I feel scattered as of late.

I feel like lately i've been acting a little...childish? I guess would be the best term. I feel like i've been acting my age, which is not something I enjoy doing most of the time. So the fact that i'm just now realizing all of this it has me a bit concerned. My motivations of late have been fairly shallow and it's not very becoming of me honestly.

I feel like i've been throwing alot of caution to the wind, and maybe i'm still stuck in my Arizona mindset where I can justify being worthless by comfortably numbing myself. So I didn't get the Apple job, why aren't I looking for a new job anymore? Or at least a second job? Because i'm lazy. Because I like sitting around in my room and dicking off online, or sitting and doing fucking nothing.

I'm definately not feeling like myself as of late, like maybe some of my personality is being swallowed or ignored. I normally have a solid feeling in the knowledge that i'm honestly a nice person most of the time....but lately I can't say that with alot of confidence. Something in me doesn't feel so kosher. I am falling into old emotional patterns i've dealt with before, and I need to be more conscious of my actions in the near future.

I feel like alot of this move was blessed. I rarely wax poetic about religion, particularly my own, but I feel like The Goddess was right there with me through that thing. It could have gone wrong in so many ways, and did, but it still managed to happen. I moved, I got here, I have a roof over my head (and live in a place that i'm not afraid to leave my room in), I have a full belly, and now I even have a job. I remember for the 6 months before the move, I would pull out my tarot deck and ask it what my future held and every time I got back answers of bounty, of joy, of life turning around and the hard road you've ridden is almost over just hold on. And as much as I feel my move was meant to happen...I feel right now...I guess I feel like maybe my luck is at a turning point. That i'm only being helped as far as I can help myself, and that right now if I don't pull my shit together my streak will be no more and i'll be shit out of luck in California.

Those are the feelings i've been having lately. A mild discontent with my own actions, and there's little I can do to change past actions aside from learn and live from them, but I feel like i'm about to begin wallowing in my own muck, which I am very prone to do. I had my first 'episode' with my manic depression since October, a few days ago. I totally forgot how much those suck, and how tired I get after. But I made it through it, and I think I even managed to have a decent night that day.

I have been blocked creatively for a while. I go to write, something, anything and all I can do is stare at the empty word document and watch the cursor blink. I write two sentences, and then close the laptop and walk away. And the lame part is that I *want* to write, i'm wanting to be creative but my muse is on vacation. All I get are wisps of her perfume.

I feel misguided. I will have to meditate on this.

I came to Arizona looking for a clean slate. Tabula Rasa I said, and I spent long hours during the night contemplating what that really meant for me. Now I find myself again thinking of a fresh start and the beginning of something large in my life.

I have people here who want me to stay, people who will miss me. I know I will miss them as well, but California feels like the start of my life finally. I look to it for friendships, relationships, and careers. I never wanted to live here in Arizona in the first place, but circumstances forced me into it and now by my own decision I leave. I have long since felt I was spinning my wheels here, with this innate knowledge that I would eventually be moving back to California. Back home. I have no doubt in my mind that Arizona is where I was meant to be for the time i've been here. I came to Arizona feeling like I had learned so much about myself during the 5 years I lived in California and I can say with great surety that in the near 3 years i've lived here in Arizona I have learned almost as much.

While I lived here in Arizona I loved three men, and have known that they loved me as well. I had my heart broken by one. I broke anothers. One I will hold a flame for in my heart for years to come I feel. I did alot of stupid things here. I tried alot of drugs. I smoked alot of pot. I drank alot of booze. I've gotten my tongue pierced, my nipples pierced, and my penis pierced. I now have two tattoos. I have grown into my sexuality in surprising ways compared to the shy boy who had only slept with one person when I moved here. I have come to grips with my depression, which is something that I have struggled with throughout my adolescence and into my adult life. I moved out on my own for the first time. I bought my first car. I had my apartment broken into and my car repossessed, all in the same month. I had my first real job. I have stood in the middle of a raging thunderstorm with nothing on in the middle of the desert and felt completely connected to the world.

