You met me at a very strange time in my life.

If that isn't the understatement of a lifetime...

You said that phrase and I knew I had to write something, but I wasn't sure where to take it.  But now I know.  It'll serve as my annual reflection.  I've been putting it off until pretty much the last possible moment.  It's stretching into the evening of the 31st now, so the year is almost over.  And I still don't even know what to write here.  But I guess that's something in and of itself.

2012 has been the first year in quite a while that didn't bring a big change into my life.  And I'm happy with that.  It's been a relatively calm year, a stable one.  I've known where I was and where I was going, and it was a lovely change from the turmoil of years past.  That's not to say there weren't troublesome spots and little upsets, but they were so minor next to everything else, that I really can't complain.

I don't think I've changed much.  Maybe I've become a little bit more emotionally stable, perhaps I've become more committed to my career, but that's all I can really think of.  I don't think that's a problem, though.  I'm very happy with how the year turned out, and I can only hope that the next one continues in much the same fashion.

In the next year, I'd like to take better care of myself.  That's really it.  It's not a resolution (besides, I've only ever made one of those), but it covers my hopes for the new year.

Happy New Year, if you're reading this.
May it bring you health, fortune, and joy.

I shouldn't have waited four days to write this

It's always strange.  It's so familiar, but at the same time, so distant.  It isn't part of me anymore.  It isn't in my veins, it doesn't throb like a headache in my brain.  It can still make my heart race, but...not at all in the same way.  And it's going to take a while to fully wear off, if it ever does.  Going back there is like dissecting my own body, my own mind.  The stories of my life are carved on every corner.  Memories are littered like autumn leaves around every turn.

I wish I remembered exactly what he said, but the paraphrase is this: 

"Very few people have come through here who I thought could really change academia.  But I think you're one of the ones who could."

If that isn't putting tremendous pressure on me, I don't know what could.  Even after a year and a half, when I think of the word "mentor," he's the person who comes to mind, not the individuals I work with now.  I always think carefully about his advice, because there's just something about him, about the way he seems to understand me.  

I never really thought about our similarity before, but I think he had it right when he said I'm going to have a hard time settling down.  It's like that movie we watched last year, where the woman couldn't be tamed, not even by the man she loved.  And in the end, he killed her because he couldn't trap her in a marriage.  I feel like that woman, sometimes.  As though even the career I love is going to feel like it's trapping me.  I've always felt a restlessness when approaching the end of anything, about a year before I was supposed to be moving on, I found that I was ready to.  

I always hoped that I'd grow out of it.  That once I found my place, I would relax and calm down and be satisfied with where I was.  But maybe I won't.  Maybe I'm like him in this way.  Maybe I'll need a change at least every five years.  "It's a good place for wanderers," he said.  I can't get that out of my head.  Because I'm reasonably sure he meant it from his perspective, considering a position I may be in after another decade or so, but something about it just really struck me.  Maybe there's more to it, but I haven't figured it out yet.

And as I sat there four hours later, letting the place soak in, the memories from so long ago mingled with the things he'd said that day, and I couldn't move.  The blue carpet, the strange ceiling, the couches I spent the better part of three years on, the deathly quiet and the stale air that I knew could so easily invade the soul.  I lay there for half an hour, opening myself to the waves of nostalgia, the good and the bad, allowing them to crash against me, to smother me in memories.  And when I couldn't take it anymore, I stood up and left.  

I don't think I said a proper goodbye, but by then I couldn't.  I was too full of the emotions of the place, of the words, of the people.  So I left.  And I still feel bad.  But I'll be back.  And maybe it'll be easier the next time.  I guess I'll find out.

Desecrating our Sanctuaries

The problem with being awake at 4 am and then also at 9 am is always that no matter what, the same people you talked to when you went to sleep are never around when you wake up.  And that's always bothered me.  Because the thing about 4 am is that it's a particularly kind time.  It's the sort of time I seek refuge in when I know that all is not right because it's soothing.  4 am is like cowering under the blankets when you're five years old and there are monsters--it protects you.  Even it you know it doesn't really do you any good, you feel safer.

Which means that you can say things at 4 am that you wouldn't have said otherwise.  4 am is my church.  And like most humans, I'm not particularly devout until I need something.  And that's when I seek 4 am.  What 4 am means to me is that I don't have to try to make myself presentable.  That I can cry when I need to.  That I can say horrible things or suggest implausible scenarios.  And even though I know things won't be better after a few hours of sleep, they feel better.  It's temporary relief.

Because even knowing that these thins are going to dig into me, hollow me out, make me nothing but a shell of misery the very next morning, 4 am soothes the wounds.  It makes it okay to go to bed.  It helps me fall asleep.  It's where I seek refuge.  It's numbing.  Both staying up until one should reasonably be getting up, and surviving the next day on reduced sleep.  Sometimes it's the only thing that helps.

So if you ever wonder why I keep coming back--this is why.  I come back because I have no other place to go.  Because it's my solace, my haven.  It's the only way I stay sane anymore, and it is such by virtue of being inexplicably close at hand whenever I need it to be.

I think that if I ever wanted to kill myself--really, really wanted to--then I would play Russian Roulette.  Because if the gun fired when I pulled the trigger, then that's that.  But if it didn't, if I heard the click but didn't die, well then maybe, just maybe, the feeling of that moment, that split second before I knew if I was going to live or die, maybe that would be worth it.  Maybe it would jump start everything in the way I've sat around my whole life waiting for.

But then, I know it wouldn't work that way.  And I don't see myself ever playing Russian Roulette.

Pity.

You be love and I'll be a liar

I was going to write about how much I hate you.  About how you made me want something I'll never be able to have.  How you took away my simplicity, my plainness.  How you made me want something, really really want something.  But it's been a long day.  And much as a novel can't change anything, it made me think a little bit.  Okay, more than a little bit.  And I'm still not sure how I feel about it on the whole, but such is life.  And I think I know exactly where my trepidation lies, but that's not the point of this anyway.

The point is, thank you.  Because you took away my simplicity and you made me want something.  Because I'd still be awful and arrogant and even more boring if I'd never broken the rules before I even knew the place.  So maybe I didn't really understand what I was getting into then, and maybe it's not at all how I live my life now, but it's still part of me.  And it's something I've set aside quite a bit recently (and not so recently, as well).

I know I've come to this conclusion before, but I'm coming at it from a different angle now--I need to find a different way to pursue this...this hunger, this craving, this need for excitement.  It's not that I can't have it.  I just need to find a different way to do it.  And staying up until 3 am will never help.  Neither will contemplating impossible situations (although there are some things I'll still think about, because I think there might be a hint of possibility...even if it is very small).  I have to find something new that excites me.

Okay, I've been saying that for a year now.  The question is--what do I do about it?  Well, the obvious, of course.  I look for it.  I get my ass outside every once in a while (no matter how cold it is) and do things in my free time instead of sitting around being bored or feeling sorry for myself or simply distracting myself the easy way.  But to do that, I have to have some things to do once I drag my ass out the door.  My ability to travel is limited, as is my budget.  And I do still need time to get things done, even on the weekends.

So this is my attempt at a preliminary list:

• Go for a walk (talk about taking the easy way out...but it's something I haven't done lately, so I think it's fair to include it)
• Visit places (museums, parks, small shops)
• Learn something new (how? what? where? cost? commitment?)
• Meet people? (not likely)

Okay, so that's not a terribly good list, but at least it's a start.  I should probably set up a more tangible method of keeping track of what I do or don't do, so that I actually do some of these things, because I know it would be good for me and all that.  

The biggest problem is that while it is good for me on the whole, it still lacks the adrenaline rush/excitement aspect, which is what I'm really after.  And to be fair, maybe just having plans for the weekend will be enough to satisfy the craving, but if it isn't, I'll need to figure out something else.  Regardless, I'm finally getting my lazy ass around to doing something tangible that's good for me, after meaning to for...god knows how many years.  So that makes today a good day in my book.

Hands are shaking, I can't breathe

It's like having an anxiety attack.  I'm sitting here all alone and quiet and suddenly I can't breathe.  I'm gasping for air.  Everything is happening right now.  In this instant, absolutely everything is occurring.  But I'm sitting still.  Alone.  Not moving.  And I can't breathe.  I'm sucking in air, hyperventilating  and it still feels like I'm not getting enough.  My hands are shaking from the single cup of coffee I had eight hours ago.  And it feels like I'm about to explode.

I can't be here.  This place is fucking haunted.  Everywhere I look is a ghost from the past.  I spent three hours rereading my posts from the past year here and I couldn't stop.  I've gotten approximately three pieces of big news/big plans already today and now I can't concentrate.  I was getting things done and now I can't.  I can only sit here and hyperventilate and tremble.  So here I am, a month after I last posted anything, writing again because I'm afraid that I'd lose it if I didn't.  In an earlier life, I would have gone for a run to soothe myself.  Or called a friend.  But I hate running now and I don't really use the phone much.  And besides, what would I say?

