update

quickly found a new job which has me working 10-12 hr days. i've never worked this much or had this much responsibility, but it's rather refreshing to have people think they can trust me? everyone thinks i have so much experience, which in a way i do. i'm eight years out of school. yet i'm so used to being beaten down and told i'm fucking up left and right. it's always been a huge battle to prove what i know and can do. so here and now i really have to show up and deliver. so that makes staying late okay. the one thing i do enjoy is teaching these young interns all the tips and tricks i've picked up over the years. they're so eager to learn and so amazed by the simplest of things. it's nice to be valued for once.

the one thing i will note - this new place is mostly women. all my other offices have been mostly men. could be this be the reason for the change in tone? possibility. (yes.) anyway. onward.

hm

and now i'm unemployed again. thinking a lot about what the fuck i'm doing here. is there somewhere else i need to be? there's a lot of possibility i guess. i should be excited about the idea of a clean slate, but really i'm just tired of this shit. i want something different and substantial... but i'm not sure what that is just yet.

time

i'm 35. i still recall years ago when someone told me "people still alone in their thirties are broken." i've written about it previously, and i revisit this thought once in a while. mostly because i'm trying to see as time goes up and the years pile on if there is any validity to it.

i think being broken is a choice. at least for me it's a choice. i can wallow, or i can do. i wallow here with these words. a lot. it's a dumping ground. a place to bury frustrations, sadness, hopelessness. it has to go somewhere. it cannot stay inside me.

yes i am alone. i've been alone for years. i date, things work out, then they don't, then i go back to being me again. i like me, i'm comfortable this way. people come and go. a lot of people have left, good friends are gone. i work to keep the few that remain near, i work to meet new people. what are these relationships - what do they mean to me, what do they mean to them? i see new families forming, marriages and babies, houses and gardens. i don't quite fit in these families, but i appreciate the role of the crazy aunt that comes round once in a while. i often think about what family and home means to me, and how i will come to define that.

i wonder when things will change. at what age will the party end? if people will drift further, if the silence will get louder. what will i say or do to fill the voids as things shift. who and what comes next. i will build, and draw, and maybe be hugged occasionally. i might need to ask for those hugs. i think that's about all i can predict right now. there is more time left. a lot of opportunity and a lot of fear. here's to the rest of my thirties. cheers.

blank

hit a point where it doesn't really matter anymore. i guess there are goals but i don't really seem to care if the bottom drops out. i almost want it to, so i don't have to keep up the charade of pretending that it's all working out just fine. i am tired of being proven wrong on a daily basis. i'm tired of learning from my mistakes over and over like i'm some fucking child. i don't need correction, i need space. i hate people, i hate every fucking complication that comes from civilization. all the looks and body language and desires and directions of others, all pressing down on you wanting something other than what you do. this constant day to day struggle under this layer of bullshit, this surface tension ready to break but never giving way.

sometimes i think about what i would do if i just let people down. who else i could be. what a mess it would be to start from scratch, from the bottom, with nothing. but i wonder, if there wasn't this giant debt holding me here in this frozen position, what sort of words i could write or drawings would manifest. what about that story that's been in my head for years, those sticky notes floating above my desk, hovering waiting for their day.

i sign up for these activities. i create these other goals, i make it seem like my life is busy and i'm doing things. so many things that there isn't energy left at the end of the day. just wear out the body and perhaps the mind will follow. we'll just get through this if we don't think about it anymore.

absblurd

the world becomes all the more fragile with every precious soul that leaves it.

disconnected but protected

i hate this place but i need it more than ever.

unsent draft no 8

why is it that i am so good at turning off the need for someone else? closing out and just focusing on myself is familiar and easy, repeating the mantra "in the end it's always and only me." at this point i don't bother to explain the idea that i have accepted that there may be no one out there for me because there is always the retort "of course you will, don't give up hope." really though, i'm not looking or expecting anymore and there is more to life than love. it's just a path i'm not going to walk on, but there are other things to experience in my time here.

