Reflection @ MindSay

To what degree does man owe his life to another.  Perhaps, he owes nothing, and yet everything.  Man seeks to find wholeness is another's warmth and soul, yet he must find himself within his own souless stew. It is the torment of man to be able to gaze upon an object of beauty and vibrance without being able to touch it.  One touch could corrode nd destroy the object leaving it in disrepair.  A tangible movmenet toward the statue would leave texture on his fingers and memories of it in his mind.  The more we touch the more we corrode and connect with people and the world.  Is there any escape form the devastation of corrosion to the beauty and objects we adore?  Perhaps it is a common agreement or compromise between man and that which man finds to be worthy of such exploration beyond the visual.  If our eyes were cut outs our hearts would still yearn.  What we see is only the first embrace of enchantment leading to an unattachable love and understanidng of the memory of texture whcih the object has given to man.  To understand with such breath the breathless expression that man not only partakes in but adores is to see life and nature at work.  A tandem of respect and consequences, patience and virtue, will and desire, to gain by losing.  To never have had is the most man can ever hope to have for the absence of such pychological categories inthe mind leaves man in the contentment of ignorance.  That which we never know never knows us.  We can abstain and remain in the contentment of ignorance.  Safety of not knowing becomes our world of knowing only the known to us and ignoring the known to man.  It must be a leap of discontent and will to break out of such security and transcend to a place of utter uncertainty, fear, and yet beauty.  It is here that we find man wrestling with love and hate, frustration and confusion.  It is with empotional effect that we ignore the diffciult in place of seeking the simpleness of life.  Lost in the illusion of happiness we are only suppressing, and slowing, the corrosion we fear consuming us.  Happiness is but a state marked by spontaniety and in excusable actions that lash out against any prevailing law or norm in the name of assuming one's or announcing one's self to bree liberated in happiness as a pure intoxicating form of emotional exctasy.  We fool ourselves by following, not what we believe, but what others have conditioned us to understand as happiness.  I gaze up a statue which I cannot touch.  I see it in its beauty.  I see it from afar and let it be.  I stand apart but close just to see.  The things we love should not be confused with happiness.  Love brings happiness and hate, but happiness is a state all its own.

Antonio Garcia

Indiana University

It's been a quiet weekend, indeed.  Relatively solitary and peaceful, full of trail running, yoga, bike rides, church, reading, writing, work.  I asked myself around mile 11 of my trail run, as the 4 Non Blonds lyrics, "To get it all out, what's all in my head" coursed through my cerebral cortex, "What do I have to offer to the world?"  My perspective as a single female, age 29.5, living in California.   As a runner?  An Ivy-league graduate"  A single female with a salary and a mortgage?  As roller-coaster love life (currently at a nadir)?  I am the conglomeration of these entities, trying to do my best each day to be a good person, to be creative in my pursuits, to feed my passions and inspire others, to live and love as best I can while here on Earth.

I go to church sporadically - but I went today and came away with the intent to focus on the happiness not on myself and my tiny existence, but on God.  It is hypothesized that the reason for the 1000% increase in depression since the 1950's is due in large part to the lack of our society's sense of a greater power, a Lord God Almighty, or something like that.  I agree w/ this statement but I dare say the increase incidence of diagnosed depression is because the maker's of Prozac, Zoloft, Welbutrin, etc. make a pretty penny every time we get the blues and seek out a way to feel better.  Whereas before, silent suffering was the norm, these days you tell a doctor you're feeling down or tired or anxious or anti-social or confused or any other transient mood and you can walk out with a prescription of your preferred chemical cocktail. 

I'm not against anti-depressants, not at all.  I don't buy into the "comfortably numb" notion that Americans are numbing themselves through medications.  I think we enable ourselves to cope with life in many ways, medications just being one assure our neurotransmitters are up to the task of dealing with the challenges of life.   Sure, a supportive network of friends and family can help with this regulation as well - but for us loners living states away, with self-induced pressures to be and perform in a certain way, with busy schedules that are hardly conducive to bonding with friends, and without a regular sex life - well, sometimes a little extra seratonin or dopamine in one's system can be just enough to keep us functional and, for lack of a better word, something close to happy.

