take a moment.

Did you know that being alive can be the most beautiful thing?  Were you aware that heartbreak and mistakes and excitement and headaches and being really tired and singing your heart out and not knowing anything ever and feeling everything is what makes everything worthwhile?  I don't think I did.  But I think I'm learning it.  There are moments where you feel all the excitement of being in the biggest city in the world with the contentment of cuddling on a couch on a warm rainy day.  Times when you are spastic and crazy with the excitement of seeing your favorite sports team in person while surrounded by all the people you love.  Days when all you seem to want is someone to love and hold you, but you know that living and loving the life you have now will only make love better when you finally decide to throw yourself on the line for it.

Did you know that the best part of life is that we can feel?  How simple, yet how glorious.  What an incredible life we live, what magnificent depths we are able to reach in the way we love and hate and fear and laugh.

What a blessing it is to be alive.

two years later

this day snook up on me.  i didn't forget.  but i think i did secretly imagine it would never come.

i remember everything.  and it's okay.

i have moved on.

and I love my life.

esoteric paradoxical inquisitions

I wonder why, in the moments and days that seems so lazy, so trapped, and so hard to muster the desire to get out of, it is so hard.  And yet, minutes-hours-days later, the same life and frustrations can seem full of possibilities and positive thoughts.  Why can't the self of right now go back and tell the self of yesterday that things are fine, and that it's okay to relax and be unproductive, or motivate the self of yesterday to get up and live life.

Why is it that in souls so wrought with emotion, poetry, and life, so little of it shows?  The most beautiful things in life are the actions and moments between real people sharing real feelings.  And the second is all of the beautiful things created by those who have no person to feel with, so they share their feelings with everyone through their art.  The second group effects more people.  But the first has an effect of much greater depth.  Which is better?  Can we learn to express ourselves in one way, when we are used to another?  Can we ever have both?

Why does a Google search on emotions lead to hundreds of links on how to "handle" and "control" one's emotions, but nothing on how to feel them?

Lessons from May,

especially today.

1. There are two things in life: opportunities and choices.  If something seems wrong, you always have control over at least one of those options, and that control is always enough to make a difference.
2. Doing work you enjoy turns it into play.  And there are enough good opportunities in the world today everyone should make the choice to play.
3. When ideas aren't coming and your brain seems to be stuck going in circles, get outside and get some exercise.  It always helps.

I've had the most fascinating work day today researching Mark Zuckerberg's development of Facebook.  It is one of the many things recently that have left me feeling invigorated and inspired.
A few others: new music, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, emails, the rain, meeting new people, and basketball.

Dear Life,

I don't feel like I'm doing you right.  I'm not sure if there is a right way, but I'm becoming increasingly convinced there is a wrong one.  And that that's the one I've picked.  I'm screwing up life with my apathy.  I feel too much and nothing, simultaneously.  Everything is a paradox.  There is no escape from freedom.

Awesome.

Electric Dusk

Tonight is sporadic

A mindful fanatic

who loves to get caught up inside of my mind.

All energy surges

the idea converges

Pacing and racing random bits on rewind.

My brain at it's peak

let my willingness speak.

Darkness creeps on 

the floodgates still open

Bottled up passion

all the thoughts left unspoken.

Hasty control over calculated plans

brimming with symbols for all that she stand.

The tighter the grip the looser the hold

before it's all there, the end is foretold.

Slipping and sliding; crash burn

to the end

Fatigue-means relentless excursions

they'll send

No map, no location

no end destination

Not lost, but no way to know

what's real, and what's just a show.

Privacy, a destructive illusion.

Get out of my head, it's the utmost intrusion.

No will, no choice, no way to fight

just give in, endure, succumb to the night.

Awake, and weep.

Mourn restless sleep.

Shake off the day's embodied husk.

Awaiting the next 

electric dusk

non-paternal parent's 24 hour period.

This day is not an easy one for me.  It is confusing, guilt-ridden, and...complicated.  It is one in which it seems everyone else is out to remind me of what it is I so desperately want, but can't have.

I've tried hard to come to terms with this day.  And this is what it means to me:

Today, I honor the women in my life who have helped me become who I am.  I appreciate those who have helped me along my path, in finding it, sticking to it, and taking breaks along the way.  These women have come in many forms in my life: my close friends, who inspire me daily with the women they are becoming; the parents of my friends, who have taken me into their homes; my step-mom, who loves, accepts, and teaches me; teachers who have nurtured me; extended family who have opened their arms to me in confusing times; a sister who has become one of my very best friends; room mates and future room mates, who are there for me when life sucks at inconvenient moments; and all of those women who have touched and taught me by their simple anonymous examples of grace, sacrifice, and strength.  And my mother, for the good things she has brought into my life.

Today, I thank you all for being examples, and for giving me hope.