Twenty-seven years old

9/5/24

when the boulders kick out from underneath and shake the rocks up at my level, i do what i can to keep my balance and my position in height. naturally, i do not want to fall but even looking down to see what has caused the shift kickstarts the freefall. its exhausting. and climbing back up to my previous level presents itself with a higher degree of difficulty. it should be the opposite, no? not with things like this.

i thought i was a stoic. or so i tried to be. have i failed? how can you fail a theory? a way of living? of course not. there is no race, no correct course or time limit. but it feels like ive failed. well, in that case, you have.

it is a complex thing to be frustrated with someone who is causing pain and annoyance but who is still deserving of so much empathy. i love you but i hate you right now; and that goes for the two of you. im sick of looking up questions on google of how to deal with these things, i thought the internet had all of my answers, that i couldnt be unique enough to need to post a question myself. i wanted to believe that nothing could be that specific...ive become tempted to unbolt the walls defense and let everything fall where it may. im tempted to call them both out and leave out the back, returning to face whatever the outcome may be. but then the empathy strikes and i know for sure that i am in this with them. we are in it together.

9/4/24

looking through the tunnel of windows, across the lake of white cap waves, i see the people sitting  on beaches and benches, embracing the sun and the wind. well, i should say experiencing. embracing is an assumption, though they all look happy to me. and i am happy with them and we are all happy together.

on my bike i move through life and experience with everybody else. i move through time and places and see the infinitely high number of things all taking place at the same time. many things are predictable, depending on weather, time of day, time of year. i pedal through my old campus and my old neighborhood. the construction is terrible, it will be for a while, i feel gratitude for moving away and being able to experience it while i did, unobstructed, without detours and stalled traffic. i maneuver through the trapped vehicles.

new students explore for the first time, i explore for the thousandth, i look on at them as the main subject of interest, they look at the buildings and perhaps each other. i am an outsider now. i feel happy for them. i notice the change of style in their clothing from when i was in their position, nearly a decade ago. time moves slowly and quickly, different channels of water, hyperspeed and slow motion. their faces look youthful, too youthful, i see babies in their eyes, cheeks, and lips and i wonder if it is me getting older or if generations continue to appear less mature than their age. if contemporary life really is making us softer. but the thought fizzles away and i go back to observing. there are less people than i thought there would be, less people than when i was in school. im grateful to have gone when i did. i exit the schoolgrounds and get back into the city.

its moving day and i decide to go past my old place. i see a uhaul parked where ours was yesterday, moving in instead of moving out. i see two young men, two sets of parents, and i cant help but feel like my witnessing them is a passing of the torch...but it is a selfish thought. i glanced at them, we did not speak. i left my keys on top of the refrigerator, i did not hand them off to these two kids. the place is theirs now. my memories, my spirit, my emotions and love have left their imprint within those walls, certainly. but that era is over. whatever energy may be left is surely invisible. and perhaps not even present to begin with.

around the lake, during my return, i see strangers who i saw on my departure, walking the same way i had seen them walk two hours ago. its as if they have moved slower than me, like we were on different planets with different gravities, experiencing life at physically different paces. how odd. i turn off the path and on to a side road. i see many houses being constructed in close vicinity to each other. it feels like they are creating a new neighborhood on top of a preexisting one. i feel some sense of discomfort, disapproval, on personal choice, or more accurately, personal options and the desire to be unique. not even that, just customized. yes, personal customization. such strange emotions within me. i try and erase the judgement. i just want to carry on.

lately ive noticed that i am much more attracted to people once i know them well, deeper and more intimate. it probably relates to my slow rate of becoming comfortable with people. when i say attracted i mean physically, though this extends to emotionally as well. of course. it always does. i enjoy being physically attracted to people i respect. i like that quality.

my wrists hurt from bartending, and so i think about buying a wrist brace online which would arrive tomorrow but i add it to my cart, close the app without purchasing anything, and move on. now i am on the floor with my kitty, giving her a brush upstairs while the other kitty sleeps downstairs beyond the door that keeps them separated. i am so happy with this era. even in its busyness, its chaos, truly, i am erratically happy. blissed out. i cant wait for my wife to come home and to make some afternoon love, with the windows open and the sound of the wind blowing our lace curtains, the sun shining through the yellow stained glass, us, naked and happy on our king bed, our new, expensive cloud. it is the feeling of love all around me, the feeling i embrace the most.

8/29/24

how many times has this flaw of mine been pointed out by simply living? many, many times. first it took a realization that there was the flaw, like a diamond being squeezed out of the deep, pushed out by the same earth that created it, it twinkles in its first sunlight and can not possibly be ignored. i am forgetful of many, many things, but i do not lack in observation. i may not always be looking in this flaws direction but when the wind turns me around and i am facing it i do not ignore it. i cant.

i have become hyper aware of my unrealistic preferences. and i have theories on how they developed, sound ones, ones i feel sure are mostly correct, but i have become amazingly weary of analyzing. i resign to the fact that it is what it is.

8/23/24

to sydney-

i dont want you to feel alone in your ideals. i share nearly all of your sentiments. it hurts me to hear good friends be overtalked by other good friends, but i remember what a blessing it is to share a conversation with common ground and still, such different extremes. sometimes it can feel impossible. but i guess that can be found anywhere.

there really is nothing more to do in life except experience it- to stare at the lake or to work at the restaurant. ive resigned myself to that belief for years now and it still brings me peace. i guess that is the point. and when i say resign it is a true use of the word, it is a true resignation. not a defeat from people, but perhaps a defeat at the hands of life itself. when i realize how little i am, how potentially insignificant. yes, it is a defeat, but not in a human way. its a defeat without competition.

i was in a book club for a couple years. i learned a lot, i spoke a lot. lots of practicing how to say my feelings in real time, specifically in regards to ideology. i dont know where thats gone. nowadays as soon as i see friends being talked over by other friends it makes me so sad, in such a profound way. i tend to go mute. and when it looks to me like another person is being dismissed, even then i do not know how to salvage any words and turn them into a rebuttal. maybe i just dont want to debate. ive lost days debating on deaf ears...i do know that i wish we were heard equally, though i know for certain that will never be ubiquitous. when feelings are involved, it is an impossibility- this impossibility being a sad truth instead of a nice paradox.

i guess im writing this to ask you not to ever forget the impact of words fueled by such emotion on those you speak them to. like you said earlier about ingrid going to protests when she was young, despite her words tonight: im sure it did something. your words did something to me as i hope they also did to ingrid and jules. no matter how small. we are all on the same team anyway, or so i convince myself often, simply because of our circumstance. you, me, them, billions of others. we did not ask for it, but it is where we find ourselves.

before my shift today i finished reading the house of the spirits by isabel allende, a beautiful multigenerational tale of magic and politics and life, all things good and bad about humanity. she is the real life cousin of salvador allende. i remember what must be 5 years ago, the first time i heard his final broadcast to the people of chile as the presidential palace was being raided by the coup that ultimately caused his death, his pleas of long live the workers! long live the people! how deeply it moved me, how i sat with my head hung low and tears forming in my eyes, like many things have before and many things will in the future. it is the words that come out naturally when you have as much passion as you do breath behind your morals, your ideals, your manner of living.

its been a pleasure to work with you and know you in the way that we have, i wish you the very best in your journey, and i look forward to seeing you again. i hope you feel your internal to external impact, i hope you know how it will only do you good. my mom told me all my life that its cool to care. since a kid, i have never thought otherwise. thank you for sharing yourself tonight and thank you for doing what you know is right for you because that will always be what is right for others. its who you are.

8/15/24

i had never felt that way before. and to feel it for such a long duration, that level of foreignness, was very disturbing to my inner peace. like a water balloon being filled up passed its point of functionality, the hose continued to pump into me, until i was stuck on the floor, expanded too thin, jiggling and weak, unable to move. never have i ever had so many things to do at once. the infinite checklist of duties before, during, and after the move, the wedding, the kitties meeting each other. i am still in the middle of it now. it feels like i have been here for a long time and in some ways i have. three weeks have happened right in front of me, i was active in them, i remember them well, but i am car sick from the speed we are traveling. it is a delirious, exhilarating time.

my new bed holds me dearly. ive never known sleep like this, not since my days of innocence, those days without any outside care. i know this as truth because each morning when my alarm goes off i am interrupted from a dream in which i am there so tangibly, so crystal clear. there is no haze around my interactions. i was in the deepest parts of my subconscious, working something out, learning something...and now i must return to real life to the let the painters in the house. i am still exhausted each morning. the quality of sleep is immaculate, i am happy to learn that splurging on a forever bed has proved worth it. i only wish i could purchase more hours in the night.

i have never been so busy. the outside actions i am performing inherently go against the core of who i am. my lifes journey is towards knowledge and serenity and at this eternal moment i have not had time for either. there has really been no time for anything except doing. sometimes thinking, working out logistics, but mostly waiting and then doing. when i am asked how the move is going, i reply with many different answers because the experience is many different emotions. to be frank, it is volatile. such an emotionally challenging thing on its own. and to think that my wife and i are to be wed in under two months time...well, this period has certainly made me stronger.

i do not become diamond under pressure, i become soft, a rudimentary stress ball, where a diamond is sharp and aggressive, cunning and powerful, i am squishy and passive, sincere and defeated. the difference is that i power through this waist high shit slowly. how can i be beautiful when i cannot hold any steady emotion? i feel hideous on the inside. my saving grace is that i get this shit done. i always get the shit done. i only hope that it appears i have enough dignity for you to stick around...it takes time to trust so deeply in somebody...but friend, time will show you that i am rock fuckin solid.

as i grow and as things change, i realize more errors of my ways. i am living and seeing how past, repeated actions have stacked on top of each other and created a codependency i wish hadnt happened. i have loved my daughter too much. i have coddled her and smothered her with love in a way that may have been too protective. i saw a tiny, scared little kitty, and i told her i would be there to protect her. and i have been. and i will be. id just like for her to be more independent, for things like this to be easier. i do not regret showing and acting with love, i have just discovered an intricacy of what time can create around such a thing. rather, i had it pointed out to me. it has been accepted.

for my future self, i wish to have my fireplace roaring at all times of the day. like a magnificent castle, i want thousands of candles, plain, white wax, in every hallway, in every room, in every corner. i want eternal coziness. i see myself and my wife living in elegant loungewear, reading our books, drawing, and writing. minimal words are shared between the two of us because we have taken care of all that we needed to do. it may have taken half a lifetime, but we have put in the work. now we have half a lifetime of luxury. and so now we smile at each other to communicate our feelings of ease and happiness, stronger because of what weve been through together, happy with what weve built. i just want to be living in the place i am to die at...

