thoughts

The Place Where You Belong

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I felt it again today.
That surge of electricity that flowed through my body as if I had been I had been finally plugged back in again.
I sat around that table, flooded with this familiar feeling that had been gone for such a long time.
How could I have forgotten about it, how could I have doubted
I knew that life might not have been going the way I had wanted it to, but if how I felt is any indication of where I should be then it’s the universe telling me that I just struck gold.
I help but be excited
Finally, I feel like all of my zeal and passion is warranted
there I was, surrounded by the simple word peer again wrapped in the frame of cohort.
I haven’t even started yet and the questions began to flow, like a dried up creek after the rain.
I felt as sense of being alive again
Like blood was finally unstuck and my brain was taken off pause.
A sense of self that resumed naturally almost like automation
This is who I am and I haven’t felt this why in a while
My dad and I talked after
he said life is about finding your people
for now, I know these are some of them
maybe this will change in the future
I don’t know
I just know the electricity that I feel coursing through my bones
and the feeling of being alive again
This should be a good year.

 

The Storyteller

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I sit behind this keyboard regularly thinking about the various progressions and places my life goes.  All formatted and written in a way that I hope comes across easy and accessible.  I figure, if I can at least tell you all a story, then maybe it would make what I have to say more bearable.  I’m not a very good storyteller, at least in person I struggle with it.  There is something about proper storytelling that is mystical and enticing to me.  Great storytelling makes you feel what the teller is feeling, see what the teller saw, and understand the story that they are building right in front of you.  It grips you and takes you on a journey, only to put you back to where you were before right at the end.

I think we all experience storytelling, it permeates our lives in the small, telling people about our day, to the large, reliving a major event in our lives.  It’s how we go about getting updates and information about the people around us.

But for me, I always have a hard time with it.  I get bogged down with trying to explain everything, and if I miss something, I’ll go back and correct the record.  I don’t know where to start or end, the rise and fall that feels more like a plateau than the mountain it should be.  I get tripped up by the words and am compelled to go through the every minute and irrelevant detail.  A story people suspect should only be a couple minutes turns into a marathon full of tangential information and excessive need to correct.  The format to which feels more like a report than story, like the telling of facts than an adventure.

I grew up with them though.  The first storyteller in my life was my dad who used to tell me from the bedside, both reading from great books aloud right, and telling bits and pieces from his own life over the years.  There was always something exciting about it, it was then not strange that I picked up listening to others as a habit.  I relish the stories they decide to weave right in front of me.  That’s probably why I also feel so comfortable listening to the background noise of talk of radio and have filled my phone to the brim with podcasts spinning stories and narratives.
It’s just my hope that I can somehow capture the magic storytelling has locked within.  As with all things in my life, its work in progress.  I’ve been told to start with a place and a problem.  Both things that are hard for me, because my problems usually happen over many nights and many places.  It’s hard to pinpoint where there the breakthrough happens, so my stories muddle together and lose its meaning like a trying to transport a puddle with your hands.   It’s something I hope to work at for the future, so when it comes to my turn by to tell my story, people will be happy to listen.

Breathe

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I don’t know
I don’t know what I should do.
Ripped and torn from direction to direction
My life asunder
Tired each time I wake up
With no easing as the day presses on
So many things
It makes me feel as if everything needs to be done
But nothing really does
Just a swirling
A flowing of an ever growing
I know what I should do
I know what I actually do
And sometimes hope aligns them
Time escapes me
It hopes for me to duplicate
To be two or even three
Maybe then I can get things done
Maybe then I can I can finally catch up
That’s all I want
To finally get my head above water
And see the sky again
And breathe
Like I used to

It’s Okay To Be Grey

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I don’t remember what compelled to take a thread and tie it around my wrists four years ago, but I’ve had them ever since. For me, they are a constant reminder to remain balanced. Left and right hand, black and white band, left is black because it is is the hand that I write with, the one that knows my thoughts and does its deeds. My right is white, because its the one I take action with, that knows my feelings and offers a helping hand.
Ever year, when one of the breaks, I spend the time to consider how my life fairs on the grand scales.  This might seem strange from the outset, but there is a great solace in knowing that I am a mixture of both.

