fun

One Small Jump Around The Sun

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Ahh… It’s been a year since this began, one hell of one to be honest.  At year’s end, it always brings us back to the beginning.  I stand now next to the person I was 12 short months ago and measure, hoping I have come far enough.

Things have changed, and the more they change, the more they stay the same.  Am I where I want to be? No. Is there more that I can do? Yes. In the seemingly infinite finite time I have, I never get to where I want to go.  I work and work, but the work seems to pile up more and more. It’s inescapable – or rather I can’t find a way to escape it without giving up too much.

How far have I come, how far have I gone? Questions that a loaded with no clear answer to them. Tangibly, there is only but small differences in my life. From the outset, my status may not look at all like it has changed. I still working a minimum wage job, living at home, working on getting into grad school. It frustrates me, these were three things I was attempting to change through the year, three points of contention, there losses.

Of course, it wasn’t all losses.  Socially I am surrounded by good people with whom I love and adore. Emotionally I pulled myself out of the depression episode and am better than I was before it started. Physically I am a lot more fit, eating healthier and working out whenever I get the chance. These are things I look to when I days get dark or time runs out.

There are still things I want, still things I am working on and don’t get me wrong, I am supremely grateful for all that I have. A year is not a long time but also an eternity. Whenever I need time, it passes too quickly, and whenever I need time to pass it seems to trudge on begrudgingly.  Time inevitably changes everything, moves us along without our consent, and make the most of it is to flow with it, accept we have less control than what we may want or would like and keep at it.

I continue to work on myself, making goals and plans.  If anything I learned a little bit more about tenacity and grit. I know what I want, and I know what I need. I set these goals to never return to the place I came, to rise above.

As a conclusion, I want to say that I have a lot more to go, the journey has yet to come to an end and I am still growing.  My memories and motivations may have changed with time, but my passion and spirit have only grown. This year last year was filled with dark days and even darker nights, and I was able to reignite my life and see the dawn. I may be filled with frustration, but I am better for it all.

This year beat me up, but I keep getting up for another round. I will win this fight and get to where I want to go because I am willing to do what needs to be done.

Thank you for reading, here’s to a new year. If you ever want to talk, I am here to listen.

 

Thread and Binding

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Do you believe in fate or destiny? Do you believe that the world has some grand plan or all of what will happen is written in some book somewhere?  Do you believe that something is turning the cogs in the great machine of life, or do you perhaps we are all here by chance and change alone.

I can’t refute fate, it is something that I fight against frequently.  What is my fate and how does that reflect on the world. Does fate exist or does this grand narrative fall short because it’s what I want from the universe? That’s not what I want to talk about now. I want to speak of the fate that connects me unknowingly to those who are around me.

I have been fortunate to have great people surrounding me in my life.  Friends, family, peers, and acquaintances.  I have had the chance to develop relationships with people from all different backgrounds, creeds, cultures, nationalities, and ideologies. Each one is connecting to my personal story, each one helping to shape the narrative of my life.

Each chapter is filled with different interconnected strings, ones that may go off in strange directions but is all connected to me in some way. We are all an odd mix of connections for whom we are the catalyst. As my relationships grow so does the strength of the string, and eventually I find myself covered with them, which keeps me warm when the world is cold.

It’s the thread that I feel pulls me towards people in my life.  It connects me to them, sometimes by the hand, and other times by the heart.  These interconnected threads weave together the pages of my book of life, creating a coherent message from start to finish.

The threads always are pushing me to expand myself into a different area, and I wonder why these threads pull me from one place to another.  Each place I go I find out some more about the world, about others, and about myself.  This is what makes my relationships always worthwhile. Are these strings the ones I create or was the thread pulling me there beforehand. Was my book already written in or are these chapters something of my creation? What matters is that I have these relationships and I don’t take them for granted. Each one is important, and I should treat them as such.

Truth be told, everyone has these relationships in their lives, for better or for worse. Where would we be without them? I wanted to take this first week of December to highlight something I find much more valuable than any present in the world, my relationships.  Thank you for existing, each and every friendship and a familial relation have shaped me in some way, so you are all partially responsible for why I am the way I am. If that’s a good thing, thank you. If you feel it’s a bad thing, then it’s all your fault.

I want to continue to work at my relationships into the future, but I do need help, I am not perfect. I am always happy to talk with you, so feel free to reach out to me and remember in this holiday season how much these relationships mean to you.  Letting people know can make all the difference.

