Blog #67

I just woke up.

I’ve had things on my mind lately, too, things I haven’t deemed worth talking about or writing about.

Until now. I’m feeling ambitious today. Ambition means I write things and go on rants. Uh oh. You’re in for it now.

I’ll start by talking about last night. I slept for a short time before needing to go to lab to do a review on my MIDI skills. I was in a really, really bad mood too. The first one in quite a while. Thing is, this time i realized it as soon as I started thinking certain things. I was being very self-centered and annoyed (and almost upset) with people and things. But the important thing is that I realized it. My first instinct on really realizing it and realizing I needed to do something about it was to bottle it. And I did. Then I felt how that sat in my chest. Oh I know that feeling well, I’m probably one of the best bottlers you know, my friend. I don’t ever, ever show it to anyone except for, generally, my closest girlfriends. They get more than it than they should, actually. They deserve better. But anyway, I’m a pretty intense bottler, shutting things off til I feel the time is better for dealing with a problem or, less preferable but more likely, until it comes out on it’s own. So I realized that that wasn’t going to be a good idea. It was only somewhat recently that I let go of a great many of the things I feel and I feel I’ve been doing much better because of it. So I opened it back up and the feelings from before hit me harder than they had before. Maybe because I was subconciously bottling it and muting the feelings because they aren’t the things I want to feel nor the way I want to be. They were pretty intense to begin with. I told myself that I needed to let myself feel the way I feel because my feelings are important, even if they’re misguided and I know it. So I allowed myself to feel them for a while. I allowed it. I wasn’t it’s slave, I let it happen. So for about halfway to school I was really pretty negative. Then I decided that that was enough and that deep down I knew the things I was thinking weren’t really viable, let alone who I really am. What it all came down to is that I’m not liking some situations I’ve been pushed into in my life. That’s all, nothing more than that. Who does, though? There’s nothing wrong with feeling that way. But there IS something wrong with letter those feelings dominate you and keep you from the things you need to be doing. I realized that too and then, after a little more thought, I took all that negativity and it pushed me back up into a happier frame of mind, a much more powerful one than normal even. Instead of bottling I converted the negativity into a helluva lot more strength and power behind the thing that I need to be, into the person I needed to be.

Later on that night I found something else out about myself. I’ve been becoming more of a philanthropist lately. Much much more of one, actually. I wasn’t much of one before, haha. I stepped out of class for a short break today. With a friend of mine who I realized today I really helped integrate with the rest of the class. He was held back for attendance in an earlier class and so he didnt’ know anyone at the start of this month. He was off sitting alone, chilling alone and I had gone over to him and talked with him instead of talking with Amy or anyone else. I remember the day, actually, and I think Amy was kinda put off by that. She’s so vain. 😛 We talked some, I got to know him a little bit over that break. Then during lab I pulled him over to talk with me, Jon, Alfonzo, Nathan and that-one-guy-who-talks-weird-but-is-really-serious-and-will-ace-these-classes-whose-name-I-never-freaking-remember-and-I-feel-really-bad-about-because-he-knows-mine. And now he’s been hanging out with us lately rather than hanging out alone. Which is good. I think that I did that, too. Because I don’t see him hanging out with anyone else right now, just the group I pulled him into some. It’s just hard sometimes to get in on the groups and circles of friends that exist if they’re already in place and you’re the new guy. They’re too focused on themselves to focus on anyone else they don’t really know. That’s all. I thought about that quickly as we stood outside. I asked him if he wanted to go to Albertson’s (the grocery store right next to Full Sail) and he said sure. We did and I got plates and a big bag of pizza rolls and something to drink and cupcakes. Good meal, eh? We brought em back, finished off the lab til the midpoint of it and we got another break. Then I started cooking the rolls and I shared with them with people (I cooked 2 plates specifically because of that, I knew people would want some) and it really felt nice to just give people stuff. It’s not like I had to. I ended up offering them to a lot of people if they wanted em because I got full pretty quickly. It was nice. I think there was 7 or 8 other people I fed some. Then I ended up giving away all the cupcakes too. I had 2 I think and there were 12 I wanna say. Maybe 16, but I think 12. It was really nice I think. I enjoyed it a lot.

