Hello, It's Been a While

If there is a god, I think it should be a woman.  I don't care about feminism or female empowerment or any of that.  I just want to see the reactions when people show up expecting this impressive, bearded man, only to find themselves face to face with a woman.  Wouldn't that be a riot?

Part of me really likes the idea of everyone being so wrong.  We all spend so much time arguing our opinions, trying to prove that we have it all right, that we know everything and nobody should disagree with us.  What I think humanity needs is a big lesson.  Just something to say "hey, you're all wrong; stop pretending you're always right."  I think we all need to be dead wrong about something we were so certain of.  It'd teach us a bit of humility.  Goodness knows we all needed...myself included, without a doubt.

The past two days have the phrase 'like a boy enduring his first biblical rainstorm' stuck in my head.  Props if you know where it's from.  This isn't biblical, really, but I gave up on the umbrella and have resigned myself to wandering from building to building, clutching a laptop to my chest under the trench-coat I never would have worn a year ago.

The rain is good for existential questions.  It makes everything seem so transitory and absurd.  Nobody looks up while they're walking outside anymore.  A floating castle could appear and we wouldn't even notice.  Everything around us could disappear and we'd all just stare at the sidewalks and hurry on our way without realizing it.  Everything is cold and distant; subdued and forlorn.

Words die on the wind and questions of effort are extinguished like a flame as soon as the door opens and a gust of wind carries a bucket of water indoors.  It's a restful time, a pleasant one.  We have neither time nor strength for petty arguments so we all rest, refill out depleted energy sources, rebuild the walls around our crushed and worn out souls.  It is good.

Instantaneous Derision

It's like an impulsive self-hatred.  I've always been a bit of a masochist, but it's faded lately.  Maybe because my life has changed, maybe because I myself am a different person.  Regardless, I don't loathe myself anymore.  Not in the same ways or for the same reasons.  As I said before, life goes on, things get better.  People change and all that good stuff.

The odd thing is, there are still days when I find myself driven back to angst.  And even though it doesn't characterize me as a whole anymore, I still have days when I want it to hurt.  This week has had a couple of them.  It's probably because I've been stressed and busy and not getting nearly enough sleep.  But that's okay.  I'm fine, really.  Even if it doesn't feel like that sometimes.  And no, I promise, I'm not just trying to convince myself.

When I want things to hurt, though, I always turn in one direction, even though it lands me in a slightly different place every time.  But I always focus one one point.  It's no longer relevant, really.  Sometimes I miss the days when it was.  Which is not good by any means because those things were so relevant when I was in a bad place.  It's complicated and confusing.

I don't know why I keep looking back there, trying to find more that I know isn't there.  Maybe even wishing it was, even though I know it would upset me.  I don't know why I want a piece of that back when it hurt me so much, or why it seems like a good idea (okay, no, it doesn't, but that doesn't change the fact that part of me still wants it).

I think I'm still trying to move past something, but I don't know what it is.  I don't know how to find it or get there or move past it, and that leaves me stuck, trying to come to terms with I-don't-know-what.  And, like with other things, I don't want to bring it up because I don't know what to say about it.  I'm sorry for all of the pointless nonsense on here, lately.  I don't really know what more to say.  Apologies.

Trauma

Every person responds to it differently.  Some people need to talk about it.  Others, lay it aside.  Some need to cry for weeks until they can't cry anymore.  Some need to pretend it didn't happen until it catches up to them and then they let it break them down.  And some do it differently.  The only common thing, really, is that everyone has to do it themselves.

There are pieces of my past that I have put behind me now.  I dealt with it, accepted it, moved past it.  I'm over it.  Which means that I don't want to talk about it ever again.  I feel selfish when I bring it up.  I hate the pity, the sympathy, the hushed, wordless acceptance.  So I'm not about to bring it up in conversation because it's not relevant anymore, it's not something that people need to know about me.  It's old, it's worn, and while it certainly changed the person I have become, it is no longer reflected in my personality.