at the same time, i see romance movies and i get wistful. part of me thinks it's the prolonged conditioning from exposure to hollywood films and tv - it was the type of relationship i saw, so it's the type of relationship i would come to expect. those magical connections between two people seemed to be the penultimate moment

on another note,

unsent draft no 7

i know you're strong

i don't like what my imagination is doing, it's betraying in the worst way and it doesn't seem to shut off. the rational thoughts are cancelled out by soft notions of what was, what could be - when really, we all know very well what's going to happen. focus is hard to attain, there is no level reality in which to find bearings. constantly lying, contriving, manipulation of self all contribute to this mess. and it's cyclical, again and again not making any sense.

i want to get back to where i was radiant on my own, not in the shadow of a false possibility. i have to release hope in order to return, but i can't seem to let go. maybe because nothing has been said, final confirmation or rejection hasn't been given. i'm just working off of silence and time... which should be enough, right? the control freak in me doesn't like existing in limbo.

unsent draft no 6

how do you deal with the eventual death of your loved ones?

what bothers me about this thought process is that this time, right now - i am thinking about the eventual and that takes time away from the present. so i want to enjoy the present, but i find myself thinking that i'm not doing it right, that i should be putting more time in, having more awareness, getting to know and fully envelope these experiences with that person. yet i find that i slip into

i think most importantly - the thing that i want most and find myself struggling for a solution - how do you appreciate the time you have now? what do you do to savor the moments and be thankful for what is happening everyday?

what has worked for you? how do you deal with your fears and anxieties about this? how do you respond to the pressure? what books have you read, what sayings or mantras or techniques have you adapted? how has your own personal experience with the death of others made you think and act different after? how do you STOP having these exhausting thoughts about it and just focus on the day

unsent draft no 5

i get this feeling when i take photos that i don't get by looking at photos taken by others. it makes me feel self centered, or disconnected in a way. as though i can only produce images that please me? and isn't the act of looking at my own photos with a dopey smile a bit narcissistic?

also, the photos are of mundane pretties - like flowers or a ray of sunshine peeking through the clouds above a spring landscape. maybe it isn't just the object in it, but the moment that comes together when the shutter opens. from all these different places, here and there like lighting and composition and focus and action and object and it all comes together to make this small little ball of happiness because i made a moment. some moments are better than others. it's not something you see when you look at the photo, it's something i feel during the act of taking it. then all my photos, all 1988 items uploaded for the world to see.

they do something in my mind but i feel that experience doesn't deliver to the audience. appreciation is different from the pride of creation. understanding the process and capturing that chance to show at another time to another being doesn't fully translate. would the butterfly in a glass jar be an appropriate metaphor here? you can see the pretty thing within the constrained and refined environment of the jar, but you will never know what it felt like to chase that particular butterfly, to feel that adrenaline, to swing that catching net and to put it into the cage without harming it physically. yet you do, harm it - by looking at it so much

sometimes i want to tear up the photograph. stop looking, stop recording. put the camera down and interact with others around me. let moments come and go, let memories fade. let it be a unique gift

unsent draft no 4

freezer burn

preservation of things via historic conservation, frozen objects in the freezer get freezer burn when too cold

fossils and nature preservation - the way mysteries of the past are revealed via nature rather than man made ways of holding onto the way things used to be.

unsent draft no 3

the women flutter to each other "he did this he doesn't do that", hearing but not listening, just needing, pressing to get it out. for the expectations build and build and we all come to the same conclusions again and again, reaching a peak where we cry out in frustration at the traps we set for ourselves.

and we are focused. oh so focused. we know every word, every action. we remember, take notes, write footnotes for the notes, comments alongside the footnotes. an abstract heads the novel of notes, something we can use to introduce a new stranger to the issue as an outsider's perspective is always needed.

unsent draft no 2

sometimes i get the thought that if i moved back to colorado, i could save my family. that i could pull the strings back together. talk to my brothers, relate to them and show them how the world works. i could draw my mom out of her shell, make her strong on her own. i could connect with my dad, he could help me fix things.

unsent draft no 1

i don't feel comfortable being so intimate with you when i know i'm going to get the cold shoulder / run around for the next couple weeks.

