Twenty-eight years old

9/10/25

With each endeavor I set out on, the more they begin to feel like missions. They are one-manned and they are done out of curiosity, for the sake of discovery, almost like the scientific research of my own personal universe, the one that only exists within the confines of my body. Physical, emotional, spiritual, yet still also cosmic itself, all on its own.

By learning more about the history of humankind and of our universe, everything which could ever be known to us feels more graspable. Achievable too, yes, but first it must be within reach. So first, it is graspable. And this was not how it felt to me before. In my own past, the history of everything felt random, chaotic, and far beyond what I could ever dream of comprehending. I am gifted and cursed with a measly human brain, of course there are scales which I cannot understand tangibly, regarding both size and time. But if so much of the in between is simply nothing anyway, the pool of knowable things becomes infinitely smaller. Even if it is still infinite the other way as well, at least my back is to that direction. At least I am approaching this pool of knowledge rather than floating further away from it. In doing so, I am reframing my points of reference. I am realizing and acknowledging that 2500 years ago may as well be yesterday when we are also talking about things that happened a billion years ago.

I send these satellites beyond my own orbit. The further I go, the further they go, the broader their perspective. They radio me back the frequencies of the photos they capture, my all-knowing CPU digitizes the image and presents it to the eyes of my mind. The pictures pour in and I am floored at each one of them, at their stunning beauty, and then at the reference that they give me. The sheer volume of it all rocks my world. I tear my eyes away from the screen inside my head to stare at the metaphorical floor beneath me, my gaze at an angle, I tap into the mind within my mind and rapidly attempt to recontextualize my being, who I am, while outside the orbit of myself. The image in my mind is a Möbius strip and I sense a sort of impossibility, some vague and abstract understanding that my quests will never be able to provide me with any sort of substantial information, at least not in the ways I am thinking in now. Once again, I am humbled as the result of my own doing. I accept it with grace. I continue on living.

9/3/25

In the mornings I rise from the bed, from the side of my sleeping wife, and enter into a new day. I treat this day how I treat all new days, with gratitude, and with respect. I express this by eating fresh, healthy food, by drinking warm, strong coffee, and swimming in the pleasures that they provide. In all of my senses, I am swirling about in the ecstasy of what it means to be the pilot of a body. There are rewards to be reaped in the simplest of things.

I tidy the room, prepare my clothing, and bathe myself underneath a modestly warm temperatured shower head. My mustache is groomed, my face moisturized, I smell clean and fresh, for I am a self respecting man heading out into a world whom I respect even greater.

When the afternoon closes and I return home, I open my book and learn of the stars. I read of the origin of everything, dumbfounded at how some process so far along can still feel so close to my past. Perhaps I am learning to listen deeper, to see with new vision. Both ends of the spectrum move further apart while I remain still. I am not frightened or discouraged. I simply observe and take note.

As I reflect on my youth, I see it dwindling. It is like the embers of a dying fire, previously thought to be everlasting. Try as I might to ignite it once more, to get just one, skinny flame to dance upwards again, I cannot. After so much time and effort put into its livelihood, its health, its power, the strain I once held so easily has begun to take a toll on my body. Each kiss of life I attempt to give it, each breath from deep within my lungs, they make me wince now. And instead of the pit of this thing glowing redder, I am only blowing around the ash that sits underneath. Years of it, decades now in fact, being blown up into the sky and falling back down on me like snowflakes, extinguishing this flame I have kept for, thus far, all of my life.

I am not a dumb man. I am an intelligent one, wise beyond my physical years thanks to all of my previous lives, thanks to the lives of other human beings who have lived their own multitude of experiences. The collective knowledge of our species is remarkable, something I also extend gratitude towards daily. And so I know now when a battle is not worth fighting. Gone are the days of my tantrums, I allow myself a moment to grieve before finding acceptance and the peace that always lies within it.

I reach for a sturdy branch off of a downed tree, a fallen brother of whom I thank, and stick it into the coals. Instead of putting energy towards keeping the whole thing alive, I put a much smaller amount into giving it the help it will need to dance on to the branch, to live here for a brief moment in time, while I move on to different site and begin a new pit somewhere else. I will take the life of this fire and replant it somewhere further along in my journey.

I have learned so much so far. The sea of knowledge in front of me only seems to widen the more I think that I know. Instead of advancing, it appears that I am regressing, though my skills and capabilities prove to me that is not true either. I have no difficulty accepting the paradoxes of life, I guess I have just discovered a new one for myself. I am returning to my roots again, in my personal interests and tastes, the things that once captured all of my wonder are back in the forefront of my goals. Biking, camping, the stars in the sky, spending quality time with myself. Refraining from excess pleasure, avoiding the downfalls they bring. I have come back to them because they never left me, but I have undoubtedly reoriented myself beneath them all. In doing so I know that they are here to stay, that I will likely not stray far from them as I continue on. I am a fluid being capable of adaptation in any and every regard, but it is nice to feel like I am in the company of old friends as I wander deeper into the unknown.

9/2/25

A fish does not declare themself a water lover, and so therefore I am no nature lover. When I walk out the balcony door in the mornings and take my coffee on the patio furniture, it is no different than walking out of the tent door and taking my coffee on the boulder in front of the lake. I am outside, in the air. Of course my surroundings differ, but that certain part of my brain is activated in the same way. When morning turns to night, I look in the same direction as I do just a few days apart and see the moon in nearly the same position, progressed along in its phases just a little bit further.

When I tap into the outside world, when the four walls of my home are removed, I return to where I am from. We came from the forest and I know I will return there too. When I am among the trees, I walk on moss, algae, lichen, all with a delicate step, I do not want to disturb those whose home this really is. But it is also my own, I have just been gone, and I have just now come back.

8/31/25

I approach my desk as a weathered man, dirty nails, scraggly beard, cuts on all of my fingers and all of my toes. I come with a limp, I lift up each arm with the help of the other for I am sorer than sore, yet when I settle in to my nest again I am at peace. I have brought it with me from far away. I discovered it there, I did not stuff it in my pockets as a thief might, for I had no pockets to stuff, rather some part of me deep inside was opened up, stirred about, churned and then fermented, and here I sit, much different than when I left. Yes, much different than before.

My wife and I took a trip into the northern woods, we said goodbye to our provider as we paddled out of view, from the same beach we would return to five days later, from the opposite direction. We turned our backs on the man, unaware that he would be the last face we would see for three entire days, before glimpsing other travelers like us later on.

We crawled along the deep sleep waters, dark to the eye, golden to the touch, mostly in silence. At first we talked and laughed, we were silly and playful, but these things we are so used to doing with each other quickly seemed out of place in this new environment. When you are alone in the middle of a lake and you are the only one making noise, it feels wrong. In the breaks between your words, the wind rustles the trees at you, nature sends her birds to squawk a response at your nonsense before meeting your eyes and then tilting their head, as if to say who are you to make those noises here? We learned that when you are quiet, the more she opens up to you. We learned to be a part of this place, not just passersby, and we learned it fast.

Around the fires we made, I spoke to my wife of my trips here as a child, I recollected on all of the joyful memories spent with my uncle and cousins, brother and father, the good things first, for they are what I remember on the surface. But physically being here again had unlocked more than I thought I had taken with me from those times. The fear I had experienced here had resurfaced, when the sun goes down and the moon is not there, the blanket of darkness that tells you it's nighttime is unmatched. Nowhere I know of could be darker than what you are now deep inside of, all just because another day is over. A thing of the past. The glow of the stars is bright, yes, but when I turn my back to the water and head for the tent, I stare deep into the darkness of the trees, and it stares right back at me. Back then, and now, too. My wife confessed her own feelings of fear she had already begun to experience as well. We are not scared people, there is no panic in this emotion, but it is a fear nonetheless. It is some sort of fear out of pure respect. It stems from perspective, when you willingly place yourself up against the laws of the universe, you are going to be humbled. It is the same fear I felt when I was a kid, when I was not strong enough to help my dad paddle our canoe out of the swampy pocket of lake the wind had thrown us into. Powerless then, powerless now, 20 years later, to the day. Universes have opened and closed within me in that time, yet I am viscerally reminded that my human body still exists inside the same one.

We traveled in a counter clockwise, oblong, oval shape for 25 miles. We spent just as much time on land as we did on water. The terrain in this part of the woods is less explored, more rugged, more challenging, both physically and mentally. We did not cross paths with anyone on foot. We eventually waved hello to other canoeists, but the paths in between the lakes were like jungles, each with their own unique challenges, and each of them pushing our bodies and our brains to certain limits. I remember during the first break, right in the middle of a mile long portage, stopping for air, panting and sweating, and being met with nothing in response. I heard myself breathe, I heard my wife's footsteps behind me, I heard the canoe rustling the branches as I set it down from carrying it over my head. And nothing else, except for the beat of my own heart, rapidly pulsing beneath my temples. The pressure was like a drum, a liquid sack of blood contained inside of the membrane, going bigger, smaller, bigger, smaller, slowly leveling out as I got my own wind back. I have not been that aware of my own body in a very long time. It feels in a world of its own. There was nothing else around us, no matter how I felt about it, we were gone, dead to the world for a few days, disconnected and unplugged. Engulfed in the woods.

And we were rewarded handsomely for it. We were given a show from two loons who brought their newborn babies no more than 12 feet away from us after we had stripped ourselves naked and bathed in the icy, glacial water, the night of our first site. We presented ourselves to them, to tell them look, we are not so different than you and they looked us over, then looked ahead, looked at their babies, then looked ahead again. No change in their attitude. I am none the wiser to if they had actually accepted our proposal, but it felt to me like they had. The presentation itself being such a human thing, a longing to belong, I feel silly now reflecting back on it, though in the moment it was so profound. The two of us naked, alone, on a rock on an island, holding this moment with these beings whose home this really is. It was kind of them to pay us a visit.

Every night we spent in the woods was with a lake to ourselves. And by that, I mean no other humans. We interacted with many other lifeforms we cohabitated with, trying our best to blend in, doing what we could not to step on toes. But we ended each evening with nobody else around us for miles. It's a strange sensation to handle, rationalizing what that really means, realizing you may never experience something comparable to it unless, of course, you return to the place again.

On the last morning, just yesterday, less than 30 minutes before we left for the last time, I saw a moose bathing in the lake we had been sharing. She made a loud noise in the water and so I looked up from my breakfast to see a loon, to which I thought what an awfully loud sound for a loon before looking a bit beyond the stunning bird and locking eyes with an enormous female taking a morning bath. We stared at one another for about twenty seconds before I lowered my body, sitting again on the front facing rock of the campsite, and watched her finish her bath. She moved slowly up the shore before shaking herself off, moving on, stomping some fallen trees on her way. My wife returned from her walk and we sat together on the ground, hoping she'd come back to us, but only hearing her infrequent branch breaks happening further and further away from us. It was a magical moment, one I will remember forever.

The day before that one was our rest day, the day with no travel, where we would post up in the same site for a second night, intentionally staying put to do nothing. My wife and I both felt a little pointless about it when we had woken up that morning, though we had been looking forward to it the entire week before. No matter how removed from normal life we were, we still had the idea that something must be done to feel fulfillment, that time spent doing nothing was a waste, perhaps even boring. We knew this was not true, but it is a hard thing to trick your mind into believing something when you are living in what feels like the opposite of that truth...

So, we embraced it. We read a lot, in the sun, in the shade, in the sun again, we canoed around our empty lake, we sat quietly with each other, looking at the treeline in front of us, at the animals around us, we looked up at the sky and we looked down at our feet. When we were at our most bored we took off our clothes and we fucked each other like animals ourselves in the raw, open wilderness. We moved all over the campsite and we still ended up finishing at the same time. Sweat dripped down our faces and bodies, our knees and hands dirty with pebbles, sticks, and earth, we panted like dogs, for that was what we were. We clothed again and continued reading our books. Eventually, I began a stream of consciousness, I took the pen and paper we had brought to keep score of our card game and wrote down some words and this is what they said:

I have stripped it all back, life, that is. The days here are simplified, they are simple and long. When we want to eat, we begin to move in that direction, the first step being retrieving the saw and the hatchet. Next, walking deep into the woods, finding a fallen tree of suitable size, then I begin to saw the log into chunks that are small enough to still be able to chop with some ease. After I have done this ten or so times, I bring these stumps to a flat trunk, still rooted, and axe some of them into kindling, the others into quarter or half logs, to be used later, once the fire is strong enough, once the embers hot enough. Step one of eating is only now complete, and it did not even involve food. An hour goes by and I have forgotten about sustenance until my tummy yells up to me again. And I am in complete harmony with this, I am in harmony with what's around me. Everything here seems to follow this same process.

I did this to remove myself from distraction because I am a flawed being who is perpetually seeking it out, I am looking for worry, looking for excess, always looking for pleasure. I am one part of an experiment gone on for a very long time in a very random direction, with no end in sight, I am at the constant end of a never-ending, basically infinite, chain of reactions. I am nothing to the world, but I am everything to myself, perhaps a little less than everything to another one person, less and less than everything to more and more people. It all balances out, of course it does.

Each lake we enter is a random variation of the same thing. It is the same water, the same trees, the same animals, only different shapes and sizes, depths and specifics. It is a natural maze and if I lost this yellow map in my pocket we would be fucked, we would be stuck here forever. And so be it. Predictable life follows random origin. Everything already makes sense, if it doesn't, our species is simply not intelligent enough yet to understand it. We stand here, me and her, hand in hand, one thing, yet still forever separated, we present ourselves to the birds, the trees, the sun, the sky, the moon, but it is only presentation to ourselves. We are immediately humbled. I am here as they are. Actually, I am less.

My wife saw eyes in the black of the woods, they did not shine like our cat's do at home, where the darkness is lighter, no, they were opaque, they blinked back at her and she accepted them. She didn't tell me about them until we left so as not to scare me. I wanted to tell her that it wouldn't have scared me, but I know it would be a lie, and I know that she would know that, too. The darkness here on the top of the loons' heads are completely void of light, they are tiny, moving, black holes with red centers, they are so much darker than the India ink on my arms, unimaginably dark, unacceptably beautiful. We have heard voices so distant the shouting sounds like mere whispers, we believe it is the spirit of the woods here, the same one whose eyes my wife saw, maybe they reflect the sounds of past journeys of the same place back to us. Maybe they will take some of our noises and reflect them back at future travelers, too. Maybe we will hear our own voices from the past someday, if we strain our ears hard enough, if we can get past the beating of our hearts that rings inside our ears within the suffocating silence of this place. It is like languages of the past; is it even real? I ask myself this question out loud because it is becomes so immediately pressing. The wind talks to us as we sit in the clear glass water of the lake. We don't say anything. We feel presence. We return to our temporary home, within the everlasting home of the ancients, enchanted and sacred.

The stars shyly present themselves to us, but not actually to us, we are just witness to them. We see their past light tonight and tomorrow we wait for them again but thunder rumbles in the extreme distance. We prepare for the onslaught of rain for an hour, tidying up our things, getting everything covered, tarps put up, packs zipped down, and we watch the cumulonimbus roll in like a sped up video. It is unbelievably pretty. It pushes away the beauty of the sunset and takes over the sky, we meander to the tent, double checking everything is safe, then we hear the roll of the rain, I do not know what it is at first, I ask my wife what is that? and she says rain! and in just a few moments we hear the beginning of the downpour. We wait out the storm overnight, our lullaby the cracking thunder, our nightlight the lightning above, we sleep like babies being held by their mother.

We exist today as trees do, as the water does, as the skies do. Not even as animals, for we are more conscious than them in this moment. We returned here for a reason, for some peace, some acceptance, some solace. We are surviving alongside them but we do more than merely survive. We are learning something. In many ways, we are healing. Healing is the thing I have felt most of all. Right now, we have afforded ourselves the ability to extend upwards, to play the part of eternal things, if only for a few days.

Do not mistake these words to be under the influence of anything, my sober mind feels more clarity than any drug could ever provide me with. I cut through the cacophony and get straight to the point, straight to the source, I inject without external tools because my body is already equipped with everything I would ever need...

I am realizing that I brought much more than just peace home. Even if I couldn't tell you exactly what it is, what mixture I have incidentally created, I know that it is profound.

8/20/25

I was completely preoccupied with the others. When you asked for some attention yourself, I had that sinking feeling of guilt. Right away sir, forgive me. I sheepishly retrieved your tab, dropped it off, and immediately expected nothing. I was already planning to give you and your buddy a free dessert card when I gave you back your credit card, already planning a short apology, but you threw me off again when you paid with cash. Thank you, you said. Thank you, thanks for coming in, I said back. We smiled to each other and then you were gone. I picked up the cash, all 10s, I thumbed through them and found a $30 tip on a $100 tab. The strength in my neck gave way and my head hung at my chest as the emotions rose up again.

What did I do to deserve this? You've rewarded me for being subpar. I am so gracious, thank you, but I feel very undeserving. My coworkers told me oh, fuck yeah, but I cannot accept it that easily. I mean, I do, I did, but it's deeper than that. Not the action itself, but the reaction inside of me. It feels deeper than surface level so, at least to me, it is. I know that it's about balance, I think of all the times I've worked twice as hard for half the reward, they outnumber this one 10:1, yet I can't let it go the way I normally can. It must be the other things going on in my life. It must have something to do with gratitude being extended to me. I ponder this thought and become lost again.

8/19/25

You see it through a window, you don't know what it's like. You took the words right out of my mouth. I reach out to rub your leg and you turn away. Why is this happening? I smell the alcohol on your breath as you tell me the words I have already known through your quiet heaves. I feel a deep sympathy mixed with an energetic frustration. Why are you telling me this? I know I need to let you get this out, but I also know this is not going anywhere. This entire thing was so unnecessary. We spoke about a general idea as if we were yelling to each other across a football field. It was a waste, a wash, a woeful turn of events.

8/14/25

Inside of this dome, I am carving out a routine. Strangely enough, this restriction has allowed me to flex my creativity, and I am pleased with it. Some days I would replace allowed with forced and creativity with adaptability, but today I have said what I meant. I have peace and I know, with certainty, that I have found it on my own. It was not forged by me, but I discovered it along the way. It was not my intention to do so, but I was open to it because I was open to anything, and it found its way here, and I grasped for it, and I gently held it. I hold it, now. It's like walking through the Johto region, Masterball in hand, and I just happened upon Entei. I am completely unsurprised yet I am overflowing with gratitude.

I feel a grace within myself. Without the need or desire to be happy, positive, hopeful, all the time, I do feel graceful with my movements. I need to be a leader right now and I embrace that role. I am in tune with my body and the world around me, my sail is up, and the wind leads me in the right direction. The right direction, the numbers present themselves to me and I observe those, too, I cannot ignore them, I witness their greatness with borderline resentment, leave me alone! I shout to them. Until today that is, today I give in. I am humbled and so I feel acceptance.

Soon there will be movement again, soon the chains will be released and we will be free to go. The world feels big and scary right now, but at least we can choose where we are to go to, where we end up and begin to build our fortress. This is the breather we were forced to take before the blueprints can be made.

Prancing around ideas, following trails of thought and intuition, I talk with those around me in my life, but I spend more time alone than normal. My wife, she is in her own world, and I bridge the gap between us when I can. We are to have a talk late this afternoon, I told her I want to discuss the future, to look beyond the bars of our cage that will soon be let down. We can still stay here, you can remain where you are, but please begin to imagine the good things that are in store for us. The good things that we will create. They will be here soon. We are still moving through time, even if you cannot feel it.

I move with a clear mind, I see clearly, too. I am impacted deeply by emotions of the past, I have leaned into my past so heavily this year...there is some mourning there. I have found grievances beneath unturned stones, they shine in my path and I pick them up, curious, and then I have a small mess on my hands. But there is completion in this, it is something like raking the sand of my zen garden.

I am happy. Happy enough. I am learning more about myself, I am proud of who I am, I become lost in thoughts, pockets of energy, smells of nature, of people, I find refuge in what is around me. I cannot bear to look at the burning buildings right now and so I avoid those routes. I'm good for now, I cannot lose if I am moved so deep and true by such normal things.

8/10/25

Entering the room, you feel the damp air cling to you. As soon as you step foot in there it's on you, unrelenting, unescapable. The ceiling opens up by a hundred feet and, at that age, it may as well be a thousand. Not only does the physical environment change the way your brain works, the lights are low and the unfamiliar lifeforms on display are highlighted. All they have to do is be themselves and you learn and experience the new, other, true ways of life that exist here in the same place you do. Just as you are gaining the smallest bit of reference for how this world works, you are then flipped upside down and shaken around. If it weren't so awesome, it would be terrifying.

I remember the spot to be was deep in the left side corner, tucked back on the wall adjacent to the massive viewing glass to the dolphin pool. Cut into the wall, protruding deep into water, a half, inverse sphere of glass that allowed you to sit inside the water with the big, ugly, beautiful fishes, the terrifying, slow and slithery eels, the mini, menacing sharks. Or so it felt. Reaching out your hand to these aliens, you are met with the thick glass. As a kid, you have no idea how heavy water can be, how strong this barrier needs to be in order to keep everything inside. Before you learn about the refraction of light, how strange it behaves through glass, and even more, through water, you experience it at places like these. As close as you could safely be from these scary animals, you are safe behind the thick, transparent walls of the aquarium. It feels as though you are there with them, but you are not. For your own safety, you are not.

This is how it was for me recently. When I would describe the intense feeling of removal I was experiencing, I would be speaking from my memories of this very specific corner inside the aquatic area at the zoo. It's like foggy glasses combined with a layer of protection so thick that, although life may be visually perceived as immersed, you know that you are not, because you lack the feeling of immersion. It's disorienting to say the least. I do not see how anyone could avoid the supernova, self-imploding type of mental sucking that you revert to when the physical world now exists to you as, much more tangibly, just a simulation. All you have for the moment is your mind. And that is not a healthy place to stay in when you are expected to interact with everyone else on this physical plane we all share and take up space inside of.

So, I would think a lot. At first, by myself, then, with my wife, and, eventually, slowly, with family, then friends, and, as always, strangers too. I slowly came back. The glass was thinning and I became closer and closer to these lifeforms I was, allegedly, interacting with. But I still cannot fully shake that feeling of hovering above the contact points- how much glass is between me and my temporary companion? Is there really a connection here? Even if I smash whatever glass is left, let the aquarium walls down, let the water flood over me and touch whatever is inside, is touch itself not just electrons interacting with each other? I am not electrons, am I? Well, that's part of me, but I can't feel them, I can't control them, they are like built in tools that help me out but, like all the other parts of my physical body, my skin, organs, lungs, heart, brain, I don't control them. So what, then, is real to me? Where do I draw the line?

I am not plagued by these thoughts. I am just struggling to know where to make the distinctions. My derealization has relaxed and I feel more normal. But I think with a different cap on now, I wear different shades too. Priorities shifted because we were picked up and shook around. Emotionally, things are settling down again, but they are not in their rightful places. Things are still missing, things came up we had forgotten about, but either way, none of this was our doing. It's impossible not to feel wronged by all of this, like even the positive aspects are coated in a disgusting goo, and it makes me bitter when I have to touch it, when I inevitably have to organize again. I scrub my hands slowly and thoroughly in the sink with tight lips and a furrowed brow. Tense and angry.