I realize anytime I look down at my wrists is that I am as equally capable of doing good as doing bad, but it is up to me to make a choice as to what I do. Left or right, black or white, wrong or right is the choice I know I must make. I am then the gray, the piece of the puzzle that can see the intricacies of the two decisions at hand. The one who must make a choice and has done the best we can with it.

I don’t think people are made innately for balance, there are some people are more sure-footed than others, but it takes an effort to get to a place where this balance can exist.  Each day we can decide to break with this structure, throw ourselves to one side and hope not to tip the scales too much out of our favor. It takes energy to continue to fight for it and the whole universe is conspiring to bring about the grand entropy of life, to break down the systems we put in place.  Life takes a sense of effort, a sense of work to be able to support it the way we do and yet we throw ourselves into situations that are lopsided, unbalanced because of how it makes us feel.

This world we live in is getting better and better at giving us weights that take away our balance, compelling us to keep weighing ourselves down to compensate.  Forces push us to let go, let our world return to disorder because it’s so much easier not to care and let ourselves lean to one side.  It does this quietly, easily, through the messages of pleasure and avoidance.   There can be too much of a good thing when it starts to take away from us being functional.  It’s a hard line to draw, having fun but also knowing when to sit down and work.

We are all capable of finding balance in our lives, and it’s almost essential if we want to be healthy. It’s a life long struggle, and at times I don’t even realize things are off kilter. I think it’s important to take a second and reevaluate where we are, realize that we are capable of both right and wrong and it’s okay to be somewhere in the middle.

Depression

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A cacophony of chemical course through the cords connecting your mind at any one moment.  At a slight imbalance our mood, perceptions, and lifestyle can be irrevocably disrupted.   We find ourselves in an endemic epidemic of the first world.  More than ever are being diagnosed with the potentially fatal condition to which there is no consensus about the proper treatment and cure. This is depression, and it’s a problem.

What you need to know is that depression not fully understood.  The brain remains a large mystery that we are still working to uncover.  It is in some ways believed that depression is linked to certain brain chemicals such as serotonin reuptake in the brain. The lack of serotonin receptors in the hippocampus (the part of the brain which helps regulate mood) making it harder to control negative moods though this is just a working theory.   The question remains why this happens in the first place. It could be life stress, an unfortunate batch of genetics, medication, chronic pain, or chronic disease. There are many other reasons as well, but it’s said that everyone in the modern world is likely to have three bouts of major depression in their lifetime.
How can something that affects so many of us not be understood?

Mental illness such as depression has plagued humanity for as long as we’ve had the words to write about it.  The problem is, the science of psychology is under 150 years old making it a relatively young science, and the biological study of the brain, neuroscience, is even younger than that.  It’s only in the last 50 years that we started to develop the technology to map the living brain.  The ability to pinpoint depression is difficult and to find a singular cause is almost impossible with the knowledge and technology we have today. Each day people are pushing forward towards the understanding depression completely and curing it quickly.

One of the big issues with studying depression and other mental illnesses starts with the diagnosis. The symptoms of depression include:

  • Loss of interest or pleasure in your activities
  • Weight loss or gain
  • Trouble getting to sleep or feeling sleepy during the day
  • Feelings restless and agitated, or else very sluggish and slowed down physically or mentally
  • Being tired and without energy
  • Feeling worthless or guilty
  • Trouble concentrating or making decisions
  • Thoughts of suicide

One of the most telling signs I’ve heard is a loss of vibrancy in the world, everything is just clouded by some sort of fog that keeps you in this negative space. From the outset, these symptoms are hard to identify in passing, which makes it even harder for people to get help.   Mostly internal feelings that have to be spoken or they will go unnoticed. This leads to fewer people being diagnosed. You may ask yourself how do you solve a problem that stems from emotions and doesn’t have a common cause?

There are some widely used methods of managing depression.If going to see a Doctor, they may prescribe you antidepressants.  Antidepressants act on the brain to increase the amount of serotonin and other brain chemicals that are diminished during depression.  They do not work immediately but taking the over the course of many days and weeks they can lead to improvement and disappearance of symptoms.  These medicines don’t work forever and should be used in conjunction with other types of therapy.  In the cases of severe depression, they may attempt to use electroconvulsive therapy as a means to reset your brain and the chemical production within.

