Ok, so this week isn't really as successful as I imagined it would be. My ex boyfriend decided our friendship wasn't worth working at retaining...now my father and brother are being verbally abusive to me. I feel ignored and unappreciated and the people that aren't ignoring me are just being hateful. Somehow I have to turn this around. I just took two Xanax because today is making me feel like I'm about to have a heart attack.

My dad and my brother are two sides of the same coin and both sides are horrible and dark. (and threatening me and abusing me cruelly) I just need to lay down. Writing isn't helping. I feel just ill.

I haven't written for a few days. I felt bad about it, but then I realized, every day is a new day.
So, yeah...guess this one is going to be more of a journal entry.

Yesterday and today I've been in a pretty crappy depressed mood. Yesterday I was just a bitch. I don't know...maybe it's the 115 degree heat or today the heat combined with the humidity just made me feel sick and tired. I'm guessing it's the weather that's getting to me. Also, it's just that I feel really lonely. I moved here a year ago and I have like...3 friends. It's hard to meet friends here in the middle of the desert because there are a lot of older people and not a lot of people my age. I feel crabby and not even like writing. I am feeling like guys are jerks. I need to learn to just be happy on my own-but seriously haven't hung out with a friend in like two weeks.

Blagh.

Is it possible to be friends with ex lovers? I used to think it was, but now I see that it is highly unlikely that it could work.

In the age of Myspace and Facebook, keeping ex lovers as "friends" has been elevated to a sport. After all, not much you have to do to retain a friend on those sites. Somehow, just knowing that you have a connection to them still is reassuring enough that you can move on. You don't have to call or write really, except maybe the occaisional wall post declaring "happy birthday...". The term friend is now different, I have (slowly) come to find out. Because an ex love is your "friend" on one of these sites, does not mean that they will return your call when you decide that you miss talking to them. Don't be fooled by this false friendship. I was.

Come to find out that he doesn't think that we can relate to one another and he doesn't wish to retain the friendship. He doesn't hate me or even dislike me, in fact he "thinks I'm a pretty amazing person"...but that we are just too different.

Do friends have to be exactly alike? I must have missed that memo. In pulling apart that email, I surmise that he is not friend material, and that I was blinded to his assholiness by my deep virus-like love for him. I am no longer blinded and I am shocked that I missed all the big clues pointing to what a dickhead he really was.

Delete. Defriend. Deep breath. Move on.

parting shot. i couldn't resist.

It's all about perception.

Everything.

Doesn't that just blow your mind?

As you see it, so it is.

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

If you love someone and think they're fantastic, they are.
If you hate someone and think them intolerable, well then, they're that.
Reality is subjective.

Is anything just black and white, true or false?
Even science has more grey areas than scientists would like to admit.

So then if it's true that everything is subjective, can the subject choose his reality by changing his perception at will? Recently I've come to believe that it's entirely possible.
Part of the trick is believing that it's true. It seems too simple. It's gotta be more complex than that. Our minds are always looking for the catch, and thus skipping over the most fundamental and elemental of truths.

Change your perspective. Put on a new pair of glasses from which to see things.
Woah, trip out. Think about that for a while.

Waking from the long sleep...

Perched on the edge of change, she waits.

It used to frighten her, but now it's gotten to the point where she's just anxious for it to happen already. She has moved away from the fear of the unknown. Granted, she knows it will not be easy, there will be a lot of work involved. In a detached way she wonders if she is up to the task.

It's only lately that the realization has kicked in that life is not a dress rehearsal and the sleeper is waking slowly, groggy and in need of caffeine. She is not a stupid girl, merely complacent and situations have not forced her hand yet. She knows that they soon will, and so she shakes the cobwebs out, and blinks repetitively, looking around her like it's the first time she's seen this place.

Can I just be quiet?

Today I realized that there are WAY too many distractions from thinking and being creative.

Ok well, let's see...there's Facebook, Twitter and the timesuck that is the internet in general. There are the two magazines I subscribe to (Wired and Entertainment Weekly) and the books I have yet to read, not to mention the books I read on my iPhone Stanza app (much like a Kindle). *Sigh* ...and then there's television. My good old childhood friend. Now, with the advent of the DVR, I have a backlog of shows that I need to catch up on (what is this, entertainment, or homework?) There are all the DVDs that I have yet to watch from the movies I rented and then ripped and cataloged-also, the movies I have downloaded onto my external hard drive.
I have the complete six season set of Northern Exposure (great show, worth the re-watching) and the first seasons of Star Trek TNG and Bones...seriously, I could go on. Did I mention that my cable provider has movies on demand??!