The situation my wife and I are in is the product of a larger issue. Directly caused by the way the world is changing, no matter how deep we want to simplify it, they are tied together, this is the truth. It's hard not to feel upset at every corner. I open up to people about this when I don't intend to and it becomes apparent that we are all angry at what's happening around us, it feels like we have no say in changing anything anymore, there is a weird sense of defeat and acceptance, like we are inside of a nosediving plane and we are not panicked, just observing the free fall outside the windows, shrugging our shoulders, back to looking at our phones. Whatever happens, happens, will happen, is already happening, is too late to change, so why even try.

I speak to my friend on the phone about evil. I classify evil as a sickness, something curable, even though I do not know if that cure exists in this lifetime or beyond it. But I really do believe it to be true, for the sake of my life and my wellbeing, I cannot think that my fellow humans were born evil. Life is circumstantial and it is these circumstances which have led certain people to do evil things, outright or subtle, intentional or not, I accept the different truths of impact and intent. They are all there and they are all true. Yes, there is nuance, there are reasons we should focus on and learn from, what else is the point of living, documenting, studying, learning, adapting, advancing? What have we done that is not miraculous? We live in a real life, sandbox world, not a video game, we harness energy from thin air, at least that's how it looks, because we were plopped down on this planet and have evolved to master it. And, unfortunately, destroy it, too. But destroy it for ourselves. We are our own enders, nobody to blame but each other. Nobody but ourselves.

My friend, though, speaks of Evil, some entity, some being, some cosmic force of nature, he uses the word demon, he asks me and the open air between us if our society is already ruled by them, if they are aliens who take advantage of us and produce our own version of hell, right here, on Earth. He does not bargain and he is methodical with his words and his approach. He is a sound man, I trust him and I love him, he is one of a handful of people in my adult life with whom I can accept a cold call from and speak with for two hours and feel fulfilled. Genuine fulfillment, something so rare I am naturally forced to delicately hold and admire for a very long time, each time I feel it. We speak of our different mindsets, we touch on a brief analyzation of why the two of us would think differently. We agree with everything else we have talked about thus far and I wouldn't even call this a disagreement. What it was, was a new perspective. I heard him talk and I scratched my chin, looking out into the night sky above Minnesota while he was inside his house in Texas doing some cleaning. We eventually said our goodbyes and when we hung up I felt a deep sense of appreciation, a certainty inside of myself that this was time well spent- even deeper than that, like we had just completed a moment which makes life worth living for. Transitional. Solidification and camaraderie, like in that moment we dropped the usual jokes and lightheartedness of our human selves and let our souls do the talking, because we both needed it. Because they needed it.

My wife remains in her cave. I visit her every morning, every afternoon, and every night. I sleep there with her, but I do not live there the way she does. It is not her fault and it is not even a bad thing to begin with. She just burrowed into the closest shelter when the blizzard began and now she is snowed in for the season, again, we have some separation between us. Something, someone, puts this barrier between us multiple times a day and we are at his mercy. We have our visiting hours and we have our curfew. Strangely, we have never been closer. Our lovemaking has never been better. In this seemingly indefinite moment of uncertainty, we have not wavered from one another. We live within the parameters we are allowed to behave inside of and, for now, it's alright. I tell her to stay in her cave, it's safer there, to not be so worried about getting out. Once the sentence is over and the verdict reached, we will be together again, as we are meant to. Whether it's this direction or the total opposite, we will be hand in hand and we will continue constructing one collective life out of two. Our love has been tested and we are victorious because we have the most precious gift of all.

Of all the things I have spoken about this last mont and a half, I remember that they are not actively being done to me. The Evil my friend speaks of, he experiences in his life. He has been shaped to thinking the way he does because of how he has been treated. He sees this place we live in differently than I do. It is the same as my wife, they receive different treatments than me. They moved here, from Africa and from South America. I have always been here. I am a part of the world they have been looking in on, no matter how immersed they are in the world we share, the communities we have together, there is a different level of immersion being invisible inside of it, like I am. A sea of white will make the black and the brown pop, the flow and communication amongst the water will notice when one does not gel exactly the same, when the Earth moves underneath us and a rogue wave slices through the rest, ruffling the feathers of monotony. I do not know what it is like to disrupt monotony by simply presenting yourself to the world, to be met with people who do not look like you, who were not raised like you, who do not speak like you.

I don't even know the words right now to highlight the point I am trying to make. It's mostly an observation, I guess. Being presented with the reality that my future may involve this, my very near future, I have been thinking differently. There is a different understanding, although I will never be fully immersed in the reality my wife and my friend speak of, they have extended their hands and I have held them, in these moments we operate outside of the physical world and we transfer energy and it is shared and understood deeper, filtered through our bodily machines, transmitted to the brain, the information saved and stored. The subject matter we discuss is about livelihood. It's about the wellbeing of ourselves, not our human bodies, but our souls, the beings deep inside of us. We wear these suits of skin and features that differentiate us, we play the game we were thrown into, but we know that we must be the same, deep down. But the truth is, we can't access those parts of us here. Or, at the very least, it is extraordinarily difficult. It is not casual. It's not casual.

Who is to say if we should be able to tap into these moments more easily? Maybe this is true. Maybe we can, if we could remove every form of injustice, down to the most minute, maybe our human bodies do have the tools to do this. But I do not think we will ever have the opportunity to test that. Perhaps when we lived more simply, more organic, more animal-like, we already were. Perhaps we are straying and we simply continue to stray.

8/1/25

after what feels like a miniature lifetime, my car slowly creeps to a stop. a full one. the light in front of me is red and i suspect it wont be green for a long while. my grip on the steering wheel has loosened, the drugs are out of my system and i have driven many miles since the phase of white knuckles. i am calm, only a little jittery from the caffeine- there are no other substantial substances i will allow myself to put in my body except for this streamlined energy. and i am alright with that.

it is a strange feeling to be stopped after such a constant stretch of movement. baseline begins to feel like its about 80 miles an hour which means being stationary feels like you are suspended in mid air. the constant roar of the engine, the loud hum of the wind, these external noises are like shields. not to mention the metal walls that surround me, protect me even. but i ache from my bent position and so i pull the lever to the door and swing my legs to the earth, the true ground, not the fake, elevated surface ive become used to. and just like that, i am naked to the world, unprotected and vulnerable. standing still.

the moon is exactly first quarter and it shines a muddied, dark red from the wildfire smoke. the air around me is fresher than the stale AC from my car, but i can immediately feel the physical irritation in my throat, nose, and eyes from the bubble of pollution i am in. i face this moon head on and i sit in this moment, despite the discomfort. i know i will have to face them soon. i know they are behind me, i have seen their headlights following me. but the ball is in my court, i choose the time that we confront each other. and i just want to enjoy this view for a second.

soon enough, the irritation forces a cough and i snap back to my next task. the air and phlegm leave my throat but i feel dissatisfied, there is mucus sliding back down and it sits in my stomach, it builds on top of itself quickly and i am heavy again, full like ive eaten, sick like its poison. i inhale long and slow through my nostrils but they are plugged and my chest only rises halfway to where it should. i can see now that this is not going the way i would have hoped, but i accept it, because i have no other option. i just need to get this over with. i am mentally sound despite my physical shortcomings. its time to face them.

when i turn around i see them all at once. well, not all, but i see them all the way to the horizon, before they morph into the same thing, though i know there are many, many more behind the last. they look the same, their features are identical, they are just in different outfits. they look at me silently, their heads all cocked to the side a bit, like a dog trying to figure out what they are looking at. hundreds of green eyes follow me as i approach the nearest one and when i stand before him, face to face, we look at each other without expression.

im sorry it took me so long, i tell him. he cocks his head the other direction in response to what ive just told him though he does not say anything back. i extend my hand and he takes it. upon first contact he moves me with a silent power and my eyes are forced shut. it feels like a storm but it is not violent, i can feel that i am being led, or rather, controlled, but it is over quickly. i have seen his experience, i have validated every experience he has had, that i have had, and i take his final moments with me. when he is finished, i open the lids of my eyes with grace and i find that he has vanished, his journey complete, mine only just having begun.

i feel different. its small, but its noticeable. i make my way to the next and repeat the process. i do this as long as i can and the experiences are all different. some of them talk to me, some of them are serene, others sad, though none of them are angry. going into this, i expected to feel defensive. instead, i feel compassion. i feel empathy for these men, for the memories they hold on to, for the memories i lived through with them, together, as one. i feel like a big brother and in some ways i am. i was so preoccupied with keeping the course that i left them all in the dust, in chasing my progression i had slowly but surely been abandoning myself. the younger versions of myself that i had wept for were reserved for the mes as a child, the ones who were alone and confused with nowhere to go and nobody to ask, not the adult versions who paid taxes and did drugs. i neglected these men, looked down on them as idiotic, though they are the exact versions that made me who i am in this moment.

im losing steam. this idea was so simple in its early stages but i have been ruminating on it for too long, now. i am busy working on other writings, precisely what i am talking about here, i am doing in real life. i am validating old experiences of mine, experiences in the very recent past that i would scoff at. naive. immature. stupid. i was so judgmental of my adult self, how could i not see that judging the riley from yesterday would only set me up on a rotten foundation? this act of retyping all the hundreds of thousands of words ive typed before is a meditation, it is a practice that was unintentionally healing. that is unintentionally healing, it is still going on, it is still far from over. i am shaking hands with the old versions of myself and pocketing their wisdom, for i have always been wise. my soul sings to me and teaches me things about the world i am currently in and that is wisdom, its feeling, its intuition, it is openness to learn from those around me, let their souls sing to me and mine to them.

my head is much clearer than in the past. to see my old experiences with a fresh set of eyes, to relive them alongside my younger self, it is all quite remarkable. there are moments of cringe and discomfort, but that is all to be expected. im learning a lot from being stopped at this light. part of it is forced, part of it is voluntary. my wife and i are at the most insane point of our lives so far. but we are not unique. weird times are here and weirder times are ahead, i certainly feel that to be true. and i am proud of how i am moving through them.

i was spoken to in a way that only i can understand, deeper than words, more than simply symbols or pictures. only i have the key for this moment in time because only i have lived through it. i am interpreting messages from the past, translating them in forms that can be communicable, i am whipped up into a frenzy with these emotions i have encountered and i am focused only on this, there is nothing else in the world that is important to me right now. i face myself from back then and i understand what he is telling me because i was once there too. i exist in the fourth dimension and he, in the third. i am his creator, but he is the one teaching me, and i am listening.

when the act is finished, he leaves from me and i am left only with what he had to give. a memory of a memory. i go down the line of myselves and complete this dance with all of them and when it is all over i have a book in my hands. all of their words lie on these pages. in the moment, it feels like i havent done a thing. i just stood there and listened. i dont know if these words are a gift, or a reward. but i have it, i am holding it, i page through it.

the themes are all too familiar. read to me in the same voice that i think my thoughts in. all of these meditations, shouted out into the void, all of these lines thrown into the endless sea of stars above. i always knew they would be read by someone. it took a long time to realize that it would be myself.

7/17/25

i am experiencing an odd phenomenon of nostalgia again, willingly and embracingly romanticizing the past. i cant tell if its because i may be leaving soon or if its because im getting older. i go out of my way to travel down streets of my youth, streets i havent set foot on in years, streets i havent even ever intentionally thought about. but when i go down them i can see the changes that have happened. the file in my brain does not match exactly what this new reality shows me it has become and i am forced to reckon with the idea that i am removed from this place, and i have been for some time.

when i gaze on the houses, the parks, the trees that have grown bigger and the spots where trees have been cut down, i am fusing the past and the present, overlaying the differences on top of each other, my bicycles tires keep me coasting and i am on some sort of amusement ride- all i can do is glide around and observe. i am expressionless, the only thoughts i have are to not look too long or intensely so as not to disturb the people who live here now. i am circling locations like a madman, and i do not even know what it is that i am feeling. its light in the moment, but when i depart, it feels like i have stuffed rocks into my pockets. i take a seat on the park bench and rest, i watch the children run around the playground and think of how i used to do that, my memories again overlay what i am seeing in real time. i am merging into the fourth dimension, manipulating time at my will.

looking at my past self looking at my past selves, i always held a sort of judgement to them, condescending superiority, always looking backwards, and looking down. i know more than any of them ever will and so i am perpetually, eternally, better than he is, than they are. perhaps it is this circumstance we are coming through, but that judgement is gone. i look now at all of these past versions of myself with wonder, amazement, trace amounts of jealousy, even. i feel like a father observing his son, or what i imagine that to feel like. and all the past versions of me do not even look my way, they are full of their childlike curiosity, interacting with the world, lost in their own, even the mes from just a few years ago. and again, i am unable to decipher if it is maturity or me simply facing this challenge head on, surrendering all power to what has happened, and what will.

7/16/25

i dont know why i did that. back to back days of biking 10 hours, my fingertips and underside numb from the constant contact, and as soon as i returned it was clear that i did not have a resolution for the now completed journey.

but i know that the experience was felt rather than learned. like so many other things, it is now woven into the person that i am. it was a challenge, physically, mentally, emotionally. it provided me space in all three of these fields to process the latest that life has to offer, and i was present in those moments.

i threw myself off of the cliff and into the darkness, not because i had to, but because i knew it would help me. the trip was different than i imagined but that is only because i severely limit my expectations. no spoilers. i dont want any bias in letting things play out how they are supposed to, my grip is so loose already that i tend to drop whatever it is that im supposed to be fixing. its a drug in and of itself, surrendering, and i am able to access it without any materials.

during my two days away, i was reminded of all my psychedelic trips and how everything felt so laborious, so magnificent and meaningful. profound, in ways. and i remembered this giving me fear when i was under their influence. the young adult version of me was very confident until i was humbled by them. now, after finishing that chapter of my life, i feel these same emotions, the same trajectory of a specific voyage, in sober life. real life. i am realizing years later that they must have been gifting me my first dose of what was to come.

even in my preparedness, talking myself out of the shadows of fear that creep into the mind when you are alone in the woods, miles and miles away from any city, any interactions with the seldom stranger  on these secluded trails being mirror versions of your own mission, acknowledged only with a slight, passing smile and a small salute in the form of slightly lifted fingers off of the handlebars, knowing they are doing something akin to what you are doing- guiding myself out of these mental traps was difficult. what the fuck am i doing here? like sobering back up after a drunken scramble around town, your brain urgently starts signaling panic because of the unfamiliarity. except ive been sober this whole time. i chose to put myself here, with clear intentions. even though i did not know what i was looking for.

and that is what makes me feel human, that is what makes me relish in the constantly mixed bag that is the human experience, it makes me feel powerful that i really can just remove myself from the situation at hand, in a way, and go resort back to the bare minimum. water, food, shelter. i need to get to this point under my own power and i am grimy and disgusting but i am alive and i am in the middle of living.

7/14/25

all of a sudden i dont know what to do. ive spent all this time preparing for this trip and im in the middle of it, far from home, far from my wife. and she is all i can think about.

i biked for 10 hours today, and now that im at my campsite, i dont know what to do. its too early to sleep and my body feels this familiar, heavy feeling. crushing. like something big is happening and i am powerless to it. our lawyer should have turned our file in today. now there really is nothing left to do but wait.

what am i doing here? why am i on this trip? i wanted to bikepack, and im doing it. how beautiful it is, how reassuring that after 80 miles i am only asking myself "whats next?"- but i should be with my wife. this must be the first night we havent slept side by side since we first moved in together. two weeks away from being an entire year. and what a time to be gone. unbelievable.

i thought i would make a fire, but im not in the mood. my tent is set up at the edge of a creek and the water spilling over the rocks is meditative and perfect. this whole day has felt like that. im doing this for me and its worth it. i just miss my wife.

its hard not to look at this journey as a potential send off to minnesota. even if we get the green card and it becomes a strange dream of the past, the feeling during the trip can never be changed. and it is a mixture of beauty and a sense of somber.

i watch the leaves of the trees shine and dance and i feel right at home. truly, i am home.

7/12/25

its beginning to feel healthy again, this uncertain predicament. enough time has gone by and enough first-stage planning gone through where the tried and true positives of either outcome are there, present to us, almost beckoning. we should be honored to take the hand of either route.

whichever direction we travel it will be on our terms. there is undeniable ugly here, but there is ugly everywhere. and when i think of the beauty here, i am convinced that the world away from here has the chance to offer more beauty than i have, thus far, been able to compute in my brain. i have spent nearly 30 years in this one spot, an entire lifetime, and though no other location can ever sing to me, call me back to my home, my true origins like this magical place can, it will not be going anywhere. if my wife and i must leave, we will return someday too.

the ugliness of everyday life is exaggerated to me now. its real, but i detest it even more. i believe a part of me, a large part of me, wants to be denied in this process and be forced to relocate and begin again. what was once the overwhelming nightmare that would be selling of our things has turned into a nice, quick cash grab to fund us for our new journey. all of lifes monthly expenses feel as if they are in the past already and we will be able to live a life without such monetary concern. my future self that was dealt the unlucky card, who lost the bet, is actually living a killer life. and i see that now.

i still do not wish to leave, of course i dont. but if this is the kick that i needed to lead my wife into another chapter of both of our lives, then we welcome it to do so.

we live now with a lightheartedness that is only experienced on the crest of dramatic situations almost at their end, the ones which cannot be replicated or even produced by oneself, while we have done all that we can, and now we simply await the final decision.

7/5/25

afraid to look silly, i predict the future with an asterisk. i cannot shed myself of the buts that i cannot control, and so after each manifestation i still travel down these passageways on the other side of town. how can i expect to believe myself if i remain in those back alleys, the dark and dirty ones which i do not desire but still see my wife and myself traveling down, disheveled, scared, living out of backpacks? instead i should be ending with us at the beach near our favorite lake, camping in the expansive woods of the north, raising our family near my mother.

the fear brings me to these places. rarely am i desperate, i accept everything with a slow grace whose origins i am unaware of. its built into my program, its been a stock feature of myself before i ever left the shop. i do not plead, i do not tighten my grip on whats being ripped away from me, i try as much as i should, as much as i can, and as that last piece of fabric is yanked from my hand i remain there for a moment, outstretched, frozen in time, processing what it is that ive just lost. survival tells me to turn around and face the new direction i am to walk in and so i do. i do not even look back to see who it was that just took my life away from me. i have already moved on.

my wife tells me that our home feels smaller. the other night i found her in the backyard under the pitch black night, sitting there for over an hour after her shift. i called her, slightly worried, after noticing the time, realizing she should have been home by now. but when i walked out to see her she told me that she couldnt face coming inside, that it would make it feel real again. each morning we wake up and find ourselves in this bad dream that is not actually just a bad dream. its depressing, its surreal, its disorienting.

we may not know how to move throughout this situation, but our spirits become lighter with each passing day. time again proves itself to me that it really does cure all wounds. and if the side we do not want to win ends up taking it all, then at least i will be reminded that time will heal those future wounds too.

for now i must not be afraid to remove that asterisk from my predictions, i cannot beat my fears without practice but this is exactly what this is, i continue shaping myself into the man i want to keep on creating, chiseled by life experience and graceful decisions, the acceptance of what it out of my reach, and placing trust, hope, and Love out into the universe who will always protect us.

7/4/25

i have been robbed before, but not like this. the bullies of the world have gotten me again, gotten us, and we are sat here with a puzzled expression, hands up and empty, alert and tense. the culprit leaves how he entered, as if he has every right to do what he just did. he has weapons, we do not. he had malicious motive, we had no such thing. we are bigger in spirit, but he is bigger in size, and so at this crossroads, he is the one who won.

our things have been taken from us but we have kept our heads and our hearts. i have never lived through an experience like this, like every morning is a step further into the bad dream, i go to work and forget how to communicate with guests, my whole skillset, the way i make my living, out the window. why should i care? how do i care? i feel like a dead man walking, the people sense it and throw pity our direction and we are still only confused how we ended up here.

all of our future plans are on pause. our hands are ripped away from the keyboard, another person has our lists highlighted and his finger hovers over delete. and we can only sit and watch.

at least the corner we have been backed into forces us to live presently. i read more stories from the past, we were never meant to have so many plans anyway, even though it is not my choosing, my preference, i feel more connected to humanitys roots, we will travel if we must, the tides have shifted and we may have to migrate.

7/2/25

ive only just now clocked out of my unpaid shift in the garage. i fixed two of yesterdays problems and created a new one. im learning a ton, enjoying my time sweating bullets in the hot wooden box in the backyard, listening to old music, welcoming in the breeze whenever it appears.

the new problem is frustrating. i cannot figure out the balance of three different alignments, today i accepted defeat in the act of juggling this mess and left the bike alone for now. i will return tomorrow and see what i can do. as i was leaving, part of me wanted to punch a wall and validate my anger in the form of an action, a physical feeling, something to make me breathe faster. but the part of me which swallowed the anger whole ended up winning, i gulped down the defeat, took in on the chin, meditated on the knowledge learned, the experience gained...i wanted to cry, but i didnt.

there have been too many tears these last few days. an abnormal amount for this abnormal situation we are in. my evening in the garage today was an escape from the alone time i would have had to face while my wife is at work. dedicating practice towards a craft is a night better spent than ruminating on bad things, dwelling on the possibility of a negative outcome in the future.

but this inevitable outcome one way or the other is not menial. it is the most life-altering decision anyone will ever make for us, and all we can do is provide the evidence. a mistake was made, and now we create a gameplan to fix it. once we make our move, once our hand is off of the chess piece, weve done all we can do. and then its out of our hands.

each moment spent after the initial bad news has an equal opportunity of ending in a very strange way, an existential sort of realization that these things we have been working towards could be taken from us, we could be forced to start a new life in a different country, and we would just have to accept it. we have entered another waiting period, though this one is in a different category than all the others.

and so its been somber around the house. i tell my wife that this reality has always been what we were living in, we just didnt know a key detail of it until now. it feels unfair, but life will do that to you. it is impersonal in that way, each person is dealt a million positives and a million negatives, some larger than others, some larger than half of a lifetime- but it is up to the individual to choose which of those to dwell on, to hold their power, not let their wellbeing be taken away by certain powers that be.

i have been jolted back to life by the news, i leapt from my coffin of depression and ran to my wifes aid, without any idea of the future, with all certainties now snatched away from us i clung to her and told her it would all be alright, i told her these words and i meant them, i surprised myself with my confidence and calm demeanor and i will remain in this state until the storm has passed, whether it moves away from us or we must move away from it.

these circumstances have brought us closer together and i am grateful for them in a weird way. i have no choice in them so i may as well try and see them as blessings in disguise.

