Category: friends

Thoughts which heavily involve, analyze, or reference my friends.

how to estrange yourself from everyone you know in 2300 words or less

If you have an aversion to brutal honesty, hit the back button, X out of the window, or turn off the computer– continue to live in your self-constructed fantasy world of ignorance where you are comfortable and breathe easy. I am about to put pretty much everyone on blast like a failed NASA launch.

I have a problem. I am too nice. I respect people too much. I can’t help it. Individually, I like you. Under the guise of people, I can’t stand you all. I am very clear headed right now. It isn’t my character to do this, this doesn’t make friends, and it certainly doesn’t keep them, but here’s the thing, I am actually very lonely. Why? Because most of you aren’t truly there. So what does it matter if I further alienate myself? I’m already extra-terrestrial, so I might as well spread the truth.

First off. You. If I think about it, you confound me, but that makes no sense, because on paper, you appear to lack the ability to confound me. I don’t understand what your draw is to me if you don’t value what I say. What I say and think should carry more weight than you, why? The simplified answer is that I am magnitudes smarter than you, but the actual answer is that I use my brain a lot more. I have for my entire life. I’ve made my living off of using my brain. Maybe you secretly have learned to appreciate that, and that is the appeal, but you don’t show appreciation for it, only that you’re threatened. I’ve said this, but you don’t respect my friends, nor do any people in your circle. Those people are the kind who have looked past me like vapor my entire life– one of the primary driving forces in my life to be so good at everything I do. The crux of people is this: if you don’t open yourself up to the people that other people care about, you show you don’t care about that person. I’m very accepting, even though deep down I might be angry, as exhibited here, I am mostly accepting than anything, and I want to give everyone as many chances as I can. It is why I ultimately connect with anyone who gives me the time of day, but it humiliates me when I give people chances and they don’t give other people that I care for chances. Why should I care about you, when you don’t care about them?

And that brings me to you. What can I say. Life takes its course, sure, but people don’t change like that. I love you, too, but you can’t dictate who you want me to be around the people you are close with now. If you aren’t planning on being close with someone for life, then don’t come on like you will be then change so drastically that my behavior, when I am myself, is seemingly so unacceptable that you reprimand me for it. You only expose yourself as an ass, and more importantly, the ignorant one. I don’t reprimand you for appearing to be a rock when you’re really just a grey cloth that is drastically moved by the wind, because I know as stable as we all are, we do that. I accept you either way, now use that high functioning brain of yours to realize the same thing, then hey, just because we all don’t have the same level of world experience, accept who I am going to be. Who all of your old friends are going to be. And let us be them. Invite us to be that around your new circles, because we got you to where you are. Here is the harshest thing I will say, and you might not think it so, but think on it, and know it is— you know better.

And you. You also will know who you are. Grow up. You’re not 16. Quit acting like it. You live in a total bubble. You also know better then to let this. You think you’re grown up now. Physically, you sure are. Intellectually, well, you’re very close. Emotionally, your progress has been retarded. It is embarrassing because you know you are, and you’re letting your shelter, your unnatural comfort constrain you to that. There is a reason all of my other friends have grown to dislike you without knowing you. As charming and lovely as you are, you are selfish, and you hurt people. You know it, but you act like you don’t, or you feel so bad that you think that the only thing you can do is stay away until the heat cools off. That isn’t how it works. Ash is ash. It cools, and as far as matter goes, it is the same, but its form is irrevocably altered. If you would give people like me a chance, you’d see that there are those of us who reside closely to your little bubble, but also are beyond it in many ways, we have your best interest in mind because we care, but you don’t let us care. You won’t trust us, and it insults people like us when you think we are some child from that bubble. Once again, you have all this potential to be great, but how many years are you going to waste before you decide to show some bravery and REALLY grow up, just a little. Grow.

And then there is you. You actually might not know who you are, because you are great too, but you know that too well. All you know is how great you are, how you’re the leader of all your circles, you know that self-righteousness so well that you missed a handful of the closest, most valuable brothers and sisters you have had being alienated from you. In my own case, for over a year, and I guess that was somewhat overt. Here’s the thing: I take a lot of the blame for it, and I do publicly, but I don’t know if you realize how much of it was you, too. Just the fact that it seemed like the load was plopped on my shoulders solely, because of my extraneous situation doesn’t mean that it was all me, yet I was the fall guy. I don’t know what to say. Just like everyone else, you’re fantastic, but you’re also filled with pores and flaws like the rest of us. When you’re ready to start figuring this out to its full extent, you’ll see that a lot of people you’ve drifted from weren’t necessarily people who naturally drifted away, but those who were estranged. You’re not a beautiful flower, you’re an ugly man. That’s what we all are, and that.. is what makes us beautiful. Examine yourself. Examine yourself for a long time.

