to normal.  That would all be very nice, but at the same time, I'm going to maintain a sense of realism and come to understand that maybe I won't.

Then again, the question arises of what it is I even mean by the concept of fixing myself.  I've used that phrase more than once, fairly often, in fact, without ever having clearly defined what it means, even to me.  I'm not entirely certain what it is specifically that I'm trying to fix here.  I don't know how to exactly explain it in the least.  All I know is that I've been so much better than this--I've felt physically, mentally, and emotionally better, I've been better as a person, too.  What it comes down to is that I want to make myself better in all of those ways again.

I'm tired of drowning in pain, fear, stress, depression.  I need some way of getting above and beyond that, and I'm working on it.  I don't know that there is any sort of final measure of progress or of success.  This is all merely opinion and feeling so there's no scientific, quantitative way of making a judgment as I would most desire.  As it stands, I will have to live with things as they are, figure it out and adjust as I go, react based on things as they happen.  I'm not much good at that, I know I haven't been in a while (if I ever was), but I'm working on it.  I'm hoping that I'm slowly but steadily getting there.

Forget

Sometimes I just want to forget.  I don't want to remember.  There are days when I wish the past didn't exist...either because it hurt me or because it made me smile or because I wish it never existed or because I wish I still had now what I had then.  I don't know why this occurs to me know.  I can't think of what it is that I want to forget, or why I don't want to remember.  And yet..the gnawing is there again.  It probably has something to do with how overwhelmed I've felt on occasion recently.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are the days when I don't want to know the future.  I don't want to have to think about what happens next, or where I'm going to be in a matter of time, or anything.  I want to pretend that there will be no future, that I won't have to deal with it, that I can get away with not doing it.  I miss simplicity.  I know that it does not exist, it never has been this simple nor will it ever be.  That's frustrating to me. The sleep-deprivation has pushed me to the point of confusion, to misunderstanding, to the point where I want to disappear.

And in that way, I want to avoid even what is before me now, the present.  I don't want to realize where I am or what I'm doing in this moment.  I don't want the sensory input, I don't want the electromagnetic signals that relay thoughts and emotions in my brain.  I want it all to fade, to fall away.  Certainly, in large part that is due to the fact that I am exhausted.  It's made everything more messy and convoluted.  I can't think as clearly, and emotions are exaggerated as a result.

I want to disappear.  I don't feel bad, I'm not in a terrible mood.  I just need a break.  I'm tired and frustrated, to an extent.  I've reached the point where I don't entirely understand exactly how I feel or what's going on around me.  I wish I could write something more reasonable, I wish I could make sense of everything flying around in my mind and my life and everything else...but I can't.  I just want to fade.  To disappear.

Sleep

I credit a lot to sleep.  Or occasionally, it winds up being the lack thereof to which I attribute various things.  For example, the past couple of weeks (or maybe just days)...it feels like this has been going on for quite a while.  I haven't been able to get a decent night's sleep in rather a while.  And that has caused me to be frustrated, twitchy, nervous, frustrated, and even more depressed than usual.  Such things don't tend to end well for me.

Then again, there are also good things which I could remark upon as being the result of sufficient sleep.  Sleep sometimes has this way of fixing things.  Occasionally, tensions and emotions can run high, thoughts could stop making sense, and everything generally wind up falling apart.  It is then that sleep can sometimes help the most.  It starts everything off afresh, with a clean state and a rational train of thought.  

Sometimes, that is absolutely priceless.  The value of it is insurmountable and it can be one of the best things to happen.  Anyhow, I've been thinking a lot about sleep lately (probably as a result of not having gotten particularly much of it in a while), hence this post about sleep.  Regardless, I'm hoping to actually get a bit of that tonight or in the next week or something.  That would be nice.  Apologies for the terrible writing, but I'm too tired to make much sense.  

Mental Barriers

For the most part, I don't really have too much to say.  Today has been a fairly uneventful day.  I got some work done, but maybe not as much as I had hoped.  And yet, it wasn't bad.  At least I got something done, at least.  That's better than nothing.  It's been calm.  That's probably the biggest difference from how things have been, and it is a very nice change indeed.

I think I'm finally starting to feel like my life is getting back under some reasonable measure of control.  So certainly, everything isn't perfect...really, nothing is.  But for once, I'm okay with that.  I might finally actually be getting better.  I'm not completely fixed yet, and I know that.  There are things that constantly come up to alert me of that fact.  But I honestly think I'm really getting better.

It took a while.  It took a lot of messes and a lot of pain, and none of that is going to just disappear, because it does still come up occasionally.  Tonight was rather odd.  It was strange in that it was nice but it was bittersweet.  And I don't entirely understand it, but the things I do understand are crystal clear, and I am left confused.  Somewhere in there, my brain just hit a point past which it wouldn't move...and it's still stuck there, largely.  I'll figure it out eventually.  Either that or I won't, and it'll be fine either way, really.