7/23/24

it feels like i have arrived at the next level. i am only able to take my first glances around at this new environment which has finally be unlocked. i surface from the level below, slowly pulling myself up on to the platform, depending more on primal sense than analyzation. i like the looks of it. i feel the sense of comfort easing over me as i realize that i am here to stay. we are here to stay.

there is never one, singular moment that can be credited with the changing of eras. unlike the straw that broke the camels back, these types of changes happen over multiple, significantly emotional events, which have storylines within themselves. if it were to be graphed, it would be like swelling, nonlinear, loop-de-loops, gradually moving upwards or downwards. in my current case, it is upwards, and the angle of elevation is an exact 45º; sublimity beyond description.

the lesson that life is cyclical is being beaten into my brain. in all of its infinite angles and points of view, focus, reference, and meanings, i will see that things repeat themselves. it is the golden treasure that is life experience which teaches me this. knowing i have felt some way before, knowing what will happen soon here after. never exactly, never as scripture, mostly as intuition. its just a guide, but an organic guide, something my heart, my brain, and my soul create for me. the holy trinity within my body.

when the giant man towers over me, stepping closer, poking my chest and spitting on my face with his passionate and frantic words, while i see the beads of sweat dropping from his bald head, i experience a strange sensation of living consciously as a human man combined with the deep, innate gurgling of adrenaline, fight or flight, potential paths of escape, potential weapons to defend myself, the monkey brain side of things. i know that he is friendly but he is saying some weird things, i know he could break me in half, i smell the liquor on his breath and i sense the absence of rational thought. of impulsivity. i see him licking his chops. but the moment ends and we lock the door back up and breathe a sigh of relief and just shake our heads. and then its over, like nothing happened. one strange experience to the next.

when the moment is started by somebody else, when the fuse is lit and i can see it getting shorter, approaching me, closer and closer, i race to access the part of my brain that was practicing my response earlier. holy fuck, its happening. i move my hands calmly to lower the windows, shaky but slow, i turn the music down a little bit, i let the ring be put on my finger, accepting this surprise of my own, steadily attempting to flow with this experience while i feel my heart pounding in my chest, sprinting like a race horse, my voice shakes alongside my hands and at the end of it i hear myself ask: do you want to see yours? and then the real question, the long awaited, one word answer, the love, the surreality, the looks of shock that it finally, actually happened.

from one new experience to the next, it is always different. there is still only one way forward, to the edge of the cliff, but i know i have seen this rock before. ahhh well, ive never pretended to know whats going on before, and so i let it be.

it is the foundation that changes. but even with that, the structure of my dna, the triple helix of my physical life, the undertow of the current, it is never the same but i am able to recognize when it takes on similar shapes. life becomes serious again, in a positive way, i only mean that i choose to take it more seriously again, stepping away from cheap pleasures and intentional loss of control, though i do, truly, find those valuable now too. sporadic emotion and gentle volatility. but at the moment, my only desire is a level head.

i am not living alone anymore. i am not just living for myself. i have a prometida now, soon my wife will become mi esposa. there is a rock on her finger to prove that, prove it to the world and prove it to each other whenever we see it. it is proof of our love and proof of our desire to continue forward together, holding hands, slowly dancing, singing our song. we have a few to choose from. in the most dramatic way, it is the very, very beginning of becoming a legitimate family. it is the dead giveaway of unmistakable growth and change. the telltale sign of a new era. we have unlocked this new level of Love and we deserve to remember that, every single day.

7/15/24

i awaken in my bed the same way i do while in a tent; alert and fully. my body tells me it is time to start the day, my first thought being only i am awake. it is dark enough to still be night, and sure enough, again, it will begin to rain soon. my room becomes emptier by the day. and so in this low visibility my eyes survey the walls, looking at where picture frames hung for years, their silhouettes still visible from the outline of dust and grime and tape, and i meditate on how much is changing.

i stand before a cliff and each morning i find i have sleepwalked closer to the edge. the levels of the mountain behind me have all taken years to complete on their own, little meaningless divots in the stony ground having pivotal memories associated to them. i could spend a lifetime reviewing this path i have taken, chosen, and been given. i will do this anyway, without intention, making me feel many different things, reliving exactly and feeling similarly through new channels, before eventually finding my way back to the cliff in front of me. there is only one way forward. and that realization strikes me. it is a quick, impersonal slap across the face. a reality check. and my first emotion after is always a bit somber. the beating sun becomes covered by clouds and the darkness tells me the rain is coming back.

no, i cannot stop the passage of time, nor would i ever wish to do so. i allow myself to feel these oncoming changes deeply and fully, i do not pretend to know exactly what is going on inside of me, by now i know well that there is deep mystery too advanced to access yet, but i hold this steady equilibrium confidently, the way i have learned to.

i thumb the ring in my pocket, turning it over, waiting for the future to come to me, waiting for the moment to finally ask. i envision our home together, i see our children running and then resting, using all of what we gave to them, us watching on with amazement and wonder. i know that when i look into my childs eyes i will see myself, i will learn to unlock the deeper parts of who i am as they just begin to discover who they are. i reflect on my parents and the parents of my wife and i am figuring out that the parameters of a generation are not so defined as i was led to believe.

7/4/24

the liquid splashes the backs of my ankles and gets my socks wet. and now its stuck there, unescapable. i keep my head down and continue my task, the inconvenience was impersonal and i know that. still, id rather not be here. can you make me just one more drink? certainly i can. and i want to, and i will, unbegrudgingly. but id also like to go to the bathroom, relieve myself of all that has been building up inside me since i got here. the liquid and the emotions. like the stack of plates in the corner, eventually it gets too tall. eventually it will topple and crash. id also like to make a drink for myself. certainly, just give me a moment.

im leaking out of my holes. and even this light drizzle will eventually get my clothes soaked. eventually. i used to detest biking in the rain, it was my least favorite condition. but maturity has shown me that with the correct preparation rain is hardly an inconvenience. ive actually learned to enjoy it. it is a stimulating, natural shower. if it is warm enough to rain, it is warm enough to bike in sandals and eliminate any inescapable wetness of the socks.

oh, i love my bicycle because my bicycle takes me wherever i want to go. over the water and through the trees, it is an extension of myself. it is my primary source of work for pleasure, cleaning and building up, purchasing new practical things to attach to its frame, making my riding better and better. it is the most enjoyable thing. it is like flying, and like freedom.

there is a raven who soared above my gaze, walking along the rooftop. it caught me and the kittys attention. we sat there and watched him walk, slowly, despite the chilly rainfall. i like the sound of the rain outside, as it hits the leaves, as it splashes in the puddles. it is a beautiful thing, no longer an inconvenience because the weather is just like a feeling, it swells and changes, eventually disappearing, eventually returning again. remember that time we took our clothes off and ran around in a downpour? we stood there in the middle of the field, hugging and shivering. i have memories of rain for as long as i can remember. of course you do, everybody does. yes, they must.

it took me so long to realize that rain clouds usually cover multiple states. that if i am experiencing rain in minneapolis, perhaps they are experiencing rain in chicago. or they will be soon. or they have already. my object permanence developed without me thinking about what is happening off the screen. i know that when a plane above me moves behind a cloud it is still there, but when that same cloud rolls off the horizon, it is gone to me forever. poof. in my head, it no longer exists. how silly of me to so subconsciously place myself at the center of my own universe. its not that silly...it happens to everybody. yes, it must.

life, in my universe, is only about experiencing. but earlier today i was laying down when it dawned on me that perhaps this mindset is too submissive. nothing is too anything, unless deemed so by myself, but earlier today when i was laying down it felt too submissive. perhaps i could benefit more from working towards things instead of letting the breeze blow me around. perhaps i would indulge less. it wouldnt hurt to try.

no, it wouldnt hurt to try. there is nothing about this life that i hate. and if there were, i would do my best to course correct. even in my own universe, i am still just a human. one decimal of infinity. one drop of rain in the ocean. a beautiful boy with an even prettier soul.

6/20/24

the dog days of summer are here, but they are wetter than expected. the thunderstorms are pushing back plans, overstaying their welcome, but the people continue like normal. i have always loved the weather for this reason. i have always loved talking about it. every day is a new day, with no day quite like it ever happening before, not exactly. everybody tries to keep their routine the same no matter what the day looks like. of course we are going to speak about it.

the memories ive made this last week will last me a lifetime. i have been blissed out, im dumbstruck with how much they have impacted me in a happy, positive way.

6/3/24

it is a grey, humid day, it is the stagnancy of life represented by the weather. i am inside with all of the lamps turned off, even through the clouds there is enough sunlight to illuminate my house, the gentlest kind of visibility. it is my preference. there have been many thunderstorms within the last month and i have slept through them all. i have missed their lullabies. tornadoes have touched down all throughout the alley, the smoke of canadian wildfires have begun their migration south, and only now, after nearly 28 years, have i felt the true, semi predictable chaos that comes in these months of the calendar year. april showers bring may flowers. i knew thew words but never felt the reality.

it is because i have been maturing. with an almost aggressive acceptance, i have accepted all the time i have spent waiting, waiting for things to settle down, waiting for fear and nervousness to go away when they are not warranted, for some sort of understanding. maturity has brought me hindsight. hindsight has brought me perspective. and i have learned that there is not one moment when i begin to feel differently, it is never with precision, it has always been gradual and so i am led to believe that it will always remain gradual. when i look over the edge of the cliff, i see heaps and heaps of smashed boulders, rocks, and stones, smithereens of this tough earth, and i envision an avalanche of some kind, an earthquake shaking the foundation with so much force and this is the aftermath of one instance, of one incident. but maturity has shown me that i am observing the culmination of the slow movement of thousands of years. one rock may erode, fall, crash, lay still, and it may be one hundred, two hundred, or one thousand years before the rock friend next to him does the same. even the cave paintings of the ancients have not even been around long enough to see them all pile up. maturity has shown me naivety.

i have become comfortable with my pangs of unknown emotion. when i smell a new smell, something mixed with something else, i know that i am about to be hit with a new emotion, never felt in my body before. it is a minor blackout, a short seizure, a quick, primal tensing up of my defensive nature. but what once had my heart pounding for minutes after, what once caused my mind to race and catastrophize, is now just an accepted truth of my body. maturity has taught me to accept what i cannot control, how to actually roll with the punches, and how to loosen my grip on this life. i am more flexible and more quiet, i wear comfier clothing, i am less presentable. i levitate before the businessman.

