life

A Square Peg In A Square Hole

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How do you keep yourself outside of the box? How do you keep these thoughts flowing like a stream in the spring? Can I foster this type of non-unilateral thinking?

There is a dream I have that I would be one of those people who comes up with this novel way of looking at the world. A type of perspective that widens the world of those around me.  That dream turns into a nightmare when I realize that I might not be cut out for this dream.

I look at forks in the road of how life can go, and in some ways, it’s easy to follow the set path before me, it has been well worn in. So many before I have walked these steps and gotten to where they wanted to go. Then there are paths I see which are less worn but still recognizable. Those paths may be different, and the road might be harder to follow, but from the perspective of I stand, the footprints are still warm from the person before.

The problem is taking the last path, the path that has never been taken before. Where there are no roads ahead and feet, have never tread. In a system where I like to know the laws and parameters to work within it’s those who bend and break those rules in the right way that seems to be able to push past the boundaries of what we consider doable.

In some parts I am afraid of that path, I have been taught this road can lead you to nowhere, to dead ends, and to danger. Ironically it’s that path I have to take if I want to accomplish my dream. Life has no clear way to feeling you where to go, it has many suggestions but no real stake in which direction you take. Each life we live will always be different the one of the next, and yet we feel this force that draws us together to have this type of unifying experience with each other. A way to be able to relate with one another. And maybe that is my hesitation, as it is I feel that few know me and even fewer understand me and if I keep moving away from people onto my own path I will lose that connection I have worked so hard to create. That It will no longer be understandable as to what I am trying to accomplish. I like to know things and to be taught, but I have no guide, no way to know if I am moving in the right direction. With no sense as to what direction to take, do I just step out and hope for the best?

Even now as I am typing this, it seems silly to put so much weight upon this fear, the fear to not know where which way to turn. I know the world is full of people and that there are people are like-minded all over the place, but having been without them before there is a fear just the same.
I know in the future I want to step out and act in my own way. Follow the path my feet set out for me. I will likely live differently than most people, and I will place along the road I was meant for. This is something I have and will be working on for the rest of my life.

Invasion Of Thoughts

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I noticing myself drifting off again, drifting into space where thoughts pervade my consciousness. Sitting there staring into the distance, imagining the horrors of existence.

It happened again, once my mind is tired from the day, or just don’t seem to have enough energy to fight off the coming storm.  It starts with a small “You can’t” and builds from there. These invasive thoughts that cross my mind like floodwater during a storm, I am helplessly trying to block the current as it drowns everything in touches.  I start to think negatively, working to fight back against this onslaught of thoughts and feelings I don’t want.  Once the gates are open, I just have to wait for the storm to end because I don’t have the endurance to fight against these persistent waves.  All I can do is watch and know that it will let up eventually.

It takes me the dark alleys of my mind and makes me deals with all the backhanded things that have ever popped up.  These are the things that don’t even come up on my radar normally but are apparent deeply seeded in my brain. Things like my fear about never amounting to anything, my hesitation with not knowing if I am on the right path, a constant stream of thoughts about not being good enough.  As a whole, these ideas throw me for a loop and even though they are not truthful, the ideas have already taken root and tied themselves to my very being. Will they go away, probably not, but will become easier to manage if I continue to work at it.

These thoughts are something I can’t avoid but at times are remedied simply by a good meal.  Makes me confused about the validity of the ideas.  I wonder if I should take them seriously and if there might be some small truth to it all aside from highlighting my insecurities. I don’t know if I should follow them down the rabbit hole or I should be weary that it might just lead me to a sewer.  The thoughts can poison a day or a make a good moment sour. Like with weeds, if unattended they multiply. Is my mind giving me a dose of reality or just some sick fantasy I never knew I had?

I snap out of it, only a moment has passed but it leaves a mark on me.  A smile that was once there disappears along with the gleam in my eyes.  It will be a little while before they truly return.  I keep at it, moving forward knowing there could be another storm waiting for me right around the corner.

A Resolute Resolution

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What will I become in this new year?

I see a vividly a version of myself standing upon a hill with back faced to me.  A much larger more powerful person stands before me, confronted with the future, ready to take on the challenges of tomorrow.  He has a grin as if he knows what the future hold and how to move about it. This man standing at the other end of the year is challenging me to catch up.

Resolutions don’t work, at least no the majority of the time.  Trying to change yourself in so many ways all at once and expecting result immediately is only setting yourself up for failure. Anticipating the arrival of the new year to have some sort of bearing on how well you are able to do something is a bit silly. Moments should be grasped when the motivation is at hand, not when we feel like the motivation should come.

This is why I don’t have a resolution but a resolve. I want to be better, stronger, more compassionate and helpful. I want to be that man on the mountain I see before me, not just stuck staring at the back of what I could be.  I want to the one who is more of a man of action, one who is less hesitant and less likely to be paralyzed by fear and indecision. This might seem vague but what I am to do is eliminate the feeling of being able to do more by actually doing it.