You. You know who you are. You’re so selfish. Especially right now. But you and I seem content to spend our lives knowing each other, in a never ending game of selfishness limbo. You’re outdoing me for the time being. Granted, I’ve even said, this is your time to be selfish some, but you’re letting it take command too much. You’re even being selfish in regards to me. Look– take what you want, what you know you need, but quit trying to move on to something further in your life and hold on to what you have to move past. That’s truly what makes you selfish. Either stay stagnant and reside where you have the past couple years, or let it go, cut it off for a while and make something of yourself. Look, you played a large role in forcing me to do that very thing. I knew I had to be selfish, but I didn’t let myself fully be selfish, because when I decided to cut myself from that umbilical, I let it go, I moved on, I bit many bullets, and am still recovering from it. But I did what was supposed to be done, and I did it as right as I could. Quit being so self-absorbed that you are alienating me, and torturing other parties closely involved. You’ve got only so long to make up your mind before the people who really have invested in you truly give up to the point where you never recover quite the same. Wake. Up.

And you. The nice transition over. I don’t even know what to say about you. Get over it. Good Lord, do I ever care about you, even still, but I know what I’ve done. I’ve been removed from it so far that I can think about you, or revisit old memories, feel what I felt then, then an instant later, feel the present. The past. The present. We are separate. I am separate. You’ve dragged this out long enough. I am sure anyone who experiences any fallout from your resentment can no longer stand it, but more importantly, on some level, you shouldn’t be able to either. Let it go. I knew I was giving everything up. I was hoping I wasn’t, but I’d never be so callous as to actually expect that. I’m sorry for how much pain I’ve caused, but isn’t it about time that you started to realize how much more pain I saved you from? I was the Titanic. As bad as it looks that I kicked everyone off, it was better than sinking everyone with me. So yes– it is about time you start to understand that. Then maybe you will quit doing everything you can to purge me from your life, because I am not going to try and become a major piece again, but we each deserve to have the option of being a minor piece. Stop it.

Oh and you. You’re an ass. I don’t even know if you really know it. It doesn’t matter, but pretty much everyone else thinks you are too, yet, because we all have our own bounty of faults, that doesn’t matter. This is especially true when we realize it. I don’t hold legitimate grudges. A grudge is something for short-lived anger. You are obviously ignorant if that’s how you see it. Nobody knows if you truly feel anything because you keep subjecting yourself to what, to anyone else, is guaranteed pain, and on the same vein, you will pursue something that should very obviously cause other people you know pain. But opportunity is opportunity. In the real world, everyone is not an opportunist. Think about it some more. It isn’t a puzzle.

And you. You definitely know who you are because I am taking your own words. You’re right you have it good. Too good? I wouldn’t go that far, you’re working on what could almost be alchemical principles– equivalent exchange and what not, but what do you get? You get out of something that was a good thing for a long time, but also stifled you for a long time. Yet, that connection doesn’t entirely sever. Then you get the girl that we correctly identify as the dream girl, in the sense that they just don’t make many like her. You parade around in your ideal world where, even though you still win out on these things, you still get to run away like you always do. We admire you for your ability to run and be free, but seriously, either decide that you are done running, or accept that you can’t have everything even when it is waiting there for you. It isn’t that I, or anyone else is bitter that things have worked out so well for you, but you’re being selfish about it. In the immediate, you might be lonely, but you take for granted the fact that you can wake up every morning and have that one person you can’t wait to talk to– and you get to communicate with them while everyone else is second in line. You know, life sucks, and it is messed up for all of us. You don’t get a lot of time to enjoy it all right now, but you have a lot you can enjoy, even if it is abstracted. That compounds greatly. More than anything else: who cares if you don’t deserve it. Anyone who has spent anytime in their own mind knows that, objectively, we deserve nothing, at best. It is better to enjoy what you don’t deserve as much as you can, then let it waste away. It does make me a little jealous that I will always be playing second fiddle to you, but quit wasting that, because it pisses me off. I’ll gladly spend it.

To all of you: get the hell out of your bubbles, your self-wrapped, self-absorbed, thick film of cloud fogging everything around you. If you did two things: respected yourself and respected everyone around you then we’d all be much happier. Instead, we are all just ignorant and insufferable. And the ugly side effects of that fact is that I further disconnect myself from everyone.

Because I’d never care to feel any of these types of things for any of you if I didn’t first care ever so deeply for you all. And instead, I just demonstrate why I feel alone and forgotten. I only hit on a few of you before I became exhausted, but I could have kept going. And I am only that much more critical with myself. When I wake up tomorrow, I very well may have no friends left, yet, when I go to sleep tonight, I don’t really have any, either.

Grow up. Examine yourself.

