Tuesday, May 31, 2011

ramblings#57

it's still a little hard to take in. it's been a hard day's night, but it looks like it's getting better.
boy am i tired.
i think that a pool party is in order in the near future. also another trip to the beach.
school gets out soon.
vowels are movin.
i can't believe how i life works.
this is the life.
believe it or not i haven't forgotten any of it.

Friday, May 27, 2011

ramblings#57

tomorrow i go in for tattoo number three. the last two months. two and a half have been hell. for the first time in my life i want this tattoo to represent that. as cool as it will look, it will be a reminder of just what i went through and who i have become.
i look back at who i was just two months ago. that was then, this is now. honestly i have never been more determined than now to do as the best i can. i have lost sight of that somehow. it is hard to pardon myself for that. this whole semester has been such a blur. i wish i could do it all over again from an academic standpoint. i have made it but just barely. and in some ways i haven't.
i exhale, and let all of my worries out. we can torture ourselves. we really can. you poor tortured soul. you're alright son. you'll be alright. Turn off your mind, relax
and float down stream
It is not dying
It is not dying

sometimes i don't know what the fuck i am going on about. but i just got to get things out. sometimes i am trying so hard to formulate an idea that just doesn't seem to come out quite like i want it to.

so please lets just try.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

ramblings#56

after all my ramblings have been posted, and all of the dust settles, the train pulls into the station and i put my bags down. only what is honest, and true will remain. in the end i must live a man of my word. i am not helpless. i do not fear the future or what it may hold. i stay true to what i know. it is not my nature to not take initiative. who have i become in the recent past that i have sunken in to anything than what i truly am? I have so much more confidence,conviction, and promise than i have shown. and so i apologize to my dearest friends. though i suppose no apology is needed because that is what friends are for when you are down on your luck. but i apologize none the less. to my dearest friend. I have not been the man you knew i was. all that i can do is try my best to live up to what i know i can be. and that is all that i am trying to do. with humility. with sincerity that i hope my life can reflect. all that i ask is that a genuine image is reflected. it has not been in a while. it pains me to admit.

i forgive myself.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Sunday, May 22, 2011

ramblings#54

good grief. i am getting worn out. just a few weeks left of this semester. on to summer school. i like summer school. i like getting classes done. its exciting.

It's down to me and my last cigarette. The blind fold comes on and I'm up against the wall.
The list of things we said we'd do tomorrow. Let's do them all today.


Lord give me the strength.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

ramblings#53

The things that each one of us can do. It's amazing the potential that we all have. Potential for good, potential to hurt, potential to heal, potential to change. Lately i have been discovering the potential that i have. I am going to be done at citrus by this fall. After that i am going to be able to finish school within one year. I may even graduate early. And so i am realizing just how important each day can be. Use them wisely. Get everything that you can out of them. They do not go on forever. We all have enormous potential. Let's do our best to live up to who we know we can be.

That's how i know I'm having a good day.

ramblings#52

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

ramblings#51

I am at a loss for words today.

I think I'll share some words that are not my own today.

Excerpt From Romancing The Looky Loos By Dave Hickey from his book Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy

"They think you just get up there and sing your songs," he is saying, addressing the highway. "They think it's just a one-way deal, but it's not like that at all. Because you start out playing for people who are just like you. That's the only place you can. You play for people who comes from where you come from. They seek you out in little clubs because they understand what you're doing, so you feel like you're doing it for them. And if you go wrong in these clubs, you know it immediately. And maybe you want to go wrong. That's your option, but you know it when you do it. Then one day you're not playing for people like you anymore. You look out there, like I did tonight, and realize that you're playing for people who want to be like you, and you can't trust these people. Because to them, whatever you do, that's you and that's cool. Which would be okay except!--even though all these people want to be like you, you don't know who you are anymore, because it was the people in those little clubs that gave you that understanding in the first place. God knows where they are tonight. Sitting at home, probably. Pissed off at me. Listening to Willie Nelson records."

He is speaking with Waylon Jennings in this part of the book.