One

Nights like tonight, when the rain starts to fall, begins to hit the glass of the windows and obscures the world around me, these are the nights when I miss you the most.  It terrifies me.  It scares me because this is the most honest confession I've written in a while and I don't know when I'm going to write another like it.  Maybe this is what I still need to keep this blog alive for--these few small moments when I need it to put down my thoughts, to reveal my secrets, to tell the deepest stories of my heart.  Because that's what I want to do right now.  Somewhere along the way, I learned how to admit that I was scared.  This writing, this is me admitting it.

When you hold me, the rest of the world fades.  I close my eyes and block out everything else and lose myself in your embrace because in that moment, there is nothing I would rather do.  In that moment, you are everything to me.  And when you press your body against mine, when I feel the warmth of another human being so close to me, so strong and yet so gentle, I pull myself as close as I can.  I shut out everything else until there is no you or me anymore, until it is just us.  I wait until I don't know where I start and you end, until we have become one and I have lost myself in you and nothing else matters.

I wrote a couple of months back in the private recesses of my computer where nobody else would find it, that if nothing else, this place has taught me to love, to love unconditionally.  But I was wrong.  Because I realize now what I didn't know then--that there is no such love that is unconditional.  There are always conditions.  Most often, they demand love in return, perhaps not so boldly, but always to the same effect: to be loved.  Yet that is not my condition.  It never has been, as I've always been one quite closely drawn to unrequited affection.

My condition is to be allowed to love.  So when you hold me as you do and smile, it means I am allowed to melt and to forget.  And when you need a hug, it means that I can hold you and promise you it's going to be alright.  This is where I was when you held your arms around me and asked about my thoughts.  Because I was wildly crashing, veering, falling, drowning in love, and I don't know how to explain that in these things called words.

And now, when the thunder rolled across the sky and left me staring out into the dark, I wonder where you are.  I want to know if you heard that, and if you did, did you think of me?  Did you think of me like I think of you in every moment of every day in every small action and fraction of a moment?  This is why I am afraid.  I've heard it said that there is no such thing as loving too much.  I'd like to believe that, but in the unfortunate case it is not true, I'll have to resign myself to the fact that I really do love you too much.  Because I hardly ever go a minute without thinking of you and I don't know how to live with that, especially when you're not there.

Amidst this silence that blankets the world around me, I am lost.  I'm lost in myself and I'm lost in you, but you're not here and I'm not whole.  You are everything to me.  Cliche and simple as that may be, it's how I feel.  And I'm afraid.  I can live without you, I've built myself up to be that strong, but I never want to go a day in my life without seeing you happy, without watching you smile.  So when I say that you mean everything to me, know that I really do mean everything.  That this is everything I want.  That when I'm in your arms I never want to be anywhere else.

Because of you, I've learned to really live.  If I could make you half as happy as you have made me, everything that I have given up and everything that has hurt me and everything that has broken me will have been more than worth it.  You deserve more than that, you deserve every happiness that life can give you, and I only hope I can give you any part of that.  Call this the depraved rantings of a hopeless romantic, call it the fatigued musings of a cynic led astray, but this is what I feel.  This is my thought, this is my breath, this is my love.  All of it, right here for you.

Awake

I feel rather awake right now.  I'm not entirely sure why (although I certainly have my guesses), but it's certainly not a bad thing.  At least I will be capable of working in an hour or two?  Maybe?  It would be nice.  I've got people here right now though, and it's thoroughly entertaining...but I still have work to do, lots and lots of work that I didn't get done today.

And yet...somehow, I'm not overly concerned with any of this.  I thoroughly enjoyed not working this evening.  It doesn't happen altogether too often for me.  I usually wind up either working and being bitter or avoiding work and being bitter because I needed to get work done.  So today was a rather nice change from both of those...which was certainly something I could use nowadays.

Anyhow...I've been writing this for about an hour now, I think?  Well, that's rather frustrating.  Then again, I'm thoroughly distracted by any number of things right now, most of which are fairly pleasant.  In part, I'm also busy being particularly creepy (I'm so good at that).  So I think I'm going to give up on this blogging thing for the night...apologies once again for the low quality.  I'm hoping the weekend produces something better out of my brain.

I Wish

Once again, it's been a good day.  It hasn't been excessively productive, nor have I accomplished much of anything of significance.  But it has in fact been very pleasant.  Which is a good thing.  I've been having more such days lately, and it's been rather enjoyable.  Certainly, at the end of the day, I occasionally find myself behind from where I need to be, but it's alright, it's something manageable.

So now I'm stuck somewhere other than where I would love to be.  I want to be elsewhere, in an embrace (preferable, although not requisite for my satisfaction).  I want to at least be in a state capable of working.  At the very least, there should be one benefit to all of this.  That benefit, that would be sleep.  I very much need it.  For the past week, I've slept only two thirds as much as I normally do.  And that has clearly been showing lately.

