Story Time

So, I said that I was going to post the story. There are too many trigger warnings for me to really highlist them all, so please bed aware that this might be a triggering story for you. It's... a lot. It's  what has made me who I am, and more recently, why I was hospitalized. But, I'm still here. Still me, though, after everything.

when i was 6 years old, i broke a plate in the kitchen. i was trying to put the dishes away, but the plates went up on the second shelf- it was too high for me. so i grabbed a chair, climbed up on it to put the plate away, and it slipped. it was a corelle plate.

i don't remember much of what happened next. i know that my mom started to scream at me, and threw another plate against the wall. she paused after that, and told me to clean everything up- so i grabbed the broom, but she wrenched it away from me and told me to do it by hand.

i still have scars from that, picking up little tiny shards of ceramic with my tiny 6 year old hands. coincidentally, this was also the first time i was actively suicidal. i used to skip across the streets with my eyes closed when i walked to school every morning, too. 6 years old? 6 years old.

when i was 9, i threatened to kill my mother and my younger brother zachary. for a long, long time, I could not remember why, exactly, i wanted that. i felt terrible about it- like i was this monster, just ready to lash out. but, a little over two years ago, i had a flashback and rememered why i was so angry.

she would spank me. most of the time, it was fine. i do something wrong, i get a spanking. but for whatever reason, this time was different. i couldn't sit without putting pressure on my bruise for over two weeks.

when i threatened my mother- telling her that i would stab her in her sleep, she called the crisis line. people came out to our apartment, and tried to console me as i laid under my bed, kicking and screaming. eventually, they got me out, and brought me to a children's group home- it was in central phoenix, and called tumbleweed. i was 9 years old.

when i got there, i was shown into my room with my bunkmate andrew- he was 13 and playing on his gameboy color- a cool game called "Power Quest", where you fight with miniture robots. i didn't know that until a bit later, because i just cried and cried and cried and cried- it felt like hours.

eventually, andrew just cracked. he yelled at me to shut the fuck up, and said that i could play his game if i took something to make things feel better. this was my introduction to opiates, and the first time i tried hydrocodone.

it saved me, in a sense. i went from being angry at the world and everybody in it, to being quiet and content. i read books, i listened to the people around me. i was at ease.

i was 9.

from there, i don't remember much of my childhood. i would get bullied at school- beat up and called a faggot for keeping a pink pencil case. it was my favourite color- i would use it to draw out and design clothing, dresses, anything i thought would be cool.

they never hit my face, though. and that meant that i could hide it from my mom, so she wouldn't get mad at me for "fighting" when i really only fought back a few times before giving up until puberty.

after i would make it home every day, i would have a few hours alone. mom worked until 6, when she would pick zach up from the after school thing he stayed at- some place called covenant that used to be next to our school, squaw peak.

the time in this whole story is a bit wonky, but the important thing is that she was never there. like, yeah, she got home eventually, but she was never "there". she was either screaming at me for things i likely did not do and spanking me, or she was on the corncopia of benzodiazipines that psych doctors threw around in the nineties.

so those were my days- wake up getting yelled at for sleeping in, get bullied at school all day until i made it home, and then either get neglected by my mom or abused by her.

then later that year, for fifth grade, i moved in with my dad and step mom. it was great, for a time. when they weren't at work, i had parents that cared about me.

but... not hot water. or food. and frankly, they were not home very often. i can't say for sure beyond just the dude sleeping on their couch, but a few years ago, i smelled something that instantly brought me back to childhood. it was meth, lol.

then they got evicted. i moved back in with my mom in the middle of 6th grade. she was a bit calmer now that she got her meds more stable, but i /hated/ her. we would fight constantly, and since i had started puberty, she couldn't just pick me up any more.

i can't remember when, but this was the age that i had my first overdose. it was remarkably similar to an asthma attack- just stopping and focusing on my breathing, one moment at a time. it was terrifying and i was in my bunkbed just over my little brother for the entire thing.

i remember one time, she took the door away from my room- and eventually, she made me sleep in the living room, too.

