It's Been Some Time

This has been an interesting year. If I had not moved from California, I wouldn't be in the great city that is San Angelo (this sentence is seething with sarcasm, for those of you who don't know me).

There are positives to look at, however. The first of those being getting back into school for my second degree. I've also discovered what I want to do with my life, and am on track to fulfilling it. Finally, I decided this past winter that I want to learn about who I am.

I've stepped out of the closet and am securely standing in the parlor with a beautiful boyfriend. I don't know if this is the real me, but it's a me that I've chosen, and I think that's good enough for now.

Yes, I'm scared. I'm scared shitless, actually. I don't know what to do with myself, but I think that's what it's all about, isn't it? I'm pretty confident I'd be equally scared in a straight relationship. They're both new. New in the way that I haven't been serious about them before...

I think I just wanted to comment on the anxiety I have over the situation. It comes and goes, so it's not serious, I don't believe.

At any rate, here's to life.

Closing the Doors

You spent half of your life trying to fall behind
You're using your headphones to drown out your mind. -- Eet, Regina Spektor

---

As a new decade and a new year begin, everyone stops to think about what just ended. Was the last year everything I wanted it to be? Was the last decade good for me; for my friends and family?

I'd like to think so. A lot happened. I went to high school, LA, 9/11, Sate Diving, met Nicholas, graduated, lost Nicholas, went to college and got a degree, moved to San Diego, moved to Abilene, became best friends with Jon, Sarah, Allison, and Adam, kayaked, moved to San Angelo, went back to college, changed my degree, got a promotion; and now here at the beginning of something new, I'm satisfied enough to decide to close a few doors.

I don't want to be burdened by wishful thinking of the past. Whether or not I'll accomplish such a feat is something I can't quite tell, but the mere fact of my acknowledging such a thing is grandiose in my life.
I will finish any book, and not just tell myself to finish the One Book.
I will pay off most all of my debt.

Those are my resolutions, and I will see them out.

I hope you all had a wonderful time, and that you were found home safe and sound when it was all said and done. I love you all, and I look forward to a brand new chance with you.

`koa

It's Telling...

"These torpid vapors surround me. I... they make me weak; my very soul turns in agony in the depths of my breast."
The two exchanged glances, and then turned back to the young man with alacrity.
"What can we do," the girl asked.
"What can we do," the boy gestured.

---

Every now and then, I'm sure you've experienced it, the truth of what your life was supposed to be stands in front of you. Its radiant purity like raw gold. It is unique, rough, natural, and unmistakable; and you know it deep within the very depths of your bowels, whether you acknowledge it by name, or consider it faintly in your sleep.

It sings sweetly in your ear, and coaxes your sore muscles; it makes you to laugh and makes you to cry, and caries you to and from your Dreams. It is a pain more desirable than Joy, and more hated than Love. It is what nightmares are made of, and what miracles aspire to be.

The history of the Doppelganger can be found within it, and without, and it takes and gives breath as easily as the wind bends a lily in the field.

There is a story in my life that was never completed. There is a story in my life that was never began, and I feel it in my soul when it walks by, as though the echoes of another world harmonize within me, and the reverberations shake and torture my very shell.

In the Dark of the NIght

I got home late last night from Nashville, Tennessee, and I couldn't fall asleep. I don't know why or when it happened, but I remember standing in the middle of a small intersection of a dark downtown, and there was a large cat that coalesced from the shadows. He was at least a pace long, and his face was larger than that of a normal cat. His body was fluffy and furry and stuck out all around him like a dirigible in grays and whites and not one hair was out of place. He looked to me to be wise and very honorable, and he stood there, his tail raising only a little, but not twitching in curiosity or agitaiton. He looked at me and waited for my response, as many cats do.

A man and a boy came beside me, and looked at the cat, and as the boy tried to reach out to it, the man took his hand and calmly crossed the street, bending down to him in the way that fathers do, and said, "Don't bother it; come along." And I wondered if he was talking to me, though he never looked my way. I looked at the Cat again, ignoring what the man's advice, and set my shoulders. I bowed to the Cat, a deep low bow and gave it respect, and honor, and stood, feeling very tired and heavy.

The Feline was joined by two smaller cats, one white and orange in the same even blend, and the other black and gray, and the three walked around me as I stood there, held still as though cemented to the street. As the old Cat passed to my backside, I felt as though I couldn't stand up any longer, and exhaled, rocking backward. I gave in and decided I might as well just collapse, and that's what I did. As I fell backward, I felt heavier and heavier, and fell slower and slower, until I thought I surely must have hit the ground, but beyond the ground, a few feet down, I came to rest so gently on the pillow-top mattress in my parent's guest bedroom, and sank down into it, all my muscles going limp and weighted as though a heavy presence were on my body.

