We now return you to your regularly scheduled Madness.

it's been over a year and a half since then & when i close my eyes the scene is still so fresh in my mind. our arms. the breeze. our laughter. that song. it came at the oddest time but i knew then.

so much of what i believed in has faded into the gray areas. nothing seems to be black or white anymore. everything has a hidden message behind it. questioning myself has ultimately become habitual.
& i hate it.

our. mine and yours. us. so blurry now.

what we believed, together, has disappeared. i knew i had lost the way & i was still looking for the clearing but then you were lost too. & we were lost, only not together.

& i can't say i know how we got here. i can't say that i knew what i was doing because i didn't. i can't say that i knew how you felt because i was shielding it. i made things what they should have been, not what they were.

my happiness was taken along time ago.
your happiness can be relinquished.

nothing could pull me back from where i put myself.
so i guess the search is on.
the search...
not so appealing.

the space between.
seems to be just that, space.

so much for fate.
so much for destiny.
so much for for our beliefs in serendipity.



forever. i'll remember. forever.

Two men stand on a precipice. They are immobile, a pair of stone gargoyles wearing masks of hatred so deeply etched they might be mistaken for a great lost Michelangelo. Yet, the fires burning in their eyes are unmistakably alive, glowering like sinister backdrafts, ready to explode at a moment's notice. An expansive city stretches out below their lofty perch. It's midday, and though the men do not move, the air does, churning and roiling in the midsummer Nevada furnace. They are unseasonably dressed, all in black and kevlar-clad, weapons strapped to every niche of their bodies.

Their hands lay at their sides, betraying not even the twitch of a finger. They are warriors, and well trained.

"You shouldn't have come here, Jason." The shorter of the two breaks the impasse. His eyes are a shade short of sterling, his hair a ragged blond flecked with the same. Beads of sweat trail a young, impish face.

"I'm surprised, Noah." The obsidian black eyes are matched in hue and depth only by the unkempt hair. His face is a stern one, and considerably less sweaty. "The line they'd form to help me is short these days, but I'd always thought you'd be at the front of it."

"Things are different!" At this, Noah's hand gives an involuntary twitch toward a hilt at his hip. "He's killing us now - and worse."

"If there's one thing that you never feared, Noah Kaluck, it's death." Jason now deliberately rests his hand on a matching hilt, and the sterling eyes give a slight flick to it.

"Not for myself." There's a quiver at the corner of his mouth.

"Then for who?"

Like lightning, the hilt at Noah's hip flies from its scabbard, unveiling a short, curved, wicked sword. A fraction of a second later, an identical sword is in Jason's hand and the fury is burning ever deeper in their eyes.

"I won't let you in."

"You can try."

Take me back, 'cause just before I was spinning
Take me back, just before I got dizzy
Take me back, amazing what a minute can do
Just like you
So, so, slide, slide, up, around, around, around
Amazing what a minute can do
Around, Around, Around
"Forgive me",
"Ok."

take me back to the days we were happy;
i'm happy because i feel it's coming back again.

amazing what a minute can do;
"i want you back."
"me too."

i will always hold out the hope

How did it ever get to this? What kind of fucked up world is this when pure, powerful love can't bridge anything? I really thought it all meant more than this. To hell with the real world. Where I'm from, love conquers all.

http://www.shrinktalk.net/archives/why_marriages_fail_1.phtml

I found this article highly interesting, since marriage has always been an important subject to me. Once again, Rudius Media has shown me more and more facets of relationships that I have not previously considered. Some things that I noted:

-"Many couples do not know how to fight fairly." This is something I've felt before but never really seen explained as it is here. I'm not shy about who I am - I'm passive. I am the peacekeeper. And it's not from weakness or fear of fighting but rather from a dislike of fighting. I don't want to fight. I think it's a pointless waste of energy and it rarely accomplishes anything. In my experience, fighting has led only to more fighting (and occasional sex) - never an ultimate solution.

-Something I've often wondered is how much I have changed over the course of a relationship. The post mentions that everybody changes, which I agree with. Change might not always come in a sweeping form but it does come regardless. Emotionally I don't feel any different than I did a year and change ago. Things have changed in my relationship for sure, and I wonder how much of that is attributed to me. How much of that is my fault? Am I only a good lover in the puppy love stages? I don't believe that's true. I feel just as passionately as I did two Novembers ago. But in this case it's not my perspective that matters.

-What I do feel is that the way I have been approaching things is the right way. A lot of self-reflection time has taught me why I seek a relationship. The things I have felt over the past two months initially led me to believe that I was just afraid of being alone, but that's not true. I have been happy single and I have no doubt that I can be again. It goes deeper than that. As I said before, I'm a peacekeeper. I thrive on resolving conflict and "making things good" - this gives me a sense of personal satisfaction. To me, the ultimate experience of such is love. There is nothing that fulfills me more than being in love, making another person happy, directly improving another life because I am there. This makes me feel wanted, which is another deep-seated psychological desire of mine. Perhaps being wanted is my ultimate desire; it would make sense, considering that the times I feel unwanted (i.e. now) are the darkest times of my life.

