Not sure when I'll get the next chance to say all this, so I figured I'd get it out there while I still can. Phone got cut off, and don't have a computer of my own anymore, so don't often get the opportunity to do this anymore.

Looks like I'm about to drop off the radar, so to speak. There's definitely a story there, but to cut it short for those of you that don't know:

My dad (then dog) died awhile back, and following all the fun and spring cleaning that comes with death, my mum kinda went crazy, kicked me out, and, well.. suffice to say, I don't really have a family or practically anything from that life anymore besides some memories I can't forget. Not having much more than the clothes on my back as far as possessions, and basically up shit rapids before the falls, looks like I'll be taking off crosscountry hitchhiking. It's probably a horrible idea in so many regards, but I don't really think I can stay around here anymore. Kinda locked in a viscious cycle as is.

Being broke makes it hard to find somewhere to go.
Not having anywhere to go makes it hard to not be broke.

It's kinda a catch-22. Story of my life right now, though, I suppose. I could go into all sorts of details; could talk about 98% of my belongings are in storage, how my mom won't let me grab them, how social security doesn't work when you don't have any proof of jack-all, how the person I most want to talk to about all this is dead, but really, would it matter? Maybe. After all, one of the big reasons I'm looking to up and leave is because I don't want to freeze to death this winter (or autumnl, knowing my health) stuck somewhere. But that's a whole other kettle of fish.

Basically, my life is one big giant clusterfuck mess. I'm leaving for god-knows-where to mourn, flee cold, and finish killing the person I used to be. I just hope it doesn't kill me physically. I also wish I wasn't dead serious with that line of thought. Because honestly, at this point, I can't really tell if my lovely ol' body'll survive this winter. Can't really stand still though, or else I'm risking killing my heart and mind, to say nothing of the strain that puts on my soul. Bit of a bind, you see. Wishful thinking that this here wasn't just the tip of an iceberg, but hey, what can you do?

Was kinda hoping I might get a chance to see some of you that I haven't seen in fuckever before I leave, but the way things have been going, I can't really say what will happen at all anymore. Am I going to see a computer again after posting this? Probably. When I move on from staying with a friend? Fuck knows. When'll that be? Fuck knows.

Is it all bad, though? Nah, not even close. Just riding a whirlwind of joy and sorrow as far as it'll take me. Funny thing, it's just about as equally beautiful, lovely, and wonderful as it is shitty. But that's on another level entirely. Go figure the mystic inside, the love towards divinity, is enough to make a life seemingly berift of warmth and stability somehow more fulfilling than anything before it. Well, almost anything. Love = Love, after all. Pretty hard to stack one form of it against another, you know?

Don't really have much more than that to say, not that I can think of, anyway. I guess, I love you all. Take care everyone, and I wish you the best. Here's to hoping we see each other again, in some lifetime or another.


Oh holy god forgive us so
Forgive us that we did not know,
Forgive us that for which we've sucked
I'm pretty sure that now we're fucked.

Broke-- check.
Jobless-- check.
Homeless-- check.
Dying-- check.
Body failing-- check.
Losing my mind-- check.
Being a witch-- check.
Broken toe-- well, fuck. Check.

"The things money can't buy,"-- check.
Inner calling of purpose-- check.
The earth is my home-- check.
Being reborn-- check.
Awakening a road less travelled-- check.
Transcending the mind-- check.
Manifesting reality, magically-- check.
Broken toe-- well, fuck. Check.

I'm kind of fucked, I think. Time will tell if this is a good or bad thing, but I don't think there's too much doubt left about the whole fucked bit. I guess one way or another, I'm probably going to get my chance to leap empty-handed into the void. Lucky me, right?

But then again, aren't I exactly where I wanted to end up? Maybe, it's hard to say. That might have something to do with everyone else inside me. That wasn't part of what I imagined. Maybe that was part of what got me here, having expectations about the whole thing. "Yeah, it'll be cool when I become aware and enlightened. Life won't suck anymore."

...

Yeah, in a sense I guess that's true. It doesn't suck, but that's more like a perception shift. It's not like the sun shines any brighter or you're any happier. Not from what I can tell. Yeah, a lot does change, but by and large it's much more a continuation of what already was. A newfound realization of it, I suppose. Does that mean I am finally "there?" That I made it where I was going? Haha, you could say that, but I wouldn't say it's the whole truth. I'm here now. In those three words lies so much of what I've come to understand.

There is no there. You are always here.
There is in then. It is always now.

The eternal now. The infinite here. It's a funny thing to stumble across such things. To experience from such a finite perception the eternity of the moment.. bloody hell, would that I could share such things. I'm getting there. If I don't hurt myself or someone else with the psychic bit, might have a chance to mindmeld yet. Might be able to share the feelings if I don't fuck up with energy manipulation without understanding it. Again. If I don't asplode, burn myself out, go entirely insane or lose myself before I get a handle on this empathy thing.

That last one is going to hurt. But then, what's new? Seem to be a bit of a magnet for attracting pain to myself. It's fucking lovely except for that whole part where I tend to feel it. That kinda sucks.

Life's funny, you know? It wasn't that long ago that I didn't believe in anything more than a strictly rational and material approach to existence. Life happens, you change course, and before you know it you're hearing people's thoughts. That'll make you pause. Probably. Unless you've been communicating with what can only be described, as telepathy, with the spirits of nature and the Earth herself, plus a few things that put religion in a whole new perspective.

Alright then, lost you yet? Great. Yeah, go figure that in suburban 21st century America, someone ended up on the shaman's path. Well, the soul walks all fucking paths, don't it? On the one hand, it fucking fits like a glove. On the other, it's kind of lonely. Like, really lonley. At least when it comes to the world of men. Fuck, step out into the green and the trees and suddenly at home again, back to being a wild creature of the Earth, albeit rendered instinctually retarded by generations of domestication. Nature likes me. Animals like me. Plants like me. I attract nature in a staticy sort of way. In that, I go outside, and suddenly I am wearing nature on my clothes if I come within a foot of it. It's cool though, I don't mind.

Did I mention I'm high? Yeah, this'll probably ramble like a mother, but fuck it. I hold enough in to pass up on the opportunity. ..And I lost the groove I was in. Lovely.

RAWR!

There's so much more, this is really just like the tip of an iceberg. My life's all a clusterfuck on the physical level. And that's just the beginning. That's just the tip of the tip of the iceberg. Way to collide into something so massive you've rendered yourself.. special, self. Fucking special. But then, you just collided into yourself, didn't ya? Heh. Funny how that works.

I have to say though, dancing with yourself is one of the most exhilarating things there is. Right next to dancing with life, the universe, god, love, or whatever name strikes you. Even better when you do both at the same time. Long as you aren't too attached to who you think you are. ::grin::

Sometimes, when I look at reality, I see the dream. When I see the dream, it is real. But when I feel the dream, I know it is real.

You feel me, or is this just what a mind overtaxed looks like? Don't forget, it's rarely really either/or. A little of A, a little of B, and a touch of Ω.

I swear, if I couldn't laugh about all this I'd probably be crazy.

Oh wait.

Ha. ha. ha.

Guess I can laugh about that too. Thank god.

Heh. God. Heh.

Yeah, this is going to get a whole lot funnier before it's done. Wouldn't want it any other way.

"The story of our life, in the end, is not our life. It is our story."

There is something I have become increasingly aware of in these past months. It is both a blessing, and a curse. My own powerlessness over the world around me. I speak of the ability to effect those I love and care about, and to alter things outside myself. Though I may have infinite faith and confidence in myself, and my control over my own actions and choices, how that translates into outer control is practically nonexistent. Yes, I may have influence amongst a select few, but trying to guide that influence in a positive manner is tantamount to a crapshoot.

As an example, my father died in July. I have since watched my mother’s world fall apart, and her increasing inability to relate well to the world around her. Her personal descent into the darker aspects of the human condition, and her dwelling alongside the chasms of loss and hopelessness. Though I’ve tried my best to offer what help I may, to act as a light in the darkness that is claiming her life, my efforts are approaching futility. More often than not, good intentions are misread and seen as an attack. Her defenses and coping leave little room for myself to navigate in any helpful way. To act would worsen the cosmic storm of shit. To do nothing allows it to continue unabated. I find myself outside a prison, looking in, and without the key.