Anyway, where was I going with this?  Oh yes, my quiet weekend.  "Getting it all out, what's in my head."  I'll be 29.5 in exactly 18 days.  On the precipice of that age at which I used to think I'd be married, have a first kid.  But I'm no either of those things.  I've date more men in the last few years than I care to think about.  Why can't I make a long-term relationship work?  This is a big question for me as I'm relatively easy to get along with, reasonably attractive (my facebook friends rate me as #2 on the best body category), and I do fall in love with people.  I also happen to enjoy sex and men, supposedly dig this type of girl.  The last guy that broke up with me said I was "smart, kind, and very sexy"  but he also said i was "righteous" (i think he meant self-righteous) and "didn't feel comfortable thinking about a relationship".  I'll have to get back to you, my future readers, on what he meant by this - something about something that happened or that I did early on in our relationship (it involves another guy driving me to the airport instead of him.  Extremely juvenile, if you ask me).

So, 29.5.  I stand at the precipice - a strong, independent, attractive, athletic, smart single woman.  I am blessed beyond measure.  And all I want is a good, strong, smart, capable man to take me in his arms, adore me, and have a family with me. When I ask myself what I want, that's my only answer lately.  A family.  A man who loves me.  Why?  Because I feel that's what I've been put on earth to do - to raise a family, to love my children and my husband, to take care of them and to receive the joy that comes with giving and receiving love.

On my short bike ride home from yoga tonight, still sweaty, thinking of what to have for dinner, I passed by one of the small little houses that cost millions of dollars here in menlo park.  I glanced through the bay window and saw, sitting around the dinner table, a family.  A man, woman, and child - talking, eating.  Nearly made me cry.

I've been crying more often lately, most regularly after yoga.  It's the emotional release from all the hip-openers, somehow makes my emotions flow out of me.  I cried in yoga class on wednesday during final shivasana.  The song struck me as poignant and sad.  It went like this: "Goodbye, my lover, goodbye my friend."  There might have been a subtle, "Cause I can't make you love me" line in there, too.  Whatever it was struck a chord and  I had tears streaming down my face, but it was dark and it all blended in with my sweat so no one could see. 

I have done a lot of soul searching lately. I have looked back on all that has happened in my life to try to figure out where i am and what/who i have become. i have had good relationships and bad ones, difficult times and happiest times, i have had some bad experiences but also some amazing ones; have failed, but also succeeded...just like im sure everyone has. yes, i do realize that i have gone thru some diffucult things in my life - more than most peopple and worse than some, but i have realized that i have also had a better life than some people and that i shouldnt take things for granted. there was a large chunk of my life where i really felt like i had no friends, no love, and no hope...life felt like a neverending struggle; like even breathing, the most basic function of existance, was a chore. at the botton of that phase i actually tried to end my life, and by doing so i realized that there were sooooo many ppl that cared for me, but that i had just been too stubborn to see it; too depressed and locked in my own mind to understand anything that was real in the outside world. from that point on i tried to open myself up and trust people, but i found it very difficult because i had closed myself off for so long. i found that as i opened myself up to one person i would alienate and shut out other people which was not what i was trying to accomplish. i shut out some of the most important people in my life; the ones who had been there for me and loved me since birth; the ppl who took me in when i had nowhere else to go; the ones who had basically been my best friends - the ones i could tell anything to. I made them feel like horrible people. i made them think that i hated them and that i didnt give a shit about what they had done for me, and in reality i cared so much about them. i love them with all my heart and the last thing that i wanted to do was hurt them..and thats what i ended up doing. not only did i do that to them, but i did that to some of my closest friends who were just trying to look out for me. i lost some of my best friends and while we have still kept in touch i know that their trust in me is gone. most of them just dont understand me anymore since i have strayed so far from the path that i had originally been travelling on.

