What If?

Sometimes...I can't help but acknowledge that fear that whispers in my mind even when I'm not paying attention to it...

What if I fail?

What if I'm no good?

What if I'm not needed?

Thoughts Before Action...But No...

To tell the truth, a character I've been working on is pretty flat. I've known this for some time and just can't seem to shake that. I've tried different ways to make them complex in a fun and interesting way. The character, Jesse, is an outcast. A typical outcast that was bullied as well as ignored in high school. Hardly one to make friends, he remains shy and an introvert even as he starts college. He is the youngest of four with a twin sister that's a minute older than him.

So, ok. He's an outcast. Doesn't fit in anywhere. He's shy and just beginning to realize that he's gay. Yeah. It's that kind of story: your typical coming of age. Not even the fact that he was raised Mormon and comes from a Mormon family is meant to be anything more than a part of the conflict. It's not meant to be the defining part of the story. Just assisting in moving the plot forward.

I mean, sure. Cool. Gay and Mormon. Ooo. So horrible. Not really. His personality has never been defined by Mormonism. Yeah, he grew up in the religion. Did all that he was supposed to do. But he never believed. Both his brothers served missions and his sister intends on doing so. She's even going to the Mormon school BYU while he attends one of the state colleges in Washington state. But he's still an outsider when it comes to this religion. His parents want him to go on a mission but at the same time already look on him as a failure. This isn't because he doesn't really follow their faith. But it's because their personalities clash and they have never really taken the time to reach out to him and understand him. This, of course, goes both ways. The two parties stand on opposite sides of a cliche chasm.

His roommate is also Mormon and someone that has come back from serving a mission. Despite all my talk about "missions" this isn't a major factor in the story. Just facts, ha ha!

Beyond religion, he's shy (as already mentioned). He's still young, an eighteen-year-old, and just beginning college. He has no idea what he wants to do with his life and feels more lost than anything. He's afraid to reach out and admit that he's gay to anyone. So when it comes to this, he has hopeless crushes. I don't want this to come across as pathetic (but it is). Just another foil in his character.

Still, events will come along to challenge him to discover himself (cause that's what's supposed to happen, lol). But mixed with it all, and hopefully this makes the story an enjoyable read, is that it's not just a kid coming out and accepting himself, but a story of magic and mystery.

So in all of this, I want it to be a story of self-discovery, hope, and finding out about more than just being gay. I hope it would be an adventure that takes readers of all kinds into an odyssey through the eyes of a character that is sympathetic, funny, and quirky as the story unfolds.

Wow, well, ok. I feel a little better after writing that. Gives me a little more sense how I want the story to progress and how I want the character to act and be like! Phew!

Return of the Blogger!

It's been about ten days since I last posted. Shame, really. This is exactly my problem: laziness. I was distracted with playing computer games and feeling "tired" after work. Well, that happened. I can't change the past week and some-odd days, so gonna have to keep going forward. I am lazy. I know that. Laziness is my defense against fear of the unknown and what I think may be dangerous. Rather than face what causes the anxiety, I hide from it.

I'm not really gonna jump on me for wanting to hide. It happens. Getting angry over it just leaves me feeling guilty and paralyzed, the opposite of what I need. I need to keep working towards my goals.

So, what I my goals for this week?

Work on my story
Research for my other story
Work on my financial goals
Spend time with friends
Go for a walk every day

That means I've got a lot to work on today!

Hm, well, I certainly don't own this picture. But it does work. That reminds me, I need to make out with Boyfriend today. A good goal, if you ask me!

To Escape or Surrender...or Get a Milkshake

I'm not sure why I want to keep living.

To be honest, I don't think I need to know if there is a "why" behind why I keep on.

Today I realized that my next goal is to start earning extra money, finishing my schooling, and getting a second job to pay down some of my debt. I also realized that I am afraid to do so. I'm afraid to face the new stress that I'd be exposed to.

That's where this blog comes in. I created this to help me face the fears that I have. Now, I won't be completely candid even though I'm pretty much the only one that reads this, but still.

My job sucks as far as wage goes. I knew it going into it. Over the past year, I've received a wage increase of about 1%. I don't know if that's normal for other wage earners in my bracket and other such statistics. Regardless of those unknowns, I earned very little before and now I earn very little plus a tiny amount now.

I bring that up so that I can face the realities of my wages. I earn shit. I am drowning in debt. Wouldn't it be nice to pay some of that off in a year? Two years? Yeah. It would be.

So take a chance. I need to go out and accept that I've failed so far in my life so why not risk failing some more. It's not like I'll lose anything. I'll end up with things as they currently are so I really wouldn't be losing anything. Whereas the benefits are that I have the option to greatly enhance my life beyond what it already is.

So what scares me? The unknown? Fear in general? What?

Ah, Something Happy!

Things have been depressing on here lately. So...for today, I'm just gonna post a favorite video of mine from YouTube:

Death, Show No Pride

So far I've written about how shitty a summer I had. Yippee. What does any of that mean anyway? What will it mean to me three years from now? Five years from now? Forty years? Who knows.

But right then, it meant that I had hit rock bottom. I worked at a job that barely kept me alive for nearly ten months starting in July. And you know what? It kept me alive even if barely. The way that I look back at the last year is that I needed time to recover, to heal, and to absorb all the pain that I had received the previous summer. That was all I could do. I would pretty much wake up very early and get ready for work by sitting at my computer until the last minute and then scramble to get ready before dashing to the train station to go off to work. I'd work and smile and feel happy even if only for a little bit. But always I'd feel the darkness in my life when I would be alone. I would then make the return journey home where I'd just sit at my computer until it was time to go to sleep before waking and starting the whole ordeal the next day.

