Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.-Isaac Asimov

 

Why yes, yes I am…..although now I can’t really remember what it was that led to that statement, but blogging has become somewhat of a regular occurrence for me.

Although I have found that many bloggers have something that they focus on within their blog: politics, food, love, poetry, etc,I just focus on having a conversation, about anything, about everything. I want to discuss the world. I love to talk, to have conversations…granted I need to learn to listen more instead of being in storyteller mode 24/7, but all-in-all it is a conversation that I want to have with you.

Yes you, no not you, you, that person, yes you.

So I’ve been back on Facebook for a week or so and I sit there, staring at the screen, and I’m blank. No idea what to put on the status update or what funny thing I should post. May 3rd  I get to delete it and only have my writer/fan page thing up and I am quite ecstatic…mostly because I know it will be a giant F you to many people in my life.

Why you ask? Well my mother demonstrated my overall frustration with the people in my life. She asked me what I was counting down till, and just below my countdown post was my explanation of deleting Facebook foreeevverrrr. During the 40 days people complained about missing me, about never talking with me; about never knowing what it going in my life, but here’s the irony….I write a blog….

You know this, you are here reading it

Interesting to know that 60 something plus strangers know more about me than my friends. Why? Because you read my blog…you are here with me.

I post the links to my post every single time I update my blog. I emphasize the posts on the new Facebook timeline thing. The only thing I don’t do is physically force people to look at my page….and yet nothing…

Just complaints about not knowing about my life.

So deleting my FB is going to be my way of flipping the bird to those who can’t be bothered to actually pay attention. It will be quite an exciting moment for me…it will allow me to have a blatant passive-aggressive moment and I’m sure a snoopy dance will be thrown in there.

But I am telling the people I actually give a damn about, about my blog and how they can use that forum…and maybe I might start a tumblr since I am already on stumbler and twitter and…and hehehe. I’m doing this more personalized invitation because there are those in my life who send me messages like this:

Lil- “your existence…it’s all we ask for in life.”

I love that boy…one small sentence leads to story-time…

I remember during one of mine and Tina’s most epic battles, she got on her knees and begged me to tell her what she needed to do to make me happy, to break through the ice that had settled around me. It was during one of my more fantastic, asshole moments,

I remember looking at her life she had lost her mind…I felt wasted; scared because if the guy that called 911 didn’t find me when he did (I had my first severe asthma attack outside of her apartment building), Tina would have probably found me dead on the sidewalk; hurt, because my girlfriend told me to stop faking it (when we got my breathing under control the docs discovered some liquid in my lungs, which was the beginning of an upper respiratory infection that would plague me for months), and tired. I felt so tired, and I was in so much pain, and here is this girl screaming at me in the hospital after a doctor told her that if I hadn’t been brought in things could have gotten ten times worse. I remember looking at her, and admitting for the first time, that I didn’t love her. I couldn’t love her, not the way I knew I was supposed to. It was probably the first time I realized how toxic our relationship was, because as I sat there watching her theatrics in the hospital, I wished that the guy hadn’t found me. That I had died; I would have given anything to just be away from her.

For years after that moment, because Tina and I lasted a year after that (I know I should have ended it, but an irrational fear of being alone, and convincing myself that I was stupid and that I did love her, kept bringing me back for more), I questioned the purpose of my existence. Here was a girl who stripped me of every dignity, and honor, that I had within me, and left me a wasted fool. This girl, who in a few months destroyed my reputation by playing victim to my depression; this girl who still dares to call me and tell me that I am the reason why her life is so messed up. Here she was, standing before me, and blaming me for why she treated me like shit, telling me she loved me but that I should just go ahead and kill myself because she was tired of waiting for me to do it…

It wasn’t all her. I admit fully, and honestly, that I had become an asshole. I had changed completely. I went from being outgoing, and strong, to constantly sick, hurt, and depressed. I was going through a lot back then, but it doesn’t excuse the fact that I was not a good person. There are a lot of things in mine and Tina’s relationship that I was at fault for. I won’t ever deny it. I am to blame for my change in behavior and attitude as much as she is to blame for her influence in my life. She didn’t have one positive thing to add, she just criticized every point of my existence until I did everything I could to change so I could please her. I should have stopped it…I didn’t…

Toxic is the only way I can describe our relationship. We brought out the worst in each other, and we paid the price …

You know, for years, everyone has told me that they would be sad if I committed suicide. They would be hurt, and angry, and sad. They would miss me, they would be disappointed. They liked having me around…

But I never had someone actually tell me that my existence actually makes an impact. Sure people thank me for helping them with this or that, but it never truly occurred to me that I could mean something.

I’m sure he was joking around with me, because I had told him once that all I needed in life was comfortable shoes…but it was a second, a moment, that meant something more.