Other less invasive methods such as cognitive behavioral therapy and psychotherapies concentrate on relieving people of life stressors and working to reframe moods and life events.  They work by allowing people to redefine and re-engage with life in a different way and are useful to finding the linchpins that keep you in this depressed state of mind.  Each different type of therapy comes with a different approach to the problem and finding the method and tactic that works well for you is important because it’s you who has to follow through with the changes.

These types of therapies are by no means miracles cures, they take time and effort but are ultimately still the best way of curing depression over the long hall. Each person needs something different to manage their depression so it’s important to choose the method or methods that works best for them.

I’ve made it no secret that I have experienced some form of depression in my life.  For me it came it came in the guise of a constant feeling of tired and desire to sleep all the time, a feeling of a loss of control over my environment, and feeling negative emotions (sadness, anxiety, feeling numb to life events, and crushing self-doubt) almost continuously.  Depression is not something that happens overnight but is a well you fall into over the course of many days and weeks.  The problem with mental states like these are that they change so slowly we start to accept depression as the new norm without knowing any better.  By the time we realize something may be wrong we are might be in the middle of it. It’s like having flu-like symptoms and not going to the doctor, sure you still might suffer through the flu but if you get help earlier chances are it will be shorter and not as bad in the long run.  By the time I have my second bout with depression I knew the symptoms so it was easier to recognize and make an effort to avoid the worst of it. The problem with depression is at times it takes away the motivation to act upon your life.

Like with all mental illness, there is always a social and personal stigma that people associate with having the condition. A lot of misinformation and lack of understanding has fed that fire.  There are significant efforts to destigmatize, but there is a still a ways to go.   The way I see it, if something is preventing you from being all you can be, and every day you wake up and feel worse about life there may be a problem, and regardless of how you feel about it, you should seek help, because it’s not the ‘you’ of right now but the future ‘you’ who can finally live their life outside of the cloud of depression that will thank you.  It’s okay to ask for help, no one is perfect and that’s okay, your health is more important.

If you or someone you know might be suffering from depression, reach out, sometimes it can mean the difference between life and death.  If you don’t know where you can get help, start with the basics, go to a doctor or trained licensed psychologist for a consultation. If those options are not readily available, consider.
Talk Space or Better Help: These services offer online and mobile messaging of therapists allowing you to get in contact with help at any time of the day.

If you are having thoughts of suicide, thoughts of doing something drastic or know someone who does call the national or a local suicide hotline or visit their website.

National Suicide Prevention Hotline:  1-800-273-8255
Crisis Text Line
National Suicide Prevention Website
International Suicide Prevention Website

Depression is not a life sentence, it can be helped, it can be managed, and it can be cured. You have the power, you can make that change, you can beat this. Good Luck.

A Sense of Grace and Happiness

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There is something to this world, its strange comings, and goings.  I might be strange to say that I have fallen in love with this world, and things in it.  Every day is a new adventure, some novelty that arises from the ashes of yesterday.  I find myself looking at the sky and its magnificence knowing that in those few moments that I capture in my memory the glorious magnitude of all that I see that the heavens had had never looked quite like that before and will never look that way ever again.

There is a great solace in the world, and its ability to continue moving unimpeded by the minuscule moments that rule our lives.  Its ability to continue to change, I can imagine if the whole universe was ruled by us that time would stop at every moment because someone wished it to never end.  It makes you appreciate the moments you have, and when we take it for granted, we find ourselves on the other side of a bitter regret. Our curse of walking through our collective time with only emphasizes the clock we have hanging above our heads.  People around us are all experiencing time at the same rate, but they started at different places.  Around us we see where we were as well as where we want to be in the eyes of others.  I’ve decided that I want to sit down with the clock, appreciate the time it reads, know that the seconds that tick by are ones I can never get back, so each one becomes more precious than the next.

There is a lot of beauty out there, ones we need to take our time to see. Slowing down for a moment and actually looking into the great void.  There is a hope that we find something to appreciate. Like the cloud in the sky, or just a nice drive to work, a pleasant smile from a perfect stranger. It’s a state mind that we fall into, one that becomes unreceptive of the world around us.  We think of bad things and thats all we begin to see.
I realize that there is a really ridiculous nature to life.  We can explain away life’s events and find out all the reason why things happen, but that won’t change the fact you might be on your way to potentially the most important life event you have ever come across and yet you are stuck going 5 miles per hour on a freeway as the seconds tick away.  How can we not smile and laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation you find yourself.  An easing of our hearts and minds is in order.  To find that peace in the world, that graces that seeps into our sink.  That’s what I want, just to allow myself to be happy.

