A Mission

People who know me well enough wouldn't be surprised to hear me admit that somewhere deep inside of me is an undying quest for perfection; Perfection being that Holy Grail of real life, an ideal treasure that will never truly be obtained. Fully aware of the impossibilty of ever finding myself anywhere near perfection, I've fallen miserably short besides. So here is my assessment of myself. After this week I'm looking at three-plus months of summer in which I can strive to better myself into someone, not perfect, but who's worth something to the world. In this blog I will plot out some of my major faults, not only for myself to see what I need to work on and make a check list of sorts, but also so that others might help me become a better person. At the conclusion of this "roadmap" I will assume as part of my personality an identity of my better self that been left sleeping for far too long. With her ressurection I will begin my quest not to be perfect, but to be the best me that I can.

I am overweight and out of shape: I have it inside of me to be hot, I just have to start making some more healthful decisions. Now is the time to focus my energy into become the semi-ideal image that I have of myself. The fast food and the junk food will have to stop and be replaced by a more sensible, balanced diet. Walks should become a frequent summer activity and I need to make a stronger effort to hit the gym, something I actually quite enjoy. It's about time I started taking pride in myself instead of giving myself the brush off. Great effort and strength of will is required for this feat.
I adhere too selfishly to my own wants: There are many people out in the world that are worse-off than me and I have cried myself to sleep at night because I felt like my friends abandoned me or because a boy didn't like me. This is silly. For all the good that I have in my life, I shouldn't really want for more. If I directed my attention to more worldly matters and helping out those who really needed it I would be able to sleep well knowing that someone's life was somehow improved by something selfless that I did for them.
I become attached to people too easily: There's nothing really wrong with this, but the selfless form of devotion I can offer is probably really annoying to people, especially when it drives me to become needy and clingy. The plus to this particular fault is that if someone should ever return to me a feeling of love, they probably would never find a partner who would be more loving or devoted than I. The problem is that by putting so much of myself into other people, I set myself up to have my heart ripped out every time and risk scaring away people that could someday be worth so much to me. To fix this flaw I must learn to show more restraint in my affection and be stronger at quelling the emotions that sometimes threaten to overwhelm me. My weakness renders me helpless in the face of my own emotions, if not the world before me.
I am impatient: Waiting has never been something I was good at and I have a strong aversion to standing in long lines. It doesn't help, I suppose, to be living in a world that is literally driven by instant gratefication. My impatience causes me to lose sight of things that could be good in the future, wanting them to come around full-swing here and now. If I would learn to wait, perhaps so many people wouldn't leave me for being too intense.
Seeing the glass as half-empty: More often than not I am attracted to the negative side of things, making decisions almost intentionally to ensure that only the most sorrowful outcome will prevail. Some parade under the notion that to endure suffering is to be strong, but always walking through the shadow to avoid falling out of the sunlight or being dropped is just taking the easy route. It takes more faith, more strength, more endurance to let yourself risk being hurt for the chance to smile at the world and see what it looks like from the sunlit path instead of the outskirts. It means choosing to hope that a happy future can be yours. I've been trying to work on this one a lot lately. Putting my trust into something that is not a sure thing is the greatest risk any human can take, but if you always live in fear of pain, are you really living at all? I choose to put my trust in hope and will use this struggle to also help me overcome my impatience.

There are more faults I could list, but these are the ones that strike hardest upon my character. To be extraordinary is the greatest achievement in the world. I've never thought of myself as being anything particularly special, but deep inside of me is the ability to be wonderful and someday I will find the beauty that is inside of me, then others will see me for who I am both with my good-points and my flaws. Someday I'll find someone who will love me completely and wholly for who I am, but not until I love myself in the same way.
I've met someone who makes me happy and who, when I'm around him, makes me like myself a little better somehow. I put hope that he will not give up on me as easily as others have, but I will be forever greatful for the way he's unknowingly inspired me to turn myself back to the light of trust and hope. Maybe he'll hurt me or maybe someday we'll be together, but for now I'm content with the happiness I find in him and will believe that it's only the beginning of more happinesses to come. Above all else, at least I have his friendship. Whatever happens from there is for the future to decide, a future I'll learn to have patience with.

