dancer in the dark

Last night I went outside to indulge in the one vice I actually wish I didn't have whilst chatting on the phone. My balcony (for the next three days at least) overlooks a busstop. When I opened the door and walked out into the cold and rainy night, I noticed that there was a person with long blonde tresses wearing all black, including black headphones, standing under the busstop. Actually, standing is a misstruth. This tentative voyager was dancing like mad to whatever beat was pulsing through the headphones. He/she (I couldn't really tell) looked up at me as I looked down on zee and a brief moment of eye contact was achieved. The whole time and pretty much until the bus pulled up, this person danced and danced. She/he danced his/her ass off, all swiveling hips and waving arms and bouncing feet...I'm pretty sure zee was listening to the EDM. It was a pretty cool ending to an otherwise pretty unremarkable day.

proofs and theorems

Tying together an amalgamation of loose threads and thoughts...

There is no rebirth without death.
There is no death without pain.
Pain is inevitable, suffering is a choice.
We do not suffer alone.

Using basic and most likely flawed high school geometric theorems, we can then postulate that everybody will choose to be reborn. I choose to be reborn as a spidertail monkey. A tail seems much more useful than a healthy soul.

no more ms. nice guy

I've the spent the last few years being immersed in a specific genre of music and had to have the lovely random music selection process of iTunes to remind me that there is a whole wide world of music I love and have loved. Oh you riotgrrls of days yore...with your simple guitar riffs and banging drums bringing back the distant memory of sweaty, slamming bodies and releasing a primal scream that purifies the soul at the exact moment an elbow slams into your face and leaves you bloody. Welcome back, I missed you.

quicksand

Alas, I am still stuck in the mire of feeling sad, though it does get a little bit easier every day, though I'm not terribly sure that getting used to being lonely is a good thing. I'm moved into my new place and getting rid of some things to make way for some new things...with my apartment and with my life. They say that for every year of being in a relationship, it takes half of that time to fully recover...so I guess that means I have like nine months to go. But despite all of that I am trying to have a positive outlook and trying to remember that the pain of it all is all part of the human condition because I know that I don't walk down this road alone.

baggage

I fucking hate moving. That is all.

rights and fights

RAGE AND VENTING TO FOLLOW:
New Year's Eve ended up being awkward...not surprisingly. Though a friend of mine and a friend of (grimace) his thought to ask him not to show up to a certain party we had both planned on attending...he naturally erred on the side of self-interest and came anyway. Our friend however made it clear to him that he should in no way try to communicate or interact with me. Other than a really stupid hello, he managed to comply. And I managed to mostly ignore him, painful as it was. Though at the end there was a little drama. It was inevitable but luckily the "scene" I had anticipated was not as bad as it could have been. And frankly, there were moments when I purposely created awkwardness...just because I could.
So now here I am, feeling like I am exactly where I fucking started not quite two months ago when we first broke up. Because I tried to do the "right" thing. I thought that because our lives were so complicatedly intertwined, if I tried to be friends it would make it easier. I shouldn't have to give up the life I had before he and I were a we and dammit I was ready to take my life back, I NEEDED to take my life back. I thought that our working towards a friendship would make that easier. But all that happened was that I ended up feeling so fucking hurt. Again.
But dammit if there aren't pools of conflicting emotions swirling inside of me still. If there aren't still feelings of pure unadulterated sadness for not having him in my life. Even knowing that he should be stripped away like a malignant life-sucking cancer eating at my flesh...I still...miss him. Even knowing that the best thing for me right now is to acknowledge that he doesn't deserve anything from me, that I've lost so much respect for him now, that he believes himself to be somebody but all of his actions recently indicate that to be so fucking untrue...and to base my decisions on those feelings and not the others.
I know, I know. It's a hard road to walk down and things will get better, and I'm going to learn and grow and be a much better person. AND AND AND...
Seriously though, can't somebody just point me down the easy road, cause the other right one is just not the one I want to take anymore. The people who hop on the crazy train and do stupid, bitter, dramatic things to their exes seem to get a lot more satisfaction. I'm willing to go Jerry Springer y'all. I'm tired of being the better person doing the right thing. It's getting me nowhere except back where I started.

