New Year's Resolutions: If They Weren't Cliche, No One Would Do It

This year is going to be a good test of my self discipline. Forget new years resolutions and there implications with cliche and loftiness, this year's fate was decided in November, and perhaps even before that. I signed up for a number of college courses, seeing that I needed to catch up to college level courses for one, and move on with my life for two. The busy next couple of months will be a testament to disciplines that I both learned in the Army and am willing to learn now. Among the 24 total units to be taking from now till June, I also have baseball, a part-time job and a girlfriend who lives some two hours plus away, if you're hitting traffic at the right time. 

On top of the grueling school and baseball schedule, and next to the part-time job and long distance relationship is another set of self-discipline factors that will make this year interesting. I feel comfortable, at least for the moment in knowing that I'm poised in such a busy time to achieve goals that I have never really been able to accomplish. The first of which is one that I'm sad to admit, but one that I truly feel I can conquer. That is to follow a budget, near precisely. This has never been an issue for the past six years, as my income was often considered a disposable one. I would take money off the top for savings/retirement, whilst simply not worrying about the rest of the income and how much booze it could be spent on. Ah, military welfare how I miss you so.

The second thing, which was somewhat accomplished last year, was to not eat fast food. This of course has some caveats, In-n-Out Burger, Chipotle and Subway shouldn't count, and perhaps El Pollo Loco as well. This falls in line with the fact that I simply want to eat better all the time. I did a fairly decent job this past year with this sort of thing, but cutting out soda pop and lots of beer is going to be a focus amongst not giving into late night snacks at Jack in the Box or Taco Bell, only to feel like crap the next day, or directly after eating such garbage. 

The next things that I am going to accomplish this year is more or less one of those painted canvas signs every girl thinks is the cutest thing, as a sort of stream of consciousness on how to live one's life. These are not the main focus, but will be a concern of mine throughout the time when my ideals will still be in line with this form of thought. Though these sayings are vague in ways, they also should be considered more of a guideline than a rule, and a rule to guideline.

Wherever you are, be there with the one's you love, and connect with them not through a screen, but around campfires and dinner tables. Start your days watching the sunrise and end it in well after it falls. Create memories that cannot be measured in time or space but by loves seamless artistry. Find your passions and pursue them through there ends and yours. Become more curious and skillful at the simplest pleasures of life; reading, cooking and cuddling. Practice goodwill and generosity towards others. Find patience in mistakes, yours or someone else's. Find perspectives you can only find with an open mind, and don't get tangled in the stubbornness of others. Lead a life that is worth living and never stop once you have.

Cheers.

A Wealthy Live To Have Lived

Wealth I discovered, was in that moment. The sun was placing his glaze upon me as if he were a renowned chef flaming his creme brulee. I glistened in the profound happiness of the moment. It could've been prescribed in a painting at the Louvre, or the Christmas card you receive from your dearest Grandma. Clarity was oddly catalyzed by that luster of neither time nor space, but the clouds of heaven that gleamed upon the jump and joy of all which I found in that incredible affair. With this amazing situation at hand, I could not have allowed for it to sink in, until much later. This moment, the touch of it, is not one that most people will ever have the opportunity to experience. The wealth that was discovered therein was beyond any that gold, silver or diamonds could attain. No, this was wealth which could only be forged in the foundry of brotherhood using the ore of common experience with courageous actions in dire straights. 

Chaos had seen it's time, and it's time had been short. From out of nowhere came nothing, followed by everything. I was calmed by the need now and know how of the situation, always practiced, but never played. Nerves settling against the hard cold steel, the muscle tissues reacted. This was not the first time I had this sort of production, but certainly the first time I was responsible for the decisions that must be made. Adversities choke hold, with its easing knee pressing harder into the diaphragm, left the air barely reachable within the grasps of the mouth. Those sounds heard in such a moment are ones you will never forget. They ascend upon you like unseeable screeching eagles. Their shrieking pop is pure malice, staggering one in a way and exciting you in another. This finger painting, the mixing and matching of erratic colors, an uncontrollable fiasco, is suddenly given structure. Action as it were, a cure of this illness.

That hour, the same that it takes to boil an egg, was over. The years of brushing one's teeth, riding your bike, and taking out the trash has all been reprogrammed in that moment. You can never go back to that innocence, no matter want nor try. That pounding in the fires of the foundry, the wealth into the steel, is a look left. Then right. Everything that was done in that instant, beyond a shadow of a doubt, was done for that which stands on that left and right. They're called Brothers, but they go beyond flesh and blood. These men, those who've branded my life with their great deeds, are those who would put themselves at your side in the most uncertain of times. Times that stretch far beyond the touch of family, of friends, and even god. This is beyond privilege indeed, having known such men in my life. Having looked upon my left side to see them standing proud to have laid it all on the line for one another. Peering then to my right side, vastly humbled and beyond inspired to see them facing fears that would break most men. It is in this strength of camaraderie that I find a wealth that is beyond that of which I could ever have imagined. To have known these men, to know them today in this short time of mine, is in all consideration, to have lived the wealthiest of lives. 

