Home isn't where you live, its where they understand you.

Why does it hurt to be the person you would respect and admire if you befriended yourself? Today is Thanksgiving. The day we essentially celebrate genocide and pretend we care about the things we're thankful for. Some people actually are thankful, some people just say they do to fit in, and some people just eat and take a nap. I thought it would be cool if I volunteered to take a meal to an elderly person who would otherwise be alone for the holidays. Unfortunately it was not mentioned that there is a chance your elder will not be home. Ummm...ok... then what's the point?

It didn't occur to me that an actual appointment would make more sense for someone without a car (me), so I wouldn't go out of my way to spend time with someone who isn't there, and so someone doesn't have to feel obligated to wait around all day for me to show up. So I went through 6 bus rides to find the facility, get lost, pick up the food, stop back home and find this old woman's house, just to find out the octogenarian had decided to step out. It's ok. I understand she may have forgotten, or decided to make other plans and forgot to tell the organization, or maybe she wasn't sure when I was coming and got tired of staying at home. I don't blame her. I think the part that hurt was that I didn't get to experience the rewarding part on my end. Sure, I thought the idea of keeping a senior citizen company who may have been forgotten about or cast aside, a feeling I am familiar with, would be a kind, compassionate thing to do. However, not having anyone to share the holidays with myself I would also be able to simultaneously be in good company as well. No such luck.

I felt terrible. Not because it was the end of the world, or because not celebrating a holiday like everyone else is so shameful. It was a just a reminder of what I just don't have. I don't have connection. I have freedom, I have tenacity, I have courage, and I have compassion. I just don't have connection. I don't have intimacy, I don't have trust,and I don't have a home. I have a house, shelter and money but not a home. A home can be a place, a person, even a feeling, but I am homeless.

On my way home from dropping the meal off along with a note, I fought back tears. It felt like the story of my life:  my good intentions were not strong enough to get me where or what I wanted, and once again I was stood up. Despite this woman's un-intentions, I felt rejected. As I made my way from the bus stop to my current residence, ironically, I came across this sign at the crosswalk.

 It's strategic placement at a crosswalk, right between "Start crossing" and "Don't cross" was no mistake in my mind. I took a quick picture of it and the tears pushed their way through my stoic barrier. I just didn't want to be disappointed anymore. I didn't want to feel sorry for myself either.  I just wanted, still want, results.
I want people to be honest with me. I want to be noticed. I want people that I want to want me back. I want to be respected at work. I want people to fucking call me when I give them my number and follow through with plans.I want to have opportunities to be openly artistic without feeling like a goddamn weirdo for doing so. I want the guy I'm attracted to, to fucking ask me out , even if it means breaking some rules. Just give me a chance.Its not that often that I find someone that impresses me.Please.
Just give it to me universe. I deserve it. I work hard for it.

I just want to shine. Truly. Then I will be home.

How much of human life is lost in waiting.

I often wonder if I am the only person who feels like my life is in perpetual transition. It never feels like real life. Its just purgatory life. Waiting for the next level, the next step, in process, still loading.

When I was in High School this feeling was exciting. My life was in waiting but it was about to embark on the most fabulous journey of self discovery and expression and I had nothing to lose but time. Then college rolled around and ended up not really being what I though it would be. All the insecurities, fears and all around disappointments with the world manifested in such a horrifically overwhelming tornado I almost wish I could forget most of it.

The odd thing is, nothing happened in my life thus far that would sound truly integral to my current disillusion with life. Just a series of small disappointments that skew the entire path of your life further and further away from optimism. The only thing you have left is hope. Hope that whatever fire in you still exists enough to pull you back on track.

Rebel With A Cause?

I am genuinely curious. Somehow this form of bonding and socializing has escaped me. What is the fascination of consuming copious amounts of drugs, alcohol and tobacco that seems to appeal to the masses? I can understand the desire to be in an altered state for a short period of time as a parentheses to an otherwise dreary, stressful world. I also understand people enjoy using certain substances to relax or provide them with some courage. I really do understand this under some circumstances but in all honesty I ask, whats the big fucking deal? Why is this the main choice of fun? Why is this cool?

My biggest point of frustration is with the notion that somehow all of this drinking, getting stoned and smoking is somehow a way of sticking it to the man or emitting the aura of being a bad ass. The outlaws are the drinkers and smokers, the social rejects and anarchists are stoners. Sure I am generalizing here, but there seems to be an entire culture of people from high school to middle age that enjoy some kind of substance.Mind altering substances,illegal substances, may cause birth defects substances, makes you fuck strangers substances and puts holes in your brain substances. I call it "substance culture". The age of enlightingup.

Drinking and smoking are some of the most overused symbols of rebellion. Stereotypes of rock stars include leather, a sneer, and a cigarette or drink, usually both. Nearly every cool character in pop-cuture presented as an outcast does some kind of drug as an act of not caring about their health, the law, or propriety in order to counter the image of the "normal adjusted people" who are square and don't do drugs and sit around reading scripture, listening to Taylor Swift. Because obviously if you don't drink or do drugs you must also be a virgin, play by all the rules, act politely and be a complete conformist. Its not like buying tobacco and alcohol products from the largest money making corporations in the country that also coincidentally give you some of the most awful medical problems that coincidentally cause you to spend more of your money on medical and pharmaceutical services and products which, once again, coincidentally are offered by the other largest money makeing coporations in the country, makes you a mere statistic and complete tool of the system.
But I'm just sayin...
Some may refer to people like me as a prude or "straight-edge". Don't be mistaken. Just because my edge is straight doesn't mean its dull. I am not claiming to give a middle finger to the man while making him rich by drinking his beer and smoking his tobacco. And just for the record, weed may relax you but it doesn't open your mind, it erases it.
Maybe I'm envious.Maybe its because 90 percent of my friends can enjoy subtances socially while I am excluded. Or because so many brilliant but likely somehow lost people I look up to advocate drug use as a means of loosening up and letting go or even as means to tap into a creative flow. Maybe I just wish, more than fucking anything, that a stiff drink or a bong hit would do the trick and erase my pain for a few hours. But they don't. Things get even worse, I feel so out of control, so over paranoid, overwhelmed and out of touch its not worth it to even try anymore. Then again, perhaps the painful lack of an escape substance has allowed me the notice the hypocrisy in the substance culture that everyone else seems oblivious to.
Such a sadly ironic phrase "substance culture", we are full of everything but, substance.