things continue to pass before my eyes. seasons, relationships, life. exactly one week ago, to the hour, i watched the life be taken from my childhood kittys body. i held his giant rabbit feet as i cried tears of sorrow and love, my mother held his body, her best friend, her soulmate, and i watched them stare at each other while he transitioned away from us. the nurse told us when he had passed and when i looked at her she was teary eyed too. it was so tragically beautiful. i drove home afterwards with a rejuvenated feeling, completely irreplicable, hoping that percy could still feel the love i have for him, my mother even more. i had been confronted with the harsh reality of life while being honored enough to feel its gentle passing. it is unavoidable. it is at the end of every journey. yet even still, it will never stop us from experiencing what we can before we get to that point.

the clarity in which i see my past is unlike before. i have experienced lifetimes, of my own and of others, before and after other lifetimes, come and gone. everything is relative to the next, and the case can be made and accepted to see the same thing relative to this other thing over there. and it is all true. old songs i spent nights listening to on repeat are now understood in such a different way its as if i was a different person back then. i was. the youtube comments tell me that i am not alone. i never am.

there is not much time left for me in this chapter. i have felt the oncoming page turn for so long now already. i am to be married soon. my wife and i are moving past the preliminary stages of love, we have passed all the tests and we are graduating now, together, inside of our second honeymoon; the one with more maturity. she doesnt want me on my knees for the proposal, she says she wants to see me as equal. i have never been in love like this, never felt so deserving and deserved. i see myself confident and attractive because she sees me this way. we will be married in the woods, where our love is strongest, where we both belong. there will be a move, there will be changes, and then one day there will be children, a new type of stagnancy, a new smell for every new experience.

three weeks ago, in small town south dakota, i took a photo of my mom, my brother, and my wife walking through an overgrown patch of grass near the towns creek. on the other side, inaccessible because of the waters height and current, is a set of 4 wheeler tracks, climbing up a hill, into the horizon. there are flowers and trees and sunlight. it is so vibrant you can hear the sound of summer as it really was, exactly as you would it expect it to be. the drone of the cicadas, the vibration of a cloudless summer afternoon. squinting through sunblasted eyes, its never fully clear, it is dreamlike in every way. its one of my favorite things to look at. it is a memory which i will hold forever. it is a vision of heaven, one version of many.

even after typing all of this i am sitting here at my desk, staring out the window, bewildered at how much i am changing. how much life is changing around me, how quickly it all happens, and then to think about how slowly everything really ends up happening. it is baffling, it questions my tiny human mind to the point of insignificance, though i know that is not true. if i am grateful for one thing, it is gratitude itself.

5/7/24

why does it bring me to tears to think about the state of the world in a few hundred years? my reason is selfish, it doesnt have anything to do with quality of life or humanity coexisting alongside nature, it is purely because i will not be there. and i will have been gone for so much time already. i will not be remembered by a single living thing, my words will have been erased, my impact, grown over. yes, it is most likely my ego speaking up.

but i have become close acquaintances with fear and if i am led down the thought process further i see his form, his familiar, solid shadow begin to take shape. and he tells me that i am not as much concerned about what will be happening here as i am with what will be happening with me. my spirit. my true being. where i will be. existing in a place without physical touch or perhaps any of the senses that give my life meaning now. i will not be grounded anywhere. i cant fathom even a fraction of what potential nothingness really is. it turns me powerless, borderline religious, facing my incapabilities, my limits, i resort to faith. and i begin to realize why generations before me felt that living life, being alive, was its own type of hell that only death could free them from.

at the top of the water slide is where the fear is omnipresent. the lifeguard wont even look at you, only waves their hand more and more aggressively to get you to the bottom, to hurry up, to get this thing over with. the line of kids behind you grows, so do their shouts and insults, and so your heart rate climbs until it is near bursting. you cannot retreat because there is nowhere to go. there are no hands to hold on to. just as you came into this world, you will leave the same way. alone. and it is up to you to plunge into the darkness. this is the only possible option for peace.

i dont want to exist in a vacuum. i dont want the same things to happen to me every day. i would like to feel the harsh reality of what it means to have a body and get it dirty, i would like the sun to burn me and the pavement to scrape my knees, i want to lay in beds of grass and not be bothered when the ants hike up my limbs, when the flies perch upon my nose. i want to lay there so long i begin to grow roots into the soil and am pulled back down to Earths version of heaven. i now look towards my feet, not to the clouds.

yesterday i laid in the field up the street from one of my childhood homes. i sprawled out in the middle of this sea of grass and felt the sun on my face. but it was the smell, the smell of grass, the smell of summer, that moved me inside. i returned to a place after almost 25 years and experienced the same sensations. my body was plugged back in and i began to recharge the same way i once had so many years ago. when i could run without hurting, when my hair was long enough to be messy and crooked, when my body could be dirty but still smelled pleasant because i was a young, fresh, human boy. and in this moment i learned to value returning over exploring.

i know that some day i will look back on my days in these years and remember them fondly, able to see how they have been woven into my lived experience from the future. and i will look back on my early years with even more endearment, with even more perspective. even as a boy i felt that life was miraculous, surely i did, i could not put words to then but i could not feel this way now if this has not always been true, at least to some degree. in some thoughts and manners that are sealed to time, unreachable from this point but still cemented in history, inside of my internal makeup. so much of intuition is not divine but rather learned, in ways without words, from all the way back when i was first placed here. and i am always inclined to follow my intuition first. even to a fault.

i am surprised every spring at how quickly the trees all decide to wear their green again. they work in unison and when they decide to make the change, it is a brand new world.

i cant wait for whats next.

5/5/24

i bring my grimy hands up to my face and i use the back of them to wipe the tears from my cheeks. i use my stubby fingers to get the snot that drips from my nose. im cross-legged in the sandbox, dirty from the earth, with no power or will left to do anything but give up. my shoulders slump and my head sags, my chin is buried into my chest. ive seen destruction, cruelty, chaos, ugliness...

i have forgotten how to dream. how to wonder, commit, and excel. i dont remember what it feels like to discover new things, i know that some people out there are still determined on building themselves, leveling up, flexing and growing, i know this exists, but i have forgotten what that feels like inside of me. my flame is not out. its just very, very dim. the only childlike emotions that stick with me are those of confusion and weakness. it comes down to a lack of understanding. and while i watch people on screens use this hole as fuel, for me it seems to be a seal of fate.

i have forgotten what its like to work towards something. i cant seem to remind myself of what progress really means, the intricate steps of it all. i dont know the concept of trusting the process. on paper i do, in practice i dont.

so this is why, this is why i wake up in the morning and deliberately wipe the crust from my eyes, with a purpose, with slow and meaningful rubs. foggy only from my dreams, no longer feeling the poisonous hangovers. i am telling you all that this is the arena i am in, these are the battles i am fighting. this is why i have begun to lowball myself, because my brain has been molded to believe that if i am not feeling immediate progress than i am failing. i have removed all of these tiny fucking inconveniences from my daily rituals and i am trying to just...trust the process. i am trying to trust. and hope, and believe that what i am doing is working towards my goals.

but at the end of it all i know that there is nothing real to overcome. none of it has been a waste because i have spent it all living. the trials and tribulations, the perceived poison i have ingested in my tummy and in my mind. i am a product of this era, so extremely unimportant to it all.

4/29/24

i have fifteen minutes to say what i need to say, but i have spent a lifetime trying to put words to these emotions. i am familiar with this challenge. i go from past to present to future all within the same thought and when i return i am always older and still without a clear answer. my meditations turn into prayers, my habits become rituals, i am a creature of rules, only with these rigid parameters am i comfortable enough to live this mysterious existence. but i love it all. i would have it no other way.

i can be articulate if you give me time to ramble.

i dream and think thoughts that conscious me is a stranger to. i see faces never seen before, they give unspoken advice that sits on my soul and bleeds into my thought processes, i know it is me telling myself these things but i am not an individual anyway, only a natural machine filtering what i experience on the surface into condensed versions of reality and cherry picked lessons. i see these faces in flashes when i am awake, they peek at me through my window on rainy nights when the lampposts outside shine their light on all the droplets, they are in the corner of mirrors when i catch a glimpse of myself without intending to, sometimes they are bold enough to be standing in the corners of rooms i walk into. and when i do my double take to make sure if i saw them right, they are gone. but i know they were there.

i lose these lessons they teach me every day. i cannot hold my attention, i cannot hold anything. they impact me in abstract ways. it is remarkable how quickly emotions can turn from happy to confused, from neutral to devastated. there is no tangible reason to reach for, theres no relief because there is no excuse, no scapegoat to place the burden of blame on. and so it stays with me and weighs me down. the puppeteer pulls the strings of my heart, yanks the cords of my brain, he is somewhere up there doing some thing for some reason and i am simply at his mercy. and so i am a born-again, god-fearing, normal, humble man. nothing more, nothing less.

ive been told im too serious. and so i have become decent at laughing it off, swimming back to the surface with everyone else, showing that i really dont care all that much, proving that i can lighten up and pal around just fine. but i am never fully present. in each gap of the conversation i am stuck looking back down into the water. i see the shark circling my feet from underneath, not menacingly, not enticingly, nothing at all except to tell me that he is not going away. to show me that its not worth focusing on anything else.

i am not here to have a good time. i dont have any more desire to be stimulated or entertained, im fucking sick of it. ive pushed my body to the limit and it is miraculous it never malfunctioned. i cant test my luck any further, i dont want to. i dont crave safety, i am not driven by fear, my only goal now is to focus in on what brings me Joy, true Joy. meaning. drive and motivation. i try to limit my judgements and not become an old man shaking his fist at the youth, but it proves remarkably hard. it feels impossible to look at the past i lived through and not think that it used to be better, as if our shared existence could ever possibly be better or worse in one era versus another. i know this is not true. but my emotions make me feel this way, my ego confronts objectivity like a man confronting god, i forget that i exist inside of limitations, that as miraculous as my body is, an all-knowing human is an impossibility. more than an impossibility. so far from a possibility that me even entertaining the idea of that being true deserves the light of my life to be blown out by him and humbled back down to existence.

and so i give up many times in a day. there is nothing here for me to really figure out, there is no possibility of me or anyone else cracking the code to existence, to the meaning of life, and so the meaning of life is really just to be alive and feel with our bodies, stimulate our senses but to not abuse them, we are far enough along that weve figured out far too many ways to abuse ourselves, i see this everyday, i feel this everyday, i do this everyday, and so everyday i give up many different times. i do not perform the sign of the cross, i do not bow east, but i do resign to the higher power i know is somewhere out there, watching without eyes.