In the phrase “the world is what you make of it” you can find a particular truth of this happiness, but when I was younger, it meant hat world can be changed into whatever I want it to be.  There is an infinite nature to that idea, the ability to bend the world to yourself.  Anyone who has tried knows that doing so makes the world a hard and frustrating place, where failure is all but guaranteed. As I’ve gained more perspective that it’s changed its meaning to see the world and choose how I should feel about it. We in some parts only in control of ourselves completely so in us that we must change to make us happy.  As long as we are willing, we can feel the grace of the world, and be satisfied with all that is in it. I choose to look up and see the

I choose to look up and see the splendor that the sky has to offer and be happy.

The World In The Life Of A Guy: Part 3 – The Cost Of Connection

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Back at the end of high school, I remember how beautiful the day was when I asked a girl to be my girlfriend for the first time.  The rosy moment was dampened when I was informed that some of her friends had thought I was gay.  I laugh about it now, because of its ridiculousness but it highlights a whole can of issues about being a guy.

You have to understand, I grew up surrounded by women, let me tell you, it’s not all rainbows and unicorns.  I remember coming home from school on a regular basis to Pride and Prejudice playing on the tv.  It was my sister’s favorite movie at the time, and she played it every day.  Now whether she watched it or not is an entirely different story, but it was always playing.  She would get mad at me if I turned it off or changed the channel, so I ended up learning to enjoy it.  Though it makes for a great story, it doesn’t actually work toward my “man points” when I can name all the major characters from all the Jane Austin movies and quote some of the lines. I have stories and anecdotes all throughout my life like this, ones that without context make me sound very strange or somewhat effeminate.  I have struggled with that balance, at times hiding these things that I might be part of my past or who I am just because it doesn’t make me out to be a tough guy.

With that, there is a lot of pressure to forgo things that are seen as girly, a lot of pressure to act tough and harden your skin.  As a guy, you’re supposed to take it, shoulder it, carry it, deal with it. That’s what you grow up with, pressure to stay strong and stern.  It shows in our relationships, girl talk about their feelings, how they’re doing, and confide in one another.  Guys, at least in my experience, don’t talk much about feelings and emotions, and there’s a struggle to finally divulge information to one another. There are many things are left unsaid, hell, my father and I don’t even end phone conversations with I love you (I know he does so that’s not a problem).  The point is there is a barrier to connecting with one another on that level. It permeates our activities and even if something crosses that line if both people aren’t willing the event will leave a hole in the friendship. It’s seen as strange to act that way and only when special times arise are you actually allowed to connect on that level.

I just remember watching the show Scrubs back in the day and relating a lot to the main character JD.  He was a bit more effeminate and was treated as such because he was in touch with his feeling and acted with some “girly” mannerisms. The thing I liked about him is that he was unabashed at showing that part of himself, unafraid of going in for a hug, talking to people about what they meant to him. Sure some of his likes weren’t really tough or strong, but that didn’t really matter, he was who was he was.  It was a very different type of strength that he showed, a strength of character.

The point being that we’re not all wood working, car fixing, super outdoorsman like Ron Swanson, nor should we be.  Just because I know how to cook and at somepoint want to be completely and incandecently happy with someone doesn’t make me strange or gay it just makes me different.  There are things I do like fix electronics,  and being handy around a house that would be considered much more manly but what I find is that these labeles we give things only get in the way of us being who we want to be and limiting outselves.

After many years being this way I’ve come to accept these differences in perception of who I should be and am okay with how I am.  I just hope that these labels and pressures don’t drive people to the edge and that that people know its okay like both westerns and flowers but what do I know, I’m “just a guy”.

