Today, This last night.

I looked her in the eyes and asked her to marry me.
No ring.
No dinner.
No special arranged proposal.
No storybook situation.
We agreed to both take some days to think about it. To meditate. To ponder. Pray to our higher powers.
I think I want to do something at the Bachata Room, a place where we've both shared some memories. Doing a dance number with several of our friends.
Perhaps so.
You know who I am --- Begin with modern dance number, switch to slow dance with the girl, people in the background bear signs of "will you marry me" while guy bends on knee and presents ring.
I need a kiss kiss -- all dress up clothes, dancing with phaya and others.
Iris by Goo Goo Dolls covered by Leona Lewis-- modern dance

More ideas to come.

-----

I get this nagging feeling that I'm supposed to be doing something a bit more "me" with my life at the moment. Something a bit more magical. That what I do outside of my wars and battles should have less to do with saving up for more wars and battles and should have more to do with serenity. Perhaps with storytelling.
Perhaps with creating a world where I can breathe, and dream, and fly into a sky so beautiful and breathtaking that the fact that its completely unknown doesn't scare me. Only excites me.
I hate changing my mind.
It makes me feel like there's a hole where my loyalty should be.
Anyway. here's to another day.
Thanks for helping me survive it.
I'd survive it either way. But thanks for helping with it.
Thanks for being something to do with magic and serenity and storytelling that I can come home to.
Thanks for helping me breathe, and dream, and fly.
I am scared and wary of you still. But I am feeling something I haven't for a long time. And that is the desire to not feel that way. The hope and willingness to work for a better and more complete feeling.
Maybe I'm chasing an illusion.
Maybe we all are, throughout our entire lives. Maybe that is our entire life.
But at least now, one difference, is that I want something better. Even if I can never have it, I can at least know that desire is part of my being human.

This is part of who I am. It is part of living. I am improving in getting through it. I am succeeding at adjusting myself into someone whose actions I can look back at and be proud. The difficulty is in seeing the long-term success despite short-term failures or hindrances. The magic is in finding the courage to allow myself to celebrate life's little victories.
I am an individual that is achieving fulfillment. I am expanding. Evolving. Growing.
Balance is tricky. Continuing onward instead of being complacent with present circumstances is painfully contrary to my sloth. But better, in the end. Not just in then end, in fact. Better now. Better throughout.
There is no need to fear the next step. There is need to breathe deeply, and to be mindful of the little actions that would keep me anchored where I am instead of progressing further. The indulgences that would not only slow down my progress, but keep me trapped in a whirlwind of perceived movement...one that leads nowhere.
I can invest my energies and rest and resources in the appropriate places to be able to grow even more. To soar. To fly. I can. And I must, if I am to die at peace with myself.
I don't know a lot of things. But I do know that one day I'm going to die. And I want, more than anything, to not have my last words be "Who am I?" but rather, hopefully with a smile (whether in pain or not), "I am Me."
I decide today to continue onward. I commit today to find happiness and comfort and confirmation of identity in that decision.
I live as though things were permanent. But I do not fight to make them so. I strive to absorb into my understanding the idea that most things that are today will not be tomorrow.
Including me.

Things have turned a deeper shade of blue

There is nothing for us anywhere except that which we create for ourselves. I think I've learned more and more that I am going to have to make my own happiness. As much as I say to myself that I've learned that idea, or adopted it, I still seek out others for my happiness. I am unwilling, unable to make my own.

It hurts to feel the same as I did when I was a child: mocked, ignored, abused. The difference is that now I have the ability to rise above and be my own friend. I have started to create the tools necessary to survive and thrive without others. Solitude scared me once. Now it is more of a thrill, a challenge, a new adventure.

I am myself. And I cannot help the reaction of others to that self. Whether or not they like, appreciate, or value who I am. All I can control has to do with me. I can choose to accept the lack of influence I have over the tastes of others. I can choose, for my own sake, to rise above the hurtful negligence of those who would treat me like a plaything.

Happiness, the fleeting thought, is something I will have to choose to identify and derive from within myself. I think, at long last, that there has been enough evidence to put the fairy tales and fanciful wishes away. I hope, for my own good, that this time it is a lesson I remember.

Crime and Punishment

"nothing like getting caught to helping one grow a conscience."

the initial reaction is to assume hypocrisy of sorts. The person caught is only portraying remorse because they  have no other choice. This becomes an accepted necessary truth in most cases, and most people have a hard time believing the sincerity of a culprit's "sorrow for sin" in these circumstances.