Were it so easy that we might help one another, act as each others guiding stars in our all too often dark lives. That by our reaching out we could lift each other, help each other, heal each other. But that is not the universe we inhabit, sadly. We all create our realities, our prisons, and it is heartbreaking to know that more often than not, we are the only ones that hold the keys to our freedom. As long as we keep those keys clutched to our chests, or are unaware that we even have them, we remain outside the grace of the rest of the universe of which we are a part.

There is perhaps, a small consolation to be offered here. In the acceptance of our powerlessness and our lack of control, there can be peace, there can be contentment. There can be a focus on that which we do have control over, ourselves. In forgoing the emancipation of others from their prisons and hells, our own freedom becomes a much more real possibility. We have never been given the keys to the lives of others, to their hearts, their souls. Though for a time, they may loan us theirs, or open the doors for us, their keys have forever been in their keeping. Such it is with all of us, that the one we are most qualified to heal, to help, is ourselves.

I do not mean to imply that we should only look to ourselves, let the world be damned. We are all one, connected and intertwined with such complexity that sanity will be put aside to understand it. What hurts you, hurts me. What hurts me, hurts you. So it is with all things, from the rocks and the trees, to the birds and the bees. The whales and the snails as well, in fact. Our destiny is shared, whatever it may be, and we can’t escape from that. When you are a part of the universe, how do you run from that? How can you be free of yourself?

So help all you can, if you so would. Offer your hand and your heart to all who would accept. But know that you cannot save everyone, nor can you choose who or where. I think it is likely that in all our lives, we will lose someone close to us. We will lose them to themselves, lost amidst the swirling chaos of their reality. Perhaps it may be a brother, a friend, a sister, a parent, a child, or a spouse. Maybe you’ll get lucky, and never know that pain, or you’ll only know it in the most distant of acquaintances. Would that we all are so blessed. But when it does come, know when you’re in over your head, when your part in the tale can go on no longer.

The only guidance I can offer should such a heartrending thing occur, is to understand your own key. Free yourself from your bars and chains, and aim to become the best version of yourself you possibly can. Let the light of your own life shine as a beacon for those you love, and hope against hope that you may be of help. I wish I could tell you honestly that it would work, or that what will happen. The raw truth of it is that I do not know. I have learned far more of many approaches that will not work, many paths that will dead end. I only know that I was given one key, and there are still doors to be opened. As long as I can truly claim to care about myself, and about those who reside in my heart, I have to try. Perhaps in the grand intwining, what heals me will help to heal all. The ripples will go out from the only place they ever really could. Myself, here, now.

It's kind of fun to do the impossible.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress." -Captain Eric Moody following engine loss of his 747

I 'should' be studying for class later tonight, but frankly, I've got a political itch that wants to be scratched. Over these past weeks, my interests in politics have once again surfaced strongly, and my distaste for political parties has only grown stronger. To put my views on the coming presidential election briefly: I don't want Obama to win. I really don't want to McCain to win. My hope and views lie somewhere in the misty left that is currently best espoused by Ralph Nader.

Now, I don't really expect Nader to win this one. If US politics weren't fucked six ways sideways, I think he'd have a great shot. But unfortunately, the process we have is not exactly one of fairness or equality. Unless of course you're talking about the wonderous Republocrat* party. The loops that third-party candidates have to go through, with the decked stacked against them, is insane in a country that is supposed to support freedom.

(*It's one fucking party, with a fuzzy amorphous line 'separating' between the right and the left. On a good day, the span on the spectrum ranges about two hairs off-set from center in both directions. Fuck that shit.)

I'm sorry, but when it comes to electing our officials, we are not as free as they would have us believe. We've become trapped in this prison that there are only two choices, and if neither floats our boat, we should vote for the person we dislike the least. Why isn't there a stronger voice against this? Why don't more people rally for their rights that politicians have pissed away? I somehow don't think George Washington would look kindly on the US government were he magically alive and well today. Though, I do kind of wish that would happen. I think it would say something when an iconic national hero gives a big verbal bitch-slap to their own nation.

I kind of think it's a conglomeration of things. People in power desiring to keep said power, and creating a very unbalanced field for outsiders. Journalism and the news seems to have taken on the shape of entertainment, rather than something approaching information. (Sadly, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are closer to being "something approximating election news with something approximating honesty" than I'm seeing on mainstream news channels.) Every citizen that's bought into the party rhetoric. It's just one big giant circle-jerk, and it's circling the fucking drain. I'll admit, there is probably a ton more at play here, spanning far before my time, but I'm not exactly up to delving into that history here, nor can I say I'm even qualified.

On another note, I watched the presidential and vice-presidential 'debates.' I found myself slamming my face into my palms more times than I care to count with both of those. Why even call it a debate, seriously? I mean, I get that more people will want to buy a burger made out of shit if it's repackaged as.. say, a 'Quarter Pounder.' But wake the fuck up, are there really that many oblivious people in this country?

I saw four talking heads for their respective parties, sticking to party lines and prearranged talking points. I saw a willful lack of answers to questions that were actually asked, and instead two people dancing around on stage, essentially campaigning to the public. Yes, it is all well and good to talk about how your plans and policies will have an impact. On relevant questions. As an example and if memory serves, in the VP debate, when Sarah Palin was asked about her biggest flaw, she went on to talk about how great she is at being a governor. She wasn't called on it by the 'moderator.' Where is the awareness of what the fuck is going on? I'm not picking on Palin here, since I saw that from everyone, though admittedly it seemed more.. obvious in the VP debates. They should just don boxing gloves, and duke it out. You'd get about the same out of it, politically speaking, and it would be far more entertaining. Of course, a bout between Obama and McCain would likely result in one very injured old dude. It would probably be awesome.

I'm not really sure where I'm going with this. I'm putting out my thoughts as they come to me, and hopefully it makes a sort of sense taken as a whole. I'm just annoyed at this whole sham of a democracy we've got going here. The candidates are pretty similar, nobody is really rocking the boat, outside of a few Obama speeches I can't say I've heard anything terribly hopeful, politics is rife in the whole thing, it's a big media circus, doublethink is fucking everywhere, and any attempts to change it from the outside is met with stern resistence by the same fuck-ups running the world into the ground.

I'd like to hope that it would be better for Obama to win this election than McCain. But then, I think if either major party takes office, we lose.

The system is fucked. I think the last eight years can attest to that. Bush & Co were elected, twice, as per the rules drawn out by the system we have in place. Congress has become an ineffective bureaucracy with the 'left' and 'right' in a kind of deadlock most of the time.



On another note, I'm just going to throw out random suggestions for alternate ideas than what is being proposed in this current presidential election, (among the 'real' candidates.) After all, that's what's so fucking awesome about having freedom and discussion of different viewpoints, seeing what else is out there.

Fossil fuels are where it's at. Alternative energy is just the realm of hippies and their nefarious pot-smoking ways. So why drill in the Arctic when we can bring dinosaurs back to life, Jurassic Park style? Think about it. No longer will be stuck in our impersonal shells so disconnected from each other, but instead can ride to work on the back of a majestic triceratops, or an adorable iguanodon. Sauropods like brachiosaurus can be used for hauling freight or heavy loads, and machismo can be appeased by saddling up on the back of a tyrannosaurus. The adventurous or time-constrained can take to the skies on the wings of a pteranodon. Imagine the beauty of flying through the skies, free of the rush hour stampedes. You could express your individualism through what you choose to ride, and kids everywhere love dinosaurs! Think of the happy smiles on their face when they aren't being devoured alive. To top it all off, we'll be practicing real long-term planning for our future. Millions of years from now, our mutant children from the fifteenth nuclear war will be able to harvest those vital fossil fuels, so crucial for life after sunlight is blocked from reaching terra firma. Everybody wins!

What about Afgahnistan, though? That clusterfuck that has fallen into disarray completely through unforseeable and unavoidable events? Poppies for Peace! Let the current poppy production there be used to support the worldwide opium based medicinal drug shortage, and shifted away from illegal markets. (You know, until somebody else picks up the slack.) The money from production can go toward rebuilding the country, while the world gains the benefit of a wonderful resource. Everybody wins!

One of these two ideas is pretty ridiculous. The other is a potential solution being proposed currently. If you're in doubt as to which is which, just think, what would Nikola Tesla do?