In learning all I can, I came upon a concept of deliberate practice. The practice that you do to continue to push your ability and skills to the next level. This is the way you become an expert at something. This is something I must learn to do, deliberate practice of life.  To make it so I am constantly pushing the boundaries of what I can and can’t do. Learning how to get to each of the next stages in my own life.

This is my promise to myself that I will be that man I see on the hill, that man who is challenging me now, so by the time next year comes around, I will be able to challenge my past self too and welcome the next challenge with a smile.

This is my resolution, this is my resolve. I hope to all of you that we are all successful in our pursuits, but I have a back to catch up to, and I have to get started now!

To: The End Of The Year

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I wanted to try a new mode of writing because I feel like my ability to express how I feel and my message are severely lacking. One thing I am good at is articulating how I feel in the form of a letter.

Dear 2016,

Hey, I thought I would squeeze this in right at the end of the year. We’ve known each other for a while now, and I wanted to get the chance to bridge out beyond our professional relationship before it’s too late (I am not known for my timing but bear with me).

We started off a bit sour, I had just been broken up with by 2015 and wasn’t in the place to accept new years into my life, especially after such an emotional roller coaster that the previous one was.

You took me under your wing and showed me how to pick myself up after it all. I would be more thankful, but you did kinda slap me senseless along the way. You took me back to my roots to show me all that I had and pointed out all the things I had to work on. Kept me grounded in reality, almost too much.

We had to get through loss and failure together, but somehow you just kept marching forward triumphantly.  I never understood your spirit, through all the chaos you kept moving.  I followed behind you, running to keep up, never wanting to fall behind again. 2016 you might have not been the best for me, but you did help me a great deal.

I got stronger during our time together, learned discipline and how to work hard for the things I want.  Made me understand the difference between doing and trying to do. You did make me feel uncomfortable with all the change you brought about, but you said change was inevitable and you have to learn to live with it.

I know I wasn’t the best at times, and I still have a long way to go, but through all of our time together you really wanted me to become a better person. Truth be told, I felt more human with you, more vulnerable because you don’t take my shit and you constantly ask me for more and more. I opened myself up this year to the world and people around me, because you showed me how much more I could lose if I didn’t.

It might have been wrong of me to make plans for you at the beginning, all those ideas that never panned out. You took care of me, though, created times and situations where I could genuinely laugh and smile.  Let me see my friends, made me feel like I wasn’t some broken cog in a machine. I saw that I had some purpose here and that people wanted me around. Gave me perspective, and a chance to expand my view beyond myself.

I know we didn’t agree at times, and at others, we were busy with our own goings on, but I always knew you were watching over me.
I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to say this earlier and only now that you are leaving that I have the courage to speak, Thank you 2016 for all the love, pain, and discovery we shared together.  Without you, I would still be in that hole looking up at the sky hoping to be saved instead of learning to climb out of it myself.

2016, at the end of it all with you going away we both know you weren’t the greatest thing to happen to me. You’ll go on your way knowing you made a difference, it’s up to me now to greet the new year and start working towards my future. So have a nice trip, I know we may never see each other again, but the memories we shared are irreplaceable. 2016, I love you.

Most Sincerely,
Me

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.

 

WORDS, MY ETERNAL STRUGGLE WITH LANGUAGE : Revisited

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My father was a lector, and a good one. While I was in middle school, I always admired my dad each and every time he went up during mass to say the readings.  I saw the crowds of people so attentively listening to every word he said. I wanted that; I wanted for people to listen to me as they listened to him. I wanted to be that person whom people looked to whenever they needed something said.
It was during this time that the opportunity arose for my classmates and me to be lectors during the weekly student masses. At every opportunity they gave us I would attempt to volunteer, hoping in some ways to capture some of my dad’s ability.  Zeal, unfortunately, did not translate to talent, and I struggled each and every time I went up to speak. For reading was not my strong suit, and I can tell you that even in the low-pressure classroom setting  I would stumble over every word, piecing together phrases and seeming disconnected thoughts hoping no one noticed my trouble. For some reason I saw letters that weren’t there, always nervously mispronouncing words and inventing phrases that didn’t belong; even I knew I wasn’t good. That didn’t keep me from wanting it; it didn’t’ keep me from trying.
Eventually, I stopped being called on, and when no one wanted to volunteer except for me, they would assign the job to someone else. I got the message loud and clear, I wasn’t the one that they were looking for, my words were not good enough.  I could only watch others as they got to go up there and speak, go up there and do what it seemed I couldn’t, patiently waiting for my time to come.
Even to this day, it’s my dream to give a great speech to a stadium full of people. To speak words that touch the heart of everyone in the room, to have them listen to me as they did for my father before me.

