To Make a Better World

353 hours…..approximately, and everything should be wonderful, fantastic, amazing…

But I’m worried about getting there. I know I’ll survive and I’ll make it, but my big question is “how?” Every day, every hour, everysecondthat it gets closer, it feels like so much longer. And with every movement of the clock’s hand new fears and worries spring up. Maybe things won’t be like we thought they would be…maybe for some reason things won’t work out between us…maybe,maybe…….my mind rebels. Each thought and worry makes me shudder, each one like a knife to the heart. All the while I feel,It would be fine if I were with you.But I’m not. I will be, and soon.Soon.HA.Soon is relative. It feels further and further away each moment. It doesn’t feel like soon, two weeks and a day seems likeforever.

But I know…somehow, some way, I’ll make it through.

And I’ll see you quite soon, darling

I thought it was gone, dead and buried. Never to rise from the grave I reduced it to, the grave of flames that turned it all into cold ash that would melt away with the rain and blow away with the wind. I had destroyed itall, ever single remnant.

And then, yesterday morning, I was given back a thumb drive I had lost over 2 years ago. And from this thumb drive my past reared it’s monstrous head. Most of it was back, alive, sitting right there on the little piece of hardware. I swept through it and deleted 90% of it…..really forever condemning the files to the grave of permanently-deleted computer files. But the rest…..some still remains. I haven’t quite been able to demolish it completely, to forever and finally destroy five yearsof my life. Yeah, that’s almost 1/3 of my life. I wasted it, but have pressed on with regrets and tried not to look back. And yet, I still can’t bring myself to let go completely. There’s still that tiny little bit sitting there….I’ll get the strength and courage to get around to getting rid of it a little later…….maybe. Maybe. Part of me hopes so. Another part of me is kicking and screaming, pushing to just let it slip by and rot for another couple of years and only dust it off and show it to the light of day every few months or so. I am battling myself, and I know which side is right, which side shouldwin, which side needsto win (which side eventually will win?). Yet I still fight it. Let’s see how long this battle will last. It only takes a couple of strokes on the keyboard. It’s so simple, it’s so easy. But I can’t make it that easy for myself for some reason.

Miracles do happen.

Or maybe that was just a freak incidence of coincidental timing…but I doubt it, and prefer the word “miracle” anyways, because that was just really ridiculous.

My parents got home from a week-long trip last night, and today my mom comes up to me and says that they reviewed our family’s finances and it wasn’t good…or pretty. That they’re seriously considering not buying anything at all anymore that they don’tabsolutely have to…including better food.

I am a student. I have an extremely limited amount of money, and the little I have goes towards gas, a little eating out now and then (despite my inordinately stingy nature) and a few extra expenses on the side now and then. I have been hoping, and perhaps even slightly depending on my parents for contributions - to pay for every other or every third or fourth tank of gas, some tiny expenses on the side…but now they can’t even afford stuff for themselves, much less me. Now I feel horrible when I even thinkabout trying to mooch off of them (good thing I forgot to fill my gas tank with my mom’s card today…).
I feel on my own financially. Completely. And I burned through $70 in this past week alone…..I feel at the end of a precipice, like I’m gonna run out of money sooner than I’d like. I feel trapped, scared.

Then one of my mom’s violin students walks in and hands me a check for $100 - payment for my playing the piano (and a little violin and one song on the cello) at her super huge Birthday party two months ago. I was absolutely astonished.

I have this kinda-part-time-ish job landscaping at this development my uncle built. I’m only usually able to make it out there (and it doesn’t need much more than) a few hours a week, but the pay is good. And I was last paid in the summer, and the records were lost (long story, but basically my brother’s computer crashed so they were lost), so I decided to go re-create the hours I had worked since the end of July. I got my planner and the calendar, looked at the ones written down, drew others out of my memory, wrote it all down, then added it up.

27 hours. At $15 an hour. I did the math; multiplied it out.

And almost died.

Unless I blow through about a hundred and fifty bucks before then, I will be better off when I get that check than I was when I started College a month and a half ago…better offthan I’ve ever been.

I was, and still am absolutely humbled and amazed. I wasnotexpecting that. I was facing a financial crisis, and suddenly now I have plenty before me -more than plenty. I was never really motivated to work, or do much besides just sit around and waste my time. But now…now I want to work, I want to get stuff done. I want to keep afloat, I want to stay in this comfortable place, and not by not spending money or by getting money for free, but by working and obtaining it honestly. I have been inspired, astonished and amazed.

It might have been just a thing of timing, a coincidence. I will let you decide that. But to me, it felt like - it was - a miracle.

I walk the line…the very,veryfine line, going on one side of it one moment, the other the next. Sometimes I even stay on one side or the other for an hour, or some decent amount of time, but the struggle never goes away.

Everything seems so meaningless, useless, and worthless; up here, without her. I feel if (when) I could be with her everything would have meaning and purpose, that everything would be so delightful, easy, and wonderful. That when I’m with her I will be happy, find happiness, and time “wasted” with her will not be wasted. I know there should be, I know there is somewhere, somehow meaning to my life up here, without her. But where is it? I search, I ask myself, constantly trying to find it, constantly battling and struggling to find it and keep it. I’ll get it and be happy for a little while…and then it’ll fade away, it’ll go away…and the happiness is gone. The only thing left is heartache, regrets, wishes, pain, sorrow. Deeper than any I have ever felt in my entire life. Part of me is so scared, so terrified of losing her, of losing what we have, of the both of us going through our lives like this, always apart, always separate. But another part of meknowsthat in not very much time, even though it’ll seem like forever till we get there, we will forget what it was to be apart and have our hearts stretched across 1,111 miles.

Until then…I need to remember that. I needto hold on to that knowledge, that truth, and that just makes things quite a bit better.