sucker punch

Well, the ex-boy decided that he was ready enough to move on and slept with somebody who I thought was a friend of mine as well...I guess I was wrong. According the reports from the front line, she initiated it and he was drunk, not that that really matters. Nor does it really matter that she's seemingly worked her way through multiple people in Idaho and the rest of the northwest who've put needle to record, including several of his friends.
Frankly, I'm furious...I am a raging inferno of white hot heat. Not because he moved on first, though that is always hard to witness, but because of the mixed signals he had been giving me. Because, according to a little hearsay, he didn't know what his intentions with me were, he just knew that it felt good to hang out with me but he couldn't be celibate forever. And because he actually had the fucking nerve to call me later that night, after he had slept with somebody else, to chat. And because he's a selfish, self-centered, self-indulgent, emotionally crippled human being who I let hurt me for far too long. I thought I would try and be a better person and try to be his friend. I thought that doing that would break me out of a cycle of removing people from my life and running away from the hurt. But sometimes, some things really are for the best. Because even in the end, he wanted the best of me...in whatever form that was...while he went out and did whatever would please himself. Now I'm completely letting him go, I want nothing to do with him any longer...he won't get the best of me or the worst of me or any of me.

plummeting

I had the most intense and amazing dream not too long ago. In this dream, I was driving around in my car with the ex-boy. We were just driving and talking. But for some reason, my driving was erratic and I could barely control the car. At some point, the car started to veer off of the road and tumbled off of a cliff. After the car went off of the edge, I was no longer in the car. I was free-falling, at an amazingly quick velocity, the ragged walls of the cliff were flying past and I was scared. I screamed and cried and thought I was going to die, but I wasn't ready...I knew that I wasn't ready to die. So then I started to lucidly dream and I remember telling myself that I didn't have to be scared that I was falling...I didn't have to be afraid. And then the dream changed. Yes, I was still falling...but I wasn't afraid to fall anymore. And I fell! I fell down through that huge canyon, I fell down through the center of the world, I fell down through other worlds and bodies of waters and finally stopped somewhere else. I can only describe that place as feeling as close to heaven as I have ever felt. Once I stopped falling, in this amazing place, I just floated. Floated with all this love and light surrounding me and I felt like I didn't have to be afraid, I didn't have to be scared, I didn't have to be anything...I just had to let myself be. It was incredible. It was one of those dreams that you wish you didn't have to wake up from...

home sweet home

So, I may have found a place to live. Nothing fancy, no hardwood floors, no private washer and dryer, not a lot of closet space. But the price is right, and the neighborhood is right, and they'll take my dog. So after having "moved up" in the home world by having a roommate who makes more money than me...I'm moving back to where I started, albeit paying a little more money than I was before. Which frankly is fine by me. I'm really excited to be living alone again. No more cleaning up somebody's else's stuff and the only animals I'll have to clean up after will be my own. I will miss the fancy kitchen appliances and having my own deck and courtyard however. But during the period of growth and change, maybe relearning that I'm okay with being by myself is a good thing. Only time will tell...

giving spirit

I'm not one of those people who refuse to let people over, whether on the freeway or on the road. I'm not ever in so much of a hurry that one more car is going to make that big a difference, and if I'm already late then one more car isn't going to make me that much later. So today as I waited at a stop light, a car or two back, a car pulled out from a parking garage in front of me and idled by the road. Without even thinking I stopped and let the car out. Then I looked at the driver and...I shit you not...it was Santa Claus! In full Santa regalia: red suit, snowy white beard, red hat, and just the right amount of roseacea to make him look jolly.

adjustments

You can get used to anything. Whether or not it seems wrong or right. But at some point it starts to feel normal and then it starts to feel okay. And eventually it will begin to feel fine

familiar

It seems like you can get used to anything, even when it feels like the wrong thing. I wake up in the morning missing the boy, I spend the day thinking that what has happened isn't the right thing, I go to bed at night wishing that he would see that there is a different outcome if we both were willing to try. And every day I hope that it will get a little easier. But I don't know that this feeling inside of me is changing.