April 14, 2012
an open tunnel

To me, love is just an open tunnel. That tunnel rarely seems to bring anything but pain.

I loved a girl for a few years. First, we were barely more than acquaintances through a mutual friend. There was never a day that I was aware of her existence that I didn’t like her. Then we were friends. For a lon time we were friends. Then I was truly able to take that affection, and close friendship, and care for her. Quite later, that tunnel opened up on her end. Over some more time, I can truly say I loved her.

I loved her for a long time. I loved her more than I ever realized I could love someone. I loved her through harder times than I ever foresaw. Each day, I loved her more and more. I never ran out of love to give, but I was not equipped with enough experience and wisdom in my life to that point to prevent what came. I was strangled; a choke point finally closed and I ran out of that ability to let that love, that care, flow.

Each day, I woke up trying to be renewed, and love would eek out, but I experienced pain in conjunction with that love. Eventually, it was more pain than love, and I made one of the hardest choices in my life to barricade that tunnel until time healed the broken. Not since that choice have I come anywhere remotely close to caring for anyone on that level.

To this day, the one I loved so dear still won’t talk or associate with me. She must still feel the same level of pain I do. It still hurts more, though. Over a year later and I only get one real correspondence; an e-mail, a dream, and part of a letter, and like that it is back to that long forgotten, long abandoned tunnel to eachother’s hearts, eachother’s lives.

A couple months ago, I actually cared for a girl again. I didn’t think I had it in me. We were good friends. I was terrified. It wasn’t much, just care, and a very trusting friendship. I was afraid of the care. I was afraid of ruining a friendship already going through a rough patch. I was probably most afraid of the astronomically long shot odds of actually having a chance to have that care materialize; pebbles of rubble sliding through the cracks, then rocks, then boulders, until that tunnel was open again. I wasn’t looking for that, but it was nice to at least be able to care again.

It turned for the worst. I wanted those feelings out of the way. In a confusing, poorly represented attempt to simplify, I presented myself and my care to her, like a loyal knight approaching the throne revealing a plot to betray the throne he protects. I wanted not to care more, I wanted to just keep my trusted friend, and care a little, on my own, on the side, just to remember myself that I am human, and contrary to my conditioning, love is not pain, but something that can bring life.

The worst happened. I wasn’t rejected. I wasn’t accepted. I still don’t know what that means. I wish that she had the guts to have rejected me. In my gut, I wanted that. In my heart, I guess I wished she had the crazinness to accept me, I only wished for it when my mind was away.

Now, we don’t talk at all. There is no communication. I don’t get to represent myself. I don’t get to represent my trampled feelings. I don’t get a chance to be understanding. I don’t get to be friends, at all. I’m the square root of a negative number.

Someone I consider a best friend asked her on a date. They went on a date. It was some of the sharpest, most venomous pain that ever coursed through me. I care not, to the best of my abilities, to know anything beyond that one thing I found out. I try to live beyond it, but more often than I like it creeps in my bed at night, and forces itself upon me. I feel terrible those nights and converted mornings.

A date? A date? A date?? I never even got a friendship. I don’t even know if I get to apologize for the stress I put her under. I don’t expect anyone will ever apologize to me, or not when it will hold any relevancy to my feelings.

I see my friends. Some are married. They were stronger than me. They didn’t burn out; or maybe it was they weren’t extinguished.

I see my friends. They still get to talk to their ex’s. They get to drift apart a little more naturally with someone wth whom they literally shared their life with. They have things fall in place. They find new people they get to mutually care for.

For me, any distant relative of love has just been further conditioned to be, to me, associated with pain, with hurting, with tears. Care, trust, companionship, friendship, these things aren’t even love, but they all have tracked in the broken glass fragments from my concept of love, and likewise, even a step can, at random, cause me pain.

It is another insecurity I have to carry around now. I’m not looking for any pity or anything. I’m sick enough of feeling bad for myself; last thing I want is anyone else doing the same. I’m simply bringing another insecurity to the table.

This way, nobody can say anything to me sometimes see sawing from functioning, well, and to not ok.

Sometimes I’m going to not be ok. Just let me at least not be ok sometimes, I don’t ask for much anymore. This is not too much to ask. If I ever warn you about getting too close to me, please know I’m just trying to keep that tunnel blocked off as long as I can. It is all I can do to keep moving on in life. Just stay barricaded. Keep moving on.

March 6, 2012
getting personal

I was in the car. I was driving the car. There were 4 of us in there.

We were driving around the city of Fairview, looking for a graveyard. We were going to take pictures, maybe make memories of each other as ghosts. It was in the summer, of course, which is the appropriate time of year to take pictures with friends in a graveyard.

I knew the cemetery I wanted to go to,. It had a nice aesthetic, and it was removed from everything else. For some reason, that place remained hidden away like some secret area in space-time. I knew where it was, but when I drove there, it wasn’t there.