So here's the plan: tonight, I get some sleep.  Tomorrow, I get a lot of bureaucratic nonsense out of the way, then I go back to where I want to be.  Friday, that will be a long, miserable, painful day.  But then the worst of it will be over.  I'll spend the weekend catching up on sleep, getting some work done, making sense of things, just generally getting organized again.  We'll see how all of this works out.

Late Again

Well...it has apparently been an hour and forty minutes since I intended to blog tonight.  That clearly didn't happen then.  Oh well, I guess I get to write whatever I can say right now.  Which is rather frustrating, considering that once again, I'm rapidly approaching the edge of utter fatigue/exhaustion and collapse.  That's not particularly conducive to good writing last I checked.

In any case though, I've had a thoroughly enjoyable day/evening/night.  It was extremely busy, but nothing seems to have tilted extremely off balance or gone really wrong or anything of that sort, so I'm happy about that.  Things seem to be working out fairly well, in just about all respects.  That said, the one possible exception to that is sleep.

Because I haven't actually been getting much sleep lately.  Which is in fact a bit of a problem.  Especially times like right now when I feel like I just want to curl up and disappear under the covers for a month or two until I've made up for the sleep deprivation, and then reemerge ready to continue with my life.  Unfortunately, I don't get to do that.  So with that in mind, I'm going to go sleep shortly.  Good night.  Apologies for the low quality and late post.

Apologies

Alright, I'm really sorry.  I'm sorry for many things, really, some of which I still need to figure out, but that's beside the point right now.  In short, I'm very sorry for not having posted earlier (it's a long and painfully annoying story).  Likewise, I'm extremely sorry for having absolutely nothing worthwhile to post right now...I rather wish I did.

Anyhow, it's been a long and rather odd day.  My head hurts like hell and has been doing so for the majority of the past 24 hours, which is rather frustrating and significantly less than pleasant.  As a result, I can't exactly think straight and that's not working out too well for me right now.  So I'm just trying to fill up this space before midnight and hopefully collapse into bed fairly shortly.

Honestly, I don't know what happened today.  I don't know any of it.  I just know that a lot of stuff fell apart and seemed to come back together and maybe fall apart a bit again.  And somewhere in there I cried, and then I laughed, and through it all my head was pounding and I really don't know altogether too well what the hell happened.  So this is my apology for the nonsense, and a hope for something better tomorrow.

Productivity?

This weekend was a fairly good weekend.  I didn't get half as much done as I really should have.  Which is really rather frustrating.  I mean, it was a wonderful weekend and all, but it was so unproductive.  I got certain things done that needed to be done.  But other things I had hoped to accomplish have been left entirely unfinished, and that...that's frustrating.

I'm in a good mood overall.  There are still some things on my mind, some things I will have to deal with or address or take care of.  I'll be fine though, I think.  I hope, at least.  No, I'm fairly certain I will be, eventually.  It's just a matter of actually getting to that point of eventually.  That's going to take a lot of work.  I don't know how well I'll be able to do it, or what shape I'll be in when I finally get there.  I just hope I do in fact get there.

So here I am, sitting on the floor of a residence that is not my own, trying to make sense of my life in a particularly sleep-deprived state.  And it's not really making sense.  So I'm nervous and anxious and mildly afraid.  But at the same time, I feel remarkably calm.  And collected.  And controlled.  I have no idea why.  I don't know how to make sense of any of it.  Still trying, though.

Would It Help

"So it wouldn't help if I kissed you?"

Everything about me screamed no.  Every portion of me knew the answer to be no.  I knew I shouldn't.  I understood that it would hurt and it was wrong and it would be a mistake.  I thought I'd never forgive myself if I did.  More than anything else, I knew that "no" was the one word I wanted to say least of all, least of anything else.  It was the one word I didn't want to leave my mouth.

So I didn't let it.  I gave in and said "yes."  I knew it was a bad idea, and it would leave me hurt, and be something I looked back on with misery and pain.  But I said it regardless.  I said it because more than anything else, I wanted you to kiss me.  Because after you asked, I knew that there was no other answer I could possibly give.  I had to say yes.

I resigned myself, whatever semblance of self-respect and self-control I had because I needed to feel your lips on mine.  In the moment, I could think of nothing else.  And even if I wanted to, I wouldn't have.   In that moment, you were everything to me.  No matter how many times I told myself that it was the worst thing I could do, I couldn't stop myself from doing it anyway.

So I did.

Not Again

Today was a good day.  It was a really good day.  It was one of those days when it was nice to just let everything go and forget the world for a bit and make sense of something.  Or if not make sense of it, at least be alright with it for once.  And it worked pretty damn well.  Then I decided to turn my computer back on.  Of course, that's when things decided to go bad.

Why does it have to be such nonsense?  Why did it have to be today of all days?  I don't know what it is.  This just ruined my mood and everything else.  It didn't completely ruin it, but just set me on that odd edge that I thought I had finally gotten off of.  That's the most frustrating thing about it.  I just started to calm down...and then this had to happen.