A year is an awfully long time. In the span of a year, I started this blog to begin working on a lot of aspects of myself, first and foremost, to find my voice.  Twelve months, fifty-two weekly posts later, I want to demonstrate how far I’ve come and let you know that I still have a long to go.
My story hasn’t ended; my journey is still ongoing. My words flow faster and better than before but there is always more I want to say, and I find myself wanting to fall into the bad habits of yesterday.  I sit at the keys of my computer often now, contemplating the sentence structure, the way I want something to be phrased, how long it takes me to convey my message.  I look at words differently than I did before, and like learning to swim, I don’t feel like I am at risk to drowning in a sea of language anymore.

I realized this is going to be a life long journey.  As I develop my style, the prose doesn’t feel so distant from me anymore.  The words don’t feel cold and unfamiliar and each time I write they seem to take a life of their own and flow out of me as if they want to be said. Each character carries a little of myself with it, a little of my heart, a little of my mind. The strange thing is that no matter how much of myself I pour onto the page I never seem to run out. There is fulfillment I find from writing, and I don’t think I will ever find myself empty from it.

I have spent a lot of time now writing about the reflection I see in the mirror.  I want to continue this but also set my sights on things are beyond me. So for the next coming year, I want to expand my reach to the world around me, to writing about what I see and how I see it.  My hope is that I can learn to get closer to language and the words I write so that they will become a direct translation of what I mean to say.
So to everyone who has taken the time to read my posts, it means a lot to me that you have come on this adventure with me.
There is still a long way to grow and much more to say. So to all those who have been with me, let’s be on our way.
Thank you for reading all the words I’ve written, here’s to future, one that is smitten.

thank you.

P.s.
Here is a link to my first post, if you have time I would like to see how it compares to how I write now.
WORDS, MY ETERNAL STRUGGLE WITH LANGUAGE 

 

 

 

 

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 Echos Of The Coming Cold

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Cold magnifies and multiplies this world.  The small silences become eerie calms, the sound of steps ring out across the air, frozen hand and fingers grasping and rubbing for the chance of once again being warm. This is my favorite season, not because of the cold for which I despise but because of the listless echo the everything emits. An echo that reverberates and multiplies across the hearts of all those there to experience it. It is the season where everyone hurts a bit more, feels a bit more, tries a bit more, and is a bit more aware of the world around them.  It’s that cold sting that never lets us drift into our fantasies.  The chill keeps us acutely aware of the present moment, forcing us to face the feelings we have inside.

It’s in these next couple months that the world makes way for change.   It’s a time for reflection as we slowly recluse ourselves into our spaces.  It’s what we fill these spaces with that make all the difference.  Even on the coldest day, a room full of happy people can feel as warm as the hot summer sun. Though the opposite is true, even on a mild day am empty room can freeze you on the spot.  It’s these contrasts that I like.  The cold and calm paints its picture with deep tones and dark shades to illustrate the heavy feeling that the chill can bring; the warm and welcoming shows up with an abundance of color presenting the vibrancy of life in the depths of this cold.

Now the main reason I like these things is that it allows me to reflect on and enjoy the times I have. It condenses the experiences and feelings like water, making it, so it’s easier to get more out of them seemingly less time. With all the holidays, and the longer nights there is so much to be felt in these next couple months.  I just hope that this year will be a more positive one than the last. Ultimately that is up to me, and what I bring to the table.  I am open and ready to knock winter out of the park, much more prepared than I was a year ago.  So, as December arrives, I will be ushering the new year with open arms with all the new things that the world can bring, and with a reflection on how far this year had taken me. A few short months and we will be away from this echo, this cold and after all the chaos of winter comes spring.  With new life, we are able to create the world we want to see inside and out.

So let’s enjoy this cold, this winter as it comes in because it too is essential to the process we call life.

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.

The Election and What Matters

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I was initially going to spend my time to write about something other than the results of this election, but like many of you, I have been drawn into the whirlwind of reporting my thoughts and feelings.

This election has taken a lot of us by surprise. We are left with a country divided. This election has been one of the most derisive on record.  I can honestly say that the world won’t end in the next coming months, though things will change. What is most important is learning a lesson from the results of this election.

Some might be angry or sad, frustrated or uneasy, anxious or all of the above.  Others will be happy, excited, jubilant, and hopeful for the future. What matters is that we come together after this election.  We have to learn to understand our fellow American’s point of view. We can’t stay as a country so divided through any longer. I know it may not be your favorite thing to do, but we are a country together, we had the opportunity to vote for a leader, and we chose.  Why, and how it happened are confusing and puzzling. We can get into a flurry about it, throw up our arms, and never accept reality. It is here, and we have another choice to make. What do we do now?

My choice is to understand, to love, and to learn what it is that brought us here, so as to make my time-honored duty as a citizen possible. We need to fight the hate with love, and we fight the intolerance with understanding.  There are some battles that require us to do more than just talk but to stand up together as the country and speak with one voice.  We need to unite under a notion of the democratic system in which we live.

I hope that in the next coming months we can at least learn to become a country and work together once again.