Plan For Tomorrow

It has been a year that I would much rather just forget… 2007 started with high hopes; I really began to appreciate the people that I was surrounded with, I looked to the future with a positive outlook and an ideal girlfriend to share it with. The end of 2006 and moving into 2007 saw some difficulties, a very ill sister and myself, in a struggle to find my scholastic identity. Things didn’t get any better for my sister in 2007, and it wasn’t before long that my dad turned up in the hospital, and it wasn’t long after that, that I found myself in the hospital. During this time, I finally started to feel good about school but there were many other things that began to compound causing so much internal strife that I slowly found myself withdrawing into my head and no one was allowed in. I don’t know how I ever let myself become so despondent, but it festered and I became a person that I didn’t know existed, a person that I hope never returns. After such an optimistic outlook for 2007, between the health of others and myself and the thinning relationships with family, friends and girlfriend, I worked myself into a crestfallen coma that I nearly never woke up from. As hard as it was to endure, the break up of a relationship that I thought would last forever was the tipping point to set things in motion to breathe life back into my vacant soul and heart. I spent the better part of two months extremely inconsolable and in the blink of an eye I lost everything, a best friend and lover, a home, a second family, friends, everything…my life was completely altered. While watching one of my favorite Scrubs episodes, I found a morsel of encouragement. In the Scrubs musical episode, a patient hears everything in song, and just before she goes in for surgery, everyone sings the song, “What’s going to happen;” the lines that are repeated over and over again are, “everything’s ok…nothings going to happen…plan for tomorrow…because you’re going to be ok.” I found myself so moved by this song that the waterworks started flowing, but as embarrassed as I am to admit that the last show/movie that I watched that made me cry was Scrubs, its actually kind of humorous. It was this song that motivated me to lift my spirits because everything was going to be ok. During those two months I realized the importance of friends, and how powerful an impact they make on your life; I reconnected with old friends, even went to visit one in Portland, made new friends, and reinforced the friendships that I already had. I started seeing a therapist to help me get through this rough patch and help me realize things about others, and myself, and how to keep from reverting back to such a dark place. I found solace in writing, something I had forgot about doing. I loved to write, but I got away from it for so long, it was invigorating to dive back into a notebook with pen in hand. Writing helped me more then I could ever fathom, I blogged and I journaled and wrote more poetry in the last four months then I probably had in the past three years. In the end, 2007 went out in a rather un-exciting fashion, and it was rather fitting that it be so. New Years Eve encompassed what 2007 was all about, a few highlights, but mostly pretty shitty! I had an incredible dinner, had a few drinks at a bar with friends and ended up at a party where upon walking in the door I nearly got in a fight with a tight pants drunk hipster; Neil got attacked and nicknamed “hot dog” by some drunk thirty something Annie look-alike, but overall it was a rather uneventful and drab evening. But the way 2007 has ended has kept me hopeful for 2008, because it can only get better and everything is going to be ok. I’m emotionally stronger and healthier then I’ve been in some time I’m looking forward to the coming semester and meeting more new faces and living a whole new kind of life. There are already plans in the works for a two-week European vacation with Neil and possibly others, I’m continuing to write on a regular basis, and don’t be surprised if you find Neil playing an acoustic set with me singing the songs that we wrote in a coffee shop somewhere in 2008. I got an email this morning from a family member of some things that George Carlin said about the state of humanity that I found rather fitting to starting a new year. So I will close this blog with a few quotes from that… “We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness…. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often... We've added years to life not life to years…We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less…Remember, to say, "I love you" to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you. Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again. Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind…AND ALWAYS REMEMBER: Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” So to everyone; remember to breathe life in everyday, because you only get to live your life once, so make the best of every day. So goodbye to 2007, you have been rather unkind, but there’s so much more to life for in 2008.

What draws two people together?