I realized at that point that I’ve been like that a lot lately in other instances, especially over food. I went out with nathan to winghouse earlier and I was encouraging him to eat at the appetizers I bought when he wasn’t going to touch them beforehand. We actually talked about it some and I told him that I have a thing about money. “It’s not important to me really, it really isn’t. Money sometimes can make people happy, that’s the only reason it’s important at all. To me, it doesn’t really make me happy so much. But I like making other people happy so it’s worth it to me to share the things I have because other people like it.” And that’s true. I’ve been doing that a LOT with food and things lately. I’ve taken Bill (my roommate) out to eat probably close to 25 times since we moved here and I’ve paid for every single one. It’s not that I can’t make a late-night run to get some food, because I can and I have, I just know that I enjoy sitting down and eating good food, especially after being stressed out from class, and I want him to feel the same way. I really, really like being free with my money. It’s nice. I don’t really need it for myself. I don’t need a car right now for anything in my life and especially not to enjoy myself and be happy so I don’t worry about one. I don’t need to drink or to club or to get high to be happy so I don’t spend my money on those things either. Really, all I really need is a game once in a while to play and my bills paid. That’s it. So really it all amounts to my spending very very little on anything. So I CAN be free w/ the money I have. It’s really cool, to be honest. So yeah, I think I’ve been a lot more philanthropic than I used to be. A LOT more. Because it’s an honest philanthropy, it’s not for anything because I don’t care if they do anything back for me, though they do every once in a while (which is weird, I was always pretty well-hated in the past, now I don’t think I have an enemy period. And I like basically everyone, too. That’s weird also.). It’s more than just the food, too. I talk to people and try to be helpful and whatnot, too. It’s good stuff.

I like what I’ve been doing lately quite a lot. In some ways that brings me down though because then I think about some of the more negative things going on lately and it upsets me. Specifically the whole

thing with Jacinta and her parents. I’m such a far cry from the negative influence that needs to be culled I feel I’ve been classified as. I know that, I know that. Yeah, I was to some extent, but I was going through tough times emotionally and I was messed up in a lot of ways at the time. But people should be more understanding than that, they shouldn’t just abandon someone or write someone off as a waste of time, a threat, a liability or whatever simply because they aren’t doing well lately. I know now from my own shift in frame of mind that if there’s hope to get back on track for me, someone who’s experienced far more than most as far as difficulties go, then there’s hope for anyone like me. You just can’t give up on them or write them off like that. It’s morally wrong, in my eyes. Very very morally wrong because then you’ll perpetuate the downward spirial by being yet another person who sets up another failure and another bad situations. Seperations don’t have to be so negative. They don’t have to be so aggressive and so violent. Yes, I classify this specific breakup as being violent as hell, too. Just because it was never physical doesn’t mean it’s not violence.