Jesse said he knew of a couple others. They didn’t really sound like they fit the bill when I asked him to desribec them, but what else was I going to do? I was feeling uneasy. I typically felt uneasy around people, but now I felt uneasy around my friends. I felt even more uneasy because I was with my friends and my girlfriend.

I hadn’t seen Corey in weeks, probably. Furthermore, I hadn’t really seen him on any terms of substance for months, maybe even a year if you want to be honest.

There we were, driving that car; that black Toyota Camry– the same year as my own. Kara was to my right in the passenger seat, and Corey and Jesse behind us in the back. I wasn’t happy. Things were not going how I planned. I felt like I had a target on my back. I felt like Kara had a target on her back. I felt that , together, we especially carried a dangerous label. I was pretty sure our friends had alienated us. I am pretty sure. I don’t know if I blame them or not, things got to a point where they couldn’t be contained. When you are a couple, you try to do everyone around you the courtesy of putting problems and quarrels aside until it is behind closed doors. That hadn’t been an option for maybe a year now. Everyone had seen the ugliness, our craziness.

I felt like I had turned crazy, and I felt like everyone thought I had lost it. That didn’t help me feel any less crazy.

I so badly wanted this to be a good day. Seamless. Flawless. Peerless. Enjoyable. And if things really go well, perfect. A sign of hope, a reminder that we aren’t cancer, we are just the same two friends you’ve always had. I had trouble truly wanting anything in those days. I was stunted, but, I truly, truly, wanted that.

I couldn’t find the right place. I was on edge. I was messing things up already. In my head I could feel Kara beginning to fret; the cogs and gears coming slightly loose. I was figuring her to start worrying that we won’t find a good spot, and that one bolt of negativity firing off, suggesting that we just go back home, forget the pictures and just hang out at my house. That one blow would dismantle the entire machine, and I couldn’t let it happen.

We were still driving. Forty minutes to no avail, I was out of ideas. I tried to keep things going. I worked hard, like they were going to tip me, if I kept the atmosphere comfortable and enjoyable. While I was driving I glanced over at Kara after something I said. I saw something. It was a slight removal of comfort in her face, to the corner of my eye, it looked like that seed of distress. I was in no place to make that judgment.

I did anyway.

I was so sure that she was about to unravel. To prevent the peace from being broken, I broke it. I took the offensive.

“No, no you don’t. Not today! Not today!”

Nobody knew what I was on about.

She didn’t really either, she just heard my tone, saw the alarm in my face and demeanor. It was Chernobyl all over again.

I continued to accuse her of indicating to me that she was not keeping things together, that she was about to crack.

I guess I forgot to say that it was hard for her to be social in those days. Working her up to have group interaction among even the closest of our friends took weeks on a slow stew. One small mistake and that is another week or two of work. Just as it was hard to get her up for it, maintaining her ability to when we did was something that I had taken responsibility for. I was the nurse. I was probably wrong to, but then again, in those days, it was probably necessary– I don’t think retrospect has granted me any other light on that.

There we were, trapped in this vehicle, a good 12 minutes from home. I was yelling at the top of my lungs. It was a very grotesque scene. There were a handful of times where I was really, truly mean– just mean00 and mean to her in some sort of public setting. When I say mean, I mean like in a way that I knew I was being mean, but I did not feel bad about it; like I felt she had earned it from me. This was one of those few times. Of course what followed after I regathered myself from those incidents was the ugliest, muddy feeling of dreck and self-loathing grime infiltrating every last pore I had.

In the middle of my tirade I glanced in the rearview mirror, seeing my two friends in the back seat, as uncomfortable as sleeping on a bed of spikes. It only made me feel worse.Maybe these moments were some type of out of body experiences for me, and seeing those two, then her, then myself, started to pull me back in. I had too much momentum to just stop, but I just finished up a good 30 seconds more of vicious yelling and blaming for thinking that or plans are ruined before I did stop.

Then, they really were ruined.

She cried, trying not to erupt into tears– she instead just melted away in a ball of salty discharge as she curled up in her seat facing down and away from everyone. The two in the back didn’t make a peep. And I just recoiled away toward my window a bit, wearing my mask of distress anger, and disappointment. I was holding back. I wanted to cry, but I wasn’t going to. I sped up, but I didn’t speed too much. I thought to myself, “this is it– you’ve really done it this time.”

I knew that when we got home the other two would leave both as quickly as they could, but also as politely as they could. That made me more upset. I’d rather them just leave and not feign the courtesy part. I am not ignorant, of course.

As soon as we did get back, the exact scenario happened.