I am ready for today. I am ready for whatever comes next.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

ramblings#50

Are you really happy or are you just having fun?

there is a difference. when i was happy i should have had more fun.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

ramblings#11(thoughtsonlove)

i have learned a lot about love lately. i thought i knew enough about it. you can never learn enough about it. i thought that i could explain it. I thought that it was explained in itself, because i felt it so strongly. i am getting a whole new perspective on things.
love is so deep. it is deeper than i could ever articulate. i wish i could. i will try to as accurately as possible. love is not always easy. it's something that takes constant work. never fool yourself in to thinking that it is something you can coast on. you have to work hard at it. even when it comes naturally. love is hope for the best, not for yourself, but for someone else. love remains even during the worst times, not just when love is received in turn. if you truly love someone that fact will not change no matter what the person has done to you.
i am reminded of matt bolt. matt and i can argue, disagree, and sometimes physically fight each other. we'll go our separate ways mad as hell at one another. The greatest thing ever is that i know that i will call him the next morning and say, "what a difference a day can make." there are times when i think that he's a grade a asshole, but my love for him remains no matter what. that is unshakable. i'd give that guy bone marrow in a heartbeat. if it were 15 on 1 i would fight till the death with that guy. he's been to hell and back. he's been there for me, for twenty years. that's love.
i think of jake salley. jake has shown me enormous amounts of love lately. what i love about jake is that he has a belief in a better tomorrow that is so essential. jake and i are really similar in so many ways. it hasn't been until recently that i have truly seen this. we care so much about others. i love the way jake is able to find something really admirable about the people he comes in to contact with. it is such a refreshing, and healthy way to percieve humanity. it's much easier and much less mature to have the opposite perception. that is to say, to focus on the negative aspects of the people that we encounter in our lives. once this perspective is changed, real joy can be found abundantly.
nick gividen also has this perspective.
both of these two have been there to grieve with me. they care so much about the person that i am, and the person that i am becoming. i long for that. the people that love me for the man i'll become. that i am becoming.
love is pain. that sounds like it should be on a t shirt. as it's cliche as hell. i always thought yeah yeah yeah. i know all about that. until recently i have had a hard time understanding my parents pain through love that they must have had for me. i am my own person. i am adopted and i don't feel like i was a natural fit for my family. they did the best that they knew how and it must have been so hard on them loving me, realizing the potential i had in so many areas and seeing me not attain that. i think that is all they ever wanted for me, for me to take advantage of the potential i had. i realize now that it would have been so helpful for our relationship. they would have allowed me so much more freedom. love would have been so much easier. yet they had love no matter what. it is something i struggle with everyday, living with the knowledge that i could have done better. i didn't put forth my best effort in to the things that were so important. one of those things was something that i considered the most important thing in my life. i could have tried harder. i thought i had a lifetime to do it. that might be growing up. that right there. realizing that nobody has that time that we think we have, and to waste that, to fail to learn, to run from growth, to avoid changing, to ignore problems, to stifle ourselves, to let life roll on as we let ourselves get comfortably numb, to fail to work on relationships, to fail to trust friends and lovers, to waste our selves away, to hide the facts, to ignore our hearts, that is the greatest mistake we could ever make. i wasted time and now doth time waste me.
love is embracing ourselves and our story as it has thus far unfolded and deciding to do something about it. to not waste our opportunities. to not fail to make amends with those we have become at odds with. to gain a new perspective. to cherish the days of our lives. to not let our lives become monotonous and devoid of meaning. to put the utmost effort in to our relationships realizing their value and the cost that can never be re payed if they are lost forever be it through time or circumstance. we can loose those we love so easily. to trust, to hope, and to care. to give thanks when things our good and when they are bad. to cry with a brother. to grieve with a friend. to say the words that can become too hard to say. i love you.

i love you.

i love you.

Friday, May 13, 2011

ramblings#49

Just to think this could be
The last time I hold you, hold you
ever again

Oh, I don't think I'll ever sleep till
morning
Cause she's the only one I've ever wanted
Oh, and in my ears
my blood is just roaring
Cause she's the only one I've ever wanted
I suppose that's just the way it is