my senior year i hit the top of insanity. i managed to alienate and piss off everyone in my family that had kept their faith in me that i would get back on the right track. i had even worried my biological father and his mother, which i had really never done. i got mixed up with the wrong guy. a guy that all he wanted was to use me, but i thought that i loved him. i honestly wanted to spend the rest of my life with him at that point. so much so that i was willing to abandon my family, my school, and my future. i even left the security of my home and decided to live from house to house even going to milwaukee to live with my brother for 4 days. i was able to be thrust back into reality and a sense of sanity when he broke my heart. i was thrown from a high into an ultimate low in a matter of seconds and i wasnt sure if i was going to be able to handle it. but my friends were there for me..even the ones that i had made feel inferior or that i made feel unwanted..they stuck by me and helped me get out of a dark time in my life. with the help of my friends and my family i was able to pull my head outta my ass, move back home, and go off to college.

about a month before i started college i met another guy who i thought would be the love of my life. we became best friends almost instantly, which is exactly what a good relationship would be based on, right?...wrong!! i was so caught up in that relationship that i let my first semester in college go to complete shit. my relationship was going down the drain and i became so depressed that i didnt want to leave my room. i sat in my closet most days and didnt move until right before my roommate came back. which made my grades go down since i didnt go to class. but i figured i would make my relationship work because i loved him so much...eventhough he was cheating on me and the girl he was cheating on me with was making my life hell. i figured that i would just make up for it second semester. when i recieved a letter from my college over xmas break i thought that my life was over...i spent the next semester trying to prove myself to my college that i wanted to be there and that it really mattered...it was easy to do that once i made the decision to dump the one person in my life that, at the time, i loved more than life, but he was no longer making me happy. it was a very difficult time, one that my mother helped me thru. i was able to finish second semester with a B average.

this past summer i have spent most of my time in illinois meeting many new people and making wonderful friends and adding people to my "family". i thought that leaving wisconsin would help me get away from all of the drama that i had come into contact with..it in fact did not help and i have realized that i let drama come into my life. because i have a complex where i feel that intense need to fix things that are going wrong i invite the drama into my life. i have realized that i just cant do that anymore..i cant put everything aside in my life just so that i can not only add more stress but lose a sense of myself. while i will always be there for the people i love (friends and family) i cannot give my all to them, i must keep some of it to myself. this will be the most difficult thing i will have to do, but i believe that i can conquer it, and when i do i hope that it will drastically help my life.

i have been trying to become a better person. i am in the process of mending lost or broken relationships with people that i love while still meeting new people and maintaing the friendships that i have. i am also trying to keep a sense of myself. being bi polar and having PTSD can make those things slightly difficult, but i am going to keep my head up.

i have finally met someone that i have been able to connect with and who i think is actually right for me. hes eccentric, kind, funny, sexy and just absolutely adorable, and he accepts me for all of my flaws (which there are many). i truely love him. and i feel completely safe with him. there are no words really to describe my exact feelings. he and i are starting a journey together that i hope will last a lifetime. i am very happy and excited that i get to share my journey of life with him, because there is no one else on the face of the earth who i would rather share this with. he makes me want to be a better person and he motivates me to get my ass into gear in order to achieve my goals. he makes me feel whole, and that is one feeling that i never want to lose.

so thats my revelation for now...i am continuing to learn every day..and hopefully i will understand a little more about this insane thing that we call existance..but until then i will just try to keep my head up, keep persevering, keep trying to survive and keep trying to have some balance in my life.

This world appears to be a place that is ever-changing. Always re-shaping itself into something new. This is all the more sped up by modern day devices of communication. Most people do not appear to have a problem with this. Those whose body and mind works on at least an average level tend to be able to be able to adjust and have a generally easier time finding their own place within the world as it continues to evolve. Or so it appears. I will not claim to know everyone within the world or how they work. But this is simply how it appears to me.

My issue with this particular event of re-shaping is that I cannot keep up with it. It takes much of my energy to simply remain alive in this world today, and I find that finding a place to belong in it as well, is, well. Draining. Try as one might, they can't ignore the world. Reality is realer than anything anyone can fabricate. There's only so long one can hide before the world finds them, and whether they want to come along or not, it no longer is their choice. Once their found, the shackles of reality are re-cast, and those that once had their own form of comfort are dragged up along with the world.