Jesse was kind of quieter about it, his voice doesn’t carry like most, so it could be seen as him just kind of getting in his car and heading off. Corey is very adept at the uncomfortable courtesy bit, and he really let it out in this case. I don’t blame him, but as soon as he said what words he said, in the tone he said, and that door shut, the red in my vision and head rose. The cars started driving off and I just let myself lose control of my body. We went inside, because I needed to unlock the door for her, but it was merely a stop on the way to wherever I was going.

The puppy of Kara’s was howling, she had severe separation anxiety. She was in her kennel in my living room. I yelled at the dog, and rattled her kennel. I told the puppy to shut up in all different manner of ways, then transferred that to Kara as she busted out into total weeping. I started throwing and kicking things. I didn’t want ot hurt her. I didn’t want to run my friends off. I didn’t want her to be crying. I didn’t want plans to be ruined. I didn’t want to be the one who ruined things, but I was. I kicked some of my mom’s somewhat new furniture. In fact, I broke some of it. I continued to the back porch so I could continue to follow my blind rage even more. I grabbed the weight bench and threw the barbell off the deck into the lawn. Primally, I screamed and shrieked about. I noticed that the neighbors down the street had been outside when we got home. They were still on their porch at this time. Just more people to alienate me and think I am mentally unstable.

I don’t remember everything I threw or tried to destroy. I do distinctly remember a broom stick of which I broke. I didn’t break it snapping it on my leg, or banging it on anything. I merely flung it across the yard. Mid release, it snapped in half and split off into two paths, one end hitting a tree. At that point I started to calm enough to stop physically lashing out. I stayed outside for a while. I sat on the steps of my deck and let some tears come out.

I didn’t know what I was going to do when I went back inside. I didn’t know how I was going to recover between any of those people involved, or what my parents would think when they saw all the destruction. I didn’t want to sit out there forever, though. It only made things worse. After a couple minute I went inside.

We didn’t say anything to each other, she was on the couch, or maybe she had gone into my room on my bed– either way, she was coiled up into a ball, still outpouring tears and snot like the river Nile. I set to clean everything inside up. I made good progress until I realized some of the furniture I had broken. I had a little kid moment again, when I was trying to figure out how I was going to cover this up and lie to my mom about it so she doesn’t notice. She still doesn’t know about it to this day, so I guess I did well on that front. Maybe my childhood was just teaching me how to deceive better.That dilemma set back my efforts to recollect myself by 30 minutes, though.

I don’t remember much of what happened in the next 30-60 minute, or maybe I just don’t care to go that deep into something already terribly personal. I remember it being dark. Dark and quiet. The only noise was slow breathing patterns, sniffling, a ticking clock on the wall, and dog tags clinging about. These things occupied our senses until enough time passed that the only thing left in me was weakness, tenderness and gentleness.

We were both hungry and exhausted. I fed myself and fed her, after persuading her that she needed to eat too.

We sat curled up with each other on my couch as we ate dinner and in the dark watched Man On Wire.

February 13, 2012
Man up, James! – Issue 131

source: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=56786&page=76

Man up, James!

It is 50 minutes into the last day of my least favorite month. This January was no exception to the rule; pretty bad January. A lot to be thankful for? Sure. A lot to look forward to? Somewhat. A lot of emptiness and uncertainty? Of course.

The past two days were the weakest I’ve felt since before I started my final semester in August. I hate how I can hardly remember most of those days. I compare it to something like Mario Kart, you know, like those boost arrows on the track that warp you up real fast? That is what those first few weeks of August were. I was mad depressed, still, though had been scaling upward and out of the crevice I had violently tumbled so deeply down; slow progress, and many days where I slipped and ended up back down days, weeks back.

Then it was like the movie trope you see, where my foot somehow got tied around some rope attached to a pulley, such as the one you see in a bucket, and this massive counterweight yanked me up, upside down, toward the surface. Of course this wasn’t entirely beneficial, as I was dragged across the crag like a match being lit on a coarse, flint-like rock. Either way, it started up again. Life. It took me a month or two to get out of the shell shock of being back in school after my massive breakdown and fleeing. Desperate prayers were answered as I recall showing up at a fairly well-sized baptist church one afternoon in the first half-week of school. My friend said I had the job if I wanted it. I walked around the facility and heard my responsibilities and was basically said the job was mine if I wanted it. Not that I didn’t listen, but I didn’t really listen so much, because I could have been told that I was going to be wrestling lions and I would have said yes. A couple days later I was both working and attending school every weekday.

I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to hack it anymore. Atrophy is an incredible thing. Social atrophy is even worse when you have dealt with varying degrees of social anxiety and fluctuating self-image your entire life. Those first few weeks were entirely distorted, blurry, rushed. For any of you who ever played sports, it was like getting out in your first high school varsity game, somehow mistakenly sent in by your coach, or perhaps as part of a message being delivered to older, leather skinned and composed upperclassman teammates. And the sweat, the pressure, the accelerating heart beat, the shortened breathing patterns and the motion– game back on. If you know those moments, you know what those weeks felt like. I merely just kept my body moving. I made sure I was in each place I needed to be when I was supposed to be there, then like that moment the roller coaster drifts into momentum, I went along for the ride, terrified and helpless.

