See Life Though My Eyes

I usually stay up until about 3 in the morning and when people ask me why I do this I just say I cant sleep or shrug my shoulders. The truth is, and I have told only a few people this is that going to bed terrifies me. It terrifies me because there is nothing o distract me from the thoughts going on inside my head, the thoughts I shouldn’t be thinking, the ones that throw me back in to the darkness that almost caused me to take my life years back. There are levels to the darkness, the longer I’m there the further down I go and the harder it is to come back out. Its like that song from Ingram Hill “Will I Ever Make It Home” I hear something, I think something, or something happens and my soul steps back into that darkness. I sit there wondering if I will ever make it home. At night is when all those thoughts I have been pushing aside all day come back to haunt me they push and hit at each other fighting for center ring and I can almost feel my soul being beaten back into the darkness, I try to be strong but its at this time of night that I feel my strength fail me. I say I will not call or text or say I miss her but all I want to do is tell her I miss her (thats tonight). Or I start thinking about the regrets in my life, there are only two but the one is a biggy, the regret that I should have done something sooner or more to save more kids. My school issues usually always come up, the issues of money and how I am ever going to make it in life when I am such a hopless failure. I get lonely and try to talk myself into doing things I know I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t reach out to the ex best friend who hung me out to dry, I shouldn’t try  to reach out to my ex and tell her I miss her when I told my self I was moving on and that I wouldn’t bug her (I feel like I bug her, I don’t know that I actually do I just feel like I do). I shuldn’t post my very emo thoughts on facebook cuz then my mother will find then or my friends and they will be all over my ass about it. I really should just go to sleep but I cant because I have all these thoughts flying through my head, back and forth back and forth. It drives me mad and keeps me awake. My Therapist told me i have Anxiety and ADD, neither are not conducive to sleep, so her is sit at one in the morning tumbling about how I don’t sleep, why I don’t sleep, and if I should message her that I miss her….still. tumbling about it is my last ditch attempt at distracting myself from it…it works for a bit, when i stop my head goes into over drive again.

My train of thoughts go something like this:

uggg Internship, papers, money, canceled debit card, people sealing my debit card numbers and buying crap, money, the lack of money for school, for internship, how I’m going to get back to ASU, how I am going to pay for ASU, when am I going to live if I go back to ASU, annoying friends, the lack of friends in Wisconsin, missing my AZ friends, my F-ed up neck, my F-ed up knee, my lack of stamina, her, how it went wrong, did it go wrong, what did I do, could I Have done something to change the outcome, where did it go wrong, spring break, my brother, the military, my brother going into the military, disappointing my mother, how to get my father to cosign, how to not be annoyed with my father, my father in general and how he annoys me…. on and on and on… life sucks, eh I cant say that, times in my life suck, no I cant even say that, aspects of my life suck, the divorce, what happened when I was a kid, relationships, no cant say that, aspects of the relationships I have been in, mostly the breaking up parts, the being cheated on, the getting left for the younger cousin, getting beaten up by my brother when I was younger, how i’m going to pull my life together, how I am going to find a shit load of money, how I am going to become and FBI agent, will I go into the military, which branch……

See what I mean? Night time sucks!!! 

I have dipped my toes in before, a few times, and I have denied its existence entirely. However, inevitably the lake of pain, sadness, separation, loss, and loneliness, is there right in front of me. it was born of sharp break off of the exact opposites it possesses. When love, happiness, and joy are suddenly cut away, the lake is there to catch you. This time I sort of walked up to the lake rather than being dumped into it with no knowledge of what had happened. I sidled up to it and poked my toes in to it a few times, and then abruptly tuned my back and denied it existed at all. I fell asleep last night with my toes submerged in the shallow end. I kinda wiggled my toes around looking at them getting used to the feel of it all. This morning I woke up drowning in the deep end. I am held under by the reality of the situation and I’m suffocating on all the emotions in this lake that I cant deal with all at once yet I am forced to. You lose the will to fight it and you end up floating in this lake composed of pain, sadness, loneliness, loss and separation. Your not dead but you not alive either, just floating. I’ll exist like this till I regain my strength to crawl to the shore and pull my self back up and start the climb back to love, happiness, and joy, just so I can be tossed back into this lake inevitably.

I hate what finals and end of semester time does to people, myself included. People get all stressed out trying to study for their finales, thinking they are going to fail and there are all theses final papers to be written. the stress is just unmeasurable. And stress can turn the nicest people in to down right monsters, it makes beast friend go at each others throats for no reason. ” oh you didn’t say to me yesterday I hate you and I am no longer talking to you!” This of course only adds to the stress. so your stress is going up and up and up and no good is coming from it. Ok some good can come of it, if you cant sleep because you are too stressed out you can at least be productive and get stuff done. 

