[the] increase

twist

growing [inside]

ordering

slide [hard]

sigh

sharp

recoil [from]

bend

silence
[radical] space

[in]stability
chaos


my mind is high, and my heart is sinking.
I don't get these feelings.
Are these even feelings?

[not enough] exchange

touch
hold.

its doesn't work
to explain things
with single word
statements.

-got some research done (even got to talk to Matt about my project which already made it so much stronger and better and I am really getting excited about it now!)
-got my paper done
-talked to Alicia
-hung out with Ariel and Carolyn briefly
-ate food (thanks Alicia and Em)
-ran
-showered
-unpacked
-finished my application for PERU!!!

did i forget anything?
Spanish. hahahah, of course.

fuck it. I'm printing this shit and going to bed!

that was arguably one of my best runs ever. I did 5 miles in 40ish minutes.

There are some really good running songs by Deadmau5, so that helped.
I also did some of my application in my head along the way which kept my mind off the distance. That is one thing that is really fragile about running for me... if my mind isnt in the right place, I can still get the run done, but it takes 10times the amount of motivation. Sometimes I am just wanting to get the run over with so I'm aware of where I am the whole time, making it seem to take forever, and always considering shortcuts and stuff. I almost never take short cuts, only if I'm under a time constraint, but when its on my mind, the distance gets to me (even though its only 5 miles). I think that's the problem with running the same route, I know the amount of energy it is going to take, and sometimes I just don't want to do it again. Running at home was a nice change last week. I only did it once, but Mom suggested the loop down Middle Fork and it was perfect. Then being back on campus today, for some reason I started with a faster pace than normal and just kept going fast.

Anyway, about my mind. Deadmau5 is good music because it has a fast beat and very few songs have words. It helped me to set my pace, and then kinda lose myself in the progression of the song, which allowed me to focus on answering the application questions in my head. I think I am going to go fill that out now, and then crank out my essay, and go back to the application and rework my answers. I can't believe it is due tomorrow. Scary.
But no seminar reading for next week! But in its place my project proposal is due this Thursday, along with a summative integration paper...
fuck. (yay for all nighters?)

I'm glad I ran, but I have very little time to do a lot of work,
and I'm covered in sweat and freezing, but Em is in the bath.

So that might be my only run this week, until Friday.
How about I try to eat healthier than I did last week? Sounds good.
Dinner tonight? no clue...

*sigh*
...as fast as I go, I just can't keep up with everything.

there's a lot on my mind. and there's a lot i need to do.
I should run, but i don't think i'm going to today. i'd have to leave now to get back by dark... and fuck it... now i'm motivated to go.
haha..


but i also need to write. i wrote 4 pages in my journal today. two more and it is filled; time to start a new one.

I need to unpack
write a paper
do research and sort out my project
take a shower (i'm so gross right now)
study spanish and catch up on the work
fill out my application for the Peru trip
and sleep, since i didnt last night
plus Ariel and Carolyn are coming back
i'd also like to see how Alicia is doing

fuck. i really don't have time to run. or work through all my thoughts.
i promised myself today would be dedicated to homework...

and shit came up.

well

it doesnt really matter,
all these little things...

life's gonna surprise me again soon enough. and all my plan's will
i think im gonna run. clear my head during the run. take a shower. and them buckle down on work (yeaaa...)

well fuck this though. im just wasting time.

good or bad, life is amazing.

If I could put it to words, I would.

well...
we can blame it on Jupiter's alignment, or just pure idiocy...
it doesn't really matter.

I'm not really as bad as I think I feel, I hope.
Glad that made sense, nothing else does.



It's really okay though. Its funny how fucking okay it actually is. Especially with this music. Its just so fucking wonderful when my current soundtrack really does parallel my life quite nicely. I mean, it makes me feel like I am where I should be. Oh, and listening to people sing their souls into songs I can relate to, that helps too... it makes me feel less alone, less stranded in the middle of nothingness. And this soundtrack makes me feel surrounded, which is good because that is what I am. I am surrounded by...
...there is no word for it.

