From 11*10*07

The creative life is one lived poised on the outermost point of an ellipse beyond which nothing more exists and behind which is the life as it has been lived and continues--against all reasonable possibility-to be lived. All points within the ellipse are instantaneously accessible, caught dancing on and on in an inconceivable vast and ever expanding frozen moment. To enter into the dance of the life's past laboring under the illusion of a free and open present requires a further burst of creative effort and huge risk--creative in that the living force as it once lived and do the dance on legs that no longer exist--risky in that any untoward faint in the direction of the life's big reality may rip away the mask for all now to see--rip fingers, limbs, flesh from the living being enmeshed in the reeling wheel of the machination of the feigned and fatally to puncture the wall of the ellipses rendering the created creative life undone in spiitual nullity--or even worse, unconcious reintegration into the life of the breathing dead or soon to die. Successful negotiation of the museum of moving bodies smiling in time that once a triumph of the dissembler's art and imparts a sheen to the edge of the life on the edge illuminating not only the entire inner realm of the epanding ellipse but feeling the process.

"Much of a journal's information is lost even to its author. And yet, Didion argues, it is crucial in the way it helps us to reconnect with our former selves. 'I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be,' she writes. 'Whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 A.M. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.'"

Life is funny you know? Who would have thought even last week that I would be right here, right now, thinking these thoughts, experience this day, looking forward to certain things?

I can't wait on some things or people forever. I have to accept what is being offered to me now, even if I have to work at brushing the dirt off. Many golden nuggets are barely shiny. They have to be polished and worked on. The things that appear beautiful are too often fake--a clever natural deception, intent on fooling those who do not look to closely.

And I am looking closely.

From 11*04*07

Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility. --Kahlil Gibran

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. --Lao-tzu

Just went to the park with Morgan and Abram...and I loved it. I find myself finding more and more everyday this huge sense of not only craving, but also loss about Pennsylvania. I wish I could have it, that I could be there and have so much of what I feel is missing. I feel like life would make more sense if I were there and not here.

I wish I could talk to Richard! I don't know if I can handle waiting until Wednesday!

So...I think we find ourselves wondering how far do we allow new people to go? How much give do we give them without knowing who they are and where we can draw a line? Who would have thought that a simple phone call and a message that should have been lighthearted and heartwarming would lead to a complete weekend of despair and regret? It wasn't meant to be what it was. It was meant to be "hey, I'm making fun of you because you never remember anything but I ♥ you so much that it's ok and I won't hold it against you, i'm not even upset." But instead...we come up with today. And the only person who really knows what's going on is ignoring me. So how do I make him talk to me?

I can't make him. I can ask and request. But I am going to respect the outcome. It is for us to make the effort. The result is always in God's hands. (mahatma gandhi)

What is going on with me these days.

I know what it is. I'm trying to pick up with you where I left off with someone else, but I don't respect the fact that you aren't ready for the serious commitment of it that I am. And that's ok. But I need to know that you're willing to commit somehow. But we don't want to be serious. We want to be fun and friendly and full of laughs and learn about each other and create a mutual feeling of awesomeness.

Oh boy.

From 09*09*07

Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.

-Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

What a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone can be.

-Ellen Burstyn

I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.

-Laura Ingalls Wilder

From 09*02*07

Written in early July.

A few words. All I need to do is add a few words everday and soon I will have a novel. A Tolsty or Doesteovsky--not some little harlequin.

From where does inspiration come? Of that I am not certain. A glance, a vision, some spoken word--it leads to a thought, and the semblance of that thought gives me ease, frees my soul to bring to light a veritable fountain of beauty and knowledge--full of truths and ideas and wonder. It's autoeroticism at its peak. Nothing can bring man more joy or pleasure than the fruits of his mind--the fruits truly worth bearing.

To know that one can contain the whole world's knowledge is joy inescapable. The products of the hand can bring pleasure--but it is the mind that plans, envisions, dwells, characterizes. Nothing can be without thought, and without thought be nothing.