"...Rainy Mondays feel like Fridays
when you're smiling at me..."

With that I leave the world on this spring day to take a break from my troubles and let the smell of spring fill my lungs and renew my soul. Tonight I will celebrate the reawakening of a lost soul who's been longing to return to the world for a long time.

With luvs,
~JD~

Life's Latest Conundrum and the Daunting Vision of the Blog that is Soon to Come

I think we all are faced with a choice various times in our lives, and what we choose to do with what we're presented can determine our future. One little decision can determine whether we will face a time of halcyon happiness or severe sorrow.
Hope is something we all take for granted, I think. I know I do. How often I've sat and pondered and then come to realize that there is so little hope inside of me that I could stare into the sun and think it black and shadowed. The reason I have little hope, however, is because all the times I was presented with the choice of clinging to hope until there was nothing more I could do to save it or letting it float away on the wind like a Dandelion seed, I'v chosen the latter of the two choices. In my head it makes sense: Although hoping and believing can bring you happiness, in the event that it does die (which can happen, sadly), the pain is inevitably so much worse than if we suffered slightly in resigning ourselves to the pessimistic outlook. It's easier to just give up than to believe in something that might end up hurting you.
So here I am, faced with this decision again and doing everything wrong in the process. Should I put my hope in a boy who has promised me complete honesty looking to find a future where the two of us could have a happy relationship at the risk that it will someday end, most likely leaving me heart-broken, or resign myself to say that I've messed things up too far beyond fixing and that I should just accept that he will never have romantic feelings for me.
Either way, I'm not doing much to ensure the safe-travel of my hope. Where I should be casual and disengaged I am attached and clingy, faults of my character I should work to remedy.
As time passes, however, I have much to say but no longer can put off what needs to be done for the day. I will spend the next few hours meditating my flaws and be back this evening to write what could, hopefully, be a roadmap for my future.
I leave with this question upon which I will meditate, too: What reason do is there for me to have hope besides blind faith that a higher power will guide me to safety? If you can answer that and give me a reason to believe, I'd be grateful, but there's really only one person who can rightfully give me a reason to have hope, and there's a 93.274% chance that he won't ever read this and a 65.72% chance that he wouldn't be able to anyways...

An Excerpt (sp?)

An excerpt (sp?) from Wicked by Gregory Maguire


"Well, the poor dolly is sick, the poor dolly is tired," said the ancient thing. Her hands felt, as the novice's had done, for open wounds on the wrists. Nothing. "Though intact, the poor dolly is in pain," she said, as if approving. A dome of near-balding scalp came into view under the hood of the blanket. "The poor dolly is faint, the poor dolly is faltering," she went on. She rocked a bit and pressed Elphaba's hands between her own, as if to warm them, but it was doubtful that her anemic and incompetent old circulatory system could heat a stranger when it could scarcely heat herself. Still she kept on. "The poor poppet is failure itself," she murmured. "Happy holidays to one and all. Come my dear, lay your breast on old Mother's bosom. Old Mother Maunt will set things right." She couldn't quite pull Elphaba out of her position of dreamless, sleepless grief. She could only keep Elphaba's hands tightly clutched within her own, as a sepal sockets the furls of young petal. "Come, my precious and all will be well. Rest in the bosom of mad Mother Yackle. Mother Yackle will see you home."

Borrowing

I'm borrowing the words of someone famous to throw my thoughts out into the air.


"...So I would choose to be with you,
that's if the choice were mine to make,
but you can make decisions, too,
and you can have this heart to break..."
~And So It Goes by Billy Joel