Adjusting, the Green of Fall, the Loves of Life

It's a normal fall day, at least for this part of the country. It's dreary, there's damp air that cuts through your light jacket, and there's that whispering autumn breeze that tickles every part of exposed neck with a curious feather touch. It's not what you think though. The trees stand tall, excited for the first water they've seen in months. No summer showers around here, and instead of the normal dead which the name fall implies, there is a strange green in what should be reds, yellow, browns and deads. This fall, not the same as those I've grown accustomed too, they speak California in their disregard for my fondness of the season.

It's been nearly a year since I've returned to this state. It's often confusing to me why exactly I am here. The weather, while magnificent, is often overshadowed by the rush rush and impoliteness of a too full street, market... civilization. A lot has happened over the course of this year. I miss plenty of my once was life, but don't wish to be back in it. This state changes you as much as any other state does. It's been a year of me, for the first time in a long time. I'm the main character again in this production of life. Strange, almost unwanted at times.

I hate disappointing people. This causes conflict with the above regalia since decisions that place one's own needs before others often are unwanted and disappointing. I started school. And baseball. And a relationship. All commitments that I feel the need, the urgency to fulfill. Where all of these are for my own gain, to some end, they are all contradictory in some respects. Baseball is a great deal of time out of my schedule. Five, even six, days a week and I'm often feeling too old to be back on that grind, but it's what I've wanted to do since forever ago. It interferes with these other two things. I could easily do more school work if I didn't have such a time commitment, and to my lovely girlfriend I often can't spend time that I otherwise could. This creates a dilemma in my life, but one I don't really need to solve. There is no solution, no path that I wish to take. I want to play baseball for many reasons, along with share my life with someone, and graduate from school.

The solution is impeccable time management. Juggling of life's responsibilities, this qaugmire continues to be the despair of us all. My expectations are like the fall at this point. I've grown accustomed to the way things were and the way they're supposed to be, forgetting that they aren't and I'm not. It's an important lesson to remember, and I'm glad that today, this brisk autumn sleeper decided to stumble out of bed and pour itself a large cup of java.

In Your Dreams

It was there. You held it. You know it's weight. It's feeling. It permeated you as it did me. Years of hope and wonderment, lost and gone in the eye of the beholder. I was fine with it, but now I'm not and it hurts the most when the sun hides on the other side of things. If you could just listen too, see too, hear it, you'd know. Something you'd never know. Something you'd never known. It's possible. 

Yet here we sit, opposite sides of the world. Till you're blue in your face, till I'm sick of it too. A sliver, a slice you give to me. I was beyond it, but the possibilities you show me shine like diamonds in the deep blue sky. I'm mesmerized, can't get them off my mind. Can't get you off my mind. It's as good for me as it is bad. There's something special there, has been always. To deny it is to be labeled insane. I know you know it too. Don't fight it, just feel it.

Nothing beautiful happens instantly. The birth of a star, a bloom of a flower, all can attribute to factors happening for what can be a chain of events that cannot be controlled. Despite the peril of a starved flower for sun or rain, does the clouds pour and leave. Water and sunshine show and so the flower grows. I'm not a regular John, never have been, never will be. Open up your eyes, and let the flowers bloom.

Halfway, all the way, someway is a way. Don't focus the obstacles you create for yourself. Like me, you over think, over want, over need. The heart tells the truth. Sometimes even in a half one. Until it's exhausted, don't let that beat of it slip away. Do what you can to preserve it, or you'll have nothing left to preserve but the regret of what was and could have been. 

Where have you gone, little girl?

Have Another Cigarette

When thought about, it's not complicated. But it plays on itself and makes it harder than I could've imagined. Like a drug, I'm addicted knowing full in well that it's not good for me. You, I continue to want to come back to. You didn't treat me right, but I suppose those feelings are mutual. I didn't hold up, but at this time, I'm just not me.

The shade of who I was lingers, and I'm a kid again. Discipline all lost, all gone. My perspective changes rapidly and I'm disappointed with myself. I fell into the trap that society so easily springs and I'm just another lost soul. The truth is, you can't do things for yourself. If you truly do, you're an asshole. You're living life by your stakes and claims and to others, it goes beyond rudeness.

You have to have a reason, a muse a purpose to change. Sometimes that's within yourself. Mine is on that level to a degree, but I've always and probably will always be inspired by others to be better. Not just those who I know and don't want to disappoint, but people who I don't know. People who I have never met. I believe in being good to others. Being righteous because of the idea of bettering the world. I have lost sight of that. Hope, flushed from beyond a last grasping reach. I'm stuck here now, unmotivated to be any different, any better than what I am now because it doesn't pay. It doesn't pay to be unselfish. It doesn't pay to try and be a good person. Is that something that I want to believe? Certainly not, but I can't even describe how upset I have always been when I've been the good guy, and it only got me last place.

I'm different now, I don't like myself. I'm everything I used to hate about guys. And yet, it's successful. It moves you ahead. Probably only in the short term, but the immediacy that we so crave and depend upon nowadays, there isn't much romance in playing the waiting game. Patience, the most important virtue can't be one because we refuse to believe in manifestation of such ideals. It's not now. It's not good. We're all beyond ourselves. The Facebook, the instagram, the text messaging. It's all so quick. It's all so on the spot. We stress ourselves out because we don't get a response. We create the worst worries in our heads and it leads to doubt and tribulation. We had it good and we gave it away for instant gratification. I'm as much bought into this new way of living as anyone. Perhaps more so than some and less than others, but no different. No better.