I needed today to be the way it was.  And then, of course, this had to fall out of the sky and mess everything up. I'm just trying to make sense of everything, to hold my life together, to keep it all from falling apart.  This just set back everything that I had accomplished earlier in the day.  That's really frustrating to me right now.  I don't understand why it bothers me as much as it does, but it sure as hell isn't what I needed.

Even as I write this, I find myself calming down a bit.  Maybe that's what I need.  Just to write, just to put it all down and channel it out of myself.  My eyes are closed, my breathing is stilling even as I type out each word, each syllable gets put down into text on a contrasting background.  Alright, this may be not what I wanted or needed today, but it happened.  Now all I can do is deal with it.

If nothing more, this here tells me that I really am getting better.  If it's fading this quickly already.  If I'm able to set it behind me and figure out something to make the remainder of this work, I'm coming to understand that maybe after all I will be okay.  It's still a bit hard.  I still want something to make me absolutely forget.  But it's getting better.  It's not the panic and agony that's torn at me for nights on end in the past over other occurrences.

I'm glad of that.  This is far from the worst thing that could have happened to me.  I could have had much bigger incidents occur.  Hell, I have had worse things happen.  This is my deep breath.  This is my escape.  This is the night that reminds me why I still write, why I still blog, why I still bother.  I need this sometimes.  Tonight is one of those nights.

So right now, as I sit here calming myself down, coming to terms with my life at present, observing carefully where I need to make a couple of adjustments, and just letting it all slip away, I know I'll be okay.  Maybe not right now, maybe not tomorrow, but I'll come to terms with it, I'll make sense of it, I'll survive.  It will all get better.  It will.

Maybe I'm saying it, or rather thinking it and writing it only to make myself believe it.  Then so be it.  This is what I need right now.  This is how I'm fixing myself, how I'm making it work, making it better, hopefully.  Maybe I don't completely believe it, maybe it isn't really true, but I'm trying.  I'm really, honestly trying to make it all alright.  Here's hoping it will be.

Cold

As we walked, I felt your pants brush up against my leg.  That's how I knew we were in step.  That detail stood out to me above and separate from everything else.  Why are all the most beautiful stories so sad?  Why are all the saddest stories about love?  Love that never was.  Love that was forgotten.  Love that was abandoned.  Love that broke lives and shattered hearts.

Was that destined to be our story?  I didn't ask again.  I knew the answer already, I closed my lips and turned them into a smile, and when you asked what I was thinking I just kissed you.  That was how I taught myself to forget.  Sometimes you looked at me as though you understood, and I'd glance away for a second before turning my face toward yours and smiling again.

When I went to write it, I realized that it wasn't a matter of what was or what could be.  This was our story.  It was already written, played out countless times before.  Hundreds had walked this path before, thousands had breathed these troubled breaths, millions had paused and blinked to stop the tears.  So there I sat, with that emptiness sinking through my stomach, watching our story write itself before me.

Why then, did I still sit and watch with such intense fixation, even thought I knew full well how it would go?  I sat there and I watched your eyes, your face, your hands, your back through every movement because I couldn't pull my glance away.  I knew then, that one day I would forget each moment, every elegant motion, all of the hugs and kisses and tender presses of your skin against mine.

Sometimes I forget about the moment and live in the future, when I've lost everything we had, and forgot everything that was special.  Then I lose myself and forget my heartbeat and feel myself falling through your arms, and the touch of your lips on my face brings me back and I smile again.  I smile for every beautiful moment that I'll try to cherish but will inevitably forget.

This is our story.  This is what we live that I will one day struggle to not forget.  It is the same bittersweet tale of love that I was trying to avoid, but here it is, so it is written, thus it will be.  I wish it wasn't, but we know that it is.  That bitter path we didn't want to walk, yet we're still stepping ahead, knowing full well precisely how it will end.

The Perfect Crime

Today, I'm stealing a post title and in its own way, an entire post.  With that said, I'll give credit where credit is due: http://www.iwrotethisforyou.me/2010/10/perfect-crime.html

Something about that struck me.  I don't know why, or not exactly, at least.  Veins.  Veins carry blood throughout the body.  Blood.  Blood is more symbolic than literal in every way I think about it.  It carries life not because it really does provide nutrients and oxygen and sustains the physical body, but because it has come to represent what may be interpreted as the so-called essence of life.

Maybe it's the mention of opening a vein, of spilling blood.  It's releasing life.  Did I read too far into it?  Was the opening of a vein purely metaphorical and entirely unrelated to literal, physical, warm, viscous, crimson blood?  Perhaps.  Regardless, that is how I read it.  As spilling out the essence of life, releasing anything that will flow out into words.