What is it that draws two people together? I guess its my romantic nature that makes me want to believe that when people come together, it is due to fate; whether you were meant to date for a month, a year or the rest of your life, fate is what brought you together. “Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.” (Marcus Aurelius) Putting aside astrology and chemistry; your life is a sort of first draft, and when you start living your life, you complete the final draft as you go along. But in that first draft are the moments and the people that change your life. “Life is not how many breaths you take, it's how many moments take your breath away.” (Hitch) Even harder to grasp are those moments of “courting” and what is it that actually draws you to that specific specimen over another. Everyday we probably see half a dozen or more people that we find attractive, but how do we end up actually talking with them, flirting with them, dating them? I think this question is so elusive, that even finding words to describe how you get to that point of feeling smitten is difficult. Perhaps we feel a sort of emotional comfort just from observing the other, and so we forget about taking a risk, and just go for it, and the rest is history. But for the life of me I can’t remember a time where I wasn’t absolutely terrified to talk to a girl for the first time. Recently I found myself in a similar situation; there is a girl that I met months ago, and at first, as usual I found myself a bit faclempt, but I recently had the pleasure of actually taking her out for an evening. That night, it was as if everything came together, and talking came easily and naturally. By mid evening I was totally smitten, this girl was beautiful, smart, funny, and loved food and wine, what more could I ask for. At the end of the night, back at her place on the couch, it was as if there were magnets attached to us and we were slowly being drawn to each other. We went from a small gap between us on the couch to cuddled underneath the blanket, legs delicately draped across my lap. After just one night with this girl, I was in this position of intimacy, yet it didn’t seem foreign at all… Everything was so cozy; it was as if I had been there before with her. Is this when we start to believe in cupid and his love arrows? Is cupid just fate dressed as a cherub strapped with a quiver of arrows? We constantly read magazines about how to attract the right person, or how to keep them once we get them, but there is really no science to attracting a mate, if it happens, it is because it was meant to happen. So here I am on the couch with this incredible girl and it just feels right… the night progressed… (Sorry that part is inappropriate for blogging)… And then here’s the kicker… she lives in Boston. What is the reason for this? Is this girl everything my mind has created her to be? Is there something there? Or was it just one extraordinarily magical evening? “We touch one another, bond and break, drift away on force-fields we don’t understand.”(Written On The Body, Jeanette Winterson) There’s part of me that wants to drop everything and move to Boston, who cares about how cold it is; I could learn to love the cold if I could learn to love her. But, I think I’ll need at least a 2nd date first…
We are attracted to one of two different types of people, the people that we have a lot in common, or the person that is almost opposite of us; but strangely, they end up being complimentary. How are we to decide which is better? The only answer is experimenting, finding out what feels better, solace in familiarity or, stimulation in new discovery (this is why we date). "Can love have texture?" (Written On The Body, Jeanette Winterson) I believe so; when we can begin to feel, that is the texture of love, this is not to be confused with the texture of lust, (We are all drawn together by a physical attraction in the beginning, its is only when we can wade through each others minds and hearts to find out whether there is texture there that we can begin investigating the possibility of love) That is the position I find myself in, I felt something, it wasn’t just lust, because there was so much more that happened before we got to the lust part of the evening…
There’s overwhelming evidence to suggest that we are attracted to people who are consistent with our ideal self. In essence we are attracted to someone that will bring out that part of you that you wish you could express. The person who is well traveled, and you are not, the person that lives free-spirited and you only wish you could get out of the place you are in. Then there is the theory of chemistry, pheromones and testosterone working interconnected with dopamine and serotonin created a giant ball of chemical love. But my brain does not think scientifically, I do like the way girls smell and serotonin does play a major role in our brains when falling in love, but the whole science of things is too much to think about, what draws two people together has to be simpler then that. Some people say it is in the stars, astrology; some people swear by it and will only date people that match up with their sign…I’m sorry that’s just a bit to eccentric for my thinking… Psychologists have shown it takes between 90 seconds and 4 minutes to decide if you fancy someone. 55% is through body language 38% is the tone and speed of their voice and only 7% is through what they say, so that night, over half of what happened between us was done without the amazing conversation; it was in the leaning towards each other at the bar, the soft touches on the small of her back, every nuance that was done without opening our mouths had more of an impact in drawing us together then talking did.
So do we have an answer of what draws two people together? Not really, but apparently it happens a lot easier then what you make it out to be; a lot of it happens unconsciously and your body language does a lot of speaking for you, I guess your job, during the 7% of dialogue, is not to screw it up by saying something stupid…

Silver Lining In Estrangement

“How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December's bareness everywhere!”
~William Shakespeare, "Sonnet XCVII"