I think I know what’s on your mind
A couple words, a great divide
Waiting in the wings, a small respite
Crowding up the foreground from behind

Even though you’re the only one I see
It's the last catastrophe
Place your bets on chance and apathy

Take anything you want, it’s fine
Keep up the slow life for the night
Don’t take it back, I’ll just deny
This constant noise all the time

Even though you’re the only one I see
It's the last catastrophe
Place your bets on chance and apathy
From the wind in front of me



All I know... this soundtrack, and this movie, and the book too, are beautiful. And so is this fucking life I'm living.
I stand by it: pain and misery are beautiful. So beautiful that I might plead addiction. Maybe that's why I always end up falling, cause I let go. Maybe not. I'm just trying to do what feels right. Is that so wrong? Or is it not about it being wrong?
wait... this reminds me of Into the Woods. oh god, i love that musical. harsh, but it tells it like it is.

so, now... there are things I need to go do. One of them being sleep. Another being homework. And a third being making a decision because of a stupid decision I made before. I already took a shower. A long shower, not hot or cold. Not to feel anything, or numb myself, but just to get clean.

Laugh.
I'm serious.
Laugh.
Life is so goddamn funny and fucked up.
But I can't even laugh right now. I'm gonna go sleep, find some rest for my mind, where I'm at least not consciously twisting ideas until they snap. Then I'm gonna go read, and instead of doing what I always do (integrate personal life into the book) I am going to immerse myself in the story, and limit my thoughts from beyond interpreting the words.

After that, I hope that maybe I won't have to play pretend all night, but I probably will, which is why I at least need to escape expectations for a little while.

I'm sorry.

Watching New Moon again tonight got me thinking a lot. Tyler asked what I liked about seeing it for the second time. I liked that I got to feel it this time. The night I first saw it, I was fairly numbed by joy and overcome by the ways of the world, and just so happy that I was seeing the movie, and being with the people I was with, and that so many things had seemed to work out. I couldn't feel the emotions that the book had evoked from me because happiness was overwhelming. But I let it be. I needed to feel overwhelmed by something other than despair. But when I saw it tonight, in light of recent events, it really brought me into my mind again. I got home and turned on the soundtrack and just laid on my futon and thought for an hour or so. I felt panicked. I felt dark and I was scared I was falling backwards again. I was lonely, and i wanted to feel... home, love. but i was home, sitting in my room; i felt restless, but i could sit, and be held by this comfortable place where i could sit and think in peace... safe.

And I was thinking about love (not that I hadn't already been thinking about it). Then on facebook I had a short exchange with Brian about the "love" story that Twilight is... much of it has been omitted but it was basically::

B: and i wouldnt cal that love :( sorryalex. i call that obsession with extreme infatuation
A: obsession is a real part of love, especially in relationship at that age. but that doesnt mean it isnt love. ... See Morethere are many types of love, many ways to love another person. they might not all be the most healthy, but they are very real.
B: it is a completly unhealthy relationship.to be at a level that you absolutly cannot live without the other person, i think is unhealthy.
A:but i still think that is a strong type of love... when you find someone who can make you happy beyond anything else that could go wrong. dangerous, but powerful. and yet, still not the most powerful, arguable. a more powerful love is one in which you choose the person because you want them, not because you need them. and that comes with trial, and time.

I'm lucky enough to have been so deeply in love with a person that it nearly destroyed me. and this has happened more than once.
..that sounds funny, but what a powerful emotion to be able to feel. and I am glad that i have, and that i am capable of caring for another so intensely.

I have also been lucky enough to love people so deeply that eventually it didnt matter if we were together or not, near or far, we would always be so close to eachother because of love. It sounds fucking cliche, but its real.

There are so many different forms love takes. and this connects to what i was saying last night... home is love, in so many ways... i dont even want to try to get into that again though.

