Soon...

Hey guys! 

I'm going down for the holidays to take some time for myself and think about some stuff.

The next blog post will be Jan 4th.

Until then,

I wish you a safe End of the World Day, Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year (those last two if we make it through the 'end of the world.') ;)

XX

RE: More people should talk about what they’re passionate about.

So recently a friend of mine posted a post on tumblr about passion and being passionate about things in life. It struck me deep, like it should. That whole night, morning, whatever you want to call it, I couldn't stop thinking about it. 

Later on, he posted a longer post about what he was passionate about and said that he would like us to write something similar. I knew immediately what that I was going to write something. I just need sometime to think about it. 

After about a day now, I have thought about it. So here it goes…

I'm passionate about the lives of others. Weird I know, but I've had a normal life with lots of ups and downs, and I have always been a social kid. I've always had friends and I have always been the friend that people have come to, to talk about things. Things such as problems, or in need of advice. Every time, I always, and I mean ALWAYS listen. I have always helped to the best of my ability.

I have struggled with depression and have tried committing suicide. It's in those final moments when you are about to do it, that you remember about the lives you will be missing and seeing where they go in the future. Those people that will have problems and will need someone to talk to. 

I am passionate about photography. God damn if only my camera didn't get stolen. I love the shit out of photography and I love making art, and making things beautiful. I love creating. Whenever I'm in a funk, I would grab my camera, call a friend and say, 'Hey, let's go create something beautiful. I need to right now.'

I am passionate about love, even if I haven't found it. I am passionate that there is love in the world and that people will find someone, even if it is in their mid 40s and they have been married before.

I am passionate about drag. I don't do it enough, but I am. I love getting dressed up into someone I'm not and being someone new that people love and want to be around. I like to bring joy into someones life by being something completely different that what I'm actually am.

I am passionate about poetry, writing, and getting your feelings out there to the world for others to see that, yeah there is someone going through something that I'm going through.

So now it's your turn. What are you passionate about?

Reasons

Written Dec. 3, 2012. 

(Edited from original copy)

The countdown beings.

Five days.

Five days till I'm back at home away from this place and back into my old life. Which, in retrospect, I don't think is bad. People tell you that you shouldn't look back, that it's your past for a reason, but sometimes you have to go back because you got lost in your present while looking for your future. Like me. 

I used to have this thrill, this certain type of drive to make something with my life. Possibly because I didn't feel like I had a purpose to live for the longest time. I got to a point in my life where I decided that I did. I needed to continue on for the sake of the normal average person. I needed to find the way to make my life better so that there would be hope for people like me. 

I was a leader. I was against use of drugs, tobacco, anything harmful to your body. I experimented, nothing bad happened and I was okay with that. That's when I lost myself. When I started following instead of being the followed. I was following for all the wrong reasons. 

I started to act like them, think like them, be them. That was never me. I was never one to blend into a niche and be happy. No, I was there to show people that it's okay on who you are and to be proud and confident about it.

I lost that. 

I got lost in the world of drugs, underground raves, a new scene to start a new life with. I had a new slate and I could be whoever I wanted to be. That's when I lost me.

It was all fun. I'm not regretting what I did at all. I'm regretting how I acted about it. I'm regretting on how it took control over my life. 

No, not the drugs or the alcohol, the acceptance. I was finally cool now! People wanted to talk to me, wanted me to come to their parties, wanted me to hang out with them. For crying out loud people tried so many different crazy things to get into the group I got in so easily. 

That's when I started slipping. That's when I had to work for the acceptance and rank, yet when I did I got no where. Which is weird, to be honest, because we all thought of each other as family and we couldn't go days without seeing each other. Yet, when the time came, we put each other in their place. If you weren't one of the originals closest friends, who weren't as important. I'm lucky to have even gotten into the group I did, now that I look back on it. And that makes me sad, and disappointed in what I had become.

I was no longer a leader, and I accepted that. Maybe subconsciously I had grown tired of being the leader. I tried to get people to meet new friends, I tried to get them to go to a house party with new people, I tried to get them to do things but instead I was put in my place and accepted what they wanted to do.

I lost myself.

I had so much to say, but no one to listen. 

Even now I feel like there isn't anyone to really listen to my side of things. I am the listener, and that's how it's been all my life.

It's now that I'm sick of it. I'm sick of being left in the shadows, feeling as if I didn't have anything interesting to offer because I didn't come from a crazy background. I didn't enjoy getting so messed up all the time. I was a state officer of Family, Career, Community Leaders of America. I was one of the original founders of the current reACT Core Team. But that's not special where I was at. None of it was. This wasn't high school. Now no one cares if you can make a difference in the world cause the world is already too fucked up to care. 

