LOS ANGELES
Car door slams. Seat belt clicks. Radio turned loud.
Throwing the car in reverse, I light up a cigarette, and I'm off. I'm instantly lost in the beat of the music and the thick smoke burns in my lungs. Relaxation sets it.
Driving down Sunset Boulevard, I look at all of the posh eateries and trendy clubs. The realization that this is where everyone wants to be sends a feeling of empowerment and privilege through my body. I take the long way home to insure I get a view of the city, embellished with the city lights.
"This is where it all happens," I remind myself "this is big time, Dude."
The cool wind blows my hair all a mess, and the feeling of independence becomes almost a high. Reflecting on the last few months I'm realizing that I'm on my own, making it, in a town that I never imagined I would." I've learned so much. I've become so assertive and capable" I praise myself.
As I drive through the winding hills I begin to think of all of the people in this town that are doing something great; people that have come from small beginnings, like myself, and dreamed themselves to this city and experienced tremendous success. So many have done so well and been so blessed….
"Shit." Doubt kicks in. Anxiety smothers me. Staring into the crimson traffic light, I wonder if I will ever be one of those people. I doubt myself and my reasons for being here. I doubt my abilities, wondering "What can I do? I'm really not good at anything. I'm interested in a lot, yeah, but so what? So are a million other people out here! What am I doing to make something- ANYTHING- happen?" I torment myself with negativity. I wallow in self pity.
I look out over the city from the hill top. The once inspiring view becomes completely overwhelming and for a moment I feel so small, so insignificant.
"Deep breath" I whisper to myself. Scrolling through all of the dreams and aspirations I have for myself, including those I never tell anyone about, I convince myself they're worth it. I convince myself that I will make it, despite my own reservations. I take one last look and drive onto the small street that leads to my house. A feeling of calm washes over me as I realize I'm home.
I CAN HEAR YOU KNOW
When I am the most exhausted, is when I see things with the most clarity. My head is spinning from pushing myself to the limit, and yet everything seems so serene. Maybe it's a lack of energy left to worry, but the exhaustion is refreshing. I grind myself down to the bone, just to prove to myself that I can excel in anything I set my mind to. And as frustrating as it is to work and go to school for something that I might not have time to finish it is easier to find the self-satisfaction when every breathe is long, deep, and meaningfull.
I want to improve with every second I am alive. I will become greatness.
WISH ME LUCK
My career has been in neutral, but my job is everything I’ve wanted... in the meantime. My situation is happily overwhelming, but at the same time it drags me down. I couldn’t tell you the last time I wrote a song to a girl, but what I seek can’t be acknowledged from the lyrics other great men or women have wrote.
I come to you now in disillusion and with a great sense of confusion but I know that this is meant to be because I’m sharing it all with you.
Now I face the prime commitment, and I’m not sure what to do from here. Am I merely holding on to the past, and am I afraid of what the future might hold? (If I could just get off my ass to make it happen) I can’t seem to figure it out tonight, and for the life of me I may need some more time because this is all I’ve got to lead me into the unknown and the unseen. Wish me luck.
HOW TO BE ME
It kills me to think that maybe my problem stems from the reality that I really have nothing to complain about; (other than the fact I would like a bit more money, and a vacation lasting more than a week.) As sad a disposition and as cold a reputation I have for opening up to anyone at anytime, this is my hypocritical moment. This is the time when I say I don't really have it that bad, when in fact I have it quite good. But for all my whining and complaining and the pouting that I'm known for, what I really wish I was infamous for is something new to call my own, and something lucrative to take up most of my time. Maybe then I'd be able to realize how good it really is to be me.
IDK
believe me, it's not that I don't care....but I can understand how it may feel like that and look like that to everyone else today.
BEING ME
I’m currently trapped between the never and the now. I used to live each day to the fullest extent of my imagination, but lately I’ve been just scraping by on my wits and my so called talent. I play guitar to remind myself that I can still jam and be the “rock star” I used to be. I’m living in a mindset that frequently disturbs my natural flow of thought, but I’m trying so hard to break that cycle. I couldn’t tell you the last time I felt like this because I’ve never felt like this before.
I can smile but it’s a fake one, and I can laugh, but it sounds more like a cackle these days. I’m guilty of being a guy at night, and I’m exonerated of acting like a man by the time the sun comes up. I’m a sinner and a saint, I’m a loser and my own best mate. I’m as clever as the wool that’s been pulled over your eyes...and I’m such a sucker for the truth that turns out to be a lie.
