Month: August 2019

A small pledge.

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…it’s happening again. The constant call of conflicting events has been keeping me from sitting down to write. It’s a matter of settling. Setting in a new place with new people while also trying to keep strong the threads connecting me to the people I have known. I wouldn’t say it’s easy, something new to me. The maintenance of the past and the cultivation of the future are effortful endeavors edifying the path forward.

But it’s not enough; I want more silence, more noise, more time. It is doing a disservice to myself and this form to not allow the time to write. I want to reaffirm my dedication to writing in the next coming weeks, but I need time and the discipline to do so. So in the next couple weeks, I might be posting a bit shorter posts, but this is a pledge to write and fill these pixels with prose that I can be proud of.

I want the writing to move me as well as you until then I need to spend time to figure out what that means.

Until the next time, Good Night and Good Luck

Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, Would If I Could

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“The clouds are beautiful,” I think to myself looking up at that soft blue sky outside my window.  The moment though is brief as my brain can only resist the urge to work for so long before the guilt sets in. It’s sad to me that no matter what I do, I never capture these serene scenes for long enough. My mind prevents loitering on anything for too long, wanting to move on or delve deeper, so the appreciation of a moment is only that, a moment before I find myself moving my personal perpetual motion machine once again.

If it isn’t apparent at this point, I will state it plainly – I am terrible at resting – lingering only long enough for my brain to process and move on to the next thing.  I even tested last night with now avail, listening to some soft music in the darkness of my room only to find I was restless. Even with nothing to do but stare at the ceiling, my brain won’t just stop.  Instead though the desire to try and put a pause on my mind, I end up being filled with the meta-thought, “I just need to relax now.” That’s why sometimes I appreciate those things that make me lose myself for a moment. Those events or objects that have an incredible implicit draw to them that I can’t help but be swayed by their influence. The ones where I lose hours without realizing. Maybe what I need is someone to bash me over the head every so often to let me sit still for a while. Even then though I am sure, I would feel guilty after waking up.

After my accident, I made friends with the thoughts, working in tandem towards a speedy recovery. The thing is, if you thought I was talkative, you should hear my brain. It prattles on nonstop about everything.  It keeps me on task, and remembering all the details but even when I am supposed to stop thinking it keeps going. Maybe that’s just me and how I am built, but it makes me wonder if that is at all healthy. It can’t be good for it to keep running all day nonstop. Though I am sure it has the stamina of a marathon runner at this point, it doesn’t change the fact that it shouldn’t be running marathons all day.

Either way, soon I will be thrown into the thick of it again, working day and night for my dream.  With all this work, I hope I have enough time to stop and rest so that I may not become burnt out from all this effort. Sometimes I wish that my brain would take a break, not for me, but for itself.

 

March Towards Matriculations – Ninth March – A Stumble With The Starter Pistol

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“Not as I imagined it” is what I thought getting on the plane to fly to my new home “This isn’t exactly as picturesque as it is in the movies.”

The morning was rough, waking up to the question “Hey, it’s 6am, aren’t we suppose to already be at the airport?”.  From that moment forward, my body was tensed, my head went into a panic, and I moved as faster than I even knew I could. Grabbing everything I could think of and shoving them into the last bag as my sister started carrying my suitcases out to the car.  It wasn’t supposed to be this way, sure I knew would have been sleep deprived, but by the time I was on the road to the airport, my whole body felt like acid was poured my muscles as the tenseness tore at my soul. Thankfully, I had gotten there at the right moment, any later and I would have missed my flight. It’s an unusual thing when they are calling your name over the intercom, and from my youth of running away from my mother in the store, I knew it is never a good thing. But I did it, got on my plane with my last moments of home being a brief glance into the beautiful California Sunrise before entering the plane and taking off.

You might ask, why did this happen? Well, I have been spending the last several weeks trying to meet and hang out with as many people as possible.  Pressing every last ounce of these experiences, I can’t readily export to my new home into my memory, hoping I store enough of it up to give me strength in my journey across the country. This all culminated in a party last night, where people from all across the different stages of my life convened for the first time. People from childhood, high school, college, and graduate school all showed up and mingled. It’s hard playing host to these events because I want to spend so much time with each an every one of them, but my attention is split and torn between all conversations and friend circled around. It was nice though to see the common thread between all of them. They are just good people. People who are fun to be around, who love stories and conversation. Who are polite but opinionated. Who are delightful, intelligent, and capable in their own ways.