i think your idea of casual dating is really loose and different from how i thought it would be.

if i don't belong

wish you could just be here
wish you would exist, my dear

the surf report

back when i lived in california and surfed every day, i wouldn't check the surf report. all my dude friends would, and would be selective about what days they surfed on. i didn't care, i wanted to surf everyday regardless. so i would just get up early, change into my swimsuit, put on a tank top and shorts, find my flip flops, grab my wetsuit, wax, and surfboard - and just go. you never know until you go.

i didn't have internet at home. there was no point as i was at school 90 percent of the time and could just use it there to check in. i suppose i could have tuned a radio in, somehow, at home or in the car. so i could at least know what's coming, and prepare myself. i like silence in the mornings though, so i went without knowing. there were many beaches to choose from, and if i had listened to the report i could have found the best one for that day but i often went to the same spot again and again. this spot was a beach break, and had such variety from one day to the next. every day i went there i was unprepared, and dealt with the conditions as i found them. you could look at the waves from the shore for a while and try to get a read for what was out there, but you couldn't really know until you went in. until you waded in a foot, then two - you could get a feel for whether the waves were lashing or lapping. stepping in more you either gently set your board down on a chill ocean, or it slaps down out of your hand, half ready to drift off with the angry current.

as you go in further and get on a board, you get a sense for the wave patterns. how quickly they are coming, from which direction, and what size within each set. the first one is like a warning shot, a little small but a pawn laying the groundwork for the bigger ones to come. you navigate the waves based on the timing of the set - if you didn't catch the first, you aim for the second or third. or if you were like me, you'd chicken out and wait for the fourth, or fifth. or sometimes just not go at all, because it takes all day to summon up the courage to take on a 10 footer when really, you can barely handle anything half that size. sometimes it's just about getting out there and being amongst giants and realizing how far out of your depth you are at that moment. if you can get back in without damage, more power to you for having survived.

then there were the slow days. when the ocean looked like a lake and the waves were mere shrugs.  these were the days that my friends wouldn't bother. these days i would paddle out anyway, because i appreciated all days in the water. the crazy days, the bad days. really though this was not a bad day. it was just a day to practice paddling, finding my center of gravity on the board, lifting with my chest and balancing on my belly. when the ocean was this calm you could see the bottom. little fish darting around, rocks. one time i took a friend surfing with me and it was completely flat, but we paddled out any way so he could get a feel for being on the board. the water was incredibly clear, and when we were out far enough we could see tons of fish swimming below, and amongst them were dolphins. my friend almost shit himself with excitement, but instead he wobbled and fell off the board, scaring off the dolphins. despite there being no waves, it was a very good day. you never know until you go.

sometimes, when i was alone in a mellow ocean and there was no one around, i would sit on my board past the break and sing a cat power song. good woman.

i want
to be a good woman
and i want
for you to be a good man
and this is why
i will be leaving
and this is why
i can't see you no more

then i would move on and sing werewolf. it was my own way of howling at the waves. the melancholy songs are not what make me happy, exactly, but they resonate and bring a sense of peace.

i am reminded of the time i was at the beach, and a woman was sitting in her car. she had just had an anxiety or panic attack of some sort, and needed to talk to someone to calm her down. these sorts of attacks were a bizarre notion to me at the time, but stress that i have encountered later in life makes that memory all the more real. i stood there and talked to her, but i had no idea really of the right thing i should have said. it was weird to me that it was such a beautiful day at the beach and someone should feel so miserable in such a place. the power of whatever she was feeling must have been great to overwhelm such an environment.

surfing calmed me, tested me, gave me regularity. taught me how to wake up early. surfing gave me time to be alone in mornings with no one else, just this giant endless edge of ocean. my fears would rise up with the waves, the calm would return as they crashed past me towards the shore. some days i would accomplish a good ride, other days i'd be mashed down and humbled. the ocean was what it was with no pretense or negotiation needed. we are ridiculous for trying to be one with it, but for the things you can get out of it when you can are well worth it. i miss it. everyone should try it at least once, because you never really know until you go.