i have learned that age is invaluable. i have learned to respect people older than me just because they are older than me, not blindly, but knowing that they hold knowledge i can never attain. i struggle to classify myself as young or old. i know i am on the younger side but i am not a young man anymore. my body has begun to ache and hurt when i do things i havent done in years, when i dust off the cobwebs i really do have to take my time in order to get the gears turning, i need grease and oil and lube and a good, healthy warm up session. i am not rubber anymore. i have entered into a second birth, i am past my quarter-life crisis, i know what i need to be doing and i have had my careless fun. i dont want anymore because i cant handle anymore. i am young, at the crossroads between youthful ignorance and wisdom gained from life experience, but i have slowly been turning a page in my book for months now. i move at a giants pace, slow but unstoppable.

i dont drink anymore and i may never drink again. i have flicked my last cherry, let the last black smoke blacken my lungs, closed the gates for chemical altering substances into my nose, throat, bloodstream, orifice, hole, physical, emotional. my body walks in this direction without me trying to, if i try and stop it i become sick and weak and i can only take so much of that before i am dead, i do not have enough grief let inside of me to continue that path of recklessness. i cant take that joke anymore. its not funny and ive only just realized that it never was. no, im not being too serious.

i asked a psychic once if i should be worried about my drug and alcohol use. after a pause, she told me no, i think you use it to connect with your emotions more. but i could still detect some hesitation in her voice. and so for years i thought that not using would lead me to become more numb to it all. of course this hasnt stopped me from stints of sobriety, filled with even more emotion than the periods of use, more than i could have once imagined. but the poison has flowed through the caverns within me for so many days and nights that remnants of mighty rivers have been carved deep enough to be seen without any liquid, i am in a dry age and i have discovered i can access these emotions much better, more regulated and healthy. i am old enough now to cry when i need to. unassisted from outside substances. no longer do these bouts of unbelievable power, tidal waves of feelings, capsize my heart, i have found buoyancy in myself, enough blubber created and stored to hold me afloat, my deck has enough drain holes for the water to slink away back into the ocean from which it came. i am much less disturbed.

ive never dreamed big, i dont know how to. no part of my journey has been fueled by extraordinary anything. i do not work towards fame or wealth. if it was up to me, nobody would be famous. the only things i seek to achieve are within me, inside of my heart and my brain, its more like unlocking feelings than gathering things. this mindset clashes with what i see around me, on the big screens and the small. this is my reason for giving up, retreating, remaining solitary. i will never fully know how to adapt. only in my own ways will i figure out which paths make the most sense. for me. but they do not involve that many others. its a strange realization to reach. strange, and sometimes sad.

at a certain point, it does not take bravery anymore. when i got over the mountainous hump, i felt the self consciousness washing away, with each bath on the other side, i became more confident. but it isnt always a happy confident. some days are meant for input. some days are meant for output. i could never pretend that its strictly one or the other, even less like i had the choice. no, i am not soft, im just being realistic. im shyer now but my words are more firm. i have gone two different directions on the same spectrum and somehow solidified both ends, for many things, the middle is lesser, the ends more durable.

i got what i needed from this. i found what i was looking for. thank you for listening.

4/28/24

i am feeling shy inside of my own house. im watching the timberwolves play the suns in the first round. game 4. if they win tonight they win the series and it will be the first series win since 2004. can i even remember that far back? i think so, although certainly i didnt have a real concept of time back then. i would have been 7. i remember kevin garnett, KG, the big ticket. before even knowing how good he really was i remember knowing that he was one of the best.

one of my first memories of sports is going to the target center with my dad. it turned out to be the only place i could find zours, my favorite candy then. i remember the upper deck, how dark it was, where the tickets are cheap and the court is tiny. but even that high up you can tell how big the players are. especially when youre so young. my dad is at the game right now in phoenix. but i turned my phone on silent because im feeling shy.

the rain hits my windows and i listen to the cars pass outside, their movement louder because of the wet roads. i mute the tv when the ads come on and i realize i still have it muted when the broadcast resumes. i cant find the strength to turn the sound back on, im too shy for noise right now. i need to meditate in some way, my eyes slowly dart around the room as im lost in thought. my meditation turns into prayer, my daily ritual, i am lost, gone somewhere away from the walls of my house.

4/21/24

the bridge is closed for two years, and so the street doesnt take me the same way anymore. the buds on the trees are back and i am hyper conscious that i am in a new phase, a phase for now, but something that will grow to cement itself inside of me. it will weigh something substantial and i will feel it every day, i will become use to it like all things but if i wish to focus on it i will be able to snap my focus to it, right there, and say there you are.

i have looked this thing in the eye, i am soul to soul with this entity outside of the plane i am typically in, its like finding another hallway parallel to the one i have been walking down and seeing it there, at the end, like a living doorway. i have yet to be able to talk with him. i shift in and out of being able to see him, to access him, but i know he is always watching. it is the Z axis again. that tricky, pesky direction.

again i have become a baby boy. each iteration makes me stronger than the last, each time being born is a scary thing turned miraculous. i have watched people behave the same way for what they say is 50 years and i cannot fathom the stubbornness, how hard a callous they must have created inside and outside of themselves. surely the intensity of feelings varies from body to body, there is no other possible answer left.

at the end of the day i am aware of the things i do here and i am reminded in my dreams and in my visions of what i have done, here and in other planes, and what i will do in the time that is yet to come.

4/17/24

theres just nothing left for me there. something inside of me knows that ive moved on, something inside of me knows that i cannot go back. i came out of the hole that i dug and ive left my neighbors behind without goodbyes. ive traveled such a distance in an unknown direction that i could not find my way back if i tried. if my feet were to walk across my past dwelling it would be filled with dirty earth, no vacancy, no homeyness. i did not move along the X or the Y, somehow ive moved on the Z. my time has run out. there is nothing left for me there.

and now, reflecting back on it, i dont think there has been for a while. i know with certainty i could have remained for longer, a place like that invites stagnancy and refuses change. a place like that is like quicksand. yes, i mean a trap. i cant even kid about it. any conversations surrounding that place are to be ignored by me, listened and heard without change of emotion or expression, in one ear and out the other. i physically move away from conversations like that now. in a gently aggressive way, i have had enough.

i was stuck on the spine of a mountain range, paralyzed with fear, death to my right and death to my left. salvation is forwards but i do not trust my feet enough to get me there. i suffer from self-induced, early onset vertigo. i traded my balance for a good time. can you recite the alphabet? can you stand on one leg and touch your nose? can you walk in a straight line you fucking drunk? oh, i was dizzy with fear.

i stayed put for the night. and when the sunrise disturbed the darkness from behind my eyelids, when the light touched my face, it was all expelled. like a bad dream, it was like it never even happened. no, i cannot have failures if i am in the middle of succeeding. i cannot be dead if i feel so much life, i cannot ignore the dissatisfaction that comes with suppression, the bubbling bubbling bubbling underneath the padlocked chest that is my soul.

i am lighter now and without worry. i am agile and flexible, i become fitter and life becomes easier. i have gained so much by shedding so much.

4/14/24

i just dont have time anymore. im getting older, growing up, i am a 27 year old boy about to turn into a man. all i have to do is get real with myself. i am too tired to justify the neglect, the indulgence, the immaturity of pretending its okay to keep doing what i was doing. to keep being careless about myself. to keep pretending that hurting myself from the inside out could ever lead to a healthy, happy life. if i dont have time anymore, how could i possibly collect enough of it to waste?

it feels good to meet this conclusion. im tired of it so im over it. yes, i have moved on, such a powerful act, it is courageous and it is genuine and i am proud of myself. no more fomo when i see others going outside for a smoke, no more jealousy when i see bar guests cheers and take shots together. no, i serve them gladly, glad for their company, their gratuity, glad to be refraining, glad that i am comfortable and without judgement, glad to know that no door is closed to me forever.

this is the most powerful thing. the missing puzzle piece that i did not know was even supposed to be there before, i dont hold outright rejection this time around, instead it is a conscious decision each and every time. no friend, its not that i cant have it, its simply that i wont have it.

every window in my house is open wide, the sun blasts through the eastern side and much later in the day it will be blasting through the west. i will have come and gone, perhaps multiple times, in between. its gorgeous, simply gorgeous, i could not have asked for a better weekend. i dont think anyone could have. its beginning to feel like summer again. i am level headed and clear minded and the thing i am holding dearest to my heart right now is the knowledge and understanding that i am able to appreciate the things that give me life much deeper when my body and my soul are pure and untainted.

4/11/24

life is much more manageable when i can keep up with whats going on. it is much more manageable when i can breathe and the oxygen can reach from the tips of toes all the way up to my brain. when the alcohol doesnt block up the balancing liquid in my ears and make me dizzy all the time. i dart my eyes around from thing to thing too often anyway, i cannot keep balance while behaving normally, when intoxication was the norm.

how does the saying go? addicts can only change when they have suffered enough. i dont wish to exaggerate and i also do not wish to downplay. i am just tired.

i have noticed that all of my insecurities are made worse by the after effects of alcohol. even worse, all of my goals are hindered by alcohol, ultimately prolonging them until they are impossible. i wake up to intense, confusing dreams every morning. that is no exaggeration. my first thoughts are always i should quit drinking, and then i should be healthier, i should quit smoking too. i shooed them away for a long, long time. and here i am, sitting in the present moment, sober and clear, feeling calm about my life. because i can manage it.

this morning i envisioned a return to my mothers hometown, because i want to show my wife how beautiful it is, how north american it is. because i have not been in a very long time. i thought nothing of the vision, although it was more than a passing thought.

this afternoon i picked my mother up from the airport, she was returning from alabama, the goal of the trip to organize and rummage through my late grandfathers belongings, and to see and help his family. when she got in my car she told me grandma had a heart attack. she was gone for a few minutes but shes back now. shes confused. and just like that she is thrown into the frenzy that is loss and grief once again.