I'm trying to get over myself.  I'm really trying to turn into a functional human being and continue my life, but it's not working.  I'm dizzy and frantic and everything is spinning too quickly around me and I just want to tell it all to stop, but I know the universe wouldn't listen and everyone else would just look at me strangely, so I keep my mouth shut and try to contain my raging thoughts.

I had a dream about her last night.  I haven't even really thought about her in months, but here she is, haunting this place.  Even though she's never been here, doesn't know anything about it, even though I've never even fucking met her.  But like I said, this place is full of ghosts, and it seems she's become one of them.  And so have other people.  It's like my life flashes before me every time I'm here, and I can't spend more than an hour in silence without losing it.  The washing machine in the background sounds like a train coming to run me over.  The warm air pouring from the heating vents is poison coming to kill me.  Every word I see on my screen is a reminder of everything I've failed at, even when I haven't failed at it at all, and I don't know how to fix it.

I can't even calm myself down.  Writing isn't helping.  I can fill page after page and I won't be any less anxious, even though I'm trying.  I'm trying hard as hell.  But it won't go away.  I dread being here, I dread going back.  I can't handle this right now, or possibly ever.  And maybe it's that I'm tired and stressed and overworked, but I was okay until things started happening, and then everything spun out of control.  I want to do something reckless to calm myself, but I don't know what.  I have no creative outlet right now.  And fixing things by throwing words at a page gets harder and harder every time, it takes more and more words to get anything right.

This is my morphine, my codeine, my Vicodin.  Each time I need more and more to calm the fuck down, to make my heart stop racing, to ease the knots out of my stomach.  I don't know how to take care of myself right now, and even though I know it'll all be fixed in a few days when I get back to routine, I am drowning in myself at present.  I am out of words to say.  I don't know how to make myself better.

But there it went.  I ran out of words and calmed down again.  This is a drug.  I write enough to push whatever emotion I'm feeling just far enough out of me, and then I'm okay.  It's a coping mechanism.  I'm sorry to fill the space with such worthless rambling, but sometimes I just need it.  Here most of all.

The Ghost of You

I had a dream last night about someone I haven't thought about in a very long time.  Not really, anyway.  There's a stock paragraph that I always repeat when I'm talking about this person.  How I wish I'd met him a year later, or how I wish we still talked. But I haven't thought about him in a very, very long time.  The only thinking I have done about him in the past three years has amounted to a brief remembrance and a fantastic rush of nostalgia that overwhelms me too much to think further.

But that dream was strange.  It took me so thoroughly out of the present, and separated itself so distinctly from the past.  And it's weird, because the most accurate thing I could say would be that I miss him, but I know that in reality, I don't miss him at all.  I don't even miss what he represents.  I think that what this dream is really telling me is that I miss meeting new people.  I miss the adventures that you have when you're never quite sure what's going to happen, what someone is going to do.

And I do.  I do miss that.  Maybe that's why I'm clinging to desperately to these ideas of getting to know someone, of having strange conversations.  Maybe it's why I keep staying up later, in the hopes that something falls away at that time of the morning and someone new lets me in.  But it's not likely to happen.  It's simply not how life is shaping up.  Or rather, it's not how I am shaping my life up to be.  And that makes me sad in some ways.

The only reason I ever think back fondly on those years of my life is that I messed up.  I let myself mess up.  I took many chances, and I fell flat on my face many, many times, and I broke things.  I broke glass bottles and I broke hearts and most importantly I broke myself.  I let myself live wildly and recklessly.  And I think that it was the absolute best time of my life that I could have picked to do that.

But now that it's over, it sometimes makes me sad.  Fairly often, actually.  Because I think back on the unbelievable things that happened and I realize that I have to grow up.  I have to move past them, even though they were brilliant and foolish, terrifying and beautiful.  I need to learn to leave that part of my life in the past, but I have not yet figured out just how to do that quite yet.

So I have these dreams.  About these people I will never see again.  And all of the things that could have happened but didn't.  And never will.  And that is my choice.  But it still makes me a little bit sad.

Smile tonight in this sacred light

I wanted to ask last night.  By last night I mean at almost five in the morning today. Okay, technically yesterday.  Whatever.  The day doesn't matter, and I think there's no question about that.  I asked something, because I wanted to know if you were purposely avoiding the topic or if it was just slipping your mind for one reason or another.  And you didn't exactly take it anywhere, so I'm left to assume that it's intentional, one way or another.

I don't know how much you do or don't think about it.  But I think about it often.  I think I will continue to do so for quite a while.  What baffles me is that I don't know your thoughts on the subject.  I don't know if you care or if you don't.  I don't even know if you think about it anymore.  Or if you ever really did.  I hate not being able to know your thoughts.  And I'm too restrained to ever ask.  If I couldn't do it at four in the morning, I certainly can't do it at a time when I'm more awake.

Yes, there are people on that list.  On any list you ask about, most likely.  If I say "not really," it probably means I at least have an idea in mind.  If I really don't know, I'll just say "no," outright, or I'll point out that it really isn't anything I've spent much time thinking about.  It's funny that this is what drives me back here after over a month, when it's surprisingly close to the thing that started me writing in the first place.

On that note, I know I've fallen off the face of the earth lately.  I've been busy.  Which I know has never been an acceptable excuse before, but it's the only one I've got.  Largely, I ran out of things to write.  All of my problems have been work-related or caused by my extreme workload, which isn't really worth blogging about. I blog about things that make me think or cause me distress in my personal life, and I've simply been too busy (or too stable, but we all know that's not possible) for any of that to be going on.  

So I'm sorry.  I'm sorry I've been gone for so long, in case anyone cares.  I'm sorry I've been awful about keeping in touch with anyone and everyone.  I'm sorry this post is so bad.  I'm sorry I'm so bad at keeping my life in order.  And I'm sorry I can't get certain things out of my head.  So there's that.

I know a little sin to which we can aspire

I'm starting to accept that I'm broken in some irreparable ways.

There are things wrong with me that I don't think can ever be fixed.  And while they don't affect particularly many small moments, the moments they do affect add up.  There's a reason I have trouble accepting when people find a certain kind of happiness.  And it's because I'm becoming increasingly certain that it isn't a happiness that I will ever have.

Sitting here now and thinking about it, I'm not sad.  If anything, I'm nostalgic.  I want to go back to before everything got this fucked up and set it all up better.  Change some things.  I want to scream at my younger self to make better decisions, to savor the small moments, to not let everything lose it's significance so quickly.  Because everything meant so much then.  Until it didn't mean anything at all.  And now I have trouble finding meaning.

I can't get comfortable.  I toss and turn in life like an insomniac tosses and turns under the covers.  I keep trying to adjust something so that it works out okay.  So that I can enjoy certain things, or want certain things.  But it never works.  And at the end of the day, I'm stuck sitting here realizing that I don't think this is something that can ever be changed.  I don't think this is something that can be fixed.  I think that no matter how hard anyone tries, this part of me will never be whole again.

Right now, I'm learning to live with that.  Because having spent a few years hoping that it would all go away and get fixed somehow hasn't gotten me anywhere.  So I'm trying to come to terms with it.  I'm trying to get over the resentment and jealousy.  I'm trying to be okay with the things I'll never be able to enjoy.  Which, just so you know, really isn't any fun.  But I'm getting there.  I hope.

The last fight was fixed from the start

I've been gone for a while, I know.  I've been busy.  Like I said, life came and picked me up and swept me on my way, so here I am.  In a different place, at a different time, a different person.  Except that I'm not.  Not really.  Nothing feels different except that dull ache.  But that was there before.  That's been growing for some time now.  It's just more prominent right now, and I either can't make it go away, or I don't want it to.

So perhaps there is some reason to doubt.  There's certainly no more certainty here.  I can't tell if I'm okay or if I'm not.  I don't know if I'm happy or sad most of the time.  I am not even capable of determining if my mood is constantly mediocre or if it fluctuates constantly and unpredictably.  I honestly don't know.  Which is weird, but seems to calm me somehow.

I can't shake this feeling.  And I think I know the source, but unfortunately that doesn't give me anything to do that will fix it.  It's like there are too many conflicting emotions at once.  Everything is this jumbled mess and I don't know what to do about it.  I have nowhere to start, so I haven't done anything about it. I've simply been ignoring the mess inside of me and focusing on making everything else as neat and clean as I can.

I've been working.  I've been reading.  I've been spending time with people and talking and laughing and generally keeping myself busy in just about any way I can.  So the few minutes I have to sit down like this and think, a wave of everything washes over me and I don't know what to do.

If you're reading this, stop worrying.  I'm fine.  Really.  I know it probably doesn't sound like it, but that's the point of this blog.  Here, I don't have to sound fine.  I can put down all of the things that aren't okay, so that I can go back to being a functional human being.  But really, don't worry about me.  I have everything under control, even if I don't understand everything that's going on with me.

Shell

I spend my days now drowning in music and making promises to myself I know I can't keep.  I can count my ribs when I look in the mirror without even trying now.  At one point, I think I would have been proud.  Now, I'm just indifferent.  It feels like I've aged a few years in the past two weeks.  But that's not exactly unusual anymore.

