Observation + a Tangent.

It seems to me that the vast majority of people either have the person they want or the person they need in their life. At the moment, I have neither and haven't for a long time. Or they even have someone that wants or needs them. Pretty sure I don't have one of those either.

Tangent: I had a moment today that really struck me. "Lie in the Sound" by Trespassers William came on in the car today and it was like I was hearing it for the first time. Which was made more unusual by the fact that I had listened to it a couple times the day or two before. But it's been one of my favorite songs for a long time and I listened to it more times than I can count. And yet, today I understood it and was moved by it in a way I never have before. Instead of simply appreciating its meaning, I felt it. It was extremely powerful and gave me chills. Just one of the many, many reasons why I'm in love with music.

I honestly feel like music and film (my passions) are all I have anymore. And while they make me happy, I'm constantly reminded of Chris McCandless's words: happiness is only real when shared. And I need and want to share everything I have so badly with someone.

Full of the unwanted.

It understand that life is full of the unexpected and surprises and that's a large part of what makes life so exhilarating to experience, but it would be really nice if those surprises and unexpected twists and turns would be what I want. I constantly feel like I'm settling, like I'm just accepting everything how it is and leaving it at that. While I think it is important to be appreciative of what we all do have and receive, it is nice to get what our heart's want every once in a while. I know this is a common underlying message in a lot of my posts on here, but it still stands very, very true.

Why can't my relationships with people just be what I want them to be? What am I doing wrong/missing? Whenever I finally feel like I'm establishing some stability, everything gets fucked up.

Am I the unstable one, though? Am I the one that's fucking everything up somehow?

Fighting for a possibility.

I have a really bad problem with letting go and moving on. Sometimes I feel like if I do, then I'm simply giving up and not giving myself a chance. But at the same time, I feel like holding on to something that may or may not happen or be true makes me fool. That's the last thing I want to be.

How can you let go of your deepest desire and not force your heart to break?

AFG. My world.

I've found myself inconsolable today, seeing as it's Grandpa's birthday today. The worst part about it is I woke up and forgot until I saw my aunt say something on Facebook. I mean, the fact that that happened makes me sick. The fact that he is dead makes me sick.

He changed my life forever. He inspired a great deal of my character, mind, and attributes and it breaks my heart to wonder about what a kind of effect he could have had on me now and within the last couple of  years if he had lived. I wonder how much better of a person I might have ended up being, smarter even.

"They" always say that time heals everything, but even after 8 years I still feel an ache and weight in my chest whenever I think about him. I cry just as hard if not more than at his funeral and I was fighting to breathe that day. Everything about him and the world as I saw it when he was alive is still so vivid. I remember the dark color of his skin, the lines on his feet, his smile, the smell of sawdust, the feel of the green carpet in his living room, how he walked from the garage to the house with his cane, the way he wrote on his notepad. I remember the swish of his snap pants, the smell and chill of the basement--dark and damp. The Cubs, grapefruit, golf, fig newtons, the news anchors (black man/red head female) on in the morning, wood, math/numbers, coins, states/capitals, etc., all remind me of him.  The smallest things left such a great impression on my memory and heart. The big things left their mark for sure, too.

He gave me my world and the desire to reach and work for it. To earn what I want. He taught me integrity, cleverness, fortitude, curiosity, honesty. He taught me things that matter and gave me a way of thinking and looking at things that I treasure so greatly. He made little things, big things. Every bit of information and knowledge I could learn or acquire was valuable, I was valuable. Knowledge was something worth the time and effort. Most of all, he believed in me and believed that I was capable and worthy of having knowledge and integrity and I may not have understood it then, but I sure as hell do now and I couldn't appreciate it more.

I hate that I was so young when I knew him, because I wasn't able to really know him. I knew things about him, but I didn't truly know who he was--as a father, as a brother, as a worker, as a friend, as a man, as himself.  I didn't get to ask him questions about people, about the world, about life, about myself, about real things. I have a really strong feeling that if we had had the chance those would have been some of the best conversations I would have ever had. I wish he could know me, too. Who I became and who I want to become.

I would give anything to have one more conversation with him.

Encounters of mixed feelings.

I don't know how to feel about anything right now. I feel like opportunities are staring me in the face, but I don't know if it's right to fight for them or to let them go and move on to the next thing. I'm not unhappy, but I'm not happy right now either. I feel stuck. I love the people in my life and I need them, but I feel like I can never be my whole self with them nor the self that I want to be, the self that I want to express and act on the most. The only person that has ever made me feel close to that isn't in my life, not really anyway. I don't know whether to keep hoping and trying for that to become a reality or if I should give up and accept that fact that it's just not possible for me. I feel extremely compelled to do both for various reasons and it seems to be making me emotionally distracted and detached at the moment.

I'm just so tired of not feeling comfortable and accepted in my own skin. And I don't know if I possess the honest ability to change that fact or not. I do know I want it to change, but the world never seems to be on my side in that way.

So I guess I really am useless for the time being.

The Aftermath.

This past week or so has certainly fucked with my head to say the least. Life gave me a sincere slap in the face. I've done so much thinking about my life and my mistakes recently and there's a lot I've taken from the experience. I think I needed to royally screw things up the way I did to give me the right set of mind and prepare me for this year. I know that sounds really strange, but every year there's been a new challenge and every year I've had to adapt and change and grow because of it and through it. In the end, I've always been pleased with the result, so I guess it's just a matter of practicing some patience for now. That is something of which I don't practice very well.

It's weird because my greatest fear is letting people down, but internally all I want to do is rebel because of that. I don't like the idea of others' influence having such a strong effect on me, so I like to live and act for myself as much as possible, to avoid that. While, I do think that philosophy is beneficial to me in many ways, I've come to realize that its naive to think that our actions don't affect others. Mine this past weekend could not only have screwed up my own life in so many ways, but my friends' and my familys' as well. Yet again, I need to find a way to balance. In this case, by making my own decisions and living my own life without doing so at the potential expense of others.

While I am trying to take this experience and use it as a change for the better, I can't help but feel paranoid and worried about messing up again and feel as if everyone can read it across my face and somehow knows everything that happened. Then again, I may just be stressed because school is starting up and work is really hectic this weekend, too. Part of it, I think is that everything seems to be happening at once and that always makes me a bit stressed and nervous.

I'm trying to regain my enthusiasm as much as possible about this year because I think it is what's going to get me through the next couple of days/weeks. I want to seize opportunities (this internship at Madison Theater, for example), but I'm really scared of taking on too much, so that's something I need to keep in mind and be careful of this year.

All in all, I'm hopeful and I think this should be a good year. I really am just excited to be with everyone again, I think that will help my mind set/feelings/attitude a lot.

Cheers.

Currently pushing.

I've come to realize that I seem to go through two phases. I either let everyone in or I push everyone away. Trusting people is just so complicated for me anymore.