WHAT
I haven't even thought of LiveJournal in... well, let's see. (loads page to see date of last post) Nine years. It's crazy to look back on all of my previous moody moods. This shit dates back to 2003! Just after I'd moved out of my parent's house. That was lifetimes ago. It feels like centuries. I have a trick now for slowing down time, you see. It's simple: learn every day. Whether it's learning how to replace a part in my car, or learning a song, every day is filled with it. People in their 80's say that the middle of their lives "feels" like it was their late 20's. (Not sure about the wording of that sentence. It got away from me.) That's because they spent almost every day doing the same thing. Go to work; come home; eat food; watch TV; sleep; repeat. I am determined that for me, this will not be so. I also realize that I will never be done being a better human, and work on that constantly. Which is another kind of learning.
I am a very different person now from what is portrayed in the proceeding posts. I am generally happy, quick to smile or make a joke. Though there are plenty of times where I am sad, and I cherish those moments. Without the occasional malaise, one could never appreciate the good times. It would be like living in a place where the temperature was always exactly 78 degrees. You would never even notice it. I do not strive to be happy or sad. But by sticking to a stable center, I have found that my baseline mood has risen and sadness is quick to pass.
I now understand that kindness, while not always the best survival strategy, is the only way to heal, kindness to the self being essential. I have learned to love myself despite the bits I don't like, because there is no other way to eradicate them. We are complicated and messy beings who need a lot of healing from life's arrows. Hate has never healed any wound.
I no longer believe that a higher being in the universe makes things so, I think it's us. We manifest our realities daily. If something goes right in your life, you made that happen. Since I have learned this, parts of the world have become much more malleable. Except with romance. I'm pretty sure I'll always be mostly alone. And hey, maybe I'm manifesting that as my reality. But I'm finally OK with it. That's the one part of my old self that has remained the same. My reactions now, though, are very different.
I have become the ender of relationships. I was always the one who would get dumped, but the tides have turned. Not that there have been many. 6 of the last 8 years have been spent entirely alone. In 2006, 2009, and 2010 three relationships ended with a tragedy. A miscarriage, a car accident, and a suicide, respectively. No one died in the car accident, but it altered the course of events drastically. The suicide was not of the woman I was dating, rather, her brother. After it happened, she couldn't be in a relationship and cut me out. That was the worst of the three because her and I had the strongest connection I had ever felt.
I couldn't bear the thought of starting again. Getting to know someone, falling in love, and then having them torn away by some inevitable universe-generated bs. I spent 4 years celibate by choice after that. Similarly, the last 2 years I have also been alone, save a drunken night with two friends. The difference on this side is that I am resigned to this life. It's pretty good, but I did always want kids. That's probably going to hurt for a while.
I take all of my negative feelings and use them as fuel for creation. I am a maker, which is also an important tool for being a better human. Music, woodworking, quilting, soap making, 3D printing, baking, and a host of other mini skills. If the world ends, I'll be the guy running a peaceful town somewhere in the woods. I might end up doing that anyway, but I feel that the hermit life would be a little too on-the-nose.
Anyway. I was working on recovering lost data from an SD card, and I should probably get back to that. I've never done it before, so I have a lot to learn. If you ever feel sad, just remember: you are for learning an creation. Do that and you will feel better.
-Stone