7/1/25

its a surreal feeling to be living inside of a moment which you know youll remember forever.

i thought you were here to take me away. i began to imagine that the universe brought you here to pick me up, against our initial, collective plan, maybe we were always meant to travel someplace else before we really started to plant our seeds. all weve had so far is so surface level, weve only lived inside the first month of spring, the preparation of the garden. to this point, its still quite far from the harvest.

and so i began to grieve as intensely as one can in a days time. we called off work, we sat with each other all day, on the couch, by the lake, in the garage, anything to spend quality time together around all of our things weve collected, all of the places we were preparing to call our forever home. we were both jittery, anxious balls of tension. we hugged each other, we wiped the others tears, we made love together in a moment which felt like the ultimate way to console one another in our time of need. it felt like a rebirth.

i remember experiencing a forced sense of serenity. colors were brighter, i felt happiness for the people i perceived would live here forever, those without any sort of worry related to immigration and the troubles it can bring. i felt far away from them, like my wife and i were on deaths door and these people would continue on with their lives, never knowing us, never being allowed even a chance to somewhere else down the line. i was watching them all with genuine gratitude, uplifting empathy, wishing them well on whatever journeys they were on. our minds began to strategize the future, first moves, last moves, assembling our priorities, getting them in line. i had never lived through an experience like that before.

and so i thought that maybe we were not meant to stay here. the only place i have ever known as home would be home no longer. sooner rather than later, i would be boarding my final departing flight, off on my way to meet my wife in some other country that she has been scouting out while i sold all of our belongings back here. that was our reality for a day.

dont let this government determine your happiness, dont give them that power. if they dont want us here then we are gone. good riddance. see ya fucking never. i told my wife these words as encouragement and in order to fully convince myself as well, i would spend no time sad about this, not an ounce of me would be put towards pleading for anything. oh, you dont want us here? bye! fuck off, fuck you, fuck your smug fucking face and your piece of shit ideals. on the outside i was calm, for my wife, it was my time to support her and do it fully, though on the inside i was raging, cursing this terrible place for all that it was putting us through, for all of the peoples lives it has forcibly taken away and thrown to the gutter. a despicable country full of sin and disgrace, greed and a laughable mockery of meritocracy. the unforgivable evils it has committed. and we just have to fight through this shit.

my wife would talk of bad juju. and i urged her to make sure that she knew it was only a pool of bad juju she was swimming through, that it was not being produced by her. dont let them win. dont let them think you did something wrong because you made one lousy mistake on one foreign piece of paper. fuck em. 

and then after a day and a half it all came to a halt when the old restaurant ended up finding those precious documents we had already given up on. useless to them, completely and irrefutably life altering for us. i saw the scan of the green card on the document the man was paging through and i broke down in the middle of the busy, wealthy lunch hour. i gave this man tim a hug while i cried on his shoulder and thanked him profusely. in such a cold and impersonal experience, he provided us with the bombshell we needed. he must know how important this was for us. he was back to his own business swiftly after.

and just like that, our life here felt real again. we have not won the case yet, but we have hope. and that makes all the difference.

6/28/25

somewhere deep in the depths of my being, i am lost inside of myself. i have wandered here like an old man with dementia, a little white rabbit caught my eye and so i followed his trail, curious and innocent, until i became lost, tangled up in the old-growth vines of my soul without any idea of how to get back. the search party is out and i hear them yelling my name, i see my wifes face in the stars at night and i speak with her.

where are you, babe?

im here!

where is here?

i dont know either. faces with less detail present themselves to me too, they speak to me in unrecognizable voices, layered pitches of friends but too many to distinguish who they are to me and so the result is foreign to my ears, their face a stranger. i know they are familiar but they feel cold to my heart.

come to us, come talk to me, we can speak together and i will feel better.

i remain frozen in my trap, this spiderweb of ivy, wishing they would just leave me alone, praying that my silence delivers the message i cannot muster up the strength to give them directly. one fades out of existence and then another takes shape as their substitute. they become increasingly hostile before the anger spills into their words: wow dude, fuck you too then. their botheredness strikes me in a very ugly way and i finally shout back to them: fuck me? how dare you impose yourself on my life, seek me out for your gain, you talk to me without facing me, without using any of your senses to understand that i am stuck in my own shit! would you ask a dying man to help you move a couch? would you ask a widower to be your wingman for the evening? fuck me?! piss off back to the life you were living before you decided you needed something from me and let me figure my own way out of this damn mess. i dont need you, i dont need the drama you will inevitably bring, leave me here to live in solitude and peace, the only way i have ever known how!

i shake around in some spastic, ritualistic dance to get this negative energy flowing out from inside, out to my pores, ending their onslaught and letting me rest. before it is even finished i am sobbing, hard, and without control. my wife manifests in front of me and holds me tenderly, she cries with me and tells me she wishes she could take the bad things out from inside me. when i am calm again she disappears, her apparition whisked away, for i am still stuck inside of myself.

it has become increasingly difficult for me to extend love, even basic care, to anyone except myself. for those on the periphery of my immediate life, they have been temporarily sacrificed, it feels unfair and it is not what i want, but i can tell that it is what i need. my body and mind are at capacity, at least for the moment. and to the very few on the inside ring of my social circle, i will continue to force myself to do the bare minimum, to validate our relationships and maintain them as best i can, for now.

6/26/25

our kitty runs alongside us wherever we walk within the house, she sprints to catch up and then quickly crosses our path, spreads her long body out, and we are forced to stop before we accidentally t-bone her. shes tricky, a little sneaky, and she desperately wants all of our attention. we left her alone last weekend and her social battery has not yet recharged, we must provide her this comfort, the ability to catch up. but too often i find myself simply stepping over her, telling her i love you, and continue moving slowly around, doing these menial tasks to occupy my mind. she spreads herself out on the ground, presenting herself to me, tummy out, only to look over her shoulder and see me leaving again.

now, she sits above me in the window hammock while i type. i gave her time this morning, forcing myself to slow down and give this dependent being more than just food, water, passive love. i owe her time and stimulation. she deserves to have intentional time with me and really i should be more in tune with that to begin with- do i not complain all the time about doing too much? why do i have so many things to do that do not actually need to be done?

you are busying yourself, boy, you feel uneasy, you could not feign peace at this moment if your life depended on it- but you are not a faker, i know you wouldn't dare. does she know? or her? do they? does anyone else know the extent of your discomfort? you feel yourself slipping again, someone pressed the trap button and the stairs have all fallen beneath you, you slip, you fall, sliding down into god knows where, into the hot depths of the unseen, where all dark things return to. you have no choice but to accept it. you did this to yourself! the funniest part about this all, you imposed this discomfort on yourself and you still stay steadfast in your approach. blind faith? since when have you had that? are you not afraid of what they think? what she thinks? useless boy.

it has taken so long to even begin tackling the previously held belief of eventual coasting, all of my active life has been spent trying to do things quickly and to get them over with so i can return to my quiet comfort. i have learned to enjoy hobbies and tasks, projects from the ground up, improvements on what i come across, though my innate motivation to finish them as soon as possible is unbearable. it becomes all consuming until i eventually reach the other end of the spectrum, where enjoyment turns into irritation. the ending always bitter.

slow down, slow down. do the things you know you should, the things youve been meaning to do are the things that you are meant to do, go slowly, begin intentionally, always. become slower than you already are, embrace, embrace, feel and be moved, be free from these make believe restrictions...

6/25/25

i am in the gym doing pushups, my eyes move to the top of my head and see a man with big muscles. i want those, i think to myself as i continue on with my pace. the feeling of appreciation is much greater than that of envy. i am biking back home when a man with gigantic calves passes me. on your left! he chirps as he whizzes past, he waves behind and i wave in front, even though he wont see it. i want those too, i think after seeing his legs. i remove my clothes before getting into the shower. as i wait for the water to get a little warmer, i look at my body in the mirror and see that my arms and my legs are much bigger in reality than they were in my head. i realize that i am much closer to these men than i thought i was, that in my brains real time comparison i was forced into the inferior role...

ive just finished with this weeks therapy session, the words we used with each other are words that i wrote down a week before, unknowingly predicting what would come a week beforehand, without any sort of intent to do so. but its your session, why wouldnt it be about whats on your mind? isnt that just logical? yes, but how could i have produced the same words that i then was just given? it was not me who doubled down these statements. am i one to mistake destiny for coincidence? to say it was chance instead of magic? absolutely not. very well then.

it is all within my power to pull myself out of self inflicted states i do not wish to remain in. i have all the tools ive ever needed in my shed, but i cannot expect to find them when i drunkenly bashed the one hanging light from the ceiling. no, i must wake up in the morning and go to the hardware store to purchase a new bulb before the situation is stable enough for me to carry on with it. back to square one, but it is not a farce this time. it is real, genuine, living life.

6/18/25

the clock strikes noon and i have only just now managed to open my eyes. i am sprawled out on the bed, the room still pitch dark thanks to an overcast day and the blackout curtains, and i am still groggy. 10 hours of sleep and i am still tired. when will i feel refreshed? i wonder to myself before letting it go for another day. the fan is on and it drowns out any outside noise and so in this bed in this room in this dark on this day i lay a bit longer in my embryonic state, prolonging the journey outside into the new day just a bit longer.

i slowly progress into the kitchen for some coffee that my wife left for me. its more sour than i usually take it, but i smile because its a gift to me from my partner. anything she does for me is a gift, and i love her for that. the guilt i hold towards my depressive state these last couple days, the emotional wreck ive been for splotches over these last few months, i build my confidence slowly but the peaks and valleys are immense, they spike hard and sporadically. i think about how it must affect her. im just trying to be nice to myself. and when i cant, i have her to lean on. i could never repay you for that...

i search for a video essay on the movie we watched last night. she asked me a question as the credits rolled and i didnt reply because of the lump in my throat. she asked me again before i managed to squeak out im sorry, i think im going to cry, and then i curled up into a ball on her lap and i wept. she consoled me silently with her right hand while she searched her question on the internet with her left. i rose with wet cheeks and a profound feeling of release.

i find two videos and watch them both. after the second, i find that i am weeping again, still touching that feeling that had been built up from last night. i remember that i dreamed strange dreams and it all ties together and here i am extending this same emotional lump i have been holding for 12 hours, consciously and unconsciously mixed together like the dreamlike state and confused understanding that is the movie, that are my dreams, that is this life. i never have the words for anything, i am an imbecile at describing emotions in real time, i talk too slow to hold any meaningful attention, i give too much background and muddy the entire point from the beginning, this is why i must write these things down and forcefully funnel my emotions on to a screen in this manner, in any coherent way worth a damn...

and so i am here again where i have been hundreds of times before, handicapped by my tears, back slouched, head down, quietly heaving my body in rhythm with the spilling feeling of something indescribable, but innately understood, as my body feels hungry, tired, happy, angry, it understands these feelings in the same manner, too abstract to pinpoint, too miraculous to even attempt to, i reflect on the notion that it is in these moments in which i am truly having the human experience. these are the times in which i am living.

these anchors help me along my journey, they are my mother patting my soft, baby back to get the air out and i am dependent to them because that is what i am, a dependent creature.

6/17/25

mid sentence, eyes locked, the feeling pierces me like a bullet. it appears alongside the tiny chunks of guts that have blown out of my flesh wound; i need to escape this conversation. like a knee-jerk reaction, my gaze darts around the room trying to find an exit while my brain tries to finish up this meaningless sentence i was spouting. i am skilled in this maneuver, this particular set of multitasking abilities, and so i exit cleanly. unaware if the opposition had any idea of my internal panic, perhaps willingly, i am left alone, once more, and i begin to settle down.

i feel stupid. this far along and i continue to deteriorate under social pressures. this far into maturity and i have stuck around these soft, emotional triggers that attack me around every corner, through every dark alley, they mug me and beat me and i find myself sprawled out on the cold ground for another instance. another knockout, another loss, i wait until the crowd disperses and then i carry on like nothing happened. i dont hold that shame, but i certainly use it as another reason to isolate myself.

i am tied to people i dont wish to be tied too. i see their angel numbers in my own life too often and so my thoughts turn towards them, i wonder what they are doing in that very moment and i hope they have not thought of me recently. it feels easier to wish that your friends of the past have forgotten about you than to face the truth that they may still be upset with you, not because youve wronged them, but because you became too neutral, less eager towards the friendship, and so their own feelings of resentment began to build and it is your fault. even if its pure speculation, it feels real enough to impact my day.

my kitty follows me around the house and so i move to the floor with her and we lay there together. she is an extension of me, it feels like i am an extension of her, too. my wife comforts me until i have the strength to get up, i kiss her and thank her, but then she has to leave, she gathers her things and hurries out the door, her uber is here, i hear the lock of the front door turn and i am trapped inside my house again. before she gets in the car i am laying back down on the carpet, wearing a frown.

i was always meant to go through this. i was late to the game when i began to drink and so i can only accept that i would leave early too. i crashed and burned in these 10 years, this incredibly long, turbulent decade. i knew the last couple years that i would become a sober person again, though i imagined it happening later. things always seem to creep up on you, dont they? only fools would let the inevitable slip through their fingers, immaturity is rejecting the Truth, turning away from the light which you are dangling in front of yourself. i am finished running in the wrong direction, but i am learning that realignment is only the first step. it is the hardest, but building speed is a process itself, and it is a long one, i am a thousand foot long steel freighter exiting the harbor and mission control warns me of the storm ahead, open sea waves crash against my body, i am drenched and battered from the torrential rain, but i wear that frown through the worst of it, and i am proud when i reach my destination...

6/12/25

does being a considerate person necessitate worry? do i need to be an anxious worrier in order to never bother anyone? yes, of course i do, and even then it would be impossible.

when i get the text from my neighbor asking to remember to turn the hose off after we are finished watering the garden, the baseline response would be: i am sorry, yes we will remember, thank you for the reminder. and the situation is neutralized. but the worrier in me imagines a flooded basement, a darker reality than the initial text would ever imply, and i know that i am catastrophizing on my own. its nobodys doing but mine, it is my responsibility. following this trail of thought implies that my neighbor is lightening the reality of her situation to be less aggressive and if i were to simply neutralize the situation, she would hold contempt for me and my nonchalant response. here ive gone out of my own shoes, into hers, and leapt to wild assumptions about her, and now i am holding on to these feelings whenever i see her next. the worrier in me has caused real life, future scenarios to be more cautious, less authentic, more detached.

i could never aim to be perfect. ive learned over time, through trial and error, that its an impossible feat, something that nobody should ever strive for. but i still remain steadfast in my journey to be better than baseline. though i am realizing again, over time, through trial and error, it may cause me more harm than previously imagined.

i constantly wish people could just be normal. i judge the masses for their wrongdoings, baffled at the audacity to be so selfish, inconsiderate, outright rude to strangers, immediately getting off on the wrong foot, making enemies, bringing people down as the immediate next step in ones life. pathetic. but how pathetic, too, to not acknowledge the expansive middle ground between normality and rudeness, between naivety and malicious intent, baseline and evil. there is no black, nor white, it is all just different shades of grey. no viewpoint ever the same, no person identical to the next.

THIS JOURNEY IS MINE, MINE ALONE, I CANNOT STRAY FROM MY PATH BECAUSE WHICHEVER DIRECTION I TURN TO FACE IS THE SAME AS THE RED ON MY COMPASS. ITS OXYMORONIC TO THINK DIFFERENTLY.

OKAY, I ACCEPT THAT TRUTH. IT HAS TAKEN TIME TO BE ABLE TO REMIND MYSELF OF THAT, BUT HERE I AM AGAIN, REMINDING. NOW WHAT? WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE?

I FOLLOW INTUITION FIRST, IT RARELY LEADS ME ASTRAY, I FIND MYSELF PLEASANTLY SURPRISED INSTEAD OF DISAPPOINTED MORE OFTEN THAN NOT, ITS A GOOD PROBLEM TO HAVE, ONE OF MANY. IN THIS MOMENT, I TELL MYSELF TO REMAIN WHERE I AM AND THINK THINGS THROUGH. SO I DO.

I CANNOT HAVE PHASES THAT ARE SOMEBODY ELSES. I AM THE AMALGAMATION OF ALL THAT I SEE, THOSE THINGS THAT I CHOOSE TO TAKE AND BE MOLDED BY ARE CHOICES OF MINE, INTUITION TOLD ME TO GRAB THEM AND SO I HAVE, AND I AM BETTER FOR IT. I AM ON MY OWN PATH, I AM NOT FOLLOWING A ROAD PAVED BY ANOTHER, I AM PAVING MY OWN AT A NEW ANGLE, MY PATHS CROSS OVER AND UNDERNEATH OTHERS BUT THEY ARE NOT THE SAME. I AM UNIQUE IN MY PATH, EVEN IF WE ARE ALL MAKING THEM ALONGSIDE ONE ANOTHER.

WHAT TO DO WITH THIS INFORMATION? WHAT TO DO WITH ANYTHING? NOTHING, EXCEPT TO CONTINUE.

6/11/25

there is a smell that has stitched itself into my being. it travels with me as opposed to following me, though i still do not think i am the one producing it. smells produced by oneself are much fainter than this one is presenting itself to be, its like a companion of mine, a parrot on my shoulder, and when it speaks i cannot help but listen.

it is fresh like a bar of soap but it is does not pierce through other smells in an impersonal way, the way sterilization might. it carries with it a rounded edge, something enticing, cozy, a quality that makes me want to nuzzle into it and take a nap. its comfortable like a drug or a baby falling asleep on their mothers chest. it makes me want to give into it and i think i would if i could, but i dont know how to. i dont know what it would look like.

i first smelled it yesterday afternoon on the porch of a friends, i initially thought it was the incense burning, then i thought it was a friends perfume, then a different friends perfume, until it stuck with me on my way home. when i woke up this morning it was missing, absent at last, until a moment ago when it came back to me. its taken on qualities of individual life and i cannot help but personify it, visualizing it making its own choices, acting on its free will, i feel it dancing around me, leaving to do its own thing and then returning to me for some reason. its like a pet, an avatar, a little helper of mine. but i do not know what it provides, what it is trying to, if anything.

if nothing else, it reminds me of the magic of being alive in a body with senses, whether imagined or exaggerated, i am tickled by this sensation and i welcome the idea that something beyond my comprehension is interacting with me. i enable it fully, and i interact back.

6/8/25

i go upstairs and its hot. the windows are shut because of the cool, rainy breeze outside and my head is warm from the racing thoughts. my coffee sits on the desk and i watch the heat escape into the unventilated attic we are both in. ive overdressed for the trip to a different room.

im struggling to hold faith in those around me. my perceptions of them, some of them, are not the same as what others hold. i learn the secrets they never told me and it changes my opinion of them. my loyalty lies with a select few, for better or for worse, i am all ears, open to outside opinions, and these outside opinions always end up disappointing me. i should have known better.

again, i am faced with the isolating desire to run away. ill probably never do it, but i will probably always continue to return to that urge, here and there.

i move from the desk to the floor and i stare into the middle of the ceiling, the straight line where both slanted angles of the pointed roof meet each other, and i stew on these thoughts. i imagine how these situations ive learned of, these secrets, could have played out. i imagine the people i think less of now acting in bad faith and i become a little angry. i wonder why its so difficult to not act selfishly, entitled, why its so easy for some people to enable their ugly sides. survival? no, you didnt need to pressure that person in order to live, you were thinking with the wrong head. personal gain? what could you have gained from speaking without thinking? do you even know, yourself, why you chose to demean that person and leverage yourself above them? i ask myself these questions in the shoes of those ive lost some respect for. they are not evil, but they continue to value themselves over others. they continue to disappoint me.

but i am not a judge, i do not determine anything about anyones life except my own. i write these things down to blow off some steam, chill out, cool down. i dont even tell my wife the secrets i am told to keep. i let go of them here, and move in a direction slightly further astray than those i was once a bit closer to.

6/7/25

faced with the challenge of delaying my gratification, i fail, repeatedly, routinely. ive shed the dead weight, im reconstructing myself from the inside out, i can make a list of the positive outcomes ive already seen, felt, practiced, and the entries would outlast the length of the paper i jot them down on, but no matter how long the unrolling scroll becomes, it always falls at the foot of a black pillar, a foundation of myself which i would like to tear down to build back up again, differently.

when you want an old structure to remain standing, when you only wish to remodel the inside of your home, you cannot take a wrecking ball to the beams which hold it up. they are protected behind the exoskeleton, beautiful with age, paint on top of paint over wallpaper stuck to wood. the height markers of strangers children are etched into them whether they are covered or not, and they are a part of your house despite what you may want. these things are bigger than you, and you must remember that personal choice has a limit.

this thought process leads me straight back to the dilemma. i fail myself time after time when i partake in old habits of instant gratification, in a very long, roundabout way, ive developed such selfish habits. i was raised to be an individual, i met and spent precious time with others who are stuck in these individual ways too, born and raised in the land of the free, we are products of our environment, our parents, the founding fathers. so as i am no trouble to anyone else, when i want something, i will do it, despite the further complications that are likely to follow it later.

with my new-to-me tools, i will chip away at another giant, black pillar. i stick my stake into the minuscule cracks and when i hammer it in, their length doubles. i strike again, harder, and it doubles again. i have my work cut out for me. i put on my knee pads and grab my coffee, i use the bathroom and settle in comfortably for the long haul ahead of me.

i encounter these difficult things all at once because i have put off so many of them for such a long time. they did not happen simultaneously, i am only, finally, approaching them, facing and addressing them. nobody told me the hardest parts would come after kicking the habit, but ive seen that its a universal truth, something that must be experienced to be understood. it is still early days and though i may not know what lies ahead of me, i have this natural feeling of peace and capability that glows within, protecting and guiding me. i trust it will lead me well. i trust i will rebuild what i wish to in due time.

"until i met you, i was just a worm, playing around in the dirt"

when the party is over, when i have gone home alongside everyone else, my face falls flat. the perpetual, neutral grinning can cease at last. i ask my wife if its normal for your face to hurt after such a long, social day. i think so, she says. i rub my soft cheeks, massaging them in a firm, circular motion, winding them down after being put to use for an entire afternoon and evening.

its not just my cheeks, its my passion. my heart, my drive, my social battery. they are utterly depleted. i put the key in the ignition and i can hear myself desperately trying to turn itself back over, but it just wont go. i begin to rumble, i cough up dusty, dry air, and so i quickly pull the key out and put my hands up.

nobody told me it would be this hard but i still found it out on my own, the big secret, ive changed schools, colors, events, all the obvious parts of a surface level identity, and its still difficult, just in a different way. but running longer distances gives me more perspective, more vision, i see elders in front of me, very far ahead, and they look comfortable, some even happy. i choose to trust that i will get there one day too. without forgetting their own troubles, i remember its all perspective, i remember that the grass is still pretty green here where i am as well.

i am relearning that hunger, grogginess, dehydration, normal, physical characteristics of a body have very simple solutions, that these attributes are not signs of the dread i once experienced regularly. my mind functions like its own computer and has classified any negative sensation as impending doom- its my own fault. but unlike the past, these things can be remedied quite quickly and then i am back to baseline. each endeavor of rudimentary self care is lifting me up from the pit i had dug all that time ago. i do not lay down here broken and unable to get back up, i struck no disaster which would inhibit me from getting back out. i just looked back up and saw the sunlight, i decided to make my way up again, not down. i decided to stop digging. i am ascending again, slowly and surely.

my expressionless face looks odd, i appear to be upset, though i know i am not. i feel so much, i am full of gratitude, and i am building up strength again. i move at my own pace, unbothered by how others  may move around me.