There was this idea of who I wanted to be. Who I worked at being. I wasn't rich. I was wealthy. A wealth of ideals and boldness. Of family and friends. Of romance and genuineness. In taking care of those in need and placing others before myself. I latched onto comedy, a laugh, a smile, my expense, your pleasure. I kept the inspirational self going to become a better person. A better me. But what ideas and why did I follow this path? I felt that one of the most important things to do was to be decent to others. Manners and heart felt gestures were what I wished all of us, myself firstly could live to be. That's a vision that's blurred and died off with the hope that fades on humanity and those who I have had faith in. This shouldn't deter me from being that person. That person who I truly am, but it certainly is a cruel and grueling test to face.

I was meant to do something great. I believe that whole heartedly. I have been given to many chances at life not to continue to impact those who I meet in some sort of profound way. I have done that in the short over years of leading young men and must not lose focus on the lack of gratification in the immediacy of what I do now. A sign, read years ago in one of the places where I learned the most read, "An obstacle is what you see when you take your eye of your goal." The obstacles that keep challenging me, must not be my focus. It is necessary to remain focused on my goals. And that's to be a better person, a better me.


...i sit at home and wonder why, oh i will never be free...

Missing, I Begin to Appear Missing

I can't say I know, or even pretend to. It's not there, but should be. The romanticism that I once found to be all it was about, is not romantic anymore. It's sad, it's rejection, it's a vampire in the mirror. My image is missing. It shouldn't be, but it's hide and seek with no winner. The hope is running and I'm walking behind it. Love isn't always fair and certainly isn't always there. You fake it till you make it, until making it is just faking it.

I'm out of control. I'm not myself lately, but I know who I want to be. I know who I was. I'm missing. In so many ways. I can't be this wait. Won't be this way. I say things that aren't who I am. Who I don't want to be. I deeper sleep into unconsciousness and can't wake. Excuse isn't excuse if there is a no to do. There's plenty to do. I scratch at the coffin top, an attempt to break free of the grave I've dug. It's budging, but just so much as to keep me interested. I'm torn apart, splitting myself in two.

I open up, and I need you. That's my selfish decree, lesser than yours and greater than yours. It isn't fair, and the maturity you'll learn in the next year will be as much as I learned in twenty minutes. Different extremes, but ideology that smells and feels the same. I clutch the slipping grasp of things to come. I use both hands but still struggle. The piano plays and my eyes shut. You're leaving. You're leaving me. I spin around expecting a look back. It's not there and never was. I chase you in my dreams and always have. You're everything I wanted you to be, just not yet.

Not everything that goes around comes around. I check my chest just in case. The vacuum of my heart sucks it all in. The bus stop, I wait for you to get off, to tell me differently. How could have things been so dumb. How could have it gotten so complicated. Not questions, but statements. Trivial is the pursuit of love by yourself because it's always two sided. You disguise it as you believe it needs to be, but your promises of compromise are just a degradation of oneself. Just letting go is the ability to face one less fear. You're on the downhill slide with the uphill speed. 

You keep things rolling, and rediscover who you discovered you were long ago. It's slow and fast and before you know it's there. It's here. Keep your eyes peeled, your mind will tell you when you're again reeled. Trust the danger and hold your breath. It isn't anymore, is never was, but someday, the same faith in God prevails as the same faith in you. It's fairytale, and your heart is stolen from the ominously strange affair of up and down. 

I hope, one day, I'm someone you'd met

Itch and Scratch Get's It, Oooh La La

A direction, a road to be traveled lies in weight. The situation, my own cursed mind doesn't mind. The course I wander at this point across path after path of possibility, of future. Stuck on top of the chain link fence, a matter of time before my belt loop breaks. A direction at that point, I certainly will head.

To defy gravity is too dismiss the rules. For that you have to be willing to let them all go, and still hit the ground. That then includes hitting the ground and not allowing it to suddenly stop you. At this point you're going to break through to the sky. Inside out becomes your upside down, or even worse, you're alive and not breathing.

To be successful is the ability to be subjective beyond all attempts at subversion. One man's trash is one's reality. You speak in the lies of this or that is important based on what you find moral, ethical or just cool. You've been exposed, predisposed into this now disposition of the mind and heart. Breaking that cycle is like leaping into a bottomless pit and knowing that it's bottomless. I used to believe in people more than most people ever could, ever have. That truth, that trust slips ever gradually between the holes in my grasp and it waters the garden of the seeds of tastelessness I've been succulently enjoying along with you. Faith in others, a rarely achieved expectation met is an avenue for success that's been detoured for years. I search through this torn soul, snipping the threads busted of inseam and buttons gone, cutting my fingers on the jagged zippers hoping that truths again become evident, that hope is the pivotal unlock in the keyhole of success to open the door of beyond ourselves.

