the way the night glows in the moonlight onto a clear lake of water that fish swim

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.

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.

The Forlorn Day Dream

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I saw it clear as day, as if I had just woken up. There was single spotlight beaming down, illuminating my arms and legs which were attached to wires extending into the infinite above me.
I was hanging in a black void, dangling from thread unable to move. The strings seem to pull, and my body starts to animate.  My limbs moved more like clockwork, with an unnatural flow and began reaching into the nothingness in front of me.
Suspended from these strings, I started getting used to my motion and after a time the spotlight dimmed.  I found myself in front of the world that was like a small orb that exuded light.
This world that looked and moved very much like our own.  All around it were small strings jutting from this blue-green globe. I sat there observing as days and nights seem to pass, and I grew to admire this world.  I wanted to reach out and pull strings, to influence the world in front of me. My hands moved as if on their own, reached down and started to pull these strings.  Each time is affecting a little bit more of this world in between my hands. With time, I learned what each string did, learned all the ways to use them to make what I wanted to happen. But every time I pulled strings they became more and more entangled in my fingertips.
That’s when the spotlight came back, my fingers all tangled up in string.  I was just an actor in a much larger system,  I was a just marionette who learned to puppeteer but, truth be told, I never knew who was pulling my strings. I wanted to know why, and for what purpose did I have to learn that no matter what strings I pull that someone was pulling mine.

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…

grit.

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Sometimes all I can do is sigh in the intervening days between where I am and where I want to be. I sigh in frustration, and in exhaustion, because these days seem to be spiced with flavors I don’t like.

My life is in no counts bad, quite honestly I count my blessings daily.  The problem lies with the issue I have of when my plans will finally gain some traction, and I can move to the next level in life.  I work towards my goals, in my way, though a lot of the time I don’t feel like I am doing enough because I am not getting the results I want.  I am attempting to see the big picture in it all; it’s still difficult to see the forest for the trees.

I find that perseverance is the only way to deal with the hand I have. Again it’s not a bad hand; it’s just not a winning one.  I lay somewhere in the middle, having a hand that if no one at the table has anything I have nothing to worry about, but it wouldn’t take much to top.  In these types of games, it’s about waiting for the opportune moment.  Looking at my bets and investments, hoping my card come up but having a plan for when it doesn’t.  I have to keep playing, know the table, make strategic moves and know that even I lose in a round the game is not over.

This is my the great lesson of this year, grit. The ability to keep at something no matter what comes my way. Its to get an understanding of the bitter flavors the world has to offer but not losing heart.

It’s hard, bouncing back after each blow, luckily after I’ve taken a lot of them I’ve gotten used to it.  Standing up after each hit is hard work, at points I want to break down, forget it all, and leave what I have accomplished at the table.  I keep going until it becomes more habit than thought.   I know what I want, and at the moment,  I need to keep working at it if I even hope to stand a chance.  Life is a tough opponent, but I am fighting back.

Grit is something that I am learning, and I will keep at it. Changing my life is about doing, not talking about what I should do. I will make sure that my blood, sweat, and tears are working toward the future I want and towards shaping the person I will become.   It’s hard work, but sometimes the best thing to do is to grit your teeth. It will get better, I’ll make sure of it.