10 months ago, when my mother was in alabama to see her father off from this life, there was another call that scared her and her siblings, thinking she was passing then. my grandma, divorced from this man for what must be 60 years, is tied to him. of course. i am not shocked, but i am surprised, every time, how in sync life can be, either how much we are influenced by the invisible forces of nature and love, or how much we influence them. it must be a mix of both. symbiotic, poetic.

i remember this small town for what it was, perhaps what it still is. im sure i will soon find out. small enough that you can traverse every street, pass every house, in just a day. i remember my own father walking with me through the beautiful city park, across the bridge above the river that cuts through it, telling me about life and what certain things are. literal building blocks of mine for this experience of what it is to be alive, aiding me in my transition from spirit to human child, able to hold his own here. this was when my own mother and father were still married, over 20 years ago now.

so many memories of my time spent in this small north american town. i did live that life, how often i forget about it. always a city boy but always with a real life glimpse of what small town living is like. slow, familiar, disconnected, where your town is but an island in a sea of crops and farmland. i look back on it fondly.

it began to rain as we approached my mothers house. there was no rain here the whole day, only approaching my mothers house. its following me, she said. not scared, not sad, not mystical, it was just an observation. there were tornado warnings and flash floods yesterday. and on the day of dads funeral there were torrential thunderstorms. heavy wind, black skies. i helped bring her bags into the house. i saw my childhood kitty, still alive, and i wondered how long he has left. it must be significant, though whenever it comes, it always feels too soon. i gave my mom a hug and a kiss and when i stepped outside the rain had stopped.

i drove home a little tense and when i pulled into my parking spot i bowed my head and cried.

4/3/24

smells pass my nose and they stir a dormant feeling, the memories rustle inside of my mind and, like a dream, i remember again. i know that they are combinations of perfumes, colognes, natural human smells that are impossible to recreate and so when the sensation occurs i am fully present in the flashbacks. they are muddy and without detail. it is so much less about the visual (in my head) it is mostly about the feeling (in my chest).

such precious moments, they must have stayed important to my brain, increasing significance as time washes over me. when the smells waft into my sensory they unleash their significance with a power that only a long period of abstinence can muster.

3/27/24

all of my devices are low on battery and i wish to let them die. they are a heavy, tiresome burden. my screens are rarely anything other than advertisements, something for me to consume, something that allows me escape. i refuse to believe that any moment alive is a waste of time but the screens make me feel that way more than id like. i am missing human touch.

3/25/24

i wake up from my dreams and i think about how they are truly another reality that i experience. they provide me emotions and i can work through thoughts with myself. the others whom i interact with are only a part of my brain, but i cannot control them willfully, they are controlled by a part of me that is unreachable from the surface i stand on. they are strange, non congruent, mostly unhappy but never evil. it is a mindless meditation which i must do to keep my head on straight. the background refresh of my human CPU.

i am always coming back to the idea of relativity. how far back can i go before the impossibly large becomes the impossibly small once again? and vice versa? it seems infinite in both directions. i see the possibility, the plausibility, of multiple theories of religion and science existing at the same time. i see glitches in the matrix and i see divine intervention, separately and working together. yes, there is someone looking out for us, not with a pair of eyes, but in the same way that i work to keep myself stabilized they are trying to create harmony within their bounds- physical bounds, mental bounds, our capabilities on all fronts. us humans are this entity for those smaller than us already.

i watch youtube videos of gamers again, i am back from a long break. i have a desire inside me to buy a computer, or a new playstation or xbox, something to jump back in. something to create a new reality to play inside of, one where i can build things, explore, fight, without any risk of physical harm. there are trade offs in all directions, all the time, for everything. so i dont feel the need to focus much on if something like that is worth it or not.

i wake up every morning and i am happy. i believe myself to be happy and so i am. i am comfortable with who i am and what i do, how i spend my time, where i go and where i stay.

3/20/24

i hold the key within me and after enough time rummaging through the chest in my mind i grasp it, i pull it out with the same confidence as alexander the great, free from the stone at last, i release it with one hand and then hold it with both, an arms length above my head, i rotate slow to make sure that no audience member is left out of seeing this miracle, performed by a boy, a real life, human boy. it is the key that unlocks the cuffs, it is the key that releases the shackles, it is the peoples key.

despite my wishes, my foresight, my deeply inner confidence, this does not really happen. the arena is my bedroom, there is no audience. if there are tears, they are for sadness and powerlessness, not triumph and bravery. my face frowns instead of smiling, laughing even, with relief and so much pride i have surprised even myself.

3/16/24

and just like that he turned and left, waddling down his long, green driveway, overgrown from decades of untrimmed nature. life moves on, he said.

life moves on, i thought. it moves and it grows and we move through it in very strange ways. the paths are different, they are unique to the person, unique because they are chosen. but there are ways of moving on that we do not notice. our clocks tick faster, growth becomes imperceptible, until one day you stare at it again, think about it, and scratch your head and wonder: where has the time gone?

it is hard for me to imagine some things and on certain days it is hard for me to imagine tomorrow. it is a blessing and a curse to be forced to live entirely in the present. i feel as if my brain cannot keep up with the advancements i see around me. my quarter-life-crisis began when i started to see the effects of the generation after me begin to dictate the worlds order. without judgement and condemnation, i observe with a sideways, downwards glance, one that says its no longer my business to be young and upset.

i am a timid man. i am shy. i have learned that in spanish the word for shy is timido, and timido i am. like those younger than i am now, i once was confident too. i once felt comfortable putting things on the line for my beliefs. to an extent, i still do. but there was a tipping point somewhere in the last two years where i can look behind me and see how very long i have been around...and i can look forward and see a much longer journey ahead...it is disorienting, i experience the mental vertigo of what it feels like to become older. my perception of time will never stay the same, nor should it, but life really is anything except linear. the results of these things make me very unconfident, even more shy, even more scared.

i cherish my days. i listen to friends talk about what is next for them. until i get back on my feet they say. until i can figure this thing out they say. i encourage them because we are friends and i love them even though i see the same thing repeat itself, day in, day out, and day in again. i chew on the idea that your life could surely and entirely change in a moment that you didnt even create for yourself, but your life could also consist of all those days spent waiting. and my life is no different.

how much time have i spent waiting? how much time have i spent daydreaming, staring outside my window, laying with my cats and mulling things over? christ, it must be mountainous. and although not exactly exciting, i would never consider any of it to be a waste. how cruel that would be to myself, to think that time spent figuring out how to live is a waste of my precious quantity of it instead of being the utmost necessity that it is.

3/7/24

spring will become official in two weeks time and i am finally starting to accept that there will be no winter this year. i have been suspended in a very prolonged, primal state of anticipation for many months now. my circadian rhythm cannot readjust until it feels like it is experiencing winter, as it has for every year of my life until this one. i need to find a way to hard reset my body.

when i wake up in the mornings, i am happy. when i scan my body, my brain, my emotions, i determine that it makes sense that i am happy. 2+2=4. i am a deeply rational person for some things, personal things like this. although for others, i am able to surrender any sort of judgement or control, because to try and impose anything on anybody else would go against my core values. for some reason, i am unable to do this for myself. it is a frustrating thing, mainly because i cannot seem to crack the code on fusing these two things, letting go of these expectations i seem to have for myself, after trying to for such a long time. its like i am always putting on some sort of act. and that makes me feel like a fraud. and that leads me to be hard on myself.

when i wake up in the mornings, i feel unhealthy. to be happy and unhealthy seems like a common thing, i would rather it be this than the inverse of both. but it is still a troubling feeling. i dont know how to sleep, or eat, or exercise, or balance my indulgences. i am tired of my baseline happiness being overshadowed by a present feeling of sadness.

i would like to think that i can pick myself up again when spring comes, when daylight savings makes the days longer and i begin to see leaves again. i am hoping that that will be the reset i need.

2/13/24

in the room is a man, and the man is comfortable. he is alone and his face remains neutral because he is content, deeply relaxed amidst his surroundings. this is a room he has made for himself. nothing about this room is original. he has taken ideas from bars, hotels, youtube, from anywhere that has given him inspiration, whether intentionally sought after or not. it is still impressive in its unoriginality because he has sifted through all of what he has seen and he has created a room which is perfect, perfect for him, which satisfies him on the deepest level. his insides hum like a running motor, its gentle, it is the purr of a cat.

i see men like this and i almost cannot bear to watch...it is a very bizarre projection of mine. humble men who are kind, and listen, and provide feedback with blank expressions because you can see they are thinking, digesting, marinating on ideas...it is too pure. ordinary kindness, unoriginality, these are such beautiful and under appreciated, under recognized, concepts. it is a silent and very unaggressive protest against the sickness that is the grind, against fame, worship, notoriety...

these men touch my sensitive heart with more effect than many. i remember as a very young boy feeling this same way towards other young boys with glasses, chubby little boys, anybody who was bullied and took it with their head down, looking at their untied shoes, balled up fists, tears trickling down their cheeks. 

my mother taught me that everybody is okay the way that they are. and i have stood on mountains and preached this, long and loud, to others. perhaps with too much force, i have tried to protect these faceless strangers and an idea that i have held with me for all of my conscious life. and it certainly is projection, it is so personal to me that there is no way around it. as i have gotten older myself, the boys have turned to men, and i never know when i am going to be blindsided by this heavy, lifelong feeling. my brain and my heart know how to recognize them. it is in the smallest details of their interactions, of their solitude, of their auras which i cannot see with my eyes but perhaps can recognize in an invisible way. and it can just be too much for me to watch sometimes.

last night i dreamt that i was a father again. when i am awake i imagine my future child to be a girl, i always have, there has always been that desire in me, to be the daddy of a little girl, even when i was young. but in my recent dreams i father a boy. last night we walked down a dark, grimy, city street. when the noises scared him he came to me and held on to my leg. he came to me for protection. i have never felt a thing like that before. when he was not scared anymore i watched him ask questions and touch things and learn about the world we were walking through. i was happy to answer everything he asked me. i admired him. i felt so proud to be his father.

we reached a house to do laundry. there was some unspoken deal that i was walking in on, we had been following my own father down the street who had now turned into my mother, the woman of the house had turned into my aunt, and my boy had turned into my wife. it was all one abstract lump of familial love and i felt so comfortable to be there and to share this moment with them. i had begun to see that it was much less about our physical bodies, the representations of our souls in this world, and instead it had changed into our auras, our energies, we had stopped using words and began to talk with pulsating colors and through our shared feelings. it was profound. it felt miraculous.

