What It Says On the Tin

Sometimes I wonder what people expect out of life.  I would love to sit down and talk to the woman with the saddest eyes I've ever seen or the man whose face is glowing because he sees the sight of the person whom he loves the most off in the distance or behind his eyelids.  I just think that it's interesting to hear the tales that are woven in the minds of others.  It's even better when those tales are told by person A but in the style and with the outlook of person B.  It's like a massive game of telephone with a bitter and/or sweet twist of the first person's perception which is usually idealized.  

Ideology is a mysterious thing.  Everyone seeks it.  Dreamers live their life by it, religious people live day to day with the belief that they can always be better for a certain end, even pessimists seek a form of it; they just don't necessarily believe that it will ever come true.  Or they have a dark and twisty sense of idealism - either way it's there.  

It's such a shame, though, when you think about it, that we all have to be so different and secretive in the ways that we choose to pursue these ideologies.  We all think that we can each personally contribute to a better something in someway, and we all want this better something to come about for our own good.  There are no selfless deeds, after all, since even when we do something for the collective "all," we are in fact part of the "all" which is affected.  We each stroll down our own little paths, searching for a glimmer that we can reflect off of cloud and mirror to illuminate the world around us.  The world that selfishly revolves around us as individuals, as entities.  

But our solitary worlds collide with the worlds of those around us, worlds in which we are foreign, lost, perhaps not trusted or welcome, and not the center of attention.  Everyone has his/her own agenda which isn't a bad thing in the slightest.  Without said selfishness, the world would not be inhabited; populations would not thrive.  No, the true struggle lies in the fact that people deny that they themselves are the only person who will always be there for themselves.  They rely upon others to harbor happiness, cultivate hatred or blame and project feelings and problems which ultimately don't or normally wouldn't affect the other people in surrounding worlds.  

Life is so complicated in that way, and it's really hard to realize that you only experience a fraction of another person's world, no matter how well you think you know them.  There's always small print, mumbled words, whispers under the proverbial breath, and thoughts that aren't and will never be worn upon a sleeve.  Existence comes with no instruction manual or box in which you can return it.  There are no guarantees.  Tomorrow isn't promised to anyone.  Yet, somehow, we're supposed to seek our own happiness and remember that we have bearing only over what we do.  We can change the world as long as that world revolves around us, our beliefs and our convictions.  We can weep passionate tears that will cultivate the emotive future as long as those streams from our cheeks fall into our own valleys.  

How our world affects the worlds of others is where relationships form.  That's how change is made in between people and civilizations.  Change is a result, thus there is a stimulus that breeds a reaction.  Change doesn't just happen.  We're all pegs in this ecosystem of constant mutation and thus we each make existence a little harder for someone else being that to them, we are wild cards.  They have little bearing over what we do and which decisions we make.  

That being said, I'm still optimistic that there is a box somewhere that will at least have a customer service hotline which we can each call and get a little bit of manufacture's insight as to how this whole "life" thin g really works.  I could have everything all wrong.  I get a lot of things wrong.  I consider those mistakes to be recalled, though, at least from here on out.  Philosophy is the identity of my idealism.  It is logical and revealing of my world.  It breathes empathy for others, and it lessens the ridiculousness of the chaos that is my existence.  The answers that are sought but never found allow me to grow and explore the worlds of those around me without even knowing their owners' names.  

It's a shame that most of my friends are older than I am.  I still have so much growing up to do and it seems as though I'm trailing behind.  At least I can stand on a firm foundation.  For now.  Until our worlds collide.

Ye be warned. Passion afoot.

Let me begin this by saying that further reading of this blog will only incur subjects to mindless mindfulness of an observant young female who is struggling to find her place in this mixed up world.  From here on out, the dated posts will have no substance worth the lint in a child’s jean pocket, but instead the interpretations of life as they pass by before me.  If you are uninterested, I caution thee to turn back, delete your subscription, and call when/if you ever feel it necessary. That said, it is not my fault if you read something below or in the future that tarnishes your opinion of me.  I can no longer be bothered to censor my writing behind the ghost name of a Russian girl on the brink of humanity, and will thus not take that path.  Instead, I am making the more vulnerable move, not seeking feedback or consultation, but merely to put words - the life and breath of my existence - out in the ether.  Do with them what you will or won’t, it makes no difference to me, but know you have been warned.  I also apologize in advance for my Virginia Woolfe sentence structure.  It’s long, wordy, and by the time you reach the ending punctuation, you’ve forgotten where the whole endeavor was going initially.  Perhaps I’m Victorian and mildly insane at heart.  You can be the judge, I can’t hold that privilege from your grasp.

