just don’t know what it is to be free

i’ve had a rough two days. it’s stuff i won’t go into simply cause i refuse to be so vulnerable on a public blog, but it’s nothing any person would just breeze over. believe me. and i am not good at mentioning it to others. i don’t know how to articulate some things, and other times i just prefer not to talk about it. i like to keep my mind on things i like rather than things that hurt me physically and mentally. it’s not the best way, but it works usually.

tonight got bad. someone i care deeply for let me down in a lot of ways and by 3 AM i was absolutely positive i was alone in the world. i ended up driving to amanda’s in my bath robe. i was a mess of a person when i saw her, but she was warm and inviting, and she knew i had stuff on my mind, but she didn’t pry or anything. she just sat with me on her porch for a solid hour or two while i wondered out loud about whether or not anyone cared about being good at all anymore. we talked for so long and she kept making me laugh until i realized i felt fine. not fine, but good.

i realized i’ve been trying to go it alone for too long. i need to talk about stuff. i need to get it out there, because there are people who are completely receptive to whatever issues i might be facing. they may not be able to fix them, but they’ll sit with me through it all, and sometimes that’s all it takes.

i listened to johnny cash hymns the whole drive home, while the sun started to rise behind the dark clouds that has been the weather the last two nights, with light blue shining through deep blue, and realized that i am not remotely alone in the world. not ever. because i have people like amanda whose presence itself makes the world seem like a good place again.

scissors cut paper, paper covers rock

i’ve been called insensitive by a multitude of folks my entire life, and i’ve been called an “A-hole” more times than i’ve been called insensitive. i have a hard time being a good friend among petty conflict. i just want to say “this is stupid” and be done with it. so that’s what i do, and it never works out. “you should not be worried about this tiny little problem, i’m telling you.” people don’t take that as good advice when they so verily feel the problem resonating within them. but i’m out of advice. i’m out of mercy for problems people have to learn to accept, because my hand can’t be extended so far to make them complacent among bad things.

i would say that i am a person who has experienced a lot. not more or less than most, that’s not the point i’m trying to make, i just feel that i have been there with a lot of things and have had to face the breaking point more times than i would like to recount. i’m silent in these times. i don’t really talk about it to many people, because it’s mostly stuff i feel needs to be worked out in my own mind. and sometimes i don’t have the right person to talk to about them.

it’s just when a friend is upset about a minor setback, or a person they were dating not calling them back, or just whatever, i don’t have a thing to say.but it’s not because i am losing faith in the person that i have a hard time being sympathetic for them. it’s because i’ve seen what a strong instrument humans are and i know they’ll make it through it. i don’t know how to be sorry because i know that they will move on fine. the bothers of it won’t matter in time. i know how much a person can deal with at once… not even the extent of it, really, because there are people who’ve fought a much greater fight than i ever could have dreamt of taking on, but i’ve had my share.

maybe i am insensitive. maybe i think people should just accept their fate. maybe i’m not good at having mercy on anyone who’s lost every easy challenge they’ve taken on. i don’t know. i need a rest. my soul does. my eyes are heavy and my spirit is tired, just like every day. and i won’t mention it to anyone, because i can take the loneliness that comes with it. cause things don’t change when your audience doesn’t get it. there are those who understand more than anything, and i’ve spent insurmountable thought on them, grateful all the while… but sometimes i feel best going it alone. this is the path i tread and i’ve grown to love every part of it. i’ve learned pain is just as good as solace. they’re the same thing sometimes. it’s only cause i’ve felt so good that i can also feel so bad… vise versa… we all know this, but it astounds me anyhow.

shrine of the most blessed sacrament of the holiest most angelic most high…

yesterday jake, amanda, and i went to the shrine of the most blessed sacrament. i dont know, really, what happened while i was there, and i guess i don’t want to get into it for fear of losing it, but my soul feels restored to me in a way, and i am just so happy to be alive and all. sure it’ll pass, it always passes, but that’s not right now, so i don’t care. i spoke to a nun and she said “god bless you” and all. it’s such a nice thing to hear when you haven’t sneezed. just to see someone who wishes good things upon you out loud like that.

i am coming to terms with a lot of things, being twenty years of age now. they say reading the beautiful and damned by fitzgerald really messes with your mind and your sense of time and there’s no doubt about it. i feel so aware of how time is raging onward that it truly terrifies me. mostly because i don’t know what to look forward to. and for the things that i anticipate in life, for when they come, i have no idea how to bridge the gap–to get myself there, i mean.

i’ve been reading a lot like i used to in the summer of 2006. i feel like i get further with the knowledge i gain by seeking it on my own time than i do by following some sort of curriculum. i’m sure everyone feels that way. and it’s not so much laziness as it is, for me at least, realizing that time is fleeting and i don’t have forever to figure things out. i want to get a feel for this world–a good, solid footing of some sort–before i know what i am going to be obliged to do for the rest of my life. i probably sound angsty. i’m aware of that. i spose what i’m getting at is i haven’t yet found my place and that’s the position i’m in.

anyhow. these days i’m just praying for summer to approach more rapidly than it has been and i’m dreaming of swimming in rivers and catching tadpoles. i’ve got ideas in mind to go visit all of my long, lost [to college and other things] friends who’ve moved away from me. i’ve been reading bukowski and so i will leave “you” with this:

this is hard to explain, I mean who the man was,
anyhow, it was in a large structure and he sat in
a chair in uniform, red coat and all, his job was
to examine the hand-stamp of those who left the
structure and returned, there was a lamp you put
your hand under and the stamp appeared (god that
was work) anyhow, as I put my hand under the lamp
the man asked, “listen, what’s your name?”
“Hank,” I answered
“listen, Hank,” he asked, “what makes a man a
writer?”
“well,” I said, “it’s simple, it’s either you
get it down on paper or you jump off a
bridge.
writers are desperate people and when they stop
being desperate they stop being
writers.”
“are you desperate?”
“I don’t know…”
I walked on through and as I took the escalator up
I saw him sitting there, probably thinking that it was possibly
bullshit, he had wanted me to suggest some special
school, some special way, like some way to get out
of that red coat, it was not an enlightening job
like designing a bridge or batting cleanup for the
Dodgers but
he wasn’t desperate enough, the desperate don’t ask,
they do
and at the top of the escalator I pushed through the
glass doors and as I did, I thought, son of a bitch,
I should have asked him his name, and then I felt
bad for him and for myself but a few minutes later
I had forgotten all about him
and the other way around
and he watched more hand-stamps under the lamp
and I watched the toteboard and the horses and
the desperate people
desperate in all the wrong
ways, in-
deed.

-charles bukowski “what makes?”