On a warm, sunny day
All your worries seem away
Then you turn on the T.V.
And what is it you see?
The world coming to an end
And how you wish that God would send
A message from above
Spreading peace and love
Before it is too late
To save us from the hate
That devours us inside
Our hate, our sins, our pride
We need to let it go
So that all may see and know
How the love will save us all
From our fate, our death, our fall.
Anna Suppe

This is the story of how I died.

I was raised to question, to find my own answers in life. Perhaps my parents noticed my natural curiosity in life, and chose to foster that, rather than stifling my growth with simply accepting what they believed as fact. Perhaps they thought it to be the best way to raise a child. It was from that spirit of discovery that my journey to my own end began, and the first thread was weaved.

In school, I had a teacher that fostered that ideal in her students, encouraging all of us to seek our own answers. Unknowingly to myself at the time, another thread was binding me to the path that would come. I began to pull away from those around me, into self-imposed isolation. Though slow at first, that isolation would eventually consume me. Of particular interest to me at the time, was the notion of God and religion, and that of humanity. Over that year, I questioned the world around me, and the ideas that people believe in. I began to reject the idea of religion, of God, as a wasted byproduct of humanity’s history. Science could explain anything religion and mysticism could, and I wondered how anybody couldn’t see that. I began to see humanity as a cesspool, incapable of doing anything but leading ourselves to our own damnation. Wherever I looked, I saw the problems of the world, and little being done to fix them.

As my childhood innocence fell away, I began to believe more and more that not only would my species destroy itself, but I hoped that it would. My disgust with humanity wished to see it dead and dying long before we ever left this planet for others. That our demons would at least be confined to Earth was the greatest gift I felt humanity could do for the universe.

After awhile, as cynicism and pessimism mounted, I chose to withdraw myself from school. Not officially, but simply by refusing to go. Refusing to surround myself with those I had come to dislike so intensely. It wasn’t as though I didn’t have friends. There were a few, but in most cases, they were more like casual acquaintances whom I’d briefly interact with, fulfilling my still human desire for companionship and conversation, however small. Given that I had no problem transferring those relationships to strictly through a computer, that desire was indeed small. My hermitage had begun, and the threads were weaving ever stronger.

I underwent chest surgery at this time, while the recovery period lasted far longer than expected, a fact I up played significantly to further isolate myself from the world outside my room. Eventually it would lead to my parents enrolling me in a school where I would only attend for several hours a week. More threads.

It was during this recovery period that I met her. She who would save me. She who would consume me. She who would destroy me. Words can never do justice to all that she has been to me, all she still is to me, but I can try and tell the tale as best as they will allow. Her name was Summer. We met one night in a chat room, the impersonal medium of text being my only desired method of communication with others. Immediately, I felt something different about her, at least, as well as you can feel upon first meeting someone as such. I made a note to message her, sensing something more in her than I felt towards the rest of the species. And so we started our journey together.

At that point in my life, I always held myself back. I never was invested in others, always standing back, and wearing the suit of armor I had made for myself. I made it a matter of personal pride to remark how I cared for no-one. I looked down on people. She changed that.

Shortly after we started talking, she was the one person I felt equal to, that I could relate with. At first, I had hoped to retreat fully from the world upon meeting her, encouraging her to believe as I did, as a protégé of sorts, and freeing myself of the guilt that would come from abandoning humanity to itself. She understood my anger and disappointment with the world, and sympathized with me. She never agreed, though. Where I could see no point in feeding the hungry, and healing the sick if they would only be that way again tomorrow, she was the opposite. ‘Do good where you can,’ she’d say, ‘help those who you are able.’ At the time, I thought she was naive, and more than a little crazy, but it’s funny how time and life can change someone.

The months rolled by. I began to have a real friend again, even if she was thousands of miles away. Through her, I met a group like us, social misfits who didn’t fit into societies neat little roles. We weren’t connected by much beyond that, and our shared chat room where we would come together. We became like a family to each other. We all had our demons, demons we didn’t try and hide. In truth, we were all wrecks in our own way, drifting through life and killing ourselves slowly. Somehow, by accepting each other for who we were, flaws and all, we were began to accept ourselves, as well. For the first time since isolating myself from the world, I began to have a sense of home, of family again. My parents had become.. passing figures in my life, pushed into the background in lieu of a world I was convinced I had chosen and desired.

Summer wasn’t exactly the model of a healthy human being. Between her own vast self-destructive habits, disease, and extreme susceptibility to finding herself injured, she had a lot working against her. While I wish I could her problems stopped there, they didn’t. I’m not sure I can honestly remember all the things that went wrong in her life while I knew her, and before.

When I first learned of the problems in her life, well, I don’t really know what I did. I didn’t care for others then, or at least, I still claimed not to, and I was completely unprepared for how to be a friend to someone who was hurting. In time, I would learn how to make her smile, how to brighten her day and provide whatever comfort an emotional robot is able.

Eventually, those walls started to come down. Brick by brick, just being her friend and wishing her the best, opened the blocks I had placed so fervently down. The armor melted away, and I was at a loss. Suddenly where there had been nothing before, there was feeling again. I began to not merely intellectualize my feelings, but I began to *feel* them. Slowly but surely, the world gained a vibrancy it had been lacking, with Summer at the center of it. Her happiness was enough to lift me out of anything, and her sadness had me crying right there with her.

As strange as it was to be able to say I cared for another, what happened next was even further from familiar for me.

“I love you.”

“What? You told me you didn’t even know what love was, how can you love me?”

“Well, according to the dictionary, I do...”

And just like that, this girl I had never seen in person, never heard her voice, had helped me to reconnect with something I had tried to lock away forever. She who had shown me nothing but kindness and compassion since I had known her. The first girl I ever had the courage to tell how I felt to. The first girl I’d ever felt more than a fleeting crush for.

And I invoke Webster.

Unsurprisingly, she laughed at me. Surprisingly, it worked. At least, it did eventually. After several months of trying to convince her, she relented. Not that she didn’t return the feelings, but rather, I think she was afraid of what it would mean, afraid of what she saw, as my eventual departure from her life. My utter lack of grace in telling her how I felt probably didn’t help things either.

The extent in which we understood each other scared me a little, and excited me more. With a few words we could make everything ok for the other, lift away the troubles of the world. Within seconds of saying hello to one another, we were able to tell if there was something wrong. That’s not the sort of thing that happens everyday, let alone simply by reading words on a screen. Though we had never seen one another, heard or touched each other, we had a bond with the other. I don’t claim to understand it, but I can’t deny it.

It was the most beautiful, the happiest time of my life. I believed that our feelings alone would be enough to make everything in our lives ok, that we could weather any storm as long as we held onto each other. Looking back, I suppose I had unrealistic expectations for us. Perhaps I went astray simply by having expectations. Regardless, that initial euphoria wore off far too soon, coming face to face with the reality of our lives, such as they were.

I’m not sure exactly what I was thinking at the time. I was fifteen, in love, and learning to crawl again in regards to my emotions and the human condition. Then again, that’s probably exactly why I did what I did.

Drawing upon my immense reserves of emotional strength I had built up inside myself, I vowed to be her shield against the world, as much as I could. When she fell, I would be there to catch her. When she was hurt, to tend to her words. I became her shoulder to cry on, her ear to whisper in. And there was much of all in the days and months to come.

I asked nothing in return for all of this. I was happy to help shoulder the burden of one I loved so dearly, happy to carry away all the pain I could if it even had a chance to brighten her day. There was no limit to how far I would go for her. The threads wove even tighter.

Eventually the months took their toll on me, and I felt the weight of her hurt sinking into my heart. The deeper I tried to draw it out of her, the more rushed in to fill the void. It seemed as though the world was trying to destroy us.

I spoke less and less of myself, and began to grow withdrawn again. In my recklessly selfless attempts to heal her, I didn’t wish to overburden her through worry of myself. The pain that grew deeper in my heart by the day was hidden from her, hidden from everyone. I told myself I could handle it, that I’d be ok. That my reserves were deep enough, that I didn’t have to let her suffer to save myself.

Eventually, it reached a point where I couldn’t deny the lie I was telling myself. I was worse off than I’d ever been in my life, and I knew that if I kept on it would only continue down this dark road I’d led myself upon, and death was my most likely end. The thing was, I didn’t trust anyone but myself to be able to help her. She didn’t have much to live for, and was taking medication for another of life’s cruel jokes thrown at her. I thought I was the only thing that could keep her going. So I made my promise to her.