I haven't written like that in a long time.  My writing has been devoid of that much significance, weight, meaning, emotion for...many, many months.  It's not a matter of shortage of emotion, but that in itself is confusing to me.  Where then did that emotion go?  Where did the thoughts spill out from my veins?  Or perhaps, what is left in me now?

Have I, in fact, run out of veins?
How did that happen?
What happens now?

Old Photos

So here I am, having spent the night looking through old photos of former friends who I haven't talked to in years now.  Usually, I'm pretty good at letting go of old friends and people I no longer see, but this one's different.  I'd only known her for a year.  But she was one of the first people to teach me to be a friend in the same way that I am today.

She was the first one I could talk to about serious issues, emotional concerns, and significant changes on equal footing, as though we could really understand each other rather than just listening politely.  She had more problems than me in many ways.  Her home life was troubled, her emotions about as flighty as mine are now, and her affection distributed in ways that I have since come to understand.

I didn't understand everything then.  I didn't understand most of it.  Hell, I still don't understand a fair bit, and by now most of it will have presumably changed because it has, in fact, been years since we've even spoken.  She changed me a lot.  She taught me things about life and struggle and about myself.  Maybe that's why it was so hard to let go.

I struggled to keep in touch with her long after I'd let go of others and things were starting to fall apart.  Maybe she didn't really need me.  But when she did, that meant the world to me.  It changed the way I see friendships now.  She showed me what it was to be needed, appreciated, cherished, needed.  And that has made me a different person.

I wanted then and still do now to remain close to her, to help her, to be there.  But that ship has long since sailed, and she has made that perfectly evident to me.  So yes, I am sad, and I look on those old photos with fond memories and a bittersweet smile.  But I am moving on.  I wish her all the best.  And I will still be here if she ever wants to talk.

Apathetic

The eyes flashed a dull grey.  Except they didn't really flash anything.  Because flashing implies energy.  It carries with it the concept of action and motion.  In this glance, they were entirely lacking.  A better way to convey that would be thus: the eyes maintained a rigidly flat grey coloration.  They did not focus.  They did not move.  They just were.

Minutes passed.  Hours turned into days and days stretched into weeks.  Nothing happened.  Nothing changed. The eyes remained rigidly staring, connected to optic nerves not conducting electrical signals, tied to a brain devoid of thoughts, feelings, emotions.  Empty.  The eyes that became mirrors to the world, that never again shone or expressed but merely remained.  Void.

Cold, unfeeling bitterness.  Like the first frost of winter that immobilizes a blade of grass, it had caught those eyes and held them forever.  No pain, no joy.  All expression obliterated, every characteristic of personality cast aside and destroyed.  Silent.  In wait for the end.  The end of the world.  The end of eternity.  Nothing left behind those eyes, merely the glassy fragments that once shone remained.  To wait out time itself.

Logic

The brain sometimes does not seem particularly inclined to consider this concept--logic, common sense, reason. It's much easier to throw it out the window and act purely on emotion, impulse, habit, instinct, anything but rational thought.  Maybe it is human nature, maybe a desire to get out of the metaphorical box someone never fails to bring up.

Usually, however, making such irrational decisions is foolish and does not give the best results.  Usually.  Sometimes these things work out remarkably well and the consequences that one would expect from such a decision seem to be entirely absent.  Occasionally, everything seems to just work, despite all premonitions to the contrary.

Regardless, decisions made without consideration for logic are not the best of ideas.  They create unnecessary difficulties and messes and can occasionally backfire significantly.  In other words, they can go one way or the other, they can be good or bad.  Tossing logic to the wind is a risk.  It may be a very calculated and carefully assessed risk, but it is a risk nonetheless.

Sorry, I know this post sucks.  My mind is just not into this tonight.  It's been a long day with lots of ups and downs.  Hopefully I'll write something better tomorrow?

Make Sense

Now, explain.

That always seems to be it.  Giving an answer is never enough.  There always has to be a reason, an explanation, a set of motives.  Nothing can ever go without this convoluted myriad pattern of past thoughts and deliberate decisions ultimately culminating in a simple answer.  Sometimes so simple that it is composed of a single syllable, "yes," or "no."  What explanation is to be given for that, then?  Perhaps the only reason is "because I felt like it" or "it seemed more appealing at the time."  The best decisions are not always those that are most thoroughly thought out, they are not composed of merely patience and talent.

Occasionally, it is purely a matter of luck, or an unforeseen insight or impulse.  Things don't always go the way we want them to, or the way we expect, or the way they should.  They happen.  And sometimes they just happen.  Simply and clearly, with no explanation provided.  That's where some turn to a god and ask why, and others withdraw into themselves and seek for personal flaws to explain away the inexplicable, and some merely give in to fate or destiny, where it was merely meant to happen and there was nothing that could be changed.

Nonsense.  Something can always be changed, and there is merely not always an answer or an explanation for it.  Why wasn't it changed?  Why didn't it turn out better?  The fact of the matter is, it doesn't make the least bit of a difference.  What happens happens, there's no changing it after something has already taken place.  Then all that remains is cleaning up, picking up the pieces, and figuring out a different path in a new direction.  It may be for the better, it may be for the worse.