2/7/24

i am exhausted, exhausted from the pressure of constant, infinite, self improvement, from outside opinions, from the input of everyone, on everything. i am exhausted from the violent heaves of my body when i weep. i lay on my bed and the blinds are open, it is the exact moment of sunset, i am illuminated by the pink and purple sky, in the fetal position, moaning and gasping for air in between my cries. i am a spastic lump of emotion.

three nights ago i listened to the weeping of my wife in the shower, i parted the wall of noise that was the crashing water and peeked my head inside, it was here that i heard her, loud, meaningful, and healthy. crying is a need, weeping is an exercise. i closed my eyes to be with her, to take some of her emotion and filter it through myself in an effort to relieve and to relate. when she returned to the bedroom she was clean, she gave me her soft smile and i gave her one back as if to say i know, i know. we didnt speak about it.

the bar for everything feels so low...i cannot determine if it comes from a personal place or if i am feeling the weight of a collective feeling, as though we all keep throwing straw onto the camels back, seeing her knees buckle and her face beginning to panic, knowing that she will break, soon, that the jenga tower will fall, but we are forced to keep playing.

i become emotional when i see basic acts of kindness. rudimentary signs of respect, towards selves, others, nature, they have become shiny beacons of hope rather than the foundation we are building on. the goosebumps i get tell me that the world grows darker, that the shadow of mordor spreads, that it has reached minis tirith.

it is all just repetition, a cyclical life. i hear the deep voices of men yelling outside my window and i am numb to it, the sound of children crying, i am numb, i either refuse to move or am physically unable, i am being stepped over, stepped on, prodded and poked in an impersonal way, my meat bag body sends sensations to my brain and i feel them, i think, but they arent enough to inspire movement inside of me anymore. i am uncertain, and so i stay still. eventually i will do the things that i always do. and eventually find myself back here, where i began.

time moves forward and the further i am from my beginning, the more distance i am able to look back on, the more i see this cycle playing itself out, the context for things that were once strictly mysteries...as i gain more experience in this field the more confident i am in making educated guesses. with widening eyes, the hair on my neck sticks straight up as i see that it will all be over soon and nothing extraordinary will have happened. at least not in the ways that i was led to believe.

so now i find my beauty in my normalcy. there seems to be a very large transition period when switching mindsets and purposes of life and so i am taking my time to recalibrate. it is like being bonked in the head and waiting for the circling birdies and the spinning eyeballs to stop. but i already enjoy seeing that many things become extraordinary when looking at them from my new perspective.

2/1/24

is judgment as simple as lack of context? there has not been a situation i can recall where my judgement is not erased after i am provided with the necessary background information. is my judgment lesser than others because i dont voice it? maybe in its effect. but in its principle, no. i am prone to withholding criticism, judgment on someone else, for fear of judgment cast onto me, from someone else. i just remain quiet, i eat it, i deal with whatever situation is happening, so as long as it is harmless. i try to just mind my business. and that is it.

1/30/24

my wife is on the operating table and i am in the lobby waiting for her. it is the same as yesterday and i would do it again tomorrow if she needed me to. my eyes are weighed down from the bags underneath them, there is no food in my tummy, only the caffeine so far, yet still, i sit here content.

our conversation was cut short when her name was called, always mispronounced. i told her good luck and she smiled at me, and then i watched her smile at the nurse, a smile that says alright, lets get this over with. she is good at that, speaking with facial expressions and body language...i remember that first night we touched each other, her face as i was leaving, tilted down, shadowing her eyes from the chandelier above, they glowed like a cat and told me she wanted more...

her love keeps me bound to this place, this experience im having, this life i have been gifted. when i question it all, even in the most healthy ways, any speculation on purpose or lack thereof is hurled out the window when i shift my focus back onto the love that we have. i give her a powerless smile of my own, a smile to tell her this love is all that i know and all that i need.

i am proud to say that i am alive. i have made it a long way, just as she has, just as you have. i am proud to be present in this moment of life where i anticipate so much, am excited for so much, the future of a house and a baby and a real car to travel the country with, my wife in the passenger seat with her pregnant belly and smiles that talk to me. i am proud for no big reason other than having found pride along my way. yes, it is chance. but i think it is also acceptance. a little bit of defeat. i have never been happier than after i have given in.

1/18/24

at the gathering, i worked my short monologue into such a specific corner that i produced a statement id never actually said before: i am very nervous when there is attention on me. more specifically, i cannot perform under the gaze of anyone. the blanket statement is not always accurate, but there is such a precise state of being that i know this to be undoubtable, to come true without fail. it is a deep, foundational form of self-consciousness, it is the 2 million year old ice that is dug up 100 meters into the earth, 99% of who i am now has been built on top of this layer and one part of that layer is this very uncomfortable idea of being watched, expected to give something to someone, perhaps even when i dont want to. the closest physical representation i have seen is the meme of the young boy at popeyes, just a short video of his eyes looking into the camera, then averting the connection, the laughter, just standing there with his soda trying to be normal, unsure of what to do next, wanting to be small and for the attention to go away. looking and averting...it has always broken me in such a deep way.

there are things that i will never write down, things i am only comfortable saying to trusted friends out loud, confiding verbally, in a plane which allows the words to hang and then fizzle away. there are things which i am scared to chisel into the stone, things i am afraid to make real; i can always bend whatever has been said out loud to fit other narratives.

there are also things, abstract emotions, feelings more like colors than like words, that will never leave my mind. things that make me feel guilt, even shame on rare occasions. they glow so strongly it makes me unable to look at myself in the mirror. i feel smaller than them, weak to their power, and i know it is connected to something else but i care not to work them through. they show up and then go away, slipping through the net, half in, half out.

i have always known that there is a level of comfort which i am only able to experience when i am physically alone. no matter who i have spent time with, of all the hundreds of people i have or have had relationships with, there is always a breath of relaxation when i return to my solitude. some are very small, some are huge, but they all lower my guard to some degree. my wife has been the closest to this, i am amazed with her and amazed at our relationship, how much it continues to teach me, every day. still, the feeling inside of me tells me i will always have that final base layer of comfortability only with myself. isnt this normal?

these last two years have shown me just how much my childhood has impacted my adult self, how significant that innocent period of moldability shapes out to be. the more distance i have between myself as an adult and myself as a boy, the clearer it becomes. at the gathering, i tried to explain this as well, imagining a root traveling upwards over time, strong as a tree trunk, jutting out in different ways, like when a lava lamp just starts to become hot enough. my self-consciousness takes this shape. many other parts of me do too. it is completely unique to me, just like it would be for anybody else. it is all shaped by our own journeys.

im not sure what pictures i painted at the gathering, if my friends created similar images in their own minds, but i know that i tried my best to bring them with me. it was one of those moments in which i could not come back down the way i expected to, it turned out that i was launched into orbit, pondering with a deeper curiosity than i started with. it went from a statement to a thought process. i leapt off the diving board and was not met with any water...

until now. i have just felt the splash.

1/17/24

the idea of grace and the act of giving it is as profound as any that i have experienced. it comes up in conversations, both from me and to me, and it is spreading. it is more empowering than any retaliation could ever be and i believe it to be a widespread cure to many petty negative feelings, interactions, and attitudes. a love which spreads like a cancer, it is swept up in the wind, given some necessary life by the air, it is a big, deep breath after working out a tough situation. giving grace is passing the test. giving grace is healing myself.

1/16/24

i am the elephant afraid of the mouse, my feet move slowly, they are massive and swing with a grace that can only be seen in slow motion. the slower something moves, the more powerful they are. or have the potential to be. maybe i say this to console myself, without really knowing how much truth there is inside of it. i dont care much about the innards of this statement because it does not change my pace.

i am as big as a wooly mammoth, as babe the blue ox, as a stegosaurus. i am afraid of the rapid movements of those smaller than me. i have the ability to destroy, a wrath like godzillas, but instead i am more like the iron giant with the dent in his head. gentle. enormous.

it takes me a day to even change my mind! how do i manage to get anything done? really, how? how does one move mountains, how could anyone find enough reason to even attempt this feat when the reason is for something so remedial? it is not for survival or safety as much as it is for things that are optional, that do not really change my course. or my pace.

many parts of me need to work together, at their own pace and at the same time, to figure out if something is really the thing that i want to be doing now. it is slow. its not sad either, i am not complaining i am just trying to illustrate the process as it feels to me.

1/10/24

i am stuck in the mud, waist deep in the muck and unable to move one foot in front of the other. i find that i am in a situation where i am powerless and so i must put my emotions aside for the moment. i have learned much while making it to where i am now, underneath these unideal circumstances, and one of those things is not to panic when i do not have control, that struggling only makes it worse, and so i do not. this is my reality, whether i like it or not, whether i have chosen it or not.

i cannot remove myself from this larger-than-life idea of relativity, it has followed me everywhere lately. i learn about life in the past, our planet, different epochs and extinctions, i watch the surface of the sun dancing with its molten plasma and i see the irises of my friends, my family, the strangers whom i talk to. i learn about these people too. i put myself in their shoes and picture what it is like to talk back to me, seeing the sun in my own eyes. i walk through a house of mirrors and eventually i stumble into one, mistaking it for the way out of this tricky hallway i have created inside of my head. it is a dizzying concept.

sometimes i try to put this emotion into words and all of the time it comes out in a very insufficient way. there are no words accurate enough for what i am feeling, surely this is why i type these meditations, surely this is why they will last me a lifetime. so i take another sip of my scotch and ask for a smoke, meditating internally once more. thanks buddy, i love you too, ill see you tomorrow.

each cell in my body contains galaxies, the sun really is just the eye of some mystical entity, colossally huge, imperceptible to the eyes of humans, incomprehensible regardless of its visibility. i polish the last of the glassware as my final task of the night and i wonder what for? its 4am and i am standing still, moving my hands in a very specific way in order for a job to be completed, for something so odd to look "nice" for a customer to use tomorrow, to give me money, for me to pour them a liquid which dumbs them down, dumbs me down, until i find myself in this very specific situation once more. one more rotation of the earth gone by. and so i wonder again, what for?

but i do know what for. i am not a nihilist, i love what i do. and that is the answer, that is it. but it is just so strange to think about relative to the rest of it, all the other life on this planet, its unimaginably rich history, lost in time, all the catastrophes, the infinite amount of mundanity.

like anybody else, i wish to see as many corners of the globe as i can while i am allowed to live this life. but i waved my white flag many years ago, i bowed out to live my life in the four corners of my bedroom, i am moved so rapidly and intensely that the very act of traveling becomes too slow for me. i see the rainforest on my screen and i am there, i see the desert and i am there, i see the endless island of ice and i am there...and i have been here before. it feels as though ive never left.

how beautiful it is to honor ancestry and culture, how magical to be able to comprehend what we have done in the past, the very idea of being cognizant enough to celebrate, celebrate anything! is a miracle. this life is miraculous in itself. when i see human beings act like animals it is a very real, visceral reminder of what once was. when i watch videos of animals attacking and eating other animals, i hold my human emotions of grief and empathy for just a moment before casting them aside, i recognize that i am projecting, that the world of evolution, chance, survival, short-lived-lives, is different than the world in which i am living. i am too far removed and, for that reason, it is not valid for me to shadow these events with what i am feeling.

i sound like a teenager to myself, discovering that nothing actually matters for the first time, i have reverted back to wearing all black, listening to my chemical romance and fall out boy, doing something to myself in order to feel something. its not a phase mom! but this time around is different. there is no initial shock, this time i have graduated. i will never cringe at my tendency to be curious, nor anyone elses. no more cringe! i do not have time to cringe anymore, it is wasted moments, they are negative and i am not a negative man. childlike maturity is exactly where i wish to stay.

i look to the past, i look to the future, i look beside me at what is happening in the present moment, knowing that whatever it is that i choose to do next will impact the course of history forever. instead of dwelling on the drastic nature of the truth in this, i embrace it, i do not think about it after, and i move forward.