We are a generation just the same as all those who came before. We pray for the younger to come while we prey for the older who went before. I pray for my own generation, for myself these days. Personal touch firstly and influence secondary. How many nights of sleep will it take to dream, to see a world bettered and with my imprint, my gallant impression upon it. If only isn't the decree of my battle flag. It isn't the catch phrase of my generation, but everyone seems to be saying it. To be a success in this matter is an over calculation on my part. Subjectively and personally, what if success is the ability to decide what you want to be when you grow up, and despite the cunning of your change of mind, or of that which influences, sex, drugs, money, you simply keep sails up and maintain course with the drive and tenacity to carry out through whatever you storm even knowing such a commitment may cost you to wreck. And perhaps, it's the exact opposite of that.

Live a life you deserve to have lived, by deserving to live it.

I Don't Know What Time It Is

I wake up, nearly a million times in the night. The turmoil, the decisions having even their gross affect in my dreams. It's become routine. Regret on the cusp of opportunities wasted. Of time lost. The amount given up is beyond what I ever thought it could've been. I'm reminded by as little as a smell sometimes, and it makes the hurt that much more.

A constant is said to me, and I still don't believe it. "Do what makes you happy." I'm not even sure what that is. Because it's always said to me when I'm making the decision to do what makes me happy. If that involves someone else, so be it. "You deserve better," is a poor cop out. That's an ideology that I try not to harbor. You have to understand what you're blessed with, not what you think you could be blessed with.

I gave my life away. The hour glass of life is running low on sand. It's not something you can just flip over and do again. You have to fight through the sand to get what you want. If you're willing to fight for it, is to give your heart, your time away. That's precious. But can you mend the broken heart? Can you bandage the hurt and act like it was never there? You don't sleep because of it. Can you love because of it?

The convenient thing always gets you killed. Easy roads were meant to be traveled by the weak. I'm strong, taken on a lot in my life, but at some point you need a break. You need someone to be there. It won't be who you expect it will. The person you think will be there for you, they'll leave you in your time of need. They, who can give the advice they can so easily take themselves, will do what makes them happy. And when that's not you, it's devastating isn't it.

It's already been four months since I've been back home, and it still doesn't feel that way. It feels a lot of what the world I came from felt like. Temporary. At least in training or deployments. I had a home. I had friends. I even had family. I had happiness. Now I have question marks, and sleepless nights. Fairytales, they're not true. They must not be, because the biggest of believers in them, doesn't want to live it.

It's not the answers that I'm looking for, it's the questions.


...the leaves to rake up...

Hit Me Like A Hammer, To My Head

I took my eye off of it for a split second, it was gone. The prize in the eye of the beholder had vanished. There in it's glory and beauty, and gone in it's brutality. I doubled over. Couldn't breathe. I staggered like a wounded animal, holding myself up on whatever was available. I frantically called for air that could not be found.

I don't want it to end. I don't want it to die. Not like this. Irrational thoughts invoked by alcoholic demons raced forth from the darkest wretches of my own soul. How long had it been since I hadn't had a drink. Since I had thought clearly. Identity questioned itself in the mirror. Who was I, and what was I becoming. A fragment, a sliver, a catastrophe. My perfection of thine self began it's slow crumbling as I watched it go. Wasting it, wasting it, wasting it. It's wasting me.

I crept behind the man slowly. He had no idea I was there. Knife drawn, sweat holding silent on my brow. My breath trembled, then steadied. I stabbed him in the back. He fell to the ground, motionless. I kicked him on his front. Staring at the man I had once been lying there. Staring at the man I was becoming standing there. Losing focus on the way. This vast knowledge of the world and the lack of years lived to understand it. It caught me up. Time, not my friend, neither yours.

It's the two constants; self-discipline and perspective. Mastery I had been working at in both, but never found them consistently. Do I have them now? Can I have them now? If I work hard enough, believe hard enough, it will all fall in place. It's saying no to the easy yes'. It's letting all that's dear to you go. Let it free. Release it to release yourself. It always works out in the end. It's always better that way. Trust the experience, trust the instinct. Cast emotions to the wind and look down from a new angle. Trust it. Swing it. Being strongest at the weakest time is the test right? There's only pass. Confidence through self-discipline leads to new perspective. It's so easy, so do it.


the hardest things I've done in my life have always proven to be well worth my struggle with them, in some fucked up way or another

Till You All Just Disappear

My mouth tells lies most call truths. I hear truths that were told as lies. Denial kicks the bucket out from under you and before you know it you're swept up, caught up in the web of growing up. It's a slow process, from beginning to end. A lifetime for most is never enough to grasp or comprehend it all. Perhaps no one ever has.

It's the perspective that changes, and changing it is your best tool. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as it's known is unbecoming of it's own name. It has nothing to do with disorder. It has to do with time. Realistically we place a name on it so that we can treat it as that simpleness can afford to be treated. It isn't drugs, it isn't therapy, it isn't a dog or some cheap filler that helps you through this. In all senses of it, it's explainable only as my best attempt to further understand myself as I can muster. Right now.

Time is the enemy here. There's plenty of time. Years go by through your life. You skin your knees playing bounce ball in fifth grade. You kiss your first girl when you switch from velcro to laces on your shoes. You learn how to masturbate. You get laid. You go to college. You buy a car. You love and lose. You experience life. It grows you. With combat, that luxury is taken away from you. Taken away at a young age. You condense twenty years of living into a year, a week, a day or even a moment.

