i'm not afraid to watch you change me

I had an idea a few weeks back to write a blog about resolutions and change, and I even started it, but never finished. Go figure.

Mindy White, of the band Lydia, posted something on Tumblr a while back that gave me the idea. She posted a quote from Martin Luther King, which read, “Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” After the quote she added, "2010. time for turning over a new leaf. actually, more like turning over an entire new tree. it's a year of changes."

For the past few years, since I've really been mature enough to care about bettering myself, the only resolutions I've made have always been about being more outgoing and making more friends. The one thing I'd love to change most about myself is how shy I am. I'm fine with talking to people as long as they initiate conversations, but it's incredibly difficult for me to approach anyone on my own. Whether they're just potential friends or people I'm attracted to, it terrifies me to make the first move for some reason. Or it has until now.

This past New Year's Eve was the first in a while that I gave no thought whatsoever to making a resolution. Personally, I don't think NYE is the only time you should worry about changing for the better, and shouldn't be an excuse to start changing, but that's beside the point. Within the past few months, I've also finally started to reach my breaking point in the sense that I'm tired of being lonely all the time and never making new friends. I've finally started hanging out with some people that live near me, and I've started being a little more outgoing and straightforward with the people I want to be around. I've probably made more friends at school this quarter than I have in my entire time at Cal Poly. Whether they last after my current classes end or not, I like to think that's a pretty damn good start.

In a sense, I guess I'm just proud of myself, but I think my favorite part about all of this is that when I finally stopped "planning" to change, I finally started changing. It's not always about planning everything out to the last detail. Sometimes you just have to go after what you want, even if you're not certain you'll get it. You might surprise yourself.

I woke up really early this morning to a horrible dream. I think it was around four or four thirty, about two hours before I normally wake up on school days right now, and I've been trying not to think about said dream so the details are a bit fuzzy now, seven hours later. It was essentially about my family finally falling apart, but all the details and causes were left unknown to me. In the dream, it seemed so sudden. It was like out of nowhere, my mom was packing up to leave and nobody would tell me why. I felt like a child having something torn away from me with no explanation and it terrified me so much. I was surprised I didn't wake up crying, to be honest. In a way, it was like the worst possible dream I could have.

I often feel that if the morning starts off badly, the rest of the day can't get any better. Today was strange though, because for everything that went wrong, I kept noticing things that were good. I woke up with a horrible dream, but the drive to school was gorgeous because of the weather clearing and the snow on the mountains and things of that nature. I had gas issues on my way out, but I kept hearing songs I loved on the radio in the morning, which rarely happens. It was like something or someone was trying to prove some perfect balance to me.

I don't really consider myself a religious person, but days like today make me wonder. Though, I must admit, I'm still in a pretty poor mood and I don't want to be here at all. Hopefully more random good things will happen before my day is over.

i always kinda sorta wished i was someone else

Rejection is pretty unpleasant, no matter how sound the logic behind it. I haven't specifically avoided crushes or anything, but I really haven't had too many since early high school, and I've been realizing lately how lucky I am for that. My last and only serious relationship was towards the end of my senior year, and since then I've only really liked one person, but I've liked him for years anyway so that's not quite the same. Recently I started hanging out with a boy that I met through a friend and he turned out to be the first person I'd liked that lived near me in a very long time, so you can imagine my excitement.

However, excitement quickly turned to frustration when I got to know him better and found that he was highly cynical and extremely jaded to the point that he literally believes he's never going to love again. This made me wary about telling him that I liked him, something I've never really been able to do before anyway. But I still wanted to tell him, because lately I've noticed that I'm finally at a point in my life where I'm tired of being shy and alone and I just want to tell people what I think or feel, even if they don't reciprocate. This is all that's been on my mind the last few weeks; wanting to tell him and knowing that I'd have the guts to do so, but being unsure about whether I should because I basically knew he wasn't going to reciprocate.

Last night he had a party that started, for him, early in the day and ended with him being very intoxicated and kissing me, which I obviously wasn't going to protest. We kissed quite a few times, but I'm not one to sleep with someone just because I can, so it went no further than that. I was also still pretty sure he was only acting that way because he was drunk, so I didn't want to get too ahead of myself. Talking to him this morning turned out to be more awkward than I'd hoped for or expected so later in the day I decided "to hell with it" and just texted him asking if he was interested at all or everything happened had just been an effect of the alcohol.

Essentially he told me that he would rather stay friends because he knows himself and believes that it would or could be good for a while, but then it would just go downhill and he didn't want to end up not being friends later on. Personally I thought this just sounded like an excuse not to take a chance but I guess I can't do anything to change his mind, so there's no point in making a fuss over it. I was disappointed and frustrated, of course, but I've had all day to stew over it and I'd rather just wait it out and see what happens, if anything, or just keep hanging out and chatting.

At least I can say I'm proud of myself for being straightforward and open and honest about the way I feel, because waiting around for other people to do the same is a pain in the ass. So even if it didn't get me anywhere with him necessarily, it was progress for me all the same.

Jesus Christ, that's a pretty face
The kind you'd find on someone that could save
If they don't put me away
It’ll be a miracle

Do you believe you're missing out?
That everything good is happening somewhere else
But with nobody in your bed
The night is hard to get through

And I will die all alone
And when I arrive I won’t know anyone

Well, Jesus Christ, I’m alone again
So what did you do those three days you were dead?
Because this problem's gonna last
More than the weekend

Well, Jesus Christ I’m not scared to die
I’m a little bit scared of what comes after
Do I get the gold chariot
Do I float through the ceiling

Do I divide and fall apart
Cause my bright is too slight to hold back all my dark
This ship went down in sight of land
And at the gates does Thomas ask to see my hands?

There's something I want to say to someone, but I'm not sure I'll get the response I'd like and I'm afraid that if I don't, things will just be awkward. It's not vitally important for this something to be known, but I kind of feel like it would just be better to be open about it anyway. Because it's there, in my head, and I feel like it needs to be out in the air.

Maybe I'll say it tomorrow.

there's more to living than being alive

I want to write a long, articulate blog about the great conversation I had tonight because it made me think and wonder and I'll probably be up a while continuing to do both of those, but I have school in the morning and I need to be up in a little over five hours so I should probably try to get all the sleep I can.

To remind myself not to forget: Why are we here? Why do we do the things we do? What's the point? If we're all going to die anyway and eventually no one will remember you or the things you did, what's the point? What makes life worth living?