I learned in my class yesterday that anxiety is more preemptive than fear. Fear is an in-the-moment reaction where as when you have anxiety its because of something that might happen or is going to happen, not what is happening right now. I think that instead of calling it Finals week it should be called Anxiety week. Because we all know that we are going to be freaking out about what could happen during that week. So we have all this stress and al this anxiety and nothing to do with it, yes we can study and yes we can write those papers but the only thing that is going to get rid of it is passing our class and getting good grades on those exams and papers. Because after all that its over, its over for a few months were we can relax and allow the anxiety to slowly build up for the next semester. “Energy is neither created nor destroyed,” so it goes from anxiety to relief then back to anxiety, its a vicious cycle, just like laundry. 

If god creates us all and he creates some of us to be homosexual, and yet he makes being homosexual a sin in which we will go to hell for, is homosexuality God’s fail safe? Does he see what he created and go “oops, well thats not how it was supposed to turn out, you are now Homosexual.” A fix?

When we lose someone we do two things, we reflect on our past with them, and we make all these grand plans to remember them. Well my reflections and my grand plans have one thing in common, Przepraszam. It means ‘I’m sorry’ in polish. When i look back on my life with my Aunt it seems like i can count the interactions. The first time i actually ever met her was when i was 10 years old in an airport in poland. Me and my mom had gone to visit my grandfather and she was coming along as well. However, living in florida meant she was taking a different flight so we got in first and waited for her. I remember thinking, the moment i saw her, “that crazy little ol’ lady is my Aunt” well wither her crazy, fun loving, and generally silly attitude had me completely fascinated by here and we were instantly best of friends. Towards the end of that trip we planed a trip for me to go down to florida and stay with her for a week or so, because i thought she was so amazing i just had to spend more time with her. I went, flew by my self, well as much by my self as a minor traveling could. I spent a week with her and it was amazing, she showed me florida, i accidentally on purpose fell in the ocean, we cruised around in her Mazda Miata, it was just the best vacation a 11 year old kid could ask for. After that we emailed, talked on the phone a few times but we became distant a bit. I came to realize she was sick, very sick, something i had lacked the capacity to comprehend at 11. I became involved in my own life, went to high school, my parents got divorced, and i didn’t respond to her emails as much. I want to say “of course 90 percent of her emails where chain emails that are really just lil messages forwarded seven million times” but That seems like a poor excuse now. I went down to visit her once more, a spring break during one of my high school years. I had just gotten my temp license and she let me drive her around in her Miata that we both positively loved. We shopped, We hung out at irish pubs (ok that was only once and i shall never forget it), but what i mostly remember was that she always had to rest. She could never go a whole day without taking a few hours rest. something i accepted becuse i could now comprehend that she was very ill, and not the young 17 year old that i was, so i read my books and drew my pictures, allowing her the rest she needed. I still had a marvelous time on that vacation, nothing could erase it from my memory.  She came up to visit us once, manly because i didn’t want to spend the entire week my mom was to be gone at my dads house, she she came up souly to watch me. I cant say i remember much of that trip besides that i had my truck and she got lost a few times getting back to the house because according to my learners permit i was still not allowed to drive un supervised. We took my truck out one night after having watched a really good movie at the theater (dont remember the movie) but we just drove, i found a road that the speed limit was 55 and we went and went till we figured it was time to turn back. We laughed, sang and had mocalatte’s from dariy queen. I also remember that i fit in her suitcase. But that was the last time i saw her. we talked a few times on the phone, once she lost the remote 7 times in the 2 hour long conversation. I taught her how to text. i gave her my old cell phone. And when my themeral block wore off from my knee surgery she stayed on the phone with me screaming and crying in pain till my mom came home to help me with my pain meds. I feel as if that was one of the last times i talked to her as well, that was three years ago. She passed away last year, october seventh 2008.

So yes my reflection of my life with my Aunt is one of apologies. I should have been there more, i should have answered her emails every single time, i should have talked to her as much as i possibly could. I should have because it is a painful guilt ridden thing when you go to a family members wake only to find out that non family members knew her and spent more time with her  then you did. In her last few days i had planed to fly out to Florida to see her that thursday. On that tuesday i got the call saying she had passed. I was two days too late. I was years too late. And now when she is gone and I can not just pick up the phone and call her is when i want to sooo much. I would catch my self thinking of her and then realize that ‘wait she’s gone.’ I got so used to not seeing her and not talking to her that i cannot even remember that she is no longer with us. so i sit there and yell at my self while the guilt floods through all the cracks in my soul. Even worse, on the one year anniversary of her passing i did not remember, i just went on with my day like it was any other day. I completely forgot, just like i had perviously forgot to return her emails, or to call her just to see how she was. and it seems like i am the only one who did. I miss my Aunt so much i never really realized how much. like the always truthful ‘you never know what you have till its gone’ well its gone and i wish more then anything, i would give anything, just to have her back. I would say just for a day even but a day would not be enough, not enough to correct all the wrong i have done, not to say all the things i should have said, not to experience all the things i should have experienced with her, not to learn all the things i could have learned from her, not to laugh as much as i should have laughed with her. No one day simply is not enough.

Przepraszam Elzbieta!

I am sorry Elizabeth! I am sorry I was not there when I should have been, I am sorry I was not the niece I should have been, I am sorry!