I cry during the National Anthem. I cry thinking about friends. I dream about terrible things that are talked candidly about when watching a movie or playing a video game. I'm no longer fit for the world at my age. I'm closer to 60. That's the PTSD, it's time travel. It's experience that isn't handled in as few a years as I've lived. I lie the truths you think you should hear. I 'play' to my age. The fact of the matter is that there isn't a drive that should be there. I'm ready to cut the grass, twiddle my thumbs and sneak a drink of scotch when the old lady thinks I'm just organizing my garage again.

I have done a vast amount of little in my life...

Amazement In Which We Fascinate; Amor

We lie to ourselves in so many different ways. We are compelled to do so. It helps us stay happy. Retain a sense of pride. When we humble ourselves, doubt is created. It's fierce in it's reproach, hovering like a starving vulture awaiting your last defenses to be lost by your weakening body so it can rip, claw and tear you to shreds. The brain is a powerful thing, with the ability to dream of joy and nightmare of sorrow.

There is only one emotion that has the semblance of being both good and bad. Love. It drives us to do crazy things that can result in both euphoria as well as retribution. It's the hardest emotion to control. A wild horse that can throw even the most skilled of riders at anytime. It's perhaps this way because to truly feel it, to truly know it, is to give away the power of it. Placing it in someone or something, giving them the power of controlling you.

"If you love something, set it free; if it comes backs it's yours, if it doesn't, it never was," says any Proverb, or particularly in this case, Richard Bach. Is that love? Perhaps it's an emotion that doesn't have a vernacular explanation. There isn't a poet or artist that can truly define it in song, poem or any other piece of art. It's not only terribly tough to explain, it's extremely tough to know you feel it. It kind hide behind other emotions or be confused with one's like happiness, greed or even the actions of lust. Bach has a point, but one that is only seen from a particular perspective. There is not a definite in this universe except for the human wonderment and astonishment in what we believe to be true or the possibility of truth. We find reason and explanation constantly. Justification to our own wrong doings. History tells us, accepted ideals continued to be enlightened to further, newer, accepted ideals.

The world turns.

So, in all the years that we have figured out all of this, we still haven't pin-pointed love. It's nature often like an evil witch dangling quid pro quo over our ability to walk on land or having enchanting mermaid-esque voice. Yes, I've been on The Little Mermaid ride at Disneyland and did enjoy it. I digress. I have loved and lost. Continue to love everyday. Have fallen into and out of it. It's a spiderweb in an un-winable maze at times where you can not only be stuck, but lost. The truth of it is, to truly love, to know the depth of the emotion is the ability to go beyond yourself. It's the ability to do anything, even the no can do for that person, idea or thing. The depth of love can reach so deep that we see it between those who would cut their ears off in proof, to those who will have a relationship with drugs so deep that they will kill themselves with the love for their self-abdication of life.It drives us. It leads us. It deceives us as well as addicts us. It's not always healthy, but we will lie as hard as we can to believe it. It makes us feel alive nearly as an immortal on top of the world, above the clouds with nothing to lose. Adversely it can cut the feel of sunshine on your face, the spirit to go on from your soul, and make you feel as dead as yesterday.

With all this, not all-inclusive in such a vastly and robust subject, what is my definition of love. It's simple. I lie and tell the truth, or perhaps merely don't understand fully yet or ever, but my best attempt is; 

Love is being the sunshine, the rain and the soil so that whoever or whatever you love can reap in what you sew.

Change Is Gonna Come

I don't know who you are, but you were in my dreams last night. The setting I chose to meet you in was exceptional. Crisp clear day with the sun just nestling into it's midday position. This allowed the hat you wearing to shade your face. I couldn't see your eyes through your designer glasses, even if they were knock off. Even though I had never seen you before in my life, you graciously walked up and placed an assuring hand on my shoulder. Strange you were asking for a menu from the bar I was sitting at, but it spoke in woes to me.

This sort of thing doesn't just happen everyday. I could recognize some certain something about you to find nameless in my vocabulary. I was much older in my dream, and was searching for something. Something that you brought. Warmth, comfort, compassion, smarts. It was you who settled the tremors of my soul. The conversation we carried, the obvious narrative of my subconscious, though not remembered, awoke something within. It was the conversation, the situation I did not want to awake from. Could not awake from. I had to know, had to see it your way. Needed to hear what you were going to say.

I woke up feeling free from what I've done and seen. That I could forget if I wanted to. That my problems, weren't trivial and my solutions were going to be grand. The door you cracked open for me, and the light is shining through.

The adversity has to be adversely met. Just don't wash away with the rain.

I struggle disappointing people. It's my biggest fear that I will let someone down. Let myself down really. The dream that you came to me in. I slept through my alarm. Slept through an obligation. Guilt, it's normal routine of setting in began. But the more I realize it, the more I realize you're right. I was supposed to be there with you. There with myself. Selfish and needy. This is the way I should think. That's the light through the door. To be normal is to place yourself before others. This ideology of course makes me feel sick. But when that's the way that everyone else in this world is, why not just conform?


...i think i think too much...

A Pacific Manifested Breeze

The transition is tougher than I had expected. Firstly, you will never have the same respect for those who you served with as when you are no longer around them. They encompass the true meaning of friend. No matter how close a friend they were, they could drop whatever they were doing and help you out. There at very few friends like this here on this side that would do the same.

