Rise

It is clearly time to try a different approach.
I'm going to have to write 2013 off as a complete failure.
I'm tired.
Nay
Exhausted.

I have worked incredibly hard, through most of this year, for a few different things.  I put all my hope.  All my energy.  All my everything into intiating change.  There is absolutely nothing to show for it. Some things, at one point or another were incredibly promising.  There were times, that plans had been made, things were going to happen.  Nothing happened.  This happened, over and over and over again.  I had so many plans.  So many ideas.  So many schemes, and adventures.

Every
Single
Damn
Thing

Didn't happen.  Nothing.
I did all I knew how to do this year.  So many exciting prospects, that just...
And now, I have zero to show for it.
I am in the exact same place I was a year ago.
The only result is, I'm exhausted.  I'm beat up. I'm at that point where if you kicked me now, I wouldn't notice for all the other kicks I've already sustained.  Pretty soon a beating doesn't mean anything anymore.

I must have done, or said something wrong.  I must have acted or reacted in a way that prevented progress.  I'm not above mistakes.  I make plenty.  The hardest part about self evaluation though, is trying to determine exactly what those things were.  This is the time that I really wish there was a god.  But not like the hateful christian god, or the spiteful petty greeks, or the warrior norse.  I want a god kinda like a college advisor.  Except omniscient.  Some guy who'll take you into his office...maybe pour out some coffee, pull out all the files on the last year, and evaluate.

Okay dude, here's where you did good.
Here's what needs improvement.
Now go out there and be somebody.

But that's all simply nice fantasy.  The fact is I get to figure this shit out for myself.  Just like we all do.  I get to go into each new day, pretending I'm not fighting my own battles.  Just like we all do.  I get to say, over and over again, "No really, it's okay.".

Just like we all do.

I know a lot of this lacks specific detail.  That's okay.  I really don't want to go into specific detail.  The outcome is the same.  I have had a year without progress, in any area of my life.  This did not happen as a result of no effort.  It happened as a result of, I guess, all the wrong effort.  That's the only way I can look at it.  It's not that I didn't try.  I simply didn't try the right way.

And so, it is clearly time to try a different approach.
Tabula rasa.
Erase the board and start from scratch.

And that is the new plan.
If everything I try, fails...the only recourse is to either change goals, or change paths.

I simply cannot continue the course I've travelled.  So I've got to set a new one.  I will, as I've always done, walk this one alone.  Every single person in my life, that I have asked to walk with me at one time or another, has opted not to.  So I won't ask again.

Sometimes I think that's the wrong decision.  Sometimes it's a painful one.  Sometimes I feel alone.

Today I saw a girl sitting alone.  In a coffee shop, drinking her beverage, reading a book.  Occasionally she would glance up...look around.  Sometimes our eyes would meet.  She'd go back to her book, I'd go back to my drink.
Eventually some guy showed up, and walked toward her table.  I watched her smile.  That smile that was just for him.  That smile that came, because it couldn't not.  It was so genuine.  Here was a person in her life, that truly made her happy.
It was the most beautiful thing I'd seen in a long time, and I so desperately wanted a smile like that for myself.  From someone who just...it was me.  I make another person happy.  I am happy because another person is part of me.
And I looked at myself from the outside. Alone in the coffee shop.  Content in my solitude.
Content.
A funny word.
A word of acceptance. Yet...also...
Peace.
I know that smile isn't for me.
It won't be.
It can't be.

I have a full year of abject failure behind be.  This is failure in the true sense.  I tried.  I put myelf out there.  I ran the gammut of try try try...and I failed.  Or at least, I have had absolutely no success.
I can take this.  I can eat it right up.  I can turn course at a moments notice, and see where the next/other road leads.  It sucks.  It sucks great big donkey balls.
What I can't do...
What I won't do...
Is ask someone to travel that road with me.

I live a hard life.  I'm not complaining about that.  I fucking LOVE the life I live.  But it ain't easy.

See when people get together, it's to share common dreams and goals and aspirations.  It's to build something that two people can share.
I have nothing to share, and my dreams are not made out of stability.  I am not motivated by money, or financial gain or success.  I need it.  I'll work for it, so I can eat...and have a working phone and a pack of cigarettes in my pocket, but I don't give two shits about it beyond that.  I will never have a "job" worth bragging about.