So many of the people here have changed my life in ways I don't think they can realize. I have had some of the strongest friendships I have ever known here, and equally have lost some as well. I have come to realize how I define "friend" and have since settled for nothing less. I learned how to be alone and be okay. I do not feel remiss in leaving these people who are dear to me behind though, because I know that life is complicated and leads down many paths. I will see them all again, speak to them frequently, and hope to grow into even deeper friendships than we already have. I also have come to terms with leaving some people behind for good, come to terms with the knowledge that as I say goodbye to some of these people it very well may be the last time I ever see them. That is much harder than I had once thought. Arizona is the first place I made friends as an adult, and I suppose I hang on to the idea of that at times.

California feels so wide open and full of possibilities that I can't even begin to figure out what the hell i'm going to do with myself. I will eat, I will drink, I will laugh, and I will try to carve out a slice of life that I can call my own.

I send an open invitation to you all to come and visit, please. I invite you to be a part of another chapter of my life.

I love you all

California here I come!!

So during New Years Eve I got a chance to see two people who at one point played a pivotal role in my life. These people know who they are, honestly.I can say, I am really glad I saw you. I kind of suspected that you might be coming to the party, and then Aaliyah got a text asking if she was coming to the party and I pretty much knew. I'm glad I saw you, because for me I was ready for it all to be water under the bridge. Ready to talk to you like another person, joke, whatever.

Did I get that? No. You guys were total bitches. And did I care? No. Because I know that the place I am at in my life is so much better than the place you're in. If after a year and a half you still don't want to acknowledge my presence then you are petty and lonely and you have nothing better in your life than holding a grudge against me. For that, you make me pretty damn happy.

I am in such a better place than you. I was ready to be civil, ready to talk, ready to see if we could ever be friends again and you guys totally gave me the cold shoulder. I'm glad to get that from you, glad to know that somewhere I still get under your skin, whereas; I could give two shits. In less than two months I will be getting ready to move, and you two will be sitting here in fucking Phoenix doing the same shit, day in and day out. Good luck to both of you, I hope you find whatever you seek for in life.

I'm just glad that i'm moving on and moving up.That was the last time I ever plan on seeing you two, so bon voyage and have a good life. Catch ya on the flip side, motherfuckers.

Dear You,

I really don't like you. How we stayed friends for as long as we did, now that I know who you really are, surprises me sometimes. You're right, we shouldn't be friends. You're a shallow individual who has second motives for everything you do. I especially hate the fact that the friends you have now aren't yours, they were mine first. I hope that karma will kick you in the face soon enough, because you deserve it.

Dear You,

I'm over you in the romantic sense, and that was a really great accomplishment for me. What i'm not over is how you treated me after we broke up. You disregarded my feelings pretty blatantly, and did whatever the fuck you wanted to do. You felt bad, but you didn't want to deal with it so you just blocked it out and decided to be a complete and total idiot. I would like to have some solice in regards to you, but I can't. You wronged me, not in breaking up with me mind you, but in the fact that you ran my heart through the mud for two months after you did so. I don't care that we broke up, it was a good thing honestly. I care about what a total douchebag you were to me and the fact that you never once apologized for felt the need to. Again, I hope that karma kicks you in the face soon, you totally deserve it. Maybe you and the above mentioned person can go for a 2-for-1 deal.

Dear You,

I seriously don't like you. You're shallow, stupid, deceitful, and a bad person all around. I adopted you as my faglet, and let loose a little monster. We stopped being friends because you and I have a different definition of what that word means. I hope your life is going as well as it can while you run it all by yourself. If it crashes around you don't say I didn't warn you.