so i tried to be home as little as possible. i would make friends with everybody that i could- then i would go to their houses, and see if i could find anything fun- opiates, whatever.

later that year, when i was in 7th grade, my friend and I ditched school. he told me that his mom or grandma or whatever had gotten these new pills, and was super excited.

i only took a little bit, but he took the whole pill. i didn't call 911 while he was dying.

again, that was 7th grade. i think i was what, 12?

this cycle kept going for ages. all through middle school, through high school. i never really talked that much in school unless i was sober, lol. but... that wasn't very often. once you find a source of those pills, it's really not that hard to take a couple after each refill- i was just hanging out with my friends. just gotta set them off to the side for a few days to make sure nobody would notice they were gone, and i was home free.

when i was 19, i started using more and more and more. i ended up losing a job at borders, and from started using fentanyl. i stole it, of course. it was SO strong- little patches that i would cut up into ~25 little tiny squares, and then hold against my gums for 15 or so seconds, and i was just... content.

and then as my tolerance grew, i would take more and more. eventually, i just... forgot to take the strip off. i called my girlfriend at the time and asked her to keep me talking, because i was overdosing and would die if i stopped and fell asleep. i lived with my grandpa at the time, and was in his little jam space. i woke up a good time later- i think it was three days?? - to my bed covered in vomit and i had shit myself.

from there, i eventually quit my habit. i did ecstacy with my girlfriend, and just... cried. i weighed just over a hundred pounds and i'm about five foot eleven inches tall. i didn't want to die, but i didn't want to feel anything, either.

so she helped me quit. she let me just stay in the bed, and would make food for me and give me whatever she could to take the withdrawals away. i withdrew for almost two weeks, throwing up every couple hours, had diarhea and cold sweats, and could never quite stop shaking.

i was 19, but i got clean, eventually.

i was clean for a few years- started working as a sound engineer, played in some bands, had a great time.

and then i found heroin- i was so excited the first time i smoked, it felt like it stopped time. i was 24, and relapsed after being sober for 5 years. i had a habit for the next two-ish years. i talked to so many people when i started to want to quit- probably the person I talked to the most, though, was Andy. Andy Warpigs and I would just sit in one of the booths after they finished playing, and trade stories. it never stopped me, but it definitely made it more manageable. i talked a lot to my fried Hann, too, on and off through all of this.

then i met Callan- going by Athena, at the time- and I felt like I had finally met a person that I wanted to be a better person for. I found some subs, and then the day after my withdrawals ended, i asked Callan out.

the past 6 years have been the best of my life. i have been incredibly lucky to find such a unique, caring, and patient individual. i remember when we started dating, i would just lay in bed while Callan was asleep, and watch the rise and fall of each breath- enraptured that this person was in my life and loved /me/.

and then i started getting scared. i started drinking more and more- it’s really not that difficult to get drunk when all of the places that you work are happy to give you free drinks, you know? and i did some of the worst things of my life.

i broke up with callan over facebook messenger, and when i was drunk that new years night, i just spewed the most toxic stuff i could- i hated myself, so anybody around me was fair game. i talked about how happy i was to be away from them, how horrible they were, and how much better i was doing. i didn’t mean it- i was still very much in love- but when you try to burn down your own ship, the passengers in your life are your collateral damage.

after i did that, i started to sober up. after a few months, we started talking again, and i explained myself and apologized. i still don’t know why, but callan took me back. life went on from there, as it does.

and then covid hit us. i was laid off, i gained back 50 pounds that i had finally lost while at that job, and i just… well, started to feel suicide nip at my heels again. it was slow, at first. i would just stay up later than normal and get that sinking, sickly feel of loneliness in the pit of my stomach. i would tremor for a moment, then crack my knuckles and keep moving forward.

then my friend Andy died. it punched me in the gut. just a little bit before that, i had brought over some soup, an albuterol inhaler, and a bunch of waters for them. they were watching blackula, and thankful of me dropping by.

