The Renaissance Year

I have a topic to write, something I've been pondering a while.

       This year I have declared as my "Personal Renaissance." After a break-up in February I vowed to be single for the rest of the year. I have been a serial dater since boys started noticing me. Now at the age of 23 I have really come out of my awkward and angst filled teenage years, I am independent, I have a career, I view myself differently, I see myself as a woman. For the first time in my life men were coming up to me at the gym, carrying my laundry, and chasing me down in parking lots to ask me for my number. I never know how to react. My first instinct is always "Me?". Sometimes they are pleasant and sometimes they are awful, either way the attention was strange but it gave me a little confidence. At the same time I also started exercising, eating strict and well, and also kicking ass at my new job; I felt amazing, and everyone else could see it too.

    Naturally I began dating, a few I met randomly as strangers, some were old friends. Some were just a few dates and others took a little more meaning. I enjoyed the simplicity of not being attached, all in good fun, no expectations.

Guy #1: He is a travelin' music man I have know since I was 14, I have always been totally in love with him, he is one of my best friends. Every couple months he strolls through town and we have brief but wonderful dates of hand holding and familiar high school kisses. We never talk about what our relationship is or what it will or won't be, it's just there. We keep each other updated and talk on the phone every so often.

Guy #2: I met this guy at the gym, he had been trying to get my number for months when I started going there but I thought it was some kind of a cruel joke because he was this handsome built black man with the most charming and persuasive face I've ever known. We started hanging out, watching movies together, spending the night, working out together. He had a girlfriend that lived in Southern California, I knew it was casual between us, but his girlfriend had no clue that he was with other women. She would call or facetime and I would have to hide or be quiet, it totally creeped me out and at point I decided I was not into it anymore. We actually became really good friends, we still worked out together and gave each other advice. I still call him with guy dilemmas from time to time. 

Guy #3: This boy I met at work. He was 2 years younger than me but I could've guessed 4. I always had a thing for him so we got wasted, obviously, and slept together one night. We never text during the day or call to see how the day went, we only drank together and spent the night. Always at the same place, always the same situation. I don't know if he needed drunk courage to make a  move or just really wasn't into me that much. I will never know. We never once talked about the grey area we drunkenly floated in a couple times a month. I relocated for a job and we haven't really spoken since. 

Guy #4: This guy was my neighbor in my home town, we had known each other since high school and made-out behind some trees back then. We came back in contact when I moved back to the west coast from Upstate New York and had a few really amazing dates. I took a few days off of work to drive out for his birthday in San Francisco and I saw him a few times after that. He talked about coming to visit me and text pretty often until one day it stopped. I came into the city to play my first show with a ukulele, invited him and he never came, not even a "hey sorry, couldn't make it out" text, just nothing. My mom embarrasses me by hanging out with his mom in town and talking about our brief affair, but neither of them knew it ended so fucked up. Beyond all the adult fun we were having, I thought we were more on the friends side of things. How could you do that to someone you've known so long?  I guess I didn't know him as well as I thought I did. 

Guy #5: This guy I dated for a couple months when I first came back to California. When he found out I was coming back he immediately started the fury of daily on-going text conversations and it kept going like that for a while. I spent every weekend I could with him but the distance was too much. (Plus I had the hots for someone at work who I ended up being in a relationship with). We started seeing each other again at the end of spring and  it was going well again, we had to talk about the awkwardness that was left when I broke it off the year prior and we didn't talk. We both aired it all out over enough beer and weed to think everything was cool. After spending the weekend with him and coming home to Yosemite I didn't hear from him for a while. I finally sent a 'do-or-die' message. What exactly is going on between us?  and immediately his response was completely blown out of proportion, 'I don't want a girlfriend,' was his main point.

