an ode to next friday night

i go out
and i meet these people - wonderful people
and as usual they teach me things about life.
this happens every time i set foot out my door and i am still amazed by it.

meeting people who know who i am -
what a curious thought, living in a town long enough that i am familiar and they recognize me

and when the night is over we go our own ways
talouse
it changes my life each time it happens
should i ever start the night with painting and absinthe?

i ask him "what is the best show you have seen in a while"
and he tells me that it is the very same one that i have been thinking of
love the little things like that

how does the universe keep doing this?
how does it show me people who are like me
when i don't even try

big, scary world

i wake up each morning and drag my ass out of bed knowing that it must be done. i would rather stay under the covers, i would rather hide away from the big, scary world but it is impossible.

so i do what i must. i go out into the world and try to be excellent. i try to exceed my own expectations. there is so much potential and possibility for each day and i struggle with realizing even a small piece of it.

i walk to work each day, and as i put one foot in front of the other i tell myself that it will be a great day. i tell myself about all the things i will do, all the people i will see, and how great i will feel at the end of it all.

it works. i make it through my days and back to my apartment where i paint and write and blog. sometimes i go out and make new friends - another big struggle because i have trouble believing that anyone wants to talk to me. but once i start it, once i put myself out there it is not so hard and i am proven wrong.

lately i have started to notice that it seems easier to go out into the world and do what i must. it has not felt like such a terrifying thing. i wonder if someday i will stop thinking about it, will it just be the way i am.

distractions

sometimes i think these 'feelings for someone else' that you keep talking about are how you avoid whatever is really going on. they are irrelevant to me. i don't believe in or care about the excuse that you create. i care about us and what is really going on in our relationship.
talk to me about that.
tell me about us and what you think about,
what are you afraid of, and why do you create this distraction rather than dealing with what is happening between us?

it almost was - could have been

there are so many wonderful people in this world.
the greatest tragedy is to realize, when we are busy saying our goodbyes, that i love and respect someone and they love and respect me.
to realize what i have missed - to realize what could have been.

to see that i have missed an opportunity to have a great friendship. . .

it is a great friendship. the affection, dedication, and caring is there.
i just wish that it could have been more.

big man bear hugs

i saw the big man today - he asked me 'how are you'
(he had this look, as though he could read my mind)

and I replied, with a smile, 'I'm well.'
when what i want to say is

i am hurt and angry,
confused and frustrated,
and very sad. . . .
but i am also excited - life is full of changes and possibilities
there is so much opportunity
i love my life
i would not change it for the world
but i am very sad

funny how we do not say the things we really feel
even to the people who really care.

it would bring me to tears and i would end up in a big man bear hug
and that would feel good
but i do not say the things i really feel.

maybe tomorrow i will stop being afraid and tell him the truth

beautiful snow

i learned something tonight

life is all about the people.

beautiful people. they change.
they come and go - you might only know them for a few hours but they are beautiful.
makes life worth living - the people do.

nick, tiffany, mr.Florida - i might never see them again
on a plane tomorrow
but they taught me something about life, about living it

connecting with others - no matter if you know them for minutes or days or hours. sometimes you know them for weeks or years, but that is what makes life worth living.

beautiful people.
beautiful snow.

'you're so pale you look like a cancer patient, but you are so beautiful.'
to meet people so honest - so willing to say what they feel.

live every moment - because you never know when it will be over
or when that beautiful person will be gone from the world forever.

sparkling snow falls as we say our farewells

know them, love them
love life
love the people

and mr.Florida -
love the snow.

stranger to my own self

what is it when desire is not quite a want or longing but it is mixed with nostalgia even before you have possessed the thing you so desire?
a thought that feels deeper than fancying something new - it is as though it is a return to something long forgotten, absent, missing. . .
this is a strange feeling - and to face it each day makes it stranger. i do not know myself. it reinforces the lack of connection and meaning that I think we all experience in our lives. so many things depend on an existence that is cantilevered - disconnected from reality - attached to some long removed and imagined thing.
i can't say that i am comfortable with this. i don't know who i am. i don't know where i am going or why i do any of the things i do. it makes me insane to consider it and so i just keep doing. it is the only way i can make it through the day - creating meaning so i can exist.
gnawing. ever present, occupying me.
i sit and gaze at nothing, wondering why, what am i missing?
suddenly i wonder if it is the brain getting in the way - by nature of our human brain we perceive everything through the veil of linear time and three dimensional space. perhaps the confusion comes when slivers pierce the veil and give me a shadow and a shimmer of some other reality that might exist somewhere, sometime.
this universe is full of mystery and i am reminded of it now as i reflect on a few of the many things we will never know. i walk through life with truth obscured and i am both frustrated and thankful for it.
i do not think any of us could manage the complete truth of reality. wisdom, insanity - i think it is beyond us. the truth is full of life and death, lovely and terrifying. the small pieces i encounter each day are enough to bring me to tears, i could not bear it to know the things i sometimes wish i could know. i would regret knowing for it is the mystery and the experience we call life that makes being here something worth doing. what would there be if there was nothing to know or experience? i think it would be empty, isolating. already i lose myself to wondering about the things i know and imagining the things that i can imagine.
it is such a struggle to find joy in the doing - in the simple things of life - when my thoughts are not what i do and i am a stranger to myself.

"it has been spoken of"

i am grateful for friends and i forget how much they care. i get so lost inside my own life - inside my own version of reality and i forget they are watching and caring.

a friend of mine told me yesterday she was upset that lately i had forgotten her (or so it seemed) and it had been spoken of among my friends.

she is amazing - and she cares so much, i am ashamed at knowing she felt this way.
it is so easy to love, it is so easy to assume they know you do.

but i realized something as we sat together and laughed together - there is so much joy in being with the people you love. i bring joy into her life. this is an amazing realization for me.

for years i thought i had no true friends. i felt so isolated and alone. i thought that surely anyone who acts like my friend must be lying because what is there to actually like about me? i have finally started to accept that there are many people who would call me a friend and who care about me. there is so much joy in life and in my life.

they watch and they care even when i forget.

coming up for air

the insanity of enjoying someone
so much that i lose myself in him

one day i come up for air
i wonder, do i give myself over to this?
do i let myself go?

then one day he is out of reach - out of touch

(i think of the night i wanted a bedtime story
it had been a very long day
he read Beowulf - I was asleep in his lap
so sweet - so incredibly sweet)

i struggle to find balance
the joy of being together saturates my life
nothing seems to matter as much as each moment with him -
i am disoriented by it.

(scares me a bit)

like being on a beautiful beach
where the waves are a little too big.
just as i am standing up, the next one knocks me down.
i laugh and keep my head above water and enjoy the adventure of it -
(he does this to me)

family

sometimes i feel like my family is wacky
clearly they have shaped me
but it is so hard to be near mother
it is like a mirror that shows me all the things
i could, but never want, to be
i am thankful for the reminder
but wish it did not take days for her influence to wash away