“I will make your life better, or I will die trying.”

I had been given my chance to break free of the threads that bound me, and I had laughed in the face of it all. I loved her too damn much for there to be any other way. When I made that silent promise to her, I would never have expected both to come true.

What transpired over that next year is a blur, a blur which has left me irrevocably changed. Piecing together what happened then has been a long and slow process, one where many memories have been lost, much still hidden from me, locked away in the deepest recesses to protect me. I lost my mind, I lost reality, and I lost myself. The life that I had known was shattered, sacrificed on the altar of love, and eventually resurrected in it’s changed form.

I sank into a depression that had no end. Depression gave way to self-abandonment. Where before I longed for death, I no longer cared what happened to me. Death? Life? What did it matter, so long as it was somehow different. Emotions fell away. I longed to feel misery, some small measure of darkness in the void my life had become. I remember punching at walls, testing the waters of my emotion, trying to see if there was anything there. And as soon as I’d start, it was over. There was no anger coming, no sadness. Nothing but the slight numbing of my knuckles.

The hardest part of that, though, was when I could know longer feel the love I felt for her. It lasted the longest of all my feelings, growing ever weaker until it finally faded. But when it did fade, I was left with but a memory of why I I was doing what I was. Until one day, that memory too, would fade.

And still, I pressed on.

Disassociation grew. I think that there was some part of me, some self-preservation instinct that refused to go down quietly that was responsible for this. It locked me away from my own choices, protecting me from my own self-destructive path. It came on mild at first, washing away memories of unpleasant conversations and the pain I was still harboring for her. Yet as I pressed forward, it grew.

Eventually, I would not be able to tell my dreams from my waking states. The two intertwined and became one. I lost my memory of the time, and then my past. While before I at least had the pleasant nostalgia of my youth, and better times with her to retreat to, now I had nothing, nothing but the horror of my life as I had made it.

My senses numbed, everything lost it’s vibrancy. Life became like a shadow world, deprived of all that actually gave it life. My mind fell apart, unable to do anything but go through the basic motions of the day at the slowest possible speed.

And still, I pressed on.

I heard things that weren’t there. Or at least, I don’t really think they were. By this point, what was real and what wasn’t had become so hard to distinguish that it’s something of a crapshoot.

I remember going to the doctor once, though the reason escapes me. Along the lines, tests were done to address the increasing pains inside my body. There wasn’t any medical reason that could be found, but my body was shutting down. Slowly but surely, my organs were just.. turning off.

My body began to rebel. As if trying to sway me, to push me away from the path I was on, it would give out on me. A selective catatonia, if you will. Sometimes I would merely lose my ability to move my legs, and resort to crawling around or laying helpless on the ground. Sometimes I’d fall down stairs, and lay at the bottom wondering why I should get back up. And then, sometimes my whole body would refuse to move, where even moving my eyes took the entirety of my will to accomplish. There was something inside me telling me that it was time to return to myself, to tend my own wounds.

And still, I pressed on.

Eventually, in the midst of the haze and confusion that my life had become, I finally realized where I was, and where I was going. I remembered the promise that had led me to that moment, and the thousands of times I continued forward when every instinct in my body was yelling at me to turn around. I realized I had become so lost in myself, so trapped by what I created, that I had been unable to fulfill my promise. I’d been so ravaged by what I put myself through, that I’d forgotten everything. But I remembered then.

I remembered my promise. I didn’t know why I’d made it, not anymore. Nor did I remember what things like love even were. I didn’t know much of anything, other than this promise I made, and the knowledge that I had lost sight of it.

So I pressed on.

In my glimmer of consciousness, I had felt the weight of what I had done to myself, felt the changes I had inflicted. I knew there was no going back, that I had come too far. A thought came at me from the void. In all my life, I’ve never felt so strongly as I did on this one thing.

I am going to die.

That thought permeated my entire being. I knew it, I breathed it. The end to my eternity of nothingness was just around the corner. I reveled in the idea, as much as is possible for one such as that. Finally, what I had longed for, to be free of this self-imposed hell, would be upon me. The truth was, at that point, I already considered myself dead, and had for what had felt like an eternity, but then, in an eternity, it all feels so long. Or perhaps I should say, I considered myself the undead. I was alive, but only physically, and even that was growing weaker by the day. Soon, that last flame would die out, and my body would finally give me rest.

I never had any hopes or dreams that anything would happen to me when the moment of final death came to me. I expected nothingness. I couldn’t have cared less, though, as I’d *lived* nothingness, and there was no way that being fully dead in it could be any worse.

So I pressed on.

In the name of a promise I could barely recall, I pressed on. In the name of a word whose meaning I had forgotten, I pressed on. In the vaguest of memories for one who had once mattered so dearly, I pressed on. I wrote my final goodbyes to this world, to those who had known me. Provided words that I hoped they’d understand, that could explain in some way why I was lost to this world.

I came back into her life, though how long we had been apart I had no idea. I couldn’t escape her, for she was always in my dreams, always in my head, and she was as real to me there as she ever was. I apologized for leaving, and told her I would stay as long as I could. I wanted to give her as much as I possibly could before I shuffled off this mortal coil completely, to give her a chance at the better life I always knew she deserved. That last remnant of strength that I held inside me, I was laying with the rest upon the altar of love.

“I’ve found someone else. I’m sorry.”

Even lost in the void as I was, I felt it hit. It was done, then. I was no longer needed, a remnant of a life she had left behind somewhere when I had left myself behind. I didn’t blame her. How could I? Even if I didn’t still love her so deeply-- I knew that somewhere, somehow, I loved her-- even if I didn’t want only her happiness, she was right. I had lost myself, and she’d lost me when that happened. Now that I finally found myself again, she had already found her own measure of happiness, one that wouldn’t leave her all too soon.

It wasn’t long before we stopped speaking entirely. I suppose there wasn’t much left to say at that point. I wasn’t the person she had loved anymore, and she couldn’t be the person I had loved. Still loved.

So this is it, huh? Hell, might as well go down swinging.

I turned that one, final spark inwards. That spark that love had spared, hidden away in the deepest place inside me, and let it lose upon myself. I don’t really know what I was expecting, to be honest. I suppose I wanted to try and give life one last hurrah, soak in whatever small measure of happiness and beauty I could in what fleeting time I had. I knew I couldn’t ever go back-- that world was gone. I know, I destroyed it.

Somehow, that spark took hold. It set off a chain reaction in me, and soon, life. With every breath I took, I was more alive than the last. I was experiencing the world for the first time. Soon, emotions. And not just misery and depression, but real joy. Laughter from my soul. I reached out to everything I could, everything I had wanted to do but had forsaken.

I made friends. People I could see, face to face. I got outside. Spirituality took root. Meditation. Horseback riding. Courting, dating, relationships-- outside this electronic box. Every step I took was one step closer to my salvation. The humble spark had grown to become an inferno.

I started to live my life.

But I’m not the same person I was. Not by a long shot. Oh, sure, there are similarities. If you don’t look that hard, or never saw both sides, you might never notice. But a simple glance beneath the surface will say otherwise. I care. I love. Cynicism has been replaced by hope, pessimism with optimism. Anger, with love. Everything that had been good in Summer, I’ve made a point to hold within me. She was the most beautiful person I’ve ever met, and I wanted to honor that by bringing that beauty she had shown me into the world around me. Of course, that wasn’t really that hard to do.. somewhere in that process, who she was, and who I am, merged.

That life I led before.. has long seemed like another person. That I’m the spiritual successor to someone who I know a lot about, but never really knew. As time has gone by, I’ve been able to see the line of who he was, and who I am, and how that has stayed the same throughout. I’ve also slowly begun to unlock our memories, hidden as they were. With each one, understanding a little more of how I’ve come to find myself here, how he found himself where he did.

I’ve also come to the belief that what happened then, everything in my life led to. Not merely how our lives always lead us to this moment here and now, but when I look back, I can see a chain stretching, countless tiny links ensuring that the pattern play out as it was supposed to, as it still is. In another life, I suppose I’d chalk it up to coincidence, or my mind making up what it wants to see. But he led me here, and I have seen too much proof of the pattern to believe in anything else.

This is the story of how I was born.

HOLY FUCKING SHITBUNNIES! AN UPDATE! JESUS ON A CRACKER! WOAH!