How is a girl supposed to get any thinking done? How with all this noise and drama, can I possibly sit down and try to be a productive member of society?

Have you ever tried to just sit and think, or to meditate and been distracted from it within seconds because you thought of a song you HAD to hear or realized shit, it's Thursday and Burn Notice is waiting on my DVR? I am just starting to realize how addicted I am to the media that drips like an IV into my psyche day and night. Am I ever in my car without the music on? How long has it been since I just lit a candle and sat in my room and thought about stuff? Shit!
Has the MTV generation turned us into a bunch of A.D.D addled manic depressives? I am also just realizing that all of these things are solo pursuits, subsequently keeping us separate from "normal social interaction" (i.e. Facebook and Twitter as a primary means of communication with friends for months at a time does not count as normal.)

I'm going to try to sit here for ten minutes without doing anything. I bet it feels like an hour.
Wish me luck.

The new style...

I am starting a new blog…as you can see.

Confucius said “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step” andI’m starting to understand that philosophy.

I have always wanted to embrace my creativity and “do something” with my creative abilities. It just always felt so daunting. Like the biggest hurdle, I couldn’t possibly jump. So I did nothing. I’ve sat by and watched friends and family succeed and thrive, and I continued to do nothing. Lately, I have been listening to the book “Excuses Be Gone,” by Dr. Wayne Dyer, and in it he explains several ways in which we sabotage ourselves by using excuses that we fully accept as truth. I have to say it hits very close to home and has been very inspiring. When I use the excuse “It’s too big,” he answers with the affirmation: “I think only about what I can do now. By thinking small, I can accomplish great things”. Wow, it’s so simple, but it makes total sense, and somehow it jimmies me out of the rut I’ve been in since, well, forever.

I've been so stuck in my own tracks, I began to feel like I was stuck for good. (Or for bad, as the case may be.) So now, I'm heading into a new paradigm wherein I will do something…anything…and a little at a time.

With this new philosophy, yesterday I went to the city college here to look into the possibility of taking a creative writing course, and possibly a digital photography course. It was fun, I mean…at least I was looking into the future and trying to put things in it that I know I could accomplish. It may not be much, but it’s a start. I have made a promise to myself and a good friend of mine, Dan (shoutout!), who is a successful writer slash producer, that I would start writing a little each day. He didn’t know of my new regime, yet his idea fit right into what I was hearing I should do in order to overcome roadblocks. Interesting how the universe works when we are open to receive.

In the past I have tried to blog, but I only ended up using it as therapy, to complain about the crap that was going down in my life…In looking back on the last one, all I do is moan about my ex- boyfriend and how shitty he treated me. I mean, it’s useful, but only in so much as I see how stuck in a loop I can get. I mean, yeah, he was a selfish asshole- but so why did I continue to vie for his attention??!! It was a ridiculous and painful waste of time and it was morosely self-indulgent. I guess it was what I needed to do at the time though, and everything I am now is due to all that I have experienced. That said, I will not feel stupid about that part of my life. I found a lot things out about myself during that period, which I won’t go into for now. Still….I would like for this blog to be different.
I want to write short stories and poems, as well as talk about some of the things I’m going through in my daily life and my views of the world around me. I’d like to be able to post pictures, as I really enjoy taking them and sharing them. I also would like to have a twitter-feed so that my constant use of twitter is at least slightly more productive(!). I'd like to use this as a training ground for future creative endeavors, in hopes that I will one day be able to figure out what it is I love the most, and then do that for a living. So what if I'm just figuring it all out now...Some people never do.

New me is anxious to get it started, but confident that I will achieve. Old me would have probably quit already. So at this point, I have to pat myself on the back for making a start. ...For sitting down and writing, even though there are a million other things that my procrastinating self would like to do. I'm a little nervous that I'll revert to my old patterns and not follow through with this...and also slightly terrified of what comes next...but, like I said, (or actually like Confucious said), A journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step. Yeah so uh, keep coming back, it works if you work it.