THE PAST IS A DEAD ANIMAL

A (or is it THE) reason that I don't like feeling pity for myself is that I look at it as a sign of disrespect to the life that I did have and of those who have had to do with less and accomplished more. I hadn't ever asked, or hardly ever asked, 'why me?', you know what I am saying? I mean, why did I have to get picked on and why did I have to be on the outside of social groups and float around. 'The area between cliques is where I dare', I would say in an effort to make light of what I was going through. It would have been nice to be on the 'ins' of something.

Sorry if you are looking for specific 'incidents', but sometimes my memory is heretical to itself, you know? I do remember what I FELT and that is more than enough. I recall the stings and the barbs growing up of being pushed around and eventually out of the loop. Don't ever recall missing or questioning why it had to be that way. Back then I didn't get deep with that stuff like Jacques Cousteau. I made a choice that it was the way that it was for a reason and I figured I would find out later why, if I needed to know. Put on my Smiths and Cure records and let them melancholy me to sleep...

For a long time I have found clever and pithy sayings to keep me moving forward through all the trying times that I have faced. But right now, I am running out of them... not so much as running out, but getting worn out having to find the resolve to push myself forward yet again.

Lately, the need to ask 'what if's' has popped in and around my head over time. Hey, I am human too. Comes with the territory. For the most part, I've thought about it and moved on... when it came to 'getting over things', I have gotten over them.

Right now, the memory of what once was and could have been is almost too much for me to bear. More that the memory of what the past FELT LIKE is. And all those possiblities... where did it all go?

I think back to seeing that kid I from Carolina, only now he was the contender and had done the very things that I talked with him about, and how he offered me a job as a sparring partner. The reason that I didn't take that job was less about ego and more about the feeling that I had cheated myself out of being 'him'. To watch him 'be me' was too 'Eddie Kane' for me (you know the scene in the movie 'The Five Heartbeats', where he asks Flash, 'How does it feel to be me?') and I couldn't take the job. 'Being cool' with the boss would have been too much like the sycophant to me. Not to mention the resentment.

"Why... why wasn't 'it' me?", I would have been asking of no one in particular. For me, asking that would have meant the would come an answer echoing back in the darkness of my imagination. And I don't like asking the question because I KNOW that I would have liked the answer even less.

There was a review of a couple of books about Ayn Rand in the Post last Sunday... and while I have heard the stuff before about her as a person, like I do reading thru journals, I see pieces of her imperfections and again I wonder... not at her failings but how she was able to achieve despite what she did despite them.

EVER WONDER WHAT IF HE PUSHED THE BOULDER UP A DIFFERENT HILL..?

A cat that I know from my days as a boxer posted something interesting about the time he wasted sulking over someone he broke up with. He mentioned that he almost always got an opportunity to have a 'second chance' with them. So I guess that was time he wasted, wanting for something with them because he would eventually have that chance with whoever.

His use of the block of time struck me... 17 to 35 ... because from that range in MY life, if I didn't do ANYTHING I know that I wasn't worried about someone who I split with. Regular readers know that I feel that way about my life. Messing around in the moldy, yellowed pages of my past never appealed to me.

It took until I was 35 for me to even think twice about wanting someone from a past relationship... and I wanted to find out what the fuss was all about. Yeah, I was still hung over Tee Jay but as much as I pined over her, I couldn't take the plunge and go after her. Why, when I had told myself that she meant the world to me and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her..?

Because I felt as though I 'gave at the office' the first time. I didn't hold back while we were together. And that pretty much covers how I feel about all of my past relationships. Sure, some of the ladies did deserve better from me, but they didn't get it. But since this isn't about them, what do you want me to do?

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 'CONFIRMED' AND 'VERIFIED'

Sometimes, I sit around and I feel broken. I mean I AM broken, for real though. That is physical not in spirit. I am still the 'same kind of stupid' that I was when I left home for the service. The issue I have with all this is, what happened between 'there' and 'here'.

Nebraska has really let it be known to me how she feels. I used to think that she was hiding how she felt about me. If she didn't feel deeply about me, then she held on to how MY feelings made her feel towards the possiblity that we'd be a item. Now, it seems that she cares more about me than I even hoped. She wants to live the rest of her life with me and sharing love with me.

MTXE

THE COMPETITOR IN ME

"I am not going to sit around and hope." That is something that I am familiar with. Having gone out and having to face difficulty in trying to win or get whatever it is that I want is normal.