Life has decided that it no longer favors me.  Which is fine, I guess.  I've had a good year.  I'm just not looking forward to a bad one.  With age for me has come the realization that the rest of my life will be spent cleaning up the messes and picking up the pieces.  I never thought my life would amount to anything extraordinary, but I always hoped I'd escape the mundane.

It seems, though, that the mundane is inescapable.  That it is omnipresent.  That it is precisely what I am doomed to spend the rest of my life tending.  Perhaps this is the price I pay for having had extravagant dreams.  Or perhaps it is simply the price of failure in everything else.

I'm getting an awful lot of advice for someone who doesn't really like it altogether that much.  And it's all the same as it was two years ago.  Except it's more pointed, more insistent.  So here I am, the stereotypical idiot not taking it.  It's not even that I don't know what's good advice.  I just don't want to take it.  And I'm not sure if it's because I feel strongly against it or if I simply don't care anymore.

Lying on a sofa all day thinking about things I can't change and things that tear me to pieces is easier than resuming my life.  It is easier to lose myself in hopelessness than to bring my life around.  I'll be forced to my feet in a few days anyway.  I lose nothing now by allowing myself to slowly fade away.

The best of me has come and gone and all that's left is this shell of a human picking up the pieces.  I don't think there's anything left inside.

I'll Never Learn...

You'd think I'd know by now that I should never go back and reread old things when I'm in this mood.  In any mood, really, because no matter where I start out, these things always put me into this emotional state, no exceptions.  I do know though, but that never seems to stop me.  When I'm in this mood it seems, it's hard to stop me doing anything...if I ever get started.  Unfortunately, it's entirely too easy to get me started reading these things.

Some years ago, I promised myself I'd never again live in the past.  I said I'd move forward with my life and never dwell on what happened.  And it's funny because I think of that promise to myself every few months and I'm never sure what to think.  I obviously haven't kept it.  I've tried again and again, but I always come back to the past.  I can't escape it.  Which is a perfectly reasonable phrase, until it means what it does here--I can't stop reading things from years ago, I can't change the person it made me become.

I don't regret.  In a way, it's another policy I made for myself.  But also, it's a reflection of the fact that everything that's happened in my life has put me precisely where I am today.  I generally find myself in a pretty damn good place, even if it doesn't seem like it, so I really can't want to change anything.  But if there's nothing that I regret, then why can't I move forward?  What keeps drawing me back to the dark sanctuary of a few years back?

Small Fortunes

Wisdom is determined by experience, not just by age.

A fortune cookie I happened to break open somewhere around seven years ago said that.  It's the one fortune that stuck with me, despite the extensive collection of fortune cookie slips in my wallet.

I was an arrogant child.  And an arrogant teenager.  Hell, I'm still arrogant, but hopefully significantly less so.  I always thought that I was special, unique, that I was in every way more experienced than anyone around me.  To a point I know that it's adolescent egocentrism.  But it goes beyond that.  I thought that everyone was beneath me.  It's thoroughly embarrassing by now, but that's the sort of person I was at the time.

Looking back on that child, I sometimes wonder how the hell I ended up here.  I think I have a pretty good idea of what (or who, as the case may be) finally knocked me off that high horse, thoroughly unintentionally, but I'm glad it happened.  I think I acquired more wisdom in discarding this ridiculous notion that I know everything than I ever could have walled in by pride as much as I was.

It's odd for me to think of the things I've been through.  I like scars.  They tell stories.  I like the record of the past that they convey.  And sometimes I feel like I'm supposed to teach the lessons I've learned.  In less than a week, I will be faced with someone who has never done this before, who is probably hoping that I'll be helpful and insightful.  But I've never been good at teaching.  I learned everything from my own mistakes, and even though I'm not sure I should be, I'm proud of it.

I'm proud that I could fall so far down and break so many things but still come out okay in the end.  Because I am okay.  Even if I don't believe it sometimes.  But I can't explain how I got here.  I can't explain the things I've learned because they're not things you can put into words.  You can try, but you'll never really get it.  The things you learn by living you don't explain or pass on, they're things you feel.

Life is preparation.  Every piece is preparing us for the next.  Every failure and every success is molding and shaping you to face the next challenge.  And it's different for everyone.  I can no more teach someone to live their life than I could teach my dog to eat with a knife and fork.  All of the wisdom that I have accumulated is my wisdom, and I don't say that to be selfish.  But everything I have learned and become applies only to me.  Every lesson in my life was specific to the person I am and the specific circumstances I was in.

I used to think I'd grow up to write a memoir.  To explain my successes and failures, to outline how I dealt with life, so that perhaps someone who read it could learn from me.  I always enjoyed reading memoirs, so this occurred to me as a logical next step, even if it wasn't a bestseller, even if it never got published by any big company.  I felt that it had to be written.  But I'm starting to understand that it doesn't.  Because to anyone else, my life is a story.  Perhaps in some places it intersects with theirs, but for the rest, it doesn't matter if it's just fact or really convincing fiction.

My "secrets" of success are nothing to anyone else, because they only apply to me.  My triumphs and crushing defeats bring lessons only to me for having lived through them, fought against them, and looked back on them.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't want to let people down by giving faulty advice.  By saying things that might have helped me but could very well do more harm than good for anyone else.  And I'm not sure why that bothers me right now, but it's been gently nagging for some time, and I think it needed to be said.

Don't shake the hands of fate

I don't want to stop writing.  There are all of these ideas bouncing around my brain, all of these thoughts and ideas coming together and falling apart like water molecules transitioning between the liquid and solid state.  Somewhere between writing and reading, my mood shattered.  Everything that had been so fixed and crystallized only moments before fell to pieces.

And I walked out of the shards of glass and blinked in the bright sunlight.  I don't know what it was or how it happened, but I went from one extreme to the other...in a favorable direction for once.  And now I can't stop thinking about things to put down.  Phrases that sound nice.  Sentences that seem to convey meaning.  Sentiments that would do wonders in a memoir.

I read Palahniuk's collection of non-fiction stories over the course of the past few days.  That might very well be what sparked this need to keep writing.  Some things he said though really rang a bell.  I won't go back to find the specific quote, but he mentioned that life is never laughable when you're living it, that it can be downright unbearable.  And in this way, going back and writing about it makes it bearable...interesting, even.  At another point, he mentioned that Fight Club was a smattering of his life and the lives of his friends, that it was a lot of nonfiction tied together with strings of make-believe to make it all flow.

That struck me.  Because I've spent a lot of my free time lately (since I'm so unaccustomed to it) thinking about my life, and it doesn't seem like much of anything special.  I'm not much of a story-teller on the whole.  But I can find things even in my boring, ordinary life that can be put together into something people marvel at and laugh at.  I forget that this is what happens when getting to know new friends.  The stories of my adventures between the ages of fifteen and eighteen have been my go-to icebreakers for introducing myself in a more meaningful way to people who are in the process of becoming friends for quite some time.

There's something about this location that isn't good for me.  Maybe it's the slightly increased air pollution, or the harder water.  I generally think it's mostly a matter of the environment bringing back unfavorable memories from nights spent plastered against this very wall, clinging to this pillow and trying to muffle my crying so as not to wake anyone at 2 am.  That was a very specific example, but there are many like it, from everywhere in the vicinity, and it feels like every time I come back, there's something that brings all of these negative emotions out in me again.

I don't think there really was a point to this.  But I want to write.  I want to keep putting these pieces down.  I'm out for the moment, or my fingers grow tired (don't they always, though), and I have other things to do.  So perhaps I will come back.  Perhaps this mood will breathe some much-needed life that's been missing for quite some time into this blog.  I doubt it, unfortunately, but we will see.

And you will ruin me just as surely as everyone who came before.

You write for an audience, I write to get away

I hate compartmentalization.  I'm good at it, which I think is the root of the problem.  Because if I wasn't, there's no way it could bother me so damn much.  But as a result of my unholy successes with the thing, I can't do certain things anymore, no matter how much I want to.

For instance, it takes every bit of willpower I have to sit down and write, even here.  It never flows, always feels completely forced, and I haven't been happy with anything I've written in a very long time now.  I can't run.  The thought of putting on athletic clothing and walking out the door to run disgusts me.  And to think I used to love doing both of those things so much.  But it seems that my compartmentalized mind has decided that they belong in the past, permanently attached to points in my life that they are particularly closely associated with.

Is my entire life going to slip away like this?  Where I can't do one thing or another because it is so closely associated with a past environment, a past set of circumstances or habits?  It's only become this pronounced fairly recently.  It may have affected my behavior before as well, but never like this.  Now there are just things I can't bring myself to do, even if it seems like it may be a good idea.

To be fair, locking things away got me through quite a few messes.  Cryptic writing was enough of an outlet to keep me sane and that was well and good.  But it has also started to mean the loss of things I know for a fact I once enjoyed.

--seemingly random change of topic--

It's funny that writing was presumably created to communicate.  It was made so that people could spread information, not so that they could hide it.  And yet the predominant use it has seen beneath my fingertips has been precisely that: hiding life, hiding emotion, hiding whatever was going through my brain at the time.  Because let's be perfectly honest, though I write informatively as part of my profession, the vast majority of the writing I do has been for me and me alone.

