dali

Sometimes life can feel so fucking surreal I almost begin to question whether or not it is a dream that I am living. So strange but always with the taint of normalcy, the happenstance feeding from the umbilical cord of intention, cloudy with confusion while simultaneously being blinded from the prisms of light bouncing off of what is so clear... The clocks are melting off of the walls into the painted desert sand and I stand in wonder at the beauty of it all. Because it is all beautiful, even when it isn't.

summation

My life feels like a series of cliches,
Not because of wisdom or any objective truth contained in those phrases,
But simply because of the utter sameness of our human condition.

are you experienced?

One of the wonderous things about life is how your experiences can define and redefine almost everything you think you know (though in a hypothetical and philosophical sense, my realization is that we really don't know much). The example of this that has been rampaging through my brain lately has been music. I've been listening to The Beatles for as long as I can remember, I think they might be my first real musical love, a huge leap considering my parents' love of disco and funk when I was a wee thing. And for as long as I have been listening to The Beatles, my favorite song has always been and continues to be Strawberry Fields. I feel like this song has been an old friend, standing beside me throughout my years. I've listened and relistened to this song forever and the other day, on the drive back from my mom's house, I was listening to this song again. My life and experiences up to this point changed the song on this particular listen and it was like I finally heard it for the first time. It was almost overwhelming how the meaning shifted so suddenly and after over twenty years of listening to Strawberry Fields, I have an even bigger attachment to it than I've ever had before. After listening to it possibly thousands of times, the beauty of the song and lyrics touched me in a new way because my experiences are different and now I am different, even if in barely detectable ways.

Let me take you down, cause Im going to
Strawberry fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry fields forever

Living is easy with eyes closed
Misunderstanding all you see
Its getting hard to be someone, but it all works out
It doesnt matter much to me

Let me take you down, cause Im going to
Strawberry fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry fields forever

No one, I think, is in my tree
I mean, it must be high or low
That is, you cant, you know, tune in, but its alright
That is, I think its not too bad

Let me take you down, cause Im going to
Strawberry fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry fields forever

Always, no, sometimes, think its me
But, you know, I know when its a dream
I think, er, no, I mean, er, yes, but its all wrong
That is, I think I disagree

Let me take you down, cause Im going to
Strawberry fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry fields forever
Strawberry fields forever
Strawberry fields forever

crystal ball

I have often thought that one of my strengths is that I am an intuitive person. I like to think that I do fairly well at reading people and recognizing what it going on with them and how they will act and react. Lately though, I've wondered if that's always a good thing. Feeling like I have some sort of anticipatory power about people and what they will think and do lends itself to not allowing myself to enjoy the mystery and surprises of people and life. It also lends itself to more than a few assumptions. And frankly, when it is one of those things where I predict something not so positive (for myself at any rate), it doesn't necessarily feel good to be correct, even if it's in a small way. But it's a hard thing to let go of, the whole "Well, I certainly called that one" is a powerful force when we're often taught that only right and wrong can exist and who doesn't want to be the one who's right? But I think that the bigger conundrum for me is that sometimes I really want and maybe feel like I need to be proven wrong, I want to be shown that my cynicism is an invention of my imagination. And then when it isn't, I feel disappointed and that's never a good thing. But here I sit, feeling like I was correct about something and wishing I weren't.

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.