I hid for a long time. It was always so much easier to be quiet and withdrawn. To take myself out of the world, and to focus everything on anything that could tune out the world. Escapism, is an addictive little thing. And though I can now recognize it, I still attempt it. These attempts no longer have the longetivity that they use to however. Whereas months use to be able to pass and barely catch notice, I can barely escape for a simple and small weekend. The days that are relievers for me are few and far between. All the other days. They're simply painful, and it's been this way for the longest time. This feeling in my chest, it'll flare. It's like a hollowness, only much more real, much more gripping. When it flares, the blood pumps faster. I try to breathe more. I try to fill it up. I feel my head, my thoughts, speed up. Everything that I am needs to go at a speed far greater then I'm capable of acheiving, and it pushes my body. Some part of me, it craves to hurt. It likes to hurt. And I've found myself many times flying through my own house, or even my classroom, in a near run, in a frantic hurry, digging about for something, anything that could cause me the hurt that is craved. If I can find it, my body, it thanks me with this little swelling and burst of red. If I can't, then my body, it just gets pushed, and pushed, and pushed, until it can't be pushed anymore. Then I go into a state of exhaustion. I physically shut down, and my mind still tries to race, but that's hard to accomplish in a body that's unwilling to do anything. Soon, my mind is on the brink of a shutdown as well.

I don't know how it got like this. I don't know how I became like this. I don't know where I went wrong. I had to have done something. I had to have let someone in that I shouldn't have, or done something. There has to be something, right? These things, these strange occurrances. They don't just happen, do they? And if they are, then how is it that I haven't ever managed to find more then just one, just one person who understand it?

There's only been one person in all that I've met and talked to that has understood everything and anything that I've throw at them. There's only been one person out of all of them that I'd trust with anything. And I love them for that. For being able to simply talk, much like this, random ramblings, and not once do I hear why, or detect the slightest bit of confusion.

With these ramblings, I've fallen into another subject with which I appear to have issues. Love. Love, as anyone could tell you, is a tricky thing. This much, I know. I've confused what I've felt before as love. I've confused my need for a person with love, and it wasn't until by chance one day that I heard the question, "Do you love me and therefore need me, or is it that you need me, and therefore, love me?" I've confused a past relationship with a need versus love. And as much as I always claimed that I hated those who did it, I used the word 'love' in vain and immaturely. Because I couldn't find the words to describe what I felt, I simply labeled it as love and followed it blindly. Now at the time, I was an angry person, all the time, and I had taken a great disliking to those who went about, using the word love as commonly as if it were the word 'the'. But there I was, gladly, and stupidly, becoming one of the people that I hated. Love for me, is difficult. I love too much, and I hate too much. "Too much of anything is a bad thing". I tend to avoid relationships now. "Love is an excuse to get hurt/and to hurt", to quote a bright eyes song. It may not be entirely true, but this is how it feels for me.

Another thing that I touched base on. Becoming one of the ones that I hate. I can't avoid it, much as I try. I hate too many things to not become at least one of them. But all at once one day, I talked to someone who I hadn't for several months. They knew me during a period of which I was creative, peaceful. Angry, but peace embracing nonetheless. They were surprised at what I had started to become. I'd always expressed my hatred for those who simply blew off their emotions as if they didn't exist. I'd always shown my hatred for those who tried to kill away everything with drugs or other addictive little habits. I'd always shown how little I cared for the people who didn't care about anything at all.

And there I sat, talking with them, while they attempted to reach out like they used to.
"So have you made any art recently?" "No."
"How come? I always liked it." "I just stopped. I dont care about it anymore. It's all crap anyways."
"Well, what about writing. Have you done that recently?" "No."
"Really? You always used to write." "Key word: used to. It all feels so fake. It's just as bad as the art."
"Have you changed your mind about doing those drugs you used to talk about?"
"Not in the least bit. I quite enjoy them actually."


"What happened to you? What has this world done to you?"
Who said it's only the world? I hurt myself just as much as the rest of the world does. Try as I might to fix myself, and to hold back all of the dark that I've got in me, at the end of the day, it always comes down to that. In some way, I always hurt myself more then I help. Be it by blade, nail, pill or anti-social behaviors, breakdowns and flashbacks. I'll always do more damage to myself then I could ever credit.

Once more, I'd like to thank you reader. Particularly if you managed to read all of the above. I'm finding this to be a great reliever, when I finally am willing to write. So once more. Thank you.


- Dominic "Israel"