I was at a point where I felt like I was just waiting for something to rip my life apart and give me cause to commit suicide.

From December to March, I seriously considered killing myself. At one point I used a razor and cut my own shoulder because I just couldn't escape the stress I was feeling. I couldn't ignore the call to do damage to me. I wanted to see my own blood then. But for a couple of months those thoughts subsided.

Then, in May, I seriously considered suicide. I even looked online to find ways to eliminate as much of the financial burden my debt had become in my life so that if I died it wouldn't affect my parents.

I had become a failure.

I felt such darkness in my life and I just wanted to give in to it.

Or so I thought.

See when I did decide to give in, some small voice buried deep inside obstinately said "no" and refuse to allow me to move an inch more toward oblivion. Each time I felt as thought I'd reached the end some part of me would keep saying, "Fuck the hell no, goddamnit."

You really can't blame me for feeling bewildered at this voice in me. What was worth living for? I'd failed at everything that could possibly matter. No one even wanted me around. I would do justice to the world by killing myself. Yet to all of those thoughts that voice still refused to yield. It took time but I did accept it and decided to re-examine my life to see if I could climb out of the hole I'd dug for myself.

I don't think I'll ever know why I wanted to live so badly at that point but I can at least say I was smart enough not to fight that voice.

And hear I am. Trying again.

Nothing Lasts Forever

By this point, I was already feeling emotionally empty. Sure, I would focus on the now which gave me the opportunity to find happiness. But when I got home from work, I'd sit at my computer and just get lost into the ether of the Internet. I couldn't handle what I was feeling. All I knew was that I was lost and everything was spinning out of control.

I was at work on my birthday when this next part took place. I had called my parents earlier because they were driving to where I lived for a cousin's wedding. They were also coming to pick up the car I'd been using for the past year. The financial burden of having that car had become too much so I had decided to give it to my sister.

I called my parents again during lunch and was told that they were a little busy and could they call me later. So I said sure and waited for the rest of the work day for a phone call. When I hadn't heard from them in four hours, I decided to call and see how they were doing.

My mother answered the phone in a tone that made it clear something was wrong. I asked why hoping to find out the cause of her pain. Yet I was unprepared for her answer to my question.

My parents were getting divorced.

I was so completely stunned. I had no idea anything was wrong between them. They had kept much of the substance of their relationship a secret. And I accepted that. They, as adults, always had a right to their privacy. Even as an adult now, it was still none of my business how they chose to interact with each other and what they meant to each other beyond the titles of husband and wife. It was by mere biological coincidence that my relationship to them was tied.

When I first found out, my mind was swimming with questions about why and how. I called my father briefly to express support but I was still in shock and gave a premature gesture of such before I was truly ready. When I understood more fully the gravity of the situation, I couldn't talk to him; causing only more pain for him and even for my mother.

It took a few days to piece together the whole story of my dad had been cheating on my mom for nearly thirty years and that my mom had found out not once but twice now that he was doing so. This was evidently the straw that broke the camel's back.

For a child, even as an adult now, I was facing for the first time the reality of both my parents. I had long ago accepted them as human as me, as any little child does when they are growing up. But for so long they had acted as mere ideas and mere outlines of people. They'd gone to high school, went to college, my dad went on a mission, they get married at a young age and had kids right away. They then spent the rest of their years working to provide for the family (Dad) and raising the kids (Mom).

I admit it's my fault for not trying to understand them better. So this first major slap in the face brought about so much anger from me concerning my dad's own indiscretions. His own betrayal of his faith. Sure, I had long since stopped believing, but he seemed to have not.

I never felt like a lost a father when I found out his cheating past, a very recent past indeed. I felt like I had never really known my father and I was left to wonder just who was this man that had voluntarily shared his genetic code with me and participated in raising me for so long.

My siblings and I hated him for a long time. Our forgiveness was eventually given but with the understanding that trust had been violated and could not be given again. What was lost was forever lost. But even with all that, I didn't know what to say or do. My siblings saw the world in a stark religious duality of good vs. evil. While I? Well, I just had questions and saw only a man that I didn't really know and wanted to know. Why had he done this? Why had he married my mom? Was there actually anything wrong with him? What was his relationship with my mom like over the years? Did they communicate as well as they supposedly should have? Or had they been around each other for so long that they stopped seeing each other?

The threat of divorce turned into one born of anger to one born of a need to reexamine their relationship. My father went into counseling for the next year. He and my mother stayed married during that time. I never really knew what to say.

My mother called me yesterday to tell me that she and my father are getting a divorce. In a year's time, I realize I still don't know what to say. I only know that the people I know as my parents are changing. That the substance of their lives still remain a mystery to me; one that if they were willing to open up a little on, I would listen and ask questions concerning those things.

I love both of my parents despite the terrible road that we have crossed this past decade. They have provided for so much in my life, raised me, and cared for me.

So it is in that vein of love for them that I am left with questions. Who is my father? And who is my mother? Who are they as people?

I am ultimately left with the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and realization that not all of those pieces are there. I wonder if my siblings know the story more? Are they equipped to handle what's happening?