Tonight I enjoyed a pilgrimage for peace that I've made many times. There was no intended destination; no Mecca I sought. Simply the freedom and joy that I find in the journey (more about that here, if you wish). Meandering down the moonlit road, waves crashing on crumbled stone, music resounding in time to the salty wind in my hair: this is peace. For me anyway.
As I partook of these rare moments, I released many of things that have been weighing on my mind of late. For the last 27 days I've been working on a self-improvement project that demands time daily. More than most who follow my progress would imagine. I'm suffering from much self imposed pressure to not quit, as I have so many other things in life. This pressure exists despite my enjoyment of the tasks. The fear I'll forsake my intention has caused me unrest. However I've also noticed something else. Something very good.
The goal of this undertaking is simply to become a better man. I've no archetype set in mind, just a desire to change. I grew weary of my sad existence. By this I mean no insult to my life. I was earnestly carrying less hope and more desperation than I ever had before. 2010 was unkind in most every conceivable way. Not to mention that it concluded with all of my possessions being either trashed, stolen, or made to fit in a duffel bag that as I type this am remembering I'm not it's rightful owner. (oops. sorry Janell...)
This past month of actively and daily pursuing minor goals to improve myself has already had effect, only not how anticipated. My mindset has been altering itself without my consent. I would give protest if I still held to the naivety of proposing I know best. Experience has taught me better. No, I have been been pleasantly surprised by my change of mind. The world seems somehow different; somehow fresh. The best way I know to describe this is to return to my tale of pilgrimage...
As I coursed down the lane, shifting between gears and singing to no one, I found a true appreciation for what was around me. I gazed at the moon with the awe of a child, heard the breaking of the surf anew, and laughed as if it were my first. I'm discovering myself ready to move forward from the harrowing setbacks of recent history as a different man, a new man. As such, everything is new. Everything is fresh. Everything is waiting.
If you've read this far, perhaps you'll be willing to humor me a few more minutes. This song has not only been an anthem of mine for a long time, but the video (which I literally just found this evening) is one of the most accurate emotional depictions of the last year of my life I can think of. The year really did start great... before all hell broke loose.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
Memories - For Better or For Worse
This post is not about marriage. I've not yet found a woman who has the traits I admire AND an uncanny desire to handle my quirks. Though suggestions are welcome. No... this is about memories. A friend of mine challenged me to make a list of memories from when I was a kid. She'd recently done the same and had a lot of great childhood memories come up. What she didn't know is that most all of my good memories are overshadowed by darker ones.
To be clear, this is no attempt at melodrama. I left my emo stage back in the nineties with Seattle grunge where it belongs. The fact is that I have some really bad memories from childhood. This isn't to say that everyone else doesn't, just that as of yet I have been unable to separate the two. Like most, I need to learn to take the good with the bad, else I'll have neither.
I tell people that I don't have many memories from when I was a kid. This is not an untruth. As I've been discovering the last month or so, I have many memories that I blocked out as a child because I could not handle them. It's hard to go into detail without alienating people from my past, but I'll try to give an example or two to paint the picture. My first memory is of my mother laying in a pool of blood, a broken wooden chair on the floor next to her, her friend dialing 9-1-1, and a drunk man storming out of the small trailer we were in. I was two years old. This is really the only memory I have from before I was six or seven. A few years later I was the new target. To this day I know how to take a punch and how to get a drunk to focus on me instead of anyone else. It's easier than you might think. We also moved from place to place a lot - we didn't have a home for a long time. We subsisted on the help of friends, relatives, and cheap motels for longer than I can recall. Perhaps this is a factor of the nomadic streak I carry.