back to the future

Maybe it's because I've been sleeping more than normal and staying in bed longer, but my dreams have become much more vivid and easier for me to remember once I've gotten up. Last night I had a dream that I went home. It wasn't actually a home that I've ever been to or one that has existed in my waking life. But in my dream, I went home to a house I used to live in as a teenager. And during the trip home, several of my friends were also on their way home. We were all revisiting our pasts. I remember at some point during the dream all of us being together and talking, talking about going home and staying there. And then we realized that we couldn't go back home because that place no longer existed for us. Our situations had changed, we had changed, and therefore what we remembered as being home was changed. I know why I had this dream, I know what my subconcious mind is trying to tell me. Once the past has been written, you can't go back. This reminded me of a quote I had clipped out of a magazine and keep with me:

"Living by thought is a little like driving your car by looking in the rear-view mirror because you're looking after an event has occured...If you look at the reflected quality as the truth you miss the actual truth, which is in front of you. How can you feel connected looking in the rear-view mirror?"

moving on

Right now I almost feel like I can't move on or move forward. I feel stuck. My life doesn't feel like my own.

thankful

I saw this on a friend's comment space:

Be Thankful

Be thankful that you don't already have everything you desire,
If you did, what would there be to look forward to?

Be thankful when you don't know something
For it gives you the opportunity to learn.

Be thankful for the difficult times.
During those times you grow.

Be thankful for your limitations
Because they give you opportunities for improvement.

Be thankful for each new challenge
Because it will build your strength and character.

Be thankful for your mistakes
They will teach you valuable lessons.

Be thankful when you're tired and weary
Because it means you've made a difference.

It is easy to be thankful for the good things.
A life of rich fulfillment comes to those who are
also thankful for the setbacks.

GRATITUDE can turn a negative into a positive.
Find a way to be thankful for your troubles
and they can become your blessings.
~ Author Unknown ~

hard

Another of my favorite movie quotes is from A League of Their Own (another sports movie I know). It goes a little something like this:

"It just got too hard."

"It's supposed to be hard, the hard is what makes it good."

I know they don't mean difficult, things shouldn't always be difficult. I know that they mean hard in that it's about how hard you try, striving for betterment, recognizing that something worth having is worth the challenge. The harder you try, the greater the reward. I know that I tried, was willing to continue trying, maybe even tried my hardest, and THAT is what makes me good. Because ultimately it comes down to that, I am good.

little buddha

Keanu Reeves may not be the best actor, but despite his wooden delivery some of his movies have some good quotes. This one, from The Replacements (a super cheese-fest sports movie that I seem to really like for some strange reason) is one that I find fits my general mood of late:

Pain heals,
Chicks dig scars,
Glory lasts forever...

I'm working on step one right now...I'm looking forward to step three.

insults & injuries

It's true, shitty things do come in threes. First it was the relationship ending, that was a huge one. Then it became the stress of needing to move in January (although that stress has been lingering for a while because I am a planner and start worrying about things way too soon). Then finally it became my car. On the way to my mom's house on Wednesday for an early family dinner, my fucking car broke down while I sat in holiday stop and go traffic. Luckily I was able to pull over into a mall parking lot and have my car towed to my mom's house. Having to have your car towed at night right before the holiday is a major pain in the ass. But I guess if I have to look for the silver lining, at least I got my three out of the way quickly, a swift and painful bandage removal.

fighting

I can still hear the words in travelling into my ear and straight to my heart, as if they had been spoken yesterday, "If you leave, I would fight like hell to get you back." That was less than a year ago. Now the story is different. The will to fight became inversely proportional to the frustration of fights begat from conflict. I don't think that early promise was a mistruth or an exaggeration, I believe that when he said it he meant it fully and deeply. I just wish that that conviction was still there, the desire to fight like hell was still there, the knowledge that it was worth the sacrifice and the commitment was still there. I believe it still and part of me doesn't want to stop believing it. But I can't make somebody else believe what I believe and even if I could I don't think I would, despite the personal cost.

stripped

It feels like most of the things I have relied on in the last few years have been stripped away recently. From big things to little things, important things to simple things, taken for granted things and things I have been profoundly grateful for. It's hard to maintain my sense of being a whole person when I am starting to feel like huge chunks of my life are being gouged away. I almost feel like I couldn't take much more without crumbling like a house of cards.