Guy #6: He is the last person on earth I should have brought into this complicated web. We were on-again off-again all summer. I asked him repeatedly to tell me if he was seeing other people and he always said "no." He allowed me to be open about the other men I was seeing, that's why I felt it extremely weird that he lied to me first hand before then spilling the truth like verbal diarrhea all over my perfect situation. That had to be called off and we are still good friends, I beat the truth out of him less often now.

Guy #7: I met him at my new job in the mountains, he is 7 years older than me but we have a lot in common and we cook a lot together. We have been seeing each other for 3 months or so, I've had dinner with his family a few times and we go out in public, so he likes me a little bit, I think. Finally the conversation had to come up about what we think of relationships and his response was literally "weary" and vague. "I like what we have going," means nothing. This brings in my pet peeve about telling the 'half-truth.' If you don't want a relationship at all because they are complicated, dramatic, or annoying, say it. Don't fall back on "I don't know" because you don't have the guts to say what you really mean, to protect what you think is me, but is really you. I went a long with it and that's where its been for weeks now. I've heard from other sources that he is a "commitment-phobe," which is common among people these days. 

This is where I make my point.

Hypothetically, if I had feelings for Guy #7 I would want to know if he was sleeping with other people. Not only to protect my emotional well being but also my sexual health. I don't think exclusivity is a bad thing to want to clarify. I have noticed a stigmata about women who ask for commitment or clarity from their sexual partners, often they are called "crazy" or "clingy," and left with unanswered texts and phone calls, just nothing. I'll never bring the subject up with him again because I am terrified he will contract one of those awful words and tell me that its "getting too serious" or maybe one day there will just be nothing. No text, no calls, just nothing. 

I am imaging my great grandparents and how they met at 19 and were married for decades. Was there such a thing as widespread "commitment phobia" back then? I at least hope my grandpa would have left a note or returned the message to tell the other girl he was in love with my grandma. Now it is so easy to simply ignore a text and it all goes away. You can end a relationship by never responding and it all goes away.  It is easier for people to not show up, cheat on their girlfriends, and float by without empathy. Men and women both take advantage of this, co-workers and roommates do this, I HAVE DONE THIS. It's easier but totally inconsiderate and low.

Maybe I am old fashioned and expect love to smash into me one day like it was as clear as a sunrise, but I do feel like the "dating" world has become unnecessarily complicated. Now when people are confronted in the real world, not through mobile face lighting devices, with real serious questions they have a tough time making eye contact, and telling the WHOLE TRUTH. I like to consider myself a highly rational and reasonable person, and any insightful one would know that telling the truth will set you free. 

Think rationally before you label a woman as "crazy" or "clingy," she may just want to know how to protect herself from someone who may not want to be monogamous, which can be agreeable in some cases. Don't let our generation be as selfish and thoughtless as the oldies think we are. 

    "Say what you mean and mean what you say because the people that matter don't mind and the people that mind don't matter."

Ridiculous

Last night I had a dream that I went on a date with a friend. We had coffee, held hands, and had an awesome kiss. It has been over a year since I've felt special to someone and it feels like shit. I have been a serial dater since I can remember, being single was really cool at first, but not having that feeling in your soul that someone else is thinking of you, wants to sleep next to you every night, share adventures, is really sad actually.

I work in a harsh work environment full of smug men and bitchy women, coming home to that comfort and stability would be all I could ask for. But then again, knowing that the last relationship I was in was mostly lies, makes me want to sleep forever.

I have been in Yosemite for three months and it's been a very bumpy road. I saved money for a year to buy a car that broke down after a month, I borrowed a car from my parents that was then totaled by my roommate in less than a month. I live with mixed feelings in this house constantly and it is weighing heavy. The people here make the mountains feel like a different planet, most of them have no idea what life is like outside of this place and I find myself longing for things I can't have constantly.

Please, something, give me a fucking break. 