and then my grandpa died. i didn’t know what to do. i stopped eating as much, i stopped talking to anybody. i withdrew into myself, i played guitar and video games, and things were sad, but manageable. i was working for a health insurance company as a “Workforce Management Analyst”, and making pretty good money- so i would buy things to keep myself occupied.

i never really talked about my surgery, though. one of the big things i’ve dealt with in my life are digestive issues- i’m suuuper lactose intolerant - and that was amplified by my opiate use over my lifetime.

i don’t remember when it really started, but some time in late 2020, i started to bleed when i would take a shit. it hurt every time, but i was too embarassed about it to really “do” anything about it. i was suicidal like always, but just as quiet as normal. eventually, i broke down crying in the closet when i told callan.

anyways. back to my grandpa dying. i wound up disassociating most of the time, after that. i was still bleeding when i went to the bathroom, but didn’t really notice that it was getting worse- but i relented since i health insurance at the time, and started to see a doctor about it. i did not, however, talk about that with my job.

every time i sat down, it hurt. i would find little bloodstains in my underwear literally every day- every time. unfortunately, i worked from home, since covid was still, you know. so, sitting was working. and working while you’re in pain is really not a solid combo.

i started making more and more mistakes. eventually, i was put on a performance improvement plan. it sucked at first, but i made it through it without being let go.

and then i forgot to tell them about my surgery, and with it, the time I would need to recover. it was scheduled for August 8th, and I think I told the Tuesday or Wednesday before that? Oh, and my direct manager also left the company- she’s going to Harvard, I was super proud of her.

i took FMLA leave for my surgery recovery, and just… healed. it was wonderful, at first. but, it was a surgery. i got some hydrocodone for it.

and then my mind was on everything again, almost 6 years later. all i really thought about, but i couldn’t really do much to get anything when confined to a bed. i actually saved my pills and sat around in pain, just to get high like… twice? three times? not sure, but trying to take a shit while your asshole is screaming at you- easily the most pain i’ve ever been in, beyond taking chunks out of my arms with bikes and parkour (tho, one time i could see through my wrist to my tendon! minus the pain, that was pretty cool)- it’s /really/ hard to go. but i wanted to get high, so i did.

then i got back from FMLA, and things seemed fine. I went to my meetings, i did my work, and then 4 or 5 days later, I was called into a meeting with my new direct manager and somebody from HR, and i was let go. no more insurance after the end of the month, no more paychecks.

i cashed out my 401k so that i would have rent for a while, and just… rotted. i played a ridiculous amount of elden ring, which while amazing, was not the most healthy use of my time.

callan would ask all the time- was I ok? did i want to talk? and i just… didn’t answer. a lot of times, i would get angry, too. of course i’m fine, what are you even worrying about?? i mean, i wasn’t ok, but i didn’t want anybody to know that. like i said before, callan is the best person i know. i wish so much that i hadn’t shut myself from everything. honestly, i probably would not be in this state if i had, but hey, 20/20. hindsight is a bitch, you know?

it got worse, and worse, and worse.

i started to heal up physically, though, so i started going on hikes with my little brother- same one i wanted to kill when i was 9, glad that never happened. anyways, i went out with him for that hike, and we ended up going to goodwill afterwards. i saw my old heroin dealer- before covid, i had the strength to say hello and walk away, but not this time. i finished up with my brother, dropped him off, then raced back to that goodwill to grab his number and pick up some more stuff. wasn’t heroin anymore, though, now it was these blue fentanyl pills. kinda ridiculous how ubiquitous they’ve become, tbh.

i only really used opiates when i was suicidal, though. i don’t really hold anything against them, either. cuz in a sense, they’ve saved my life before, too. that day that i started talking to my dealer, i was planning on going out with my car and going out with the carbon monoxide, but stopped cuz i was able to get high, lol. i guess i would have written this sooner, then.

it was manageable, at first. callan was out of town for a bit longer, so i prepped everything, got some new foil, and opened up the crawl space entrance- conveniently located in my office with all of my musical equipment, too, so i could smoke and jam for a while.