A New Dance

Dancing, rigid like a mechanical robot, the grace left the young dancer's step years ago. Her billowed skirt flows soft in the wind about her unbending body, inflexible and exact in all of its movements. Her appearance: Short, brown hair, seeming to be cropped by an unkind knife and eyes of hazel that have grown dull through the course of hardships. Bitter and alone, she is out of shape and out of practice. The dance left her before her journey even began.
But upon the horizon a shadow emerges, a sillouhette in the setting sun. With each step he draws nearer and the dead grass grows at his feet. Her downcast eyes gaze to the figure which moves towards her, a small ember burning in the vacant depths. Her tears begin to dry and her scars begin to mend as in a few seconds he has directed himself next to her. She gazes upon his features, a pair of twinkling eyes and a smile that leaves her soul in a strange feeling of serenity and security.
Her skin, pale and cracked, begins to glow again and a new hope spreads across her features. He takes her hand in his own, gently, and guides her to where she can stand in the light, away from the shadows that once consumed her. He teaches her steps to a new dance and her limbs begin to bend again, moving free and graceful as the skirts of the dress that falls about her figure. Together they move, two beings dancing as though the world can't see them, can't touch them.
After awhile he steps back and watches as she continues to flow, free as the river after a rainfall. She sees him to the side and, missing his presence, smiles into his watchful gaze. She has a new belief in herself, a new awareness of the wonder that was deep inside of her all along. She is happy moving to the rhythm he has instilled in her soul and knows that she will be always happy under his surveillance.
In her heart she hopes that someday they will move together, learning new steps to the dance as time passes, but even if he resigns himself to watching her figure from the sidelines, she knows somewhere that with him came the sunrise and she will forever dance the long hours that pass through the day.

¿Qué yo quiero?

Por encima de todas cosas te quiero. Tú sólo. Tú completamente. Tú para siempre. Quiero sentir tus brazos me abraza. Tus besos son mi cielo. Yo no sé que amor ser, pero me enamoraría si tu solo dices las palabras. Mis esperanzas son en mi corazón, y los permanecerán ahí hasta los alejas para mis labios.
Tu amistad es la cosa que aprecio más, y yo seré sonreír cada vez que tu sonreyes (cnjg?). Estando con tu, como amigo o más, me trae más felicidad que todo al mundo. Permanece mi amigo y quizas un día yo diré todos que yo quiero. Quizas un día yo podré esperar para más.

(If you speak Spanish more fluently than I, please disregard all of the blatent grammar mistakes. ^_~)

When A Girl Says She Misses You

Came across this when someone posted it on MySpace. I thought it was cute.

Guy Facts:

When a guy calls you --- he wants to be with you...
When a guy is quiet --- He's listening to you...
When a guy is not arguing --- He realizes he's wrong
When a guy says, "I'm fine," --- after a few minutes, he means it
When a guy stares at you --- he thinks you're the most beautiful thing in the world
When you're laying your head on a guy's chest --- he has the world
When a guy calls you everyday --- he is in love
When a (good) guy say he loves you --- he means it
When a guy says he can't live without you --- he's with you till your done
When a guy says, "I miss you," --- he misses you more than you could have ever missed him or anything else

*******************************************
Girl facts:

When a girl is quiet --- millions of things are running through her mind.
When a girl is not arguing --- she is thinking deeply.
When a girl looks at you with eyes full of questions --- she is wondering how long you will be around.
When a girl answers, "I'm fine," after a few seconds --- she is NOT at all fine!
When a girl stares at you --- she is wondering why you are so wonderful.
When a girl lays on your chest --- she is wishing for you to be hers forever.
When a girl calls you everyday --- she wants to hear your voice.
When a girl wants to see you everyday --- she wants to be pampered.
When a girl says, "Ill love you forever," --- she means it.
When a girl says that she can't live without you --- she has made up her mind that you are her future.
When a girl says, "I miss you," --- no one in this world can miss you more than that

Inspirations

Untraveled Worlds

I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone.

I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams the untraveled world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.

Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield!
-from "Ulysses" by Alfred Lord Tennyson

My Music Box

Huzzah for another of my feeble attempts at poetry!! Did you miss it???



A tiny ballerina poised
upon a spinning stand:
A painted smile upon her face,
a rosebud in her hand.

And from therein emits a sound
so soft and sweet and clear
she cannot help but dance to all
the waltzes she may hear.

And there she sits upon my shelf,
waiting for the day
that I approach and lift the lid
that sends her on her way.

And she's content, for well she knows
that there within her care
are the hopes and fears of my fondest heart:
The dreams I've never dared.