Dear You,

I'm afraid to see you again, after so long. Alot has changed about me, and I honestly don't feel like I can be your friend anymore. You and I have totally different motivations in life, and I never was really fond of who you were at the core of your person. Now that i'm where I am in my life, I see more of who you are and realize how very different we are. You say we're really similar, you tell me you understand me more than I realize, but I fail to see how that's true. You just don't get who I am as a person, what i'm about, and where i'm coming from. I'm afraid of seeing you again now because I think you will feel my indifference towards you and I don't want to hurt you. I really just wish I could tell you how much I don't care about you and your life, about how I feel closer to my friend Travis, whom i've known for less than a year, than I feel to you and I feel no need to close that gap. I'm sorry, I wish it were different but I can't help but feel like this.

Dear You,

I cannot be with you the way you want me to be. I'm sorry. I can't be with anyone right now, and I know you know that, but I think deep down inside you hope we can be but that's really not a path I want to venture down with you. I want friendship with you more than anything else. I love you, but not like that.

Dear You,

Seriously, we talked about this. I talked to you about how you've been really flakey and how our friendship was not really anything worth holding onto at that point. After that it was totally great, everything was back to normal. Now it seems like your motivations in life have changed pretty significantly and they don't match my own. If you continue to flake on me anymore, i'm going to flat out tell you we can't be friends anymore, at least not in the capacity you're used to. I really hope this doesn't happen, you're one of my few friends anymore and I cherish you but I can't handle the emotional difficulty of being your friend if you're going to continue acting like this.

Dear You,

Like the above person, you've been really flakey. Granted, you're a big fucking flake in the first place and I knew that. But now it's gotten pretty extreme, and i'm pretty much done with you. Get your shit together and fucking call me, cause otherwise i'm not going to pick up my phone.

Riding home, listening to a song i've listened to a hundred times over and these few lines speak to me. Been happening alot lately, but this one was good.

 

I want a love, I want a fire
To feel the burn, my desires
I want a man by my side
Not a boy who runs and hides
Are you gonna fight for me ?
Die for me ?
Live and breathe for me ?
Do you care for me ?
Cause if you don't then just leave

I would rather be anywhere
Else than here
Where every second is spent
Seeing clearly behind me
I wished so many times that I didn't survive
But everything I do and have done has somehow kept me alive

When do I, get to leave
When do I, get to leave
When do I get to leave you behind?

I've been feeling worthless since I left California
I've been stumblin' around
Looking to find the feelings I left behind there
Shitfaced and broken and fucked up and open
Again and again this time
It's not the, state so much
But the state of mind, which I find myself
In

When do I, get to leave
When do I, get to leave
When do I get to leave you behind?

You may feel so bitter about unused potential
But you wouldn't believe the load i've had to swallow
Just to prove my credentials
And can you
Blame me for, losing myself
In some sweet arms and some
Deep angel
Easin' my body into that old familiar pain

When do I, get to leave
When do I, get to leave
When do I get to leave you behind?
Behind me.

 

 

Better now. Not so much pain.

I can't remember who it was, but someone once said that you don't mourn death, you mourn the loss of life and it's possibilities. This is essentially why having your heartbroken hurts so much, in my opinion. You have all these dreams and thoughts and hopes for a relationship and in one crashing moment they're no longer there. You have yourself trained to think about them in almost every aspect of your life, and then once they're gone, that training only serves to hurt you more. Gone now are the thoughts of love and life with this person who you made into your everything, and left are only feelings of pain and loss. Loss of that person, loss of the feelings there, rejection, hurt, and an underlying feeling of hope. Long ago Pandora opened up a box that contained all of the evils in the world, and as they rushed out she frantically shut the box, trapping the very last evil unable to escape. It's name was Hope.

I'm doing my best to find strength. I'm doing my best to breathe in and out every day and not feel like this great weight is resting on my chest. I'm better today than ever since it happened, and that to me is assuring. I know in time I can be okay. I in time I can actually hang out with him without having my lungs burn and my hands shake. I know that in time I will look at other men and not feel a sense of loss.

Better now though, and it can only grow more.