Sometimes it's been for you, to you, about you.  Or other people occasionally.  But it was rarely if ever meant to be read.  Would I appreciate feedback on my ideas, my writing, my topic choices?  Sure, of course I would, it would be good for me.  But that was never the primary purpose.  Unlike you who wrote to get ideas out, to get them to people because either they came at the wrong time or they couldn't be said, I always wrote to escape.  I wrote to keep myself sane.  I wrote to put just enough of the hurt outside of me so that I could function.

And I'm not sure how well I'm doing with the sanity anymore.  Maybe I'm not sane because I don't write, or maybe I don't write because I am finally sane.  It's an incredibly fine line to be drawn between sanity and lack thereof, so I don't feel as though I am at all qualified to make that judgment about myself.  I'm not sure what story my writing tells anymore because it isn't meant to tell anyone else a story.  Only me.  The beautiful thing there is that a single phrase will often tell me exactly what I was thinking, what I was worried about, without giving anyone else the slightest inkling of an idea.

I'm sorry I made this record public.  I know it's worthless to anyone else to read.  But it had to go somewhere.  No reason for it not to go everywhere.

Drowning

Have you ever been in a sea of people and found yourself drowning?  Sitting in a crowded room, surrounded by people laughing and talking and having a good time, and found yourself falling through the cracks, losing yourself in the midst of the people?

It's like the world is rushing around you, and everyone is moving forward with their lives, doing great and wonderful things, and you're the island in the middle.  That small, unmoving piece of land that has nowhere to go.  You're rooted in your disconnect from other people.  Stranded in your isolation.

And it is worst, perhaps, when you know precisely why you can't become one with the water and rush alongside the rest of the world.  I've heard it said that it takes courage to stay true to yourself.  Or something equally sappy.  But the thing is, it doesn't take courage at all.  It takes stubbornness, it takes arrogance, and sometimes it even takes an awful lot of pride.  But definitely not courage.

Social isolation, and I think I can speak from quite a bit of experience here, is not always the miserable reality that people make it out to be.  It doesn't always consist of wishing you could be like everyone else.  It certainly doesn't involve wanting to be liked by the people who meander around you every single day.  What it does involve, however, is a lot of solitude.  And with solitude come two things: reflection and destruction.  Or maybe that's just how it always was for me.  Because after a while, there's nothing more to reflect on, and because there's nothing to be created, the only choice is to destroy everything and anything.

But one thing said about isolation is definitely true.  The loneliness.  Because even the most self-sufficient individuals find themselves wanting company sometimes.  And past a certain stage, this loneliness is not a loneliness of wanting to be accepted, but a loneliness of not having people that one can accept.

I used to find my upbringing wanting, because the values I was raised with are so atypical for this country.  But with time, I learned to accept it, and even be thankful for it.  I was never taught to seek approval, to alter myself to make a good impression.  I was raised to do things for myself, to not allow myself to be changed for other people's benefits unless it was also in my best interest.  And that is largely how I wound up on the outskirts of standard social groups.

I do not have (and never have had) opinions on designer clothing or popular sporting events.  I do not attend events that I am not interested in or partake in activities that bother me simply for the sake of being accepted.  So here I am, a lonely island in the midst of this society.  And I do not find myself wanting to be like the people who surround me, but I only wish that there were more people who I could connect with.  Who weren't so shallow as to be defined by the opinions of others.

This has been, of course, a terribly selfish post, but this is where my thoughts are lately.  This is where my solitary reflections lead me to.  I do hope that I will meet more interesting people in the near future, though.

Like I said

It's a twisted game with cruel rules and crueler consequences.  Perhaps it's better, then, that my self-control has improved.  Or perhaps it will just bite me in the end.

Not that it matters.

Alive for the First Time

Remember that the best relationship is one where your love for each other is greater than your need for each other.

This quote has floated around the internet repeatedly, and as such it's difficult for me to find a source to attribute it to.  Forgive me, and let me know if you know the source, I will add it immediately.

In any case, moving forward with the point of this post.  Every relationship I've been in, I spent some time thinking about this quote, because of all the various quotes on the subject of love (believe me, I used to collect them), this one always rang the most true to me.  It simply makes sense.  If a relationship is primarily taken up by need, then there is a constant push-pull between the partners, a delicate balance.  If, however, love, rather than need, is more dominant in the relationship, there is less tension.  There are fewer "I need you right now, please," "I can't, I'm busy" moments.  Or at least, that's what makes sense to me.  I can't say much from experience.  Or rather, I'd prefer not to try to generalize it.

For the past two years, since I've been in this particular relationship, I've spent a lot of time thinking about this concept of need vs. love in a relationship.  Interestingly enough, unlike all of my past relationships, this relationship, for me at least, began more out of need than out of love.  There was plenty of both (which could explain the intense emotional tension of that part of my life), but I needed it.  I needed things to work in one way or another.  And my selfishness, my neediness, is the only reason this relationship started the way it did.

So every time I went back to think about that quote, there was always some doubt.  I was never sure which was dominant: need or love?  Our lives have become so intertwined that it's difficult to pick out our purely pleasant, affectionate interactions from our supportive, necessary ones.  In light of this, it seems my brain has recently taken to ignoring this thought entirely.  I had no answer for the longest time, so I didn't think much about it.

But I have an answer, finally.  I realized something today.  I can do this on my own.  I don't need all of this.  Which is precisely the reason it's so wonderful.  I've finally come to terms with my own independence, and that answers for me the question of which is the dominant force in this relationship (from my perspective, anyway).  And that makes me very happy.  It also gives me one less thing to be completely and utterly confused about.  Which is good.

On the Meaninglessness of Marriage

This could equally well be titled Late-night Ramblings of a Disenchanted Young Adult but isn't, mostly because the title I selected is more to the point.

Marriage is not something I have written about extensively before, particularly not here.  This is mostly due to the fact that in the past three or so years, since I've been writing here, my thoughts on the subject have never been rigid enough to put into words.  But they've finally solidified.  Or perhaps it simply seems that way because it's rather late at night.

Marriage means nothing today.  Growing up, it represented in my mind a commitment as permanent as the individuals making it.  It was forever.  It signified selecting someone to spend your life with.  Someone to share the most intimate portions of yourself with.  Someone to grow with.  And it was something that I spent a large portion of my childhood looking forward to.

But something changed.  And I'd love to say that this is a realization that came with age, but it didn't.  It hit me out of the blue today.  And that is that marriage is meaningless.  It doesn't mean anything anymore.  I don't mean that divorce is not frowned upon as much as it once was, and I don't mean that same-sex marriage is infringing on the sanctity of it or anything (for the record, I don't have any problem with same-sex marriage).  I simply mean that who you live with doesn't matter.  A modern-day marriage is an agreement to be roommates with someone.

I think that in this age of technology we have forgotten how to forge intimate connections with those around us.  We are more comfortable with confrontations over the internet.  We text.  We Skype.  We IM.  We hardly ever send full-length emails anymore, not to mention letters.  We don't go for walks or sit down to have conversations.  We are so preoccupied with the people we know on the internet, that we no longer really bother with the people around us.  And that is precisely why marriage doesn't matter.  Because no matter who you choose to live with for the rest of your life, your most important conversations will still take place over the internet.  The things you will look forward to most will all be associated with what someone texted you or put online somewhere.

We are worse at communicating with those in close proximity because we feel no need to use the internet to communicate with them, but we are so fucking absorbed in the world of our electronic devices that we forget to interact with them in meaningful ways.  So the most meaningful relationship isn't going to be a marriage.  It's going to be a long-distance friendship, possibly with someone you have never met.  We are all busy falling in love with the things that people on the internet say, whether we know them or not.

And as we become more and more absorbed in our technologies, as we have internet everywhere and the capability to text wherever and whenever we want, we are going to forget about the people around us unless they follow us into these online worlds we are creating.  Spending your life with someone will mean living in the same house, possibly having children.  No more, no less.  At this rate, it will never be a meaningful relationship, because we are too busy burying ourselves in the internet to notice anything going on in the real world.  And maybe I'm the only one who sees it this way, but I don't like it.  At all.

Anger without Enthusiasm

Am I angry?  No.  Not really.  Not usually.  I'm disappointed, mostly.  Disappointed with myself.  Because maybe everyone was right.  And maybe I deserve better.

But I was right too.  If I deserve better, then it's my own fault.  Because I'm the reason for all of this.  I'm the one letting myself down.  Just as I always have been.

I've done everything in this life that I've promised I wouldn't.  I've let other people do things to me that I said I never would allow.  I've put myself in this corner and now I'm wondering why I can't go anywhere because there really isn't a way back.  It's not as simple as just turning around because you can't undo the past.  Trust me, I've tried.

I would start this paragraph with a dramatic statement.  "I am at a crossroad" comes to mind.  Except that's not the case.  No more than usual.  We are all at crossroads every day, every minute of our lives.  We just don't notice it.  And that's what got me where I am.  I saw a boulder in the path and I turned aside because it made sense to.  And I did it again and again and again until I found myself here, with nowhere left to go.  Because this is it.  There is no way up.  There is only down.  Far, far down.