Waiting for the bottom to drop out is the feeling. It's confusing, because its happiness. I've promised myself twice to never let a woman or money get in the way of a decision, and yet here I am breaking my own rules. This happiness, something that's sort of new is jeapordized when this sort of decision is made. I keep my composure as best as I can, knowing full in well I am in the best driver seat of the best car I have ever driven. My life should be an easy cruise from here. No amount of stress that hasn't tested me already will ever test me again.

It's this new awkward happiness that has me scratching my head. What to do with it. Where to go with it. I'm in unfamiliar territory, and should be happy idly waiting by. Standing on the shores of truth, the vastness of answers lies in front of me. The willingness to tread water has been my only way about it, and I ponder of that's somehow forsaken me. Have I learned too much? Know too much about myself and the life I have lived to be normal?

For the first time in six years I don't have to report to anybody. I've achieved the freedom I fought for. There is no doubt in my mind that all will be for the best, but there is a cloudy road down the path of options that I must choose from. I have but one thing to learn, and that's how to be more selfish. This ideology is adopted by so many people, and though I detest it the same as most people detest those who care of vanity and their looks, I must understand that to find true personal happiness is to be truly selfish. Not because there isn't immense pleasure in helping others, and the satisfaction that comes along with of doing good beyond oneself. It's that when its your time, when your chips are down, the expectations you have of someone being like you will not be met but only rarely if ever. So become the center of the universe, care not about your actions and their affects on others. This discourse is one that is so common place, following it may in fact make me 'normal.'

My happiness lies within change. And I am a constant of that. To wonder how good men turn bad is a direct correlation to their willingness to give up in the face of adversity that is recklessly overwhelming. To think the system can be changed, is perhaps to claim insanity.


...stay calm and return fire...

Bury Me Softly

How does one translate, articulate and divulge the transgressions of their life when it's encompassed things beyond their intellectual capacity? The levy is going to break. There are very few people who can understand me better than I know myself. Realization has unfortunately eliminated a once constant in that category. A failure to understand myself, or at least be able to organize the semblance of who I have become is of some concern as it subtlety drives a wedge in between myself and others.

I felt normal for the first time in a little over a month. After returning from Austria, I had gone into a bit of a tailspin. Nothing out of control, but the feelings that normal people have, I could not muster. Apathy my greatest tool in war has become a mindset that sometimes sneaks up and is hard to shake. In years past, perhaps I play that part that I'm expected to play, say the things I'm expected to say. No one knows the wiser narrative I live. I become part sociopath. It kicks, it shakes away, but never scheduled, never expected. It's there. Then it's gone.

The causes as best as I can tell are from some sort of change in my normal routines and behaviors. In this case, living conditions. There's very few that I would ever let in on this typically. But it's about time to air it out. Let everyone see my dirty laundry, my secret, my self-grievance. I've been going about it wrong. Typically this admission, which has only been made to that few that could, would or want to understand is received with respect, discretion and empathy. Recently, I let someone in. Cast my shadow aside. It didn't make me special. At least not to them. A your problem in a my problem kind of world that we all so sadly get caught up in. The singe of being burned when the soul is so open is a painful reminder of why wearing your heart on your sleeves is such an up and down love hate love affair. The honesty, we're not used to it. It scares us, scares me when I cut you in.

It's feelings of losing your sovereignty that might be the strongest. Or that surprise of a reaction you even somewhat halfway expected to get and actually got it. It's the hurt of pride being stripped. A bare all-tell all cornucopia of your inner most secrets, and you're killed for the scraps of your existence reached and taken by those less compassionate. A cat in a dog eat dog world. The idea you were special; once done over twice and you're not. To them, you're just another spoke in the wheel.

Will I be the man who lets himself be? Will I be who you want me to be? Will I be who I thought I was. I am who I am going to be.


... i have been guilty of kicking myself in the teeth...

Freedom In The Hands of the Beholder

I'm embarrassed on a level to have defended this country. Things are slipping out of the grasp of liberty and our freedoms not only are threatened daily, but are spiraling down a self prophesying drain. Everyone is on their side and only care for it. We still call the media 'News.' Our sovereignty is gone, with it any true hope of patriotism without fire to set alight a unity in our less than perfect union.

Beyond watching what I and my brothers in arms thought we were risking our lives to protect go silently into the night without a fight, I struggle on my own to rehabilitate into the civilian world.

I'm beyond different in ways that are not comprehendible by those who have not experienced the thresholds I have gone beyond and endured. Sadly, this no longer makes me a functional member of society no matter how much I want to be... normal. My ignorance was bliss, and they took my bliss away.

In the college classes that I typically am the eldest by some eight years, I learn about kingdoms, civilizations, empires. They all rise, they all fall. Typically in the same mannerisms at the previous does the latter and the age old, seemingly unbiased and right as the mail saying; HISTORY repeats itself.

The more I study, the more I read, the more this old dog learns new tricks, it seems relevant to point out that a common theme amongst these nations of the past that were created under the hard work of rulers, whether through war, and typically it's through violence of some nature-if not only a threat of it, would rise great kingdoms. Over the years, after expansion, the rulers that have been given the kingdoms after all the hard work has been done; when there is no more blood, sweat and tears to give, when freedom and prosperity is seemingly unchallenged and at it's peak is when it always fails.