I loved him. I gave all of myself to him. He asked me for it, he asked me to take down all the walls I so carefully constructed. He spoke to me of love and being together and marriage and forever. And I believed him. I let myself believe him, 'maybe this one is real, maybe this is it.' I told myself. Stop being so cynical I told myself. Take a chance I told myself. So we dated, and I loved him. I gave him a claddagh, I kissed him on the nose, I touched his stomach and felt a jolt go through my body. I looked into his eyes and felt like home. I wanted him constantly, I wanted him so badly I stole him from my best friend, slept with him while they were still dating. He was so much of my life and all the while that scared me but he kept telling me it was okay, kept telling me I could rely on him, kept telling me I could put my guard down because he loved and would never leave.

And then he did. So terrible the phrase 'I'm not ready to settle down' is. So hurtful, so heartwrenching and soul destroying. I was naked, with my arm around him, when he told me this. And my whole body just froze, my whole being seemed crystalline and somewhere else. My ears hissed and I felt like gravity suddenly stopped working. I curled into a ball and fought so hard not to cry, all the while my insides are trying to form the smallest ball possible and a scream is clawing at my throat. I left the room, I huddled on the couch and he followed and his words were poison to my heart. I didn't understand, I still dont. I didn't believe, and I am slowly managing to do that. I could only keel like a wounded animal and curl into a ball, holding onto the pillow my mother slept with every night. I asked him if he truly wanted this, if this was what he thought was the right thing to do. He told me yes. I threw a glass at the wall. I packed my things and left.

I'm here at the apartment, this place that was supposed to be ours. I came back and told him he needed to leave. Let him try to figure out what to do with his life. Let him panic, wondering how he's going to make it. He's the one who decided to destroy our lives, not me. Let him deal with the consequences. Let him scramble and have to move out. A congratulations card still sits on the counter, 'Dustin and Mason, congrats on the new place, hope you are very happy.' Not even two weeks, not even that, and we're no longer together. Two weeks of being with me and we're over.

He asked for so much, he asked me to bare it all and I did because I felt so deep down that he would be different, he would be the one. But we're 'not compatible' and 'our relationship has too many downs, and not enough ups.' I fought, I fought so hard to make this relationship work because I loved him so very much and in the end he wasn't willing to fight. In the end he decided the easy path. In the end he gave me back my heart, broken and bleeding, telling me he didn't want it. Just exactly like I knew he would. Just exactly as I thought he would, but didn't want to believe. Just. Like. Eric. He asked to see everything and couldn't handle it all. And now i'm left holding the pieces of myself trying to hard to put them back together.

I can't think about it. I keep reading, i've gone through two books in the past 12 hours. When I read I can't feel the pain. When I read I don't have to think about the way he smiled at me or the way he would hold my hand or how I felt when I kissed him. I don't have to think about how much I want him back, how much I wish this were all a dream, how I keep hoping i'm going to wake up and have him next to me and smiling.

I know in time it will be better, but right now I feel like my soul is damaged. I feel like vomiting and crying and curling into a ball until I disappear. He sits in the bedroom and laughs on the phone like nothing is wrong and every word he speaks is like a needle into my skin. Every glance he steals at me makes me wish I didn't have skin. Every thought is so full of him and I feel like it will all boil over and i'll scream and scream until I taste blood.

I don't know what to do but keep breathing. Keep reading. Keep touching my face to be sure i'm real and this is all real and i'm not dreaming it all. How I wish I were dreaming it all.

This is for all the friends i've made, kept, lost, burned, and loved. This is for all the people who've entered my life and exited it, people who i've hated and loved and shared my life with.

This is for elementary school and the people I shared it with. This is for Tanna Brase and Alison Bresen. This is for Catalina Isaland and throwing up twice on the boat there. This is for the bus being 4 hours late, this is for being caught making out on the boat. This is for 'They're wrapped in paper you dumb cunt.' This is for realizing on the last day that I was moving and was never going to see everyone again, and suddenly bursting into tears.