So yes, even now the breakup burns. It burns especially much because I realize now how wrong they were. At the time I didn’t have much to say about it other than “I understand why and I don’t blame them, I can see how I see why they’d think I was such a terrible influence. I don’t blame them, even though I think they’re wrong. I’m not really that bad…” Now I have the proof. I was lucky in the fact that Jacinta herself didn’t let go of me immediately. I don’t know if she knows how important it was, to me at least, that she stayed in touch like she did, that she still listened to me and still stayed with me for a time. Her positivity and support really did encourage me in the end. I don’t think I’d be in this position that I’m in if she hadn’t. And now, because of that I realize just why her parents were wrong. I always said before that I wasn’t that bad and I believed myself. Yet I didn’t have any proof at the time and I couldn’t really prove it. Now I can. Just look at me now, look at what I’m doing and look at what I’m accomplishing. I want her parents to, if only for a second, give up their biased opinion of me. Just forget it for a second and look at me and my life. No, don’t talk to me, I understand why you might not trust me. But look at the people around me, talk to them. Talk to Bill, my roommate. I’ll tell you exactly what he’ll say about me. He’ll tell you that I can be an ass sometimes and annoying sometimes and that I’m sometimes lazy about stuff like vacuuming and laundry because I’m always doing them at at the very last possible time because I’m too busy doing other things. This is all true. Everyone is an ass somtimes and can be annoying. Most people are lazy in some ways, too. Bill is an ass sometimes, can be pretty rude and lazy as well. But I’ll tell you what else he’ll tell you. Ask him if I’m trustworthy and he’ll tell you, without any doubt, that I am. I’ve ALWAYS been straight with him and he knows it. Even when I’m pissed at him, I keep it real. I don’t lie, I don’t backstab, I don’t screw with him. I just go into my room and let it pass, no problem. I bet he’ll even tell you I’m a decent roommate. And most importantly, he will tell you without a doubt that I’m a good person, that I’m a good guy. That I’m someone you can rely on and trust because I’ll have your back no matter what happens. Bill has known me long enough to realize this. No matter what happens, no matter how pissed I am at you I’ll still have your back. Friendship and people, to me, are far more important then the inevitable occaisional arguement or heated words or bad moods. What’s one of those once every two months or so anyway? Just a second in time is all. They’re absolutely nothing. Talk to Amy whom I’ve lived with for a long time. She’ll tell you the exact same thing. Amy knows just as well as Blee knows that I’m a good person. She knows that I was going through troubled times and she’s seen me in them. Amy was there when the thing with Jessica went down. Amy was there when the thing with Jacinta happened. She was actually the most involved person with me during the Jacinta one, she’s the one I talked to. The Jessica thing she knew something had happened and I’m sure she assumed but I didn’t tell her anything. Not a word. Not only has she been there for the bad times, but she’s seen the good ones too. Hell, it was AMY who paid for my flight to go out and visit Jessica the first time I stayed over at her and kayti’s house. She set it up and she made it happen. Hell, she’s the one who talked with Jessica’s and Kayti’s parents to talk with them over how I’m trustworthy and a good guy so that I could stay at their houses. An unknown guy staying at a GIRL’S house for and extended period of time. Think about that. It happened not only once, but twice. I went back a while later. Amy drove me this time. She not only had talked to Jessica and Kayti a good bit over the phone (she was friends with them too) but she actually met them in person, too. She drove me out to stay with them for a week. So she knows my exes, she knows our relationship and she knows what I’m like with them. She knows I’m a good person in and out of relationships. I’d want them to talk to her, too. She’s talked a good deal with Jessy, she knows all about that except for my stupid, stupid lie at the end to help me cope. But as for the relationship, she knows exactly what I was like and what they were like. And she’s lived with me for a long time. She knows I’m a good person who wants to help people and she’s always said that even though I don’t think I was at the time. I think that she saw deeper into me than I realized during my time there because now I think that she was right all along. I do like to help people. I’m not the arrogant person people take me to be as soon as they meet me. I don’t care even if I AM smarter than you are. Everyone is important, everyone. Even the dumbest of the dumb have a place every bit as important as mine; it’s just not as obvious as some places might be. Everyone is important, everyone is very important, I really believe that. And I think Amy realized that. Honestly I don’t know what they’d tell her parents, but I wish they’d speak with her. She can probably speak more of me and who I am than my own mother could. I feel Amy understands and knows me in ways that others don’t for some reason. I don’t even know what she would say other than that I know she’d tell them that, underneath it all (and lately, right on the surface) I’m a good person. I’m not the person they think I am. More than that, look at the people around me. Look at my classmates and ask them how many not only know my name but also know a bit about me. Ask them what they think of me. I’ll tell you right now that I know most of them like me. And all of those who’ve dealt with me more than just in passing will tell you that I’m a good guy, too. I wish her parents would ask the people around me who KNOW me rather than dig up information on me. I wish they’d see the trend; people who know me think I’m a good person. I wish they’d ask Jacinta, too. She knows better than anyone else that I have my problems. She’s was more intimately involved with them than anyone else ever was, after all. She kn

ows them and she can tell you specifics….and at the same time she’ll tell you the same as anyone else. I’m a good person at heart. Even if I mess up at times I try, I really do, and I do improve. I’m good at heart and I feel that the people around me who’ve actually met me and experienced me a good bit know that. I really do think it shows. I just wish they’d see it rather than seeing the thing they want to see; the liability, the manipulative monster trying to take advantage of their daughter. I don’t even care if anything comes of it, I just want them to realize that I’m not a bad person. I’m really not.

