Sunset in July

I just opened my old journal, which I had found while visiting my parents but haven't had a chance to sit down with until now. It was from when I was twelve years old, and I am pretty amazed at how far I have come in the last ten years. I guess it's that whole growing up thing. My obsessions were pretty apparent, as I referenced them in almost every single entry. My handwriting was even more atrocious than it is now, and I really didn't seem to talk about anything other than facts and very basic statements of the emotions I was feeling. Learning how to turn even those basic feelings into words took me until high school, it seems.

I haven't taken my shot yet, and I was supposed to do that last night. I just completely forgot about it with starting my new job and being mentally prepared to convince people to buy shit, which means being mentally prepared to have conversations for eight hours a day. That's the part that makes me nervous. The other stuff is easy. I actually reorganized the entire stock room today, and my co-worker for the day is pretty sure that our manager is going to piss himself when he sees it. I think they were expecting me to just leave the place a mountain of cardboard boxes and crap thrown wherever it would fit while placing even more items in what little space was available. It was actually easier for me to just overhaul the entire room. Then I could know exactly where everything needed to go.

There are quite a few things building up inside of me right now. I'm at a very strange point of being in between caring and not caring about feeling attacked. I'm naturally pretty combative. When I feel that I am being attacked or that my friends are being attacked, I get intensely protective of them, meaning I will do and say things that exist ordinarily as passing thoughts. I also need to be sure that I'm not feeling attacked because of a combination of small things that have happened over the years. I want to try to separate those instances from the current situation. As I do this, I'm seeing that this in itself really isn't something I should worry about either. People are going to say what they have to say. They're going to say what they need to say in order to find happiness. The human brain is partly so fascinating because of its ability to rationalize irrational thoughts and behaviors so that it can continue functioning properly. It prevents errors from occurring by fudging the numbers. Your brain is 1984, basically. You don't even know what's real anymore, do you? And you might even be clever enough to come up with an argument about what constitutes reality in order to distract yourself from the terrifying possibility that your consciousness is built upon a rather shaky foundation of falsities.

I am angry. I am hurt. I feel a sense of betrayal unlike anything I have known previously...And I've been betrayed more times than I would like to admit. But temperance is the virtue around which I aim to center myself. I will let my anger dissipate. I will express what I need to express. Only then will I be able to forgive. But I honestly may fail this time. And I don't think that's ever happened before. I do not like what you have tried to turn me into. I will not be bitter. I will be free from this sinkhole and all its negativity. There is no blood on my hands. This is my return to purity. I will not run.

Envision my eyes, harboring depths so great that they seem almost black. But they are not cold, even to you. I am fire, while you are ice. I may melt you down, layer by microscopic layer, warming all those around with my presence. But this is always at a cost to myself. I will burn out. And you will be a puddle on the floor. We are elements that have been thrown out of balance, not meant to exist in the same circle in this age.

My sadness for what has been lost is slowly dissipating as well. The happiness of the memories that remain has begun to fill me up again. My brain will remember things as it needs to in order to progress along this journey, as will yours. But I still acknowledge the point at which happiness left this relationship, leaving behind a much more sinister core. And the fight against reality was causing the pain. I'm allowing myself the chance to be real now, and this upsets you. Your words will never bounce off of me but always flow through me, penetrate me. It is a connection I cannot sever, no matter how hard I may try. Even now, I spare your feelings by saying these things alone. You must realize--see it in my deep brown eyes--that I know exactly how to make you hurt from within. This is my last act of unselfishness--that bit of holding back. That not giving in to the anger and pain you have made me (and others) feel.

I am not immature. I am not inadequate. I define my own manhood, as always. I will not be brought down into that again. And I am guilt-free in saying what I must, as are you, obviously. There is no reason to hide these feelings now, and I'm not sure there ever was. My brain and heart have found a way to protect themselves: You're already gone to me. You've been gone. And shortly after I allowed myself to discover that, my life improved. And I began to feel happiness again. Real happiness.

I am real. I am not the source of your ultimate frustration. I am only a target, and I can only hope that that hasn't always been the case. You will need to find a new soul towards which you can project this negativity, if you cannot allow it to simply yet painfully pass through you. Choose wisely.

I don't expect I'll hear from you or see you again, and I'm working on how that makes me feel. I don't think I'm feeling anything either way right now. And I think I'm happy about that. That doesn't make me a terrible person. It just means that all of my feelings, positive and negative, about this entire situation have been exhausted. Now the healing can begin, and the truth will flow freely and unfiltered by such intense emotions.

I can only be a little sad that there are still some truths you (and all of us) are not ready to hear. Give it time.