But when it comes to workshops I'm required to attend on the subject, that's when I feel myself slipping back a little bit.  Because, the thing is, I know all of this.  I've been there.  I've experienced it.  And I've seen all of the statistics, read all the advice, been told everything and anything that someone in that situation could be.  I don't need this workshop.  So even if others do, that's not going to stop me from being upset about being required to go.

It brings back things I don't want to think about anymore.  I went through all of the processes of putting myself back together after the fact.  I repressed it, I dealt with it, I moved past it.  That's where I am--past it.  And that means that it's not a part of my life anymore and I really don't want it to be.  But I'm not about to explain that this is why I don't want to go to a workshop.

It's not that I can't deal with thinking about it.  I still do that occasionally.  It's really just that I don't want to get lectured on bad experiences that I have already been through.  I don't want to be told how to prevent them and what to do about them. Because for me, all of those words are hollow and empty.  None of them mean anything because I'm different than I was a few years ago, because I know not to let it happen again, not like that, not in any other way, if at all avoidable.

I don't want to talk about this.  I don't want a big conversation about my experiences and how they have affected me and why this influences my opinion of such workshops.  I just need to get it out of my system because it's festering and frustrating me right now.  I'm out of things to say.  Anything else I write will just repeat or restate the things I've already written, so I'll stop.

I know it's not all completely rational.  I know it probably doesn't make sense to most people.  But this is my thought process.  This is why I detest these things.  This is why I'm never going to want to go and why I'm always going to be cynical about it.  Because even if it doesn't really hurt anymore, it's not the sort of thing I want to go back to.  It's not at all the sort of thing I want to be lectured about.  That's all.  Sorry.

Today Has Been a Weird Kind of Day

I want to say something.  I want to know what it meant, and I want to know if maybe I read too far into it or if I projected.  Which seems entirely too likely, but I really can't read it any other way.  I read into things damn near constantly.  And I'd like to think I'm right at least some of the time.  Then again, maybe not.  Or maybe I just really, really want to know because I'm just that curious.  I guess there's no way for me to know.

It definitely feels like today has lasted at least three times as long as it actually has.  My emotions have been all over the place (not to say that this is the least bit unusual lately), and I honestly haven't felt like a day has lasted this long in quite a while.  I don't really know what to say.  I feel the need to write something, though.  And by something, I mean anything.  And by anything, I mean say things that could help.

But, to be fair, I don't know what's going on, and I know it doesn't concern me.  I don't know that I could say anything useful or that even if I could it would really help, because life is like that in that sometimes the best things you say are never going to be heard.  I don't know why certain things always bring me back into the past.  It's not at all bad.  Just strange.

Strange in that I can't do anything about it, don't know how to deal with it, don't really know where to begin thinking about it even.  And, something that should have probably gotten through to me by now, I have no reason to be thinking about it at all.  But time permits me, so I do.  I guess.  Life is odd.  That is all.

I Never Was Normal, Really...

And I don't think I ever will be.  I'm okay with that.  Happy with it, even.  I got over the desire to be normal when I was fifteen.  I think at that point it finally hit me that normalcy (normality, perhaps?) is boring.  I don't want to listen to trashy pop songs and spend my Friday nights getting so drunk that I don't remember what happened.  That lifestyle stopped being appealing to me after one very troubled summer.  It was a phase.  And, to be fair, at that point I was too young to seriously be considering that sort of lifestyle.

I like where I am right now.  I like being lost in the crowd in this place.  I like not knowing everyone I see around me, not hating people, not being afraid to interact with certain individuals.  A life in a place this big is giving me the opportunity to avoid forming bad relationships.  I don't know the vast majority of people I see on the street and that means I don't fear them even a little bit, I don't have to try avoiding them, I'm not trying to impress them.  Overall, I'm in a good place right now.  It's an odd adjustment, but I'm starting to really get comfortable here.  Something about the atmosphere is good for me.

Some things are definitely not going the way I want them to, others are a disappointment.  The thing is, I'm finding good things.  I've had unexpected surprises.  I like what I'm doing.  I'm pleasantly busy (even if it is a bit much to handle at times), I'm learning things again, I'm enjoying myself.  Some days are drags, others are full of elation.  And there's still plenty that I'm worried about, certainly, but I feel like I have it at least somewhat under control right now.