1/3/24

in an instant, in less than a fraction of a second, splitting the hairs of time, the sensation becomes my existence. whoever it was threw the ball, it hit the target, my plank falls, and so i am plunged into the icy water of the dunk tank. i hear the muffled and distorted sounds of joyful laughter, gleeful giggling, through the water and the glass. i know they can see me but i cannot see them because i exist now in a separate way than they do. i feel something entirely different than what they feel. oh, but they are not focused on me and i am not embarrassed nor happy, i am meditating on this notion that i am now the cold.

and it is sensation, not feeling, feeling comes from within, fueled by my emotions, whatever they may be at whatever time. sensation is tied forever with my physical body. when i was born onto the fresh, green ground i felt the earth beneath me. i felt the coarseness of the dirt and i felt the heat of the sun. without training or will, i heard the sounds of my mother and father, and, eventually, i squinted around using another one of my senses. another one of my gifts.

it is the sensation of it all, that is what i will miss most about my body when i am no longer able to use it, i know it. perhaps i will look down on my family members who still inhabit this world with a peaceful jealousy, peering through the clouds, a humanlike god whose body has expired, recycled back into the mysterious nature of the scene behind the curtain. without my senses i am not human. said differently, my senses are what make me human.

and so i ruminate on the reality that so much time has been used in an effort to maintain the stability of these sensations, in an equilibrium, my homeostasis...i wonder if it is time better used in a different way. i wonder...

sometimes i dont want to push back. sometimes i think that maybe it is best to feel the widest variety of sensations that i am able to, while i am able to. when the shower goes from hot to cold, maybe i will try a little harder to stay in there a little longer. and maybe when i walk outside in these winter months a little underdressed, maybe i will hold my walking pace, steady, knowing that i will be inside my destination soon enough. such delicate little things.

oh, yes, in a wider scope now, i am telling myself that i own nothing. i do not own my clothes or my body or, no, not even my sensations. they pass within me, they are what make me Me, but there is no ownership, it is just the experience of it all. ownership is an icky idea not taught by nature. it is all just experience, experience combined with thought, impacting actions, interactions, changing and adapting, cause and effect. meditations.

12/28/23

there is a sensation on a bicycle in the one moment leading up to a crash or a fall where my mind becomes blank and i revert back to instinct. it is the most intense version of watching my life happen before my eyes, quite powerless to what is about to occur in just a seconds time. but it is in this sensation that i really get to test myself. oftentimes, i pass, my reflexes have proven successful, showing me that i am actually pretty apt on this thing after all. less often, but still enough to be significant, i fail, and i fall. i always get up at a normal pace, so as not to be embarrassed. there is nothing embarrassing about learning a lesson.

this inimitable moment, the lessons learned, happens a few times a year. it has taught me much, most importantly, most obviously, that sometimes i have put myself in a position to fail. and that i am about to crash. it is nobodys fault, not even mine, i am moving all the time just as every other nook and cranny on this earth moves with me. sometimes we collide, and failure happens. it is a guarantee. and all i can do is watch it happen, until its over, then pick myself up and continue on, without any shame.

today this did not happen. nor yesterday, nor last month. i havent fallen since last winter. as of last week, it has now become winter again, we have progressed through the other three seasons, flipped our calendars together, and wound up back where we were 9 months ago. i may not have had a crash in that amount of time, but i have learned many lessons. certainly, we all have.

i have become much more capable of seeing the magic around me, i believe that the more i lean into it, the more is revealed, the more i begin to generate some of my own magic. i have seen too many things, inexplicable things, to be so naive as to think that i am not magic myself...

this afternoon i witnessed a miracle, i was stopped in the bike lane while a car to my left began to move forward into the intersection, pushing back against the red light, while a car to my right, approaching us, was moving steadily through his yellow light. i did not have time to think before i put my hands on my helmet, waiting for the inevitable, making up for all the crashes i have avoided this year, but it did not come. the man in the wrong slammed on his brakes mere inches from the other, avoiding the t-bone. inches. i said jesus fucking christ and i looked around to see other bystanders shocked and still. then just a couple seconds later we all shook it off and continued on the paths we were going on anyway. the man in the wrong pulled over to catch his breath. after this, i saw a bald eagle gliding in between the tall buildings of downtown. it was a beautiful day.

this morning, i woke up next to my wife, and next to an earring i had lost yesterday evening. i took a nap after my show and woke up to find that it had vanished. it was special, i had created it myself, and i believed that i had lost it somewhere in my couch cushions. but this morning, i found it in my wifes bed. it fell off at my house, traveled with me, physically or cosmically, and presented itself when it was ready, on the other side of town. i still cannot wrap my head around this magic.

i have been so content lately, in a more casual way than when i try to force it, as practice, the scale has tipped and i am now reaping the rewards of my efforts. it is confusing to think about. it seems like i have not just turned a page, but begun a new chapter. maybe even a new book entirely. it feels like i have achieved something i had set out to do a long, long time ago.

i feel this way often, and that is a wonderful thing.

last week, in arizona visiting my father, he asked me, my brother, and my wife if we wanted to go into this cute looking coffee shop. truthfully, i did not feel a genuine desire to do this, but i said yes because the group said yes. immediately after stepping inside, i was handed a fully new emotion, one that was untouched by me, one that was fully crafted by others. of course, my reception of this neatly packaged emotion matters immensely, my doors are always open, but it is true that i allowed it to take me over and i felt washed away, clean and pure, cozy, warm, and happy. down to the smallest detail i was basking in this charming little house. i said yes to the new experience and it created a new memory, one which was so much more impactful than i could have imagined it to be. all i had to do was say yes.

my wife and i have begun telling people we are going to be married one day. it is playful, and it is genuine. the people see it and the people tell us. we speak of our house, our dog, our child. it is in loving jest, it also feels inevitable, in the most welcoming way. it was only after meeting her that i began to feel such progress in my personal goals. she parted the sea for me. i never have been a very good swimmer...

the bicycle sensation continues to come up as a thought lately. i have not felt it in a while, and i do miss it in a way, but i know that its absence means a good thing, just as i know that i will feel it again in the future. even when things have gone wrong for me, the circumstances are ideal. i do not pretend that they are not because i am a grateful person. i am big enough to recognize this. i have handled them with grace, i am becoming a man. my mustache is back. there have been no falls, only hiccups, and i catch myself. i pass the test. i do not feel the bicycle sensation because i have incorporated the lesson it teaches into my everyday.

12/23/23

blurred and grey, hazy is the distance, i travel in a bubble suited only for me. the further i go the more distance i create. such is every journey. the space between me and the others, those ive known, grows larger with every day, every moment, every passing thought, passing breath.

11/27/23

it is a very strange feeling, the time has finally come where i must produce the answer and i am mid sentence before i am struck with the realization that i do not know. my eyes grow big and my eyebrows raise, i stare off into the distance while i rummage through the files in my memory, a few moments go by and i am still empty handed. where on earth could it be?

the doubt begins to materialize and it makes me wonder if i ever even had an answer. but i know that i have been living with this certainty of something, i had produced something in the recent past because i had already moved on to the next step, a button was pressed and i had moved on. i nodded my head and made the next move. how could i have convinced myself so easily?

im being nice to myself. i tell this to all of my friends now when i confide to them a thing that i had frustrated myself with lately. i am nice to myself. although the doubt is real, the confusion swells, and i am ultimately left with no answer. it is frustrating. and i do not know the remedy.

this morning i woke up with a massive hole in my tummy. it was the absence of something, im sure of it. my dreams snatched it away from me, i was abducted by them and they wiped my memory of ever having had this thing. perhaps it was the answer i speak about, perhaps something different entirely. i will never know. my interactions today have been held hostage, it is hard to have a conversation with another person while i am still, constantly, searching for this thing that i lost. no, this thing that was taken from me. i dont mean to shift blame, i own my mistakes, it is just the most accurate way to describe the feeling of this absence of any type of answer. i am stuck in this loop, background refreshing, it is delusional, dementia like.

and i cannot just say im sorry, i cant talk right now, i am too preoccupied trying to finish this thought. it nags and tugs at me, it does not jerk me as much as it moves me slowly and over time. it is an enemy but it is inside of me. i feel a little crazy.

i take my breaks, i am being nice to myself. if it really is there i will find it, someday. if it is not then im sure i will move on, eventually.

11/20/23

my arrival home is a mere 20 minutes before sunset, but i still find myself pulling the blackout curtains to the side and hoisting up the blinds. it has been a day since i left them like this and i feel it important to give them a break from blocking the view inside, let the crows and the squirrels and pedestrians and bikers take a peek inside my room, if they can see past the golden hour that my window eclipses.

last night i was sucker punched by reality. i am still working through it. i watched a life be carried away from the bar in a stretcher, i talked to a coworker about the loss of life and the consequences of it, a completely separate situation. i went to my wifes door and found she had bolted it shut. but i have my own life to hold on to and cherish, my wife woke up and unlatched chain, some things work out rather quickly. and there is not that much that i can really do to prevent these things from happening at large. i accept it.

and now i find myself not wanting to type anymore. yesterday was significant and i am working through it. thats all. ive already had a steady morning with my wife and now i am home with the kitties. my brother has just returned too. i will enjoy the sunlight while i still have it and look forward to the sunrise tomorrow.