Over time, I finally earned back fragments of confidence, normalcy, and the sure-footed feeling that I can do this living stuff again. By the time that period ended, I had my best, closest friend in the world living 2 minutes away, I had earned back the respect of instructors I look up to who were there when I fell the first time, I felt like I belonged on campus, I felt good about my ability to contribute with my job, and so on. I was not only back on the surface, but I had healed up quite a but, stiffened up my body a bit and was feeling the best I had felt in a couple years.

Maybe I got a big head, maybe I forgot that it isn’t me who is in control of these things, maybe I just was near-sighted, or maybe I am just overdramatic, but I never knew it’d only take a month to uncoil most of that.

December 16th was the night I graduated. I was hyped up. I even saw some old faces who had been through journeys as long, and I am sure as arduous as mine. I was totally inspired, and I felt fulfilled. I was surrounded by so many of my best friends and family that night. Heck, I even let one of my closest girl friends come, you know, that one who I had been saying was dead to me for the past year– not the on that I had been dead to the past year. In fact, it was nice to have that dichotomy between oldest closest girl friend and newest closest girl friend both there, with the one in the middle obviously gone. It showed that I could find that type of connection still, in places I never looked.

The very next day, the coils had already started revolving the other direction. It was likely from coming from such a sky searing high from the night before and having to plummet down to the ground the next day. Oh, and waking up too early. I never got weaker, even as the immediate future dwindled into an outlook that was not as clear cut and optimistic as the one I endured between August and December. I knew, or so I thought, what was coming, and I was ready to take that transition head on; much like we take on waves, running straight at them and diving under to avoid the blows and their opposing force. I am clumsy, and I got hit by a few.

I expected some, and wasn’t prepared for others. I knew my best friend was leaving, but I couldn’t process it until it happened. I didn’t know I would find myself attached to a girl, but almost involuntarily it happened. I knew that I’d be in this weird transition period with my job and finding something more permanent, and hopefully meaningful (to myself), but I didn’t expect it to have such a sapping effect. I knew that my family was going through a lot of things, but I once again underestimated how deeply the stress of it would start to hollow me out again.

And now where am I exactly?

Lost, I guess.

I am holding myself up with everything I have. I am not refusing help; I am quite active in asking for it, in fact. Yet, I’m still lost and that wanes my strength extensively. My biggest short-term fear is that I run out of strength, give up on finding my direction and fall back into depression, but I will fight with everything I have to avoid that; and I will fight dirty.

I’ve already considered a lot of changes I can try to make, or at least look into to help. I have to sit kicking myself every moment of the day, the only girl that has ever had any meaning to me since my breakup has seemingly gone to a close friend to a non-existent one. I even had to bring to the table that I can’t support a one-sided friendship. I think I forgot to say that I didn’t want it to have to be that way, and I think I came off lacking understanding of that person, but on the other hand that part of me that is still blackened and dead from all my time wants to be bitter from feeling like I haven’t been respected; like I am not trusted, or heck, like I haven’t even been given a chance to be trusted. Within me, I know that I am worthy of those things and more, yet within the other person, they can’t easily resign themselves to that. I have to remember other people have those blackened, dead parts, and I try to at least take the fact that it is hard to be given someone’s trust as something, because at least that is on the table? Either way, it is a terrible place to be, because it just feels like I keep giving up more and more.

Lost another friend to a similar typhoon in their life, and only recently have they resurfaced. I’ve had a couple more move, or they travel a lot. She, well, her and I probably both finally accept that we ended up on different sides of a bridge that has been completely destroyed, with myself finishing last in that race, of course. The only real female touch I have in my life are from one or two people, depending on how you look at it. I never get to see any of those kind of friends in anything outside of a group setting, and even then it is usually brief. I deeply yearn for that kind of connection again, there is just something about the gentleness of that heart and that different way of looking at things that I can’t get otherwise, heck, that’s why I would sacrifice any deeper feelings I got for any girl at this point just because I need that close connection as a friend I can trust and vice versa. I only get that with people who are in other states right now.

It makes me very sad.

Then there is the fact that nearly all of my active close friends live ~40 minutes away, at least. That might not sound like much in the grand scheme of things, but when you have to drive that much to and fro to go anywhere, it drains you. I either have to plan well ahead and pack for the end of the world to be efficient, or I have to make many drives. I hate it, and I think it has ground me to the point that half the time I can hang out with any of them, I have to fight an equal half that doesn’t feel up to it, because it’d feel better to have to expend less of myself and be down about my situation instead.