All of humanity is there, waiting to be questioned. Every answer you need is already answered--the key is knowing what pattern, what illogical sequence and chance turn will allow you to see it.

Inspiration is fickle, it comes in like a lion, roaring and making his prescence known to the uttermost, and if not fed it is gone just as quickly, leaving a path of destruction and pain. Inspiration lost may be the greatest heartache ever experienced. To have thought and lost is worse than never having thought at all.

Is there any originality left at all? Is there a thought I could have that has not been thought before, several times over? Perhaps a new arrangement of words, a new grammar scheme, but a new idea? Antiquity held thoughts we have yet to rethink--what makes us capable of thinking more before processing what has come to pass?

Are there not languages, entire civilizations, that have yet been found, much less understood? We seek to understand ourselves and yet our history, most integral to who we are, is unconceived fully. We know not where we come from, how can we know where to go?

Answers are never fast, and are even less seldom easy. All answers require knowledge, a way to access that knowledge. A unique neural pattern for each answer, no end holding more than one answer and only one answer on each end. And different for every receptor. And no two minds can completely conceive the same--always differences, whether spoken or felt or never fully realized.

The matching of two minds is the universe's ideal--when two independent beings come together to acknowledge this great gift--amazing and fulfilling every time.

It is this which I wish to give you, my complete awe and wonderment and deference to the greatness that is me, the magnificence which is you.

From 06*03*07

WOW I am a crybaby. I complain a lot about things not worth complaining about. Today was the first day of the rest of my life. I showed maturity, learning, and patience. And it was a good feeling.

The new hard part is not giving certain people places and things to much of myself. Not jumping to conclusions or making more of a friendship than it is meant to be.

I miss you. I wish you would call me or text me.

Growing up is hard. I'm watching Jenna do it, Wayne's doing it, John and even my sister. I'm watching other people not do it, no names there. I wish other people would get it and do the same, but not getting what you want is part of that life thing we have.

When you die what happens? More and more I've been thinking we just stop. Fail to exist. It's not hard for me to fathom. It's harder for me to fathom eternity, living forever. This earth is not going to be here forever--humans are only going to be around for so much longer. It's inevitable. What happens when the earth ends and we are still there, in heaven or whatever it is going to be called? What is the point?

I'm not questioning you. Or faith. Or god. I'm questioning forever.

How long does it last?

I'm not sure how to do people. I've never been good at it. But you know what? I don't think anyone really is. Some are better than others, but no one is good. People are hard, they are unpredictable, finite, and impossibly incomprehensible. And they all end up betraying you one time or another.

How far do you let someone walk on you? When do you know enough is enough? Why aren't some people enough, while some people are too much? It amazes me that we can find anyone at all willing to put up with us while we put up with them.

I ask way too many questions and don't come up with enough answers.

From 04*29*2007

Education is when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get if you don't.
-Pete Seeger

Maturity is the ability to do a job whether or not you are supervised, to carry money without spending it, and to bear an injustice without wanting to get even.
-Ann Landers

God brings men into deep waters not to drown them, but to cleanse them.
-Aughey

Some people think it's holding on that makes one strong; sometimes it's letting go.
-Sylvia Robinson

When the student is ready, the teacher appears.
-Tao saying

From 04*25*07

1. I miss my Grampa

2. I hate St. Augustine. The town, the beach, the Walmart.

3. Butterscotch is amazing.

4. I overreact. I overreact fastly and hard.

5. I am a really good writer.

6. Punch drunk love. Punch-drunk is a condition where a boxer becomes disoriented after being hit in the head too much, it can lead to dementia. So punch drunk love is where you get hit head on with love and it makes you forget other things, it makes you lose sight.

7. Life is a lot easier if you just abide by the law.

8. Life is a lot cheaper if you just abide by the law.

9. Some things are not worth saving, and some people are not worth having around.

10. I love 100.5 the Buzz, Gainesville's Rock Alternative. No other station can you hear Black Keys, Arctic Monkeys, Kaiser Chiefs, Weezer, Story of the Year, and O.A.R. in the same hour.