I felt exhausted, yet I was awake, and aware of my surroundings and what was happening to my body. What intersection had I been in that had been so cold and quiet, where cobblestones paved the road and one lone lamp lit the corner beside me, and buildings stood as silent darkened sentinel witnesses? Where had that man and that child come from and gone, and why hadn't I listened to him? Who was the wise old Cat, and what did he want with me? Was he still there with me? Was it a sign, or a spirit?

These thoughts floated through my head like autumnal leaves fresh landed atop a cold brook, and though they posed some form of conscious recognition of what had just taken place, I paid them no more heed than the time it took them to float away from me. I opened my eyes and looked around, wondering if I'd see the wizened old Beast in human form watching me, waiting to speak to me; or perhaps the man would be there, contemplating me and my decision, yet neither were, and I only found the pale walls and rotating fan of the starkly furnished room.

I spent a lot of time trying to pass on into sleep again, and when I finally did, several hours had passed. I knew nothing of what I dreamt later, or if I dreamed at all. I feel now that something is to be taken from that message, from that brief encounter with something far beyond my grasp, yet thoroughly within the bounds of my ever-expanding comprehension. Only, I know not what.

Searching

If there's every really anything that I can agree about myself, it's that I get bored easily. I get bored on games, on food, on people, on working, on sleeping, on playing, on being alone, on reading, on crafting, on art in general, on working out, on being lazy. I just get bored.

There are a lot of things that I want to talk about but I just don't know what to say about any of them. There are still a lot of questions I have for God, and for others, but I don't know how to word any of them.

I don't know who I am right now, because I can't manage to keep myself occupied with searching until I find that person.

Right now, I've got six of my closest friends Living at least an hour away from me. That's not bad, you say, but the closest one is too busy to keep in touch (you know who you are, haha), and the farthest one is doing his own thing. I take my time, and I go and look at the Bible, and I think about what God wants me to do, but all the same, I'm having trouble feeling God and hoping in the fact that He's really there and that I still have a chance, even after all I've done, and am still doing. All that being said, how easy is it to change the way you are over one simple feeling?

The Apostle Paul said, "The Holy Spirit spoke rightlyt hrough Isaiah the prophet to our fathers, saying, 'Go to this people and say: "Hearing you will hear, and shall not understand;
And seeing you will see, and not perceive;
For the hearts of this people have grown dull.
Their ears are hard of hearing,
And their eyes have closed,
Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears,
Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn,
So that I should heal them."'"
He quoted Isaiah 6:9,10 as found in Acts 28:25-27... As much as I feel that is for others whom I know, I know it is for me as well...

Where I Am

There’s a sort of ambivalence in the atmosphere here where I live now.

A sort of peace from the sky and the temperature and the surroundings.

Though it’s only late June, and summer has just begun, I feel as though I am somehow already in mid-August back in San Diego, where the heat defined the way we lived as it oppressed and beleaguered even the mightiest of wills. This new country lacks what hills I could hope to call Heights, and lows Valleys, and what’s more, an Ocean consistently tearing down and building up the Western Reaches of the city. An ocean at all would be something, but regardless what’s missing, it feels like home, and I can’t begin to say how wonderful it feels to finally feel like I might belong in a place.

There weren’t many days that passed without me thinking back on the life I had there, in the Garden State, on the Heights, by myself; there aren’t many days that go by when I don’t think about how life could have been had I stayed there, and stuck it out, fought through the sorrow and the anger, and the detachment from my family and those I thought I had loved and had loved me.

Now it seems some days come and go without me feeling like I’m missing something important from that life, from that version of me. I can’t begin to explain how I feel the symmetry, the resonance of this place and that. I still long for the Long Shores and the Cold Nights so full of Noise, but spent alone; the smell of steel and garbage so pure and heavy in the misty air, mixed with the salty sea wind; the laughter and the smiles of all my childhood past, the tears and the quiet shock, as well.

There’s something there.
There’s something here.
And here is where I am.

The Rest from Today

Here is the rest of the conversation from Today with @mikecollor, who is an Iran Nationalist, and possible Basiji. I bowed down to the situation, because there was nothing more I could say. But if he ever sees this, I hope he doesn't think I'm against him. I just want to be able to help, so I retire and withdraw to pray.