I've spent my entire life walking away from fights, trying to tone down confrontations.  And in the end I gave.  I gave a little here and a little there, and I compromised some, and then I did it again, until there was nothing left to give and I'd compromised the entirety of myself.  I spent so much time trying to avoid conflict that I turned into one perpetual conflict, myself.

I'm trying to work and all I can think is, "there is no way to go but down."  Is this what a midlife crisis feels like?  Because I'm standing at the edge and staring down into the abyss and there is nowhere to go.  And I know I should have seen it coming, and I know that it was bound to happen eventually, but it's never quite the same.  So even though I know one day it will be over, I'll still feel very different on that day than I do now.

There will be an end.  One day, this will all be over.  And I don't know when, and I don't know how, and I don't know why.  But I know.  I really know.  I am absolutely certain.  And now it finally feels a little bit real.

Silence

Do you ever wonder why we don't talk about it?  I doubt it.  But that's okay, because that would require actually thinking about it.  And I just can't.  By which I mean I can, but only in the odd, brooding way in which my mind considers such things.  And I don't know that I want to talk about it.

I just want you to say something.  Or I want something to happen.  But you've heard everything I have to say on the subject.  So I'll never bring it up.  And I'll avoid pointing conversations in that direction, and it's not because I'm afraid or uncomfortable, but just because it never goes anywhere and I don't think it ever will.

So don't ask.  Do everyone a favor and just don't ask.  It doesn't matter.  It never will, whether I want it to or not.  So whatever.  I know that eventually my life will move on past this subject, and it will be something I look back at and wonder about and maybe even laugh over.  But for now it's just digging deeper into my brain and refusing to show itself.

This is what happens when I'm sleep-deprived and wanting to avoid work.  My brain creates monsters that may or may not be there.  Which is okay, I guess.  They're entertaining on occasion.  But I'll stop now, because I'm awake enough to realize that this makes absolutely no sense.

The Stupid and the Curious

There are two types of people who see things in black and white: the stupid and the curious. The stupid use extremes to define themselves because they're incapable of actual thought. The curious use extremes to find out where everyone else stands when they don't realize they're making a stand.
[Source]

I've been finding a lot of writing on the internet by a number of people that is very important.  To me at least. Because it's something I really relate to.  Or it's something that I feel strongly about.  Or maybe it's just something that resonates with me really deeply for one reason or another.  And I really like that there are people out there, whose blogs I can literally just stumble upon completely on accident who think about things in ways which are similar to mine but also different.  This is the sort of writing that not only makes me want to think about things, but also to write about them, and I think this is wonderful.

Sometime around when I was fifteen, I stopped seeing things in black and white.  I met some people who were...interesting.  I think that's as good a way as any of putting it, because they really were.  It was my first exposure to anything other than my parents' comfortable home.  And even though they never sheltered me, they always made sure I grew up somewhere that was safe, they never made me want to do anything rebellious.  So I didn't know that people around me ever broke rules or did drugs or snuck out at night.  That wasn't a part of my life until I turned fifteen.  And then I met some, as I said, rather interesting individuals.

Even as I was frightened by the concept of breaking all of the rules, I was enthralled by it.  I became fascinated with these people because they quite literally opened up a whole new world for me.  A world in which legality and policy were possibly reasonable guidelines, but did not by any means determine the outcome in every situation.  I learned first to look at both sides of the issue (more so than I was ever taught in  school, certainly), and then I realized that this concept of "sides" is fucking bullshit.  That there is no right and wrong when it comes to people.

And as the years went by, I started trying to understand people better.  Games like Cross the Line, where a (possibly controversial) statement would be made and individuals would step forward over a literal line if they agreed with it or if they felt it applied to them, have fascinated me since the first time I played them.  They force you to say it.  Yes or no.  You don't get a "well, almost, but not quite, because..." option.  Yes.  Or no.  It's an easy way to probe people for what they believe without putting them into the context of an awkward conversation that forces them to reveal deeply personal information, but also an opportunity to start just such a conversation.

I find conversations about many common topics to be boring.  I don't speak much in group settings, as anyone who knows me will confirm.  But as soon as you get me in a room with a single individual who is willing to talk, I can't stop asking questions, trying to understand what dwells in this shell of humanity.  People fascinate me more than anything, and I don't mean the "I was born in ____ and have two sisters and a cat" story.  I mean the things that people are afraid to talk about.  The beliefs they're not even sure of.  And I love challenging them, because I love it when my beliefs are challenged.  I love the stimulating conversation that comes of a well-informed individual who is not stuck in a particular way of thinking, but is also invested enough to question other points of view.

I know this isn't entirely relevant to the quote I posted.  But I don't mind.  It made me think, and I'm very appreciative as a result.  I think it is beautifully worded and extremely insightful, in a way that makes a lot of sense to me but that would not have occurred to me.  And it made me reflect on myself, which is never a bad  thing.  Writing like this gives me hope.  It makes me believe that there are people out there who have grown up, who won't forever be borderline alcoholics barely capable of functioning in a standard job, which is something that I lose faith in remarkably often given my regular surroundings.  So I am glad that there are still insightful, intelligent people out there.  Very, very glad.

Patchwork Quilt

You cry.  That's how you do it.  That's the only way.  You sit there and you feel your intestines twisting in upon themselves and the physical pain overcomes the emotions as you sit there in a ball and fall apart.  You let yourself be torn to shreds.  Because once that happens, you can be stitched back together, made whole, patched up with scar tissue.  And over time, it doesn't hurt as much anymore.  The stabbing pain is a mere pinch, if you feel it at all.  And then it all gets better.

I'm not writing this for you.  In a way, I'm writing it about you, because you've never been on the other side of this particular fence.  So I don't think you really understand the guilt in asking.  And I don't think it's possible to just get over it and say something, or not easily, certainly.  I need to put this down because it has to be written, not because it has to be read.

It's not a situation that you can change.  Do you remember that night when you needed her to say something first?  That's what this is.  It's another piece of that same puzzle.  It's needing to not ask for it, because asking is doing it wrong.  Asking is breaking the rules.  Asking is cheating and cheap and incorrect.  That's why this is a horrible game.  Because it isn't fair.  Because all of these rules are set by you and you pay the cost that you yourself established.  Maybe it takes a twisted mind.  And maybe this isn't how it actually goes, but that's precisely how it falls out sometimes.

I never really found the fix.  I just stopped feeling it.  Because after a while, you just can't feel it.  You've been torn and broken so many times that nothing else can get through.  The scar tissue is so thick that there are no nerve endings remaining.  I'm in no place to give advice, which is why I didn't say anything.  I have no advice to give, even though I should have a storehouse of it.  But all I have is the prospect of not feeling anything, which is at the same time a comfort and an anxiety.

Maybe I did it wrong.  And maybe I'll never feel anything the same way again.  But it seems that now I have no choice but to pay this price.  So it goes.

When everything is gone, we'll still be begging for more

"I just can't ever see myself getting off that slope," I said.  You said, he said, she said.  I'm borrowing some writing, mixing up stories, it happens.  That's just how the neurons fire.  One thing leads to another and then another and I find myself somewhere completely different.  Which doesn't by any means signify that I'm off that slope.  Just that I'm on another piece of it.

They like putting these dramatic scenes into movies, where a person is being held over the edge of a cliff or something and they slip an inch.  And then another inch.  Until they're hanging there, dangerously suspended.  In the movies  of course, we all know they're going to be saved.  Except Gandalf perhaps, but he comes back later anyway, so that doesn't count.  

But life doesn't really work that way, because I'm sure that anyone in that sort of life-or-death situation wouldn't be absolutely certain of being saved.  If anything, I think they'd be more certain of the consequences of falling.  So moving around on that slope, that's not necessarily a good thing.  It doesn't mean getting closer to the top, and it may very well mean being at the very bottom.

But I don't talk about it.  Because nobody wants to hear it.  Nobody wants to know the thoughts that run through my head when I stand in one place for too long, when I'm looking over the bridge into the water, when I haven't forgiven and when I think about the things I'll never forget.  Nobody wants to know those things.  Nobody wants to have to try and understand it, and I can't exactly expect them to when it doesn't make sense to me.

Because I'd love to forget.  I'd love to move on.  I'd love to ignore everything I know or everything I never did.  But that's not how my brain functions. That's not how my memory works.  I feel things that don't make sense.  I think thoughts that I never would have chosen.  And I can't make them go away.  I'm further down that slope than you think, but you wouldn't tell just by looking at me.  And you're never going to ask.  Which is okay.  But I thought I'd put this out there, since I'm never going to tell you and all.

There are many things I want to write...

...but this is neither the time nor the place for them.