It's been awhile. Yo.


I don’t believe the idea that love is this wonderful thing filled with happiness and joy, where the clouds part to let the sun shine down upon you. I think love works a lot like life does, that it does contain all that is wonderful in the world, but it contains everything else as well. All of our petty jealousies and hatred, all our insecurities and the masks we hide behind. All of the old perceptions and baggage that we carry with us in every other part of our lives. From our smallest quirks to our greatest faults, life encompasses it all. Why should love be any different?

I think, that’s where people get confused. That they get so wrapped up in the idea that once you have love, everything is going to be fine, when the truth is that you have to work to keep it alive, to keep that ship afloat. And when it gets hard, and the path is hard to see, of course it’s going to hurt. Love doesn’t provide you with a magical shield where no pain can touch you. Where there is pain in love, more often than not it’s going to hurt more. Sometimes more than can ever be imagined or explained to those who haven’t yet experienced it.

The funny thing though, if you care about someone or something enough, that same love that hurts so damn much, can give you the strength to continue on. The strength to forge a path through the darkness. It opens you up to something deep inside, an infinite well of spirit, to be drunk from those who choose to drink it. That’s all we really have in the end, a choice in each and every moment, and it is those choices that define who we are, that speak the truths of our souls.

Those that travel that darkness, that walk the gates of hell, that pass through the fires, that hold true to love throughout all that may come, will find that they have changed when they emerge again into the light. Though love changes you, holding true to the best parts of yourself during the darkest times transforms you. You shed a little of your armor, a little of your mask, let go of some old baggage and stale perceptions. And in doing so, you’ve realized more of your true self, embraced the divine, if for a time.

I think, that’s an essential part of life. To be able to stand naked before the world without fear or embarrassment, to be able to be freely and fully yourself. That we should always look to grow into ourselves, and leave all the drama and bullshit behind. That if under great duress you can still summon the best you have to offer the world, imagine bringing that mindset into every moment! Take heart in those who offer a light in the darkness of this world, who embrace the divine within themselves, for all that separates them from those who wander in the blackness is but a choice. A choice that can always be made, from the stormiest of nights to the clearest of days.

Join me, if you will, in the decision to embrace that spirit inside humanity, out of which gods and goddesses are realized, and where heaven dwells. For what is heaven but love, imperfections and all?

I return for a brief message from my self-imposed absence of the online blogging world.

Life is really, incredibly, insanely, staggeringly, bafflingly, mind-blowingly, ass-clenchingly, and testicle-crushingly weird.

And that's really all I have to say at the moment. Sure, I could elaborate, and could go into massive detail of my life since I actually updated this thing regularly.. but you know, I think that goes back further than I can remember. And, I don't want to stay up for like twenty-eight billion hours typing out a detailed biography of my life. Or stuff.

Mostly, I'm just curious to know which of my friends still use LJ, and if I should consider this a relic of another life. So, hit me up if you still use this newfangled interwebby journal doohicky. Because, if no one else is out there, I just spent five minutes of my time amusing myself. And how horrible that would be. Tsk tsk.

Typey typey typey. I don't really want to put my thoughts into sentences, at least through my hands at the moment. But here goes. Basically, this is a half-thought out and half-reviewed idea I've been having which probably, at best, selectivley applies at the moment. There are probably better times to have said this, but.. timing and me don't always go together so well. So let's assume there's a lot of sadness and hopelessness around me, or we don't have to.. it really isn't too important, but that's when this would be most fitting! ..Well, most fitting if that was due to small things.

So, random people who possibly are or aren't sad in their lives, or for whenever you are over something rather inconsequential.. have an overview of the fun of my life! Really, all of this has probably been said before on here, but I've decided to put it into highlights.. for no real reason. Also, I'm perverting these highlights to reflect a rather worse-case scenario, as people tend to do, rather than following reality. This isn't intended to invoke sympathy, but rather show how bad things can seem to be. These ideas follow reality roughly, follow my feelings closer, and follow a hypothetical perversion the closest, so take them with a grain of salt-- it isn't intended as fact in the least, and I want to stress that. In some places, it can be closer to a lie, if it fits the idea of what it might be believed to be; this doesn't mean I believe it, simply the possible perversion of reality. Trying to offer an idea for how shitty something can be, yet still be possible to overcome.

- I've had my heart broken into millions of itsy bitsy pieces by three different people after getting romantically involved.
- I've had all three of those people leave me for someone else while lying about their feelings toward me.
- I've had my best friend die in my hands.
- I've been responsible for killing my best friend.
- I've wallowed in the fires of a self-made hell.
- I've had everyone I considered closest to me abandon me when I needed it the most, on quite a number of accounts.
- I've had a horrible relationship with my parents, resulting in situations that are liable to put me in prison or a mental institution due to poor handling of said situations.
- I've become addicted to drugs; narcotics, depressants, and cigarettes have the most powerful sway over me.
- I've been betrayed countless times by people dear to me; betrayals worthy of having Lucifer himself take pause.
- I've had plenty of near-death encounters, and plenty of encounters where I was literally dying as they went on.
- I've had rat-bite fever and was within less than a week of death.
- I've had cancer.
- I've spent years killing myself slowly to be fully confident that I would die before I had a chance to save myself.
- I've hated myself.
- I've been responsible for making those close to me feeling horrible, and have inflicted self-punishment as retribution.
- I've been a horrible friend, family member, and human being.
- I've experienced extreme dissociative breaks of reality, fragmentation of my personality, psychosis, and massive depression.
- I've tried to kill myself by abandoning myself.
- I've failed horribly in everything I've started.


There probably is more, but I feel this is a somewhat pointless exercise, as there is little call for it at the immediate moment. I suppose if anyone is ever feeling horrible about life, they could read back on some of the more potent things I mentioned, and take note that I'm happy despite all of that. At the core of those statements, there is some seed of truth, and the statements themselves could mostly be taken at their current value depending on the perspective you read into it. I personally find many of them to be at least partially distorted in the details. Some I find to be close to, if not fully, outright lies. The point wasn't necessarily to offer fully accurate facts, though, but rather than even in the face of utterly extreme hardship, it's still possible to pick yourself up and carry on with life. If you care about the reality of it, most of that is fairly close to the truth in what actually happened, if you disregard the perspective that has been laid on top of them.

So there you go! A rather unthought-out post about the horrible somewhat hypothetical life I've led. I'm not sure if this will be anything other than an exercise in futility, but that seems to be a fairly common thing in this world. Hurrah for negative posts from hopeless optimists! I'm tempted to add a little something else, but not really knowing why I've done this in the first place, that makes it a little bit harder.. so I'll leave you all with this rather sporadic and unguided post.

So my thinking habitat has evolved from the shower to my backyard, or at least to include both. One of the biggest things that kept me from tossing aside smoking in the name of health when I started was the massive good it inadvertantly brought me. To clarify, it wasn't the smoking itself that brought me good, but rather the breaks I would take going outside to smoke, and the thinking that would arise from doing so. The amount of soul-searching and self-exploration I've done in those breaks is extremely disproportionate to the amount of time invested.

Anyway, just a short while ago, I was outside in my traditional smoking routine. Dress up warm, grab some music to get into, and the cigarettes to accompny them. It brought me to thinking seriously when U2's "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" started playing. The music has been a huge help along with all of this, while the smoking trips provide good environments for deep thought, the music very often serves as a catalsyt for the thoughts to begin.

So the song came on, and started playing. A little while in, I started paying attention to the chorus, and something hit me. The idea of being fully present and awareness, very prevelant in various eastern and esoteric religions, as well as philosophies came to mind in a whole new light. I started thinking that, you know, doing so and being present in the current moment, is just about the greatest gift you can offer someone, as well as yourself. By being exactly in the present, you're fully able to appreciate the beauty and joy of everything around you, and that includes whoever you may happen to be with when that happens. It can transform a pleasant time associating with someone to something so much more. You're able to utterly absorb all of the glory of that moment, and what others have to offer you. I've been thinking.. but what greater gift can you offer someone than to be fully appreciative for everything they can provide for you? From the mere fact that they are there sharing their lives and time with you, to the beauty of their being, and being able to experience all of it.