My mother is a good woman, who unfortunately made a few bad decisions that exploded in ways she never could have predicted - and they were not her fault. Sometimes things just happen. I neither blame her nor hold her in resent. Yet what happened happened. The trouble I now face is that I find difficulty looking on the past and remembering the good - but it is there. Perhaps I've developed a victim mentality. Perhaps there's just too much I've blocked out that needs to be resurfaced. Whatever the case, there is no sense ignoring the past. I may not be able to deal with everything today, but there is something to be said for remembering the good. [Some of my good memories are here]
I'm not really sure what all of this means for me at the moment. We are shaped daily by circumstance and choice into the person that we are. I see how I have allowed myself to become more of a pessimist over the years, probably as a result of not dealing with somethings from the past. This isn't who I want to be. I see it playing into my current situation. With everything that has happened this last year, I definitely got into a downward spiral for a while and saw no hope - hence the attempt to find it again. I believe that cyclical hell has been halted, but there is a long way to go to get back to good. I know it's possible for that distance to be covered quickly, but I'm not expecting it. And even in this I see the effects of pessimism..... oh boy.
To be clear, this is no attempt at melodrama. I left my emo stage back in the nineties with Seattle grunge where it belongs. The fact is that I have some really bad memories from childhood. This isn't to say that everyone else doesn't, just that as of yet I have been unable to separate the two. Like most, I need to learn to take the good with the bad, else I'll have neither.
I tell people that I don't have many memories from when I was a kid. This is not an untruth. As I've been discovering the last month or so, I have many memories that I blocked out as a child because I could not handle them. It's hard to go into detail without alienating people from my past, but I'll try to give an example or two to paint the picture. My first memory is of my mother laying in a pool of blood, a broken wooden chair on the floor next to her, her friend dialing 9-1-1, and a drunk man storming out of the small trailer we were in. I was two years old. This is really the only memory I have from before I was six or seven. A few years later I was the new target. To this day I know how to take a punch and how to get a drunk to focus on me instead of anyone else. It's easier than you might think. We also moved from place to place a lot - we didn't have a home for a long time. We subsisted on the help of friends, relatives, and cheap motels for longer than I can recall. Perhaps this is a factor of the nomadic streak I carry.
My mother is a good woman, who unfortunately made a few bad decisions that exploded in ways she never could have predicted - and they were not her fault. Sometimes things just happen. I neither blame her nor hold her in resent. Yet what happened happened. The trouble I now face is that I find difficulty looking on the past and remembering the good - but it is there. Perhaps I've developed a victim mentality. Perhaps there's just too much I've blocked out that needs to be resurfaced. Whatever the case, there is no sense ignoring the past. I may not be able to deal with everything today, but there is something to be said for remembering the good. [Some of my good memories are here]
I'm not really sure what all of this means for me at the moment. We are shaped daily by circumstance and choice into the person that we are. I see how I have allowed myself to become more of a pessimist over the years, probably as a result of not dealing with somethings from the past. This isn't who I want to be. I see it playing into my current situation. With everything that has happened this last year, I definitely got into a downward spiral for a while and saw no hope - hence the attempt to find it again. I believe that cyclical hell has been halted, but there is a long way to go to get back to good. I know it's possible for that distance to be covered quickly, but I'm not expecting it. And even in this I see the effects of pessimism..... oh boy.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Evaluation. Introspection. Decisions.
As some of you know, I've been working on a little bit of a self improvement project for my birthday. Today I began to document a portion of that, and as is often the case with what I write it began to morph into something else. Something that I'd like to share with anyone following me here.
So if you would, please feel free to check it out here: http://ninetyninegifts.blogspot.com/2011/02/10-evaluation-introspection-decisions.html
So if you would, please feel free to check it out here: http://ninetyninegifts.blogspot.com/2011/02/10-evaluation-introspection-decisions.html
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
It's the Waiting that Kills Me
Discontent has been upon me for the last few days. Today I find myself downright depressed. For several weeks I've been formulating plans and it does appear circumstances will be getting better. But in the meantime I feel as if I'm literally stuck in limbo.