I KNOW I SAID I WASN’T HURT

I thought I wasn’t

I do not understand

I am your best friend

The one person who can look past your mask

The one who can get behind your walls

The one who will always be there regardless

At least I thought I was

You said you love me like a sister

That we had an ‘indescribable bond’

That we would always be together

At least I thought you did

If I am, and if you did,

Then why?

Why did you do what you did?

Why did you lead me on the way you did?

Why did you tell me the things you did?

When, now, they do not seem to be true.

Why tell me what you think I wanted to hear?

Why let me think I had a chance?

Why let me think you wanted the same as I did?

When, now, I see that you didn’t

I do not understand

I wanted my best friend!

I didn’t want it all to be fake.

Distance

There is a certain weight to it.

something that is indescribable to one who has yet to experience it

It seems to draw you down, the like of gravity a joke

You are blanketed with feelings

Most you do not welcome

Sadness, sorrow, loneliness, pain, and regret pile themselves on top of your shoulders

Each one heavier then the last

As it drags you down it weaves itself into your mind and soul

It pulls forth memories you love and cherish from the place you left behind

They are forced to the front

Played over and over again

The feelings swell and get heavier with each passing moment

A cold chill is left in the wake as it carves a trail through your heart

Guilt gags you while regret is shoved down your throat

Rationality and truth are beaten down and chained where they are unreachable

Your mind fights for you but the battle is long lost

Longing seeps in

Filling any place hope might fester

It is an all consuming thing

Never once relenting nor relinquishing its hold

I say it is indescribable, yet here I sit attempting just that

However, it remains a truth

To truly know It one must experience It

These words, are simply that

Letters put down on paper by a hand with some ink

But It

It has a certain weight to it.

Distance

I wanted to write, I even had things to say, but now I cant remember them. I was listening to P!nk on the light Rail back…

One Moment

Floating on a cloud

Heart light as a new fallen leaf

Not a care on the mind

Nor a concern

And then

A word

A sound

A phrase

A trigger

Now in THIS moment

Memories tugged forth

Pain injected into the soul

Heart sinks like a rock cast into the depths

Floating no longer

Yup, that’s what I wanted to write, well something more along the lines of, “The tendrils of darkness reach out to drag me back to the depths pf pain and sorrow’ But that’s not what it came out as, besides that sounds more like a story or prose poem then a traditional poem.

If  we are taught to see things a specific way, and we are if you think about it, then what is the truth? In school we are taught that the reason we had the revolutionary war was because the British where un fair and tyronistic rulers, but perhaps in Briton the kids are taught that the reason for it was because we were bad and committing crimes against the crown so they had to do what they did. So what is the truth? Then, what happens when we find the truth, how do we know or decide  that, that is the truth? There is a theory of justice that got me thinking about all this called Critical Theory. Critical Theory states that in order to have a truthful conversation we must deconstruct everything we know, believe, think, and have experienced. Specifically because everything we know, believe, and think is what we have been taught, which in turn shapes how we experience things. All of those things for me may be different for others, and there for we can not have an honest conversation because we are bias, and tainted almost.  So to come to a universal truth we have to deconstruct who we are almost. In a way we have been brainwashed to think, live, believe, and experience a certain way. How then can we even have an honest conversation? If we were told everything we know, believe, think and experience then how can we claim that it is what WE believe, think, and experience? Because it isn’t ours really its our parents, our parents parents, and our parents parents parents, ect. So our own creative thoughts and unique points of view aren’t really unique or creative at all. Based on that it makes you wonder if what you know, think, believe, and experience is what you really know, think, believe, and experience. If you hadn’t been told certain things would you still think, believe, and experience the same things the same way? For example, If you were not told that geeks wear glasses, have pocket protectors, and squint at things (I am not saying this is true I am saying it for sake of argument), would you look a person wearing a pocket protector  and glasses squinting at something a geek? Or would you think that a guy coming out of the weight room carrying a foot ball helmet with loads of women around was a geek? Do you understand? Similar to this is the Pragmatic structure of language which states that every word you are told is an actual thing and brings a picture or definition to your mind. So what someone says geek you instantly connect it to, and see, the guy with the glasses (or the guy with the helmet based on what you have been told is a geek). Niche says “Every word is a preconceived judgment.”  In this argument, that statement couldn’t be more true.  You see glasses guy (or helmet guy) walking down the street and the word Geek pops in your head, thus you are judging him based on your preconceptions. In Critical Theory we have to deconstruct all of that and discus things from a completely unbiased and uninfluenced perspective. To me, this is the way we must approach Justice.  It is unfair to judge a person and judge the truth with all sorts of mixed up preconceived thoughts, ideals, morals, and ethics. Simply because you are going to affect a persons life. Which is a pretty big thing, but lie, liberty, and property is more libertarian theory. Now just because I think it is the best way to approach justice doesn’t mean that its really is, it means that from what I believe, think, know, and experience it is. After I deconstruct everything I think, believe, know, and have experienced it may turn out that this is the worst way to approach justice. In a sense it makes us question anything we have done, thought, or said and why we did. According to  Habermos I shouldn’t even be saying any of this because I haven’t deconstructed  my thoughts, beliefs, and experiences. Considering all this can we really have an honest conversation without deconstructing?