Monday, May 9, 2011

ramblings#46

how the hell did i end up in the middle of all of this? so here is the deal. i can't make it here on my own. i can't deal with everything on my own. lord take this burden. i can do all things through you who strengthen me.
it always feels so fake to go to god during the worst of times. at least that's the outside looking in. me and god don't need a middle man. that is between me and him. but how do i get to the point where like matisyahu no matter what god be praised? how do i keep myself from drifting away when i fool myself in to thinking that i can carry the world on my shoulders? i am a punk. i hate rules. i love god. i have had that pointed out to me. i think it is awesome. because the love of christ can be the most liberating thing if you let it be that.
He is as narrow as himself and as wide as the universe.-Rob Bell.
I don't care what anyone thinks. I have grown closer to god lately. I love it. This new outlook has brought me more peace, self-esteem, joy, forgiveness, and optimism than i have had in a long time. I wish i had this outlook a little sooner. It's a process that takes a lifetime. It's all encompassing. It's all inclusive. It's better than anything i could ever come up with.
Forgiveness sets me free.
It allows me to be a punk.
Fuck i am loved.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

ramblings#45

My best friend graduates from college today.
I would like nothing more than to be there for it.
There is no way i can be there.

Is there any love or justice in the world?

I mean we were best friends for god's sake.

Friday, May 6, 2011

ramblings#44

and all the mayday riots
and all the cinco de mayos in this world
could not change the facts
and when the sun came up
womble opened his eyes
and the room came in to focus
he thought that it was just dark enough
for it would be quite hot today
he picked up his book
and left his worries behind him

he knew that he would have to work very hard
he knew that he would have to try his best
he knew that he would not immediately be rewarded for doing so
and still he let his worries fade away
for it was important that he learn this lesson
if you worry it wont help you
it will hurt you instead
womble had come a long ways

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

ramblings#43(thoughtsonthebeatles)

What can be said about the Beatles that hasn't already been said. Let me try my best to explain to anyone that is reading this just what they mean to me.

In 7th grade Mrs. Fisher had us write a sort of reflection of ourselves. I believe it was intended to be an exercise where we revealed something about us that our peers didn't know. It was a way to give others perspective about how we see ourselves. I remember one girl sharing a particularly revealing and surprising outlook on how she saw herself. It was surprising because her outlook was particularly bleak for one of the top students in our class. It depressed me. And for some reason i found it necessary to make that known to everyone, that i felt that this exercise was doing nothing but depressing the class room. Mrs. Fisher responded by saying, "You know Matt, life isn't always just hunky dory." Full of confidence i told her, "Whenever I am down i listen to the Beatles. Everyone should do that." I will never forget the look on her face.

Next year in 8th grade a girl in our class died. She was hit by a car at 13 at the California Poppy Festival. She was in several of my classes. One of them was an english class with Mrs. Fisher who had switched from a 7th grade teacher to an 8th grade teacher the previous year. The week after her death the class did several activities to assist the grieving of the class. It was during that week that Mrs. Fisher came up to me and said, "Matt i just wanted to tell you that you that i see what you mean. I was driving home the other day thinking about everything that has gone on, and it was just so overwhelming and then a song came on the radio. It was the Beatles. I wish i had written the words down because it was just so applicable to everything that we're going through. And i just thought, Matt was right."

There are very hard times in life. No one can deny that. Times where our world is turned upside down and not a soul in it can explain why it is the way it is. I find myself in the middle of one of those times. The Beatles offer unconditional comfort and acceptance. When i listen to the Beatles i can not stay down. How can anyone not watch their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show and not feel their heart in their chest? If the Beatles could have existed in this world, i believe that things always can and will get better. To be continued.......

Sunday, May 1, 2011

ramblings#42



ramblings#41

Day to day. Day to day. Well here are some thoughts that have been in my head. I have been having a lot of thoughts of love lately. I would like to do a formal rambling on love, like all of the other ramblings i have been doing. So i think i will save my thoughts on the subject for that time.
Here is something i am really proud of my self for doing. I have been doing really well at stopping destructive thoughts from ruining me. I use this analogy to keep me straight. I ask myself, why must i crush the head of the snake? The answer of course is because it has bitten me. And i must crush the head of the snake to prevent it from biting me again and its venom causing me continuous harm. And that is just the way i see it. I don't think it will always be like this. That is not really relevant at this point though. For now i must get away from the snake. Taking care of yourself is rewarding, although maybe not immediately. It's growing up. And that is just the way i see things.
I'm sitting here in my living room with Kyle Greenburg, David Linder, Evan Salley, Allie Choco, and Jake Salley. These are some of my friends. I love them all.