That is exactly the kind of danger I fear. Do you see how easy it is for me to systematically break down my current setting and subsequently have endless ammunition to fire at my morale?

It is scaring the crap out of me. I feel 15,19 and 24 all over again. Those were all very low points and very foolish times. I won’t say I thought I grew, because I knew I grew. I have the measurements on the wall, but why am I feeling like I am inflicted by all the things in the past that cut me so far down, plus new ones?

As a whole, I am still far better off right now than I was 1 or 2 years ago. I think I have less intimacy and close contact to lean on, but other than that caveat, I should like these odds.

I honestly just think that I must have thought I fully recovered from injury too quick, tried to run too far, jump too high, and play too hard. I’m playing that patience game again and I just don’t like it.

I guess that is why I am just doing everything I can to keep things moving, changing, and trying to procure advantages in anyway I can. If you can’t try to be self-reliant then how do you expect to rely on anyone else?

I know I just painted a very bleak picture, and I know I am going to come across as very down. Like I said, I’ve just felt especially weak the past two days, but you know what?

Even if it’s the last thing I do, I’m manning up. I will out exist this lull, no prob.

Skimming through this again, I do realize I forgot to highlight one thing: I have more self-assurance now than ever. I am just not getting a chance to exhibit that self-assurance. That is why I am impatient through my transition, like I am cuffed and these weakly dudes are trying to get their licks in now before they let me loose to unleash on the world like a rapid fire cannon.

January 31, 2012
delirium strikes

For years, they tried to fool proof myself
Scientists in a lab

The coats
The computers
The spectacles

I, The Spectacle

When I wasn’t blinded by
The pervasive light overhead
Softly spoken schematics
and directives overheard

A dark room and haze
Filled in around me
I could feel it
Compressing the air surrounding

It whispered

I murmured

As my skin boiled
my brain prodded
my lungs inflated
my eyes twitched
my teeth rattled
my tongue flapped
my bones fractured
my spine curled
my glands secreted
my nostrils retreated
my hair wilted
my voice dried
my lips desaturated
my nerves faded

Coarse leather straps and a metallic buckle,
The coldest thing in the room,
Slid across a molting layer of skin

“It is complete.”
Were the only words spoken

Later, I stood.

First step
Engineered
Bullet proof, air tight and
The miracle of science

Second step
“Plit, plit”
Red splatters visible
In front of my feet

Third step
My perfect hand
To my chest
Evident, indeed.
The scientists forgot to patch
A single leak.

Fourth step
Non-existent
The miracle of neglect

January 27, 2012
no effort – Facebook Pasting I

I wanted to post something, but I didn’t want to take the time to finish writing anything. So I copy and paste delirious facebook ramblings and call it blog! Italicizing myself for dramatic, confucian/bozoean effect

I’ve finally won

for real?

Via choosing different races

handicapped ones

I have won

what are you talking about?

I will no longer not not be respected

I am talking about the punk movemet

movement

meowvement

no you aren’t

and if you are, you haven’t won

unless in the punk movement winning means losing

I have won

Quitting = winning

well

not quitting

transcending

transcendance is achieving victory

and fulfillment is baking your heart until the bread is warm

i’ll take that.

holding on is breaking your heart until it is stale bread

and crumbs that lead to a person who is no longer there

is all you will be

And they overestimate a beating heart

because sometimes it is only beating itself

are you writing me poetry?

I don’t write poetry

and I don’t write it to you, either

wrong on both accounts

Someone is wrong

and it is usually everyone in the room

When the room empties

the only thing left is the prosperity of incorrection

breeding like bacteria underneath the pit of the earth

poetry

If I could choose

I would never become a poet

but I would gladly become a bard

i would love to see you a bard

travelling from town to town

regailing the peasants with tales from the kingdom

It is hard to continue my incoherent chickerings with you interjecting every 80 pixels

hahaha

i don’t want you to chicker me

nor do i want you to chicker me out

It is not you who I am chickering

It is the wind I chicker to

you just stand in the way

please move

please move

but the wind blows me still

in your direction

please move

please move

I am not a sail boat

I’M A FAIL BOAT

1:05am

stop your bardetry! it makes me regret my lack of inspiration recently

CHIPS AHOY

oh snap

January 27, 2012
the loneliest day of the year?

I forgot that today was going to be the loneliest day of the year. Had I remembered that, I might have proceeded with more trepidation, but I also estimate I ultimately would not have settled for trying to mitigate it. Instead, I found myself waking up from a nap at 6:44 P.M. remembering that at about that same time last January 1st, I was probably in the same exact place; my bed, drained emotionally, numbed and lifeless.

