The Technicolor Canvas.

You were a child

Crawling on your knees toward him

Making momma so proud

But your voice is too loud

We like to watch you laughing

Picking insects off of plants

No time to think of consequences

I'm amazed at how people fill in for what they don't know.

Instead of asking questions, most people assume a truth they can deal with. In a lot of cases, the assumption is false or incomplete. For instance, once I stopped talking for a long period of time in a group of people. Instead of asking why I was so quiet, they simple told me I was quiet ("Yup," I said) and exclaimed that I must be tired and continued with their conversation. It blew me away. Although they clearly wanted to know what was "wrong" they didn't do the simple solution of asking (it wasn't a big deal, I actually wasn't talking because the conversation was boring).

It is the same way with getting to know people.

Most people have a way of liking people who don't talk very much, or talk about themselves very much. I am like this. Not because I wouldn't gladly tell someone about myself, but because no one asks. Which has interesting consequences.

There is a lady at work who thinks I'm just like her son. I'm probably nothing like her son, I'm just the same age, and she wants to believe I'm like her son. To her it's true...and she can now mother me like she wants. She adores me, but has no idea who I am. She's never asked.

So it seems to be in a lot of cases. People like me for whoever they want to believe I am. I am all things to all people because I make myself a blank canvas. I can be anyone I wish, because no one in this city knows the truth.

Though, I wish people would ask about me. What I think about the world, what I've found joy in and pain in. Who I really am. But I'm not going to do it without being asked. I don't like when other people spoil conversation by sharing unsolicited, or just talking about themselves incessantly (and thus forcing others to do the same or change the subject). So I'm not about to start, even to fulfill a need. I have to know that other people want to know.

I think I'm an interesting person, just as I think other people are interesting. I like the song Life in Technicolor ii by Coldplay because I think it really captures how I feel about myself. I'm not a blank canvas for other people to fill in, I'm a technicolor canvas. I hope someone out there discovers that someday.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for people to see the true canvas.

The Hardest Part.

And the hardest part was letting go, not taking part...Was the hardest part...

http://youtu.be/6Dod1zQuleM

Every once in a while, I'll find a song that I really like. It just...fits. It makes sense for me to play this song and like it. This is that song.

I do not like writing posts like this. I know that people perceive writing like this as passive-aggressive and overly emotional. Too much information. It helps me to have an easily accessible chronicle of thoughts throughout the years. That is enough reason for me to indulge myself. I don't expect people to understand, least of all those closest to me - family, friends, etc. That said, I will move on.

This song for me is about futility. In the past half year I have felt defeated. The hardest part about about it is  having to let go. I always want to be more like Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z. "NO! I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED!" But it's easier when all you need to do is train and get stronger and then try to punch the bad guy again. This is different.

My last post chronicles my feelings about people well enough for one to understand the importance of family, friends, and even acquaintances to me. This post is more about the effects of the futility in trying to achieve some sense of sentiment among those I know.

It seems more often than not my relations to other people involves more letting go of rather than taking part in their lives. Often I feel this is the hardest part of my life...as goes the song. I just have to swallow my pride, swallow my anger/sadness (I could feel it go down...bittersweet I could taste in my mouth).

It is utterly futile for me...always...in trying to have some semblance of constant support in my life. But I have no choice but to accept it. Life has to go on. If it is true that in a year, I will move far away and no longer have any friends, so be it. I had a dating relationship and that failed. I tried to have another and that is failing and will fail again, I'm sure. I am beaten. It is useless (Oh and I, I wish that I could work it out). Just the utter uselessness of all my efforts to change the way my relationships go. Nothing ever changes. That's the hardest part.

But I know that there really is no changing other people. I harp on this time and again: no one owes me anything. If people don't want to believe that their surface level understanding of their friends is not enough, then nothing I can say or do will change that (Everything I do, it just comes undone). If people would much rather be out of my company than reciprocate my friendship, then they will have that (You really broke my heart). I'm tired of begging people to be my friend anyway. Watching as they live their perfectly happy lives without me in it. That is their right and I have no reason to be offended. But yet I am, and I hate it.

It's just God and me. Always (You're silver lining the clouds). But "it is not good for man to be alone." I have real friends, it is true...but they are so few. Most of the time it is just a matter of waiting until the next time I may see them again.

Now, my only motivation in continuing thus is to simply be the kind of person who does the things I do. I go to mass because I want to be the kind of person who goes to mass, not because I want to. I go to class and do my schoolwork because I want to be the kind of person who works even though they don't feel like it. I continue to (try) being charitable and loving to people I am angry at because I want to be the kind of person who is charitable and loving to people he feels have done him wrong. Nothing I do...do I do it because I feel it will actually change my circumstances (I wonder what it's all about).

There it is. I know this is probably a bad idea to put this on the Internet but I just don't care. I am doing what I want to do.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for an easy part.

The lost virtues.