6/5/25

i see that im picking up right where i left off. over the last three days i continue to return to that channel of thought that i am working towards something, though it remains unclear. i wonder if maybe the thing that i am working towards is not anything tangible, and i figure that must be it. so often, this is what it is.

its been five months not drinking. i have gone from saying its a one month break to im gonna give it another month to i dont drink anymore and now, at this stage, ive quit. the language, no matter how similar, being worlds apart, and yet all making perfect sense in succession to each other. five months ago, i would have imagined myself here much different than i actually am, much more advanced in the process, much less worry, much more success. its true that ive attained these things, but my expectations were quite premature, too excitable. i was hopeful, i still am, but moving through these days at my chosen pace reminds me that this life is slow.

these silly little words are not me, these attempts at portraying emotions, the state of myself at a given moment in time, they are not me. by the time you read them i will have been away for so long already, they are markers of my path, small checkpoints, and i do not look back. follow if you wish but understand you will never catch up. this is not a linear journey anyway. focus on your own route instead, the only chance of us meeting is by chance, a happy accident, creating our own ways forward.

6/2/25

one measly day later and everything was fixed. i reflect on the past 24 hours and i am astonished at the emotional roller coaster i have had, the feelings of anxiety that come with catastrophizing and then the acceptance of a situation being completely out of my control. then, still, being shot with that anxiety again after remembering the situation and then the cycle repeating until dave the repair guy comes the next morning and fixes the garage door.

24 hours later, my physical body is in the exact location it was in when the anger, fear, and restlessness consumed me one day prior. and here i am, now, brimming with confidence, peace, and tranquility. life is a fickle, unpredictable journey.

along the journey i find myself distracted, impossible not to be. there are screens in my face showing me videos from all across the globe. ive limited my exposure so much and even then i am not immune. i am human, a curious boy who must see whats going on, and i am sucked back into the whirlpool everyday.

when i am able to divert myself from the tides pull i am regifted much larger, truer emotions to chew on. its the good shit, the raw, unfiltered stuff, straight to the veins. thats not even hyperbole, thats just exactly what it is. so i swim in the direction that feels right to me and i course correct when i need to. simple and effective, realistic, too.

there is something im working towards, and it isnt fully clear yet. but my moves feel aligned with my innerself.

5/31/25

my friend is uprooting again, hes on his way out west, hes excited to build his new life in a new place. for myself, i am still here, remaining in this space where i have always been, the only place i have known as home.

he tells me the ions in his body feel differently there, out by the sea, in a land with coasts and mountains and giant boulders, hills high enough to feel the sea breeze from miles away, bumps and formations that are the opposite of these flat plains we have always known each other on. we have been friends for 23 years. this is not the first time hes moved, but we are older now and so i recognize that its a bigger deal. he may not come back. i am sad, happy, optimistic, understanding. his excitement rubs off on me and after our long embrace goodbye, i am filled with a similar sense of new beginnings, although i am simply going home to get ready for work.

when i bike past the houses near the lakes, these magnificent, giant, rich, spectacular mansions, these annoyingly perfect places in such an affluent neighborhood, i am filled with a sense of my own excitement, they give me an abundance of inspiration for me and my wifes future home. although we wish to develop our own dream in a different area in a different tax bracket, my sense of adventure awakens again. i am more similar to these nimbys than my old friend right now because i dream of anchoring instead of new adventures.

i will leave if i must. if that is what the future holds for us, than i accept it. i do not own anything, nothing to my name on these legal documents is legitimate, i cannot own land or a house if the world is ownerless, i will move with the wind, stand my ground if thats allowed, but i will not die on any hill filled with stuff. its beneath me, it detracts from my authentic human feelings and skews my desires. what i really want is enjoyment, a calm pace of living, and i have it. ive always had it.

ive been putting in hours at the garage, working on my bicycle, my wifes too, and my grease covered body sweats hard in the humidity. i am alive in the garage. i take things apart and learn about them, i set out to do one thing and i have found myself completely off the rails of what the original plan was. no matter. i learn how to put the things i have taken apart back together and i have just spent an entire afternoon with a big fat goose egg, ive netted absolutely nothing, but i have gained knowledge, wisdom, grace in my work.

my bicycle clicks along like an army of crickets as i coast along the lakeside bike path. hundreds and hundreds of people all around me, all of us who are anchored here. i meditate on it all and the french doors inside of me open simultaneously, slowly, to be filled with joy, and then it comes. it creeps inside of me steadily and i am brimming with meaning and emotion, grateful for another day i have been gifted, i say my silent prayer to the universe i exist inside of, giving grace to the magic of life and the ability to move through it.

5/28/25

i am nothing, not a smoker nor a drinker, not a writer nor a thinker. disassociate the labels from me, ive shaken them off and scrubbed myself clean. i am a human man, i am only whatever comes with that. i am not a jogger, i am not a biker, i am not a coffee drinker, i am not this, i am not that.

my puny little categorically orientated mind is changing, there are things that i do and there are things that i will not, but do not dare put an "-er" at the end of whatever it is you see me doing or refraining from because i will challenge you. i am a man who makes choices, from every morning to every evening, my days are full of them. i am unbound by any sort of title, call me by my name and tell your friends that "he does this", "he does that", "he is a human man and this is what he is doing".

i love this thing, it does not define me, we are separate and we remain separate, only one of us has a heartbeat and a human mind, when i interact with a thing, when my thoughts are turned to actions, when i cross the greyed area from one action to the next, i am still, strictly, a man. that is all that i am, that is all i will forever be.

no longer are certain things off limits, no more will i waste precious mental energy, the sacrifice of clarity, on the "should"s, ive beaten my labeled self to death with those already, a self inflicted, unintentional suicide, filled to the brim with all of the "should"s. no "maybe i could", no "i really should", none of it at all, my mind is empty because i am at peace. i removed the garbage from the waste bin in my brain, i scrubbed the toilet bowl of ideas, and i am empty, sparkly, cool, clean, porcelain perfection. there is no more monkey on my back. no more devil, nor angel, on either of my shoulders.

5/26/25

on this side of the world, there is no other place as flat and as vast as the great plains, and i have built a house in the middle of it. on this particular afternoon i am staring down the barrel of a beast, a system of clouds turned supercell, the lighter funnels mix with the dark before a backdrop of pale, sickly green, the air is crisp and palpable and i see this monster picking up dirty earth and human debris. i watch this thing dance in front of me on its colossal stage and i am starstruck. i am witnessing the power of nature, the destructive chaos of physics and chance within this worlds laws we both reside inside of, and i cannot look away. paralyzed, mesmerized, i continue to stare. its touched down now and its become massive, right in front of me, like a magic trick from god, it was nothing, and then it was there.

its just spinning around! its not moving! i yell to my wife. she becomes alert, immediately, like a cat with its hair sticking straight up. get dressed, she says. its coming this way.

her seriousness strikes me and i snap out of my trance. i shift into a more primal state as well, my tongue curls back into my mouth and i feel the thin prickles of saliva tingling the underside of my jaw. i dont know what it means but i can sense that my body has tapped into its supply of adrenaline and its time to mobilize. we put the cat in her kennel, she doesnt make it easy but she does not refuse, she is quiet like us with her big, yellow eyes. we know she is operating differently too because she submits herself to our care instead of hiding. we shuffle quickly down into the cellar.

the house shrieks, we hear wood moan and then splinter, we are deep into this sanctuary of earth and we are cramped, we have one lantern in front of our small, familial huddle and we know that all we can do is wait. we do not speak, we only listen, and then the thoughts begin to race through my head.

have i lived enough life? im not yet ready to go, there are too many things that i still have yet to do. there will always be wants left wanting, im fine with that, i only feel i deserve a bit more time. i love this life, i love living and breathing and waking up each morning accepting the new day that has been gifted to me. if i am to die in this moment then that is what has been chosen for me and i accept death as i accept each morning, there is nowhere id rather be than at my wifes side, my daughter in my lap, at my home beneath this flat, midwestern ground. but i pray to whoever is out there to reconsider, if this twister really is out for me and its within reason for you to vanish it, i beg thee to do so.

no, i do not wish to perish inside of this prolonged state of change i have been trudging through, its true that my life is filled with joy, i am more present and capable than i have ever given myself credit for but i have only just begun to see how much my recent life changes have gifted me, i have always thought of gifts as strictly god to man, i have never known the power of the gifts that man can give himself, i have rid myself of excess poisons and i am dedicating my life to one of peace and regrowth, physical and spiritual. i have learned to become powerful on my own and in some paradoxical way it has bowed me to you even lower, my maker, they who kneel to no human nor natural phenomenon. within my newfound confidence i have been brought down even more, humbled in my abilities, grateful for all that i have, gifted or created.

this line of prayer is more felt than said, it is more of a transmission than a plea, but it was sent and received and in the final moment of this stream of consciousness, the tornados tip lifts off of the ground and dissipates into itself, the storm moves on and eventually evaporates back into the atmosphere. in that final moment was when i realized i had made some sort of promise to the powers above me, which means i had also made a promise to myself.

5/18/25

i see the creator in the distance, so large that they make up my entire horizon, they back of their head appears as a gigantic moon, as if it has been drawn too close to earth. they are my destination and i am determined to make it there by the end.

i take no detours, i travel swift and straight, there bubbles a little anxiety in me, panic that i may miss them, but i swallow it as deep as i can and continue on. i shout to them to make myself known, i have to talk to them, but my pitch is too high to register in their enormous ears. we operate on different scales. to them, i am smaller than a fly. i move too quickly. my life is too short.

the seasons change around me every quarter year, but to them it is just the opening and closing of a flower each morning and night. this problem of relativity will never allow my journey to be complete. but for the past few years i have noticed the creators head making its gradual turn backwards, and so i hold on to my hope.

near the end of my pursuit, my pace has been reduced to a slow crawl. my physical body cannot keep up with my internal motivation and when i fully accept the reality of it, i take my last breath. i perish at the feet of my maker, my vocal chords fried, my limbs mere nubs, i deteriorate into the earth beneath me, kissing the feet of the one who gave me this cursed life i have spent only trying to communicate with them. i was born, lived, and died before they could even turn their head to see what was behind them.

if only i had used my time differently. if only i had relied on myself for my happiness, for my meaning.

5/12/25

the parts of me that operate in fear look up from the surface, they sport a pouty face, like an upset toddler. they are like little spirits of folklore being that they only exist in their one state, the purpose of their existence depending on my own actions. they live in a vacuum, my vacuum, and so i must do something with them.

i have my own forest god within my realm, he too strides among the trees, over their tops, surveying the domain and smoothing out the surface. his face is perceptible yet expressionless, there does not exit any emotion behind those eyes, in a way that shows me he is more connected to my nature than my conscious self, he politely belittles me, not wasting any care on whether i have hurt my own feelings or not. 

he spots these negative creatures with ease, like an owl hears the rustling of a mouse beneath the shrubbery, an eagle sees a fish beneath the surface of the lake, my forest god pinpoints these characters and removes them gracefully. in swift, elongated movements, in slow motion, they are picked up off the ground, they are dealt with accordingly and put at peace, set at rest, these stone like babies are burped and then recycled back into the pool of life from which they came. their resting grounds are replaced with living plants, flowers, productive things with symbiotic characteristics.

when i feel the weight of them i try to remember i can summon my forest god. i control him in some way and i can utilize him like a claw in an arcade game when necessary. he is controlled more abstractedly than the movement of my arms or legs, i must tap into a deeper consciousness to calibrate my nerves to his, but it can be done. when i wake up in the morning and feel the sadness of something, i know i can simply remove that dead weight. it can be difficult, but it can be done.

my thoughts wander backwards, each memory a pillar of myself, checkpoints marked along a map, my westerly arrow has switched its direction. eventually i return to that one moment, back on the shore of the day it all changed.

its hard not to blame it all on the context. i was pulled there by a deeper, darker force, a motivation stronger than my own, a soul more troubled than mine. the others' lack of knowledge only exacerbated what happened next, misusing this sacred creation for a "good time". but i was more like them than i care to admit. i was playing catch up, overly confident despite my lack of experience; the word for that is naivety. i wanted it all, willing to do anything more than just once, as many times as it took to have enough understanding to portray the experience to others. negative consequences were not a possibility i entertained, there was no damage control or precautionary measures, by the time i laid these two impossibly strong tablets on to the dark, moist bed of saliva and flesh, it was too late. led by curiosity and blind faith, i willingly threw myself off of the cliff. i was told i would fly and i was misled. i woke up a shell of myself on the sea floor, broken and battered, my friends nowhere in sight. and so i realized quite quickly it was up to myself to begin the climb back up.

i wonder if i did something that cannot be reversed. i have lived with it for many years already, but that loaded question, that pandoras box of a thought must still be reckoned with at times. i will never know if the onslaught of handicaps that followed my afternoon in missouri  are due to the drug excess or something mundane, something as simple as aging. i know the answer is a mixture of both, the degree of how much one is favored over the other never being necessary enough to analyze further. whats done is done, i have accepted it, it will not be repeated, and so that detail is lost on me.

now, with clear eyes and a more open heart, i am healing. i hold on to natural changes within my body alongside the external changing of seasons and i feel them fully. nature moves me, not the intention of others. i may move myself, my wife may move me, our kitty and future child too, my family, thats about it. i dont have space for more. i had begun a new journey and realized quite quickly that i have been on this path before; i am picking up where i left off, before i became distracted trying to achieve experiences instead of letting the naturalness of its essence present themselves to me. i have learned a lot.

the wind blows the leaves of the fully bloomed trees and they move, all day, every day. the umbrellas in the front and backyard move too, as do the flowers we have planted, the string lights we have placed, the arch under which we were married. i hold these constancies now as my guide, i have found my way back to the current i was riding for the beginning half of my life, i have made peace with the situations i forged, or, at least, strongly willed to happen...

...

5/7/25

soaring along the trail, carving the turns, eating the bumps, im in such a deep rhythm that i am  properly disoriented when i need to stop at the light. panting, tingling, dizzy in the head. ive had this sensation before, many times, but there is nothing in my system that speaks for me now, not the drugs nor the alcohol. i am speaking for myself. im high, truly, and i know that these feelings were produced naturally. i am amazed at my body while i wait for this light to turn green so i can continue putting it to use.

someday soon i will jump in the lake. it will be the first time this year, the first of many. i will walk in slowly and feel the chilling cold on my feet, creeping up to my legs, eventually covering my torso. i will wade out into the water until i spring forward off my toes and glide away from the submerged ground, i will fly on my back into the middle of it all and i will rest there. the sun will shine on me and i will shine back.

some other day, far from now, i will own a canoe and return to the same place. i will think of the moments when i was naked, unsupported, but still recharging in the same manner.

this spring i feel myself as a baby, my senses are heightened, my body more sensitive than any other year i can remember. it is the detox, it is the cloud that has left me. i am pure again after being dirty, redemption always in my future, achievable only when i was meant to.

4/29/25

the tendency to see my youth as permanently unreachable is something ive carried with me for a long time, this bizarre martyrdom known only to myself. i look backwards at him with longing eyes, as if hes still there, as if he can also see me. as if i, myself, can transform the laws of space time...yet i remain aware that he is only a part of my imagination, a personified object of a very real emotion, a deeper truth, a desire to mold the unmalleable past. he is a fallacy, he is an apparition. the boy i see in the rearview mirror is made up, for the true version of me locks eyes with myself in the forefront of that sliver of reflection. i am the real boy, not him.

it doesnt really matter though. progressing through life in this individual way will always lead to some 

want or need for consolation, it is inevitable. and after enough trial and error we eventually discover that nobody will ever know us quite like ourselves. confronted with the harsh truth that it is too late for us, we redirect this misfortune into an action done by us rather than for us. well, i suppose it could be both, simultaneously. we make believe our childhood selves and we make them feel comfort and understanding in ways in which we never received. we lick these wounds, we heal our real selves by creating a ghost from the past.

have i earned enough trust to say we? its been ages since i have ventured out from strictly speaking from the i. but i need it, ive grown tired of being caged in. you could say im throwing feelers out there but i can already tell that i like this direction, i am enjoying the taste of this freedom.

this is all to say that ive discovered something new. in some unintentional manner, i have reclaimed that projected version of my boyhood. instead of looking at each other, i close our eyes and feel the emotions that live inside of me, still, from when they developed many years ago. they glow strong when they arise and i know that they have always been there. i turn my minds eye to these feelings and i radiate that familiar sensation from all those times in the past. everywhere i go, everywhere i have gone, i am still that same boy. we live together as one, in some divine intertwining of the stages of a soul. my adult brain has matured on top of the foundation laid out by my kid brain. physical and scientific, simple, logical, spiritual and miraculous, unexplainable, still understood. the beauty of being human is shown to me everyday. i unlock new viewpoints and key takeaways more often than not, just by being alive, being open to whats around me, being open to myself.

an overwhelming amount of sensation occurs inside of me everyday, i move slowly on the outside and interact externally as best i can but i can never fully avert my gaze to whats going on in there. i am obsessed with self observation, acutely tuned in to any new stimuli or change in conduct. i am still convinced i feel new things everyday. the logic i have tells me thats impossible, but the believer in me says im silly to deny my own lived truth. maybe. i perform some sort of balancing act every day with a new itinerary every morning. i adapt in a very rudimentary way. such a strange intersection of so many differing, even contradicting characteristics! but perhaps only viewed that way from the outside. on the inside it makes sense.

4/23/25

there is a smell thats been following me, rancid like death, but with enough life to not be held to one location, one rotting corpse. its cunning, clear in its pursuit. it seeps through vents in buildings or catches currents of open air, surfing along the waves of wind and invisible space that surrounds the living. and then it finds me.

it took a few occurrences to recognize that it is a thing that is around, but that it is also a thing i am not familiar with. its terrible, it reeks of a sour pungency, dirtiness caked on top of uncleanliness. its a smell so foul that it bypasses judgment and immediately demands seriousness. like a natural reflex, like burnt hair, like rotting fruit, the source must be identified and disposed of- but my searches thus far end empty handed. i am forced to relocate, with my hands covering my nose and my eyes squinted i hastily exit the area it has claimed.

i dont mind it, though. i hold myself centered enough to be mostly unfazed by it. when it presents itself, my body reacts in a physical way. this is overbearing, its too much for me. i rationalize what i want to do and then i do it. im sick of your voice. im exhausted of your constant nagging, complaining, hypocrisy, the whole nine yards of your personality. please, just stop talking to me. i apologize if me taking my distance is offensive to you but im not the only one, surely you know that, i feel somewhat safer knowing i am not the only one. i really hate to say it but im just tired of you. and so it is done.

in the name of protecting my peace, i move away from the disturbance. i speak no more of it, if it finds me again, i will just repeat the process. i am a powerful man.

4/17/25

a blanket of peace spreads itself over me, it covers my toes and tucks itself back underneath my heels. there is a pulsation beneath the embrace, it does not communicate with me as much as i am simply picking up on the power which it holds, our fibers weave together and its emotion surges into my own. i am awestruck, in a pure, perfect way.

the array of bird sounds outside the open window are both near and far, i decipher different songs without knowing what they mean or who would be singing them. they sing to each other but i am the one who is caught in the crossfire, a natural casualty of the divinity that lives within nature.

further than the birdsongs, there is a low rumbling of thunder. its been months since ive heard your voice. this triggering sound flips the light switch to a certain room inside my memory bank, the file for rain is accessed and immediately i tap into the sweet smell of dew, of petrichor, and so i grab ahold of it and prepare for the ride; i travel at warp speed, back into my past, to the days of my obsession with clouds and all the elements that exist underneath that fitting umbrella. a boy who found more comfort looking to the sky than he did with his peers.

the fat, heavy drops of rain begin now and the people return to their homes. the traffic of cars becomes lesser too and there are significant pockets of time in which the only sounds i can hear are the pitter patter of rain, the leaves blowing in the wind, and those solitary birds calling out to one another, so close to each other, yet seemingly, still, so far.

my blanket of peace hugs me goodbye kindly, it bobs away like a jellyfish in the ocean, to where i could never guess, only hoping it finds me again sooner rather than later. i assess my body and determine that i am, indeed, as calm as can be. this is no accident, i have been practicing for this. like a rebirth of myself, i begin again, anew, a sober baby learning to walk again, to hear, to listen, to feel. accepting sensations as they touch my skin, new stimuli stirring up my instincts. removal of fear.

the cool breeze hits my body but i do not become cold.

4/16/25

my wife leaves the car to go get what she needs. you dont want to come with me? i tell her no, im tired of looking at things for the afternoon. she tells me she understands. we kiss, and then she is gone. i roll down the windows halfway and turn off the engine, the music stops abruptly and all of these layers of noise and physical barriers have vanished. i am unprotectedly existing in the world.

i look around the parking lot, at the other cars near me, the people inside of them. if we see each other at the same time we look away swiftly without a change of expression. i look up at the sky and see no clouds, i look in the distance and see the buildings of the downtown skyline, i see fast cars on the highway going every direction. its rush hour and i am smack dab in the middle of this giant slab of urban concrete. the sun touches me very warmly. springtime sun is so sweet, so tangible, making it almost impossible to be sad once you feel it. it forces you to realize how much youve missed it.

when i tire of staring at what surrounds me, i straighten up, still buckled into my seat, still touched by the late afternoon sunlight, and close my eyes. the wind enters in the top half of the windows and sweeps me away into my thoughts. the old sedan i drive begins to move through my space in time and i begin, again, to follow the trails of curiosity i always find my ways back to, those lingering ideas, the pleasurable excuse to use the mind inside of my human brain.

today i am thinking about waiting, waiting for long periods of time, and how to make the most of that. how to continue on towards satisfaction while in a state of waiting that is not exactly up to me to put an end to. im thinking about how to make the most of life while still looking forward to eventual change. when i am on my deathbed, very far away from now, from here, i am certain there will be things on my whiteboard that will be left there, erased by somebody close to me after i have passed, not as the normal sign of a finished task, but erased away into the air in an everlasting state of incompletion. a DNF on the race results. i am becoming more comfortable with the idea that there will always be things to do, things that i am working towards. in that same breath, i realize that i, very much, will always want to have things to look forward to. there is plentiful joy in looking ahead to the future and getting excited enough to smile.

i lean a bit deeper into myself, senses heightened, defenses lowered. the color of my eyelids glow a darkened orange and i am gifted a memory, a memory of a playground near a busy street, woodchips beneath my feet, running around with kids who were not my friends- certainly i would have never seen them again after this moment...beyond the playground was a grassy hill, covered in dandelions. after chasing each other we all laid on this hill and picked these pretty weeds, silent together, entranced in communal moment yet lost in our own minds, another piecing together of the world which we were still becoming accustomed to living in. the way only children can be. i remember the green of the grass, the white of the seeds, and the blue of the sky. who gifted me this memory back? who planted this romanticized experience i once had into my conscious, now, 25 years later? i am sitting here in this parking lot moved to bits over a childhood occurrence, a random one, one im sure everyone else has direct variations of.

oh, but the beauty it holds is not wasted on me. i am no merchant selling meaning to life. my heart is wired in such a way that if i made it my mission to reject the natural magnificence i see in the everyday i would fail before i left my bed in the morning.

my wifes footsteps phase into my focus and she opens the back door. she places her covered paint palette in the backseat, along with a box cutter. last week she had asked if we had one, i told her i think so, but we never could find it. and so i am happy she found what she was looking for. i guess i did too.

we kiss again, we smile to each other, i turn the car on and the songs with no words come on, those songs that mean the most to me. we drove to our home in peace.