It occurred to me this evening that not very many people know me, who I truly am - myself included - and that I am sick of hiding behind a hazy screen of falsification and acts.  If more people were simply straight-forward with their intentions and desires, we would all be able to move on with our lives in more positive or negative directions more quickly.  If I were more vocal about many things, perhaps many things would be different in my life and I would be a bit happier, and if not happier, at least I would know that the potential for happiness did not exist in a particular area and could take action accordingly.  For instance, I could possibly date the guy who is in my eyes and on this side of paradise considerably perfect instead of waiting for a miracle for us to run into each other.  I would know if he’s even available instead of allowing ridiculously absurd dreams to fill my sleeping eyes at night, when I should at least have the sense to tell myself to get a life, even if it’s an increasingly realistic imaginary one.  I could also be spending less time doing the tawdry things that get me through each day and pursue the things for which I hold true passion.   Alternatively, I allow my cowardice to speak louder than my personality, a trait that has developed over the past few years and will be the death of my social and romantic life unless I have a say in it.  

I went to a fourth of July get together that brought many people from my past readily into my present.  Many of them I could have gone without seeing for the next 30 years.  They made my life a living hell in high school and can offer far less to me now.  I have done a pristine job of avoiding them, and all of that work has paid off in the way that I feel about myself.  I no longer am surrounded my people who pose as friendly faces but ignore my every word but for some reason, I hung around for those faces to find their way back into my view tonight, leaving me staring into a fire that was DOA and getting worse.  It was a harsh reminder of the shoes which I still don’t feel are mine and of the years of outward silence from which I have attempted to grow up.  Eerily, I have made little progress in their eyes and much in my own, I suppose some people never change, I only hope that I am not one of them.

While I sat and watched the flames crawl unhurriedly up the drying logs, I realized that I have miles to go in my self discovery.  I wish I could be one of those people who knows where they stand with others or simply doesn’t care, but it’s not who I am.  I am aware of myself and the people around me.  I don’t like discomfort and don’t think that others should have to put up with it, so I attempt to lessen the potential burden of my presence on those around me.  Call it blending into the furniture, call it being occasionally invisible, call it what you will, it has become my nature.  I’ve moved around my whole life and can call no place my home, thus I can’t say frankly that I belong anywhere.  I can fit in almost any place, but I have a difficult time seeing myself being so sure of myself there that I let down my defenses which I have mentally (perhaps not rationally, but that’s another tale) built up to be so necessary over the years.  

This afternoon, I ran into a... skeleton in my closet... if you will.  We used to be friends but then he simply cut off contact with me without a hint or explanation.  Saying that it was awkward is to say that the Pacific is damp, but I don’t know why I felt like the awkward one.  He was the one to dismiss me, I should have been a skeleton in his closet, not the other way around, yet I couldn’t help wishing that I had chosen another bookstore to chase my longing for the prose of Vonnegut and Dostoevsky.  I was so flustered my the situation that I was almost tempted to return each of the books to its original resting place, which, if you know me, putting a new book that I spy down is likened to telling Indiana Jones to consider a sound stock market investment a new adventure, not in the cards, mate.  I ended up lugging my eight book purchase up to the register and blushing for no foreseeable reason until I exited Barnes and Nobel, ever so happy to finally leave the room which had been so oxygen deprived.  Don’t worry, I at least know that I’m pathetic and avidly use the excuse that I’m human.  In psychology, they call it a defense mechanism.  Here in the real world, we call it being an idiot.  The glamour is attractive, but the reality shines through.

One of the main reasons I came back to this God forsaken city was to find a little more piece of mind.  The kind that can only come from dismissing that with which you are finished and acquiring that which you need for tomorrow.  I doubt that my search for this missing piece of me will end with a pot of gold, but at least I am mature and aware enough to know that I need to seek what I hope to soon find.  The dizziness has been so real, but the colors look familiar, as though I have the words to describe them but not a name to attribute.  Names will come.  After all, as they say, a rose even by any other name would still smell as sweet.