I’m self destructive and self aware, I have a cross that I must bear, and this time I’m fully aware of the difference between a gaze and a stare.
I’m 22 years young, but I’m feeling rather old these days. I’m collectively an anomaly and I’m kidding half the time. I live in the moment that I’ve forgotten as of late. It’s all my fault, It’s not my fault, it’s nothing I can’t work through. Constant fighting with my parents, daily concerns and all these things are pilling up on me. Sometimes I want to break all sorts of commitments and be left alone. It’s overwhelming me and I’m starting to crack under the pressure. Sometimes I can’t deal with all the things that I have to go through.
MISSERY LOVES COMPANY
I'm done making myself live in the mess I create. I'm done feeling like I don't deserve the life I know I want. I'm done living for myself and I'm done acting like my actions don't affect anyone else but me this time. I know it's just as simple as deciding that I'm better than that, but it's still going to take some time for me to be able to accept that my life isn't as bad as I make it out to be. But I'm going to start today, and I'm going to make it through this time and come out stronger & wiser than I've ever thought possible.
SOMETHING NEW I AM WORKING ON FOR AN EZINE ABOUT FREAKS (TRUE STORY)
Recently family and coworkers brought to my attention that I have been emotionally comatose for the past three years. This is not a metaphor; my body has stopped producing adequate amounts of the chemicals responsible for making me feel. I'm a 22-year-old man. I used to run 20 miles a week, I skated five days a week, I used to manage a big retail store while running my own transportation business and I went to school full time (before I graduated). I have been living like this for about 2 and a half years, making sure that every night before I went to bed there was not a drop of energy left to wring from my body.
The farther from the world I get, the more ok I have become with being detached from it. There is a version of me at the end of a very dark pool; the world looks far away and blurry. Had no one suggested that I go see a doctor I would have kept on swimming toward the bottom not thinking that anything was seriously wrong.
Average testosterone levels in men sit somewhere between 1200 nanograms per deciliter (DPM) (25 year old N.F.L. linebacker, Tommy Lee, that personal trainer at your gym who wont stop calling about your free consultation), to 250 DPM (A 75-year-old man). My doctor recently informed me that I'm at about 122.
In our society Testosterone is often viewed as the guy at the party who shows up late only wanting to fight you and sleep with the girl you have been flirting with all night, Testosterone seems to make things get ugly. We tend to accredit it with such brilliant innovations as professional wrestling, lifted pick up trucks and war. We often fail to recognize that Testosterone is also in some way responsible for all human life. With out it, it would be impossible to procreate, maintain much of an attention span or feel any kind of excitement.
I am a physically capable person, or at least I'd like to think so. So much so that my body has broken the tap off of my intellectual and emotional keg. Every moment I may have had to reflect on the absence of substance in my life, was filled with pushups or algebra. I read the news compulsively, collecting facts and statistics that may affect other people emotionally. I study them, watch their reactions and try to copy them.
Boring, anxious, compulsive thoughts filled up most of my waking life. For example, I could think about what I am going to eat for lunch from the time stop eating lunch the day before until the time I prepare the lunch for the current day. I could worry about this meal until my life was completely contingent upon its execution; everything about it becomes a cause of worry and hopelessness. Strangely I didn't think about lunch while I was eating and I usually always had the same thing.
Dead, empty and hallow, I sound like a Nine Inch Nails song or a character in a Bret Easton Ellis novel. I could go months without thinking about sex; months without having it. . I was like a goldfish in a 22 year-olds body. I was suffocated with a fear of incompetence at all times. There was a running stream of horrifying negativity plaguing every moment of my life.
About 18 days ago I breached the surface. My doctor prescribed me to hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Now every morning I lather myself in chemicals, walk around my apartment shirtless for a half hour until they dry and then go experience life as the rest of the world does; as I haven't for the past few years.
When in mid resuscitation, the human mouth bites violently at the air, as though the body is in such desperate need for oxygen that the atmosphere itself becomes edible. Picture the gold fish you took home from a fair, before you dropped it in the tank letting it snap back and forth in the foreign air like a baseball card in bicycle spokes. Picture Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction with a stiletto sized syringe dangling out of her chest. Remember the feeling of your first belly flop. The surface of the water sucker punching you, sending you ripping violently through the water. Do you remember what the air tasted like?
The first thing I noticed was the absence of fear, not any of any specific thing or person, but an overwhelming calm replaced the constant stream of terror.