This is for middle school and the confusion. This is for being in a new town, for being asked by a group of giggling girls for my phone number. For Cassidy and Wednesday chapel. This is for Mr. Lubrano and Ms. Birch. This is for The Outsiders. 'This is for Johnnie.' This is for hating Sonny and punching him in the face. This is for Dustin and 'Roxaaaaane.' This is for Jessica, who I almost had sex with. This is for coming out and Queertopia and Becky and LJ and RE and Jen and meeting Eric and Mell and blueslinky.

This is for what would have been high school. This is for California. For Ms. Kim and Mrs. Cordell. This is for Quincey and Kelly Clarkson and that club thing we were in. This is for tutoring and getting paid $10/h. This is skipping two grades and going to college. This is for Philsophy class. This is for losing my virginity and being stupid. This is for the Day of Silence and kamakazie turkeys. This is for Eric. This is for knowing him loving him losing him and being his friend through everything and having him by my side. This is for Mendo Community College. This is for Human Sexuality. This is for 'I'm a crazy freak monster with lizards coming out of my ears!'. This is for 'What are you? An invalid?' and the best bitch slap i've ever been on the recieving end of. This is for Janelle never seeing a penis. This is for Ryan and Jessie and living at their house. This is for the LAN Parties and Friday Comic Shop and Wednesday D&D. This is for Jessie standing by me and being one of the most amazing people i've ever met. This is for Ryan never ceasing to amuse and confuse me. This is for Steve and sexual innuendos and the 'maro. This is for Brunos sandwiches and frappucinos. This is for Body Tools and Maxi Baxies.This is for my brother who may piss me off sometimes but is still someone I consider very close, for NoNarb Destroyer of Beds and Maroon 5 and his shitty ass Jetta and knowing I have someone who understands me and loves me because of my faults, not in spite of them. This is for Mary Beth Abella and for Kelly Clarkson. This is for Tori and John and Tim and Kevin and Jewell and everyone from Santa Rosa. This is for Pulse and learning to play Magic and my first boyfriend crying on Toris lawn for 2 hours.

This is for my Mother. This is for everything she ever taught me. This is for her sunglasses with the S swoop. This is for her shirt that lit up and sang Jingle Bells. This is for Verns Water Well and Benson Hedges Menthol Ultra Light 100's. This is for the smell of acrylic and hearing her yell 'Boomers!'. This is for everything and anything we did together. For sandwiches at Safeway and for Sting and Bonnie Raitt and Pink Floyd. This is for every moment I don't have with her and every thought I think about her. This is for every smile I wish she could see and every hug I wish I could give her. This is for her little blue pillow and Miracle on 34th St and It's a Wonderful Life and cooking and laughing and living and knowing she was the greatest person I will ever meet.This is for the infinite things I could say about her and never come close to showing how much she meant to me.

This is for now. This is for Arizona again. This is for Anthony and the lessons I learned. This is for Danny and the trouble we always meant to get into and the things we never really said. This is for Ulta and learning alot about myself. This is for Shanghai and 'Sometimes...' and Christina and ridin dirty. This is for my sister who I realized I loved alot and how much I took her for granted and how she really is a good person she just doesn't show it often enough. This is for Vanessa and the cake and Grillz and 'I'm Mexican. We don't kid.' and talking at Mixteca and how much I love her. This is for Chris and the lesson he taught me and for Steven and being afraid of yourself and whats inside you.

This is for Dustin and what he means to me and for '19th!' and for the shower tiles and pansies and sex in Jens bed and the desert and getting pulled over 6 times and for tearing down walls and taking everything in and wonton chips and strip clubs and Applebees and Dennys and 'Dis ain't Yamba, shiii' and 'Dude, can we have this?' and 'I can't believe you let that go' and tailgating and Becky and crying alot and fighting alot and loving every moment and massages and bartering systems and chompy noises and the way he smells and poop brown eyes and messed up ears and not being fat or ugly. Credit card accepted, cash back?