That night on the bridge, when I wanted to jump off and kill myself. That's all I could think of. They didn't need anymore leaders where I was, they had all they needed. I was just a filler to make their lives more interesting and yeah that was good and all at first. 

But then I stepped back and saw that I was broken, and that they were broken, and that I wanted to heal myself but I couldn't. I couldn't because I felt that if I did, that I would leave them behind and they would hate me. I didn't want anyone to hate me. I just wanted someone to say I love you, I care about you, I will always be there. Instead of hearing that more than I should've, I was saying that more than I should've.

I was there to believe in everyone, yet I felt like no one believed in me.

It's weird how all this emotion that you pent up for so long finally comes back to you when you finally realized how you fucked up your own life. I don't blame them for how I turned out. It's not their fault, and I don't like to accuse people. It was my decision to stay and my decision to fuck up my own life because of that.

It's not their faults. They brought me in and we had a great time. They showed me so much stuff and I learned so much from all of them and I thank them. Yet, in the end I just wanted acceptance too much and that's what made me suffer. My naiveté to being apart of something, when I myself was already apart of something. Something greater than drama filled drunk nights at a cold apartment. I was apart of me. 

But I didn't see that then. All I saw was the opportunity to be wanted and accepted. 

I think that maybe people should stop focusing on how they appear, or how they want to appear to others, and focus on how they appear to themselves. That was something we all lied to ourselves about. We all told ourselves that we were comfortable with who we were, but on the inside we were all plagued with the ugliness we actually felt.

The Art of Disappearing

Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and Girls! Come see the greatest show on earth! The wonderfully socially awkward gay hipster kid, Jerry, will do a very famous disappearing act that no one will believe!

After his many attempts, it seems that he has perfected the art of disappearing, only to be seen when those around him need an opinion. It is time for him to show the entire public what he can do and now it is time.

This Saturday at noon in front of Elrod Hall, Jerry will disappear in front of everyone's eyes to never be seen again. No harm will be done to Jerry or those around him... well maybe some of those around him, while the others will never remember.

Jerry told us that it his time because of some personal issues. "I have lived out my time here in Missoula, and I have been through the good and the bad," says Jerry. "It is time for me to do my famous act of disappearing and start new."

We asked Jerry how long he has known of his gift to disappear, "I just really realized it in these last couple of months. I would be at a friends or a party and then poof I'd be gone. I'd look around and no one would see me or hear me. At first I thought that they were all being pricks, but then I realized that I have vanished."

"It's not their fault, I mean, they could've looked for me, but they didn't. I respect that," says Jerry. "I just wish they would've tried harder, though."

There you have it folks. The end is near, and it is for you all to see, or not see.

"I just want to say goodbye Missoula, and you have been good to me but it's just time that this disappearing act disappears into a new world."

I'm Scared

The above video by famous British Youtuber, Charlie McDonnell (charlieissocoollike), describes my life at it's current point in time.

Now I know a lot of other people feel the same way, and I'm not trying to take that away from them, but I want people to know that I can relate to it. That's why I have started a blog, right? To show that I can relate to people.

However, recently I feel like I can't relate to people. F*ck, I feel like I can't relate to myself. I feel lost, like Charlie said, "I just have been the best version of myself recently."

I haven't been the best version of myself. I have screwed off in school, yet again. I still don't have a solid job, I might be homeless for a while, I don't know how to carry on a relationship. I am scared that I have failed so much already that there is nothing left for me to do but just give up.

Now, I'm not actually going to give up. That would be way too stupid, and my mother would kill me because she is strong powerful woman who never gave up on her dream. She made it work for her, somehow and some way. It may not have been the same dream she started out with, but she changed it to what she needed it to be to get where she is today.

I am trying to do that. It's just, as Charlie said, I'm scared of people. I'm sick of being judged that I'm not skinny enough, I'm too hairy, I failed school, I've done things that I'm not proud of. I am even at the point where I feel like some of my closest friends are sick of me. I can't get a grip on what I want to do, who I want to be.

And that scares me. I'm scared that when I do get a job I will have responsibilities. I'm scared that I'm going to fail Logan with the BFK stuff, I'm scared that life will become to much for me. And even in this point in time just floating on isn't going to help.

I'm scared that if I don't break this fling off with this guy I like, I could loose a really good friend. I'm scared that others will, or have (or actually I know they already did) judged me for that. I'm scared that I can't find love, or that I won't.

I'm scared. And that's okay, because everyone is scared, right?

"My hope, is that this is just what it's like to be human, that everybody just secretly feels the same way as me."