Though I don't think that I may have had any discernible impact on the SFC life as she did have one on mine. That is why it is hard to stay. I can't help but think that I would have had what it is that I wanted had our paths not crossed. But they did. And I failed myself...

... but why did she have to happen to me? What could I have been? Where would I have gone?

I know that I told her at the beginning of this, when we first begin to talk to one another, that I had left all that in the past. But that was of course, the polite thing to say. For a cat who didn't have the fall back to catch himself, making the correct decision and being a 'first time go', was everything to me.

So now she has again entered my life when I had plotted a course to take me to where I want to go. And I don't want to let go of my hopes, not this time. Going out to Nebraska was a 'go' for so many reasons, that if Nebraska was going to stay to her then stated tack, I'd be comfortable with my decision to live in Omaha and chill.

Wherever the SFC goes from here, it will be to suit her own purposes and designs. I'd have to put whatever it is that I wanted to the side and live through her dreams. Thanks but no thanks. I will keep my dreams and try to live them.

Hmm... I did expect to be in Omaha in May or June of this year, didn't I ..?

DEATHLESS WORDS

IF YOU DON'T CARE, WHY SHOULD I?

"Who was there at the world's beginning?", asks the narration in a comic book about someone who goes off to embrace his destiny in spite of his personal weaknesses.

I like that because it says to me that no one was there but you at the beginning of whatever it is you complain, moan, blame, and it implies that no one but you will be able to get you out of it. Same thing with the cadence, 'Ain't no use in looking down ... there's no discharge on the ground...' Where you are is where you are at, and for real, unless you can get away from it, nothing really matters.

Whether it is something someone is having happen to them 'again', or it makes them wonder when it is going to be 'my turn', I hate when they direct that towards me. Because I wasn't there when they gave all of themselves to all of whatever they chose to, but since like everyone else, they made a choice. Sure those choices were connected to other choices, but even as they wound their way along, the fact remains that there was a choice to be made. What that choice was, no matter what, is what they have to own.

The entire thinking is so selfish that I locks up my mind. How selfish must a person be, to think that their pain and their agony is so ultra terrible and unique that for them to find themselves again 'sacrificing' for the sake of some unknown and amorphous reason as a relationship, is arrogance.

So, WHEN is it going to be 'my turn'? When WILL it stop 'happening to them'? I DON'T FREAKING KNOW!!

That is why if you haven't walked in someone's shoes, you should watch what you say. You aren't the only one who has had to let go of hopes and dreams, or have what you wanted snatched away from your hands. Then to be surrounded by all the 'what ifs' and reminded of all that you lost and gave up for... what?

For this??

My Plan to remake myself and focus on the building of the rest of my life, and finding my new normal.

REALLY ..?

So this is another situation where I find myself hanging out with a person who is wondering, 'when its going to be my turn' and not believing that 'they have did this again'.

What 'the Nebraska Concept' was for me, was the opportunity to be free of the nagging and lingering issues concerning relationships. Who doesn't feel that they have loved and loved, without that love being returned? How many people are wondering if it is ever going to happen for them, love that is fulfilling and abiding?

I told the SFC's friend that we are both 'the same kind of stupid'. While it was tongue in cheek, it was accurate. Here we sit in an ambigious relationship where neither of us are feeling fulfilled. Our conversation is stilted because we aren't putting a lot of ourselves into what we are saying. Were someone to say that we are both looking for the end of this, I wouldn't argue with them.

When I hear someone say those 'magic words' that indicate they have made yet another mistake that they have made before with me, that is when things are coming to a close. You can come back from a lot of things, but not the conclusion that you have messed up again. How can you? Isn't that when the towel is being thrown in, or if not, in hand at the ready to be tossed?

My Plan to remake myself and focus on the building of the rest of my life, and finding my new normal.

I thought long about the subhead for this journal. I wanted to make this part of my life's journey about me finding my way and pursuing my happiness. This has been a detour. Not an 'unfortunate' one, but a detour nonetheless. Virginia isn't where I am supposed to be. After all, I did have the dream of Skye, KT, and Lexxie with me at the Nebraska State fair. That seemed real, where being here seems like something else.

For such a selfish bastard, I am more self-less that I give myself credit for. No one has even come remotely close to giving up the things that are dearest to them for me. So I can't let myself feel as though there is anything more for me to give. I better do for me, because no one else can be counted on to do it!