...it's like wishing for rain as I stand in the desert...

I'm horrible at these things... I used to be better -- when they were addicting and it was the cool thing to do. Now I have a journal I carry on my hip and a pencil in my hair. Although, since I returned home, I haven't really been keeping up with that either. It must seem strange that I carry it around and write nothing in it... ^_^

Everything, it seems, has been stalled... my writing having been the most affected. I know I just need to sit down with my notebook and a pencil and it will all come back. I'm just so easily distracted from it now. During and for a little while after Denver I read like I was starved for the words, but since it's been another thing I seem distracted from.

The last book I read and finished was My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares, which was good, but not her best. It's supposed to be a series, yet that book on its own felt like there should've been more to it. I've tried several times since to pick up another book -- from Angels and Demons to Deliverance Dane -- with no success. Suggestions are welcome : )

So I've come to a decision. For four hours, everyday, all electronics will be turned off -- cell phone, computer and especially the TV -- the iPod however is necessary. When I'm working at the restaurant, the four hours doesn't start until I return home and when I'm staying at friends I'll still stick to my four hours (it could turn into longer, once I start it's really hard to stop sometimes) even if it's after they've all fallen asleep.

Now it's just a matter of picking out a book to start off with... oh the challenges...

...i ain't gonna sleep, i don't wanna dream about the things that i used to need...

So, with a new year comes... new mistakes, new adventures, and new realizations - new things to learn. Since -- I don't even know. Since as far back as I can remember, we've been taught... "live for the day because tomorrow may never come." We're taught that you can't rely on things or people. We learn that the people who we love most are the ones who are most likely to hurt us. But, most of all... we're shown that we ultimately have no control over any of this.

I have always been the person who "lived for the moment." I mean, why make long-term plans if you can't rely on anything? It was always so much easier when I was younger to pick up the phone an hour before bowling started and just be like "Bowling tonight?"

There's something to be said about moments though. Sometimes... they're really nice and meaningful... and you could chew on a moment until it loses all of its flavor, but you couldn't live off of that. Kind of like you can't live off of gum or a lollipop. Which is the point here. Eventually, moments lose their flavor. They're fleeting. Anything worth anything has to have more substance than that; more than just a series of moments.

This isn't a new realization really. I noticed this standing at the back entrance to the coffee shop staring out from the shadows into a dirt-parking lot covered in the blinding white sun of a clear summer sky. Some how, in that moment, from that spot everything seemed so much clearer. But, like all moments, it passed and I never did anything about it. From then until right now as I sit in the living room of an ancient house at sometime in the early morning -- that knowledge I gained remained locked in the dirt-parking lot behind the coffee shop. Locked on this Web page in mockery of actions I never take.

Moments... make us miss out on so much because we're so concerned with making moments last longer than they are designed to. But, I'll admit it. It's out of fear. I am terrified. Terrified of happiness becoming just another moment. It's a paradox. I starve on moments -- drink them in and sweat them out but I'm terrified of gaining anything of substance. Anything that lasts longer than a moment. I don't know the name of it... and for a while now I've wondered what it's called when you sabotage everything in life because you're afraid of obtaining anything worth losing?

The things I have now... the people I love... I'd give it all up if I thought it would make their lives better... if I thought they could be happier with me out of the equation. Do I want to lose them? No. But, at that point it wouldn't necessarily be about me. I'd sabotage it all. I guess it feels easier at first... if I'm the one letting go. You can't be let down... if you're the one walking away.

I mean, I guess you could because they're obviously not coming after you. And that's really the rub. It's when... they don't come after you. You feel a moment of relief because it's then that you think it's some sign sent from way on high -- you're doing the right thing. And we're back to moments again -- and how fleeting they are because once that moment of relief is gone... you realize... you're the lonely one.

I've been talking with a lot of people in relationships lately and it's come to my attention that I'm an extreme when it comes to interpersonal relationships without ever noticing I was. Everything has two extremes... two sides of the spectrum and as humans our "true happiness" is suppose to be the balance between these extremes. On one side of the relationship spectrum there's the extreme fear of being alone. People who are terrified of being alone can never NOT be in a relationship. They jump from partner to partner to partner without ever figuring out what it is they want or who they really are outside of being someone's "significant other."

So, the other side of this spectrum? The fear of being in a relationship. People who are terrified of being with someone are a) afraid of being hurt or b) afraid of hurting someone else. Then there are the really crazy people who are terrified of being happy because what if happiness is only a moment? What if nothing that is said or shared or felt -- is real?

I said this to both Jess and Beth this week but it has been bothering me because it is my disgusting truth. If it were up to me... the entire world would be lonely. I wonder if anything we're taught about love and happiness and just... anything about interpersonal relationships is true. Because from what I've seen, what I've felt and done with my insignificant heart of hearts... it doesn't seem like it. And I wonder if it's ever worth it.

I find myself jealous. Jealous of people who are so willing to lose themselves in another person -- people who find this act legitimately worth whatever pain may come from it. And I feel as if... I've already lost that will... but I don't know when or how... or why.

- Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love. -
- Rainer Maria Rilke -

From a frozen peanut tin,

Carissa