I do understand why they might still, though. Hell, even Jacinta is affected by that reasoning at this point because it makes sense until you really think about it. And by really think about it, I mean really think about it. I’ve thought about things with her and her parents a lot, a LOT, and it’s taken me this long to really understand the situation and why things went the way they did. It’s simple now, though, now that I understand. So painfully simple. I can sum it up in one word. Circumstance. Circumstance is why I was so easily construed to be this massively negative influence. In a lot of ways, yes, at the time I was negative a lot because I was still working through my own issues. Circumstance. Things were happening in my life that were really impacting it in a huge way. Things had happened in my past that were really messing with me at the time, too. So yes, that ambience was about me and yes, it does affect the people around me. But just because that ambience is around someone doesn’t make them a bad person. Just because someone might be depressed or angry often doesn’t make them a bad person. Much more likely it’s just the circumstances. That’s exactly how it was with me. I’m not a bad person and I don’t think that I ever was, I was just making mistakes because I was letting my past dominate and control me and my train of thought rather than being what I’m supposed to be. I screwed up. That’s all. I screwed up a lot, even. It happens. And in my case, and in everyone elses, it’s our duty, our moral duty to help each other if anyone is in a position like that. You don’t judge the person poorly because of what they’re like when bad circumstances and things are going on with them. You try to see them for who they really are, even if it’s really obscured by the mood swings and the lashing out and the aggression. You should help them bring them back ’round to where they belong. That’s just how it was with me. Merely circumstance. Don’t blame me for feeling the things I’ve gone through. Place yourself in my shoes and imagine growing up like that, feeling the things I did. I can say with certainty that I’ve come a long, long way. In some ways I feel that I’ve come much further than the average person might, too. Just look at my past and look at where I am now. I’ve come far. So please don’t blame my psat and my old swings and my old frames of mind for being me. I see now that those moods, those lashings out, those things were all just side-effects of all the pain, the numbness I built up towards it and the total non-acknowledgement of some problems I used to feel so strongly. They still come up from time to time, too, albeit much more rarely. Once a month at best and they never last long. I’ve come back to where I’m supposed to be, back to who I really am. So don’t judge me (or anyone else) for my (their) troubles in the past, the states of mind were just circumstantial. I’m not the insanely negative and hateful person that you could so-easily have judged me to be at those times. You don’t go through a war without some scars. It’s important to be understanding. So understand me and who I am and why I was the way I was. I’m not a bad person.