Sometimes people have a tendency to live too much in the past, to be stuck in what happened before.  It may be the result of an inability to accept what may be viewed as the meaningless vacuum of life.  It may merely be the desire to make sense of everything, to come up with a reason for absolutely every tiny occurrence, a rationality which may very well not exist in the world.  This order which is missing from existence may be what holds people back, but in its own way, it can be used to set one free.  In that way, it is merely a matter of figuring out just how.

I'm sitting here with an ominous premonition and it bothers me.  There is no reason for it, no explanation, just this gut feeling that something's going to go wrong, going to fall apart.  Blame it on the depression, chalk it up to the paranoia, either way, it makes no sense.  Perhaps nothing is going to happen, perhaps I am merely a nervous wreck for no reason at all.  Or perhaps I have every justified reason to feel the way I do.  The one thing I've learned by now is that I can't do anything about it, so I might as well calm down and take a deep breath until I know anything for a fact.  That is what I am resigned to, then.  Deep breaths.

Time For A Real Post

I love you.
I love you too.
Isn't that enough?
Clearly not.


Is it?  Could it be?  I don't know.  I really wish it was.  I wish that love could make everything work like that one line, "love makes the world go around."  It doesn't, though.  Does it?  If it is enough though, then why does that always happen?  Why doesn't it work?

An offhand remark.  A single gesture.  One simple shrug.  Merely an improperly accented word.  And then it all goes to hell.  I hurt and you hurt and then we both hurt and it escalates from there.  If love was enough, wouldn't it not hurt that much?  Shouldn't it not cut as deeply as it does?  Every time I say it, I mean it; I trust you enough to assume the same from you.  So why does it not work?

That was harsh.  It was harsher than it should have been and I knew it then and I know it now because otherwise I wouldn't remember it as clearly and it wouldn't burn and it wouldn't have scarred.  Are we both so broken that there is no way for it to not hurt?  Or is it just ignorance?  Or egotism?  Or is it really, sincerely, positively true that love is just not enough?

Because if it's not, then I want to know what is.  If I have to resign myself to the fact that I can't keep it together sufficiently to spend the rest of my life with anyone else, then so be it.  But I want to know.  More importantly, I want to know why.  I want to understand it, to know what I need to make it work, to fix it, to stop it from breaking and taking both of us down in the process.

I'm willing to do anything (I wonder at how much that statement means by now...) to make this work.  I just need to know what I can do and how to do it.  I want the hurt to stop, I want it all to work.  If love isn't enough, then so be it, tell me what is and I'll learn.  I just don't want this to fall apart.  I don't want to mess it up.  I love you.

Damn It

I think I've titled a post this before, too.  Right now I don't care.  I don't have enough time and I have way too much work to do.  So yes, right now I'm literally just cranking out the daily post that I make myself write in order that I can return to my work.  Because this is absolutely ridiculous and I don't have the time for it but I still need to get it done.

God damn it.  I didn't ask for this.  I don't want to do this.  The idea is very interesting but would require way more time and effort than I either have or am willing to give.  It's as simple as that.  I.  Don't.  Have.  Time.  For. This.  Yeah, that sums it up rather nicely.  So I almost wish I allowed myself to post that one line as my post.  But no, I have slightly different standards for myself.

So here I am, typing this as quickly as I can so that I can get back to that absolutely overwhelming amount of work that has to be done entirely and unreasonably too soon.  I'm sorry that I don't have a decent post for today.  I've thought about it, and I've got nothing.  Right now, the panic about this work is setting in and I need to get it done.  So if you don't mind, I'll get back to it and hopefully say something worthwhile later.  Apologies.

Hurt

This hurts.  Yes, this.  Yes, again.  Only this time I'm not going to apologize.  I'm writing it here because I don't want to have a discussion of it or an analysis of my goddamn messed up emotions one more time.  It's all been covered before.  All conversation on the topic, thus, is superfluous.  Which is why this isn't a conversation but rather a blog post.  All I want is an acknowledgment of this emotion because supposedly you wanted to know (which in itself is a rant for another day).

I don't know why it bothers me as much as it does.  In part, it inevitably goes back to the fact that things seem to be reversed.  Last year I was stable, I was holding everything together, and suddenly this year I am the mess, the nonsense, the incapable, the one who can't get work done and is constantly falling behind.  That is an accurate description of me right now, is it not?  Going back through blog posts, looking at things I've said and done...it's obvious.  I can't hold myself together anymore.  I don't know why, I don't know how.  All I know is that somehow, it happened; somehow, I am now incapable of life.