Night Tour

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There is something night, the calm coalescing of the late hours that extend seemingly forever.  It’s in the stories of great thinkers and artists, in the modern fairy tales of entrepreneurs and innovators. It’s a symbol of both frustration and hard work. The image of a team sitting around a table tired and overworked, squeezing out ever last drop of thought in hope it brings some sort or revelation has a kind of romantic twinge to it. The lonely soul walking the empty byways illuminated with the amber streetlamps and neon signs searching for some sort of solace has a sweetness to it. Truth be told, passion is just not as dramatic at 8 am.

I find myself wandering the night more regularly now, be it in my mind or in my car.  The night allows me to wander in a sort of anonymity.  The constraints I would have around my thoughts weaken, the tasks I had to do are all but done. So it then falls to me to let my mind saunter into the imaginary, to blur the lines of what is acceptable. There is something about the state of mind, that is so tired that it decides to focus solely on the one thing before you.
The unfolding nature of night strips away these waking selves which we so carefully prune  ], it allows us to interact with these quiet mental forces that would normally never have a voice. All the thoughts unfolding and opening into a much larger scope and view. All the questions and discussions that happen after a certain time of night, without fear of reprocussions. In thought, we find purpose, we find motivated frustration, a swell of emotion, a connection and destruction of relationships, and a time for truth from within and without.   When driving down those dark roads, the world becomes tangable metaphore for life. Seeming endless roads with hundreds of avenues to travel down but can only happen one at a time, much like our choices.  There is an ease to it, no expectation of making the right choice, and when you find youself face to face with a dead end, you just turn around and start again.

When I find myself behind the wheel there is a sort of serenity to it.  Seeing the city lights pass me by, the neon signs lit up into the night even after the stores and buisnesses have all been closed. The people walking about, all trying to get somewhere but taking their own time to do it.  We can observe the autonomy that continues to exist in the night without anyone around.  The way the lights sometime change for no one. There are endless reason to escape into the night every once in a while to free yourself.
I am fortunate enough to live in a city driving is a way of life, so I learned to enjoy the countless hours I may have spent behind the wheel going somewhere I don’t know yet.

Sometimes we need these moments, these moments when all things deconstruct and we are left facing ourselves. The moments where we can let off the burdens and find a sense of peace. The moments where two people can really connect and go beyond the facade of our lives. The night isn’t a miracle cure but it’s something that ushers in the new dawn and another chance in the form of a new day.  Perhaps all you need to change is a night tour.

An Ode to A Room

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Of all the religious beliefs out there in the world, the one I have always resonated with (aside from the religion I belong to) is animism.  Animism is the belief is that all things from animals and plants to rocks, rivers, and words have some a life and spirit to them.  There is an agency to them, an intentionality of their existence and that they all have their own wants and desires.  It is considered of the oldest types of religion, and that most other forms of religion stemmed from this idea.
For me, this is a familiar feeling. Much to the chagrin of my mother, I tend to hold on to things.  Once a memory is attached to a certain item, then it feels as if part of my very soul is connected with it. You might say, that’s just because you are a sentimentalist. I can’t argue with that, but for me, I have always wondered if everyday objects have wants and desires.  If when using them for their creates purpose they are delighted and fulfilled, and when they are left to sit unused they feel dejected and alone.
All this personification aside, objects within our lives that have traveled with us take on a particular personalization.  Like well-worn clothes, they seem to fit the curves and angles just right, or a pen starts to feel familiar in your hand.  Now I want to tell you a story about one of these objects, one I’ve been with longer than most things in my life.

When I was told that I would finally have my own room, I was ecstatic. Finally, I wouldn’t have to share a room with my sister (at least not all the time).  My five-year-old self didn’t understand the concept of privacy or the later significance of four walls to call your own would be, I only knew I wanted one.  I was taken to my new room, a small multipurpose floor with sliding glass door to the outside, and an even smaller closet. At the time, I was the one who took up the least amount of space it made sense I would get the most modest space (that logic didn’t persist when I became bigger than both my mother and sister). I remembered being terrified of my room in the beginning. There were 4 doors in it and all of them held the boogieman.