That’s important, I think, especially for Jacinta to know. She told me something that really bothered me a while back. I never really talked about it til now. She said “you’re a really negative influence for my mood.” That bothered me a lot especially since I disagreed with why that might be. I’m not saying that I didn’t affect her mood negatively, I’m saying that I shouldn’t be. With understanding it’s easy to drop the negativity, I feel. Just understand that in the past I was negative pretty often, yes, but if you can keep yourself in a positive light and support them then that’s a good thing. I think it’s good that, for the most part, that that’s what Jacinta did. I feel that it’s important to note that beyond that there were two other circumstances that really affected the relationship, too. One was distance which really soured the relationship and put a lot of stress on it and thus, in it too. I feel it’s important to recognize that it’s the distnace and not the relationship itself that created the stress. I feel that if Jacinta lived here in my room as a ghost and watched me do the things I do, shadowed me as I went to school, saw the things I did and what I was like that she’d see that I’m still the guy she learned to love. I’m still every bit that person and that the tension in the relationship was mostly distance rather than tensions between me and her. The other circumstance is pretty similar and it affects our day-to-day interactions too. The breakup. The breakup still influences us in a large way, it really keeps us apart in a lot of ways. I think that…it really creates this huge gap in a lot of ways. You’re not really allowed to feel how you really do feel in some ways. You have to reject, you have to ignore it because if you allowed yourself to feel all the pain and the problems would come rushing back and it’s important to keep on your feet at this point. And yeah…I see that, too and I feel that too. And I think that it’s important to not judge her, or her, me, that that is all she is. That she’s this bundle of negativity for me. Yeah, thinking about her pretty often and pretty easily makes me sad, sometimes upsets me a great, great deal, but it’s not her fault any more than it is mine. Just crappy circumstances. We were still great together. We still love each other and we’re both still good people. It’s better to focus on those things than to focus on the problems and the worries about the relationship, I think. I’ve been doing pretty well with letting that go, letting the relationship go and rather focusing on the things I feel for her, what i know about her. If you just ignore the bad circumstances and focus on the good things it’s not so bad at all. It’s not her fault and it’s not because of her that things went so poorly. I refuse to let them dominate my view towards her. She is who she is. She is not the circumstances that were built up around the two of us. I wonder if it’s the same for her. Hrm. I hope so. I really hope she feels the same way I do about this…I don’t want her to think that I’m negative for her mood because I don’t feel I should be at all. I think that if she looks at it in the way I do she’ll come to the same conclusion about me. I think that could be a good thing. I wonder if she ever will though. I dont’ want her to feel that I’m bad for her. It’ll really hamper our future friendship otherwise, I think. See, I don’t care about dating anymore, not really, but I do care about the friendship. It’s important to me that we stay in touch. I hope we do.

You know, at this point, feeling the way I do and having become as stable as I curr

ently am at this point…I feel that it might be time for me to get up and go back to finish dealing with the parts of my past that are still unresolved. I talk a lot about how I’m over my past and the things surrounding it, but there’s still much to do. I’ve gotten over a great deal of it, I’m not nearly controlled or negative all the time as I used to be. Not even close. But there are still some other things. I should mend things up with my mother some more. We still have a huge wedge between us even if it’s rarely acknowledged. But it’s there, you can feel it in the room when we’re together, even if we’re not talking. I feel that I probably should do something similar with my father, too. To be honest with you I don’t know if that’s a wise idea, with either of the two. I don’t have anyone to hold my hand and to encourage me at this point. What if everything comes back and I only end up driving the wedge deeper? I don’t have Jacinta or anyone else to keep me focused and to encourage me to do the right thing at this point. Hrm. So I wonder if it’s wise at this point. Waiting might be wise, despite it being important to act when you still have the chance. What other time is now, after all? Hrm. I don’t know.

I feel I should be doing more with my little brother and sisters too. My sisters rely on me and love me a lot, I think. Well no, not sisters, one sister in particular. My littlest. She always was the one I was closest to. I remember when she used to cry and be really afraid at night after her father left and went to jail. Mother would tell her to be quiet and that she never did it before and that she should just go to bed. She didn’t know that she kept crying and crying anyway. She’d just do it softly. Mother didn’t know that I told her she could come sleep with me if she wanted and that she did. She didn’t know that I went and slept with her the first night and that she held on to me and told me why she was upset. It’s always been like that since then. She relies on me because I was always there for her to take care of her and protect her. I don’t like being away from her for so long. Mmm…or the other two for that matter, even though I’m nowhere near as close with them.

I want to do other things, too. But mostly just these. These things with Jacinta, her parents, with my sister, my other siblings. I don’t know really. It just feels like that’s what should be done. It’s what I should be doing, I think.

I’m glad, too, I think I’m glad that I’m becoming a better person more and more as I go on. I’m becoming just the sort of person I was meant to be. That makes me happy, too. It also makes me happy to realize that I’m still the person Jacinta learned to love and she is still the person I learned to love. It’s not about the circumstances at all, it’s about what goes on between us, between who we really are. For some reason that thought is a huge comfort to me. To know I’m completely justified in still feeling as strongly as I do for her, to be completely justified and to feel I’m doing the right thing by continuing to love her. It’s just right. Even if she’s going in another direction, even if feeling the same way isn’t right for her, that’s ok too. It’s just good to know that what we had was real, strongly, powerfully real and not just something fake. That makes me happy.