“You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone...”(Garden State)
For the past three years my home wasn’t where mom was, it wasn’t in the town I grew up in, it was where my new life was, with my girlfriend that I had started new holiday traditions and memories with. I distinctly remember last Christmas, being at mom’s house and having this itching feeling to go home… But I was home… or at least I thought I was; it had been home for as long as I can remember. But this year I wanted to go to where I had made my home. I knew Megan wasn’t there yet; she was traveling from her parent’s house back home for round two of presents with the roomies. But that moment, as I sat there antsy to get back to my house, to my bed, and embrace my life in my arms, that was my defining moment; I knew that the house I grew up in wasn’t home anymore. As it has turned out; for the past four months it has become home again, and I wouldn’t dream of being anywhere else for the holidays. I have stopped to think about Megan during this time of year, its hard not to, its supposed to be a time that brings family and friends together and I don’t think I’ve ever felt so estranged from the Christmas spirit as I have this year. People that I loved are no longer there; our relationships have drifted away from me like ashes with no place to rest. It started while Christmas shopping, seeing things that I know she’d love, but I had to keep moving, and think of the people that I was shopping for, the people that still cared… The closer it got to the holiday, the more it began to sink in, she wouldn’t be attending the holiday parties, there would be no arguing about whose kind of Christmas tree is better or shopping on rainy afternoons. But it wasn’t all her that has made me feel so alienated from the holiday this year; its all the other people that aren’t there, her sister and boyfriend, my brother, my dad... “Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.” (Thoreau) For the past five years Christmas has slowly dissolved into a holiday where there are less and less people that I am buying gifts for, and if there are no gifts, that means there is little to no relationship remaining. I’ve embraced new relationships, even had a gorgeous date to the Iron Horse holiday party and I’ve managed to keep myself from thinking about things too much. But perhaps its my own oversight that I’ve become so estranged, maybe I’ve forgotten about what the holiday is supposed to signify. I’ve never been big on Christmas music, but there is so much more that I’ve neglected this year that could have rallied my spirits. I didn’t partake in the decorating of the tree; I believe I hung a few extra ornaments that had been left behind. I hung the outside lights up in a flash, hardly long enough to enjoy the art of it all. I didn’t bake any cookies, there were few pictures, all my shopping was done online, I only went to one holiday party, and there were hardly any Christmas specials and movies watched…It makes me want to be a kid again, go back to simpler times when I was always home and became so swathed in the excitement of the year that there was no escaping it. Then this morning… I woke up excited for the day, ready for the traditional Christmas breakfast, presents, and the yule log on the TV. All went well until mom was on the phone canceling our evening plans because she wasn’t feeling well, crying… her only Christmas wish, to spend the day with her son and to be totally honest, I think I would have liked that too… It’s been years since we were all together for Christmas, and this year as it turned out, would be no different. “Sometimes, when one person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated.”(Lamartine) A day that is supposed to be reserved for smiles and laughter quickly turned to tears and anguish and it was contagious…Mom crying, me following, my sister not too far behind, I think we all wanted it to feel like Christmas, but something was missing for all of us and we didn’t know what to do to fix it…so we made the best of the situation we were in, embraced to love we all had for each other, relaxed and watched a few movies together. Suddenly I realized that sometimes its not about the people that aren’t around, it’s the people that are there, and you appreciate each others company regardless of how stimulating the day is, all that matters is that at least some of the people that you care about the most, are there with you. And it’s only a week away to start a new year…