I've been thinking about my feelings about Zach and Tony and Matt and Nygil and Kody and how they were all so different. Different types of pain, and joy...


blech. I sound like an idiot right now. thats fine; its 1am and I have a massive headache. i cant stop clenching my teeth. my back is killing me and my head is full of thoughts that i can't fully convey using the limitations of standardized written language (hah, yay for school connecting to just about every aspect of my life). i almost feel horrible for saying that about writing, because writing... well, i might as well just say it: I love writing, to the point that i depend on it for half of the things i do in my life. i would be devastated without it. maybe that is completely unhealthy (especially since many cultures don't have a written form of their language and get on fine without it), but i do "need" it to function, to get by. i want to have complete faith in it.

is it too much of a stretch to relate that to bella and edwards relationship? well too bad, cause i just kinda did. Unintentionally too.

take or leave what you will. i dont care at this point. i have found so much power in the connections of understanding between people. and misunderstandings too. but there is a point where i just can't worry about it anymore. and by "it" i mean "anything." so i keep splurging my thoughts...


this is where i get around to saying what i wanted to say in the first place, which is that i like being me. i like my mind, which always has something to ponder. i like my thoughts, i like my experience in this world. i like my way of looking at things.
and i like all of the things that have shaped me to become this person.
and sometimes it fucking sucks, and it hurts. and sometimes i wish my mind would shut up so i could be ignorant and not think so hard about everything. but then, i get to this point, where yea, i might still be thinking/wondering/questioning but i realize that i am not going to "figure anything out" or convince anyone of anything or whatever i was trying to do with my thoughts in the first place. and thats some sort of peace...

well anyway. i am getting better at being what i need to be for myself. i am trying to. i dont want to rely on people for happiness, because people arent reliable enough to always make me happy. but... they are reliable enough to sometimes make me happy. what about the rest of the time? and what does "happy" even mean?

ooooook, i am about to cut myself off here. i havent let myself tangent like this for a while, so it has been nice. but, my headache persists. and tomorrow is a long but exciting day.


wish this had been a conversation with someone rather than a blog post. i bet it will be, soon. actually, i know it will be; tomorrow i am seeing Ashley...

*sigh*
i haven't even touched the surface tonight. there is so much happening in my life. there is SO many complex things occuring within my and around me. its really something, trying to navigate through all this. and this random ass blog post is an example of the choas occurring. there's a microcosm of it in my mind (or is it a macrocosm?)

see, i could go on forever.

hokay.
fuck it.
im done.
goodnight.
^_^

always questioning means never being content,
but the mind quiets when it finds a place to call home.



that "place" is not a place as much as it is a circumstance. "home" isn't a building, its a feeling... of comfort and love. for me, usually i feel the most at home when I am with the right person/people (or just with myself), at the right place, at the right time. the last two --"place" and "time"-- actually become irrelevant once the comfort sets in, though I think they do often play a role in creating the setting of comfort in the first place.

i can't paint the picture without an example,
and i can't describe an example. it is too beautiful for any combination of words I could spew out on here.

but it is a feeling i wish to feel more often...
and i wish its effects were longer lasting.

...to express how I feel, I would write them.
But seriously, there is almost nothing I can say to explain how I feel.

I just witnessed one of the most amazing musical events ever at the Swell Season show, which featured The Frames too. Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova and the rest of the band... blew my mind. I just... cant even explain it in any way except that I am in complete awe.

And before that...
I experienced a major blast from the past.

So... I am going to go sleep and feel whatever amazing emotions it is that I am feeling.

I enjoyed my birthday. Spent time with some good people.

There might be a lot to say, but I don't think I will take the time, just a few minutes of reflection.
I wrote some things in my head throughout the day, mainly tonight hanging out with the guys at K. Those things will not be written here.

I found myself to be fairly content with things that occurred all day. I found myself slowing down a bit in my mind.

I talked to people I haven't talked to in months, and enjoyed the change of conversation.

All I want right now is to lay down with some books and just read for a few hours. But I can feel my brain melting in my head; I need to sleep soon.

I made a wish on the candles. It came true, for the day. I had another wish, which I didn't perceive as a wish until this point when I came to putting it into organized thought. What I desired though, now that I think on it, maybe manifested itself in a different way than I would have thought it could. But all the same...
The connection was extended through a book, and not a conversation. And I think I am looking for a way to respond by looking at other books. And maybe that isn't really a response so much as it is a way to extend the ability to relate (to enhance the relationship).