Having tried the relationship thing twice in the past, and learning from repeated mistakes, the greatest lesson I could take from both of those, is that it is simply wrong on all levels, to ask another human being that I care about, to walk with me into that kind of darkness.

Here there be monsters.

My wonderland has fearsome beasts, and there is no safety net.
There is no retirement plan.
There is either success...or failure.

I've just had a complete year of the latter.
And I will keep going.
I will trudge.
I will march.
I will race wildly into the unknown seeking MY brand of success.  My own achievement that means something to me.
And if that achievement comes with money, or doesn't, is really kind of meaningless to me.

This war is mine.

And so I left that coffee shop, having witnessed the smallest token of the greatest signifigance, reminded in my aloneness, that such things aren't for me.  And yes that's my choice, and I accept it as such...because it's the right choice.

Any other choice, and I would have to either ask someone to do the impossible...
or...
completely change who I am.

Life is neat.  We get to make our own rules, and if we follow those rules, we must understand the boundries those rules place...
or live with the consequences of breaking them.

If you are fortunate enough to have discovered a way, to live with another person inside the compromise that requires...I salute you.  I envy you.  Fucking cherish it.  Hold on with both hands and never ever let go.

I simply don't have it in me to compromise myself, and my aspirations, and all the failures it will take to reach those aspirations...
And I don't have it in me to ask another human on this planet to be that patient with me.  There is a high statistical probability I'll never get there.

Anyway....there is a lot of rambling here.  Just a big fat emptying of the head.  But I think it all boils down to is this...

We all have our own lives...our own decisions.  We each find a path, and follow it.  I think, and maybe I'm wrong, but I think, the most important thing is to make the hard decisions.  To figure out who the fuck we are, and stick with it.  To become friends with the things that are difficult.  To accept that not everything, is for everybody, but to find what's ours.  There are things in life...wonderful amazing things...that I will probably not have.  There are other things that you will not have.  There are all the things that a few will have, and a few things that nobody will have.

The key for me, is being able to identify who I am, and what that means in my reality.  In my little corner of my own little world.  You're all invited to visit any ole time...but the parts of me that I have put away...well...they're put away.

I don't entirely rule out that box may be opened again, because I don't rule out the possibility of anything ever, but if it ever is, well...I'm not convinced such a person exists.

Know peace.  Know happiness.  Know love.  Know starlight, and wishes.  Who cares if they never come true...the joy is in the making of them.

Know hope.  Know kindness.  Know that your way is not the way for everybody, but niether your way, nor theirs is any less valid.

Know right.  The big rights, and the little ones.

Respect your truth.  Respect that truth is not universal.

Share the planet.
Share time.
Share joy.

Remeber that every single person you meet, every single day, is carrying some pain.  Maybe, if you have time, offer to carry some of that pain for them for a minute.

Never...
ever...
EVER...

let another person shame you for you decisions.  Your choices. Your clothes, or your body. Or the most heinous of all...who or how you love.

And never attempt to shame another human being for theirs.

Be happy.
Eat.
Sleep.
Fuck.
Express.
Share your opinion, but for the love of jeebus, don't get all bent if someone doesn't feel the same way you do.
Talk.
Talk.
small and BIG.

Don't be afraid.
Never be afraid.
Take risks every damn day.

Get naked and look in the mirror.
with love.
and acceptence.
and joy.

Who cares if your body isn't perfect.
Wanna know a secret.
Here it is...

There's no such fucking thing.

So love what you see in the glass.
Love it.
Seriously.
Cry because you love it so goddamn much.

And take it from someone with a lot...a lifetime worth...of experience.

It doesn't matter how many times you don't get what you want.
It doesn't.
It doesn't matter how many times you "fail".
It doesn't.

Get up.
Dust off your knees.
Bitch and moan for a minute... (that's perfectly acceptable, and anyone who says otherwise, is full of shit.)
Then
Learn.
Grow.
and move.
Never stop moving.
Ever.
You'll be still soon enough.
All to soon.

So move.
Write your song and dance to it.
Falling down is fine.

Staying down isn't.