The history is staring us right in the face and we're to stupid to do anything about it. We just smile and watch it fade away.


I hear Costa Rica is nice...

Lies, Truth & Fable

Lost somewhere, my finger couldn't trace the text of life I needed to read. Anxiety built it's formidable defenses, and powerlessly I searched for it's weak spot. Breathlessly, I breathe. Living and surviving not from the functions of life, but because the memory in it. I cry ruthlessly, upon questions I can't even ask, let alone answer.

It's about this time I light the candle of courage deep within, but the light isn't exuberant this time. I search for the exit that isn't death, but get caught in it's spidery maze. I keep rowing, blind as a slave. It's up and down symphony of defeat and victory all in a life lived in a glass half full feels a lie. It's ignorance is in the bliss, but they've taken my bliss away.

Success, my blood beats with it. I find it's calming, slowing effect overtake me. The question marks pile their coagulating way into stopping the pounding of my life beat, of the heart, of the passion. I look at college as a four year way of truly making up my mind. Quarter of a decade isn't the dollar promise I could've made, and there I sit, here I sit, confused and unknowing as the same 18 year old kid ready to take on the world. Thirty before it's all said and done, and it will be.

It's the second that you're playing on the playground that you have woken up and you're an adult. Life, responsibilities are laid before you. Finely they're handled at hand, but you wish they were only pushing a friend on a swing. Sometimes they are. You reflect on yourself, but on the wrong side of the mirror. That man, you're not as proud as you could be, and the only rift is in yourself. You didn't aim well enough to accomplish a hit for yourself, but others are seemingly impressed. Perhaps this is a disease. Stop fooling yourself into believing me. Stop fooling yourself to believing yourself.

Anyone will tell you anything. Lies, truth or fable. It's all a mix up, you just have to believe in yourself or believe that they believe in you. Your perception is your reality or most of it. I struggle being the man I have become, certainly only because I never expected it. I sold myself into believing a lie long enough that that repetition, contrary to Roosevelt's belief, came true. I am who I've become, not who I was.

...no but we were meant to believe they did...

A Sad, Sad Truth

It's something that should have it's own word to describe. It probably does. You spend your whole life growing up, watching the romanticism of it all with John Wayne, Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood or Robert Mitchum. I could play in my backyard for hours, with a bang bang or a yell at the top my lungs. The idea was something that I fell in love with at a young age, and could only imagine what it would actually be like. Combat. War. The Military. Fighting for one's country, for freedom, for a just cause.

I never thought that all of that glory, all of the cliche sayings and the fight for freedom could ever feel like this. It starts with you thanking me for my service. Unless you yourself are a Veteran, respectfully, stop it. It doesn't mean anything to me. You have no idea what you're even thanking me for. It's something you'll never understand, it's something that changes one whose been there drastically. It changes your views on the world so instantaneously that it often scares you that you could ever have been the man that you were before the experience.

Of course, I could never say that directly to your face. I know your heart is in the right place, but it certainly doesn't do me any favors. The truth of the matter is, you think perhaps when you join, or before or even part way through serving this country, that you're doing something truly special. Truly remarkable. And in a way, you are. But not the way you would think. The problem is, you realize what a bunch of bullshit all of this is. This country doesn't have a sliver, an ounce of understanding of what it is to be free. We have become so blinded by our own ignorance's that we expect that simply because we are American we are deserving of everything. Our entitlement is irreproachable. We inherently believe that our government should take care of us. That all of this, it's safe, it's easy. There's food, water, power, safety.

This is a crock. It's a dream that we are too close to waking up from. The reality will be a nightmare.

As a Veteran, you can't imagine how easily I have become embarrassed for my service to this country. I'm proud to have met the brothers whose bond has been strengthened with me in the harshest realms of sacrifice and hard work. My pride in being 'American' is something that I have started to separate myself from. The vast rift being created is one that leaves me feeling lost. The ignorance runs unshackled, and on days I give more respect to the enemies who have tried to kill me. Because, although they may have been ignorant, they didn't have the option of anything else. And in that consideration, with all that they knew in their lives, they were willing to die for it. Their Freedom was worth dying for. Tom Brokaw would agree, the shouldered weight of the nation is on too few.

The harshest part of all of this is not my separation in pride of being an American. It's the rift that is happening between the so, or now called Americans. This most recent election caused such turmoil in our nation that no matter who would win, no right can be done. There will be such blinded joy from the winning side that all wishes will eagerly be granted by supporters. Conversely, there will be an insurmountable hate from the losing side and supporters that all will be opposed. No growth, no compromise and the Union, not more perfect.

Is it worth defending?

As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending. -Andrew Jackson

And the Crowd Goes, Meh

Everyone looks forward to returning to the United States. Especially from a place like this. We sit on verge of redeploying, and though excitement courses through my veins, and the small man in my bread dances with excitement, I have doubt of what's to come.

Today, it was brought to my attention that the people in charge of us would continue to decimate what is known as the Army. Normally, I would bite my tongue on such matters, but seeing how I'm already illegally trapped in Afghanistan past the Army Regulations that are chosen to be obeyed or disavowed at a premium of a higher ranking officials leisure, I have quite a leg to stand on. The disturbing fact of the matter is that your sons, the one's who are supposed to be made men from the Army, much as I myself have become, are not being allowed that opportunity.