See, even now I am having conversations with myself. That is what writing often is for me though... a conversation with myself such that I can understand something or someone else better. And maybe someone will read what I have to say and have that "conversation" and then find something within it to relate. That extends the relationship between writer and reader, and likely the reader and something or someone else.
This is why I should read more.
Extend the spiral.

I am leaving tomorrow for home in North Bend. I specify because home is so many things, and now, as I am thinking about it, it is rarely a "place" (or rather, a "space," as I will put it for my own understanding).

As for the age: I have grown. I have done much growing especially in this past month. It might sound strange, but I can feel myself grow. No... that's not strange. Its, in fact, a bit cliche.

Anyway, this date passes as a marker. Its a standard of time, and its passage gives context to the patterns of change. That can be measured however you want. I don't want to; not at this moment, and maybe not ever.

Ah, I got on this tangent because of the same fact that I have just arrived at. And that fact makes leaving this words and this conversation much more difficult. I desire a connection. Undefined at this moment, but with preferences in place.

Possibility is infinite (I think). But we (physically-- or metaphorically) build walls and shut doors and close our eyes. When I close my eyes to sleep at night, it does seem to halt the possibility of many things occurring. This may sound stupid, but I think that is why I like sleeping next to someone. When I am woken in the middle of the night, that is a change in what is essentially the "plan" and new possibilities open up (or it could be that they were always going to be opened because they are predetermined... but all the same, from my perspective it is something beyond what I expected). Like just now: I am resigning myself to the fact that there will be no more communication with another person tonight, and then my mom texts me. Physically I was startled because the possibility wasn't considered in my mind.

I clearly don't have a point... or, at least, the mind capacity to make it there tonight. Hah, I am ready to catch up on some much needed rest. I don't think I will read too long tonight (but I didn't think I would write this long either).

I have been alive, in this form, for 20 years. 20. 20. 20. That number seems so big in many contexts, and so small in others.
Ahh, it doesn't matter.
I could write in circles all night, forever.

I remember the day I turned 10. I don't remember what I did, I just remember the day. From my perspective, that is a very distant memory...
And in that regard, it is time to sleep. I've had a loooong decade.
:P

prepare yourself for any possibility?

thats the thing... you can't ever be fully prepared. you have to be flexible... yet strong. you have to be willing to learn something new and fight for what you know. but you will not be fully prepared. it is not the way of the universe. from chaos stems everything else... and so everything is chaos, and so are you. feel. let yourself feel.

go with it.
"fall a lot"
take deep breaths.

when your in the middle of a stormy sea, there may not be anything to hold, and it will be scary and you will feel like you are about to die...
but you are alive. this is what it is to be alive. wonderful terrible frightening.
but within all of that, somehow, there is comfort in the vastness of possibility.
there is humor in the absurdity of reality.
there is wonder within the unknown.
and there is truth.
and there is also love and connection.

uncertainty is damn scary.
truth might just be even scarier.
I am terrified. i am terrified of being strewn out helplessly.
but i am not helpless. i have to remember that. i have to remember. i have to be strong, and be weak and just let being whatever I am be enough.

and i am writing this for myself, so that no matter what happens, when I come back, I can remember that when the wind blows the hardest and almost lifts me up, i am home.
that when the sea crashes on me, i am alive.
when chaos ensues, i am a part of the universe

and maybe that is all i can know.




this is all incoherent nonsense to you, probably.
it is to me too, as a whole.
i dont know what i am trying to tell myself.
i dont think i have anything to tell myself
except that i had conviction to make myself grow from this, and i must not lose sight of that.
And so...
just like last night,
I am as ready as I ever will be...

feels wonderful.

When I began this blog site, under the title Each Day, it was with the idea that each day that I am alive is a blessing. It began when I found out that a girl Morgan, from my high school, had died of cancer. I felt that I was not appreciating my life, my health, or the opportunities I have each day. The goal was to remind myself daily that there is potential for something new, something wonderful, or even something terrible, and that I should cherish what I have while I have it.

Recently, I have asked why I was not one to die so young when I often don't even have much will to live. Why was her life taken from her without a choice when I often feel as though I would happily take her place, and allow her to live the beautiful life she dreamed? I have asked this, as I am sure others have asked before. I question it more in greater depth on the last post of my previous site, so I won't go through it again.