To remember someone telling you they loved you, but that you meant nothing to their existence. Then to have someone who maybe talks to you once in a blue moon, tell you that your existence is worth something.

Such an interesting game we play in life. But it was a moment, and it meant something to me…

Sorry I haven’t written in the last few days…I would say life is hectic but mostly I’m just tired. I’m sleeping but I’m not resting, my dreams have been hella crazy lately…

Just a lot of decisions to make….The job offer in Baltimore is weighing heavily on my mind.

On one hand, money is a trivial matter to me. I could live on very little, granted my credit score would probably implode, but for the most part I have very little love for money. I’ve walked away from jobs that paid well, because I wasn’t getting something out of them. I mean, for the last 6 months I’ve held 5 jobs. It isn’t ever about money….I work the ridiculous hours to pay of debts yeah, but I also work to keep myself busy. To keep myself sane…people think I’m insane for working 68 hours during a week….but what else am I going to do? I can rarely sit down and write if I plan to; it’s taken me 5 hours to do just that today….so I work.

But this offer is more than work. It’s helping people. It’s making a difference. What difference am I making now? Working 60+ hours a week?

My downfall joining AmeriCorps wasn’t that I lacked skills, but I lacked direction. The job in Baltimore is direction….it’s introspection. It’s a chance to spend a year focused on who I am.

And then money rears its ugly head, because I have a car (which has doubled as my house a few nights), that needs paying for. Student loans from a college that taught me what I didn’t want to be…gas…food…

I truly hate money.

But the dilemma isn’t even money…I think I could make it all work out…I have a knack for that…or so I am told….for landing on my feet, for figuring it all out. Usually in the 11th hour, but somehow I come out standing.

Except this time I’m already standing. I’m not struggling, I’m not knocked down. I’m not melting down. I simply have a choice. Take a risk, or play it safe-ish.

Thing is, I don’t know which choice is the risk. Is staying a risk? I’ve been relatively happy since leaving NY, granted I had to leave NY in order to learn how to love it, but that is not the point. I run a risk by staying. I risk getting stuck. I risk getting into a rut. I risk finding something that changes my life.

And then I risk by leaving. I risk stability, I risk knowledge. I risk going through what I went through when I got to Iowa. I risk finding myself in a job I hate, a life I hate. I risk it alongside complete strangers…

This doesn’t even go into the fact that there is still something missing in my life. It isn’t in NY, and it isn’t in Iowa. But I don’t know if I just haven’t looked in Iowa, or if it is elsewhere.

I told my mother I had a moral dilemma….to stay, to go….

I part of me just wants to go. To keep moving; to keep traveling. Baltimore…I mean, a city that is rich in history, that is just a tad closer to my family….but then Iowa….where I learned how to hit the ground without a safety net. Where I started to learn my self-worth and rediscover the fire within myself…

Iowa….the place that reconnected myself with myself…it’s also country everyday in I-oh-way……sigh

I complain about Corn Country, so much so that my co-workers simply roll their eyes at me, but Iowa put a mirror in front of my face. It was something I lacked in NY.

I want to do what is right for myself…and I’ve learned to trust my instincts…especially since I went against my instincts in the first place and move to Iowa. I wanted to go to Detroit, but so many people in my life flipped out, so I went to Iowa. Granted my time here has a lot of ups and downs already, I do regret not taking the chance on Detroit…

Which is why I’m faced with this dilemma…Everyone is telling me to stay…a handful are telling me to go…

And I simply want to take a nap.

I’m not going to make this decision tonight. I’m trying to empty my head of the voices in my world until I discover my own voice. I lost it amongst the rubble of the wars in my mind.

But I do have good news it’s time for……

The Letter Challenge: 

It literally is what it sounds like; I will be writing a letter a day for the next 40 days…

The letters will be to people in my life, or in my past, or even in the future. I’m going to kill two birds with one stone, since luckily one of my Prompts from my ongoing although not consistent prompt project was to write a letter to my future and past selves. Some letters might be to fictional people, or to famous people. Some letters might be fictional all together; that is something I challenge to you…to stretch your mind into believing something while still be able to question if it is true. That is the beauty of non-fiction writing, and is an aspect of that genre that I fully exploit every chance I get.

But also remember, some of these letters are to real people. They won’t always be PG, and they won’t always be happy. Sometimes…they will just plain suck. Nevertheless, this is going to be an interesting exploration for me, and possibly therapeutic, so we shall see how this develops. What I am asking from you is to participate. Write me a letter, write a letter to a friend, or ask me to write a letter to someone…whatever it is…write it, and then post it either to my blog in the comment section, or on Facebook. You can add it to both my private page and my fan page. If you aren’t comfy with posting online, you can email it to me. My email is in my Gravatar page…

It’s the 10th of April…so this shall end…May 20th.

Let the insanity begin…..