I'll grant I could be wrong, but even supposing it isn't the greatest thing you can offer someone, it feels like one of the most powerful things you can do for anyone. No longer are you only seeing bits and pieces of who they are, even if they happen to be only the best, but you can see the totality of them. And to take that, and be utterly aware, and accepting of it, seems to me like such a wonderful gift that would be near impossible to equal. The wonder of such a thing, is that you can do it anywhere, anytime, with anyone. It doesn't confine you to any specific group of people in your life, but allows you to fully appreciate everything around you. To me, it seems like it would almost be a shame to let all of that beauty go unnoticed because you simply didn't notice.

Lord, a lot has happened since I last updated this. In fairness and honesty, I have updated once since the last time, though it was my first post I kept unopen to the world to see, mostly because I wrote it while utterly tired and thought it was a good idea to actually read it before I opened it up. I think I'll open it back up as soon as I'm finished with this. (So feel free to cruise on over to my blog and read it) But since the last post anyone has been able to read, my world has flip-turned upside down. Of course, I realize I've drifted from most everyone that is likely to read this, and those that I talk to with much regularity, namely Tom and Alex, already know this. I suppose like everything anyone in the world has ever written, it's always optional to read; I just don't have too much expectation that it will interest all of you.

..And as I look at when I actually did last post, I suppose I was wrong with my original idea. I have posted somewhat since life has gone crazy. I just didn't go into a whole lot of detail. So let's get started.

Probably around the time of this I got into a relationship for the first time in about a year and a half. Shortly before Alex came to visit for a few weeks. My social life kicked into overdrive then. It's actually because of his visit that served as a catalyst which got this relationship going. I met her in the lingerie department of Fred Meyer, and I had no idea what I was getting into. I had expected a fun day out getting to know someone better, and ended up getting to know an entire new social circle over the next few weeks.

I have Alex to thank for kicking all that up. I started hanging out with other people more, from a variety of social circles. I got to know Andrew a hell of a lot better. While it's sad that it only happened in his last year here before moving, I am glad it happened. I can't recall exactly how we started hanging out more, but I'm very grateful for it.

Shortly after Alex left I went with Mallory (the girl whom became my girlfriend) to her prom. She followed the next week to mine. That night really started things off, with us starting to fully show our feelings for the first time. A few weeks later we were dating, nevermind the traditional idea of dating before going heavy with someone. Tradition be damned!

That continued and intensified over the next month or two before Mallory leaving for Europe for a month. To be fully honest I had no idea, nor real intentions of the relationship continuing past that point. But somehow, it did. Around this same time, I started to branch off into an only lightly explored culture of people, the drug and what could be considered seedy underbelly.. of Woodinville, anyway. The rest of the summer would mark a continued social expansion, summer school because I mucked up graduating on time, an exploration into drugs and the group that ran with them, waiting for Mallory to get home, and eventually continuing being with her.

At some point or another I graduated summer school. If memory serves, Mallory had left shortly before for Eastern Washington University for school. And, if memory serves, I graduated about the week I left for Eastern Washington. First I visited Andrew at Pullman for the weekend, and got to get to know him even better. After that it was off to stay with Mallory for the week before heading back home to get ready for college classes. ..And, right. I got accepted to Cascadia Community College, though that's not exactly the academic equivalent of climbing Everest, here. So after the first week of college class, (a pre-fall College Strategies thing), I think I got high on pot. I'm not sure, because my memory is horrible anyway, and drugs don't help. That began to bring to light the relationship problems I was having with Mallory, namely the distance and worry about miscommunication that could bring.

So over the next week things were avoided, then talked about. That went over really well. Just about as well as every other time it was talked about, except that this time it actually was discussed, albeit not happily. It ended in a break. I think we were on different pages. Or perhaps, the same page in different books. While I didn't consider that too detrimental to our future together.. well.. that's another one of those things where I misjudged. Or perhaps more likely, was blinded by my unwillingness to see the truth before me. It's a mistake I've made before several times, so it's not hard to see how it would happen again. Go, Nick, go.

Around the time the actual school year started I began to realize just the degree of split between us through both pondering the issue and a few key talks with Mallory. That led to the most fun I've ever had crying, as well as the longest time crying in one go, AND the only real time I've cried with someone else. It was certainly a new experience to feel utterly heartbroken and shattered while paradoxically alive and determined. At least, it was new in that light. I've had similar things happen in the past, but they've never quite lined up as they did on that night.

So I set out in a grand gesture to win her back, and to leave no possible regrets for the future. The original plan hashed out while unbelievably high on narcotics, adrenaline, stress, nicotine, (..I also started smoking) and maybe a little dehydration worked out very quick. Within several hours I had set in motion something that would normally have taken far longer; it entailed (somewhat) symbolic skywriting, a symbolic promise ring, a symbolic plane ticket, and symbolic flowers. It was really quite symbolic, I must say. The only thing that proved unable to do in the next day of finalising this was the skywriting, moreso due to a lack of possibility than lack of financial means. What surprised me the most was that from thursday morning to saturday morning I convinced not only myself and Mallory, but my parents, and with hardly any resistance for this to go through.

My dad ended up driving me over there, with both my parents lacking confidence in the car to get there, and probably, me to make it back alive after a heartwrenching experience. That still amazes me. I wouldn't have seen that one coming. But, I'm really grateful for it. Because of it, I've gotten closer to my family for the first time since I was little, and feel like I actually have one. Having seen them actually step up and help when I needed it was an entirely new thing, one which fills my heart with joy. It was also a new thing to have anyone standing beside me in times of trying trouble. Or at least, relatively new. To have a good solid base of people able to help and willing was pretty new to me. In the past I've had some help online and in-person from people, but it doesn't hold a candle to what I've seen done for me over the past month or two. I thank all of you who played a part.

While the plan went off without too much of a hitch, I only completed one of my original ideas for visiting. In my mind I was thinking that two things were most likely to happen. There was a third thing that I contemplated as possible, though unlikely, and really would have been awful if it happened. The first two were either I'd win her back and things would at least have the chance to work out, or I'd get dismissed entirely, that it'd be over. The third was that feelings would still be there on both sides, but nothing would change, and I'd go back to sitting on my hands and feet. Screw you, third unlikely option.

So that's what happened! And that took about four days for the both of us to finalise that neither of us wanted to be with the other, both for our own reasons. I accept full responsibility for making mistakes and problems where I did, however unintentional they may have been.

From there on out I've been just moving on as best and fast as I know how-- without hurting anyone around me. While it might make me move on to go out and sleep with dozens of people, that really wouldn't be my style, nor would I want to lead anyone on. Our friendship pretty much has been reduced to tatters, most of the hurt and anger over all of it is gone. There's a little lingering feeling as to some of the memory, but that's at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. More often than not I laugh at how caught up I got in it, and how horrible it ended up. So I died a little because my body doesn't react well to stress? Ptssh, it's more funny than sad. Not that I wasn't sad-- I won't lie and say I took it with a steely face. I took it like a baby having candy stolen away and taunted back at them. And pretty fast, in a relative sense, I'm back to where I usually am. Really happy that it happened like it did, absolutely joyous and thankful that I did get to have those experiences and memories, and opened back up and forgiving. Maybe I'm like a clam who keeps opening up when people jab things at it, but I love it. I've closed myself off before-- I didn't like it. I enjoy being opened up to pain and hurt, it lets me know I'm really alive, and not just stagnating trying to avoid the pain of life.

So while all of this was going on, I still continued exploring new social webs, got into the college life a bit, have been trying to get involved with clubs, trying to see about going to Austrlia for winter quarter, meeting oodles of new people, and defying death far too much for my own good. I said I took things like a baby, and I did. The day after getting back from Eastern Washington I skipped class to go hiking in the woods without preparing, alone, far too late in the day and well off the beaten trail. I can't count the times I almost died, I really can't. For most of the time I was hiking it was in an area where on misstep in the wrong place would pretty well equate to that being my last hike of my life. Falling down a giant cliff into a river isn't something too many people come back from. Which is kinda funny, because I was misstepping all over the place. I can't count the times I collapsed from stress, simple tiredness, adrenaline, and lord knows what else, let alone the times I stumbled.