This might be difficult to understand. In the civilian world, you go to work and your boss doesn't have to know anything about your personal life. You're late to work once and it's a warning or leniency perhaps, but a chronic problem and you're fired. There are consequences for your negative actions at work. But end of the day on Friday and into the weekend, you're off on your own. If you do 8balls of coke off strippers all weekend, but still show up to work and do your job; you're still going to have a job. In the military though, obviously this is 1)illegal, and 2) we have become so devoted to mitigating any kind of risk that our Soldiers have to give us their weekend plan, and be within an arms reach of their phones at all times. At first, this was a ridiculous idea to me. We are all 18 years or older. Men, or at least trying to become men. There is a certain amount of mistakes you are going to make during these years of being free from the folks. You learn from them though.

This recent development in the world of where I work is disturbing, if not sickening, if not damn near diabolical. It is a contract, for every weekend, that you must outline exactly what it is you are doing. Your free-time, the little of it that the Army doesn't own you for, they now will own you. This is certainly not Army wide, or even to the next level of Brigade. But as I mentioned, you must sign a contract explaining exactly what you are going to slave-ily do over your weekend. If plans change, you have to re-work your contract and sign a new one. If you get arrested, or a speeding ticket, or a jay-walking ticket, or even are reported being in a place that you did not outline on your contract, you are subject to persecution at the digression of the unit. Sick to my stomach for the poor boys, and the poor leaders whose lives are literally going to be managed at a level only known to that of 15 year old's at boarding school; I thank every bone in my body that I'm leaving the unit, already somewhat betrayed by it, and leaving the Army.

When are we going to stop this madness? We are going to try and control guys' lives, expecting that that 18 year old isn't going to do whatever it is he wants anyways? Why not try and help him become a man, have is back when he gets in trouble, arrested, or in a fight. Instead we weaken an already weakening Army in a weakening country, simply because we have our careers to worry about, and our own asses to cover. Fuck this place, I'm out.


the shackles are tight, the truth is raw, the pain is resounding

Dusty Brain

The delegation continues in my head with no recess in sight. I'm stuck, perplexed. It's been a tough time away from family and 'home' over the past five years. I guess the hardest part in that is how far I've grown apart from who I used to be, and how people knew me, or how I knew them. My brother is getting married very shortly, and I being the best man of course have to make a speech.

This is difficult. For one, that growing apart and the lack of daily interaction certainly doesn't leave this as easy as my orating skills normally would find it. To my knowledge, there is no etiquette to making a best man speech. It's more than a toast, formal and informal in the same. The other side of this coin, is that I have not attended very many weddings. This is based on the fact that the family I know that has gotten married, I have been off at the great wars or training. And because I don't have many friends who have been married or invited me to wedding. Tear, tear for me.

I've sat, going over story after story. There's a lot to miss in five years time. I think back to when my brother and his fiance met, and though I remember plenty of different times, I don't remember any stories brightly enough to relay in such a manner that would be what I seek; funny and heart warming. During those times I was too young to really remember anything. I have a hard time remembering my favorite teachers names from high school, let alone small details of things that were happening between the two of them.

The common cure for such writers block is a glass of scotch. Currently, an unavailable offer. Looks like I have to figure this one out, down on the upside.

Knowing myself, and pressure... I'm sure to knock this one out of the park.


turning back on me, every thing's easy

The Last Remaining Light

Just fucking give up America. If it's appeasement you want, then surrender all your goddamn American blood sweat and tears Freedoms you so preciously hold onto. Get fucking real! There was a time that people didn't take swipes at America. That killing an American hurt to the very soul of each and everyone of us, so much so that we could turn on the news and watch live as cruise missiles would strike the palaces of foreigners who committed such atrocities to the point they would go silent with truce and fear of us for years.

We act all innocent as Americans, that we have to be so politically correct and apologize for our own behavior. This nation was built on murder. Don't forget that. Whether you called it manifest destiny or Hiroshima, we have always carried a bigger stick and not been afraid to use it when we've had to. We sit idly by as country after country, nation after nation take their swipes at us. And what do we do about it? Nothing! We sit idly by waiting for the election of our next President, most likely the same one who's too chicken shit to do anything about innocent Americans dying at the hands of mad men in countries that most of the ignoramus American hasn't even heard of.

I get it, you don't support the wars but you support the troops. Well right now you ain't supporting anything except the end of Freedom as we know it. It's a precious thing that nearly everyone takes for granted. The same as our education system which has gone to shambles because of lack of knowing any different, so to will the rights and freedoms that you only can half imagine even one being lost. News to those stuck in the world of non-reality, your life could be very different, very quickly. You are not in a bubble that's all so protected.

It's started, and if it's not stopped, where will it end? Imagine not worrying about making it to your 7 am Yoga class, or blowing on your too hot coffee from Starbucks. There is a serious threat rising, on top of the unforeseen that you don't pay attention to anyways. Imagine worrying about clean water or food for the family. And not your local grocery store going on strike.

If we do nothing, if we do not act now. We will lose everything we have ever fought to gain. Our unshakable worlds, will be shattered.


when they come, will we be ready?