but then i started lying about it. callan would smell it, but i would just deny it- what’s that smell? i don’t smell anything. i would gaslight her, saying everything was fine, and just stay in my room alllll the time. i barely spoke to callan- didn’t watch movies, didn’t hang out, didn’t talk, etc…

i feel fucking terrible about that, cuz i love Callan with all of my heart. Callan, I’m so sorry I couldn’t keep going, and that I broke everything up on my fall from grace. I love you, and I hope you’re able to live your life happily someday.

then manny died. then david got shot. and then, it was grandpa’s birthday. i just… snapped. i was done. i want out.

callan saved my life. we were talking about everything before she was going to drive up to colorado to see her family- her mother and stepfather- but ended up staying so she would be able to take me into the psych ward with my brother and my godfather.

i was there for four days. better? a little, i guess. i have a $4,000 dollar bill for that, and i couldn’t even sleep on those horrible fucking beds. there were a lot of great people there, though, and i hope they all do better than me.

i’m so tired, guys. i’m so sorry. callan and i are getting divorced. it’s my fault, ultimately. being gaslit and lied to for months on end while worrying about me, making sure that i eat and recover from surgery, and keeping the bills paid. i’ve been a terrible husband, and callan has been a saint.

i can’t pretend like i’m ok and then disassociate playing guitar for a few hours or watching anime or working on my car, or… anything. i’ve been running on fumes since i was a little kid when my mom made me pick up broken plates with my hands and cutting them up. i remember one time i dropped and broke a bowl around callan in our second apartment together, and i broke down bawling but could not figure out why. callan just held me, and i felt safe.

Hydraform: Sound Engineering Blog 1

   So tonight, l ran sound at Tempe Tavern. I enjoy running sound there quite a lot- it has a fine sound system, and enough microphones for almost every kind of band coming through the Tempe dive bar scene. I’d go into details, but hey, this is my first entry, and I think I should save some mysteries for later.  Suffice to say, I have drum microphones, instrument microphones, vocal microphones, and a couple DI’s. Add that to my  rack of amps, my speaker management system, and my mains, and it’s a pretty good start. The icing on the cake is the Presonus board that gets to be the brains of the outfit- and the wireless network that allows me to wander all over the tiny little room, so I have the experience and ability to notch out some of the room’s idiosyncrasies. 

   Anyways, long story short, I’ve got everything I need in arms reach. Given some of the places that I’ve run sound, I love this room. At a glance, it seems like a nightmare- concrete floors, concrete ceiling, a giant concrete column in the middle of the two mains. But you know what? It’s a fun room to mix! I love dialing it it in, and I love how Bryan, my friend and the head engineer for Tavern, has the default show set up on stage. At first, I was super against it- why in the world would ANYBODY braid XLR’s together to make ghetto snakes? Why not just pull out what I need, run the lines, and then tear down like normal? But then, a year later, I can close out a show in under 3 minutes, if the band is already clear, and that’s with a full count in of my microphones and gear.

   Tonight, though, tonight was different. I thought it would a pretty standard affair for a Wednesday night, three bands, a few liters of cranberry juice (no alcohol, I just really love the cranberry juice in bars, and hey, I don’t pay for it, sooooo…) and my usual meal, the BBQ Chicken Salad from the Great Beyond. Seriously, if you ever go to Tempe Tavern, do yourself a favourite, and get the BBQ Chicken salad, it is DIVINE. 

     My first two bands are pretty good- better than I was expecting for Wednesday night, if I’m being honest. I gotta say, I kinda dropped the ball with them. I was not at my peak performance as a sound guy for the first set, which I’m still pretty disappointed about. You see, I got into sound engineering, as a musician, to make up for those shoddy engineers that we’ve all dealt with- you know the ones, who mix you four beers in and then wander off and bitch at you when you ask for a little bit of keys and vocals in your monitors, only to run outside and smoke a cigarette for your whole set. Well, fuck those guys. But, I gotta say, I sucked for the first two bands tonight. 