There are some things I don't talk about.  And to me it seems really obvious what they are, but that is, of course, because I am the one who doesn't talk about them.  So I understand that most people might not know what they are or why I don't say anything.  And to be fair, I'm not at all sure why I don't say anything about them.  With some of them, at least, it's because I've tried, and it hasn't done anything except make me uncomfortable and even less willing to say them.  With others, it's because I've said everything that can be said, and it's gotten me nowhere, and it makes other people uncomfortable, so I just gave up on talking about it.

And sometimes I do want to talk about these things that I can't or won't talk about.  But here's the thing.  Some of these things will hurt people.  Others will make them uncomfortable.  And still others, well those just won't make any sense, because more often than not, they don't even make sense to me.  The problem is that I have nowhere to write it.  I could veil it in vague, confusing words, shroud it in long, convoluted sentence structures, and put it all here, but it's all too significant for me to just dress it up in that many layers.

I want to put it down as it is.  Raw.  Honest.  Hurtful, really.  Because that's what's in my mind.  It's like poison, slowly leeching through my brain, and containment only does so much good.  My thoughts are venomous and treacherous.  They seem to reach that point every time I let them steep in my brain for long enough.  Because now I can't sleep at night, and I wake up every few hours starting at five or six in the morning, and I can't sit alone with my thoughts for more than a few minutes, because something always starts clawing at my gut and I get that feeling where your stomach is trying to fall through your body and into the floor.

So clearly, my own mind is not the best receptacle for such things.  And it seems to me that they need to be flushed out somehow.  What this is really telling me is that I need a new place to write.  Not to replace this blog, but to supplement it.  Somewhere to put all of the caustic thoughts that don't belong here, to spill the corrosive contents of my brain that shouldn't be there anymore.  Because I really don't think I'm going to talk about it anytime soon.

The Writing on the Wall

There are certain places around where I live, where you can go in and sit down to eat and there are photographs on the walls and people's writing on the tables and over the pictures and the whole place just feels like it has a sense of history, of humanity, of life to it.  And I've never really thought of it before, not even when I've been in those very same places, but people had moments there.  They had the best nights of their lives, or the worst.  They will have gone there with friends and family and they've heard good news and bad news, and those photographs, those signatures, those names carved into the wood, they are all full of emotion.

I haven't felt that kind of emotion in a long time, especially not in the company of people.  There were all of those nights so far into the spring that it may as well have been summer.  Some with one person, some in a large company.  There were some winter nights as well, I guess, but those rarely compared to the hot and humid twilight that permeated my springs.  Maybe that's why I like heat and humidity so much, because so many of my memories are so thoroughly tied in with the moments that were shared on those nights.

I've never been a people person.  I don't really like people all that much.  It takes me a long time to warm up to them, and even then, I'm not always particularly comfortable around them.  But never, in all of the time I've spent alone (and I assure you, there has been a lot of such time), have I had moments, emotions, memories, anything even remotely close to the things that have happened when I spent time with people.  All of my best memories are from the times I have spent with people I am close to.

And it's been a while since I had a moment like this.  It's probably because I am looking for new people to be close to, but I'm not there yet.  I'm sad that I'm not there.  I miss people.  I miss having close friends, and I miss long evenings spent with them.  I'm still lonely, and I was really hoping that I wouldn't be anymore, by this time. I don't know.  I don't know when I'll stop being lonely or if I ever really will.  But I miss people.  I miss having friends.  So I really hope I figure something out, so that I can have evenings like that again.  So that I can write on walls, metaphorically, at least.

And I Wish You Were Here

I keep waiting.  And waiting.  Always waiting for something to happen.  That's always been my flaw, if you want to call it that.  But I always thought it made my life more interesting, because that's how I live it.  I told you two and a half years ago that I don't start things, and I don't end them, that I let them happen to me, that I go with what someone else sets into motion.

I've always been very interested in other people.  In psychology, although I never would have chosen it as a specialty.  I always want to know how people react and what they do and how their minds work.  More than anything, I want to understand what goes on in their brains, what neurons fire and how this sequence, this combination, how they all come together into thought, into action.  That's why I let myself live like this, why I let my actions be determined more by others.  Because I wanted to see how these choices would reflect on my life.

I think I might be changing, though.  I've started seeking other people less and less often to make choices for me.  Perhaps because I've found a path I want to follow.  And that path doesn't leave much room for error.  It doesn't encourage me to expand my social circle or increase my trust in anyone.  And I'm pretty sure that this is what I want.  So I guess that's why I've stopped asking questions about what I should do, why I've stopped letting people make decisions for me.  Because I've finally found something for myself.

But there are still things that I can't get over.  There are still people I want to know, people I want to understand, some of whom I have a chance to get close to, and others of whom I will never see again.  My mind won't let these things go.  And I imagine that's not necessarily a problem, but it's an itch I can't scratch.  It'll always be something I wonder about.  I'll always wait to see what people do.  And I'll always try to understand.  I hope it does me some good.  One day, at least.

Roses

When I was six years old, in the daycare or preschool or what program I may have been in before we moved, we were waiting for lunch one day, and two boys were jumping up and down in their chairs.  And I don't know how it started, or why, but I just started crying.  And I couldn't stop.  It wasn't anything they hadn't done before, but for some reason it hit me and I couldn't stop.  That was the first time I can remember crying for no real reason.  It's certainly not the last.

Until I was ten years old, I would cry over anything.  Someone stepping on my toe.  Not seeing a ferret my mother pointed out to me on the train.  Even the tiniest thing would make me cry my eyes out and I couldn't explain it.  I think now that maybe it's been a result of my emotional instability, due largely to the problems with my brain when I was born.  Possibly true, possibly not.  Regardless, it's always been a problem, even after I learned to control it, to not cry no matter how much I wanted to.

It hit me last night, as I was going to bed, that I couldn't remember the last time I cried.  For any reason.  Valid or not.  But I didn't think much of it, because what could I do?  Maybe it was good.  And then I was walking back from work this afternoon, and I remembered something.

I haven't thought much about my grandfather, particularly not since he died probably seven years ago now, maybe eight.  But the other day, my grandmother was telling me the importance of bringing a woman flowers.  For holidays, for anything and nothing.  And she told me about how her husband, my grandfather, brought her flowers for every holiday.  And how for the last time she visited my family, when she was coming back, he wasn't supposed to walk.  But he walked anyway, he went to get her flowers, and he fell on the way back, and when she got there, he had to be wheeled in, and he still brought roses.

And I remembered this when I was walking back, and I couldn't stop crying.  And I don't know why.  It's not because of the flowers.  And it's not because I didn't know him as well as I should have, even though it brought back that piece I wrote, even though it only took a few hours, but that's not what made me cry.  I don't know what was.  And I couldn't stop.  All I could think about was this man I should have gotten to know better and how I can't get to know him now.  I wish I believed in a heaven.  I wish I could make this up somehow, even though I was young and clueless when he died.

And I can't talk about this.  I can't say anything.  I wanted to say something, but there are things in my life that I can't talk about.  And only sometimes can I even write about them.  But I wanted to say something about this, and I couldn't.  And all I can do is sit here and cry and I don't know why.  I don't know why I can't say anything or why it finally hurts, but I know it has to.  It has to hurt because I don't know what to do if it doesn't, but I don't understand.

I don't know how things pass with time.  The way they say time heals all wounds. And it does.  Because I don't cry every time I think about certain places or things, no matter how hard I cried that first time.  But there's always something that makes me cry afresh.  There's always a new wound.  And I don't know where they all keep coming from.  Scar tissue is weaker, but it also doesn't feel as well.  I don't know how it's possible that I still feel anything.  But I'm glad that something can get through.  That I can feel something.  Occasionally.

Release

I need this.  I honest to god need this.  And I hate that.  I hate that I'm clinging to existence because of this simple release.  I keep wanting to write and not knowing what to say.  I want something to hurt.  I need it to hurt.  But I can't do that.  So someone else has to.

I think I finally learned to respect myself.  Or something.  Because if this is respect, then I wish I'd never found it.  If this is as good as it gets, then I wish it hadn't gotten this good because at least I used to feel something.  I don't feel anything anymore.  It doesn't hurt.  It doesn't feel good.  It just feels empty.  And I don't know how to fill that emptiness with anything other than hurt.  I don't know what it's like to have happy feelings that last more than a few days, if that.

Every day, I'm growing more distant.  It gets harder to talk to people.  I don't know what to say or do.  I don't know how to fill free time, now that I have it.  So all I can do is sit here and wonder why this isn't working, wonder what the fuck happened to my life that I don't know how to have a conversation, that I can't even find something that interests me enough to become a hobby.  This couch is starting to mold to me, to the precise way I sit on it.

Where did my motivation go?  I manage to get up every morning, to do things that are good for me during the day.  But why can't I function?  Why can't I speak?  How is it that I have absolutely nothing to say anymore?

It'll change eventually.  I know it will.  It always does.  But I don't know when.  And I don't know how.  And I don't seem to be able to do anything to hurry the process along.

I just wanted to say...

You don't get to tell me not to die suddenly.

Because you almost did.