The Dating Game

Well, once again the great Carrie Bradshaw has inspired another blog entry. I have started to get back into the dating game, just barely putting my toes in the water because I don’t want to get in too deep for fear of sharks or drowning. In the final Sex In The City episode, her last words summarize the whole philosophy of the series: “I got to thinking about relationships. There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the you, you love, well, that's just fabulous.”
It got me to thinking about starting a new relationship and what it will be like. For the first time well probably every, I've found myself in a position where I have options... Three completely different and unique girls; each intrigues me in a different way. Lets play the dating game! Bachelorette number one, the girl I've been spending the most time with, is everything that Megan isn’t but in a good way, but there are also a few very important pieces that are missing. To draw upon Carrie’s quote on relationships, even though this girl and I are not dating exclusively, there are too many questions coming up, and that’s just not working for me. Bachelorette number two seems more like Megan, she’s even an herbivore; which isn’t all bad, but I do love my meat. And lastly bachelorette number three, long distance; enough said, but could be just want I need, but she could bring me to somewhere unexpected… I guess what I’m looking for is a little bit of everything; I want something new but familiar at the same time and something that takes me to a new place, but back to where my heart started, a hopeless romantic looking for love’s last great romance. I spent 3 1/2 years with Megan, so the chances of falling into another relationship that feels like it did with her are highly unlikely; other then during our moments of frustration, to me at least, we were an exemplary model of a great romance. One of the biggest annoyances guys have in relationships is that the woman is always trying to change them; it could be something simple or something major, and sometimes things do need to be changed, but when like Carrie says, if you find someone to love the you that you love, well that’s just fabulous! (Even though I loathe the word fabulous, but I’ll let that one slide because she has been the muse for two of my blogs) I thought that Megan was the person, she did have her grievances about me, as I did of her, but I thought we were mature enough, and loved each other to accept those things and move on, but apparently somewhere along the way, she changed and didn’t tell me. Dating is such a cumbersome task; it takes a solid month of steadily dating someone just to get to the point where you feel like you fully know them and can begin to trust them; at least four to six months to potentially be in love with them, sometimes longer… and a good year and a half to two years to feel 100% trust and feel totally comfortable in your relationship. But perhaps comfort is a bad thing; maybe being comfortable keeps you desensitized from the reality of your relationship and realizing the immensity that you have in front of you and you just assume that because you’re in love, you are untouchable. Then in a whirlwind you find yourself single, depressed, and living at mom’s house again… I thought I had a future with Megan, I was pretty sure she was the girl I was going to marry; now I hate her… Love hurts, but sometimes it’s a good hurt. But now, moving on, a stronger person, I wonder about these girls and if any of them have the potential to be that new, exciting relationship. At four months out, I’m ready to date other people, not entirely over Megan, she still pop’s up in my dreams; looking stunningly beautiful and is completely irresistible and I hate her for that too. So here I am, enjoying that idea of “courting,” but wondering what that spark feels like, and when will I be able to feel it again; is it too soon to feel that spark, or is it an elusive thing; Eros’ unicorn? Are we destined to date people that make us feel one way? An old and familiar, a new and exotic, one to make us ask questions, one to bring you somewhere unexpected, one to bring you far from where you started, or one to bring you back. And of those, which is going to give us the future happiness we look for? Or is there a relationship that exists that has a combination of these different styles of relationships? And if there is, maybe that is what makes the best relations so intriguing, and that’s why they are the most challenging and significant. Anyway, I’ve digressed in several different directions, and the answers just aren’t there. All the very cliché people in the world will say, you’ll know when you feel it, but then there are the cynics, like myself (all-be-it a romantic cynic) who wants to say, “I already felt it, and the bitch broke my heart!” I got to tell you, I really admire the people that are able to move beyond a great love and be able find one that is even better; that seems so inconceivable to me at this point but I have to continue to believe that the heart of life is good and that there is that someone that will love the you that you love. I just wish she was easier to find…

Loves Most Powerful Victim

Though still a romantic soul, I’ve grown to have a bitter taste in my mouth due to the malevolent actions of the female species. Every once and awhile there comes along a break up where you can’t seem to get the taste out of your mouth. I believed that when I found love, it would last and the first true love would end up being that last; but as it turns out, sometimes you end up getting burned by love. But just as I was starting to think that I would never get that unrelenting taste out of my mouth, amidst the loss of strength and courage I thought I had lost the ability to accept love again. For a temporary moment, love had become my greatest adversary; I loathed the thought of being in love, I hated couples blatantly PDA-ing it up in front of me, but it wasn’t long until I started to come back to my senses and realize that hatred was fleeting and I still welcomed love with open arms, I just had to go get it. I had found myself wrapped up in the stories of friends who had become so jaded by love that they no longer wanted any part of at. They desired the attention and the comfort of a mate, but they lacked the desire to turn those feelings into love. As an “anti-lover” those who disdain love end up becoming loves most powerful victim. At heart, I am a hopeless romantic, and therefore there was no use in fighting and distaining love because it would eventually come back my way. As for my friends, they are destined to succumb to the unrelenting arrow. It is in moments of despondency when love captures you. It’s like when your immune system is low after a night of drinking and cold virus attaches itself to you and manifests. Love attacks you when you’re weak, but instead of making you feel worse, it makes you feel better. Love enters through the eyes upon that first glimpse; hence the phrase love at first sight. Love then like a virus metastasizes inside you without you knowing about it, totally guerrilla style, without your consent and out of your control. Those who managed to resist and push away love are dumbstruck when love finds them. Love grabs hold of every pessimistic ideal and heals all previous wounds and scars as a persuasive cure all, attacking blood cells, controlling the flow of the body. Happy love has no history, so it should come at no surprise that the majority of songs written are about love lost. But once you have lost love, it makes you all the more susceptible to it. The songs within the pop culture seem to be written for the demographic that listens to them…young and in love, all going through the same ups and downs. But that artist that you vibe with because he/she speaks so eloquently or angrily about love lost also knows both sides of love, and the very next single is about new love. Once bitten by love, you need to get some hair of the cat the scratched you. Being single is a fun and enjoyable time, and you may think that you are content being single for the rest of your life because love has treated you so poorly, but contentment is not a feeling, it is an absence; “contentment is the positive side of resignation. It has its appeal but its no good wearing and overcoat and furry slippers and heavy gloves when what the body really wants is to be naked.” When you desire the company of the opposite sex, you desire love. You desire because you lack; you no longer remember love and you lack its warmth. You desire passion and passion means suffering and your heart has suffered enough! When you think you might have found love again, it becomes unattainable until your self-realization of your jaded perspective and so you desire the unattainable to keep from desiring and you become loves most powerful victim… until you realize that love is again an attainable thing. It is tangible, because you feel it…

