the best of you

"Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?"

-Foo Fighters

All my life, I've been trying to figure out how to break free of my old self, morphing into a better version of me. Every time I'm unsuccessful, I think it's because I didn't try hard enough, or because I will just never be able to break free. I've recently discovered that the world is just not ready for it yet, or perhaps I'm just not ready for it yet. But, my time WILL come. And I feel that time is soon, so I wait eagerly for my breakthrough.

I always thought it was odd that I'm more comfortable with some guys I like than with others, thinking I was somehow at fault for not being comfortable enough to "let go," when now I'm realizing that some just couldn't handle a different version of me. Or maybe I know that the person will not be the right kind of person to stand by me when I've morphed into something else. For whatever reason, I've found someone that I honestly think could handle the various shapings of me, and vice versa... but I don't even know if he likes me and that is something I'm trying to stop worrying about for now. I have too much on my mind already, so I will wait until the time is right to give someone the best of me. And I will anxiously wait until I am trusted enough to get the best of somebody in return. I can't wait.

The Eleventh Hour

The Eleventh Hour

“When remorse awakens guilt,

Whether it be in one’s youth,

Or in the twilight of one’s life,

It does so always at the eleventh hour.”

-from Provocations, by Soren Kierkegaard

For many years I’ve lived with guilt for causing so much pain. Not only did I somehow manage to rip apart a marriage because I wasn’t strong enough to handle my own problems as a child, but I’ve hurt so many close friends along the way. I think the stronger I strive to be, the more defiant and selfish I become. The transitory battle to get my latent body off the ground and fighting for something always ends in casualties. Butchered feelings, severed relationships, shards of broken memories left in the dust for no one to touch again. “I was seized by remorse and the sense of guilt, which hurried me away to a hell of intense tortures, such as no language can describe” (Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, p. 94).

I’m always laden with guilt when I’m at my lowest, as if some cruel hand of fate were taunting me still. Sometimes, in all of this, I get completely lost in the smallest things, as if I really had a life worth living. “She is color-mad: brown rocks, yellow sand, gray moss, green foliage, blue sky; the pearl of the dawn, the purple shadows on the mountains, the golden islands floating in crimson seas at sunset, the pallid moon sailing through the shredded cloud-rack, the star-jewels glittering in the wastes of space--none of them is of any practical value, so far as I can see, but because they have color and majesty, that is enough for her, and she loses her mind over them” (The Diaries of Adam and Eve, Mark Twain, p. 159-161). It’s always in the eleventh hour of a commensurate end that I find myself mesmerized at all the beauty and ardor of life surrounding me. The point, I think, is that we must continue to chase the beauty, the incredible wonder and awe immersed into ordinary lives. The point is to live and get what happiness we can each day. “Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there” (The Complete Book of Zingers, Croft M. Pentz, p. 159).

*This is an excerpt from a segmented essay I am currently writing. I especially love the quote I used from "The Diaries of Adam and Eve," which by the way, everyone should read. It's humorous and satirical and just brilliantly written, and it's pretty short. I write for myself, but others seem to enjoy my work so I figured I'd post a little bit of it here. It definitely needs some work though. :)

"I said maybe...

...you're gonna be the one that saves me." (I really love Oasis.)

I'm still playing soccer and basketball, and now tennis. It feels so great to be this active again, especially with people as supportive as this. It's just hard to feel like I can do something, when I have absolutely no confidence in anything I do, but that is a lifetime struggle so it's something I'll always be working on. I think I'm making some progress though.

As for my guy problems... I swear I could be in my own soap opera, the way things are going. I have finally purged some feelings of old, and that is forcing me to deal with newer things. Of course I'm fixated on the most complicated one, and I still honestly am trying to work out my feelings about it all. Then again, I've never been a "simple" one, not nearly so... so maybe I need complicated, because I can relate. Only time will tell.