Some of the highlights include starting and being in a rockslide easily large enough to kill, crawling in a collapsed mine, falling over and sliding down a hill, eating (several?) poisonous mushroom(s), hallucinating the moon turning into Curious George (moreso stress than anything..), and being completely fearless (reckless/foolish/insane) toward the trail ahead of me-- running ahead in darkness with the trail littered with roots, rocks, holes, a giant drop on one side with a cliff on the other, charging across a moderate rivery stream bit without thinking, as well as the above mentioned. That I lived, or at least didn't seriously hurt myself boggles my mind. Especially the rockslide. I lucked the fuck out there. I was sliding on a sheet of rocks tumbling, with some number of boulders bouncing around my head the whole way down. I got hit in the chest with something, not sure what, but I believe it's the same rock which continued down to smash my hand. Only lightly, though. My chest was only bruised, and my hand got off pretty lucky. I bruised a bone in my little finger, and cut up the hand itself some, but it would have taken only a slight change in how the rock hit to have completely broken or shattered something; and on a trail that actually demands having hands to pull yourself up ledges and such, that would have been something of a difficulty. My hip got smashed up, as well as my knee jammed up something fierce when I hit the bottom of the hill. For the detail-oriented, it was probably a 20-30 foot hill at around a 70-80 degree angle; so it wasn't a free fall; merely a slide of happiness and death. And, in fairness and honesty, it wasn't a big "fuck you" rockslide. I would say anywhere from one fifty to several hundred pounds of rock came sliding down with a good portion of small debris, with the largest boulders being difficult for me to lift. It was a fun time.

But life moves on. While I keep coming back to the bad, right now, it's not so bad. It isn't really bad at all; how can I say it is? I have a family and friends that love me and I love back. I'm working at making a better life for myself, and becoming a better person to a degree that I haven't in some time. All of the pain in the past month or so has reminded me of the strength I can pull to overcome adversity, and it's one of my favorite things of myself. I love how someone can put me against hopeless odds, and I'll try for it even knowing that I'm unlikely to succeed; that I won't give up to logic; that reckless optimism and hope won't be beat back; that I don't seem capable of turning my back on someone after they've hurt me. Forgiveness, compassion, strength, dedication to what really matters to me, hope, optimism, love. All of this has put me back in touch with who I want to be, and who I always have been.

That reminds me of something I used to describe myself with: It's like I have a pantheon of deities dedicated to keeping my sorry ass alive.

Now I started thinking about this, and it seems to hold true. I'm fucking lucky. But when the cards are down, life doesn't do such a good job providing me with things that don't drive my happiness away like the plague is coming; so I thought about that more. How does that work out? Is it possible that they're too busy keeping me alive to bother with my happiness? Then it came to me in a way, that somehow, works. I'm my own deity of happiness. I'm the final part to the pantheon, the part that's missing. While I might have a whirlwind of luck flying about me, (both good [that I'm alive] and bad [that I actually end up in places where I should die, as well as happiness]) it's up to me to make the most of what I have, and to take my life and make it worthwhile. To throw life down onto the ground, grab it by the horns, and ride it off into the sunset.

In a long-winded way of getting to what I said back in May about a man named Winton.. he was a man who lived a life on the edge. An adrenaline junkie to be sure. But what he always seemed to do, he seemed to do with passion, and vigor. He embraced life and accepted that he would more than likely die young because of how he lived. I never saw any fear in the man.. it was like he moved beyond it. He moved beyond the hurt and pain he could bring to others, learned, and seemed to only bring joy and happiness. Though I never was close to him, I could feel the spirit and vibrancy he had about him. He could light a place up just by smiling and talking. Maybe I'm wrong, and idealising the man, I'll accept that.. but the life he picked up, he seemed to have no regrets. While I am sad that he died doing what he loved before I could get to know him better, I'm happy simply to have known him. He lived the hell out of life, doing more in a year than most people would do in their lifetimes. I know I'm not quite out on the edge that he was, but if someday in the future, someone would ever draw a comparison between the two of us, I wouldn't object. There's something about feeling that passion, that no words or pictures can ever begin to describe.. while I would have liked to have told him what he's done to make my life better, I believe it's only more appropriate to pay my respects by fully living.

I apologize for this being so long. I've tried to summarize one of the most eventful periods of my life, and a long part of it, in one go. This really only touches the surface in most places; for those of you that read this far, thank you. For those of you that want to know more, all you have to do is ask. After having nearly died so much lately, I want to say to all of you, I'm grateful to have each and every one of you in my life. Though we may not be close any longer, or even talk, I will always be happy and feel honored that you've shared your lives with me. I love you all, and you mean more than words can say; if any of you ever need anything, ask and I will do all that I can. It doesn't matter if it's tomorrow, or twenty years down the line. I'd feel honored that you'd think of me, and would try as best as I know how to help.

Thank you all. I truly love each and every one of you.

How do I sum up the time since I've actually updated this? Does it really matter? I don't mean this in any introspective existentialist way, at least not fully. I mean it in a, how many people will actually read this that don't already know? I haven't really updated this since May; a little over four months ago. I'm not sure how long ago it was that I actually updated what was going on in my life. So what has happened?

I graduated high school after seriously fucking up my school year and having a back and forth effort of trying to graduate on time and not caring, only to go until past the end of summer school and the final week before the new school year. I've enrolled in college and have already finished my first week of an early class-- which by the way, is bloody annoying and feels somewhat pointless, at least from my perspective. I've stumbled over the potential for a relationship, what the hell to do with it, getting in it, and only this past week having it come down to a sort of unofficial limbo, for lack of a better term. I've met so many new people I can't begin to count, and started to branch out in the types of people I know, for better or worse. I've once again felt what it's like to corrupt my body, and have started smoking cigarettes full-time these days.

No getting sick and almost dying, though a few times driving and nearly so. This summer has felt like a whirlwind, and at the same time, like time has even stopped. While looking at where I've been and how much has happened, it's all been so fast. When I stop with where I am and look at how far ago it seems, these past weeks have felt like lifetimes.

I don't really know what to say. I don't have any witty diatribes or enlightening thoughts to share, or at least that seem needed to be said. I've felt like I'm in a dream, that everything has been so surreal. I'm so far from being attached to myself and wandering down this path of spirituality that connecting with others is both hilariously pointless and wonderful. And right now, I just really am surprised how much I'm missing Mallory and how much this is hitting me.

Life has this sneaky way of being so amazing and damn aggravating at the same time. But then, this has just been a small rant on something nearly everyone has heard too many times before. Oh, the humanity.


"Yeah, and I'm sad, but at the same time I'm really happy that something can make me feel that sad. It's like, it makes me feel alive, y'know? I makes me feel human. The only way I could feel this sad now, is if I felt somethin' really good before, so I have to take the bad with the good. So I guess what I'm feelin' is, like a beautiful sadness..."

Edit: The more time goes by, the more insane it seems to be to try and explain yourself to others.

Pullman is hot. Pullman is fun. I like being in Pullman with Andrew. So I'm staying the weekend over here with Andrew, and leaving for Spokane come monday, before heading home come thursday. This has been a bit of a crazy, fun week. I <3 myself.

"It's really, really, something. I've come and teetered near losing all my friends, or what's left to lose, and while much may already have been, it's so nice to still be able to go on happy. Rejoicing at the good and happiness it's brought me, and just letting it go. Happy to accept it's return, yet unbothered by it's passing."

Perhaps much around me has shown it's cracks, the fragilities and stresses that things and people find so hard to bear, but it still inspires and makes me happy. For all the personal relationships of mine that have filled with drama over the past few months, the friendships that have weakened and been shaken, I love it all. I've managed to find a place within myself that allows me to walk through these tempests without a scratch, and a joyous smile on my face. I've nearly a neverending stream of good moments and times for three or four weeks, and they've only served to highlight the happiness and hope to be found in strife and sorrow.

"As a musing, I think the recognition of the mortality of something allows us to appreciate it all the more."

It's wonderful. Words can't begin to describe it, less in written form. How do you explain.. being so free? For those of you that don't know, as I don't think I've posted it, I took a trip to Canada awhile back. Unplanned, alone, unworried. What started out as a trip to the Skagit valley for photography ended with me visiting Whistler, a place I haven't been to for many years. While I came within death's grasp more times than I can count, I loved every minute of it. I picked up three hitchhikers, was able to enjoy old memories and new, to hold good conversations and offer help to strangers. To spend time in a foreign country with little tying you down, little money, and not much more than the will to go on and see what lies ahead. It was.. wonderous. By seeing the hitchhikers, and speaking with them, I got to experience those that can be so free as well, and throw caution to the wind, enjoying life for all it may bring, pain and pleasure. I haven't met many people like that in my life, and I always feel happy to find them. It's a curious thing I realized the other day.. I've, in a way, taken up that mantle. At least amongst the people I know, it seems like there's so much restraint and withholding when it comes to what we want, and it's a strange thing, that I would become the one to take life by the horns, and live it. To take what I want and live every moment out of it, embracing the moment and it's death. Hell, to embrace my own death and smile at it.