So here I am, hurting over something that shouldn't hurt, shouldn't even affect me in the least.  But nope, it hurts. And I can't explain it.  Between attempting to distract myself and hoping that something changes, in a way, I'm forgetting it already.  By writing it out and putting it into words, it's not cutting into me as deeply.  In fact, I find myself struggling to write this, rapidly running out of things to say.  In a way, it's because I've said it all before and don't find it worthy of repetition.  But in another sense, it's because there's not much to express about it, and because that frustration itself is fading.

I can't really control the way I feel.  There's a rather finite limit to where willpower will get you, and things like depression, mood swings, and the influences of people will put even firmer bounds on the happiness you can achieve.  I can pretend to be happy for a good bit before I lose that ability.  But you said you don't want me to pretend.  So fine, I'm not.  Here I am, not pretending, being hurt by nothing at all, left with nothing to say, wondering why the hell I'm still here.  In every sense of that word.  Enjoy.

Agony

Have I titled a post Agony before?  I'm not sure.  I think I very well may have.  Regardless, it does not currently matter.  I really don't want to write today.  And yes, admittedly, it's not even that late.  Today is just one of those days.  And those who know me well will undoubtedly understand what I am writing here full well and why I don't want to type.

I feel terrible.  The past eight hours of my day have been nothing short of hellish, ridiculous, miserable.  What am I supposed to do on days like today?  I can barely keep my thoughts assembled for long enough to make any sense of anything.  No, scratch that.  Nothing works.  Nothing makes sense.  I give up.  I don't know anymore.  Today is just...terrible.  And that's about all I can say.

I spent three hours on my knees in front of a toilet.  I threw up five times in the space of an hour.  I was curled up in agony, almost crying.  I can deal with emotional pain, or even physical pain when I'm the one in control.  But this wasn't my doing.  I had no control over it.  And medicine wouldn't work.  That's the one thing I don't know if I can really deal with.  Am I justified in saying that today sucked?

Yet Again

Oops.  So guess who forgot to blog at a reasonable hour again today?  Yeah, that would be me.  Again.  And I keep saying that I should stop doing this, but it hasn't actually happened yet.  Well then.  I guess I'll have to do something about that.  Alas, yet again, I'm trying to pull off a post with no real thought behind it.  But I'll try to make most of this convey some meaning...

Tomorrow, I'm getting dragged away again.  Dragging me away implies a lot of metaphorical kicking and screaming.  Which is pretty accurate.  Metaphorically.  Because in actuality, I will smile, and laugh, and listen to cute stories about my dog and make appropriate soft noises to convey how charmed I am by his mannerisms and all that lovely lovely nonsense which I so dislike.

But that's what I do.  I don't exactly have a choice in the matter, so I might as well endeavor to make the process as painless as possible.  It's only a couple of days, after all.  I've survived worse.  I've been away for longer and more isolated from what has effectively become my world.  The thought of being gone for even this short a span of time is odd though.  I'm not used to it.  I've been here for over a month now with very few interruptions.  I don't want to have everything halted and be forced to restart again after a couple of days of so-called rest that is really just additional hell.

In thinking about this though, it hit me that after the end of this, it's really going to be the end.  It's going to be goodbye for good.  I'm never going to see some of these people again.  I'm going to have to go on with my life without those who have maintained it for a number of years now.  I don't know how to do that.  I don't know how to live without these people anymore, without the friends I've made or the incredible family I've encountered.  That's really hard to think about right now.

I don't know what's going to happen.  Will it be the end of that, too?  Will I attempt to cherish it on false hope regardless?  Or will I try my hardest to make it all go away, to forget that any of it ever happened?  I really hope it's not the latter option.  After a night like tonight, I don't know what I'm going to do.  It felt like a weekend.  I wasn't overloaded with work (or didn't feel like I was, at least).  It felt like it did last year--simple and close and wonderful and something I never want to leave or forget.

How am I ever supposed to just leave it all behind?  How do I walk away from something that has meant everything to me for years?  How do I let go of someone I don't want to ever live without?  Or perhaps I am most afraid of changing into someone for whom this doesn't matter.  Who doesn't care about this place and everything it has instilled in me.  Who can look back and sneer at the emotions that are so poignant now, and shrug them off as though they were nothing.

I don't know how to do this.
I am afraid.

Walk Away

Walk away, they all said.  They all told me that I shouldn't stay.  I shouldn't do it.  And I knew that.  I knew all along that I shouldn't stay and it would hurt and I would be broken.  I knew it was bad for me.  It would burn and tear and agonize.  I thought that knowing full well how much it had hurt me before, understanding thoroughly that it would scorch my heart and shatter my soul.

So I took a deep breath and stepped forward.  Yes, it hurt.  It hit me with a thousand daggers aimed straight at my core, burned with the agony of ten thousand hells and tore me entirely to bits.  Walk away, they had told me.  Walk away, the voices echoed in my head.  Walk away, the simplicity behind me insisted.  But I took another step forward and refused to look back.