4/9/25

the goal is to have a system in play. when external factors of everyday life enter into my own, i would like them to be filtered into preexisting passageways, whichever one is appropriate. they are the x in the equation and i am computing in real time, the goal not to become robotic, no, i still want the emotional side of it (what it is to be human), i just want the kneejerk, overemotional reality to be limited, eventually eradicated. my toolbox continues to grow, i am constructing these passageways each and every day. i react calmly and objectively to emotional things- at the least, i am improving.

i close my eyes and scan my body, ive found the feeling and i describe it to myself: its hot. its a bright, sharp, purple color. it feels like its inflating my chest and making me breathe faster, i am looking to engage in an aggressive way, i know that my emotions are winning me over right now. and the first step is completed. i take a deep breath, then an exhale, and i don the floating white glove, that magical, master hand from super smash bros, my body remains still because all of this work is done outside the physical world. hovering the cursor over my purple feeling i drag it out of me in slow motion. i can feel the weight of it, it drips all over the place as i take it away, like moving the scraps from the sink to the garbage can. in a way thats exactly what im doing.

when i come back to the physical i am lighter, im cooler, i can breathe slower and easier. ive done it. its worked. im looking for these stimuli to fall like a quarter in those plastic charity cases they used to have at the burger king register, the ones with all the pins in them for your coin to fall in random directions. i want to learn how my emotions work more clearly, i want to ensure that outcome of a free big mac as much as i possibly can.

how long is a lifetime? why, its always specific to the person, no? it feels like a lifetime ago since ive played this game. so i guess its relative to the situation too right? time is a tricky thing.

4/3/25

the plaguing idea of relativity continues to haunt me. my wife uses the word haunt in her new work, as does the author of the book i am currently reading, they are principle ideas of both of their creations and it seems it has bled its way into my life now as well. either that, or i have manifested it in some way, as if i was blindfolded at the trailhead and the path i felt was right to step in to was covered in mist and leafless trees,  overgrown shrubs and grass, spooky, a little intrusive.

i have always been comfortable with the idea of the big bang, the idea that 14 billion years ago is the furthest back we could trace anything back to; everything beyond that date is gods land, untouchable, incomprehensible to our human minds. the oceans on this planet are large enough for humankind already, i do not need to know about the cosmos. it may as well be infinite to me anyway, i have never lost sleep over something so grand in its scale that it would be futile to even attempt to traverse through what any of it means. it is too big for me and so i leave it alone, i accept it for what it is, it is a solid enough piece of my life, my history, my part in the human timeline, that it exists as the sky and the sea, as sure certainties.

though i have always noticed that its color is different, that its vibrational frequency murmurs the very building blocks of my body. but when i feel this beginning i shake off my personal emotions and let whatever is happening, happen. it is bigger than me and i know it, there is nothing good to come from searching too far into this. if i was an ape that was in front of that monolith, i would pray, i would not pry.

but, why then, when i was confronted with the idea that only 80 billion human lives have ever been born, just as i have on this isolated planet, was i so curious? 80 billion in 200,000 years turns into 1/2 in the last 2,000 turns into 1/5 in the last 200 turns into 1/10, of all births ever, currently alive with me in this very moment in time. this offshoot of the path i was on led me straight into a thick, obtrusive branch and put me right in my place, on my ass, wet and dirty, bloody and battered, scared and confused. it does not take long before the peaceful idea of infinity can be traced back to my own, supposedly insignificant, existence. tangible numbers and ratios that my brain is accustomed to seeing, patterning and computing, in everyday life can now associate themselves with these pillars of earthly existence.

i then begin with myself as the starting point and go the other way. i think about my deep and natural understanding of english, my mediocre understanding of spanish, my complete lack of understanding with any other language, and how each of these distinct systems have their own timelines and variations, spinoffs and regional specificities...it is unbelievable. it is even more unbelievable to realize how, relatively, quickly they have matured. and so then i am back at this realization that my time here on earth, while cherished by my soul, is objectively very short and holds such little impact. i bring myself up to humble myself back down so many times throughout a day. but it is not chaotic, not to my detriment at all. it is just how these thought processes go.

how beautiful and strange that the most baseline parts of being a human being now have such deep subcultures tied to them. eating for sustenance has turned into a global phenomenon with star ratings and high price points, sleeping for rest has become a business that you must buy in to with new bed tech coming out every year, speaking for communication, knowledge, effective survival has worn so many different hats!even now, i type these words onto my computer screen and i am dancing around this central idea of something, it is a meandering thought process but it is full of meaning, and the words which have been created and changed over millenia allow me to do so. susan sontag wrote an essay on style and here i am writing with my own. my vocal chords cannot be naturally replicated to my specific body and neither can my style. but i am just one drop of rain in the lake, i am just one snowflake who is melting away as spring takes over for another year.

it is clear that these systems we live inside of are not sustainable. they never were, they were never meant to be. if even space itself has boundaries, how can we keep pretending we have infinite anything within the confines of this earth? greed is to blame as the reason this idea was ever introduced in the first place. but just like evolution, there is no clear cut moment this began. surely it happened in many different isolated communities before global connectedness. surely it has happened, still happens, in all of nature, not just by us humans. we have bodies with hormones, instincts, and feelings. they rule us. greed is the simple reason for all of it.

my understanding of life, of my own, of others, grows and shrinks as i age in my body. my brain strength trains and i continue my learning until the eventual end. i like that things are speeding up. i like that the accelerationism i see in global politics continues to deconstruct the spaceship the further away we stray from home. i am content with knowing it will all end someday and i know that i will enjoy my ride until then. i keep reminding myself i am not that important, that my daily tasks and lifetime goals dont ultimately matter much at all, and yet still allow myself to indulge in my self-centeredness to a healthy degree because, after all, as i have said so many times before, i am all that i know for certain.

i continue the never ending job of digging up the intricacies of what it means to be me as the construction workers down the street dig up the electrical cords and the sewage pipes underneath the pavement. i know that they were laid here by something else, someone else, someone else who is gone, to where i do not know, but certain they laid these things here for a reason, i have felt these tunnels being used all of my life, the blood flows through me, the emotions spreads throughout my body. the groundwork was done intentionally, intelligently, with knowledge i can only hope to achieve someday. and so i continue digging, and i continue learning.

4/2/25

we were shot out of the same cannon, we orbit each other in our projection, continuing forward, dancing in an elliptical pattern, majestic nature encapsulated between the lives of two people. you dont need to be anything for me and i dont need to be anything for you. and so we are everything for each other.

last night we stayed up late just talking to each other, staring up at our ceiling from our king bed. touching and moving and kissing and chatting. we confessed our love for each other as we have so many times before. weve graduated into the eternal honeymoon, we have sealed our relationship with a lifelong devotion and we are happy campers in this exclusive club. i told you, i know that we will be together forever because when i am with you i dont sacrifice anything. i know that we will change and grow together and separately but because we hold that space for our own lives we will never constrict one another. freedom invites love and cuts off any inklings of botheredness or resentment. i have found my happy place. where to go from here?

well, i am learning where that direction points. i sit in my home and know that i am happy with who i am on the inside. i reflect on my actions and i am secure with my behaviors. anything i would like to improve is able to be improved on, it was up to me to cut ties with that problematic past and i have done so. ive graduated, just like us, into this happy place. my time ran out on that old watch. i dont need a replacement yet. im fine rolling with the intuition that ive gained from the experience with my old one.

4/1/25

its when it happens without words. i put so much time into crafting these thoughts, and what really are they? they are representations of a feeling. but that is their limitation, they will never be that feeling. its an effort in conveying what lives inside of me, what is given to me by situations even i do not know about until they are happening. there is no formula to feeling them, there is no equation to the words i write in order to pinpoint the emotion. to try to do such a thing. still, its silly not to recognize how much better i have gotten. i admire my skills.

when i am pierced with these emotions they are wordless, they shift me around inside and i curl up into my ball and feel them all. it happened today in a scary way and then it happened tonight in a peaceful way. i will never believe how i once thought the drugs and alcohol made me feel more, its a shame to think i was mentally dependent on them to produce, exaggerate, these things in which i am speaking on when they really hindered them from an even fuller potential. from purity. but what they did do is teach me other things. this is not the time for me to dwell on any of that.

strange, though, too, that i feel these emotions more than i ever have but the words land much further away than before. its like i need to become accustomed to this new level of feeling before i can filter them into words more accurately. whenever i walk up the stairs and sit at my desk to write, i write so quickly but nothing is close to what i want to say. even this, right now, i am more unsatisfied than anything.

but i know why i came up here...i know that feeling i felt down there. have you read me long enough to trust me on that? think back to the most profound words i have filtered out of me, squeezed out of my dirty bar towel, think about those words i have slurped back up and know that this moment was much greater than all those other times, i am an obtuse angle continuing to open up, i am a book whose spine has bent beyond 180º and my words fly off my pages like bats out of a cave, they hold unspoken spells within them and just like you have impacted me without my consent my flying words will attack you all, an eye for an eye, a hug for a hug.

im having winter feelings in the springtime.

3/29/25

the machines clean the clothes and the dishes beneath me, i am finishing up my chores for the day while i am here at my desk. i glance behind me at the place i perform my ritual, my stretches, exercise, meditation. i see it all play out in front of me and i have a residual feeling of peace, though i only thought of doing these things. when i come back out of my head, i am still here at the computer with my kitty asleep on my lap.

i am preoccupied with many different thoughts lately. something like ideas or subjects, actions that are repeated and relatable to many different people if they belong to a relatively similar category of person. i am working on my judgement in therapy, i promise, i just must get this one out too. my brain works as a record keeper, a filer of great nobility. i trust him immensely, he helps me everyday.

i serve these people their wine and cocktails, i do stationary things in front of them while they speak between themselves privately, but still loud enough for me to hear. they chose to come out into public, i am here to do a job, i am getting paid to listen to them, to see how their relationship works. and i judge them for it, my brain judges them for it, i get bored with their talking points and have responses for everything that they ask each other. and they become increasingly more hostile. i listen to them talk about bullshit, shit that doesnt matter to anyone, they get drunk between themselves and make less sense, repeating things that mean nothing, opinions on sports, movies, politics, and i think to myself, this is living? this? you cant be serious.

for every bad judgement there is a good one, i am not strictly negative. but i need to blow this steam out of my head, i am trapped in the loop of their boring repertoire and i know that if they were aware of the pity i feel for them i would be confronted.

how do i live normally? my therapist tells me of the inner and outer critic, how valuable they can be, they are, trying to find that balance between them and of them, but it is hard when they push me to spiral and i cannot leave. i spend so much of my time at home, alone, thinking and feeling for this very reason. i look up to the stars and i am hypnotized with the meaning of life. these dull opinions about this trite shit make me upset. they bother me deeply.

i told my coworker yesterday that i am on this slingshot course over the last six years, learning to shut the fuck up about my opinions on everything after spouting them everywhere, i practice what i preach, but my thoughts can still be toxic. its gotten better, but i still judge people for the way they behave in front of me. but it is a hard time to live through right now.

3/23/25

i live this shit everyday, every morning after ambling out of my dreams the countdown begins, this ticking time bomb of a heart inside my chest, i never know how long the fuse really is and so i am always surprised when the emotion attacks. it is unavoidable, impossible to ignore, very difficult to imitate external normalcy.

but when i get enough sleep, i feel better about it. ive never rejected it. to reject it would be to reject my nature, my cosmic gift of uniqueness in this universe. i am a glittering snowflake, i am my own color, there is nobody else quite like me. this truth, the same for all. in my uniqueness, i am just like all of you. i am not the only one to feel. but i am the only who has my brand of neural passageways, underground tunnels, rebranding, remodeling, reconstructing.

i am a solar flare of the sun, a brief idea of the universe to behave one specific way for a lifetime, remember that passage? how long ago did i write that? 2020 feels a lifetime away, but it took me 5 years to turn this heavy page and begin fresh again. as a kid i hated the springtime, i hated how wet everything was. i love it now, as i love each of the other seasons, more grateful now than ever to live in a location which can experience all of them fully, more or less equal. ive learned to enjoy those rainy bike rides through the street puddles.

as time ticks on, as the fuse grows shorter, i see how my lack of reaching out impacts my friendships. my friends are my family. we embrace and hold that same love. but i see friends of mine who met through me hanging out without me and moving on, they visit me at work, we dap up and exchange our love. but they leave together just as they arrived together and i am stuck behind the bar, thinking about older times. how can i hold such adoration alongside disdain for that pesky section of memory devoted to nostalgia? rosy pink can slip into blood red at such a rate i would never notice the transition occurring before me. strange, strange emotions. all of the extremities, these outliers on either side of the scale balancing out and ultimately netting me 0. a big, fat, grey duck egg.

i am recovering. i am not in recovery, i am recovering. my latest tattoo guy told me i should go to meetings, but i am not there. i already made the hardest decision and to go there is not something i want right now. i hold my support group in my pocket, i feel the ledge of my dining room table, i can feel around in the dark and know that my support is right where i need it. i feel my wife, my neighbors, my coworkers, i do have these living beings with me to support me back, i have more than just inanimate objects. i have always had so much, it has overwhelmed me all my life. i still see my friends. just not all the ones i used to, though i still love them and they still love me. in some ways it is the same for family members.

my friends ask me if ive been writing and i tell them yes. they ask me every time i see them and i do not mind it, but i never know what to say. yes is the truth, but it doesnt feel like the entire truth. it is certainly not a lie, but there is certainly something missing, the opacity hovers around 70%. i can see it. it is true, unquestionably so. but it doesnt feel like im being honest. it confuses myself, even now i am confused on what i even want to say. but that beating heart beneath my hairy skin, my bony ribcage, my fleshy, wet, pumping body tells me somethings off and so i want to run away from it all like the scared little boy i have always been. i think that all boys become men without trying, i have just never been able to get passed that notion. just like the unfilled truth i tell my friends, something nags at me, tugs me gently backwards. i cannot ignore it.

but i live this shit everyday and so i have become good at it. i think clearer now and i discover things more deeper, more truer, more gentler. more better. i was good before and so i know that i will become even better than i am now which is already better than before. ive given myself a head start without even trying to view it like that. an accidental, happy byproduct. and this is something fully filled in. it is more than just belief, it is knowledge.

3/20/25

there are pieces of me that i cannot grow back, pieces of me which have been chipped off for good. i never used to think about all of the things i would lose throughout life, but now that idea, the principle inside it, has a tendency to eat at me. injuries are felt for years afterwards, teeth dont grow back, a sickness can be a sickness forever. reality checks like this can change my whole perspective on what it is to be alive in a body.

but a body is still a miracle. the slices on my hands sew themselves back together by nature, try as i may to keep them open, they will close back up quickly. its astounding, the amount of things that can change the body, is there any change that is not meant to happen? even the worst of things, the willingness to decay your own skin, the reaction is interesting enough to be miraculous itself, at least in a vacuum. in practice, not so much.

i prefer when my body is calm. but when it cant be, i am intrigued at the changes it can provide to itself, with the only stimuli being the brain choosing what to fire and where it will go to. a roman candle lit by a neanderthal, only without ever straying from survival. no fun and games, no pleasure seeking, just remaining alive.

i have wanted to write about the body for over a day and now that the time has come i am lost on what to say. i spent yesterday being lost in a feeling, letting emotion take over, standing in my kitchen breathing deeply and looking up into the skylights, overwhelmed with the sensation only a body can provide. but now when i am calm there is not much i am able to find to write down.

3/18/25

i do the right thing and i regret it. this can of worms was handed to me, passed around the circle as a plea. i notice that something is not right and so i open up this thing that is not mine and now i am caught inside, entangled amongst the spillings of someone elses box. i wonder to myself if my judgement was correct, if this thing had an objective flaw or if i had simply misled myself, seen something that was not there, something from a flawed perspective. but, no, i stick to my guns and accept the mess i have unleashed. it may not be mine, but i catalyzed it, and i cannot walk away without helping to clean. when i am finished, i am exhausted, and i have not even broken my vow of minding my business. this thing was handed to me, somebody sought something and i acted on it. i did the right thing.

in the dentists chair i am useless, at the complete mercy of professional strangers. they talk between themselves and i stare into the ceiling, they speak of music and childhood while they stare into my mouth and i stare between their foreheads into a crack of the white tiling, trying to remember the last time i was numbed up like this...i catch the moment somewhere in my distant memories...

i was getting my tooth repaired, built up again, after shaving it off on the concrete. i had fallen on my bike one winter during college. i was having an uneventful night with some close friends, we were drunk, we took a goodbye line before we left, numb in my head and high on life i hit some ice and i scraped my face across the pavement. it was brutal, bloody, disgusting. my friend drove past me and made a joke and when i looked at him with my shocked eyes i watched his expression turn from happy to serious as he saw my battered face. oh shit, he said, and there i ended up, at the dentists office under my moms insurance, only telling half the truth of what had happened. how much time have i lost to these substances? how far away must i get  from them before i begin to make memories that dont involve getting fucked up?

do you want any more water? i look away from the ceiling to both of their faces, they have moved their sights from my mouth to my eyes and i say oh, no, im fine. sorry, i didnt know you were talking to me. they laugh quietly. im a little nervous, i tell them. they assure me that it wont take long, they tell me that they are grateful for such a quick procedure this afternoon. they tell me i have good teeth. they tell me they are white. they do their thing and i zone back out again, but i am closer to the present moment than i was just a second ago. when they are finished i smile with the half of my face that i can still move and thank them very much. they are kind people and they lead me to the door and that is it. i walk to my car lightheaded, like i am high on something.

3/15/25

my dick is hard for my wife, we touch our genitals in a playful way, but when i smell the liquor on her breath he wavers, tapering off his strength, not as a rejection, but more like a shy exit. an exit that doesnt mean to offend, like if it happens slowly enough, then there will be no repercussions, like we simply forgot what was happening. like she forgot. we should go to bed, but i want to play, but youre falling asleep, honey, and so we change positions and tuck ourselves in. the retreat becomes a return, just under a different motive.

in the morning i feel a strange distance from my life partner. my beautiful soulmate, she wears her special perfume that hooked me on her two years ago. my memory floods with that scent, overloaded with ripe emotion, passion, yearning. i nuzzle into her neck and take a deep, strong sniff. the liquor still lingers on her breath, so i stay, guarded, behind her nape.

i know i am projecting something onto her. there is guilt mixed in with the distance, i feel as though im watching her from the other side of the room, my body language clearly less open than usual. i helped her last night and i help her this morning, but it is minimal. this is the first time shes been this drunk since i stopped drinking myself and there is a strong conflict in my emotions. i am repulsed, not by her for she is my world, but by what is happening inside of her, i imagine the years i have spent in the same state, i remember when we were in these states together, often, every night, and it feels ive landed back in a place i had just left after i had sworn not to come back to. it feels like a failure. when my feet stand upon this ground of shame and dread, i feel my body being sucked back underneath the current, thrashing around in the undertow, unable, unwilling, to escape.

but this morning she is much better than i was back then. that is the difference. she was there with me, then, now, later, and so i am here with her, albeit a bit less warm than a good husband should be. it is my own issue to work out.

every phase bleeds into the next, every era, every significant change in one field is built upon impenetrable consistency in another. the overlap of life and its courses is so strong that the outline never shifts, it is the color that changes, the different pulses inside the shape of your unique experience. the different shades inside your body.

dont ever tell me i am unique, i am you as you are me. some of us are mature on this earth, others young. 100 billion of us have been born thus far and we continue to grow, we pull the souls from other realms inaccessible to our humanity and we live here together for a blip. we love and we fight, we contrast each other every moment, but in doing so we mature. there is nothing here for me to do except remain alive.

my own personal stages of growth have all been revelations, the one thing that remains consistent among them is that they happen without me ever fully noticing, it is with subconscious practice and consistency that i become changed, it is not ever aligned with my brain, when i decide to change. the decision comes first, the decision happens in an instant. the change follows with an indefinite amount of time spent practicing. there is no right answer because there are no wrong answers.

if i am unsatisfied, i look to change my ways, i follow this to a fault. it is either that, a fault, or my soul is not young enough anymore to repeat past mistakes, to repeat lifetimes spent learning the same things, within myself there is a conductor who sends messages to me through my senses, steering me spiritually towards maturity. dont hear me wrong, it is true that every moment brings maturity, experience, but a more important truth is that some moments accelerate while others stagnate.

it is too naive to imagine my life in this body, my life as Riley Quinlan, to have the same averaged out trend, the perfect bell curve, as my soul. my bodys life may only be the beginning of the upwards trend. it is my duty to myself to trust the cosmic process of it all, to not become discouraged or upset when things do not go as i have planned them.

i must remain a stoic to outside forces, as i refrain from encroaching on other lives i live amongst here, i defend myself from encroachment on me by others. we may contort to be on both sides of the line but we are separate for the moment, we cannot merge, we do not wish to, but i am in you and you in me.

3/13/25

enough time has gone by and i am beginning to get the picture. i see my life for what it is, enough hindsight to allow me an estimated guess, a ballpark prediction of how the future will pan out. i sit here straight-faced, a little solemn, i am not smiling to myself thinking ahhhhh, yes, of course, i see whats going to happen. i am not that naive. i continue to pull back from my own self and realize that all this time i have spent trying, succeeding in, bettering myself –

3/11/25

my head expands while the men inside continue the remodel. ive brought them out of retirement and they are making swift progress. they clunk and clang while i do remedial things and when they pump more air into the dome i become lightheaded, momentarily cross eyed, a little struck dumb. i know its part of the process, this time i do trust it, though in the moment it isnt very reassuring. i can know that they are reconnecting the once abandoned tracks, soldering my severed wires, but it is still uncomfortable to live through. i never forget its necessity, though.

a regular at the bar welcomed me to real life. welcome to how its supposed to be experienced, he said. we talked and i learned more about him, i had been thinking of him for the last two months, excited to see him and tell him my progress. to show him. i reflect on how he has been an inspiration to me, sometimes forgotten about, that hopeful attitude he inspires dormant, but now i find that flame sparked again and he is right back by the bonfire. it was me who had left, not him. when i was taking a break from taking a break. i reassure myself that i never have to leave again if i dont want to, that i dont need to sneak away to go do something shameful, in the dark, becoming cold. i like the idea of presenting myself calmly, proud by nature, warm by the fire. those days are behind me.

today i remember how i look up to people doing their own thing, it is very clear when a person is on their own journey, for themselves. it cannot be faked and it cannot be fabricated. it is an internal desire to better yourself and it is inspirational and infectious, i feel it from others often and i hope that i continue to be a person like that for others, providing some sort of channel to keep the whirlpool of energy flowing and balanced, as is my duty.