Contemplating...

Two sides

To her,
We bond, break,
Unavoidably drift apart
On broken saucer

To me,
Love conquers,
Battling on eyelids,
Lamenting “we.”

At best,
Words don’t matter.
Float like ashes,
With no place to rest.

Yesterday,
Blood drawn from heart,
Extracted life,
Sighs taking life away.

Today,
Re-invention governs:
Organs, fortune, clocks,
Recover time and re-pay.

Happy dreams with no happy ending

If in our dreams all rules are suspended, why then do our dreams not work in our favor? If it is our own unconscious creating these fantastical stories, then you would think that all our dreams would turn out better. But I'm sure I can speak on behalf of the majority of people in saying that we wish we had control over our dreams; but it is as if we have been tied down, forced to watch a really bad movie. So as we lay asleep, our unconscious ruling over the twists and turns of our reverie, manifesting all the things that eat at our minds and pull at our heart strings in the real world, we just sit there, allowing it to happen, even if we know it doesn't feel right. I like the argument that dreams are just a glimpse into reality, and are in fact our deep desires and that certain things that happen and appear in your dreams are symbols that are supposed to tell you something, but how are you supposed to believe those things when in reality all you want to do is forget the "bad" dreams. Why is it that the "bad" dreams are the ones that seem to stick with us the most? Is it because they are the most important? Are they are telling us something that we need to know and understand? Defining what constitutes a "bad" dream and a "good" one is debatable... Over the past month or so I have been thoroughly enjoying life; spending time with friends, visiting friends in places never explored and even becoming rather smitten with a new girl in my life...I really can't remember the last time I felt this good about life, and just happy. I would probably have to look back to when Megan and I first started dating to feel that sort of emotion, but the funny thing about this feeling as compared to that one, is that with Megan, she was what was making my life so much happier, but right now its as if everything is embracing me and helping me move forward and heal my wounds. Anyway...I digress...back to the subject at hand...dreams...So over this past month, despite being happy and getting over Megan, I can't seem to stop dreaming about her. I do in fact hate her and find myself in a position currently better off without her, but why does my mind persist in dreaming about her? Don't get me wrong, I was madly in love with her, but I'm not anymore, nor do I care to be, so why do my dreams torture me with scenes of frolicking, kissing, and loving this girl that I want so desperately to put in my past? These dreams though happy in their nature, torment me, and when I wake I can't help but think about her no matter how hard I try. I would much rather have a dream about getting mowed over by a semi then have another dream that makes me think about how much I miss her, especially during these holiday seasons. If dreams are supposed to take place in a very brief time period, how are we supposed to remember them at all? It is as if dreams happen in fast forward and when we wake up we can only remember pieces that we saw as it happened. But even if I don't remember what happened in the dream, I remember her face, and that alone is enough... I don't know that I ever will be able to forget that face... I tell myself its better this way, there are much better women out there, and remind myself of all the things I didn't like about her, and how she gave up and killed a good romance and yet she finds her way into my dreams and we act just as happy and in love as I remembered us to be. Is this supposed to be my unconscious telling me that I'm not over her yet, that I still love her, or is it telling me that it shouldn't be over yet, and that we should still be together? Or is it simply a very lighthearted nightmare that doesn't leave you in a cold sweat but instead leaves you in tears...