Either way, this is very reassuring to me. I'm not looking for a housemaid, a mindless sex slave, or financial support. What I desire most is a mutually loving, supporting relationship, and I firmly believe that there is no better reason to be in love than to enjoy every facet of the other person.

Considering how much this fucking hurts, the fact that I refuse to give up must mean I'm doing something right.

if you want help, you have all the help you need right here. but you need to ask me for it. i love you and i will do anything for you. but you have to want it otherwise it's going to waste.

don't sit on your hands anymore. go out, grab life by the neck and don't let go until you take your last breath because it's not going to come to you like you want it to. not me, not anybody can tell you what you need to do, but people like me are here to guide you on the path.

live, love, and just do what makes you happy. the rest will come.

i love you.

I've spent a lot of time this week thinking about things that I miss. A few times I tried to write some long-winded post on here about it, but every time it just made me realize how retarded I am sometimes.

Anyhow, I had an epiphany today, and I realized there is one thing that I miss that pretty much sums up everything else I miss in one neat little idea.

I miss being called hubs.

(for hrv)

Have you ever been
stuck in days cold and grey,
where all the life around you
slips and falls away?

Have you ever gone
where the world hurts the most,
picking up the pieces,
haunted by the ghosts?

Have you ever seen
through the eyes of the desperate
whose screams and cries and tears
fade out with the west wind?

Have you ever felt
that one saving grace
when a heart reaches out and
finds you in that place?

Grey turns to gold,
water turns to wine,
dark turns to light,
coarse turns to fine

When the world's black and white,
she comes and makes it right.
Take a look and see,
she's the color that saves me.

By all respects, today has been an excessively shitty day. The casual reader can probably figure this by looking at the prior entry. This is the sort of time, when life has seemed to say "Well, fuck this guy," when I find solace in a Hippie Therapy Session.

A Hippie Therapy Session is easy to set up. Find yourself a place where you can be alone; the Hippie Therapy Session is a time for self-reflection, so don't go somewhere that any dumb frat brothers are going to barge into. Once you have your seclusion, make the area as cozy, relaxing, and inviting as possible. Get rid of any abrasive colors and bright lights; tone everything down. Light your world with candles. I use scented ones (we'll get to why later). I also have a nice red light robe that gives a great dim glow to a room when used the right way. The point is to drown out the ugliness and confusion of the world around you. When all you have to focus on is a softly flickering candle, the ugly paint on the walls, the huge zit on your nose, and the shitty weather outside fall by the wayside.

Now that your sight is taken care of, soothe your sense of smell. Burn scented candles as I mentioned above, and incense. Most specialty shops have a wide variety of incense and I find it always soothing in those times when I really need it. Thirdly, appease your ears. Put on some relaxing, inquisitive music - the genre is not as important as the tempo. Fast-paced music does not belong. To each his own tastes, but I have a "Chill" playlist that includes a lot of Dave, John Mayer, Oasis, Goo Goo Dolls, and Eagles. Lastly but most importantly, make yourself warm and comfortable - and for a five-shot of sense appreciation, get a cup of hot tea or something equally tastifying.

Now that you've joined me in a Hippie Therapy Session, let's forget the world exists for a little while.

Ready?

Aaaaaaah.

Forget about the ways the world beats down on you, because that's not going to go away. Refocus yourself on the wonderful things the world has to offer, because there are a lot of them. Right now, I'm swimming in incense, Dreamgirl, apple cinnamon, candlelight, a warm red glow, and lemon berry Hi-C, and I am humbly and incredibly thankful for these things:

-I have a wonderful, loving mother who has given up for me more than I could ever give back to her, and I owe her the world.
-I am truly blessed to have two functioning, complete, loving families. Where most kids born out of wedlock have trouble piecing together one household, I can name fifty people who would put a roof over my head if I needed it.
-The people who raised me had the foresight to give me all of the tools I need to succeed as an adult. I have not yet a challenge I have not felt I can accomplish, and I owe that to them.
-I have a very special connection to music, and I am finally getting the opportunities to express it.
-I'm learning to do what I love, and I am doing it at the absolute best place in the world to be doing it at.
-There is a very special girl out there who loves me with all of her heart, no matter what happens.

I spend too much time pitying myself when things get bad. I will leave this here as a testimony to the fact that I will not forget, nor ever stop being thankful, what I have been given and achieved. I am an incredibly lucky person. To everyone who gives that to me, thank you.