3/5/25

aversion or attraction, the simple pull of another body, the action follows the answer, most of the time. if i have engaged in my normal, gentle demeanor, then your aura has already pulled me in, it was not from any outward expression. if i answer coldly, it is a rejection of a different aura. in an innate way, it is going with or against the wind, i am drifting in my racecar, the arrows below me either green and forwards or red and backwards.

the lighthouse in my head shines on these things inside me like the eye of mordor, in a shaky beam of light, metaphorical finger pointed, eyes wide and stern, i begin the purging. it is judgement day and the rapture is in full effect, yet it is not i doing the answering, it is the traits of my character making their pitches to me, to stay or to go, to remain and grow or to vanish without a trace.

2/26/25

the sun nears its end for the day and i am sitting at my table, looking out the window, thinking. my dining room is illuminated by the springtime glow of a sunset. twilight will be here soon and i am tranquil in its approach. memories race through my head, the sound of my voice as a child rings between my ears, songs i used to sing, i am here but i am also there, away, back in time, remembering and reliving.

beneath the sounds of cars and pedestrians there is the hum of silence. it is a droning, monotone noise, the frequency of blankness. ive peeled off the sheets from my sticky body and found myself tuned into it. i am naked, presenting myself before this formless deity, unconfident, yet still, there. lately it feels as though all of my armor has been chipped away, as if nudity is all i am allowed to wear for the time being. i avert my stare to the floor, away from the direction of the silence, but i do not retreat. i can feel that i am being judged, evaluated in some speculative way, checking the numbers to see if ive performed well enough. ive nothing left to hide.

there are certain things inside of me which i can no longer ignore. ive given up the numb numb juice, im choosing to highlight these characteristics and analyze them, the withdrawals have vanished but here i am going through a different purge, i am reclining in the shrinks office instead of raging inside of a human sized cage. im a bit embarrassed to admit all of these things to myself, all of these negative emotions, judgmental thoughts, bitterness, irritation, anger. but i continue forward despite not being sure of my feelings today.

2/20/25

today is day 50, today is my day of declaration, of claiming the title i previously wondered when i would be permitted to claim once more. today is that day.

i cannot grow back my receding gums, nor my chipped teeth, the onward journey through life comes with casualties and i have been made aware of this.

2/19/25

i cant fucking stand it, i dissolve into my memories and begin doing the thing which i am only supposed to have access to after death. lost in memory and emotion, my heart grows and sinks, the lump in my throat jiggling back and forth, performing its balancing act, exactly on the edge. without regret, without shame, there is not a word for this emotion, at least not a word in my vocabulary. i see faces and they unlock things inside of me, unable to recall their name, unable to stop the dam from splintering. the leak shoots out like a laser and the cracks start to sound, active nostalgia bleeding through from the other side, as quick as the big bang and i am drowning in it once more, centered in this lake of the past, buoyant, then sinking, then buoyant again, not desperate for air but gasping all the same. i cannot let this thing relax, there are no puncture holes to release these pockets of excess, i simply must live through it, experience it fully, in this moment i exist as the emotion, i am overtaken, without agency, without choice, until the water dissipates and i waft softly back down to the road below.

my gift of vision will begin to shake and then i know it is coming. like a silent earthquake inside of me i find a comfortable place to stare off into while i leave my own experience to go visit the others. i drift away, very far, and i find myself in a place closer to dreams than what i know to be real. i become a tool, some sort of mirror finally able to receive the line of light, reflecting it off of me and passing it on, now a part of something higher, i have done a job, though i dont know what for. an astral shape in the sky takes form and i am a key point. a new feeling is granted to me and i vibrate now, higher, shorter, faster, and i return with more grace. it has all been released, and i am calm, and so i sleep.

ive always had it, this thing. ive had it so long its what makes me myself. its who i am, what it is is what i, am, me, it is me. i will never know what will happen next, but i know that i will always have this thing. i will carry it with me on through life and in to death, it is the very essence of my being, my nature, my soul, it exists in the body for now because that is where i am, and when i leave, it, too, will leave, with me, where it belongs, belonging because we are the same, we are one thing, and to know me is to know this thing.

genuflecting before the entrance, i kneel down in the closet as to do it in the dark. i know that i am safe because i cant even see myself, i see nothing, save the soft glow of the screen on my torso. just two hours ago i told my wife i was done, but here i find myself again, already. i think about the time i came into the woods and found you there, resting on a fallen tree, howling to the leaves above us. i finished quickly and continued on before dark. i set up camp in a blissful peace, solitary and quiet. here i find myself again. panting softly, slightly salivating. its over quickly. my body goes back to regenerating the things that have been killed off, regulating itself as it always does. i caress it in a separate way from my mind, to highlight the difference, to give it thanks.

2/18/25

the dust gathers on my desk, the food scraps pile on the floor, and so we wipe, and so we sweep. i erase the to do list from the whiteboard and realize that these tasks are not necessary. they are not vital to any part of me and so i have granted myself a bit of freedom. a breath of fresh, winter air enters through my nostrils, goes down my throat, cool and minty, and i exhale through my open lips. tranquilidad en la forma del cotidiano.

i am touched in the shower by music from over 10 years ago, it is my sensei, it has danced on my body and jabbed my pressure points without my knowing. i am crying, heavy tears, on the porcelain floor. when i am conscious enough to know what has happened i am amazed. you thought you need lower your inhibitions to feel such a way? fool! ignorant buffoon, you see now the power of life, feel now the immensity of crushing emotion, pancaked on the ground, the seat of the world unmoving on top of your meaningless body. feel its power! know that it is impersonal towards you, know too that it will never change! unique? just like all the others. be moved, do not be misled.

at this tender, young age of mine i imagine the future and reminisce on the past. i spend much time being present. most of it is, it has been, i am succeeding in the way that i was told to. when i left that dark place and found myself covered in light once more, it became clear. you cant think clearly back there, nobody can. i simply move forward on my own timeline. no more time is spent on what i have learned i should be doing, i follow my intuition as is, i listen to my wife and dear friends. i have so much more time. nearly two months have passed and i am beginning to see that this passing of time is much longer than before. much less troublesome.

2/4/25

we woke up today, and that is enough reason to give thanks. whether its thanks to the body, thanks to the earth, or thanks to the most high, gratitude is welcomed. a prayer is due. because this experience of ours has been allowed an additional moment, let us give thanks.

no, i am not a religious man, but time has shown me that i am not guaranteed anything other than the eventual end. and i prefer to be in the dark regarding that date. and so i vow to not use any more time hastily, i will not expect a thing to come my way, i live my stoic life with peace and alignment, ever-evolving, forever advancing higher, higher, higher. i speak calmly unto others, whispered statements of a calming nature. we have found ourselves in a new day and we are here together. praise be! let us celebrate.

there is a spirit amongst me and it confines me to obedience. i take their orders, chained to their guidance, or at least what i presume their course of action to be. it has led me to hate, and i am confused how i get here. still, i push on. i venture across sea and land in their honor. it leads me to violence now but i have done too much to reconsider my faith. i exist in a box, my life for the sake of the spirit, a vessel of flesh and nerves so they may feel through me. i stretch my parameters inch by inch, day by day, until i am very far from where i once began. i am the father, the son, the holy spirit, all in one, i am an organic machine, more powerful than any physical being, any combination of elements you could string together, fool, i exist in the mind and feed on the weakness of the lessers. sacrilege! i banish thee from this land and from my sight! to hell with your soul!

certainly there are people out there able to weave these together. pitch your tents, light your fires, bring these two camps out of their bases and into the field, under the opened night sky, to lay near one another, to watch the stars in the same space.

2/3/25

it just didnt work. no funcionó. stop trying to rationalize it, im tired of hearing some farfetched reason as to why it didnt work. it doesnt change the outcome and therefore i dont care, in fact i detest sitting through the thought process of why. im out of fucks to give. i know enough to know that it didnt work and for me it stops there. im leaving.

i think when im tired and i think when im rested. thinking makes me hungry, depletes my tummy, and so then i think for food. i think when i wish to remain present and i think thought bubbles inside my ongoing thoughts. i think and i think and i never figure anything out. i change my actions and think about if they are working. kind of. sometimes. and then i change them further or i relapse or something in between. still, thinking.

2/1/25

with one keystroke the course of history became changed forever. at first, just a hair, millenia later, lightyears away from the original course. even still, the endpoints exist in the same seed. its as simple as that. free will, the illusion of choice, its all null. like the dome over springfield, we are all perpetually stuck in this teeny tiny little pocket of space time. we are a petri dish, probably one of an infinite amount, our lab director unknown, perhaps our existence only taking place during the night shift while the janitor locks up and the security guard lazily roams the hallways. we may be unsupervised.

in less than ten generations we have modernized the world. comparative to humankind, our incline of progress and development is so rapid the upward trend is strong and stiff at an 89+º angle. near infinite growth. but i wonder where that cap will lie. the hardest part of climbing the interior walls of the invisible forcefield is discovering how to. getting our feet off the ground. jetpacks follow suction cups and before we know what to do with all the knowledge in our big monkey brains we have hit the apex, the exact center of the direct middle of the highest point in our ceiling. and so we carry our stone tools with us while we fly to the top and begin to smash.

it has only taken me these last few years to dial in my next level of relativity. through my three decades i have developed and attained the necessary empathy it takes to see any living person alive with me now as a sibling, on any corner of the globe. still elders and youngins, yes, but only in the scope of my life. the course of history tells us things swirl and change like avalanches and volcanoes, momentum is the root of any pinpointed moment. its not when, its how? and its only after analyzation can we determine the how accurately. the biggest changes take one, specific, movement across multiple generations, without exception. yet. there will always be multiple movements at once. we exist in chaos, we grow and die, birth and kill, curse and love, inside the walls of our experiment.

if el libertador existed alongside napoleon, was influenced by him, who do i exist beside? if the ugly american men of four generations ago scalped the natives and interacted with mexicans more like spaniards, how will we be looked at in the hindsight of future generations? how was i afforded the opportunity to be so soft? will this planet become uglier before it begins to blossom again? will humanity be around to see this happen with our colorful eyes? what good does it do to try, try to do anything, if i cannot see the outcome, have i been brainwashed into thinking that effort is futile without immediate validation or was i doomed to be this way, is my life a waste if i continue only to work for the man and then ponder aimless thought processes, trying to quench this thirst, trying to extinguish this forest fire inside my head, only thinking of useful things in an individual, invisible way, while my concrete, impactful actions are done in vain because they are pointless, pandering only to the humanmade world of profit, gains, money, greed, and indulgence? i am very aware that i can begin any change whenever it is that i want to, but why cant i move on to my fourth decade yet, i want to cross that made up line of a new age and convince myself easier that a new phase has begun. will i look at things differently then? what will have changed, inside and out?

1/30/25

you dont have to go there anymore. you dont need to feel that way, ever again. it was when i was able to avert my gaze. in the captains seat, i leaned back as far as i could, my head squished into the headrest as far as it could go. no...no...no...slowly shaking my head no, i would shut my eyes tight and the tears would trickle down. my left hand gripped to the wheel so tight the leather a different color, so much previous anxiety some of it frayed and missing. my right hand methodically changed the gears, my left, again, steering me into the abyss. i had no way out. no matter what i did, i would find myself swirling into the center of the typhoon again, down the drain, no matter that my thoughts were set on avoiding it- my actions said otherwise.

but something happened and i was then able to look up instead of down. i found i didnt have to do that to myself anymore.

im going to show you something. it might be a little bit shocking, but i love you enough to show you. it will not make sense to you right now, youre young. but i want you to remember this moment, remember this thing im about to show you, and return back to it throughout your life. i have learned many times over that through the years, your viewpoint on the same, unchanging thing matures and fills in all on its own. an opinion should never be rigid. never let the cement set. shhhh, its okay sweetheart, come to me, thats it, com'ere. i will always be here for you, all the things that i will teach you will be within you, even when you cant remember them. you were built on them, just as i was. you raised yourself on these things. and when i cannot be there for you physically, remember all of the times you explored on your own without asking anyones permission, without even  thinking twice, those times daddy watched you from afar, there when you needed it, if you ever did. you have always been brave. i know you will continue to be brave. okay, are you ready? i might not be able to answer some of your questions. as old as i am, i still have many myself. experiencing something without knowing why it can be is a very unique and special thing. okay honey, follow me.

something happened to me. something on the outside changed and something even bigger on the inside changed after. its still mysterious. im still moved by something, but ive slowly ricocheted away from the path i was used to traveling. or i might just be floating above it.

1/26/25

surely it was just a standard occurrence for the time of year, not entirely expected, yet even less of a surprise, but it sure feels self inflicted. im choosing to hold on to that little bit of serendipity and nobody can tell me otherwise.

i caught the dreaded norovirus. bedridden for two days, i vomited in a disgusting way, hot, smelly liquid with fragments of my last meal from the day before. the kind of puking that seizes up your entire upper body, your torso sore the next day because those muscles are not used in regular life, they are reserved for something like this, something like the vein popping, cold, forehead sweats of pushing out this bile, seven successive heaves without breath, a 12 hour break of poor napping and turning over, then the bell dings and you find yourself on the floor of the ring again for another round. an awful, awful time spent fighting and waiting. still, here i stand again, a little skinnier, a little weaker, but here indeed.

i watched my coworkers work together through my phone screen to cover my shifts. altering start times and positions, switching and changing, through my fevered daze i would squint one eye open to see how it was working out. i could cry of gratitude. immobile and ghostly, i accepted the help. there was no other option. in my dreamlike thoughts i focused on what its like to be in a family. helping out your fellow members just because they need it. i was pulled away, again, from my solitary mindset, a sometimes impenetrable one man army.

but it is still not at an acceptable place. my wife cried sad tears on this same night as she felt i was still too independent even in my debilitated state. i dont know how to care for you in the ways i was taught. and that hurts me. and so i rethought everything i had gone through just a few hours prior.

none of it is in vain. none of it is for nothing. there is a clear difference here, a clear shift from the past. there is nothing to cloud me or my judgement. i brush these things off like crumbs from the counter, they fall into my cupped hand, i bring them over to the new pot and plant them in the soil. they are fed with water now, not poison. i apologize one time and then we speak about how we want to move forward and when we look behind us we see the horizon changing.

1/22/25

it sits on my chest when i wake up, i am being pressed back down into the mattress and so i turn off the alarm without registering anything else. two hours later and i have missed my appointment. whoops. the lack of self control is concerning, but i know that i am still in this transitional period. i need to become used to this new normal and regain my health, my vitamin levels, my sleep schedule. the grogginess and irritation are getting to me, though. i dont always like my responses or lack of effort. in fact i never do. whatever. my favorite response lately: whatever.

do i even like what im doing? ive got the blues and ive got it bad. its that existential variety of it, its the questioning of the root i am dug in to. what the fuck am i doing here? what have i done to get to this place? do i like what i do on a day to day basis? i never have plans. i never have goals. it will change, im making it happen, i believe this, truly. but this thing on top of me has a deceivingly large mass and i am warping into this tunnel, inverting my reality. i am flipped upside down and turned around. its just a mirrored reality. i remain calm, i still know where everything is. its just like looking in the mirror and trying to move left but you move right instead. i will become used to it, it will only take me time. all ive got is time.

i need a plan. i am self conscious of my actions and i feel i need to justify everything to everyone. i spill too much, i have always been this way, but i must meditate on things for myself before i vomit these words on to them. puking these thoughts. how long until i claim sobriety? how long must i go for? who gives a shit? its just for myself. that man over there, he has a liquor bottle with a skull and cross bones tattooed on his arm and he uses that same arm to bring a real bottle up to his lips, he sucks this thing dry and becomes stupid, he wriggles his serpent tongue deep inside that thing and licks every last drop, he is dumb now, his buffoonery is disturbing the peace, he stinks, oh great, hes soiled himself. why get the tattoo then? what was the point?

routine and discipline, some sort of direction. doesnt need to be an explicit plan. working towards something. no wonder i cant hang out with anyone, ive got too much to figure out for myself anyway! i cant be social in this state.

i continue to wander throughout my house, building legos, watching movies, eventually returning to this computer to type these troubles.

1/16/25

each morning now begins a period of sacrifice. i whittle myself thinner, shaving the excess and calloused bits of me. peeling and shaping upwards, a human sculpture, invaluable. forever unfinished. its minor, but i know, and feel, now, how many, minor changes add up in a major way. i am mature enough to know that one major sacrifice does not guarantee even the most minor change, either. i know these things are up to the sculptor. i trust his artistic vision, the direction in which he steers this ship. the fear inside reminds me that weather on the open sea is unpredictable, but there is not a cloud in the sky in this moment and so he is shooed away once more below deck. cross that bridge when you get there.

i shed these things because i wish to become stronger. the morals i carry in my pack went contrary to my behavior. and i dont want to do that anymore. limiting my hypocrisy is a new offshoot of this broad goal and its welcomed into the new family tree.

patience is key, my patience a virtue. its never left. this road is long and it grows longer when i sprint, shorter when i jog, shortest when i stroll. paradoxical, perfect sense. and i am now, again, in my right mind. my morals feed me, my discipline satiates my thirst, i trust whatever sustenance ive brought along to be the correct amount needed.

i continue on with my abandoning of unnecessary things, bullshit, tonteria. i cant handle the cloudiness they bring. i cant handle the internal shame of my open and frothing mouth, my horizontal, achy, pudgy body on the couch before the oppressive glow of the tv, rolling eyes, ears assaulted with the gossip and drama of 19 year old tiktok kids. what the fuck am i doing here? im passed this. rid me of this place, rid me of these people. amen.

i am unable to handle many things...unsure of the exact reason, forever going between nature and nurture, i decide to abandon it all. i see my father in me, i see my mother. i reflect on my upbringing and early life before the true complication of living and know ive had it good. i regret nothing, i do not blame myself for my decade of indulgence- but a decade is sufficient. yes, ive had enough. patience, my child. thank you, father. thank you mother. thanks to my brothers, my wife, my daughter, my future child. this version of myself is here to stay, i feel that i have sidestepped into a new molt, out with the new and in with the old. shedding the poison and stagnancy. straight edge as fuck, you hear me? you hear me, you stupid fucker? get that shit away from me. im better than that now. no, i dont give a fuck what you do. dont bother me. let me devolve into the anger, i lift my foot from the pedal and my tower of clay droops over my muddy fingers again, my dick goes soft, im done trying to build this up in a beautiful way. i gotta be angry sometimes right? yeah, yeah yeah yeah, get the fuck out of here, dont come back. youre not welcome. go fuck off and die somewhere, i wont come looking for you. were not the same anymore. fuck off. fuck you.

1/15/25

a brilliant dimwit. i make my lists for reference, i exacerbate the same routine every few years when i tally the same things over again from an eternally enlarging pool. i dont make them to study, to be preemptive, or to learn. i create these groupings of things i need at the moment the way my wife creates her paintings, it provides an understanding, a completion of the moment. its necessary. and when im finished i push it to the side, peeking at it every few days for a few weeks, until it becomes dusty on my desk and i shove it into the drawer with the rest of them, only ever taken out again when my grandchildren rummage through their dead grandpas things.

they move me, though. i perform this ritual with sacredness. each time, a genuine piece of myself is put into them. thats how it feels. i receive that same relief from dumping out the rock inside the shoe. i may not know names of songs or release dates, but i know the finished product well. if im focused on it, its for a reason. ive held that little moment in my pocket, read it when im down, sniffed it when im weary, and its given me happiness. a momentary sense of fulfillment.

at night i become struck with the thought that i have laid down for sleep thousands of times and someday i will have my last. a random, specific bout of existentialism. it jolts me awake and i think, no wonder im not sleeping well. the liquor used to knock me out, but i dont have that right now. i may not be able to depend on it anymore.

im flirting with the idea of being sober again. i respect myself more when that is my lifestyle. ive woken up from the dream once more and realized how much time i have left, how much more i really want to do. i dont need more distractions. i am distracted enough. ive done the hard part again. theres no need to go back there. theres nothing left for me anyway.

i know that in order to change in the ways that i want to, the things i want to do for myself, the ways that i deserve, i need discipline. i need a lot of it. i know that i have it and i know it well, i know enough to know that its what i want, what i want to give, give to myself and to others, friends, family, strangers. i know its what i want to give to the world and i know it well.

1/11/25

its easy if the time is right. you say youre proud of me, you think its something courageous. you say these words to me but what i hear is that you just dont understand. there was nothing left for me there, i was never meant to stay that long anyway. courage would have had me stick it out a bit longer, break off some more pieces of myself in order to try and tend more wounds, proving to myself that i deserved some medicine. the snake eating its tail, how classic. but i found a way out. i made a private decision and so my exit was silent.

all i had to do was imagine myself taking my old route home and i was sick with nostalgia. ill be done in 20 minutes, what if i went north again instead of south? remember all of those quiet rides through downtown without another soul around? and i thought i could do that now, if i wanted. i have the power to do that. but i didnt, therefore i must not have really wanted to. i didnt even want the nostalgia fix, it happened on accident, i dont know what came over me. i dont yearn for those days, i yearn for the future more than the past anyway. but then why am i here, stuck in this moment?

you taught me love, you taught me how to dance. i cant forget you, i cant erase you. you held me at arms length and i am desperate enough to remember it as an embrace. these feelings are all i have and i am stuck with them, my memories are shrouded and skewed. ive never been able to hold a grudge. youve made your mark, i admit that. i will remember you well.