Now it gets kind of strange, it has become incredibly difficult to motivate myself to do anything that I don't absolutely want to do. Moreover I am realizing that I have spent the majority of these past few years avoiding anything that brought me pleasure because the absence of pleasure was the closest thing to feeling that I was capable of. Think of the relief you felt when you finally ripped that first breath of air into your lungs, you would have never known that pleasure with out the horrifying experience of nearly drowning. My logic was to keep drowning myself until eventually I remembered the feeling of relief at the bottom of the pool (remember my brain was functioning like an mechanical wheelchair in a NASCAR race.).
My drive is returning but it's foreign. I experience my emotions twice, there is the initial feeling; some Hollywood cheese dick doesn't tip me (anger), and then I become aware of my anger and its all becomes strangely funny and reassuring. Like this guy is an asshole but at least I know it. Everyday is now new, oxygen is like ambrosia for the drowning. People ask me what it feels like and all I can tell them is that it feels and it hasn't for years.
PEACEFUL
People in our lives come and go. It's the flow of growing, of changing, of being a part of something. Give in to it but don’t neglect the self. Realize that no matter, you have to be there for you. The world is finicky. Be your own best friend, your own lover, your own support. Others inspire, change, give, take, and offer many great additions to life. I am in love with interaction. I am in love with relationships; the play, the commingling of personalities, of emotions. We fertilize each other with attributes desperately needed to soar. It is beautiful. But don't become reliant. Others offer stimulation but you must possess your core. Hold your own hand and be Alone. Then and only then can we take what is for us and thrive. And give effortlessly what is abundant.
DID I EVER TOLD YOU ABOUT THE TIME
There is no "good" part of Texas. There are good people in Texas, good things from Texas and important history that took place because of Texas. However I have found litle to justify the injustices done in the name procuring Texas for the sake of Texas. Most of if looks like the surface of the moon and is about as culturally advanced as a kidney stone.
I spent an unreasonable chunck of my early teen years in a tour van in Texas and I discovered a hunger inbedded in the belly of the most overweight state in America. Texas must be seen alone, by it's self and by yourself, to be understood. When I was moving to Los Angeles a Doe hit me about 150 miles outside of Dallas. I experienced what I like to call the "Human in the Deer lights" phenomenon. Being Surthern Californian by blood you are conditioned to expect certain things will happen (being cut-off, swerving to avoid children, transients, and hipsters on bikes...ect.). The Deer in the surface of the moon, in the absence of everything but the hiccupping of the median line reflecting against my yellow headlights, absolutly is one of the most terrifyingly beautiful things this world can offer. I swerved hard left into an empty lane of the opposing traffic and she continued her diliberate steady pace directly into the right side of my van. At this point my sympathetic nervous system broke he top off my body's fight or flight gage, folding my blood with adrenaline and sugar dilating my pupils and redirecting all my blood flow to the muscle groups reserved usually for pushups . You really haven't lived until something has killed itself agaisnt you.
The van was nearly totaled and barely made it the next ten miles to Cisco to find out that it was the first weekend of hunting season, I had landed the first kill. I tagged her on Saturday night which meant that I would be stuck wherever I was until Monday afternoon; people only do two things on a Sunday in Cisco, Texas. Morning mass and evening mass. Thus, Texas hit me much like a Deer on the surface of the moon, warm, awkward and horrifying. I ended up staying four days until what was (and still is) left of my van was salvaged into a terminator of shear botched backyard brilliance.
Texas forces you to slow down; since 1976 it has executed 405 people and currently has 393 inmates awaiting execution . When you drive east into El Paso from New Mexico along the U.S boarder and look to the right, you can see the dirt floored huts of Juarez from the Wal-Mart parking lot across the boarder. There is no parking at the Alamo. It raises up from the golf of Mexico to Guadalupe peek 8,479 feet. Currently over 25% of Texas is obese; the state itself takes up 7.4% of the country. There are ranches in Texas bigger than the state of Rhode Island. And ofcourse lets not forget, the first word ever spoken on the moon was "Houston". Texas is a big roadblock, a speed bump made up of people who lost their momentum or will to drive half way through. Object in motion tend to stay in motion; objects at rest tend to stay at rest. I opened the door to my second story pastel and stucco-landed hotel room in Cisco and sat across the room on the bed. A room that had probably never had anyone willingly complelled to spend more than one night in. A room, in a hotel, in a town where the first Hilton was built in 1919. A town Paris Hilton has never heard of. I looked out across the homes of some 3, 851 residence. And it stuck me like a human in the Deer lights; there is something quite dead here. However, what I've been able to figure out is weather Texas killing itsleft against America or if it's the other way around.