As you might understand, if I have all these great people around me, I would never want the night to end. So it went on, but as the clocked ticked by slowly each and every one of them trickled out of the party, going home to their soft comfortable beds. I could have called it earlier, my alarm was to be set for 4:30am regardless of what time I went to bed, but I didn’t. How am I suppose to say no to being with all these people in my life whom I love?  It was almost scripted, each person leaving one after the other, giving me time to say goodbye to each one of them individually. It was sad, but I love them, and part of them will always be with me. Promises I intend to keep were made, but one thing was for sure, something was at its end.

I think that’s why getting to the house I am going to be living in the next year was so hard. Everything finally became real. This hiatus on my emotions dealing with this change have finally begun to move again. Pardon my French, but this scared the shit out of me. I had this feeling before, when before I chose not to leave for San Jose State right out of high school. This impending doom that feels like someone has their hand wrapped tightly around my heart. A tenseness that feels like life itself is trying to squeeze the years out of me. It’s an anxiety that took me aback as I was setting things up in my new home. Even with this feeling of wanting to run back home, I know I must live here and face it. This is because the possibilities moving forward are too great to pass up without eternal regret following me. Tomorrow will be easier, and same with the next, I just have to get through it.

But it’s important to remember, I am not going to be gone forever, just for a little while. Well, for 5 years actually. I’m not dying though, and since I can’t imagine the people I love not being in my life, I will continue forward any way I know how. It will be a lot of effort, but I’m a hard worker and expending effort it what I do. Though it was a rough start to this grand adventure, doesn’t mean I won’t get through the race. I will keep moving forward with the strength of those around me like the wind at my back. I am greedy so I will keep those friends whom I have while trying to make more.

It’s not goodbye forever, just goodbye for now. There are more memories to be made, and more people to meet, but I’m glad I at least had these final moments with my friends and family up until the very end.

March Towards Matriculation: Eight March – Behind The Starting Line

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Before Light by げみ

 

It’s not lost on me that a week from now I’m going to be in a new place, surrounded by new people, starting a new stage of my life. It’s surreal, how my supposed to understand and react to this thing I’ve never done before. As time slips the issue of not being able to see or respond the coming changes is mounting.

So let me try to be as honest as possible. Explain how I’m feeling to the best of my ability. A lot is going on in my head, too much, so much so yet it feels like I’m running around without it, frantically trying to find my way without knowing where exactly that is. I don’t know how to feel, what to do, going through the motions and yet nothing seems real, just a whole lot of effort for what I hope will pan out.

Is this is what adult life is like?  The part that of experience most people say is terrible. I realize that being an adult is being made to do things that really I don’t want to do, making me confront things I don’t want to feel, and experience things I want to avoid. It’s effortful, and not a fun effort, just effort for efforts sake. It’s just so confusing, navigating the halls and structures set by men and women I never knew.

It’s hard because I want to be a beacon that lights the way for others. Show how it’s very possible to follow through without issue or at least with a certain sense of grace. I don’t know what I’m doing most of the time. I’m making it up as I go. There are worries manifesting, leaving my mind at ease but my soul in torment.

I have these two incredible forces pushing and pulling. One of them being my past, this part of my life that I feel is going so well and in some parts don’t want to leave also hasn’t given me enough closure to say “I’ve done enough.” The second, the future, this amazing thing that has never happened yet. The alure makes me want to keep it as perfect as possible as long as possible because the possibility of everything that could happen will happen is exciting. These two forces with swirling around, like a hurricane with me sitting in the middle waiting to be consumed by the rain.

It’s going to hurt, and of course, I’m scared. If possible, I would want to bring everyone with me. Unfortunately, that’s not how this works, one has to leave to come home. I do, though, find solace in the great stories of old, where great men and women who go to long journeys facing the rising of the unknown of monsters, mayhem, mysteries, magic. Without stepping beyond the where comfort, I could never return with stories of my own. My life would just be a story about someone who never left, never went out into the world, and never knew what life had to offer. For me, it was inevitable. I was going to leave at some point, I knew in my heart of hearts down to my very soul. All I can do is brave the storm, and be honest and open to the change along the way

By the time next week rolls around, who knows, maybe I will feel different.