From 04*23*07

What is a friend? A single soul shared by two people.

-Aristotle

Do not wish to be anything but what you are, and try to be that perfectly.

-St. Francis de Sales

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work.

-Anna Quindlen



Starting is the hard part. Finding the words to describe so perfectly what I feel requires more patience than I have time for, more energy than I feel like using, but most importantly it requires more eloquence than you deserve. Everything you've told me is true--I just don't think I ever believed it until now.

And if I do think the world revolves around me, it sure as hell isn't your place to knock me down--not now, not ever. Every other time you've done it I've learned something about myself, some new facet of my personality that I don't like or some quirk I have that I never knew about til now.

But I do not deserve to be treated like shit just because you think I'm selfish. Every time I talk to you it becomes more and more apparent that you don't know me at all, you can't read me, and you sure as hell don't want to take the time to learn. You have no idea, my friend. None.

What makes it worse is that what you do know is this: I am having a really horrible time right now, and my mental state is fragile for hundreds of reasons. But if you want to continue to be you, continue to be an insensitive person, then you do that. The fact that you admit you are insensitive, that you don't know how to deal with people so well, and you don't try and work on that? That's all you buddy. You can't blame your parents this time. You can't blame your environment or your past--it's all YOU. If you know something to be wrong, and you don't try and fix it, that is a moral flaw that few people have the capacity to live with.

Go ahead, get mad. Tell me I'm blaming you and making it all about you. I know that's what you're thinking.

Maybe I do jump to too many conclusions. But I know that I have been trying to talk to you, to get your advice because I respect it, but you have been blowing me off. It's only natural for the pattern to occur. Nothing made today any different than any other time, except that now I know you don't care.

That's cool.

I'm overreacting. I know it. I'm saying it, out loud, SHOUTING IT, for everyone to hear. I over analyze and over think and I always conclude with the worst possible outcome. I put words in peoples mouths and thoughts in peoples heads that aren't there. I'm not sorry--it's saved me more times than I care to know to expect the worst, because then on the rare occasions it doesn't happen I get to be surprised.

I can only expend so much effort and not receive any in return before I totally cave.

Not there yet.

I just hate the fact that I crave your approval. I don't know why. If I knew why I would fix it. Maybe a little bit you remind me of my dad. A lot. But I can't change how he is and I sure can't change how you are. I can only change myself. And change is hard.

I need to learn to let go, to sit and let everything come at me and around me and not be totally absorbed and destroyed by it. I've destroyed and rebuilt myself so many times I don't recognize who I am anymore.

I'm an enabler. I allow the people around me to dictate my actions. I don't ever do what I want. I do what other people expect of me.

When people fit they fit. When people don't fit, you can't make them. That's a lesson I haven't yet learned. Because I don't know what my shape is. I don't know how to fit with someone else. I don't even fit myself. I may not be a whole piece. And that's what scares me. I don't know that I will ever be a whole piece. I'll always be a bunch of little pieces, moving around and molding as closely as possible to whatever piece decides to try and match up.

I'm not vain. It's a defense mechanism--get people to not think about how ugly and fat I am by making jokes about it. If you tell people something enough, they eventually start to believe it, right? I hate being the fat kid, the best friend, the "sister." I want someone to look at me and truly see me--see past the jokes, the laughter, the loudness, and see that I just want someone to look at me and say it's ok to be me, it's ok that I don't know who I am, someone who wants to help me find myself and find what I'm supposed to do and be. I've been utterly alone for so long that I don't know how to let people in--no one knows everything. Some people know some things, some people know other things, some things are unknown, but nobody can put it all together.

And not in a romantic sense. I want someone that I know will be there for me--my whole life, no matter what--like I am there for so many people. I want someone like me, full of possibility, squandering it, seeking nothing more than to live a life of ungreatness, doing what needs to be done and nothing more. Someone I can to Mississippi and squat with. Someone to go to Cali and swim with. Someone to go to Penna and just breathe with. I'm not describing you, don't be so vain.