   It wasn’t that I didn’t get a good front of house mix, it was that my monitor mix was rife with little mistakes- my gain structure needed a bit of tightening up, and frankly, I needed to work a lot harder on notching out the feedback on my monitors for all of the vocals in play. What I did do well, in my opinion, (which I *usually* do well on) were the guitars. I, not surprisingly, ADORE mixing guitars. Once I have my drums and my bass locked in, I get to work until I can hear both guitar clearly, and I spend the set following the leads and books. As a guitarist, I get to geek out and I get to practice where I place my microphones, and hear a enormous variety of guitar amplifiers and pedal boards.

   Eventually, the first two bands are done. I’m getting antsy, mostly because I’ve had two hours of sleep, and frankly, I just really wanted to get home. But you know what? I just wasn’t ready. Really, I wasn’t. I mean, as a sound engineer, it was a pretty simple project. 1 guitar, 1 bass, 1 freaking huge drum set (which, sadly, I didn’t have enough microphones for, so I end up mic’ing the kick, snare, and the middle three toms. Sidenote, I’m really excited to working at Rogue so I can start practicing with overheads and high hat microphones!), and three vocals up front.

   Alright, 4 piece band, I think to myself. This will be ok, as I look at the Mesa 212 cab, happy that it’s not another half stack in a tiny little reflective room that I can have my vocals compete with. I’ve got a Galien Kruger short bass stack, with a direct out, but it’s not a 8x10 Ampeg cabinet that shakes the walkway to Walmart, 5 miles away. Well, what I’m getting at is that my first experience with the band is great- their gear is matched for the venue they’re playing. I ADORE that, because when I don’t have to freak out about the stage volume for a band, and it’s not a levels competition, do you know what I get to do? I get to mix. I get to actually sit down (or stand, or walk around the room, or whatever) and pull out the best and clearest sounds I possibly can, to polish the live sound of this group of awesome dudes from another state of mind and physical realm. 

   I run through my normal line check, streamlined since it’s the last band of the night- I just need to see signal, essentially, and then I’ll have them run through a chorus and tell me what they’re missing in their monitors, or what they need removed, etc… it’s basically a 2 minute jam to make sure the rest of the set runs great. And you know what happens first? Their singer, clearly unhappy with my failure to clear the feedback for the previous bands, SCREAMS as loud as he possibly can when I get to his line check. The energy is palpable, at this point, and I take the opportunity to notch the fuck out his vocal and we get the feedback cleared. He swings the microphone in front of the monitor. Hell, he points it directly at the cone. And you know what? We’ve cleared the feedback, and everybody that is left in the room is paying attention. Oh, also, this is the part where I can tell that it’s going to be a fun set.

    We finish the line check, I ask them to play me a chorus- my usual fare, as it lets me see a band at high energy, more often than not. What I’m not expecting, however, is the majesty that this band produced at my inquiry. They launch into a chorus- equal parts Lamb of God, Gojira, System of a Down, Mastodon, Between the Buried and Me, and pretty much every metal band that I have loved in ages; but with their own magic, their own style, and I'm in love. I’m floored, and this is before their set even starts. Needless to say, I key in super fast while they’re playing, and I make sure every single nuance of this band is crystal clear. In the years that I've run sound, I find that I mix the best when 

    They announce themselves when I give them the all clear. They are Hydraform, a metal outfit from Denver, Colorado, and is Tempe, Arizona ready? Clearly, as my jaw had not yet returned from my prone stance at the short chorus I had heard, I was not ready. But I hopped back over to my lights, and prepared for one of the best shows I’ve seen at Tempe Tavern. 

     Hydraform, in a word, was enthralling. To the point that I’ve begun this blog to capture their magic, and here I am, unable to describe with words the experience that has been shared with me. They were an amalgam of all of my favourite aspects of heavy metal and hard rock- crystalized into this tight, fascinating gem. I would do them a disservice to continue speaking of them. But… fortunately, I am a somewhat capable sound engineer, and by the end of their set, they were happy enough with my skills that they gifted me a copy of their album “Dark Adder”. Suffice to say, the album is going to be on repeat for me in the very near future, and I am going to be spreading the word as much as I can about this band. They were incredible. In all seriousness, I would rank their performance up there with my major label experiences- it was a dynamic, emotional rollercoaster, and I cannot wait to see them again.