If you ask me now why I did it, I can't say I know.  Maybe it was because I felt determined to prove everyone wrong, or myself right.  Perhaps I was merely in so much pain that the prospect of being torn to shreds and smashed into shards no longer bothered maybe, possibly even enticed me to an extent.  But I don't really know. All I know is that I didn't listen and went forward for myself.

They say love makes you do crazy things.  Some would say I learned that one the hard way.  Maybe I did.  Or maybe it was simple, and I just exaggerated everything, and I just hurt myself and everyone around me.  In the end, I'll never really know.  It isn't the same anymore after everything that has transpired.  It never really was since it began.

Walk away, they told me.  I daresay they were wrong.

Shaking

I should have stopped shaking by now.  As in, my fingers shouldn't still be twitching and my stomach all in knots because I can't think.  But nope, I'm still shaking.  Trembling.  Fidgeting.  And I can't calm down.  No matter that everything has passed by now and gone smoothly, I'm still shaking.  It's not stopping, either.  No matter what I try to do.

I've taken deep breaths.  I've had herbal tea.  I've reasoned it through.  I've come to terms with the consequences (or rather the lack thereof).  And in one way, I am completely, entirely, thoroughly calm.  But in every other way, my body won't let me rest and everything is twisting and coiling and shaking and hurting and it just won't stop.

I don't understand.  Or maybe I do.  I guess I realize how much this affects me, I know how I am with such things, and how I get when it gets down to anxiety and nerves.  But, well, that doesn't help.  Even the fact that it's over and doesn't matter...doesn't help.  No, even though I know the way I am, I still don't understand this.  I don't understand my reaction, I don't understand this restlessness.  More than anything else, I wish it would just go away so that I could curl up in bed and forget that anything happened and just sleep.  But that's not about to happen.  Unfortunately.

Late Night

Once again, it is far too late for me to really start writing my post for the day.  This is really bad, especially because it keeps happening again, and again, and again, and again.  I was really going to try doing this earlier today, but I got caught up with people, discussing other people, and you know...that sort of general thing, which got somewhat messy to a point.

God damn it.  I don't know what to write anymore.  It keeps happening.  And I keep writing the same thing over and over again.  It's ridiculous.  I don't want to stop blogging, but at the same time, I just really don't know what to write.  Which is frustrating.  I mean, the problem isn't even that I don't have anything to say anymore, I still have plenty to write....but I just don't have the time or the words to express it.

Part of the problem is that I'm not entirely certain what I can and can't write anymore without disrupting promises or undoing decisions or messing something up, but I don't even know what.  But whatever.  I'm almost out of time today to finish this, so I'm just going to wrap it up.  I'm sorry.  I really do need to make sense of what's going on with this blog.  I'll figure it out, though.

Well Damn

Well this sucks.  And I mean it sucks a lot.  God damn it.  This is really bad.  I mean, it's basically what I had expected it to be, but that doesn't make it any better.  But still.  God. Damn.  It.  I'm going to get no end of hell for this.  I knew that before anyway, that's basically why I had a breakdown that day...but still.  I don't want to deal with that.  Especially not now.

I'm so not in the mood to deal with this right now.  I mean, I reacted better than I would have expected, and hey, it could have been a hell of a lot worse.  But, well, damn.  I'm so sick of messing everything up.  Every...single...little...thing.  I'm so sick of this.  I don't even know why.  What the hell is it with me this year that I can't do anything at all right?

I don't even know anymore.  I give up.  No, I don't.  That's not exactly an option at present.  So I'll rephrase that statement to be exactly what it should be: I really wish I could give up.  This sure as hell isn't worth it anymore.  I feel like I'm drowning under an infinite pile of work, and it's not going to get better.  This.  Sucks.  But whatever.  I have no choice now but to deal.

Regret

I know a lot about what mistakes are, goodness knows I've made plenty.  But one thing I never came to understand was regret.  No, let me rephrase that.  I understood regret pretty well.  I did regret once.  Or perhaps it is more proper to say I thought I did.  I can't judge any longer whether I did or did not once understand that concept.

And yet, at this point, it is foreign to me.  I do not know how to regret anymore.  The way I see it, there is really nothing worth regretting.  No mistake, no consequence, no miserable outcome of a poor decision, could any longer bring me regret.  Regret is bitterness, it is living in the past, it is a mistake that I have made before.  I have lived that way before and I have lost years of my life to that foolishness.

I don't regret it, though.  I learned something from that.  I learned not to regret.  Every mistake I make, where perhaps most others would choose to regret, I don't.  I learn something from it.  Yes, it hurts.  Yes, I get depressed, miserable, upset, anything and everything.  But I don't regret it.  For some time, I kept that as a personal policy--to not regret.  But by now that has faded and I have adapted a more passive approach.

It is easier for me to not regret.  To actually regret something would take significant effort on my part, and for the sake of feeling worse, I am not willing to put forth that effort.  It's as simple as that, really.  That's just how I live my life at this point.