Classes are under way again, but that is about it. I've not been able to find a job and I don't know anyone in this city. No money and no friends leads to a pretty miserable existence. Few obligations, no time constraints, and minimal bills may sound great to a lot of people. But a life void of the benefits of stability, responsibility and security is emptier and less satisfying than most will ever know. I am aware that things will not remain in this state, yet I can't help feeling that I'm wasting time. There is a reason that this line of thinking has arisen today.
I recently decided that I want to improve myself and become a better man. I began documenting 99 Gifts that I would give to myself - small things that I could do each day to make me a better person in the 99 days leading up to my birthday. I've been having trouble coming up with things and putting it off until later in the day, making both my effort toward and documenting of the tasks suffer for it. Because of this, I decided that today's gift would be to start developing the habit of making a to do list. I started reading around online for different reasons and benefits to making these lists and was reminded of another list that many people have: things to accomplish before they turn 30. Thus was the mental low point of my day.
I am just over four years away from my 30th birthday and I feel, in a word, pathetic. I look at what so many others have accomplished by now. I thought that by the time I turned 30 I'd have been married for a few years, begun a family, and command a good job. I'm not entirely certain how much of that can be accomplished in the next few years. For those who still linger over some romantic idea of the situation I've been in, of the wandering rogue, let me spell it out for you. I am currently a homeless, unemployed college sophomore with no savings & massive school debt. I am single with no prospects and batting a thousand when it comes to rejection. I have no friends around me and pass the hours in solitude. I do not know where I will end up or what I will end up doing. I'm getting older, and I find it very difficult not to compare myself to others. To be fair, I knew what I was walking into when I packed up and left Texas. But I also knew I had no other choice. That's the bad.
Here's the good: I trust God, and I know that this is not permanent. Also: I like myself. Yes. I want money. I want friends. I want a family. I want a job. I want security. Those things are lacking now. However I know that things can change in an instant, and I'm hoping any moment now that they do.
But as I'm learning - it's the waiting that kills me.
Classes are under way again, but that is about it. I've not been able to find a job and I don't know anyone in this city. No money and no friends leads to a pretty miserable existence. Few obligations, no time constraints, and minimal bills may sound great to a lot of people. But a life void of the benefits of stability, responsibility and security is emptier and less satisfying than most will ever know. I am aware that things will not remain in this state, yet I can't help feeling that I'm wasting time. There is a reason that this line of thinking has arisen today.
I recently decided that I want to improve myself and become a better man. I began documenting 99 Gifts that I would give to myself - small things that I could do each day to make me a better person in the 99 days leading up to my birthday. I've been having trouble coming up with things and putting it off until later in the day, making both my effort toward and documenting of the tasks suffer for it. Because of this, I decided that today's gift would be to start developing the habit of making a to do list. I started reading around online for different reasons and benefits to making these lists and was reminded of another list that many people have: things to accomplish before they turn 30. Thus was the mental low point of my day.
I am just over four years away from my 30th birthday and I feel, in a word, pathetic. I look at what so many others have accomplished by now. I thought that by the time I turned 30 I'd have been married for a few years, begun a family, and command a good job. I'm not entirely certain how much of that can be accomplished in the next few years. For those who still linger over some romantic idea of the situation I've been in, of the wandering rogue, let me spell it out for you. I am currently a homeless, unemployed college sophomore with no savings & massive school debt. I am single with no prospects and batting a thousand when it comes to rejection. I have no friends around me and pass the hours in solitude. I do not know where I will end up or what I will end up doing. I'm getting older, and I find it very difficult not to compare myself to others. To be fair, I knew what I was walking into when I packed up and left Texas. But I also knew I had no other choice. That's the bad.
Here's the good: I trust God, and I know that this is not permanent. Also: I like myself. Yes. I want money. I want friends. I want a family. I want a job. I want security. Those things are lacking now. However I know that things can change in an instant, and I'm hoping any moment now that they do.
But as I'm learning - it's the waiting that kills me.
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