Skips Beats Races

Every day we have a chance to be who we want to be, live how we want to live, and do what we want to do.

Not everything we must do is going to be fun or part of where we want to end up, but if we are doing it then it is necessary for some reason.

For the last few years I have had the joy of realizing, when down time came along, that I have done a lot of “growing up” over the preceding however-long period of time. But, it’s not that I’ve done any growing up, it’s just that I’ve been living: making mistakes, contributing to successes, enjoying happiness and sadness, and learning from the highs and lows of everything that happens to me, for me, about me, or around me.

We don’t wake up one day and realize we are “grown up”. We keep on living, learning, changing, adapting, and becoming who we want to be. Or, we stop, and we become what we never wanted to end up.

Here’s to living.

Is that sometimes I just want the world to stop, so I stop being a part of the world. It works well for a few days, but then the unfinished tasks pile up and it becomes clear that the world didn’t stop with me.

Tonight, I’m refocusing. Tomorrow, I tackle the pile-up.

Well, since I was about 12 years old at least.

The thing is that every time I go on one of these long-term adventures I experience a re-cap of everything that has come before. All of my big life choices flash in front of me and some play through my head in slow drawn out scenes like a movie projected in 3D for my viewing only. It’s a great point in time for self-reflection, especially as I find myself changing only more rapidly as I get older. I would like to think “adapting”. I have, for the most part, stayed true to the core principles that I believe in. I seek to maintain integrity, be honest, and support my friends with my whole being. I fight for what I see is right, and I strive to let others live their lives as they see fit and support their choices. But, every time I go through my reminiscence again, I see somewhere I have missed the mark, something I did that was less than my best, and people I have disappointed in the past.

I fear that my life will become a collection of people that I have known, and left, and disappointed. I fear that my life will become a collection of places I have been, and lived, and run away from. I fear that in my constant adventuring, I will never find satisfaction. For now I keep on moving, and in a month I will be in London, England. Four months.

Another adventure, I am certain I will like.

I got frustrated this afternoon because I tried to write my sick, favorite Uncle an email after a long spell of silence on my part. To be honest, the reason I haven’t written him in so long is because I am furious about his condition. It’s unfair and unsavory that the god(s) have done this to him. [He had esophageal cancer, now it is in a muscle in his back and there is a limit to the radiation he can receive because he is already on dialysis four times a day and the muscle in question is near his liver and kidneys.]

Then I looked back in my archived emails to when I last wrote him. En route, I came across emails exchange with Her, and that made my blood boil. Because she is such a bitch. Because she has disappointed me more than any person I have ever trusted.

Then I walked home. I looked in the mirror. I realized how disappointed I am in myself for squandering this summer so far. I drink too much. I flirt too much with no consequence, passion, or interest attached to my actions or words. I am too lazy. I indulge too much. I am not working on my self-improvement enough.

I want to go away in the Fall semester and return for Spring looking like I could snap a 4x4 plank with 2 fingers. I want to walk past Her and make her knees go weak just seeing me smile because I’m a fucking Greek god. The best part is, I’ve realized over time that my body is the kind that is better able to form muscles and shape as it gets older—I am approaching, not passing my optimal age for fitness. So, if I could get my ass out of bed I could actually do this stuff.

But I’m so tired, and so bored, and so lazy and undisciplined that I do nothing. These last two years have landed me here. I produce nothing. I read blogs and news and watch movies that other people wrote and I tell the world nothing. My silence is criminal and I’m disgusted at myself for it.

and yet the thought of you treating me the way I think you have just makes my blood boil.

It’s hilarious to me that I’ve spent a few weeks having no interest in writing on tumblr, but a few things that have happened in the last couple of days have left me wanting to vent my heart out. I’ve been having a great time lately. I’ve been feeling more like myself than I have felt in a long, long time. I am happy, again. It has been longer than I would like to give credit since that was the case. I can’t pinpoint the reasons that I was unhappy, but there were several major, substantial life challenges that I have been weathering for a while now and they each took their toll.

More and more, I realize that one of those reasons was her. I wasn’t happy, because I couldn’t be myself with her. This most recent love stole from me the very thing that made me the person I, and everyone I know, love. I am a unique individual. It’s impossible to put explicitly into words what makes me that way, but I’ll give you a few things: I’m old-fashioned in my concern for integrity and honesty; but, I’m completely open-minded and have love for everyone, who does anything positive, and lives their life to fit their needs and happiness; and, I’m so ridiculously laid-back that most people probably think I’m positively lazy; but I’m motivated and driven to be the last hope of humanity and to realize the solution to the calamity that is the world. I like living. I like the pedantic day-to-day. I like observing people going about their daily routine and laughing at how serious we all are—all the while walking seriously to and from my work and engagements. But, she is a serious person. She is kind, and reasonable, but serious. She cares about her emotions and her well-being first. She has reason to feel that way. She was mistreated once, by a guy who is not me and who I could never be anything like.

Every day I find out something new that makes me feel uncomfortable about what I accepted from her as truth. (1) She told me a few weeks after we’d been dating that a girl I was good friends with had said to her “I’m so glad you two are together, now he can stop liking me!”, and after that I felt there was nothing I could do but stop intentionally seeing my good friend who had misguided ideas about my feelings. But, now that I am single, I find that said good friend believes she said nothing of the kind. (2) She told me when we had just broken up that she had “a friend”. That friend had been warned that despite his announcement of feelings for her, she would not be engaging in anything because she needed to go home and learn how to be herself, on her own, for the summer. Then I recently hear that one of my best friends saw them walking towards school from the train one morning at a conspicuously early hour, just days after I had left the city. (3) To add insult to injury, this was the same guy whose sudden, unexpected presence in her life had originally drawn me to suspicion about her feelings. The same guy who couldn’t look me in the eye when I saw him for several weeks before the end of school, several before we broke up and a few after. That’s character. That’s integrity. That’s what she left me for. That’s her choice and it’s a poor one.

But, it has left me better off. I don’t know if she was jealous, or paranoid, or two-timing. I don’t know if she disrespected me before we broke up, or if that was something she added in for fun after dumping me. But, she treated me in a way I never deserved. It’s insulting. It’s upsetting.

More importantly, it is disappointing. I wanted to be friends. I thought we could be friends. You were there for the most difficult year of my life. I treasured your companionship and support during those months. I valued your character and integrity as you were there for me. Now, I wonder about my evaluation of you. I can’t think of a word I want to say to you. I can’t imagine wanting to speak to you. I can’t even consider wanting to hear anything you have to say. I am so very disappointed in you.

Internships explodin’ all over the place right now. Day 2 of accepting work, let me count it up and knock ‘em down.

TWO. Bitch.

Making life my bitch since 1987.