Ghost

I spent four days home in the Bay Area and I definitely did not want to come back here. My returned arrival was less pleasant than expected, but I should have expected that. I can't help but feel pushed around by the men in my life, at work, at my house. I am always wrong, too slow, or completely ignored. Maybe its not the fact that I am a woman, but the person I am entirely. I'm starting to unravel a little.

At work I've had to completely detach from the food and focus on the job. The quality of the product is absolutely disgusting and depressing. How can I love to cook food I would never eat? Not to mention the men I work with are going to great lengths to get me off of the line. The first few weeks I was there they all made jokes about how I'll be their supervisor one day, and now with 6 minute, sometimes 4 minute ticket times, I am "too slow." Every day is physically and mentally exhausting.

Daily routines are going back to being a struggle for me, I blame it on depression. The three months I was golden in the beginning of this year I woke up on time, feeling like I actually slept, I was eating on a schedule, I had things to do and I got them done. Its amazing how certain people and places can make you have a completely different mind-set. All this time I felt like I had gained all the weight back that I had lost, coming to find I haven't budged a number. When I was home in the Bay Area, I felt good and comfortable in my body again. What I see in the mirror changes depending on the attitudes around me and where my mind is at, its strange but makes sense.

I need a friend here, someone who has common interests and aspirations above themselves. Personally, I do love who I am and I am tired of people who think I need to change. All the angry unhappyness is apart of me just as much as my completely impulsive happyness is. I have always said, if you can't get angry at something, what are you fighting for?

"See things do come around,
and make sense eventually,
Things do come around,
but some things trouble me


The people I've met and the places I've been,
are all what make me the man I so proudly am,
But I want to know one thing, when did I become a ghost?
I'm most confused about the world I live in,
To think that I'm lonely well I probably am,
One thing that still gets me,
When did I become a ghost?"

On a sadder note;

I lost a friend this past week and death never sits well with me. We werent the best friends in the whole world but he was still someone I knew and worked closely with, he was a super dude, always good to me. Its sad for someone to lose their life at the age of 23, and still somehow it doesn't help me appreciate my own. RIP Burger, I know you're making some "on point" breakfast sandwiches in the stars.

Post Haste

My dear blogger, you are always here for me when I need you.

I've been in Yosemite an official month now, it doesn't feel much different from the first week. I'm still getting used to my new reality. I changed location and job again, which makes it feel like I'm living in new chapter in the book, and I'm not quite sure who I am in it yet. I've been letting past thoughts I'd ridden myself of, return, and it feels just as discouraging and heartbreaking as the first time. I filled my lonely thoughts for three months by excessively working and doing fitness things, I changed my eating habits and lost 20 pounds by the end of it. It's been almost 3 weeks since I've been to the gym and the thought of sitting the this house another day after work is really depressing.

Finally I made friends where I was and was regularly doing things, DATING, which was fun for a while. I'm here now, and I'm making excuses to sit in the house and get high instead of being creative with it and going outside. Now the house has this puppy, which I'm half expected to watch while they're at work or let it whine and piss behind a gate for 10 hours. It's been a rough work week, tomorrow is my Friday until I go to the Bay Area for four days tomorrow night. I get to see two of my favorite bands in the same four days and eat at a restaurant I've wanted to go to. Going home always clears my thoughts and puts my tunnel vision back into centered perspective.

I am craving attention from SOMETHING, someone, I can admit it.

Who cares

Six years of incessant bitching in this blog no one reads. I'd like to say things have changed since I was 16 but alas, my head is an imminent loop of garbage feelings and misfortune. Don't worry, there are good days, but this is the place I come to project my inner lament that is ever so present these days. I have failed to connect with anyone on a personal level in the last year I've been in California. The one person I thought had a chance turned out to be the unforgiving outline of the human I never wanted to know. Now we're best buds, I guess.

For a moment there I thought I'd lost my head into a spinning cesspool of bullshit that made me hate myself in the end. Sweet AMBIVALENCE! Never become someone you think someone else would want, it doesn't work. You learn that they are not the person you want, either.