I've tried so hard lately to be full of grace, to be calm and patient and kind. I want to be Charity, in and of itself, the definition to a T. To forgive without being asked, to forgive when it's unnecessary, to become a calm in the midst of this huge fucking storm.

I think it's funny how all these people ask you about it, and no one once has ever asked me. And you make such a big deal out of it. Who cares what other people think. I know what's going on and you know what's going on. What does anyone else matter.

Maybe you don't know what's going on. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I've made peace with myself for the most part. You know, you hear that your first just got remarried, and you want to cry a little bit. You find out someone who used to set the world by you found someone else. It hurts a little bit. That's just human nature, the ability to live and be hurt and move on. It's always there a little bit. It's still there a little bit. But that's not what's driving this.

I wish with all my heart that I felt differently. I miss when we were just friends and I didn't feel like you were second guessing everything I did. But what's happened has happened and I can't change what I used to feel and you can't change what you don't feel. And truly that's not what I want. I just want us to be us again.

Fighting with you makes me feel utterly defeated.

From 03*26*07

"As surgeons keep their instruments and knives always at hand for cases requiring immediate treatment, so shouldst thou have they thoughts ready..." --Marcus Aurelius

"To succeed, however, in anything at all, one should go understandingly about his work and be prepared for every emergency" --Joshua Slocum

"Few men in their lifetime come anywhere near exhausting the resources dwelling within them. There are deep wells of strength that are never used." --Richard E. Byrd

It seems to me that everything has an impact on everything else. Some small little lesson you learn as a child can have deep ramifications as an adult--being polite, for instance. It never ceases to amaze me how the different experiences I have lived through and dealt with have an impact on so many other situations in my life. Take, for example, church. One of the deepest lessons I kept from church was "girding your loins." I think it's in Corinthians, it talks about putting on the whole armor of God, so that when you are being attacked by Satan, tempted by sin, you have knowledge and belief to back up your decline of temptation. You have the sword of the Spirit, the helmet of Truth. You protect yourself by preparing in advance for something you may never face.

Everyone has such a deep well of goodness, inherently. Tapping into that goodness is like putting a spout on the ocean--once you tap it, it very nearly never dries up. It gets salty, it gets clogged, but it's always a'tricklin. You have to search your heart, your soul, and find your ocean. Find where you get your courage, find what gives you strength. And once you find it, mine it, cultivate. Teach yourself how to draw upon it, to make your life stronger and more defined.

Some things never change. And some things do. Not everything you want is worth fighting for. The hardest part of life may be deciding which battles are worth it, and knowing when to cut your losses and move on. Are some people worth waiting for? No. Are some dreams worth pursuing? No. Are some ideals attainable? No. You have to search, really search, deep inside yourself and decide what you want to be remembered by, what you want to sit back and look at when you are eighty, sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of your house on your island with your best friend at your side.

How do you tell yourself to stop feeling something you never wanted to feel in the first place? You get mad, for no reason, at the simplest thing, and can't stop the anger. You fall in love with someone totally wrong for you and cannot, for any reason, tell your heart what to do. You let yourself fall into a rut and cannot get out, can't stop trudging along.

I want to wake up, to run from this life, to do what I know God has set out for me to do. I can't waste this incredible gift. The potential in me is limitless--why have I limited myself? Why do I resign myself to a life of complacency, doing the same thing day in and day out, feeling more unlike myself and more horribly wrong than ever?

Why do you consume my mind? Why do I dream about you and think about you and worry and fret and hope and dream for you, and I don't even know you at all? It is you that I am enthralled by. It is you that holds my interest. But it should be I who intrigues you. I am your equal. You just don't realize it. Will we ever really meet? Face to face? Body to soul?

Why do I still think about you, knowing how incredibly insane my life was when I met you and how I will never meet you again? Knowing you took my heart and tore it to pieces, scattering me so far no one could ever find me whole? My most vulnerable self I gave to you and now no one can ever have me again. I hope you're happy.