I want to live the moments people write songs about

I don't know how to write this, but I want to do it well.  Because the idea came to me from some awfully beautiful writing and some terribly truthful words (namely here) and I don't want to waste that.  Some things just make me really feel, and that's somewhat rare, but reading the writing of this person I'd never met before, I really felt in that special way.  It's inspiring, because the life and thoughts of someone else can so poignantly give definition to my own life, to bring in that sense of "you're not alone" that I need to hear every once in a while.

---

I wrote that...oh god, probably a week ago now.  I've been busy (then again, when am I not).  And today felt like a waste of a day.  It felt like practically everything that could go wrong did.  So here I am, with half an hour to midnight, and even though my brain and body are tired, I have no desire to sleep.  Because somewhere along the way, I realized that when I get angry enough, I can use that anger to propel myself.  Maybe that's how I got this far in the first place, by taking in the thoughts and criticisms of everyone who ever thought "you can't do that" or "I'm better than you" or "there's no way you'll ever amount to anything" and getting really, really pissed off about it...pissed off enough to do it.

So yes, I am pissed.  I am very, very unhappy right now.  I am angry.  And for a little bit, I'm going to let myself sit here and fume.  I'm going to rant and rave at the people around me, and I'm going to swear so much I'll wonder if I remember how to say anything else.  But then, when that's all said and done, I'm going to go back to my work, and I'm going to finish it.  I'm going to clean it up and make it damn good.  Because I'm better than this shit.  I'm better than the people who have so thoroughly angered me and negatively affected my day.  I know that I am better than letting their actions and judgments and opinions cloud my vision, because I know my skills and strengths.  And I know that this has not played in my favor.  But I also know that while I could undoubtedly do better, it's not worth my energy.  I've invested as much of myself as I'm willing, so I'm going to move on.  To bigger and better things.  Things I love.

You can see this guy's writing is rubbing off on me.  I've been trying to read a bit of his blog every few days at least, just systematically working back.  It makes me feel inspired.  A couple of other things lately have contributed to that, and they've all come together into a very motivated, surprisingly positive attitude.  I'm going to meet with someone this summer, an individual who has indicated that she is in fact worthy of my respect (which doesn't happen often on a first meeting like this).  And she's going to tear me apart.  Because that's her job...well, somewhat, anyway.  Constructively, of course, all in an attempt to help me understand who I am and what I want and how to get there better.

And when I do go see her in a few months, I want to be able to flat out tell her: I don't want to cure cancer.  I will never save starving children or head a committee on green energy.  I am not here to try to please you, or anyone else.  I just want to do what I love.  And maybe I don't fully understand what that is.  Maybe it'll take me a few years to figure it out, but I'm tired of feeling like I'm doing things wrong because I'm not conforming to societal norms.  I don't know if I'll put it that way.  Or if most of these sentiments will come out at all.  This meeting is something I've thought a lot about since first discussing the possibility of it just yesterday.  I'm trying to figure out how to best represent myself, or at least where to start.

I'm not really a writer (this is relevant, I promise), but it's an important part of me.  Writing got me through some of the worst times of my life to date.  It helps me organize my thoughts and it puts me on track.  It makes me calm and centered in a way that meditation seems to work for other people.  So I guess that's something I should mention.  That and how much I love (I cannot emphasize that word enough) the work I do.  And I guess I can say I like reading, and people, figuring them out, learning about them, but I'm not sure how these all come together to form a coherent picture.  But I think that's precisely where she can help the most.  As long as I have the guts to stop trying to impress her (and myself), I think I can really get somewhere.  I'd really like to.

And even as I'm putting these words down, I'm thinking some things.  First, "I want to be proud of this post.  I want to be proud of how I felt and how I wrote it.  I want to know that it sounds good and expresses everything I feel as clearly as possible."  Second, "I should just print this writing out.  Print it out and take it to her and say 'read this' because writing is as honest as I get, I've never been more honest in person than I am in text, and this is as true as I can imagine anything to be.  So if she wants to know the truth about me, this is what she should read."  I don't know that it'll happen, but if I remember writing this when I do go meet with her, I'll certainly keep it in mind.

I've finally calmed down.  I'm tired and still somewhat unhappy, but that's okay.  So I'll take my time now, to finish this work and then I'll go to bed.  Maybe tomorrow will be better.  And maybe it won't.  But how the day goes really doesn't matter.  And I have no intentions of letting it be wasted because of people and things I have no control over.  So this here is written proof of my commitment to not let this shit ruin me.  So there.

Remnants of a Past Life

I don't listen to music outside anymore.  It used to be that as soon as I took a step out the door, the second thing I'd do would be putting the earbuds in and drowning in music.  Sometimes loud, sometimes not, but almost always there was this constant background.  I still do it occasionally, but not really around here.  Not where I live now.  It just hasn't really been a thing.

Maybe I'm trying to protect the sanctity of this new place.  Maybe I hope that by keeping this music, which so thoroughly defined me in an entirely different context, away from my current life, I can leave that part of myself behind.  Maybe if I try hard enough, just by ignoring it, I can grow past the pieces of myself that were stupid and young and made all of the bad decisions (and now have all of the stories to tell).

It's awfully ironic, then, that I know that some of these songs define me in such fundamental ways, in ways which are key to establishing me as the person I am today, and I don't want to lose them.  So maybe it's that I'm afraid of things losing their meaning.  The same way that someone's smell fades from their shirt every time you wear it to bed, but you want to save it, so you wear it only rarely, until you're so afraid of it fading that you don't wear it at all.

I've had songs lose power.  Not meaning, not elegance, but I've felt the sheer emotion behind them slip away from me.  And I don't want to forgive myself for having listened to that song so much that I wore it out, because at the time, it meant everything to me, and now it doesn't mean as much.  Not really.  It still contains the idea of meaning, but I no longer feel it, I no longer tremble when I hear it.  I don't want to laugh or cry when it comes on.  It's starting to fade into the background of everything else I listen to.  Most of which I still absolutely adore, probably more than I'll ever really let on.  But it's fading in comparison, and that's the part that bothers me.

I'm generally one of those people who associate memories with songs, smells, clothes, places.  I gave away some favorite possessions a few years ago after a breakup because they reminded me too much of a person I was desperately trying to free myself from.  And lately, music has become in many ways the last thing I'm holding on to from a past that made me who I am, that while I'm not proud of, is nonetheless something I hold very dear.  So I don't want to lose it.  I'm trying to save it.  I'm just afraid that this way, I might let it slip away and not even notice it going.

We'll come clean and start over the rest of our lives

Do you believe in purpose?  Do you have a purpose?  I've been trying to answer that question for the past few days with particular intensity.  Someone has taken it upon themselves to chalk bible verses all over the sidewalks around where I live.  Which made me wonder about religion and purpose and things of that sort.  On top of that, there is a man outside of a building I walk through fairly regularly who routinely preaches.  Something he said once stuck with me for some reason.  He talked about the worthiness of his cause because of all of the people who had given their lives for it, going so far as to ask if anyone had died for the cause of evolution.

Which made me think immediately "evolution isn't a cause."  It is, formally, a theory.  Informally, it is an explanation of how humans came about.  But in no way is the theory of evolution a cause.  Did it have to be?  What changed if it was?  I (finally) started reading The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins about a month ago.  I didn't get very far because I had to go back to work shortly thereafter, but I read far enough to get the gist--we are survival machines, nothing more.  We have been "programmed" so to speak by genes to ensure their longevity, their existence through time.

Is that a purpose?  Is my purpose in this world to pass these genes on to offspring and increase their chances of survival?  It's rather ironic, in my mind at least, that something as existential as the idea of purpose could be defined by something so primal as survival.  So I'm not sure this justifies it as a purpose at all.  And it certainly doesn't make it any more of a cause.  It's human nature to look for a reason, a point.  It's gotten civilization so far...but I feel like we might be hitting the boundary where it is no longer reasonable to ask the question "why?"

I know many religious individuals who are driven and passionate and use their faith to motivate and propel them forward.  I also know atheists who are no less driven or passionate, who find a source for this motivation within themselves.  Is a purpose, a cause, essential for success?  I don't think so.  But even those who don't have religious motivation often want to make the world a better place or help humanity.  People with that sort of motivation make me question my own abilities.

I've never had a purpose.  Any aspirations toward success were entirely selfish.  It was a desire to see myself succeed.  Never once did I say "I want to go into this field because I want to help humanity/save the world/make things better."  I went into this field because I really fucking love it.  Enough to use profanity in an otherwise clean post.  This work fascinates me.  I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing, even through the tedious days and the sleepless nights.  This work makes me happy.  And yet, looking at people around me with their visions and causes, I can't help but think I'm doing something wrong.  After all, aren't I supposed to be trying to improve the human condition?

I had that drilled into my head for a few years.  And I wonder why some truly brilliant individuals put so much effort into ingraining that thought if it's not legitimately important.  But I never wanted to change the world.  I just want to live my life in a way that makes me happy.  Is it wrong then, that I don't give money to the poor or build orphanages in third world countries or educate the next generation of so-called world leaders and brilliant minds?

They tell you that you can do whatever you want with your life, but if you're not concerned about everyone around you and you don't live for the purpose of making the world a better place, it feels like you're doing something wrong.  Please, leave your thoughts if you have them.  Talk to me about this.  Because I really, honestly want to know how others feel about purpose (or lack thereof).