Here’s their Facebook page 

https://www.facebook.com/hydraformband/

and some of their videos-

https://www.facebook.com/hydraformband/videos

Anyways. I’m a sound engineer and a guitarist. I love music. I think I’m gonna start writing about it. 

Here we are, blog 1. The Hydraform, my new favourite band, from Denver, Colorado.

Twenty fourth proof of my existence: Life as it stands

I'm in a band, now. I'm still working at Zia. It's gone up and down, but I think I might actually stay there. I mean, I'm not entirely happy, but it's a solid job and I enjoy spending time with my coworkers.

I'm still lonely, but I'm thinking about different ways to change that. It's nice having the money to survive, too. For the past two months, I've covered rent entirely on my own. I guess that's a huge reason that I'm not unhappy about staying at Zia, 'cause it's cool to know that I can survive on my own- the uncertainty of changing jobs would be rough on my not-yet-established self reliance.

All things considered, I think that I would do better if I found a job that was closer, but I think that I might be able to manage if I can save up for a car and go that route. That way, I can start doing more sound gigs around town, and while I build up that set of skills, I can see about actually recording and getting back in contact with Ralph.

I have been thinking about going to MCC and enrolling. I don't know how things will pan out, but I'm tired of not being in school- I miss having people to spend time with, day by day, that are interested in the same things as I am. Plus, it sucks knowing that most of the other sound engineers that I know have much more knowledge than I do- I'm completely out classed, and I'd really like a chance to make my shows sound as good as they possibly can.

I have been dreaming a lot, too. Dreams of Denise, and Olivia, even a dream about Vic. It's not surprising, considering this is longest that I've been single before I started dating, but it stings, too. I don't even know where to start when it comes to my concept of love. I've thought about my past relationships, and I've always been so... self centered. I don't think that I have ever been "in love", at this point. I think that I've fallen into something very similar, but there's so much more for me to find. Is it possible to be in love with somebody that you've never met? To be in love with the idea of a person?

Maybe I'll have more dreams that will help me figure this out.

Twenty third proof of my Existence: On the Future

No constraints. No limits. The only difference between my present and my ideal future is the amount of effort and patience that I've used.

I'm working at Zia Records. I've wanted to work there since the first time that I ever laid my eyes on the store's interior; I'm guessing that I was around 13 years old, but I might have been closer to 15. I just remember walking in there and being assaulted by so much music that I stumbled around in awe, and decided that I'd work there in the future. Fortunately, I did not forget this thought, and when I had an opportunity to jump on employment there, I did. The best part? I have left work with a smile every single day.

I'm beginning to create a sense of discipline in myself. Having to keep a schedule, unsurprisingly, is helping me stick to the plans that I write out. It's not foolproof, of course, but I'm keeping more of my momentum and losing less to laziness. I found an 11 week discipline journal through my friend Perry; it is giving me a numerical representation of who I'd like to be. That is to say, having mapped out what my "ideal" self would complete within a nearly perfect day, I can then measure myself against what I'd wish to become. It's somewhat difficult for me, because I'd like to hold myself to high standards, and it stings knowing that after I have finished a day, my ideal has stayed so far ahead of me. However, the reverse of this is taking in the knowledge of my self discovery as far as bad faith goes- knowing that I'm not performing to the best of my ability is helping me to strive towards that goal.

Lately, I've been feeling particularly lonely. I've been working a lot, with next to no internet connectivity AND no phone. So while I can socialize at work, it is much more difficult to organize anything after work. I guess it's not really a /i/bad/i/ thing, seeing as though I feel more self reliant when I'm alone (fitting in well with my goal of self discipline), but it's starting to feel as though (forgive how whiny this sounds?) there's nobody paying attention to me. More often than not, I'm alone to my thoughts and whatever task I'm participating in. It's striking to me, really, because for my entire life I've felt like there has been a spotlight on me, with almost all of my elders investing time in my existence, and now… I'm the only one that really has anything to do with it. I'm responsible for how I use my time, and it can either help me or hinder me.