Looking back on the past couple of years, I get nostalgic.  I miss some of the people, I miss certain aspects of the environment, and I miss some of the adventure (because I haven't really had time for adventures here yet).  I want to go back and visit, though, not be part of it again.  Parts of it, especially at the end, felt like I couldn't possibly look back on it fondly, but now that I've finally distanced myself from it, started establishing myself in a new home, with new friends...I'm okay with it.  Some of the memories really were incredible.  Some were anything but.

Perhaps the best part of it all is realizing that there will be more.  There will be more wonderful memories and more terrible memories.  I'll be ecstatic and I'll be hopeful.  There's a lot in front of me.  Getting away from that past is letting me see that.  I'm not despairing anymore, and that's always a welcome change.  I still like the same music, oddly enough.  It used to be the way I could relate to it, the pain, the distress, that's what kept me listening to it even after it didn't hold the same significance as when I first started.

I listened to this music because it let me know that I wasn't alone.  That some things hurt, and some things cut you so deeply it's hard to imagine ever moving past them.  And maybe sometimes you don't.  Maybe I haven't.  But it's possible to feel better.  I still have tough days or even weeks when I don't want to get out of bed, it still follows me around sometimes.  On the whole, though, I'm happy.  Which is hard for me to believe, but undeniably true.

I still listen to the same music, though.  It still makes me feel better.  Some people tell me it's bad to dwell on  your past.  And I have to agree, that most of the time it is.  But it helps me.  Remembering the things I put myself through, the messes I pushed through, the things I got over eventually, it helps.  I like listening to the same songs because I don't feel that way anymore.  Because I like remembering where I've been and how I've become who I am.

I feel empowered today.  That's probably one of the most cheesy, overdone statements I've written here in a while, but it's true.  I feel good.  I don't want to preach, but I have to say it.  It never feels like it's going to get better when you're in the middle of it.  I know.  But it can.  It does.  When circumstances change, so does everything else.  My location changed, my life changed, and I changed, too.  I'm glad I did.

Opaque Suicide

I saw a photo with this caption (or is it a title?) today and it caught my eye.  It wasn't the best photo I have seen.  Nor the most interesting or extraordinary.  It wasn't bad.  I'll certainly give it that.  Maybe even artistic, although I say all this not looking at it any longer, so perhaps I am completely wrong in my assessment thereof.  But nothing special, nothing that would have attracted my attention if it wasn't for the words.

Some words just seem to catch my attention, I guess.  Anything related to death, certainly.  I don't know why I have this morbid fascination or where it came from or why I still think about things like this, but it's there, regardless.  And, to be fair, I find it fascinating.  I've always liked the darker things, the secret, hidden ones.  Especially the ones you're really not supposed to talk about or consider liking or even come close to thinking about.  Those are the most fascinating of all.

I lost track of my thoughts again.  I should stop doing that in the middle of posts.  I don't have much more to say.  I have too much to do and not nearly enough time.  Being sick has really made productivity more difficult.  I hope I catch up soon and get back to blogging decently well on a semi-regular basis.

I Don't Think Anyone Reads This Anymore

I mean, I still get hits.  Or something.  But I'm still writing things.  I don't know why I'm bothering, because it's not that I really need to put these things out anymore.  I'm just a little bit lonely.  I don't have people here yet who would want to read this.  Or maybe I do, but I don't think I want them to read it.  Which is all very counterintuitive and backward.

I wonder how long I can keep saying that I'm adjusting until it doesn't count anymore and I'm just an antisocial individual.  I'm bad at this.  I guess.  I don't know.  I think I'm getting sick, which might explain why I'm so tired.  I'm rambling, but can't think of anything else to say.  Maybe if I ramble more it'll get better.  I wish it worked that way, but history says otherwise.  It really doesn't seem to play out like that.

I've lost track of time again.  I think I just need to get to sleep.  I've been unusually unproductive this weekend.  That happens sometimes, though.  I never have enough free time anymore.  That's my own fault though, I presume.  Although it doesn't really feel like that.  I don't know.  I'm out for the night.  Apologies for making no sense.