I worry for you. I love you more than life itself and it kills me to know you are not happy. I want so much more for you than you want for yourself. You are so smart and yet you throw it away. You've had some hard times, you've lived an incredible life. You are the strongest person I know and I lean on you so much. If you knew how much I loved you it would break your heart.

You, my life, my heart, my soul. You complete me more than anyone ever could. My life is alive because I have you. You care more for me than anyone ever has and for that I truly owe you my whole self. You know me better than anyone else and you are still here, you do not throw me away on a bad day. If God came down and offered me everything in exchange for you I would have to laugh in His face.

Those are the four people who shape me. But the funny thing is, with the exception of one, you can't really truly tell who they are unless you are that person. Good luck.

From 11*17*07

You have to lose things before you realize how much they are worth. Your virginity. A pet. Friendship. Your hair. The internet. Your self.

You have to lose it--not give it away, not have it wane. Absolutely lose it. Never get it back. Never have again what you did.

That is the saddest fact of life.

From 06*07*06

Fate. How big a part does it play? Do we make our own future? Or are certain things destined to happen, no matter what we do? Who decides when free will ends and destination begins?

Are we bound to our path? Are we destined to do a thing, no matter how hard we try to avoid? Can we succeed in changing our future? Can we prevail over what has already been written?

Is it written down? Is it like sand on the beach, that is easily erased when the tide comes in? Or does the tide simply rewrite, acting as a harbinger for what is meant to come, what is meant to be?

Is our life chosen for us? Are we merely robots, acting on a fulfillable track, never knowing we do not choose our own? Can we avoid what should happen? Can we mess up through our inadequacies?

Forever is forever, and now is just a moment. Today is the tomorrow you dreamed of yesterday--and the yesterday you lament tomorrow. Is it up to us to decide how we feel?

Is there a book with our path already written, our story already told? Or do we take up pen and paper and write down the journey ourselves? Do we get to erase, to rewrite?

Who writes the soundtrack for our lives? Who decides where the punctuation goes? Do we censor ourselves for lack of decency? Do we fret about what those may think in the next?

Go to bed. Think on these things. So many questions unanswered. Our answers are supposed to be there and they are not. We have to think for ourselves. But are they thoughts someone has already had?

From 06*14*06

Driving twelve hours with my sister yesterday.

Made me realize.

I have a good sense of awe.

Kids do not.

What is awe?

Opening a new pack of hiliters.

The crack when you open a new hardback book.

Power lines. Over water.

Planes. People can fly.

People laughing at the scene of a car accident. *not a bad one, just a minor one

Taking random pictures.

Driving, hopelessly lost, and getting to laugh.

Weeah.

The way the sun looks after it rains.

Connecting with a stranger in the car over.

Bottle feeding a kitten.

Writing a new poem.

Using intelligent words like nothing.

Him making you feel good...

Him noticing, when no one else did.

Finding things you forgot you had that are completely awesome.

Paper. Pens. Being able to write.

Flowers.

Clicking with people like there's no tomorrow.

GMO's. Ask me, I can write a book.

The fact that people never change but never remain the same.

Yes, the sky is pretty.

I love you.

I'm full of awe these days.

From 06*16*06

How do you deny yourself?

When I start to get interested or involved in someone/something, I put all of my energy towards that thing--I become obsessive. To a fault. Like freakishly obsessive.

How do you tell your mind no? How do you keep from doing what it is inherent for you to do? How do you deny your nature, your natural tendency for a thing?

Every time I obsess about something, it can be going perfectly, and as soon as that little personality pokes its little head out, everything goes wrong, fast. I know that it will, yet I still obsess. How do I get over that? How do I tell my mind no?

Discipline. It is the answer to everything. Andrew be damned, he was right. You must express discipline. You must be discipline. There is no room for chaos, there must be no room for confusion or permisiveness. Everything that happens from you must be controlled to have ultimate fulfillment.

There is no good thing without work. There is nothing worth having that is given to you.

Take up your cross and follow Me; Deny yourself and you will be given life.

All we are are whited sepulchres, ready to show off...and dead inside.