I think the most important lesson I'm currently learning is patience.

Lack of patience has had me so anxious, frustrated, pensive, and angry so much in my life.

Everything about my life right now is forcing me to reflect on what it means to truly be

patient.

To have peace knowing that things don't always happen right away, or even as you think they will.

To have wisdom to know that bad times pass. just as good times seem to slam into bad, bad times always creep their way back to good.

For life to be balanced it must have the good and the bad. The dark and light. The opposite to everything. I forget when I'm stuck in a storm that there is otherness around it. The storm isn't everything. It may be encompassing everything I feel and think at a certain time, but other stuff, good stuff, eventually ends up permeating through that fog and rain and voila-

suddenly I'm back in the sun. And getting a glorious tan, at that.

and it just takes patience. it just takes that little bit of beauty and courage rilke suggests, showing our fears and our sadnesses that we can be graceful. we can overcome. we can get through. and time passes and things are different and its all new and patience will prove that.

I love life. I love it's heavens and I love it's hells.

SUMMER!

I have no idea what day it is. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday?

I've been so tired and out of it all week long I feel like I can barely function like a normal human being.

However! It is officially summer, finally. The "June gloom" is all over and done with and it has been so sunny and hot and summery.

And so far my itinerary for summer has been going great.

As much sun time and drinking as possible.

I got a little sunburn yesterday and Anna and I got tipsy by the pool. And I read all day. Then Adj came over and we lazed around and watched movies and feel asleep early.

such good start to summer!

bahahaha

Some days you really just have to sit back and have a good hearty laugh about how ironic life can be.

It seems like everytime I try to do something productive or responsible for my life it backfires.

I have such bad luck (or maybe just bad financial responsibility) with tickets and my ridiculous car.

It's okay though. 

I can either be really upset and stressed out about the fact that I'm so fucked right now.

Or I can just laugh about it. Because inevitably, there isn't a whole lot I can do right now except for what I'm already doing.

I can pay all tickets on time from now on, and pay off all my bills as soon as possible.

and that is about it. O yeah, and not get tickets ever again.

So fuck for that.

But yay for life still being great. Because I want it to be. and it is. 

Summer Drink:

Mojitos! 

Get ready summer fun because we are going to drink a ridiculous amount of mojitos.

mmmmhm.

Something More.

I rush to greet new experience with shaky hands and words that tumble out so fast they are barely coherent (my zeal gives me away. Gives away the passion and energy that is so often unfocused, but always there. Always reaching and reaching for more ways to connect to learn to grow to understand. Sometimes this passion gets misdirected, misconstrued, lost, and finds me overwhelmed and paralyzed. But it is there and always growing.)

I shiver and shake to explore any aspect of life that I've yet to know.

and sometimes the choices we make, the experiences we meet, result in exquisite pain. yet that doesn't make me believe that I should regret any life event I've had, any new moment that I'm blessed to live through.

I may have moments where the weight of terror seems too much to bare, where the sound of doom gets louder and louder, but I survive. I always survive. 

Infinite being, you, who is too great to conceptualize, beat this fear and paralysis to nothingness.

I want to face myself and others with pure honesty, with integrity.

I do not live by the law of apathy. 

This is why I fight.

This is why I struggle.

Oh peace, so brilliant, so bright, come greet me for a few moments, I implore.

I will not hate myself for being in the desert. I will not fault myself for crawling, dusty and blinded, because I know I am pulling myself toward higher knowledge. If knowledge of nothing else but myself.

I drag myself toward wisdom.

I will not dwell on the desolation I see and feel, but dwell on the hope that these times will pass. They always pass. 

I am grateful for each moment of my life that I've lived thus far, and I am so grateful for each new moment that is sure to come.

something.

I scratch at the surface of everything

trying to dig my way to something

somewhere

that makes any sense

I want to believe that my life has purpose

that these tears will dry and 

not show for a while

that this fear

this overwhelming

powerful fear

will go into hiding for a time

I want to smile and believe 

that there is power in it

laugh and believe

that joy is spilling from me

maybe leaking onto someone else

who needs it

I believe in life

I believe in me

I believe in you

I believe in love

but belief doesn't make this torment go away

doesn't make this desperation quiet

So I will let it pass

I will fight my way through it

I will continue to believe

that there is hope 

and goodness

and meaning

I will not let myself become bitter

hardened

I will not cover my feelings

and run away from them until

I'm not even sure the truth

of what I'm feeling or who

I am.

I will face it all and I will become stronger

and wiser

and able to love more

beautifully.

These things I have faith in.

I feel like I'm going crazy.

pixelated.

i feel so isolated

and as i look at her concerned face

a face i've seen daily for over a year

i see unfamiliarity everywhere

my eyes dart from left

to right

to make sure the walls

are still surrounding me

she sits closer

my head on her shoulder

as tears leak

onto my awkward hand

hanging between my face

and shoulder

this fear distorts colors and

makes lover

seem so far away

everything is in squares

like a graph paper of my life

only i see the lines between each square so perfectly

recognizing that the pieces of everything

are so feebly linked together

In LA

it's not out of the ordinary for a homeless man drinking a beer to walk up to you, point at you, and pour half of his can out on the ground between the two of you. Then wink and walk away.