But, perhaps a person is so driven by their crime, whether it be a matter of violence, substance abuse, or anything else gratifying and habit-forming, that they do in fact betray a conscience that they actually possess in order to indulge. They put their moral compass in a drawer, out if sight. Out of mind.

Being unexpectedly caught in the act of something you already disapprove would no doubt be a sobering experience. It would bring someone to a lucidity that they previously evaded or ignored through their "drug of choice" behavior.

My point is: being caught does not of necessity mean insincerity in remorse for what one has been caught doing.

Dream Sequence

I went to the cafe/bar with my friends. I believe it was also a cybercafe. Simple, wooden tables. Like an unpretentious dive in mexico. Just a place. Waiter comes over, and as we order big-kid drinks, he pulls out a case where we will store our id's and enter our thumbprint. When we retrieve our id's, our thumbprints will have to match. Simple enough, but I prefer to grab a soda. If anything happens and I have to run out, I'd rather already have what I need on me and not have to scavenge a corpse for it.

I follow Daniel and Jenny, my asian-looking mexican friends throughout town. They're honest. Simple. Genuine. Among the destinations is a shinto-style school. Where they perform a ritual directed by the instructors, but begin to deviate and do it their way, expressing themselves. There are gravity defying acrobatics. There are colors. Things look animated.

It reminds me of Duck Season...good movie.

An Addict's Pennance

I want to be punished. I don't want things that give me pleasure. Friends, good food, a warm bed, hot showers.

I have been invited to join a business venture in something that I enjoy. Something that would also be quite reputable. In an industry I admire, using a lot of the talents that come naturally to me. That I've honed, and that bring me joy. Writing among them.

Besides the 'normal' (if there is such a word) factors that would slow someone down when being excited about going into a business (e.g.: the need for capital, proper research, thought-out plans with various contingencies), there is another conflict. I'm not excited about it.

Its fun to think about. Its great to long for it. But to think of it as a possibility feels undeserved. I shut down. I get gripped by a cocktail mix of anxiety, apathy, irritability, mistrust, and regret when I think about it. I don't want to commit energy to something that could potentially fulfill me or make me happy because, contrary to personal evidence, I don't believe it will fulfill me or make me happy.

So I make myself out to be this suffering martyr. "I cannot enjoy life because I'm paying for my sins." Very romantic. Very self-indulgent. That is what bothers me. Not that a goal is out of reach, not that I lack the capital to simply throw myself into a project and see where it leads. What bothers me is that I feel unworthy of prospects that might make me happy.

Its a lot like flirting. Its fun to flirt, fun to dream and hope for a meaningful relationship. But when things begin to involve any kind of commitment, other people seem to lose interest in me. I was about to write that last sentence the other way around, stating that I lose interest out of subconscious fear or unworthiness that translates itself into apathy, lack of attraction, or boredom on the surface. But it just hit me, just now, that it has been the opposite. I do step out. I do open myself to where something might lead, even if I'm not convinced that they're right for me, or any variation of the "the one" philosophy. And something happens, the littlest thing. A rescheduled date, a week or so without return communication, things that I interpret to be a sign of the same disinterest and apathy I sometimes put on others or on things. And then I violently recoil.

I turn back into a shell and surround myself with things that hurt me in order to reinforce the idea of undeserving. In order to run away from the here and now, and simply archive the presently perceived rejection as part of a macro-cosmic order of things pertaining to the undeserving. The accursed. Again, eager to romanticize reality. It is like a religion used to explain war, or a drought, or a childhood/genetic makeup that results in addiction, or heartbreak...anything except the combination of accountability for choices and the fact that some things, like weather phenomena, just happen.

Perhaps that's what I like about diet and exercise so much. It isn't what I crave, and involves a light amount of physical stress, pain, and self-denial. It would feel like being punished.

Things could have turned out differently. I might have ended up dead, or in jail. Forced into a rehabilitation center. Somewhere that someone else's orders and not my own discipline or motivation keep me clean, and learning, strengthening my body, mind, and spirit.

I'm too exhausted to examine these thoughts. To identify the assumptions and look at them from different perspectives. And I think that's okay. I can print this out and go through it later. Its likely an important step to just put all of this down. In any case, for better or worse, this is how it happens. This is what I write. This is the day that I have.