My older brother moved into a new house at the beginning of the week, and he and his buddies decided to throw a housewarming party, and I, (apparently) a cool little brother, was invited. My parents, since they helped them move in, were invited as well, so I just decided to ride with them. When we got there there were only about half a dozen people there, and hardly any food and a tiny bit of stuff to drink…but then people started coming, and more an more people got there. By about 8:30 or 9:00 the party was in full swing, and I must say, it was probably the first “real party” I have ever been to. In the past, the “parties” that my groups of friends have had is, everybody just goes to somebody’s house and just hangs out, bored, maybe watches a movie or plays a game or something, but everybody generally just lays around, not talking too much (and the few things they talk about are silly, stupid and/or childish) - and it has been quite boring. But this. They had music going in the background, and there were around thirty people (adults), talking, eating, laughing, having fun, getting to know each other, talking about life and being interested in howpeople are doing and what they’re doing for a living. Yes, there was booze there. But they were church people and responsible adults, drinking very responsibly and keeping complete control of themselves. It was a perfectly safe environment, even for the four-year-old boy that one of the guys brought. It was a real party, and Iloved it. I wanna hang out with those people, I want to spend time with them and be “in their circle.”

Just before this party I got a text from my friend saying that somebody in my old (high-school) group of friends is “throwing a party” this afternoon. Suddenly, I really don’t think I want to go. All the people that are going to be there, though “my peers,” I’ve started to be able to not stand because of their lack of maturity. If there is talking, they’re not going to talk about stuff worth talking about. Most likely they’re going to just play Halo or something like that, and there’s going to be fighting among some of the people there, and highschool drama, and everything that is completely repugnant to me and that I can’t stand. I’m in college now. Sure, I’m younger than some of them in years. But all of them are years below in maturity level, and I just don’t want to expose myself to that. I just don’t have the energy mentally or emotionally to handle all their kid drama. So…sorry, my former circle of friends, but you’re just a drain. I’m moving on to the real, adult world. Have fun in your little worlds.

I made the decision a week ago, yet was so scared that it might not be possible. So yesterday, on our “4-month anniversary,” with the liquid courage that a cup of coffee that morning provided me, I decided to ask him. I wrote down my points at college and prepared what I was going to say so my mind didn’t go dead so I didn’t look like an idiot. I got home at about 1:30, but he wasn’t. So I sweated and worried and wondered until he got home at 4:30. Then he had about 15 minutes before he had to leave. So I talked for fourteen of those minutes, giving about a dozen points of why this is so necessary; why Ineedto do this.

He didn’t say much. But as he walked out the door he said, “I can’t say much, or give you my thoughts or feelings or advice, but I am okay with you taking a short, like about a week, trip.”

A year of pain, struggle, questions and fears fell away from me at that very moment. And the day that started good but was pretty hairy in the middle turned out fantastic.

Guys, I’m taking a trip in December. To see somebody I haven’t seen in (by that time) a year and a half. And that person is the most beautiful and amazing person I know. I just hope (little-logistics-wise) that I can be down there with my girl on Christmas Day. That would make my year.

A heart can only be pierced by so many knives……

I move, and my heart breaks.
I think, and my heart breaks.
I touch, and my heart breaks.
Even with the feeling of the beating of my own heart, thudding out it’s dull rhythm throughout my body, it breaks with each single, solemnLub-Dub.

My iTouch or computer dings again, and this time it’s not only my heart that breaks. Instead, I feel as if my whole being has been shattered into each tiny atom. And yet, I’m still here, my diaphragm still forcing air in and out of my lungs, my heart endlessly throbbing, my eyelids still refreshing my drying-out eyes ever few moments. But inside my chest that ever-breaking heart feels like a lead weight.

There’s only one thing I want, that I need - to help you. For you to feel better; for things tobebetter…for me to be there and weep with you and just be there for you and know what’sreallygoing on. To reach out to you and show you how much I love you; to comfort you properly.

Instead, I’m here. 1,111 miles away and helpless. Unable to do a single thing except to try to do my very best with the texts I can send you. But I know my best isn’t nearly enough for anything, to have any effect on anything happening with or around you.

And so my heart breaks. I move, realize that I’m not at your side, and it breaks. I think of you and what’s going on and it breaks again. I touch anything around me, objects that are not next to you - that aren’t you; and it breaks. And yet, still, I remain - with only one purpose and goal: to see you again.

I took a little walk down memory lane…

Accidentally stumbling upon things from the past brought it all about, things I had that I thought I had destroyed. But these still remained. So I brought them down and briefly revisited what was once the best memories of my life, but now…now are ones I just want to forget and put behind me.

As I revisited these memories my heart ached again, and my mind returned to a place that it has not been in almost a year. Has it really been that long? It doesn’t seem that way, time just flows and goes in the strangest of ways. Briefly I wished for what I wished for before.

And then I was slapped back to reality. No, now I have something, someone, better. Not just painful wishing and hoping, but somebody who really loves me, somebody who I can not hope for a future with, but somebody with whom weplan ourfuture.

For a very brief moment the two sides of me warred. It was a hard, desperate battle for my heart - what used to be verses what is. But of course, whatiswon out. And so, upon both impulse and dead-set certain forethought, I grabbed a lighter and went outside the the firepit…and had what I hope to be the final burning. Once again everything went up in flames, and I watched a part of me that once was, vanish in dancing orange fire.

Now I move on. Toher, one I hope to never have to even think of burning the thoughts or memories of. The one who didn’t give me the cold shoulder, but wished for me as much as I wished for her. The one wholoves meas much as I can love her.

Hopefully, when I see her again, whenever it may be, perhaps I may be able to bury the painful memories of the past in making amazing, wonderful memories with her…for the rest of our lives.