This year it was kind of different, but it was similar enough to smack me on the face. I had forgotten that my break-up occurred on the 1st of the year, 2011. I don’t know how, but maybe that I am forgetting is for the best.

I poured a large part of my heart out today to someone. I’m glad I did. Funny, though, the couple people I know who have had the privilege (I say privilege sardonically) for me to confide my intentions to do this didn’t understand what on Atlas’ shoulders I was thinking. I was merely being me, and also trying to allow myself the space (within myself) to continue to be me. It wasn’t a play or some tactical move, it was just honesty. I think I understand the honesty of enough people’s situations to recognize what things are and what they should be, but feelings are too much like nature. I consider myself a fertile plot of land as an individual, and if you plant yourself in the grounds of my life, shower me with gentleness and consideration, then if you shine brightly and beautifully, the growth is inevitable.

I have said it too many times already, but I didn’t even expect to be capable of such growth so soon on January 1st, 2011. So that is what it is. The point of even talking about this in any capacity isn’t about the occurrence of it, because it is mostly irrelevant, but rather, I did’t expect to feel so emotionally exasperated afterward. I went in having scenarios and expected probabilities, and what all took place was pretty much in my calculations, which is what I needed as I begin transitioning and spending some time living amorphously. In the present, I did what I needed and what I needed out of it I got. Done. But that exhaustion… it probably wouldn’t have hit so hard without some other factors, but I think the point is clear; I have no emotional lungs right now.

I’m that atrophied rehab patient– coupled with the fact that I put myself in a setting where I have to admit not only to myself, but another human for more than a moment that I am still an emotional creature and you have someone who is passed out in bed until he sinks in with the thing and his skin grafts with the mattress. I guess one of the overarching challenges facing this year is going to be getting back into normal emotional shape. 2011 was for regaining emotional capability– from paralyzation to walking again. This year will be from taking a few steps at a time to mobility. I am really excited for 2012 as a whole, but that part sounds like a pain. Emotions are a pain, but I gotta feel, ya know. I’m at least half the empath Deanna Troi from Star Trek: TNG is.

As far as other things, today was the first day that I felt the effects of my closest friend being out of my life again. He left in the morning near the end of the week. Reality only lagged a few days behind this time. I think that alone probably would have conc’ed me out in my bed this afternoon like I did, so it was just another lump on my head. With him back around, I was enjoying life with training wheels on again. I had the task of navigating the terrain, pedaling, braking, steering and even keeping my balance in extreme situations, but I had those two little wheels on the back at all times to give me a safer, somewhat unrealistic environment to rely on. That’s gone, and more importantly, probably half of myself is gone. I always told him we were Yin to each other’s Yang, because our friendship is paradoxical in most ways, but we shape out so that it interlocks pretty darn completely. That’s a lot to lose, and that would have been the biggest emotional impact I felt today– had it not been for the terror of memory.

I’ve been saying how I’ve finally gotten closure on the past, and I feel like I mostly have. In fact, beyond waking up, seeing the clock, and feeling exactly how I felt when I did this evening, I really did not feel any impact from the whole breaking up with the girl you’ve loved as close to unconditionally as personally possible (at those points in my life) and the last images of her being her breaking down into billions of unrecognizable fragments underneath a flurry of tears on your bed, then like a balloon rapidly losing air just kind of incomprehensibly and awkwardly floating off, out of the house, into her car and driving out of your life for good– no impact at all past that moment when I caught myself in the act of forgetting. The same moment when I realize I felt identical enough at the same moment a year away in the same sense that people look similar to someone, but when you really examine their faces they don’t look alike at all.

In summation of all these things, I’ve been living the rest of the day with the understanding that this is the loneliest day of the year for me. It is funny because a lot of people preach about how 2012, or any other year, is just an arbitrary number assigned by us and doesn’t make a difference from the previous day to this day. For one, I’d argue that there is a lot to be said in symbolism and what things, such as numbers, represent, but more pertinent, for me, the calendar year happens to cycle with major shifts in my life. Once again, I find myself in a massive transformation of which coincides with the new year.

The thing is this: yes, it is the most lonely day of the year for me, but I haven’t looked forward to a new year probably ever in my life as much as I do 2012. So while I felt that, I also felt pure joy. Plus I think two out of three of those emotional events to start off my year were things I have more to celebrate in than anything.

I’m not here to elaborate on that anymore than I have though.

I’m here to cap off this lonely day, reflect, re-experience emotion arnd get myself geared up for this week, which is when I truly start romping around with the training wheels off. I expect plenty of scuffs and bruises, but plenty of great experiences along with it.

You see, for everything else I have said that you might perceive as something negative or depressing, I take as inspiring and invigorating because all these things show me that–

I’m on the verge of living.

My heart is racing just thinking about that.

🙂

January 2, 2012