1/5/25

less than a week and i am already spiraling out of the sky. my back propellor has been shot and my tail has caught fire, the sounds of system failure blare in my ears and i am dizzy from the spinning. i see the ground beneath my feet becoming larger with each rotation. at least it will be over soon. at least ive had a good run.

but like any other dream, there is an escape hatch. like any other dream, if i do not wake up from the impact of my fall, there is a way around it. and ive just found the parachutes. without any prior knowledge of how to fasten or use one, in the blink of an eye i am floating instead of falling. i rock with the breeze amongst the clouds, no longer delirious. the debris from the wreckage has vanished too. my subconscious wanted it gone and so it was done. and all is peaceful again.

i am crawling my way out of this tunnel of shit. a decade living in the sewers! can you imagine? when did these nights of careless fun become a dependency? how could my level of normalcy have declined so far without one, true, sign of concern? yet, in the crash, were you concerned about the weather? the temperature of the water you may have fallen into? in the crash i could not see beyond the chopper walls. in my decline i could not see outwardly, i was stuck, stuck ravaging myself from the inside, confined within my own walls, desperate and rabid, irritated, irate...

yet i weaseled my way out again. i dont know if i have myself to thank or if i have just found myself washed up on a new shore, more beat up than ever. this time around i may have been kicked out, 86d from my favorite bar. maybe they are just trying to help me. maybe i should listen to them. maybe youll never see them again. maybe not.

i could talk myself in circles to the point of insanity about this time. this time, this time, this time, how many fucking times have i felt that this time is different? they are all different. time has taught me that it is a miracle if you are able to slam the door and bolt it shut when you think that you have. there is always another toy to be shoved into the closet, always another page unturned. until there isnt. the most massive changes happen over time, before yourself, when you have suffered enough and you simply dont want to anymore. because you cant anymore.

less than a week and i am doing well. i have trouble getting to sleep and when i wake up i am still tired. but less than a week is not long at all. i have kicked the habit. not the bucket.

12/31/24

the difference is the perspective. up to now ive been on the other side of the glass, looking at myself in the two way mirror, seeing only my reflection and its disheveledness in the empty room behind me. that pathetic glance i give myself, unsure of how weve let this happen again. you can see it in my eyes, ive lost control and theres no way around it. man up. face the turmoil youve created for yourself. it will pass and then you will do it again. pity.

watching myself make faces at himself in what he thinks is a mirror is a sad, scary thing. it is deeply uncomfortable to me and so i am choosing to leave it behind. this is the difference, ive separated me from him and this is how i got into the observation room, i watch from behind the secret window because we are not the same. he stays there for now, until i shake my head one last time, turn my back on him, and leave for good. ive seen enough. pack it up boys.

and the difference is the word choice. i am not experiencing a death, i am not mourning anything, i am experiencing a birth, a new shot at life. and nobody did it for me except myself. i am choosing control, stability, life with less suffering. ive suffered enough at the hands of myself...the evolution of myself continues. up and on to the next stage.

ive spent a decade here. 10 long, excessive years. ive chiseled away at myself for longer than id like to admit. what started as childish fun has long since turned to inappropriate behavior for an adult to have so constantly. ive let these things define me for most of this time. ive shed many of them already. this is the final boss, the real kicker. the last big challenge i have in my way. im home free after this one, baby.

i have it all! i have it all dont you see? what more could i ask for? what more could i be given that i desire? the rest of it doesnt mean shit! im a fool to act so recklessly around it, im an imbecile and an idiot, im a fucking drunk is what i am. what i was. of course i see this, i recognize this and feel it, every morning i wake up thinking i should stop and sometimes i do. but i come crawling back because its all around me, always around me- i just want to have a little fun too. the addiction tickles my brain just the right way and i close my eyes and stomp my foot in pleasure, my right hand reaches for the bottle, my left for the glass, and i wake up the next morning and look myself in the mirror, confused again, disheveled as ever. im not risking it anymore. i thank god and the universe im still here with my belongings. ive got it all.

tonight i celebrate the life ive lived thus far. tomorrow i celebrate the man i am choosing to become from here on out. im doing this shit for me.

12/11/24

and i keep falling back on this idea, quality of life. what does it matter? i convince myself, from the original meaning of the word, that it literally means nothing. i am alive. what else could i need? at the end of thoughts and at the beginning of others, lately, this is how i feel. but somewhere in the middle i am reminded of the common serfs who killed themselves with labor for their lords, those who viewed this life and its lived experience as hell, and death, upwards to heaven, as freedom from it. i think of how many people alive in this very moment feel some iteration of that same thought. i lean back in my chair, shake my head and exhale, wide eyed, for i have just touched an existential thought again. it electrocutes me away and shows me its impenetrability, it slaps me on the wrist and places the dunce cap upon my head. i am just a silly, little, mortal man. and that is a very deep thought.

skirting around the center of this black hole, far enough away from its gravitational pull, i think about generational memories, specific and intense enough to imprint themselves into the dna of a species, kin evolving with a real life moment from an ancestor as a new part of their foundation, carried on for an eternity. moments that led to a kill, moments that narrowly avoided death, moments that froze them solid and shook their vision and stole their breath away. i wonder how many of them ive lived through. maybe none. i wonder how many are inside of me and i believe that there are many. my quality of life only matters if i am alive to reflect on it, right? if i ponder the thought long enough, the predator will come and eat me anyway. id rather focus on other things.

still sitting back in my chair, i look down at the new flabs on my sides. my tiny little love handles. i am still a skinny man, but age and marriage have certainly tacked themselves on to me in physical ways. the immediate reaction is normal: i should get rid of those. but then the mental wheel spins back to that damn thought again, that pointless, enormous can of worms that is me thinking about my own quality of life. it spirals through the drinking, the smoking, the lack of exercise, the diet, all of the things that a billion other people alive in this very moment are thinking alongside me. i snap back to whats in front of me, this fleshy skin, and do not have a clear answer. i am a good thinker, but i am not a good finder. i dont know if i care about the quality of my own life enough.

life for me is similar to watching a youtube video which just so happens to take a lifetime to get through. my viewpoint is too far inside my head to see as good as i could, to hear, or touch, or be as present as possible. my chair is near the back of the classroom and i am either too embarrassed or just dont know how to tell the teacher that i think i might need glasses. i am dumb in many ways, sure. i accept most flaws. yet, i know a lot of the outward stupidity stems from a lack of resources. or, a simple lack of motivation. the stewing of thoughts will always turn negative eventually. ive noticed myself becoming more defensive as time goes on. im sure its related, exacerbated by the fatigue of repetition over so much time without any remedy.

each day, when i begin to feel like i really want something to be over, so i can go on to the next or back home to my bed, i want to hold myself calmly and gently and remind him that i should not be rushing through anything. i dont have any real regrets and i do not want to realize that i do regret things when i am in the twilight of my life, certainly reflecting much heavier than now. it fascinates me to think about how much i will have written by then. these writings are my lifes work. i wonder how many millions of words i will have said. i wonder how many trillions of thoughts i will have had...

12/6/24

i shuffle these papers around hastily, trying to organize them, to give them some type of order. i cant do it all myself. im on hold with the healthcare provider while i take a photo of my passport for irs authentication, im thinking of upcoming christmas shopping and all the money we have just spent on our vacation which turned out to only be a change of scenery- extraordinarily beautiful, but not actually a break from the constant movement and fatigue at all. coming home was a vacation from the vacation. i bow my head and get on my knees, clasping my hands together and shaking them at my coworker, beyond grateful for covering my shift today. i look at the mess ive made this morning. there is progress here, id be a pessimist not to see that. the last thing i am to myself is a liar. yet, progress itself still requires cleanup.

the bad guys in old movies and tv shows only had one goal and that was to stop their opposition, to kill them or send them away, so they could continue on with their badness. the protagonist was just the inverse, overthrowing the forces of evil so society could live peacefully. the stories i saw were so clear, the arrow on the compass so stiffly sure of itself. these people have one goal their whole lives. after that, it was smooth sailing or death, both endings impossible to interpret differently.

getting older is thinking about what the bad guy does while he drinks his morning coffee, humanizing him a little bit more, not cringing at the thought but embracing it. im 28 and this is deep. with age i have found the need to humanize everyone, imagining them in all of their endless moments of vulnerability, thinking of the baby versions of who they present themselves to the world as today, legs kicking the air, thumbs in toothless mouths of fleshy pink gums, smiling and laughing because some stimuli pushed that button within their new bodies, and there is no other outcome. 1+1=2. but this mess, this mess of paperwork and lost files, abstract answers drawn from deep in my memory bank, requesting information and wait times. it is anything but clear.

in search of a moments rest, i look back through my photo library. i go back one year, two years, ten years. i can go day by day for whatever time period i want, thankful that i began to take pictures as soon as i became a conscious individual. memories of childhood are only in the mind. i flip through this digital photo album and im expressionless. away from my body, my eyes are swirls of black and white, hypnotized by reliving a moment in my life so far, remembering only the good and the neutral, never the negative. but for some reason, my getting older is also erasing nostalgia. if i look for too long the only expression i will end up giving is slight disappointment and the need to do something else. i dont want to go back in time. my life was simpler, therefore "easier", but i would rather have this mess in front of me. the thing i would not trade for anything is my knowledge from lived experience. it is the currency of life, and i am a rich man.

12/5/24

this time i approached the sea without fear. this time i was capable of mirroring the kids i watched run straight into the water, headfirst into the oncoming waves, salty and sandy and smiley. i guess i have moved through enough time to see past the frightening part of the ocean. the everstretching horizon of blue, straight and eternal, does not pierce me the same way. instead, i see only beauty. i watch the water breathe and recede back into itself, the channels carved out on the wet sand like veins carrying oxygen through the bloodstream, like tentacles and spiderwebs, pure, perfect nature. the uneven surface shifting its weight at the most methodic pace, everchanging, the sun bouncing off of it, there is a glitter in my eyes when i watch the this show instead of my typical seasickness.

remember when you were a kid? i see these little humans, dry as a bone, run straight into the frigid ocean without blinking. let me compare that with myself; when i have the slightest change of temperature in a part of my body, i will notice. i will likely make some sort of effort to curb the unbalance and reattain my equilibrium. when did i become so soft? cold feet with the sea breeze on them will force me back inside. these kids are going surfing, for hours, in december. i will think for a few minutes before getting my feet wet. wet socks, sandy toes, the after effects. what age do you become so critical?

my wife and i watch the dolphins pass through the group of surfers. our mouths drop open like children and we point to the spectacle, watching with fascination. my wife is an angel to everyone she meets. she is the type of person you would remember forever if she chose to approach you, a person who goes out of her way to connect with you based on feeling, pure intuition, she will smile at you and make you smile, she will tell you whatever drew her to you and make you feel your specialness. she will make you remember her just by being herself. she asks the sea for its permission to bring home some shells for her brother, another person born on the coast, another childhood spent playing in the salty waves. the sea responded in a way only she could understand. i look up to my wife every day.

11/27/24

i scare my wife by walking around the house too quietly. i saunter to the bathroom, stop in the hallway and watch her clean. she gives a little yelp when she sees me standing there. ¡me asustaste! i go back to the bedroom and pet the kitty on the unmade bed. she cuddles into the pocket of my armpit and stretches out, we perform the routine like normal, only to have her nip my finger, communicating to me she doesnt like the way im petting her. oh, im sorry. i remove my hand entirely. after a moment of nothing, she looks around, stands up, jumps to the floor and relaxes again, on her own. i shift my gaze to the ceiling and lay there for a few minutes before continuing on with the day.

days like today i am convinced there is something wrong with me. no cracks in my foundation, surely i would feel them, but some days i believe that i really do wake up on the wrong side of the bed. some periods of time, maybe i do this for a couple weeks straight. like going a few days without a shower, i eventually repel those around me from my smell, the stench has become unbearable, even to myself. i wouldnt want to be around me either. and sometimes i dont. but there is no choice.

i cannot always expect myself to be perfect, sometimes my scale is unbalanced and i do not have the capacity to value others over myself or vice versa. its natural, i know this, i teach this to myself as well. it is my own job to keep my sanity. but i cannot help the creeping embarrassment from coming, i act outwardly on the insecurity and feel even more sheepish, my face gets hot from others pointing out things i have only thought in my head up to that point. i become defensive. immediately regretting my childish actions, i retreat out of the spotlight and into my dark corner where i am most comfortable. where i dont have to perform for anyone. nobody will ever know me like myself, i have spent too much time in solitude to ever fully escape...

by law, i have signed away my individuality. i will never regret this. it is something i wanted to do, something she wanted to do, on our own, and therefore together. together is where we have grown and it is where we will stay, blossoming, upward, a sight to behold. spectacular. still, i cant pretend that its been easy. there was no sharp pain, its actually been entirely pleasant. but this period of time is showing me that these shifts of my mindset, the reality that i am no longer living only for myself, well, its been confusing. more turns than anticipated, more stairs to climb. the same way with any process. i am only a man, and a slow man, at that.

it has taken a long time for this transition to settle, i wonder when it will. i said months ago how desperate i was for it. in a manic way, i needed some immediate validation that the challenges were finally coming to an end, a quick fix, and i got it, but the lake still ripples from the effects, the aftershock still rings, and the moon pulls me in and then out in an invisible way. i need this vacation.

in this moment i am a shy color. soft and rubbery, you could tell my feelings just by glancing at me. i wear a disgruntled mask with a confused accent, one eyebrow pointing downwards in annoyance, the other raised up and curled, exposing my general confusion of something inside of me, something i have not yet figured out, something i would pity if i saw on the face of another. ill be strong someday. but that day is not today.

11/26/24

im just standing here. i have no shield, therefore the world happens around me and passes everything through me. it is all taken in by my human experience, everything moves me at least a little, from the smallest mouse to the biggest elephant i sway with these outside forces. living for myself has always been an impossibility.

11/24/24

does it take effort to gain progress? no, i dont believe so, not necessarily. i have made many gains by coasting. i know that i dont value efficiency the same as others. but i am also not unique enough to be alone, i am not naive enough to believe that fallacy. i know my pace and i am comfortable with it. the speed in which i live provides me with the highest concentration of pleasure, enjoyment of living, quality of life. many things happen to me by just coming across them when the time presents itself.

i take these moments in my cupped hands, i do not reach out for them but they are offered to me, what first strikes me as sheer chance reveals itself to be an intentional gift, perhaps sometimes a reward. i cradle them gently, careful not to crack the egg, i observe them with fascination and admiration, they are things i could not possibly produce myself from my human body, these are things forged by the laws of the universe and the higher masters. gratitude sparks and then swells within me. i ingest these things and i gain a new badge. i evolve because i have gained something, not something i have taken for granted, not something i have skipped over in pursuit of false joys. i put my lips to this thing and say grace.

i am down on my hands and knees in the kitchen, i find myself here to inspect the kitty puke: part hairball, part plant. i see the dried, cemented pieces of food on the tiles from the last few weeks of her dinners. i am here to clean the puke, not the dried food, but i realize i could do both things, i remember i am already down here on my hands and knees and do i really want to do such an act again in such a near future? well, i still have to grab the cleaning supplies underneath the sink, across the kitchen. should i stand up and get them and then do the motion of getting down on all fours again or do i crawl on the floor to spare the repetition? why all the thoughts? my head hurts, i better sit down.

when will i become the wise old man? i yearn to be that soft, kind elder. when any expectations of a young mans vigilance are erased. how do i ease my guilty conscience? how can i recalibrate my tolerance, how do i convince my brain that i am not really that bothersome? its a reflected action, i know it, its mirrored in myself due to how i view others. aggressively passive. who taught me to be so alone? so alone with so many social desires? i must have chosen the arena i am caged in. i chose this battle long before i took my first breath.

its not a battle though, kid. there is nothing here to overcome. my desires will be fulfilled because my desires are achievable. i will complete them eventually. i have never dreamed big, i never learned how. my nature was programmed in a way where i am not allowed to be swept off my feet with flashy lights, my legs are both tree trunks with many rings, unmovable, and immobile.

id like to stop waiting. how many times ive said this...but the mind will wriggle out of the clutched hand in any way it can find, squeezing through the tight gripped fingers and white knuckles, it will desire the future, it will regret the past, it will do almost anything else except be content in the moment. it is a sickness, an outcome of this strange environment weve created for ourselves. but this repetitive action of putting words on to a screen, moving my fingers in a way which correlates to the thoughts in my head, fascinating, really, is a way to stay here.

i am drawn to the beauty which i find at all turns. ugliness is not as prevalent as i sometimes think. i am attracted to so many. its a wonderful feeling.

11/18/24

the dogs barks are quieter now, more muffled than before. ive discovered how to seal the windows  shut tight which helps with the noise and the temperature. i was beginning to accept the peep holes into my home life until i found out that the solution for such a breach of my inner peace was already there, accounted for and ready for me to use- the locks, levers, and sealant, right in front of my glossy eyes. it was simply an overlook on my own part. i have taken a very keen note on the idea that my tendency to accept nuisances is much broader when i am fighting some sort of battle inside my own head. i couldnt juggle more than one thing at a time and so the word juggle isnt even applicable- i could only hold one thing at a time, brush off the loud dogs and cars and cold winds inside the house because inside the house is still outside of my thoughts and whatever other fight i am doing to myself inside my body. its like layers of defense inside of a fortress: there are many, and the most important things will be behind the last stronghold, inside the kings quarters. but it is time again to build my layers back up. i refuse to rely on my last two swinging doors any longer. i need some insurance.

the dogs barks are quieter now, though i can actually hear better than before. ive cleaned the gunk from my ears, the boogers from my eyes, the hair from my nose, my head, my thighs. i am presentable again. i hear the dogs barks from behind my sealed windows and it passes through me. i meditate on its sound, it is the metronome for my life in this moment. i am in my most powerful form because i take this outside force into my body and i am unmoved by it. only i may move myself.

the thorn in my side has been gone for 11 days and i do not crave it. like a child moving a lose tooth with their tongue to the point of sharp pain, i once needed the shiver of feeling the dagger gave me. it was a jolt of life, the pressing of a bruise to produce the feeling only a body can give. it was life, in a sort of way. whenever i was bored, or happy, or miserable, i would pat my side and feel the familiar feeling. now, my skin grows over it. there is still the scar from the last battle, surely i will always have it, but it is near fully healed. i look at it and smile, for those days are behind me. i look back on them fondly. i am just a man who accepts maturity and change, growth and wisdom, pleasure and pain.

oh, you think youre better than us now? no sir. so then why are you still here you fuckin punk? im here because its all ive known for the last 12 years. i cant expect myself to up and leave as quickly as ive stopped. fuck you, youre no better than me, meet me outside and show me your bank account, ill whoop your ass and pay you for it you fuckin deadbeat. yes sir, as you wish sir.

there is just nothing left for me here. i have things that cannot be prolonged anymore. i am a husband now. i will be a father in the blink of an eye. i do not cast judgement on those who do the same things which i have done for the last decade, i have just learned the skill of looking the other way, not neglectfully, just emotionless to my own wellbeing. like a cat watching two people make love, i dont know what im looking at. it may as well be a fish jumping up and back down into a river. its nature. its normal. but it is no longer my lifestyle. my eyes dont fixate on it now. my feet just keep moving.

11/10/24

you have no idea how many things can happen in a decade, whereas i am only beginning to find out. unwillingly, i am a critic, a skeptic, a sour-faced monster overflowing with judgement, hypocrisy, bad energy. i shook the beast off of me in order to tame these allegations i silently throw at strangers. only when i begin to know people do i learn their best interests and the negativity dissolves itself like tattered clothing in the river. but it is not a possibility to know all the people i encounter in this way, nor is it something i want to do anyway. so yes, the monkey on my back is gone for now. to curb this thing i yanked it off.

in my own timeline i am at an age where most of the opinions i hear around are deemed immature by my own systems of classification, i roll my eyes and scoff in bad faith, i cant seem to be able to try and hear the strangers out. they are too far away. i am too far ahead. i center myself with too much gravity, the black hole inside grows larger and more dangerous until i realize it was a phantom act from the get go, there are no supernatural forces at play here. put simply, its just quiet self destruction.

what is it im even doing here? at my desk, writing this silly, self loathing meditation? i love myself very much, i love the cat on my lap, i love my wife across the room at her own desk, painting, drawing, watching her show. so what is it im doing here? i should be doing the dishes, folding the clean clothes left over in the dryer, working on my bike that hangs on the repair stand in the garage. it is my day of rest, and i sit here judging and then crying. a strange, strange reality in which i am not proud of. but i shook the beast off of me. and i am proud of that. its just a process. a process of many repetitions inside of one, larger than life process itself.

10/28/24

the long wait is finally over! the moment i see that bulge in my wifes belly will be the happiest day of my life. it will be the first physical sign of new life, the life that she and i created together through our undying act of love, of making and feeling and doing. and it will be the first day of the rest of my own, the life without influence, i will here on out remain over, never under, ever again. how i long for that day.

a lifetime of waiting will have led up to this point. i am a couch dweller, a proud one, it is here where i have meditated, i have learned, i have relaxed, i have had all of my emotions move through me in my moments of stagnancy. and that will never go away. though it would be cruel to my own development to not recognize that the moments of laziness and recovery have prolonged those moments of stagnancy in a way that is, admittedly, excessive. cruel again to not acknowledge how the intake of bad things has taught me many more things. i digress.

i have always been a slow mover, an over thinker. it takes me far too long to do menial things, i have been poked at by loved ones for all of my adult years for taking my time. i have gotten better at taking it less personally. i have gotten better at trying to improve, for myself, and i know that i have. i feel that i have. yet in these slow motions i have been able to guide myself steadily, point myself in the right direction, straighten myself out, brush myself off, hop and skip and keep on moving in that gradual manner. ive made many big decisions. i havent confused laziness for grace in quite some time. and now i am really embracing this feeling that i am in a period of my life in which i will not be forever, one that i will not be in much longer, even if that is still a couple years away, it is that soft landing i speak so much about, my long endured and long await smooth exit. i will not be looking over my shoulder.

ive spoken on you in the past, i have cursed your name and swore you off only to be brought back to your doorstep under the power of my own two feet, when it is late and i am hot you rile me up inside even when you are very far away, you know i will come back to you, still dignified and strong, yet weak to your charm, and so my dignity and strength are overruled. overall i am WEAK. i give you too much credit, though. i spoke on and thought of you as an active threat, the villain with malicious intent, i personified you and you became a creature whom i was scared of. but you are no more powerful than the power i give to you. you do not summon me to your door, i walk there on my own. i may be weak to my vices but i still chose to go there, to leave the comfort of my softly lit home, brave the weather, and snuggle up next to you in your rotten lair. my brain sparked the chain of events that moved my feet. it happened inside. i am an animal, but an animal who can choose. a miracle in itself.

i dont feel that way about you anymore. i will entertain your presence for the next couple of years until my world changes color permanently, until my view on living is shifted in an irreversible way. i will create the two biggest things i have been cultivating all these resources for. oh my god, in hindsight it has all been a part of the plan, the bigger-than-life plan i have been following for myself this entire time. i have lost my faith in free will but it is enlightening, it is all seeing, it is the surrender to God or the Universe, whichever name they go by. i am not trying to escape my kennel. my makers put me inside and buckle me into the backseat and i lay down and purr...im tired of throwing tantrums.

yes, i will eventually throw in that white bar towel, i will wave that flag and be done with it. remember the guilt i felt when talking to the sober man of 14 years, when i admitted to him that i am bound to alcohol...it is true. it is how i make my money. my living. but only lately have i known that i do actually want a way out.

this style of life is too volatile for me.

it is too fast.