Eventually, the glass door became nothing more than a window, my bed became larger along with my clothes.  The fears of childhood left me, and I went from playing with blocks and legos on the floor to watching movies and reading on my bed.  Being someone who spent a lot of time at home, my room was the most familiar place to me in the entire house.  It became a sanctuary, a refuge for my the long nights and growing pains I experienced.  It became a place to hide away when talking to other people was simply out of the question.  It was my fortress of solitude where I could have any thoughts I wanted and not be judged. It was a consistency in my life, and the only time I would be separated from it was when my family would visit, and I would have to relinquish my room to my grandmother.
My room continued to evolve with time, filling with trinkets, nicknacks, and pieces of my life I thought were important at the time.  My small room began to fill with memories I created, mixing the old and the new to make up who I was. In a way, it was a reflection of growth and proof of existence.  Furniture came and went, it moved to different settings, feelings, and configurations but never grew to beyond the scope of those four walls. The room never changed in size or color but at times felt entirely new and different. It’s all I could ask for, and it made me happy.

By the time I entered college, I had started to feel the limitations bearing down on me.  My spirit wanted more, and I was growing up and wanted to get a space without all the rules of home. I got my opportunity came when I went off to school.  Only when I would come back to visit would it see me again.
My mother used the space as a spare bedroom for anyone who needed a place to stay in the meantime. It was then my room became stagnant, that it stopped growing with me and became a reflection of who I was before I left. This why after to years of growth and change we were thrust together again.  It became flooded with new memories, and a new desire for it all at once and I was thrown back into my life before I left.  I had finally realized what it was to grow beyond the 4 walls and now the space had felt like a prison. It confined me to the person who I was before I left, I know it didn’t do it on purpose, and it meant well, but the box was already open.
The room offered me a home, as it always had. Even through all the hardship, it was the familiar place to go back to at the end of the day. I learned all those hard lessons within its embrace, it sheltered me those dark sleepless nights.

When my mom told me I needed to look to moving out, I knew that my time in my room was over.  Over the course of many months, I started to dismantle what my room was, piece by piece.  Took the pictures off the wall, removed the items from my top shelf, emptied out my closet and bookshelf.  I slowly began to see the white walls again, and the feeling that it was slowly becoming less of my room began to set in.  At the end, all I had left was my mattress on the floor and empty bookshelf, and now even that is gone. All there is left is the memory, the marks on the wall, the patches in the paint, the stairs that lead to nowhere, the small marks and indent on the floor from my furniture.  These are all memories etched into this room’s surface.The physical manifestation of time passing and lives being lived. I’ve had this room just short of 20 years and it is marked by our time together.
Eventually, when some else lives there, will they understand the dents in the wall, the scratches on the floor, the life I had in this room? To anyone else, these are just imperfections to be fixed, like how someone sees another person’s scars.
I am happy to have spent all this time in this room, and now that I am leaving it’s only fitting at taking a second to pause about the experiences one room can hold.
This room will probably not miss me as I miss it. I wanted to send my words out into the ether, hope in some strange way that it understand that I loved it and I  couldn’t forget it even if I tried. Thank you for giving me 4 walls, a floor that I could spend so much of my life in. Seeing you empty even now feels so strange, but I hope that whatever you become next is filled with as much happiness, love, and memory that my stay there did.

Thank you for all the years, goodbye and good luck.

A Train of Thought

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I spend all this time writing and thinking
truth be told
Sometimes I want to remain silent and listen
But my mouth gets in the way
how will I ever learn if I am the only one speaking
It’s a habit I mean to break
Maybe I should just decide.
That seems to work well
can I just decide to be different
is it really that easy
Will the unrelenting force of nature and habit quiet them just based on a decision
I don’t want to be a half measure
but am I really able to make myself immune to the coming tide but saying I will not be affected
that seems naive
but maybe that’s what I need
to be naive
to lack that understanding and go full force
to go beyond who I am and just let the world happen
to become exactly what I want by choosing to be that way
maybe that’s what separates people from being great and grand
that we wallow and can’t just choose
I want to be great
so I must choose
to be great
and to do
great
things.

It would be easy to leave it up to the future
to let my future self
make the choice
but will they really?
because they are me and if I am unwilling doesn’t that mean
they will be too
maybe that’s the secret
be the future self you are always looking towards to get stuff done.
If I put it that way
it almost seems like I am a hero
the hero I always needed
be the man you always wanted to be
by doing the things you’ve always wanted to do

I hope I don’t lose this lesson
I hope that I can hang onto it
but even if I do
if I found this place once
it will always be easier to find this place again
there is always hope.