Suicide is Painless

I never would have thought that this place would be worse for me than for others.  Well, I did.  I figured it would be terrible.  I figured we'd break up and I'd become a loner and get depressed and mess up every aspect of my life.  Which hasn't happened.  So I guess that's probably good.  But oddly enough, it's been worse for me than that.  At least that wouldn't make me a terrible person, it would just make me a misguided, antisocial, improperly raised, maladjusted individual.

But really, it's been worse for me than even them.  And I often go on about how bad it has been for them.  About their depressions, their problems, their habits, their thoughts.  And I sit here and think about how my life has turned around, how I'm not (as) depressed, how I have no bad habits left, not like that, how I've changed.  And it works rather well until I realize that I'm no better than that one person.

It's made me arrogant.  And caustic.  That's not me, that's just the way I've become here.  And certainly it's my own fault.  This place has made me believe that I'm better than everyone around me.  It's made me think that I am wonderful and excellent and everyone should realize that.  It's a worse form of adolescent egocentrism.  It's a grown up delusion, and this place has bred it into me.  I've let it.  I've used it to grow and thrive.  Because really, I've done well, I've "grown" as a person, if you want to put it that way.  I've also become absolutely intolerable.

And the more you try to tell me otherwise, the more intolerable I become.  You can hear it in my tone.  Stability makes me arrogant.  I pronounce words differently.  I speak out more.  I stop being afraid of interfering or being offensive.  And maybe at first that's a good thing for me, but I always wind up overstepping that line, which seems so imaginary and uncertain, but is really quite solidly there (although I can never place it with particular accuracy).

It gets to the point where I hate hearing myself talk, and that should tell you something, because I've always thought I had something worthwhile to say.  I wasn't like this when you met me.  I wasn't this harsh and cruel and bitter about the world.  I have to say, I was much better off turning that anger inward, toward me, than I ever will be trying to use it to propel myself forward.

And all the things that you never ever told me

This is the first time I've been alone in a very, very long time.  It's been even longer if you don't count the times I've been alone but busy working.  And it's very strange. All I can think of are the Wednesdays I'd spend alone in my room all day.  Those were years ago, yes, but they reveal a little something about me that I don't think would have occurred to me otherwise.  It was like a challenge.  A matter of principle.  If you leave this room, you fail, you let yourself down.

The entire time, I knew it was absolutely meaningless, but my stubbornness wouldn't let me leave.  It was the only kind of ultimatum I ever made.  To myself.  Because more important than keeping my word to anyone else or anyone else keeping their word for me, I had to keep any promise I made myself.  I lied and cheated often in my life, but always prided myself on being honest with me.

Even though I never really was.

But I don't think any of us ever can be.  Looking back on my childhood, I never was normal.  I'll divulge an embarrassing secret to illustrate the point: when I was twelve, I kept a diary in a black notebook where I'd etched into the cover "Suicidal 12" even though I definitely wasn't suicidal and wasn't even terribly depressed, if I was at all.  What can I say--it seemed like a good idea at the time?

I liked to pretend I was all sorts of things I wasn't.  Sophisticated, especially.  I had an obsession with being more mature than anyone around me.  In a way, I still struggle with this.  I'll never admit it in person, but I like to think I'm better than people.  I desperately want to believe that I'm brilliant because my life loses all significance if I haven't accomplished at least something meaningful.

As I sit here alone, listening to music at an oddly low volume (perhaps to better feel my own solitude?), I'm trying to reflect on my life.  Trying, I say, because it's terribly hard to be an objective observer in something as subjective as one's own life.  I wish I had more childhood secrets to share, because those always seem to bring a smile to my face because of their ridiculousness.  I have plenty of stories from adolescence, but some of those are still too close to blog about.  I'm sure they'll come out eventually, but not yet.

I'm pretty sure I had plans to do something productive with the time tonight, but it's been a while since I've listened to music and thought about life, so I don't really regret it.  I wonder what you'd say if you saw me now.  If you'd look down on me for sitting in on a Friday night or if you'd scorn the mess that is my room or if you'd join me in this little corner that is mine and sit in a comfortable silence.  But each you would do something different, and some would inevitably do something other than the above.

I can't tell if I'm quite proud of my life or greatly disappointed.  I was a "gifted" child, but never a prodigy.  Part of me always secretly hoped I was.  Regardless of what I was or wasn't or am or am not, I've always had trouble finding a measure of my success.  Happiness is a difficult one to use when one may or may not be depressed.  Income and other possessions never appealed much to me.  The number of people I slept with stopped meaning anything as soon as it hit 1.  The nights I didn't remember...well, I never had those, so they don't mean anything either.  It's hard to judge myself by the standards set forth by today's society because they mean so little to me.

I have no religion to use as a standard for a good life.  And my personal morals never fully developed.  So how do I tell if my life is fulfilling or not?  Is it good enough?  Am I good enough?  I like to pretend that I don't care what people think about me, but really I do, because it's an easy way to measure myself against others.  Because even though other peoples' opinions aren't nearly as important as one's own, they help to form it, to give it a certain shape.  And that's always been as good a framework as any for me.

I don't really know where my life is going from here.  I hope I'm doing things well to get to where I want to go, but I have no way of really knowing.  I'm sure I'll understand life better one day than I do now, but that doesn't mean I don't understand it at all.  I just hope I don't misunderstand it terribly.  But I guess I'll find out...eventually.

It's five thirty in the fucking morning and you tell me how I'm supposed to not hate myself after seeing that.

With each passing day

I just want to write.  I want to write and write and write until my fingers are numb from tapping on the keys and my mind is blank from having spewed out every word that ever called this brain a home.  I'm overwhelmed by my thoughts.  I don't know what to do with all of them.  I want to talk to someone.  I want to tell these stories.  But I don't know where to begin.  I don't know what to say.

I wish I could write the way I wrote a year ago.  I wish I could make these words flow because oh god they were beautiful.  I was so intensely proud of my writing then, and I still am, because that was damn good.  It was impressive.  I can't believe that I wrote those things.  That it was me.  It's not possible that something like that came from my mind, flowed through my fingertips.  Because even if it was me, even if that monologue was me, that personal narrative was me, those unfinished stories and even the few well-written poems were all me...why can't I write like that anymore?

I didn't cry.  It almost bothers me that I didn't.  One day I'm going to go back and sit on that bench and everything will overwhelm me.  I'll remember the people I kissed there.  The conversations I had.  I'll remember how much started there and how much ended.  I can't stop.  I can't not think about it.  It bothers me that I didn't cry because it meant everything to me.  It's everything that hurt me, everything that destroyed me.  It's the root of the person I became, and all I felt was this tittering anxiety.  This nervous happiness because it was so different but so much the same.

People have said before me that they had experiences like this there.  I never once believed it until I looked back on it.  Because now I understand.  More than I could have imagined, that place made me...me.  I want to talk to someone who understands it without hating it (no offense and all that).  But I feel so lonely right now.  I'm not really sad and I'm not really lonely, but it feels like I am, just because I don't have anyone to share this with and it feels like something that needs to be shared.  I can't even put it into words.  I just want to look into someone's eyes and know that they understand this.

PostSecret was my life that year.  I have submitted dozens of secrets, most of them during the course of that year, because for some reason, it made me feel complete.  And I know that there are people who understand this.  Which makes me want to submit a secret now, but I don't know what to say.  More than that though, I know that anybody who felt the way I do about it won't have anything to say back at me.  It's a miserable brotherhood.  We all understand it.  We also know that there is no way to speak of it.

I don't want to stop but I'm running out of steam.  I need one of those nights.  With the heat and the humidity and maybe even the bugs.  Those late nights when we never wanted it to end because it made us feel so alive.  It's been a long time since I've felt that alive.  I miss it.  I really do.

Touch

I've never been a particularly touchy-feely person.  I never liked hugs before I met you.  Even these days, I shy away from physical contact sometimes.  It's just not one of the things I'm a particularly big fan of.  And yet, I find myself craving touch.  Not wanting to be touched, but wanting to touch.

Somehow, I seem to have made a connection between knowing people and touching them.  As though the curve of their skull, the line of their jaw, the softness or roughness of their hands could explain them to me as a person.  I know it doesn't work that way.  I know as well as anyone else that the shape of your skull doesn't make you a criminal or not.  But I just can't stop thinking about knowing people through touch.

Maybe it's the idea that touch breeds intimacy (or is it the reverse?  I think it might be).  We only let people touch us who we are comfortable with, who generally know us.  So maybe the desire to touch really stems from the desire to know people.  Which makes sense, to be fair, since I do want to know people.  That's the whole point.

This hasn't been well-written or well-organized.  I have put a lot of thought into it but I have barely organized it at all.  The most vital thoughts in my mind are always the ones I find hardest to sort and put down eloquently.  All of the most important things are the ones that are hardest to write about...I learned that lesson well a year ago.  But I've said what I meant to say.  I don't know what else to add.  Sorry.