"Might have to go where they don't know my name...Float all over the world...just to see her again! And I won't show or fear any pain, even though all my armor might rust in the rain! A simple plot...but I know one day...good things are coming our way."
-Coldplay, "Up With the Birds"

I have been wanting to write about something for a long time.

I have a friend I've known since high school. Often when I think of this friend I regress emotionally to the level of a little girl. It's embarrassing to admit but I say this for a reason.

I've spent my entire life doing a lot of things. I think the most profound of these is my own quest for power - Power over myself.

I have lived a life lacking integrity. I've lived in fear and despair.  I was brought up to hate myself and to fear those I lived with. I never thought anything would get better.

My mother was the only person in my family I could really talk to. I lost her at 16. I really didn't appreciate her as I should...she really let me take a lot out on her. The guilt of it stayed with me for a long time. I'm still getting over it.

My friend in high school...well, she has had some kind of strange affect on me. I haven't seen her in years, but I've never been able to forget about her. I still worry about her, and I don't know why.

A long time ago, she shared a lot about her life with me. She has had a very hard life. She had a lot of trust issues with males, but for whatever reason she gave me hers. I blew it. I was impatient with her and said some stupid things I really wish I could take back. We're still friends, technically. But it's been so hard to stay in touch with her. There have been periods many months long where I lost all contact.

She's not the only friend I've betrayed either. With my year and a half long hermitage lasting over my sophomore and junior year of college, I really lost a lot of friendships that I've never really been able to get back.

Trouble is, I never really wanted to do any of these things. I knew what I was doing was stupid and I did it anyway. I lacked integrity.

What's more is, I lacked courage to do what was right. There are so many people in my life who could have benefited from me having the courage to say something they really needed to hear...or, I could have benefited from saying or doing something to make a change in my life.

And over all, my lack of hope for change made me unable to develop any of these virtues.

I have so much regret. I could have made it clear to my mother how much I loved her. I could have made a difference in my friend's life. I could have matched my thoughts to my actions and been responsible with my time...and not been a bad friend.

On a cold November night in 2009, I got a phone call that made me snap. I totally lost it. It took me three months to really get over what I heard on that phone. What I was told made me realize all at once how lost I really was. I'm not really even sure if it was all due to that phone call, but I have to place the start of my change somewhere, and I guess that's it. Maybe I'll never know how or when, but somehow, it happened. My lost virtues...just sort of came.

I know a lot of people probably feel the same way, but the band Coldplay seems to write songs about me. The songs...just get it. How I feel.

How I "Might have to go where they don't know my name...

How I would love to just "Float all over the world...just to see her again!"

How I'm determined not to "show or fear any pain, even though all my armor might rust in the rain!"

It's "A simple plot...but I know one day...good things are coming our way."

I only hope that maybe someday, I can look back on my life and really believe that I made up for what I failed to do because of who I was. That I can say I lived a life of integrity, courage, and hope.

I hope.

Seagulls, my favorite animal, in a picture particularly applicable to this post

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for hope, courage, and integrity to be renewed.

"Nobody said it was easy..."

"Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry, you don't know how lovely you are..."

I think God made all people equally beautiful, but some people he made it more easy to see...There is nothing that makes me want to love myself more than when I see someone else needs my love, especially when I know how beautiful and special that person is.

Last weekend it was easy to love myself because I was loving a friend of mine. I've only met this person twice now, but we've kept up a nice phone/internet/mail correspondence for a long time now. My friend is a beautiful and amazing person, and I'm so lucky to know her, but sometimes she doesn't see what I see. Hope seems hard for her to hold onto because of how others have treated her. Between having fun doing things like shopping (cool shopping, like books and petting dogs and cats at Petsmart, not lame shopping like going to try on clothes) and watching movies, I told her how I saw her and her place in the world. It made me cry at one point because I don't think she believed me when I told her how she was destined for happiness.

During my drive back home today, I was touched by the song "The Scientist" by Coldplay. It put into words a lot of the feelings I was re-experiencing because of last weekend. I find so many people, especially women, who don't seem to understand how beautiful they are. Their beauty isn't a physical thing, it shines out from the inside, from their goodness, what makes them unique in the tapestry of life. But it's usually not prudent for me to share my feelings with the women I know. They would take it as a come on...so I'm forced to just paste the song here and hope they find it:

Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry
You don't know how lovely you are

I had to find you
Tell you I need you
Tell you I've set you apart

Tell me your secrets
And ask me your questions
Oh, let's go back to the start

Running in circles
Coming up tails
Heads on the science apart

Nobody said it was easy
It's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard

Oh take me back to the start

I was just guessing
At numbers and figures
Pulling the puzzles apart

Questions of science
Science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart

Oh tell me you love me
Come back and haunt me
Oh and I rush to the start

Running in circles
Chasing our tails
Coming back as we are

Nobody said it was easy
Oh, it's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard

I’m going back to the start...

 There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was that you knew how lovely you are.