So I planned out my 11 Week goals with that in mind. I've got responsibility and desire, and I have to battle my desire in order to raise myself up to the needs of my responsibilities. Obviously, guitar is the most important thing, so I broke that up into "physical practice" and "mental practice". I've spent a lot of time focusing on the physical side of guitar playing, so I've lowered the amount of points that I get for doing that and raised the amount from mental practice. Beyond that, I'm deciding to work on various things that I have wanted to be active in. I'm aiming to actually brush my teeth, to work out regularly, to cook new meals, and to raise my general level of activity around my apartment. In essence, I'm using these goals as a guide towards what I would consider "adulthood".

It's complicated, though. At this point in my life, this responsibility isn't going to leave me. In the past, my sense of duty has come and gone, swaying with the events of whatever my current predicament has been, but now! Now it's a matter of my entire future. I've never felt so much pressure to perform at my best. I can't give my future self the struggle of knowing that my past was all in vain. I want to look back, years in the future, and know that all of the shit that carved me into who I am was actually worth the carving. To know that I am worth something and there's a reason that I wasn't able to kill myself. I can look towards these things with the strictness of my philosophical beliefs, or I can dissect it into my personal symbolism, the "shadow" of my being as Jung would call it; between my yin and yang, I'm finding out what is actually worth my time.

I read my tarot cards, today. I've never really shared them with anybody before, and I am not planning on sharing them, either. It has been a very long time since I've pulled them out; I only answer my questions with them when they call to me. In this case, it's because I've been dreaming about people that I haven't met. I'm watching the bricks to my future fall into place, my cobblestone path slowing developing before me. So in a way, I feel like I needed to read my cards as a tether to this transient and ambiguous greater reality. I can't say that it's truth or the future or anything beyond the probability of which cards find me, but I also cannot deny the intuitive essence, the spiritual resonance, that I feel when my cards are in my hands. I inherited my tarot decks when my mother passed, and in a way, I feel like they are how my mother can share her voice with me again. Imagination, spirituality, and fate; no matter what they are in reality, my experience of them is inherently valuable- to me.

I'm terrified of the hurdles in front of me. I can't afford to stop and quit.

So I'll keep walking forward. Hopefully the bricks will keep being laid in front of me.

If not, I think I'll have to place them there myself.

Twenty Second proof of my existence: On Existing

My existence is a constant struggle against accepting my past and preparing for my future.

I can't say that I'm happy to be here. I find single moments, on occasion, or very rarely, a sequence of moments, that make everything worthwhile; but for the most part, I'm extremely unhappy. It's not so much that I reminisce, more so that I dwell on the past. There are things in my past that I'd much rather forget and move on from, not to mention the thoughts that I'd like to escape.

It sometimes feels like there's another person inhabiting my body, just living to sabotage my entire future, working their way in, one momentary decision at a time, and frankly, I'm both accepting and rejecting this individual every time one of these moments comes up. It's cliché, but I almost as if I'm some kind of walking contradiction, a paradox of success and failure and a disarray of useless thoughts compiled in this mass of poorly developed ideas. I wonder how I've survived this long just about every day, frankly, and with a past rife in suicidal behaviours, I don't think it's unwarranted.

This leads me into some of the biggest questions that I have for the universe. What is fate? What is predestination? Is it possible for free will to exist within the framework of fate? Is fate the same thing as determinism? Do I have a destiny, and if so, do I have any control over it? And perhaps most importantly, can I someday be happy?

Because I'm tired of waking up, minutes before my alarm, talking to friends in my dreams about how inauthentic my reality is. I think it's time to transcend my past, to evolve into the person that I wish I was.

I exist. My past does not, anymore. So why is that such a difficult truth for me to accept?

Twenty first proof of my existence: On Creativity

So a few moments ago, I decided that I was going to write this.  I sat simply, my legs careening over the edge of my bed; my mind blank. That is to say, my decision was made, but I had absolutely no idea what to discuss. This got me thinking, brainstorming what exactly I should write about- and I started to realize that I do similar things (in so far as the act of brainstorming goes) whenever I'm trying to create something.

