the one common thread lately that has been asked of me is to look inward. the answer lies there they say. either that or find Jesus which someone anonymously posted, but Jesus, as we all know, doesn’t pay the bills, at least in this household.
i think to ask me to look inward seems awfully silly, for what is a journal if it is not inward reflection in and of itself? to question and to grow from your own strengths and weaknesses. to wonder how you can do more or better with your life and archive more. I didn’t want to be an extraordinary person, rather, i wanted to lead an extraordinary life. i wanted to say that i did things that not that many people have done and seen things not that many people.
so i don’t understand why someone would ask me that.
i have searched for answers all my life to questions i thought that pertained to me, and turns out seem to pretrain to mankind. as someone gently pointed out to me that you must some how sieve through the bad to get to the good and even then it’s almost blind faith on knowing whether that person is truly of some decent caliber.
I guess I can’t accept that, and I never could.
I remember once when I was very little, I must of been about 5 or 6, it was before my brother was born or around that time I’m sure, my mother and i folding clothes in the dining room. Now that sounds a bit absurd but you must realise the house we lived in was an old farm house that had been added on to several times and thusly, it ended up being a 14 room house. Because the basement was a Michigan basement (called as such as it was unfinished), only the washer resided down there while the dryer was upstairs in the kitchen. [That sounds almost British!] And of course it was quite easy to shift clothing from the dryer to the dining room table (w/ leaves sat 12, w/o leaves sat 8) and fold the clothing appropriately.
I remember feeling that i had this burning question in my heart to ask, something I was afraid to get an answer on. As we sat there folding towels and jeans, I remember asking my mother in my five year old voice about something she had said/done to me that i thought was extremely unfair. I was absolutely SURE it was unfair. My mothers answer did not please me and I wish I knew what the question to this day even was, but I remember feeling when I was done how life seemed to screwed in the head. There was something so intrinsically right in my head that to hear that it was wrong didn’t make sense. First beginnings of being stubborn? Perhaps, Or about being passionate? Who knows. I just remember feeling that life was going to be difficult enough without having to worry about all these little details. Hell, I remember the cold walk home when I was 8 clutching my math book to my chest having a panic attack because there was no effing way I was going to do long division or whatever the hell it was that third graders should be doing let along going to high school? I was convinced i would not have enough time to learn it all. do not ask me why i thought this, i still do not know to this day. Might explain some of my procrastination.
I do not have a single solitary answer as to why I kept an online journal, or why I’ve seemingly abandon it sometimes or why sometimes themes are repeated. I think perhaps I’ve always written in something, and I can remember instances of flashbacks when I was a child writing outside under the stars, over by the library against a tree by the river or at home upstairs on my desk. I do not have my original diaries from that time but I wish i did. They have been lost via many shuffles.
I had a great conversation with Graham the other night, which lasted for about 2.5 hours. One thing I have noticed in my later years is my aversion to use the phone. It’s not that I won’t talk to people, but I don’t get many personal phone calls (why should i when there is e-mail) and incidentally neither does Paul. So getting two personal calls in one day seemed thrilling albeit i was a bit spacey with graham, which I apologized profusely on. Anyways, Graham called to cheer both myself and himself up and I think partially it did the trick. One thing we did comment on is that neither of us have really an older parentally figure (if you will) to guide us on the path to life. With Graham it is mostly because of his work-aholicism and being a Brit in the US (though he has lost some of his accent except when he says schedule, so he must go back to the UK for that). For me I never grew up with a father figure, save for my crazy grandfather, and my mother was a workaholic. I still carry on intense guilt thinking that I must be some intense disappointment to my father for not being around (yes I know its not my fault that he didn’t show up for 20 years, but you tell my subconscious that) or that i feel this need that I have to take care of my mother because really, who else will? Apparently not the state if (#*&#)@(#* Social Security hasn’t kicked in, but that is not here or there all together.
Reading over some comments left on the livejournal.com site about yesterdays entry along with entries that I’ve written in the past, i wonder if the problem isn’t a breakdown in communication.
My friend Ben and I have it a lot, mostly it is because of the translation of slang. Ben lives in Belgium and we all know where i live! But it’s often funny if he says something and I’m like wtf do you mean and vice versa. it’s amusing because what i say sometimes doesn’t convey well to him and i need to explain what i mean.
But herein likes the point, is that sometimes i feel like I’m not speaking English/American even though it sounds like i am. I will say/write something and there will be 10 different interpretations as to what was actually said. This was also reflected back in the day with ‘work e-mail’ due to ‘my tone’ sounded too snotty. I have zero idea how telling a customer that he misconfigured a router was being snotty but hey, who am i to argue? Even with paul, i pick apart his words to make sure I get the meaning clear and he calls me mean (apparently joking). Like today when I picked him up at work and I told him about the possible early acceptance to a school, and therefore i was leaving in a month ish he went nuts. He looked at me accusingly stating that I ruined Christmas for him since I was leaving two weeks early, he must then get a drivers license earlier and buy a car earlier and he’d have no money to buy a plane ticket back to Miami for the holidays. I apparently had it all made in the shade because everything was being “taken care of.” Somehow this is my problem that he waited three years to get a drivers license/car, with his excuse of we couldn’t afford it — trust me we could. Plane tickets to Miami are 200 bucks max and maybe if he stopped spending 250 bucks at Amazon.com on cds this wouldn’t be an issue. But apparently my one sentence span out of control to produce this litany of complaint.
I just ate my Wendy’s sammich and read e-mail and watched movies for the rest of the evening and stayed as far away as possibly as I could.
I find that i spend a lot of time defending or clarifying myself because I did not quantify my statements in whatever needs clarifying or defending. Sometimes it’s a miss of a letter or a structure of a sentence and others it’s just plain gibberish. Sometimes the other person doesn’t want to see the black/white and understand it himself.
I think save for a few obvious mistakes, I’ve stood by what I’ve said and do not regret what I say. I’ve had to reassure that I am open to apologizing to others when needed and that I’m not so arrogant to think that I’m never wrong. I do not like to think that what I say is ‘mea culpa’ rather a listing of facts told in an amusing yet entertaining way. I do not seek for sympathy rather i seek for understanding and empathy (yes they are the same thing it just sounds good).
I also know I often repeat myself and that i often reiterte what I say — I do this to make sure we are clear that my meaning and your understanding is one and the same for a grave mistake that is made is poor writing skills for if the reader does not understand basics of what the writer is saying, the writer is at fault. If the reader cannot grasp basic understanding, then reader is a moronic twit who fails to understand basic sentence structure.
now why can’t i be this prolific with my NanoWriMo Novel (0 words and counting).