"Death smiles at us all. All we can do is smile back."

I'm happy. No, I'm free. I don't have a clue where my life will lead, or what I even will want to do with it, beyond being what I am now. But then, if that's what is, then I suppose everything I'll ever need, I already have. And nobody can take that from me. My only wish, is that all of you can be as free as I find myself now. Life, and all in it, is too short. Or perhaps I should say, it's just right, and we only find it too short. That we take it for granted and put off living. We'll stumble over it here and there, quickly gather ourselves up and carry on as though nothing happened. And one day, it's too late. Perhaps it's someone we meant to get to know better, or a food we always meant to try. Maybe a strange country, or new activity. Maybe it's just that our lives have reached their end, and whatever we wish we could have done, there no longer is time for. I ask all of you, in what little power I may hold over you, go out and experience this wonderful gift that we have before us. Live your lives, and drink it up. Regrets and half-accomplishments are too heavy in this world, they need not be with you.

And as a final note, I once knew a man, Winton. He lived this fearless life, embraced it. I can't say I ever knew him well, but I'm honored to have had what little time I did with him, and I owe thanks to him for allowing me to experience what he brought into this world. I can't say I'm his successor in this world, though I wouldn't object. And I'll never be able to ask him directly any longer if I could be. All I can hope, is to honor him and what he showed me, by living it as best as I know how, and hopefully allowing others to as well. I'll write details next time, which hopefully won't be so far apart.

As you might notice, if you ever visited my actual page and not your own friend list-- well, other than my updates tend to be a month apart-- is that I've cleaned things up. But you probably haven't. Because you're a friend whore, aren't you? So, here. A whopping two updates.. uh.. in this year.. I think most of you won't actually give a damn about this, but hell, that's the American/human way, isn't it? Fuckers.

( Look at me. I can make things tidy too! Sometimes. )

This isn't exactly an original entry specifically for Livejournal. Aside from my last entry, I guess I haven't had many in awhile. I don't really expect anyone to read this out of anything except boredom. It has more length than most are willing to bother with, and it seems most anything serious put forward onto here is more or less ignored. My journal doesn't have to touch the world, or even half of you that are liable to read it. I can only hope that one person who comes here, can learn something from me. As such, here is my story. Some of you know it, and would have little to find here. It's not really too detailed, but it does explain some of who I am, and where I've come from. Maybe one of you will be able to pull something out of it, if it is today, or twenty years down the road, there's always that hope that it brings a little light.

( An Overview of a Butterfly )





If you read it, even if it didn't bring much in the way of illumination, maybe it brought a small respite from boredom. Have a nice day.

To all of you.. get out of your rodent wheels, and evolve. For Christ's sake, be.

School writing assignment.. I can only hope that what was said about it was positive. Maybe it'll give you a moment of amusement before wandering on to the next thing.
( Desperado Story )

I realize this is rather cliché, but I think it's worth being properly done. While I'd really rather hear your answers just to know what's going on.. and it's probably a little more fitting given it all, at least try and think seriously on this:

What if I were to tell you today was your last day on earth? What would you say?

This is, assuming you believe it, and it has to do with more of the action than what you'd say right back to me. It's not a cataclysmic destruction of earth, just you. What would you do on that final day?


..."I'm not afraid. I just don't know what to hope for."
"Hope for another shot at it. A chance to do it all fucking unafraid."

( For the Record )

I'm sad nobody has noticed the funny things or references my post titles sometimes have, or even the one little hidden bit on my page. I don't remember what it was even supposed to say anymore, but it's funny. And so is the one title 'Two waterfowl.' I thought that was brilliant. I also really liked my post that had only 'Mu.' ..But. That went entirely over everyone's head. And that's sad. Oh well.

( Animal totem cut because, you know, it's brilliant to only cut one part of it and kill the rest of your post slaughters friends sections.[And I don't want to change the title even though it doesn't fit!] )

Just a quick check here -- Anybody interested at all in seeing Walk the Line when it comes out?

I love the guy, but I'm wondering, does anyone else share my enthusiasm, or is this the crowd that would be hard-pressed to even know who he was?

Because, I think it would be great to see that movie as a group thing.

I'm sitting here, with my feet propped up on a chair, listening to Chris Isaak, and drinking Chai tea early in the morning. Even if I run over a kitten later, this is a good day.



"There's two things I learned in life, kid: You find someone to love, and live every day as though it were your last."

Edit: I shouldn't have used kittens. There are plenty of other, popular, ways of killing kittens, and I don't need to give them anymore trouble than they already have. Let's pretend they're human babies. People protect babies. Thus, they need balancing out.

I'm almost never bothering with this thing anymore. Maybe checking for updates once now and then; but actually bothering? Nah. You know what I've found I'm missing?

Nothing.


I don't think I've exactly gotten any further that I wanted now as opposed to before I kicked it off, at least in part to this, and I don't think it's really going to matter what I type or reply to on here. So while I'm tempted to type things like 'Great Googly Moogly!' or whatnot, I don't think I can be bothered, besides just then. It really isn't worth it. Unless someone can offer a damn good reason as to why any effort should be spared on this, I have a feeling it will slowly fade away more than it has been -- ignore the recent 30+ comments on the last post, they aren't important.

Then again, Mr. Cynical here is hellbent on the belief that most people who read this will scatter like the four winds come the end of the schoolyear, and whatever is between them will snap like a wet noodle in a tugging match between two famine-striken orphans.

Edit: Ironically, I don't think I care much anymore. I missed that train a long time ago, the conductor died, it ran out of coal, the passengers got food poisoning, it was robbed by highway bandits, derailed on a penny, had the wreckage searched by monkeys, the monkeys were killed of intervening aliens against sudden leaps of of progress, the aliens died burning up leaving Earth's atmosphere as their last mechanic got sick from touching too many monkeys and had to lay down, and the burning hulk of the spaceship crushed the train ticket booth. It's ironic (The post, not the edit.) because it's true. I bothered writing about it. For Chrissake though, I barely have this up and already three people replied.

::universal gesture:: You're all jackasses.

Try and guess why. >=|

I don't know to laugh or cry.. nobody would know if anything happened to me for so long. Hell, it's been admitted already by people that they wouldn't hear about it. Let alone, most everyone wouldn't give a fuck or care too much. And, yeah, I'd bet my ass that it includes people that read this, as well. I could probably count the friends I have that would be bothered by it on one hand. ..I don't know how I got here, how I got to where I am today. I don't know how I ended up so alone, even when I'm surrounded by familiar faces. I never intended to, and lord knows I tried so hard to avoid it.

..There's something missing, inside me. I don't know where I left it, or when. I don't know how much of me is there, waiting. But that emptiness, every time I look back, every time I lay down in bed by myself, every time I remember.. every time I touch on heaven in this lifetime, is there. I'm between worlds, and nobody has ever seen it. Nobody has been there, when I'm at my most vulnerable. Nobody has seen me on my knees, stripped bare and broken. Nobody would know, if I never told them.

I'm not anything more than anyone else.. I'm just as fragile and weak as anyone else. Just as vulnerable, and just as human. The only thing that could, and has, ever made me appear more, is what lies around me. ..I've been as human as any around some of you. Not all.. it doesn't happen often.. and when it does.. I can't remember the last time someone cared. The last time someone recognized it, that wasn't just brushing me off. I miss that comfort someone else can bring.. so much more than most anyone will ever realize.

..I can only remember once in my life, someone was there when I really needed them. Every other time.. there's always something stopping it. So badly, I miss someone to hold me when the storms of life prove too strong, and the winds of reality too harsh.

I don't expect anything from anyone.. not really.. but part of me, despite everything, hopes without faith.. hopes that someone will be there, someone I never could see how close they were, when I fall back to my knees. That they can catch me, and offer me some small manner of peace and comfort. I know I need to find myself on my own.. but that doesn't stop the pain when I fall into emptiness, when I slide back into the abyss I sweat and bled my way out of, that seems a lifetime ago.