 

 

The Meal

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This time of year people makes a big deal about a meal. Why can you have a holiday that revolves around the act of eating? The reason is that it brings us together to recognize what only a meal could, connection.
Now, Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. Before you say it’s just because I like food and to cook, that’s only part of the reason.  See unlike Chrismas, birthdays, Holloween, and other holidays it requires you to give time and effort with a fleeting return.  Thanksgiving is based around an idea of giving thanks for what we have instead of receiving something extra.  It’s a holiday the requires us to sit down together in unity and forces us to suffer through being in proximity of people we may only be able to handle in small doses.

It forces us unabatedly back together regardless of the state of being and distance.  For someone like myself who is keen on keeping a casual distance from most people and my head in the clouds, it’s an opportunity to ground myself and forces me to reconnect.  I find all the trials and tribulations of planning, getting people together, preparing the meal, and finally sitting down together soothing. With so many gears chugging away and all the ways things can go awry, I find it’s a perfect personification of life.  I find this perfect disaster the very reason I give thanks on that day.  It is in this chaos of moving parts that we are reminded that life has a lot of ordinary things that pass us by, significant roadblocks on the path, and small happiness along the way and they are all things we should be thankful for.  SO this is my message to life, thank you for being the beautiful, crazy, perfect disaster that you are.

Midnight Dancers

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one. two. three. four.

The ebb and flow, a contagious motion permeates across the room.   Without even speaking a crowd of people seems to be all connected. Through the rhythmic cadence that erupts from the speakers, I can tell, it’s a whole other world out there.

one. two. three. four.

I have to come out and say it; I don’t know how to dance.
I know, surprising.
This only comes up because I went out recently with my friends and found myself on one of these dance floors.  Trust me when I say, my relationships with that space is the same as two people who are introduced through a mutual friend and then are immediately left to their own devices, awkward and unfamiliar. This is not through a lack of desire to learn; it’s more that I never find myself in these situations, so I have never had the need to improve my non-existent skills.  I have a healthy appreciation for dancing, just no the wherewithal to do it.

one. two. three. four.

There is a larger lesson about letting myself be a beginner and look silly.  Instead of just sitting on the sidelines, unwilling to participate, I should let myself go. I can see it, in others, that ability to flow and feel the music, I want to learn to do that, but part of me doesn’t want to let it in. “What happens if I look stupid?”, Or “What happens if I make a mistake?” are usually the thoughts that roll through my mind. This unfamiliar territory scares me, highlights my awkward nature and inexperience, makes me freeze up.  It’s like banging on a glass between me and the rest of the world; I can see it, but I just can’t get there.

one. two. three. four.

Letting myself be free. I have trouble giving up the reigns, being out of control.  I built my whole life around bringing order to the chaos, but with dancing you have to be willing to add a little chaos back in.  I can learn all the steps and all the music cues in the world, but if I don’t let go it, then there is no passion which defeats the purpose of dancing.  It’s the love that I need, even with all the learning in the world I can still be wrong if I don’t provide the right ingredients.  It’s something that I put on the back burner; I trust that my knowledge and know how will see me through the day but my simmering passion is left to boil away unnoticed.  I need to trust in my heart as much as I believe in my head.

one. two. three. four.

At the end of the day, I admire dancing, this form of expression that for the moment seems lost on me. I have seen it, and I at least enjoy watching people do it.  Eventually, this full-bodied manifestation of feelings will be another outlet for me to connect with other people and allow me to travel to another world right along with them.

one. two. three. four.

Vignette, 1

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the sky that lifts over the far off horizon casting a royal blue backdrop against strips of clouds.

a dusty car that travels down a dark road in smooth silence as it hugs the curves around a city that is sleeping.

a cool wind that seems to blow through though everything you are.

a concrete path baking in the sun as it stretches into the horizon, only a few know its unrelenting strength.

the stillness of a warm afternoon that requires nothing from you.

a stiffness of body that grips someone who spent a little too much time in bed.

the cloudiness the comes to us all when the night presses on a little too long but the conversation seems to keep going.

a heavy back pack that hugs your shoulders trying its hardest to pull you down to the ground.

the cripsness and friction of new paper as it touchs hands for the first time.

a small break and breath of air in the midst of a cloudy and chaotic day.

the satisfying first gulp of water after seemingly endless exersizes.

the dust as it settles on objects that remain ever viglenent for use.

a park doused in water from sprinklers in the dead of night leaving only traces of dew for those who touch the grass in the morning.

a bustling room of people that feels both warm and distant at the same time.

the way the light bounces around a room even though it only creeps in through the cracks in the curtains.

the the small unabiding smile and glint in the eye of someone who is utterly and incandecently happy.

A person sitting at a computer, reflecting on life as the thing he needs to do keep stacking up… whoops…