It doesn't really matter to me right now anyway. I am alive. I am healthy. I have opportunity. My world, each day, is flooded with potential. I knew that, but perhaps now I know it better.

I may be stumbling in the dark trying to find truth, and I could instead stumble upon lies... but maybe through those lies, I do find truth. Or maybe I just find a few moments of joy that energize and help carry me to the next thing I stumble across. Or maybe what I find is dangerous, and it hurts me, leaves me stranded for a while. I could be indefinitely paralyzed. But... I am still in the darkness. Even if I'm not moving all that much right now, other pieces are moving... and someday, they could find me.


"...the darkness around us is deep." But it is darkness, blackness, the absence of color (the absence of the absolute?). Perhaps to fill that void is a saturation of possibility.

"This is how it works:
you're young until you're not;
you love until you don't;
you try until you can't;
you laugh until you cry;
you cry until you laugh,
and everyone must breathe until their dying breath.

No, this is how it works:
you peer inside yourself;
you take the things you like and try to love the things you took.
And then you take that love you made and stick it into some... someone else's heart, pumping someone else's blood.
And walking arm in arm you hope it don't get harmed, but even if it does you'll just do it all again..."
-Regina Spektor

This is an article Alicia gave me about three weeks ago. It has... been the foundation of many things over this period of time (including indirectly being the inspiration for my integration paper for Andean Roots in which I discuss the possibilities of connectivity between personal life and academics). The article is by Adrienne Rich. What I posted are the parts I find most true and... relevant.

"To discover that one has been lied to in a personal relationship makes one feel a little crazy.
Lying is done with words, and also with silence.

The woman who tells lies in her personal relationships may or may not plan or invent her lying. She may not even think of what she is doing in a calculated way. She may also tell herself a lie: that she is concerned with the other's feelings, not her own. But the liar is concerned with her own feelings.

The liar lives in fear of losing control. She cannot even desire a relationship without manipulation, since to be vulnerable to another person means for her the loss of control. The liar has many friends, and leads an existence of great loneliness.

The liar often suffers from amnesia. Amnesia is the silence of the unconscious. To lie habitually, as a way of life, is to lose contact with the unconscious. It is like taking sleeping pills, which confer sleep but blot out dreaming. The unconscious wants truth. It ceases to speak to those who want something else.

In speaking of lies, we come inevitably to the subject of truth. There is nothing simple or easy about this idea. There is no “the truth,” “a truth”--truth is not one thing, or even a system. It is an increasing complexity. That is why the effort to speak honestly is so important. Lies are usually attempts to make everything simpler--for the liar--than it really is, or ought to be.

In lying to others we end lying to ourselves. We deny the importance of an event, or a person, and thus deprive ourselves of a part of our lives. Or we lose one piece of the past or present to screen out another. Thus we lose faith even with our own lives.

The possibilities that exist between two people, or among a group of people, are a kind of alchemy. They are the most interesting things in life. The liar is someone who keeps losing sight of these possibilities.

When relationships are determined by manipulation, by the need for control, they may possess a dreary, bickering kind of drama, but they cease to be interesting. They are repetitious; the shock of human possibilities has ceased to reverberate through them.

When someone tells me a piece of truth which has been withheld from me, and which I needed in order to see my life more clearly, it may bring acute pain, but it can also flood me with a cold, sea-sharp wash of relief. Often such truths come by accident, or from strangers.

It isn’t that to have an honorable relationship with you, I have to understand everything, or tell you everything at once, or that I can know, beforehand, everything I need to tell you. It means that most of the time I am eager, longing for the possibility of telling you. That these possibilities may seem frightening, but not destructive, to me. That I feel strong enough to hear your tentative and groping words. That we both know we are trying, at the time, to extend the possibilities of truth between us. The possibilities of life between us."

maybe i should have just fucking said no.

uncertainty is misery.

i never...
so
why do i...?

that's all the advice people seem to give me.

yes. pretend and be everything I hate.



i mean, what the fuck kind of advice is "just wear a smile and eventually you will believe it is real"
?