A Healthy Dose of Retrospective

I think it's really important to review. Time passes, things happen, and growth occurs. Some growth is effective--so that next time you don't step on an angry bee--but some growth is slow and requires a certain level of introspection.

Boy meets girl, boy is nice to girl, girl does a few annoying things, girl gets close, girl becomes a threat, and boy is grateful that he never really committed.

I mean, there are a million and one scenarios. There are a million and one victims or villains. (Though I am willing to bet you are the victim at least 51% of the time.) In review, what happens when you realize that all the things that happened to you made you feel one way when they happened, and another now, but you get the most odd sense that everything is happening to you, no matter how hard you tried to make it happen.

What happens when you feel like you are spinning out of control and all you want is to take a careful step on that icy street so you don't fall and fracture your knee this time?

I can't believe the things that have happened to me in the last year or two. The number of meaningful connections, valuable artistic pursuits, and amount of production of personal merit has been off the charts. I should follow Amber's example and write up a gratitude list post for those things.

But what really gets me is through all the experiences of the past years, the one thing I've wanted has just become more clear, more present in my mind, and more important. I am missing something and I don't know it yet, so I can't quite describe it. I can't correlate my feeling to a real experience, so I flounder for words and grasp for footing that will give me the knowledge of where I am going and what I am going to do there.

I am the Stevie, bitch!

Sometimes I am stuck trying to make myself fit what I think everyone wants me to be. More emotionally untouchable, less likely to fall into a pit of endless crushing when I crush, more likely to say relationships don't matter, less likely to search out a partner, etc. And then I like someone. Don't get me wrong, this doesn't happen that often (which just puts more pressure on when it does), so I find myself daydreaming, wishing, analyzing every last event and generally making myself miserable.

Why?

Because I assume that all traits are hierarchically organized. Because I am essentially falling into the trap of binary oppositions and their 'value.'

I'd like to be constantly reminded that different and better are two different concepts. I'd also like to strike better/worse from my brain. So what if I am 'round,' or 'dorky,' or 'awkward' when I have the most giant crush on this guy. He makes my cheeks flush and all the friendly small talk that I could make flushes from my mind. What the eff, what am I supposed to do? Assume I am a low quality cut of steak just because I lose out on the imagined values of binary oppositions like round/thing, dorky/suave, or awkward/conversational? Assume he finds me 'unacceptable'? Or worse, assume he isn't remotely interested?

Fuck better/worse, I am Stevie.

To you, the guy I am crushing on:  I am amazing. I'm pretty much the best catch you've ever met, and I think you know it. I'm not going to put the reasons in a list, I'd like to get a chance to show you all my fantastic qualities, though. So don't worry about all the other things, let's just talk, or hold hands, or get giddy. I am worth the effort.

Cyclical

I loved a boy who lived in the past.

He told me stories with half-feigned mirth. He told me about the time his mother filed his nails and had to hold him down, about when he ruled the city as a jubilant young man, about the time he taught martial arts and tested up with a serious injury, or the time he used to lay on the jungle gym at night -- the rails too narrow for his muscled shoulders -- and smoke cigarettes; he told me the past through rose glasses. He told me about the pleasures of copious celebration, about the time he had to pull over five times on the way home to puke and how it was a miracle he didn't get a DUI. He never noticed that he might have killed someone.

The practiced reintegration of retelling his stories made him human. I couldn't fathom how many people had heard the same words through the same pretty visage before. He recited the tales over and over, and as each word slipped through his parted lips, he would be a real boy -- if only for a moment.

I never realized that I loved a boy whose reality was then; that now would never be real until it was recounted through the skewed tilt of his half smiling lips -- not until another stared transfixed at his mouth and fell into the fantasy of his past and his memories of me.

I'm living in the past when I loved a boy.

When it comes to living life, it is pretty obvious that something like confidence helps a lot. Confidence means the subtle difference between a straight back and one rolled out from insecurity, between strong eye contact and wayward glances, and between affecting your environment as you live your day to day life or living in response to and as the slave of that environment. It's difficult to write about something like this without sounding a bit like a broken record, repeating worn out stereotypes common to the self-help media craze. I can't help but think about the inspirational speaker on Dexter (spoiler alert): "If you want something, TAKE IT." Of course, this character epitomized the self-help trope in a negatively out of balance way. Confidence is not necessarily so specifically masculine as this character (and many authors) would have you believe, nor is it necessarily tied to the hunter-gatherer image we imagine of our ancestors. No, confidence is a marker for strength of personality, success, and security in ones finances, sex, and romance.

But confidence is actually a result, not a cause. Confidence is the digested product of something else, a thing that actually causes the positive results that confidence goes with. Confidence is a side effect of living life in the right way. I don't mean 'right' in a moral context: it has nothing to do with good, evil, or any sort of moral compass. It is right like a key is right for a lock. If the lock is your highest potential, the key is the right way of doing your life.

The key involves many factors, and factors that differ depending on the lock--the person. These factors are like the grooves in the key, each section must be shaped a particular way in order to access the lock. This is one reason that human being's quality of life (generally) improves as they age. The more you live, the more you learn and the better you understand the shape of the key (or the best way to unlock your highest potential by living your life right.) At 17 you realize that your days are better if you journal about it every morning before you start, at 28 you learn that losing touch with your friends causes a deep sadness that you dislike, and at 35 you learn that caring for your spouse while they are sick brings out a sense of emotional endurance and value that you didn't realize you had the potential for. All these factors create the complex landscape of the key to your life, and when you add that information together, you learn how to adjust your daily practice so that you maximize your own happiness, social output, help of others, and impact in the world. You learn what is important and how to keep those things prioritized.

Now, some people learn more quickly than others. Some people know what to pay attention for, and some have a hard time understanding the patterns in their life. Some people simply have more difficult lessons than others. Alcoholism and drug abuse tend to pair with those difficult lessons. There are some tools that help people progress ahead of others: things like therapy, emotional integrity, and some spiritual teachings.

When you see confidence sometimes it indicates only a step along the journey to living in the right way. This is because confidence is not just the product of using the key on the lock. Confidence isn't only associated with success in living your life correctly, but in the process of realizing that goal.

Ah! waiting -- the prophetic state of half-slitted eyes fixed on the square horizon: the casement propped open in preparation for that sweet honey touched breeze. Come in! Come in! Fill the air and take no prisoners.

Silence

I've been on hiatus. At first I couldn't imagine posting another blog, not after the last time I watched things slip away from me. I thought - my silence is my safety. If I don't write, I won't disappoint myself with the reality of it.

So, I made another blog. A blog to creatively detail my adventures in Sweden.

Problem is, the adventures in Sweden have been more internal than I had hoped. I'm under the sneaking suspicion that I am just an internal person. I also made a startling realization about my own blogging habits when I came across my very first livejournal. My posts were confusing, dripping with self-loathing and insecurity, and just downright embarrassing to read. (I'm so glad no one can see that anymore.) I've always been a perfectionist, or insecurity about my own writings. I can never fill a journal because the 'point' of one entry must match the point of all the others. No mixing creativity with internal emotional struggles, no combining intellectual thoughts with story-planning. So every journal I've ever started I've abandoned.

I am here to make a commitment. Really to myself. I'm going to keep writing. Maybe not daily, maybe not anything interesting, but I know the outlet is good. And the small creative snippets I've given residence here are one way for me to clear my mind of the shit, the clutter, the troubles that keep me from relaxing and calm myself.

the unraveling

Many things we know are an illusion;
Love -- I thought I heard breath's soft guarantee --
Was born of Neptune, child of deception;
I knew not that I slept, I couldn't foresee.