It's hard to be friends with someone who thinks everything you love is stupid. Stupid is the unintelligent person's reaction to a lack of understanding or of caring at all. You realize they don't want to understand when they stop listening when you talk.

On the other hand, I have learned a great lesson, or two.

I moved again, this time to Yosemite to work at a Lodge that feeds 50,000 people a year. It's a very busy kitchen, it will be good to practice my speed and efficiency. But I'm alone in this beautiful house all the time, just the cats and I. Today makes it an official week at midnight, but it feels longer. I can't make phone calls from here, so there is that. Total isolation, total "immersion' as chef calls it. The place is breathtaking, the people in town are sickeningly nice, and I still hate it. I'm not meant for this mosey hokey pace. It's only one year, and then I'm out. Getting a two dollar pay raise, full time, with guaranteed overtime will help me get back to the un-affordable city I love so much.

A cook at my old job gave me some really good advice, albeit simple, it is true. "Just stay," he said, "when you feeling like giving up and going home, just stay, it gets easier." So here I am, staying against my own will.

EXCELSIOR

The Lapse

There has been a serious lapse in time here. I lost my computer charger in the move cross-country so there it is, my excuse.

Living in my own apartment is a kind of sanity I have always dreamed of. It feels like being in your teenage room, comfy, no loneliness at all. My job keeps me away most of the time, as it should. I couldn't ask for a better job, I feel like they are paying me to go back to school, I've been learning that much. Plus, I've met a lot of cool people, besides the asshole who stole my phone. So it goes..

My mental state has been in such a strange place lately. Maybe I'm thinking too much of it because I've never known what happiness feels like for more than a couple days. Everything pretty much fell into place when I got here with a job, the apartment, seeing family pretty often, all that was left was to clear my head. I am constantly searching for something wrong, I felt oddly uncomfortably comfortable when I broke into rage the other night over my stolen property, familiar feelings. I've been hanging out with someone who challenges everything that I am and everything that I've been, in a good way. If that makes any sense at all.

I don't want to say I regret anything, because regrets are only memories that you wish went differently but at least I've learned from most of them. It's 'unfortunate' that I have been in so many relationships, because now my love life is a joke to everyone. I always justify something new by calling it 'different' from the last, maybe it really is this time. He makes it easy for me to not think about the people who have hurt me in the past, because he is nothing like them, and that is all I can ask for. It's also nice to have a positive thinker around when I'm trying to be more of one. I have never been with someone who has been through such grief and overcome it, I like people with a story. I'm not asking to be shown the world through someone else's eyes, but it's nice to have different interests, he teaches me things and vice-versa. I think this is what is called a 'mutual-relationship'? I have been too busy trying to be in control. No one has ever pointed that out to me before. I have come to find that the person who you have chosen to love is a direct mirror of yourself, and it completely affects your well-being and choices.

As of now I am in a very clean state of mind, I don't even need to be high to go in public anymore. 

The Tunnel

Everything took a turn for the worst in the middle of my 'focused and moving forward' attitude. It's to be expected but never desired. Sadness makes me reckless, it makes it easier to control and focus my energy into forgetting. Someone I've known for over 6 years and felt close to called me an 'enigma' yesterday, perspective is an interesting thing.

13 days left to say goodbye to this place and these feelings. No more 'people-pleasing,' either. Something new I'm trying out.

There is no greater fear of mine other than death than to be controlled by another person. It is really damaging to a person like me. I am a negative person when it comes down to things but I do want happiness, rainbows, and butterflies, the whole lot. I can become so jaded by lust and what I think is love but I have to realize it on my own, right now, and feel stupid later. If honesty isn't enough, then there are no other questions, it's all I've got at this point. All I wanted out of this entire thing was to be close to you and your mind, at least I had it for a little while.

13 days left to pack and feel better. Don't Panic, Focus.


"the devil will find work for idle hands to do."