10/27/24

give me the living of presence and circumstance, the one that is led by intuition and feeling, the rejection of science and numbers, efficiency and unnecessary improvement...the moment these intricacies are introduced is the moment i lose interest.

yes, perhaps i am a hypocrite with my schedules and planning but this feeling is precise enough to not need extra thought. that is exactly the point: no extra thought. give me the life of no extra thought. please. and if that sacrifices consistency, even some long or short term memory, i am content with that. i am never the same person i was yesterday. it has been a long time since i have fought with somebody over consistency. ive gotten older, ive realized how many zillions of computations my human brain does in a day and i give myself grace and now i have learned to extend that grace to others, not in no mans land, simply in ways that are small enough to not matter. most ways are small enough to not matter. and thinking otherwise is too heady for me to entertain anymore.

i look myself in my own eyes and smack my face hard until i feel the pins and needles, goosebumped enough to be freezing, my skin burning, my throat hoarse and dry, i tense up to the point of shaking, shaking out the sweat and tears and rage, i scream at myself with my own voice: BE HAPPY!!! ITS EASY, JUST BE HAPPY!!! and when the rage secedes i am calm enough again to see that i just had to react on an emotion and by doing so i am free. free for the moment. such is life...que ladilla...it only happens when i am alone...

my wife and i are winning because we continue to compromise on the things that are small enough to not matter. i see this every day. i hope she does too. we begin a night by biking (because i wanted to), and we end the night driving (because she wanted to), both telling each other we should do what the other wants because we love the other enough to compromise. how did i get so lucky? because i deserve it. because she deserves it. because i am happy.

10/26/24

worrier, not warrior. i am a couple years past the age where the brain stops developing and i worry that it has set in the wrong way. like concrete drying before the construction men find that kids signature, there is a crack in some parts of me. splits and offshoots that i have allowed to manifest- many that i have actually created myself. i would never expect to settle perfectly, but i reflect on my emotions, the instability of the sensations inside me, and i grimace. perhaps it is the one thing in life that i regret, not ensuring my own health. but yet how could i simplify this intangible thing i speak of down to actions? there is nothing specific to regret, so how could i hold this regret inside of me? is it remorse? self pity? and then it becomes difficult to hold myself accountable because i dont want to feel like there is anything wrong with me to begin with. it is a confusing thing. but i worry about being this way.

must i really take this path forever? am i too dug in? my eye hurts when i move it. it must be malleable, when has life ever been direct? my tummy hurts and when i go to the bathroom there is blood in the toilet. if my sense of security is constantly dangling by a thread, then i will never be able to remain calm. and if i cant do that, how can i expect to show up for others when they need me? for my wife, or our future kid? hmm? its the alcohol. yes, its allllways the alcohol, lets keep blaming the drinking. i know its a big part of it. of course it is. but you need to grow up and take responsibility for yourself. i need to grow up. i am responsible.

next to the regret, i hold an insatiable thirst. it is undeniable and undying in its nature. when all of the mirrors are angled correctly, when the path of its light shines up into my head, i am there. i am alive with meaning, viciously in sync with the world, yes, yes, yes!, there is nothing to stop me. i move around until it explodes out from inside and i gasp and sigh, drinking in my breaths, vibrating to the frequency thats all around me, the one thats always around me. in these moments, i am in love with who i am. i will always love who i am. i just need to stop being so damn cloudy about it. let the ray of light reach me all the time, move that to the top of the list, priority A1- if i dont have that feeling then i am going to think that life is a drag. like there is something wrong with me...which is where im at now.

though at this point i am in the middle of a cleanse. the season is changing and i am cleaning the bedroom, the kitchen, the bathroom. slow and deliberately. there are tangible things that i see changing, internal and external, i know only a fool would not realize that different actions create different emotions. emotions just need time to catch up.

10/22/24

only with distance can i see the severity. distance makes the decision obvious, a real no brainer, like it wasnt a choice, but necessity. can i really tell how sick i was while inside of the sickness? no, only time away from toxicity can show me that. inside the sickness i am too preoccupied with other things. the main one of them being, simply, just to get through the day. to begin the slow process of recovery alongside willfully injuring myself later on in that recovery, to prolong the closure of the gash. alcohol can only help so much. the body needs to heal on its own. an open wound will become infected, eventually.

away from the sickness, i realize how quickly time heals. what was once a daunting, intense, and long road is now just happening around me and inside of me. i dont need to lift a finger and my body sews itself back up, it does even better when i supply it with the correct nourishment, a reasonable amount of rest, and flex my muscles in exercise, becoming stronger instead of weaker. the pounding of my head, the belt around my brain, these things are lesser too. not absent yet, but fading, no doubt. another trip around this tricky course and i am shown that living can be easy. at least, easier.

my pain is my own. my pain is more my own when i have no external reason for feeling it. now that the long storm has passed, the wet skies of monsoon season have dried, im looking around for things to blame and the clear, calm puddles of water all around me show me only myself. i cannot blame my wet cheeks on the rain anymore. my headaches arent because of the noise, or the wind, or the threat of falling trees, tornadoes, and wild animals. no, there is nothing. it is just me, me and my wife, we find each other again in the calm and we hold each other tightly and gently. we communicate without words, because we have been through the same thing. when we look into each others eyes, i know we feel the same thing...

i am a boy who wishes to become a man. i appreciate dangling the carrot in front of myself to propel myself forward, i think that it brings me great progress within myself and my journey. for me, for my wife, our future children and pets. how precious to remember as a child i thought so much of this life would be coasting! work and pleasure, tv and exercise. i thought this way because i could only see from the outside. completely unmatured, in the most basic stages of development. the naivety. i never imagined how people must be feeling doing these things, i never could have guessed how much the mind can race without control, i never knew how quickly emotions could change, how building on top of unstable foundations, with incompatible materials,  in directions that gravity will not support, how fast things can come crashing down. sometimes without warning. i see now that nothing is a coast. even sailboats have a rudder. ah, yes, the rudder coming back. its always the same thoughts.

now, i eavesdrop on people behind the bar, i listen to their troubles and their joys, on my bad days i listen to them out of jealousy, how can you talk so confidently and normal when i am ridden with anxiety? i envy how i perceive them. but that is precisely it. its just a perception of them and projection from me. im sure i am silently projected on all of the time. i meet with a hundred strangers every week. i am on stage, performing and fulfilling. like any good actor, i always do my best to appear normal for them. only sometimes do i fail, breaking character, dragging them into my own worries for a minute. but the same is done to me. it helps a lot to know that we are all happy and sad and anxious and calm at different times. the ocean is always moving. a river is never the same way twice. there is only how we feel in the moment in which we are focusing on it. and most of the time, there is no focus on it. it is fluid, its just being alive around other people.

10/21/24

i cut the mustache from my face to remove the mask. looking at myself in the mirror, i appear younger, chubbier, a little less confident. but i am naked. i present myself to myself the way i want to present to others: attentive and vulnerable.

my hairs dont ever stop growing, for some reason they have no cap. like an infestation, like mold, they creep over my skin and devour my body. the hairs over my upper lip felt like tentacles, or the serpents of medusas hair, i personified them and gave them too much credit of individuality. they are just hairs. they are  already dead. removing them feels fresh again, especially when i realize ive had the mustache for all of these recent hardships. it really doesnt mean anything, but the symbolism i choose to embrace makes me feel lighter and more driven.

i want to wake up sober and well rested. i want to be clean-shaven and boring, routines within routines, itineraries inside of schedules, i have lived long enough to know that planning is my preference, yet i continue to live a somewhat disorganized life. going to bed when i want, waking up when i feel good enough to. smoking the black smoke and drinking the poison...its tiresome. i tell myself this every morning. every single morning. and now i feel that ive turned another page. ive cut the mustache and i am ready for change again. not for the first time, not for the last.

my wife made me a necklace with my name on it, the kind you would make in elementary school for your best friend. its a choker. i remember the necklace she wanted to buy me from venezuela, how badly i wanted to wear a tight collar around my neck as another symbol of my loyalty to her. over a year later, i much prefer this one, somewhat glad the other didnt work out. because she made this one for me. it was our first gift from wife to husband. i wear this collar proudly, alongside the ring on my left hand.

and so it is very obvious that i look different. take a look at me and your brain will notify you that i have changed my appearance. ask me about it, and i will tell you. i got tired of it. my wife made it for me.

last night, i listened to your monologue. you spoke at me and i listened, you painted such vivid pictures in my brain! i felt your emotion, your pain and depression coinciding with this urgency, this desperate motivation intertwining with excitement and fear. you spoke of perspective, as light shines through a prism, different colors at different angles, intensities, and shapes. and i sat there and imagined these images in my mind and felt like a kid watching a movie. you moved me with expertise, it was not controlling strings, it was more like a performance on stage. i was whisked away without warning.

the windows are open again and it is 80º in the third week of october. the breeze on my back feels great. i feel sick and weak, i have that uncontrollable little cough in my chest which tenses me up out of nowhere. but im okay with it. i accept it. i would just like to be stronger again. and so i decide to work towards that, taking a little control back. working on my vulnerability and tapping into my emotions with more purpose. less volatile and unpredictable. i am at my best when i love myself fully. with love comes confidence and serenity.

10/19/24

turning my minds eye inward, like spongebob looking at plankton controlling his brain, i move quickly in a tight circle. who controls me? i try and look over my shoulder far enough to see inside of myself, but it only strains my muscles, exacerbating the soreness they already feel. i am trying an impossible thing. i know that in order to see what i need, i must relax. and breathe. and close my eyes. and feel.

i move through different phases of these sensations. there is a tightness around my head which is out of my control. being constrained makes me anxious, but already i see myself improving on the level in which i let this thing affect me. it has been tough, but i know that i am making it smaller and smaller, that the belt around my head is loosening notches every occurrence. yet even typing this out, i see that i do not give myself the credit of control, it is the credit of adaptability producing a preferred outcome. if i were more confident, it would be me that is loosening the notches of the belt. but, given how i am, at least right now, the belt is its own entity. i see myself getting stronger and making this belt loosen itself, but it is not me who does the action which provides the relief.

the wedding ring on my finger is a marvelous thing. i learn through experience which actions are uncomfortable to do while wearing it. and i will adapt to this as well. i am not poor in giving myself credit, though i see, through reflection, how i may be looking at some situations from a less-than-optimal angle.

is imagined pain not still pain? if i think that i feel it, i feel it.

10/17/24

here she comes again, that tension in the head, the cerebral anxiety hug...ive used these words before and so i wonder if ive been here before. im sure that i havent. its similar, it was a long time ago, its at least a different flavor. there are new circumstances, some stacked on top of ones from years before. either way, it is still all encompassing.

there is a cost to pay for life experience. in fact, there are many costs. i was built to perfection, i blasted off without flaw. but as i have continued my trajectory, for all this time, i have made it through various fields of debris, extreme temperatures in one direction and then immediately in the opposite. as i fly through this life, the panels of my rocketship shake themselves off, beaten to death, my spacesuit is punctured and i am less protected than i ever was before. i am older than i ever was before. it will never not be true. i have used these words before too. i think the same things that i thought back then...different flavors of the same, original thought. more beat up. more time to gain all of this hindsight.

the pool of tears gathers behind my eyeballs, behind the sinuses, they gather around the place where my spinal cord meets my brain. they crowd the intersection and dumb me down. i revert inwards, i use the same words again, i move through life slower, again, and i have no choice but to live passively. for this moment. i stab my throat with my knife, just to get the air out, and then the tears come with it, oozing out through the tiny hole. they cry for themselves, my eyes stay dry this time. i am sick of them. like a parent, i ignore these children of mine and hope that their energy has been drained for now. i will deal with them again as soon as i need to. but i am tired.

i was asked by a stranger the other day, if emotions rule my life. i wasnt sure i heard them correctly so i replied im sorry? before they ask the same thing, the same way, in the same pitch. i laughed and said of course they do. her date felt the same way as me. i did not get her answer. i didnt care to. i was at work, behind the bar, doing my job, and i was slapped in the face with existentialism. it usually annoys me, to drag me into these conversations, but i felt she pushed a bruise on my soul...and so this time i actually appreciated the question. but it still made me sore.

i try to remind myself every day that i can choose how to feel. the toughest part about this is that i dont even know if i believe it. im trying to internalize a new truth, one that ive never held before, as a sort of weapon against my anxiety, or sadness, or just plain lack of health, or upkeep, or motivation. whatever way i want to put it, it is all the same. i know that i believe part of it, but i have lived all of my life being moved by the waves, never doing anything drastic for myself except for moving the rudder, slightly, on my tiny raft. i have no motor. i dont even have paddles. and so to imagine myself brushing off a felt reality, throwing it to the wayside, and choosing a different course, it feels wrong. it feels alien. it is too unreal for me to picture that being feasible and not just a scene in a movie, or, worse, a joke, and so my emotions laugh at me and i hang my head and go back to accepting them. i am not weak, i am just a passive liver. i am an observer, an empathizer, and appreciator. but i guess that these things come with a heavy cost.

i do not feel sorry for myself. i have not written while feeling sorry for myself in years.

10/16/24

in the middle of my head, slightly to the left, just off kilter from center, i feel this thing. it begins as a tingling. then there is a little pressure, like my brain is being boxed in, unable to pump its thoughts through. in turn this makes me feel trapped and, in turn of this, it makes me anxious and dizzy, like the fight or flight is kicking in again. but i simultaneously feel stupid. i feel forgetful and dumb, like i would rather lie still on the floor and be killed than attempt to fight. uncoordinated and idiotic. it is a little mean with myself.

but this thing in my head is new, i know that i have never felt it before. and so it is scary. on my worst days i believe it to be some parasite, as if somehow in these last few weeks i developed brain worms. its not the first time i have imagined a malfunction outside of my control ultimately chipping away at me until my eventual, very weak, death. im not a hypochondriac, but i have no idea what is going wrong. sometimes i think its my drinking. other times i think the cigarettes are cutting off the oxygen to my brain. or maybe it is the liquid poison, severing my nerves and making me dumber every day.

my brain splits in two and there is a vacuum created in between the two sides. floating there, i observe my thoughts and discomfort as a passenger, i no longer control them. it is meditative in a way, but it is like floating in a toxic pool. the colors around me are dark, it is smelly and ugly, it pulls me down instead of lifting me up. i do not enter this state intentionally, i am brought here when my body demands the attention. and i can only escape after a few moments of observation. when i exit, i exit confused and nervous, a slight, concerned frown on my face.

inside the vacuum, i am a fetus, immobile and thoughtless, a carbon copy of every other living thing this early on in life. i am back to some natural form of limbo, i can not exit the walls which confine me directly, i must travel back through the portal in my mind to where i just was. these realities exist on different planes. and so i exist on different planes as well.

yes, i am a solitary man, but i am constantly looking for validation from others. not through words actually, mostly through observing them and determining that if somebody else is doing it, then it is also okay that i am doing it. alternatively, if i do not see someone doing something that i am contemplating, it must not be okay to do. i am discovering, slowly, over time, that i lack any ounce of confidence, in many areas. i have plenty. but i also lack a ton.

i am a changed man, though. changed for the better. my wife and i are married. from here on out, any reference to her as my wife will be true in our reality, no longer a hopeful manifestation of writing the word down, waiting for it to become true. now she really is my Wife.

i am a changed man in a changed house. i grew my mustache back longer than its ever been, and i remind myself that its okay if i cut it off again. we have peace in our house. what more could i ask for? i am grateful every day of my life, for so many things. but there is still a creeping sadness that i am not doing something right. alongside my lack of confidence, there is lots of self doubt. but i continue to learn, to shape up in positive ways, positive for myself, in particular. and i do that with the help of my wife. and with the help of myself.

i look forward to getting back on my familiar pace of writing, stretching, reading, enjoying, observing.

10/10/24

i think the storm has finally passed. there is no more water or wind, everything is still again. after so many weeks, the chaos feels over. i am comfortable believing it this time.

in this calm we are able to assess the damages. our home is different than it used to be and so our entire lives are different. that is clear to us. all the misery in the world could not build it back to the way that it was. the way we had hoped it to be. and so we sigh and discuss how to move forward, accepting this new reality that we are in.

we have begun a new period of life together. together is precisely why it is new, our union made it so. we decided to live under the same roof, we decided to commit to each other in the grandest way, and we have made it through some of the toughest challenges we have faced in life yet. and we have done them all together. since the moment of our engagement, it has been an uphill battle. nothing about these last few months have been easy. but when i reflect on how unshaken our relationship has remained, how rock fucking solid we have stayed, i see how good we really have it. we can, we will, overcome anything that we need to when we are together.

honey, filis, i dont know how weve been able to do all of this. you asked me in the car the other day if i had thought about how much shit weve had to deal with, how many situations weve had to work out since weve known each other. and i replied how could i not? its a baffling thing to think about. it feels as if we have scrunched in a decades worth of emotion into these last, nearly two years now, that we have been learning about each other.

i dont know how weve done it. i know how things have happened, but i dont know how we have been able to maintain the same level of love, commitment, respect, and honesty towards each other. the motivation i feel to continue these things is a mystery to me, yet it is there. it is always there when its in regards to you. it is an inexplicable result of love and destiny, it is a cosmic thing that is much too big for us to be able to grasp. but we can feel it. we feel it with our bodies and our emotions, i know that when we stare into each others eyes that we are feeling the same thing. the love we have found in you and me is the highest form of meaning to life that there is. i may not be able to understand the intricacies of this love that we share, but i dont need to. because we have it. i resign to this life we have found and continue to create together, i have no wish to analyze how it is so good, i simply accept it for what it is, count my blessings, give my eternal thanks to the universe for this gift of life, of pleasure and growth- and give my thanks to you, every day, in many ways, for being by my side. for being my partner, my best friend, and in just a few minutes, my wife. i commit myself to you. i choose you. every day we have been together i have chosen to you. and that will never change.

this is actually the second time that filis and i have given our vows. we married each other on our own terms last september in glacier national park, just over a year ago. it was towards the end of the most beautiful, meaningful trip ive ever taken. it was truly magical, objectively magical, not just emotionally. i still cannot believe the things we were allowed to see together. the beauty of this world and the beauty of our relationship maturing into what it has become. i was a sobbing mess when i gave her my vows last year, i could hardly get the words out and i dont know if the sounds i was making even made sense. i wonder if it will be easier this time? i will keep those words that were said in montana where they belong. the words that were meant for only you and me. we have been married for over a year already! and i am thrilled to make it legally official today. how quickly time passes. how many incredible things we have experienced since then already.

10/4/24

to my dear filis,

im writing this through tear-filled eyes. bubblegum is licking the streaks from my cheeks. it is the last night of our family of four being together. we havent seen each other in a day, except for when i got home and you left the bed to go pee. i sat with you in the bathroom, on the stool selenita has laid in so many times before. i asked, is there anything i can do for you? and you replied no baby, its okay. i am in love and my heart is broken.

everybody knows that your wedding should be the happiest day of your life. but how could it be? for us, and for our case. we have spent the last three months just trying to figure things out. just trying to make these transitions doable and livable, we have tried so many things so many different ways and so many different times. and we have done it. we continue to do so. but it was so much fucking harder than we ever could have believed it to be.

the happiest days of my life were the ones i spent falling in love with you. from our first date at the conservatory, after we decided to stop being friends and then to begin seeing each other romantically, to the first night of our idaho road trip last year, the night we watched a comet shoot through the northern lights, the moment we got matching tattoos of. since i have known you, you have always been there for me. we have been there for each other. relationships have their challenges, but being together has been easy. since i began to know you, ive known that ive wanted to know you fully. deeply. and comfortably. we work so easily because we are our own two, separate people, with the everlasting desire to maintain our one, divine, loving relationship. i am obsessed with you.

i want to cry strong tears for you. i dont want to be weak, or scared, or alone. i want to be with you and i know that i am. i want to be strong for you and i know that i am. i am continuously amazed at how supportive we can be for each other, despite how sensitive we both are. yet, under every circumstance, we find room to allow the other their space to be vulnerable. perhaps a little debilitated. that is why we make such a good team.

i want to cry strong tears for you and for our future family. i want to be your husband, i want to be the father of your child, i want to be your best friend, your roommate, your companion, your ride or die, your soulmate- and i know that i am. because that is what we are for each other. because we make such a good team.

10/2/24

its a tragedy. theres no way around it, thats what it is. the only way out is to continue forward and the path in front of you is not easy or pleasant. it is only preferable because it is the logical solution. the safest bet. and after so many days, which have now culminated into months, it feels a bit desperate. when people ask me how its going i tell them, simply, that its heartbreaking. and i am not even the main victim.

my wife has made an ultimate sacrifice for our new life together. i am wary of this because i dont know how i will ever be able to repay her. my brain has created a hole that needs to be filled in because of the situation, like a debt that i now owe. i know love is not ever about repayment, but thats just the way it is. and it is clear to me that this hole will not be filled with a couple hours worth of putting a shovel into the ground and packing it down as a result of my labor. this hole will be filled over time, as wind moves dust and dirt across the earth, the pebbles and sand which fall into this trap will refill what was once whole. though not without a scar. and certainly not without patience.

we have been starved of normalcy, for three whole months. we turned our calendars to the beginning of another and we scratch our heads in astonishment. there is trauma and grief mixed with adrenaline and the most basic, concentrated, primal emotions of sadness, guilt, fear, anger, frustration...even my petty emotions have been highlighted. we are drunk more often, we agree for a liquor break and then cheat the same night, our emotions too intense for us to face sober reality. living in a labyrinth of closed and locked doors, tiptoeing around the house and feeding these beasts their pills and food. i would take the minotaur over these two if i were able to communicate with him even slightly...

and so many tears. we have stained the house with our fits of crying, dirty clothes and wet shoulders, grime and poo and sand and piss, the blood, are already ruining our freshly painted house, the new coats we fought for just two months ago. my, oh my, how many events have unfolded since then. house tours, birthday parties, wedding planning. i am emotional at everything. the smallest little push in the wrong direction and i am crying or angry. how hostile. i cannot take the instability. i cant even balance correctly.

i do feel sorry for myself. i feel even sorrier for my wife. i think we both pity ourselves and each other and these insane circumstances we are currently living under. but, incredibly, we still do not fight. we do not bicker or make things worse than they already are. we listen and support each other and even when we have nothing left to give to the day, we reach to the very bottom of our bag, fueled by the love we have created together, and we dig up that extra bit of care to make the other person feel just a little bit better. if there is a test for marriage, we passed a long time ago. my gratitude will be expressed for the rest of my life. like wind pushing sand, perhaps that is my method of repayment.

once more, a clearly defined period of life has shown me that things happen outside of your control and only after that can you react to it. there is no planning for these major, sometimes cosmic, shifts in life. i am walking through these changes, they do not happen to me personally. it is never good to wait for things to become normal again. that angle of thinking is a tunnel visioned approach, if i am too focused on one thing returning to its most ordinary state, i am, potentially, missing out on everything else that happens as i walk through my life. day to day, minute to minute. its a juggling act. and most days i dont think it is good for me to analyze so deeply. its been a month since i last wrote. and i dont give a shit about that.