It's not a clear process by any means- decidedly not, even. It's vague and nebulous and requires this sense of being lost, like the first time a child becomes separated from their parent in a bustling, emotionally vacant mall. When I'm creating something, I grope around the back of my mind for a thread, just the skeleton of an idea. With this thread, I find my outline, and from there, I break it into the parts that create it- be they ink, sounds, or just future plans- and then I see if I can figure out how to improve them.

In many ways, I think that this is another form of bad faith in my life, because I often do not finish drawing the outline. I think my best examples are with music and drawing- I've got something like 30 separate little snippets of songs, and I'm still not fleshing them out and then I've got 3 or 4 drawings that I've started, but never worked on a second time. It's not that I don't think about it, but I... I get bored of it, and I move on to something else, and the boredom of completion becomes an unseen vision, the sense of future-past without clarity of dejà vu. So I'll look to them, but can't remember what I wanted them to be.

On rare days, I'll be in the middle of a task, but I'll be zoning out, lost in a labyrinth of thoughts- when inspiration strikes. I've noticed that it's frequently when I'm thinking about anything that I'm either extremely emotional about or quite apathetic about, rather than just random thoughts. Regardless, I am struck unaware with a burst of thought in the middle of of the textile's creation, and it is of better quality than most of my other ideas. There's form to these ideas, and it's these that I'm more adept at finishing. It's different, though, than my ordinary process, because I usually cannot just "work" on them in the sense that I just improve the separate parts of the idea, and I'm constantly waiting for another strike of inspiration.

I think my point is that with some discipline, I can start bringing the first realm of ideas, the threads, into the realm that the inspired ideas are in- I just need to finish the outlines, and continue fleshing them out. But... it needs to be when I start. Either that, or I need to learn how to work on my old projects.

Twentieth proof of my existence: On living conciously

Now that class is over, and I've taken a small moment to really browse over my thoughts, I think I've found some of my biggest flaws in my current state of mind when compared to my ideal state of mind.

The biggest one, the most daunting hurdle to my ascent into a lucid existence, is discipline. I must say, discipline is not something that I have a great deal of practice in. For much of my life, I've skirted by in almost every task by completing the bare minimum, taking a sort of pride in this half-planned personal obsolescence; my lack of effort while still maintaining results was my goal, that is, a balance between lazy and successful. But as I've grown, I'm starting to notice that there's no longer an excuse for that. By not having the discipline to maintain some form of active momentum in my achieving my goals, I'm practically taking one step forward and two steps back.

It's not to say that completely without discipline, however. I've made some large strides in my focus within the last few months, and I'm still making some progress. It's just frightfully slow, I guess.

Past discipline, is just the concept of self respect and self reliance. I'm quite prone to staying in, locking myself in my room, and just... melting away and forgetting about the outside world. In the past week, I've laid in my bed watching almost an entire day's worth of anime. I forget to eat, and avoid taking care of myself. Even with this knowledge, I still find it extremely difficult to break out of the habit. I think this is one of the stronger habits that I formed in the past few years, though it isn't as prevalent during my periods of activity when compared to my lack of discipline.

So for now, I believe that my next goal would be to work on taking these thoughts and actually taking the thought into the realm of action. It's one thing to know that I'm slacking off; it's another thing entirely to stop doing it.

I think Kierkegaard said it best:

"But the present generation, exhausted by its deceitful efforts, relapses into total indolence. Its condition is that of one who has only fallen asleep towards morning: first of all come great dreams, then a feeling of laziness, and finally a witty or clever excuse for staying in bed."

I would love to disagree with him, here. I'd love to say that I'm doing everything that I can to reach my grandiose and bold moves for the betterment of myself and society... but right now, it's 4:36 in the morning, and I've yet to go to bed. More than likely, I'm going to wake up and roll over, take a shower, and go back to bed.

This is my life, for now- I'm working on changing it one action at a time.