11/19/23

i was two bites away from finishing my breakfast before remembering i had forgotten to put the spinach in. i turned to my right and there it was, the near empty bag, still rolled up and clamped shut. a physical representation of my efforts to do things that are good for me, a reminder that the intention can be there, set up so easily, and still, not be completed. i had just forgotten. i put it back in the fridge, where the spinach normally lives, where i will reach for it when its time for lunch.

i am being spoken to by soft sounds, electronic and jazz, they have moved me more than lyrical songs  lately. im choosing to embrace it. they push the tears out easier and leave me with that special feeling of release.

i will go on a bike ride later, during sunset. i will stop at the store to grab the toothpaste that will help build my enamel back. i remember that it is all in my power to try, to remain a stoic but a stoic with drive, a gentle drive, a tiny motor on the back of my thin boat, gliding across glassy water.

11/14/23

in the dream i was given a mushroom, which i then ate, which i then felt as though i had made a fairly large mistake. how foolish that was, and i then became preoccupied on keeping my cool. i did it and i was calm, although for the rest of the dream i only wished i hadnt eaten that damn mushroom.

my eyes are closed in the shower and when i shuffle my feet to change positions i become dizzy. and so i open my eyes in the dim, steamy bathroom, but still, i am very unbalanced. then i freeze, as a chance to catch my breath, find the rhythm again, comatose for the moment. and then i am back in control. i remain lost in some deep and significant emotion but at least i can move my body according to my thoughts again.

i keep the shades closed, just as i did yesterday, the yellow-grey light that slips through the cracks is plenty. i think of my wife moaning and hissing when i draw the blinds on bright mornings, whispering to me too bright for my taste as she pulls the comforter above her head. i smile now as i smile when this happens in real time, even though we are not together today. i miss her and then i am dizzy again, i wonder if i am drunk still or drunk yet, my teeth ache from the alcohol dissolving them, i think of how sensitive they have become and then i remember that it is midday and i have not eaten. thats what it is. i am happy to have found a reason for something, to take me away from strange thoughts, to show me that i am not completely lost.

the music that comes from my speaker touches me deeply, i become convinced ive heard this before only to see that the album was released just last week. i brush the confusion off, accept the reality, and return to my feelings of appreciation. i am becoming an expert at this exact sequence of events.

yes, i have expertise in the manner of which i live this life, i am masterful in the manners in which i do things. not all, not yet, but i gain more with each day. it will take a lifetime and i look forward to seeing how it continues. i am extraordinarily calm today, despite not knowing why.

11/11/23

ive been meaning to tell you that the honeymoon phase is over, but im sure you already feel this too. there is a power in not saying it to each other, like never telling your kids that santa is make believe and having them find out on their own. it was never you that burst the bubble so you can both pretend that its still there, smile at it together, nurture the outline of this ghost you both refuse to let die. its a powerful form of Love.

and in many ways it is more powerful than the honeymoon phase. i think in most ways. of course it is because it stands the test of time, of challenge and compromise, if we emerge out of the initial frenzy of lust and passion and desire with our hands still held together in that finger-locked embrace then we have won, havent we? everything settles down at some point. and i am at my best when things are calm. i am at my best when im with you...

youve been talking lately about being alone, revisiting solo trips you were planning to do, wanting to sleep by yourself, and to this i tell you i support you. i feel these moments too. i recognize how you are feeling and i wish to validate you, i want to give you space when you need it. i know that when we come back together it will be warm and soft, full of love, the feeling of home.

were you scared for when it would end? i hope you arent anymore. i hope you feel the same way that i do and i trust that you do because we talk about it all together, we feel it when it is happening and we grow with it, together, we continue to create the world that we are living inside of, tailored to us, we continue to decorate our home together.

i wake up every morning and i dream every night and since meeting you in this romantic way i have never wished for my life to be different. i choose you today and i will choose you tomorrow, just as we have chosen each other for this year we have been getting to know each other. how beautiful it is. how magical you are.

11/9/23

i am high, high up in the tower, the sky is a pure, medium blue and i am closer to it than anyone else. the wind moves quickly up here, it strikes with leaves against the design of my stained glass window, but it does not determine my mood, for that is only up to me.

i am perched with my knees against my chin, i rock back and forth as i page through this massive book and revisit works from the past, pivotal works, works that shifted the zeitgeist, works that were made in pure authenticity, this being the clearest thing about them.

the tree which is older than my grandfather, taller than a mountain, casts its shadow on the brick wall below me, the sun concentrates all of her power and glory onto the body of this beast, the shadow moving from the west to the east, and i remain in this position. uncomfortably scrunched up in a wooden chair at my wifes kitchen table. my coffee never goes cold, my food never depletes, i am in a chrysalis of energy and i am unmoved by time, by the laws of physics, by anything at all. my periphery tells my brain that time is moving but it is only noticed by my subconscious. i am too focused on these works of the past. i rock and i sway and my eyes close and fill with water and then i am on to the next one and it repeats. the shadow slides steadily.

this feeling of Inspiration, true and pure, charged up and focused for weeks at a time before blasting me in all my senses, like an atom bomb shockwave, ripping my face off and tearing me to shreds, there is not a feeling more solidifying of what it means to be alive, in an active way, motivation to move and create, to appreciate and be moved by others.

and so i forget all that i am meant to do in a day because the things i was meant to do do not actually mean that much to me in this moment. i am explicitly grateful when emotions like Inspiration allow me to feel all of their power, i know it does not happen often. i know that they cannot be forged, only come across.

10/3/23

it was a quick encounter, they were strangers after all. one was doing the other a favor for their mutual friend so there wasnt much time to spare. there could have been, but not under these circumstances. people tend to be shy when they are pulled together for a specific purpose.

they held a quick embrace, they werent total strangers after all. one of them gave a compliment to the other that was sweet and specific, intuitive and bigger than the both of them. they smiled to each other before the first broke the contact and turned to leave, to take their exit. they would never see each other again...but the second would never be the same.

9/28/23

yesterday i stopped and thought in my head do i even like myself? of course the answer is yes, very much, but in that moment it begged to be asked. i think my emotions meant to ask me something more along the lines of do i like what i just did there? or do i like how i responded to that? and this would have yielded a much kinder answer, a much kinder thought process.

but i am not upset that i asked myself that initial question. that yes or no, all or nothing, black or white, leading, childish question. the answer i gave myself yesterday in the car, when i felt the drop of my stomach because my knee-jerk emotions gave an innocent comment a comeback with more ego than desired, lives alongside the question in the first place: i just need to let myself be a person. after i gave the short, conversation-ending comment, i apologized to my wife. after i asked that question to myself, i apologized to myself.

when these emotions make me feel ugly i can sit with them and feel grotesque. but when i get up to go to the bathroom, to wash my hands after doing something as ordinary as breathing, i look in the mirror and see a beautiful man. and i remember oh yes, this is what my wife sees, my brother and my daughters too, even those who dont know me yet see this beautiful man staring back at me. just as i see the beautiful people around me as i go throughout my life, they can see the beautiful me. i hope that they do. i would like to believe it, so i will.

i am aware that dark clouds can twist good intentions and make sunny days feel like thunderstorms, it is clear to me that personal interpretation is far more important than any objective and universal shared experience, i have many days where i feel like the wind is blowing against me, but i have become better at stopping to breathe and remember that i am making these things up and, subsequently, actually making them occur.

i am a stoic. it is one of the few labels i wish to claim, outright, tho i never realized how different other labels can be, those that depend on actions vs those that depend on mindset. mindset shifts are marathons. but i accept the invitation to this race because life is an iron man anyway so i may as well.

i have returned from a trip and i have found that i am not particularly happy to be back. i returned home and found that i missed my wifes company immediately, the company we shared for 10 straight days. i am happy to see my brother and my daughters, i look forward to seeing my other family soon. i enjoy the space of my bedroom and all the comfort that lives within these walls, warming me as the autumn weather begins to creep inside and change things up again, to show me that yes, i continue to move thru time, yes, these constants are still here, happening, some things i can depend on...but that is about it. i enjoyed my time away. i am not sure how it will affect my future, what rearranging is going on upstairs that i have not been able to get a grasp on yet. there is no blueprint for this.

the only next step is to unpack my bags, become settled again, and see what happens. i make the changes as they come to me, i make the decisions as the stars align. i wade thru it all, thru the emptiness of life and thru the richness of the meaning i give to it.

9/22/23

you hold my pinky in your palm, a loose grip, we are laying down together, i am lower than you are and we are staring into each others eyes. there is no expression on either one of our faces because no expression could accurately portray the density of emotion that is in the air around us and with us. so it is null. i close my eyes because i am listening to the pitter patter rainy day outside, the drops hitting the clear dome above us. i tell you im in heaven and i feel you smile at me. i wonder for a moment if you are still looking at me from above and then i feel the small air of exhale leaving your nose and connecting with my cheek. it is warm and i welcome it. i feel a pleasurable comfort knowing that we continue to face each other. then i wonder if your eyes are still open, i assume they are not, but i find you staring at me so very often that it is plausible, for sure. i lose that thought and focus on your warm nose exhales on my skin.

we are living in a small yurt, the smallest sizes they sell. we are living on the land of a family that are strangers to us, but we are still welcome. and it feels that way and it is nice. there is a dog, a mother cat, and all five of her kittens. there is lots of land to explore because the homes here are small. we are living together in a confined space and all we have done is laugh, and dance, and cook, and smile, and sing, and joke, and hug and kiss, and also have some more serious talks, together. it has all been fluid and easy. we talk about having babies together someday. about marriage. about living together, we dont know where. we are still meeting each other, yes, you are right, si, tienes razon.

now we are in the collective sigh that comes after sex, we performed it like a play, we performed it like surgeons because you are bleeding and we did not spill one precious drop anywhere on our white cloud of a bed. you were tight and i was throbbing and we did it slow and intense. i came into you and i whimpered like a dog, i completed my lifes mission and i went away for a moment. i stayed hard even after because of how much i love you and we did it slowly, intensely, until you got yours too. and then we collapsed, together.

i could stay here forever, tho i know the magic would wear off. not between us, but the idea of this being special. we are in an escape together and right now we exist in a vacuum. our home is 1400 miles away and for the moment we want nothing to do with it. i love you more with each day and these days in this vacuum are long and eventful, everything is new, we have no agenda, itinerary, or plan except for the ones we come up with together. the sights here have been spectacular. the memories made, immortal.

and so i count my blessings and cry for how good life has been to me, how i have been gifted this experience, this existence, i tilt my head up everyday and say to someone thank you, because i could not be more grateful for my time here, however it may be spent. and i keep sure to tilt my head to the side everyday and tell you, mi amor, thank you as well. my angel and mi vida, mi corazon and my wife.