Back On The Horse

Tuesday is the new Monday, haven't you heard?

I'd planned on being productive yesterday, but an unforeseen event delayed my progress.

It was a good delay, though. A welcome delay. A needed delay.

A girl drove in from out of state, simply to meet/spend the night with me. Direct conversation/experience in and of itself? Amazing. Objectively realizing a teenage girl drove miles to just meet me? Huge Ego boost. We stayed up most of the night talking, and while she slept I entered a trance wherein I simply held her and listened to/watched her sleep. When she finally woke up, I had just about dozed off and she convinced me to get back up again. I knew I was going to be useless for the day anyway and was already pleasantly distracted, so I decided to just spend the day with her. She was here, now. Might as well use this time while I have it. Tomorrow (today) was open and free. We had a great time laughing and talking and getting to know one another. Words can't tell you how nice it was to have another warm body on the couch with me in this rapidly emptying/suffocating apartment. Her brief little visit served to divert attention away from my current strife, and for that I am extremely thankful. It would also seem that we made a genuine connection and that I positively impacted her life as much as she did mine.

Besides, I got a lot done today, anyway. So, no harm, no foul. right?

I scheduled some appointments to see some places this week. I walked around turning in applications and getting new ones, filling them out and turning those in. I even scheduled a tentative interview for Friday.

Today, I got that old familiar feeling of wanting to be a part of everyone's life again. Literally everyone. I somehow feel responsible for sadness. Like it's my fault. Like it's my duty to eradicate it from the world.

People will say that you shouldn't feel "The Weight Of The World On Your Shoulders" and that I should give up. People will say that we need sadness to counterbalance joy. I disagree. I'm in human form, I live, I breathe. I'm a part of the world. Not just a transcendent "One With Everything" part of the world either, a REAL physical, visceral part of the world. I have corporeal form, my actions and decisions DIRECTLY affect others. Why shouldn't I feel responsible? Why do we need misery to offset happiness? That's like saying I need to eat cat-shit in order to enjoy a steak. Stupid. I can enjoy a steak plenty fine without ingesting something disgusting to compare it to. Utilizing bad experiences to serve as perspective for enjoying good things is a wise method, but not a required one.

For a long time I've been on the Path Of Jesus. The Extrovert. The path wherein I preached The Way and told of the Secrets To Happiness. The very act of speaking about happiness, however, seems to negate happiness. Trying to teach people to be happy or to "fix" their lives for them seems to backfire and result in perverted perceptions of insecurity and inadequacy.

I'm straying to the Path Of The Buddha. Maybe if I'm just me, FULLY me and nobody else, others will get the hint and adopt any or all of my methods for themselves. It's ironic being said to someone so seemingly narcissistic and self-involved, but perhaps I should focus on myself MORE.

I've always thought the secret to my happiness would be making everyone else happy. Maybe the secret to making everyone else happy is me simply being happy.

Maybe I will adopt the attitude of "fake it til you make it" and I'll just do everything I normally do when happy and take it from there.

Eat. Smoke. Lift. Jump. Sprint. Climb. Swim. Walk. Bike. Run. Watch. Play. Read. Joke. Speak. Write. Capture. Entertain. Educate. Draw. Cook. Fuck. StoryTell. Photograph. Share. Hug. Inspire. Laugh. Learn. LOVE. Breathe. Sit. Stretch.

For as much as I want to help others and make them happy I am also vehemently stubborn on things I want for myself personally. Maybe I've been going about it all backwards? I've always thought that helping others would lead to allowing me to do things for myself. Maybe if I just focus on doing things for myself, that will lead to the happiness of others?

I walked several miles today so on my way back home I deemed it necessary to ingest sustenance. I went to Fredo's and got this:

It's called Ćevapi and the red sauce pictured is Ajvar. Both were very delicious.

I was going to use it to fuel my continued walking, but I ended up getting a ride home from a neighbor, and being off my feet just felt too sweet to head back out again. Initially the idea was not only to use it for fuel, but also to use my momentarily stunted hunger to shop for groceries. Which, as I type this and still feel somewhat satiated (very unusual for me) doesn't seem like a bad idea. I've been putting off grocery shopping for a little while now because being among so much food whilst so hungry is the purest form of torture I've ever known.

If I don't do that, I will at least try to pare down some of the surplus clothing I've been inexplicably holding on to for years.

Many productive things got done today, and I aim to make as much use of the night as possible.

I'm not out of the woods yet, but I'm glad to at least have my bearings again. That's all I've ever asked for. I don't have to have stability as many people know it, just some semblance of what needs to be done. That's all I ask. I don't mind work, I don't mind dirt, I don't mind sweat. As long as it has a goal. One that I can see and understand. The hardest parts of situations like this isn't the legwork, it's the confusion. The constant second-guessing and what-if'ing. I don't mind laboring, but I do mind wondering if my labor is doing any good. As long as I know I'm working toward something, I can pretty much do/get through anything.