In her charge, and hers alone,
are the things I treasure most.
My happiness above all odds,
what joys I have to boast.

So listen well, you demon-ghosts
and others who would try
to steal my shining treasure
from beneath her watchful eye:

One warning you'll receive today
then no more will I give,
you'll stay away from my treasure chest
if you value the life you live.

For this spinning ballerina girl,
so innocent with grace,
will prey upon your greatest doubts
and drive you to a darker place.

For she knows I've gone forever
searching to collect
these infinite joys I've finally found:
the trinkets she protects.

So if you manage to get past
the chainings and the locks,
your mind will slowly go insane
if you touch my music box.

Don't touch my music box.

Bleh

You know what? I'm sick of this! Someday I'm going to find the words to write something happy. Just be patient with me, okay?

Aching for the Chance to be Weak

It's 11:41 and I'm staring at the 40 words that begin an essay that is destined to become a four-page paper analyzing Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. Of course, this means that at this point I am finding any way possible to avoid having to write another word. Damn me and my prcrastinator ways.
Someone has attempted to make popcorn. I say attempted because the microwave in the kitchen of our dorm, conviniently located two doors down from me, is an evil machine with nothing but ill-will for all the inhabitants of Lyon Hall and proceeds to take any innocent bag of popcorn and burn it before it's even half-popped. The result of this is the stench of burnt popcorn wafting down the hallway and under the crack of my door and into my room, thus infecting my private space, which until now smelled of the cinnamon candle I was illegally burning, with the soft, yet biting odor of defenseless corn kernals turned a black char of ash. You all no what burnt popcorn smells like.
I'm cold. I'm sitting by my wide-open window in my pajama bottoms and a camisole top. There are goosebumps running from the place where the shoulders and neck meet and down to my wrists, where my hands are, amazingly, warm at the moment.
This is all trivial, because there is a voice in my head trying to make me feel inadequate, and it's this faded whisper that I perceive above the smell of burning popcorn and the chill of cold air outside. It's taking what small remnant of happiness I've managed to glean over the past few days and crushing it like a mirror on the floor.
I stand guard over the shattered pieces of my hope, daring the spectre to try and take it away from me. Alone, standing guard over a prize that no one can see and may, perhaps, one day be worthless after all, I set my jaw and with my eyes dare the monster to try me.
It's a losing battle I've been fighting since the beginning of time, it just seems as though sometimes I'm foolish enough to let my guard down, and it's then that the darkness swarms in.
I can't breathe anymore, trapped under its crushing pressure. I can't see the pieces of my treasure on the ground before me, so I grope blindly, hoping that another shadow demon won't come and steal what little comfort remains for me.
It is my fate, my curse, until I find someone brave enough to help me fight my shadows. I'm tired of being strong all of the time: Strong for myself, and strong for everyone else who find themselves obliged to bring their burdens to the dark recesses of my world. I'll help them carry their burdens happily, it's through helping those I care about that I truly find a gleaming spark of happiness, but there is a part of my soul that is just aching for the chance to be weak.
I suppose in the end I just need a rest, even if it's brief, but, then again, don't we all?

...One sleepless night later.

So, yesterday was good. :-)

I wish I would have written last week, because I think something really good would have come out of it. As a result, you're left with me sitting in front of my computer, bored, on a sweet, sunny spring day. I have a lot of work to get done over the week that I am, of course, procrastinating.
In all my confusion of life, my mind is strangely lucid. It's like the mess up there is organized behind glass panels. I took a nap last Friday, nothing significant, barely an hour in length, but when I woke up, somehow I just felt different.
I drifted into dreamland, where I didn't really have any clear visions, through a meditative state of prayer, tears running down my cheek and soaking my pillow, and opened my eyes feeling this strange sense of calm deep inside of me. It was like I had grasp on the fraying strings of my life I couldn't get ahold of last week and was able to pin them to a surface to be braided back into normality later.
So now I'm blogging when I don't have much of anything left to blog about. Maybe I'll write more later when I'm not distracted by Becker on the TV. Until then (I guess to quote TV jargon): Stay tuned!