Bad Things

"Bad things happen to the people you love
And you find yourself paying the diamond above
But honestly I've never had much sympathy
Cuz those bad things always saw them coming for me
I'm gonna run, run away, run run away, run away
Run away and never come back"~"Bad Things"- Cults
Well the weekend has come and passed. The sun seems brighter and my bed seems like the best place to be with each passing second. Yet, I ignore it. Why? At this point, I have no clue. I'm still regretting getting out of the shower this morning.

It seems that I never have a dull night. And it a night ends up being dull, it usually means we are taking a break, or just nothing is happening for us to do. However, a dull night is as rare as seeing a polar bear up in Artic (too soon?).

However, after all of these crazy nights that I seem to stumble upon, because let's be honest, I don't have the energy to look for that kind of stuff, I come back and I remember what I ran away from. Because that is what I do when nights like that happen. They don't just happen because I am in the right place at the right time, they happen because there are problems I'm running from and I don't know how to deal with it. Until I stumble upon some friends who happen to have a handle of Nikolai and I end up owning beer pong for three rounds then the cops come, I flee and then meet up with other friends.

I know, I know. Sounds like the problems of an alcoholic right? Chasing your problems with vodka is probably not the smartest.

But then you wake up the next morning, and sure you feel like shit at first. You drank a lot, it's bound to happen. You wake up and then you remember for that brief period of what seems like ever, only ending up to be four hours, you were happy and you forgot about the problems you had.

I know this all sounds sort of fucked up. But there is still beauty in getting drunk, despite the puking, dirty houses, spilt beer etc. etc.

It's when everyone around you seems to be getting into a relationship and you are left in the dark, when you are filling in for someone who is gone, while your “friends” tell you that you were a great stand in. It's when you want to be in love but the guy you are in love with is going on other dates and trying to find out who he loves.

And instead of getting lost in a book, or a television show, you end up running. And you end up running into some friends in some low places, and that is when you have a great time and are finally able to get rid of all the sadness that you feel.

I miss my best friend. I'm in love with a guy that doesn't love me back. I'm a shadow to an entire group of my so called “friends.” I am 100% alone. And I have no where to hide or run, or anyone to talk to because everyone has problems. But I need to help them out first.

That is why I drink. That is why I run. I need to be free of my own head.

I need to be free of this nagging feeling of the fact that I'm probably not going to find someone to love. That I'm going to be like my mother, alone with a dog working constantly while I wallow in shows like the bachelorette and Sons of Anarchy.

History repeats it's self my friends.

And I don't think I'm ready to face the future of that.  

Humble Hampster

“You have to die a few times before you can really live.”

~Charles Bukowski

A friend of mine once told me, “Water is like the most pure thing on earth.” I, of course, at the time objected, trying to explain to her about all the chemicals and bacteria that can be in water. She kept protesting, continuing on with how it is a form of honesty.

It wasn't until much later that I figured out what she meant about water that night. But that's for a different blog post... or maybe just a private diary entry.

I guess the point of that story goes on after what had happened that night.

We had been at a Modest Mouse concert. I with my friends and she, with hers. We met at Denny's and had a great night. It wasn't until about a year or so later, when we sat on the ugly orange 70's couch; a couch so defiled from sex, booze and drugs, yet we didn't mind, that we reminisced about that very night.

She told me something then: “I don't care how corny this sounds, but my favorite lyrics are 'Even if things end up a bit too heavy we'll all float on.' That song has helped me through so much, and that line just reminds me of everything I've been through and how I got through it. I lived by that line.”

10 points for guessing the name of that song.

I look back on it now, and I remember all the times that song would come on shuffle from someones iPod or phone, and she would make everyone get really quiet and then we'd all belt out that one line as loud as we could. Of course always ending up just laughing about how out of tune we were.

But it's true.

Sometimes things get hard, like this past couple of weeks, or f*ck even this year. Not only have I had my own personal struggles and battles with how I am living my life, where I am going, how it's all going to happen, but also with my friends, how we have lost friendships, even a friend in the process of finding ourselves. Ye that one line will always be the same, and always be true.

I might be trapped between the heartache of a romance that I know might never happen and if I want to be at school, and she might be confused on whether to drop out and “rub bitches.” But the great thing is, is that no matter what, I can look back on that moment, of pure tiredness, while she stroked the particles of water that ran down the cool plastic cup, staring at it and telling me that water was the most pure thing on earth; a glass full of pureness and honesty. To that moment on that god-awful, yet strangely inviting old couch, that no matter what we were going to face in our future, which ended up to be a lot, that no matter we would all float on.

Because it's completely true.

If you are ever having a bad day. Sit down, get a glass of water, put on your earphones and drown out to the simple melody of that song about a bad day that never went wrong.

And you know why it never went wrong?

That's right.

Because we'll all float on okay.