Well, it's official: I have reached the age where I can't remember how old I am going to be on my birthday.

I find this to be a rather funny affectation. Throughout my growing up, I was always excited about my birthday, even if others weren't. I always looked forward to aging another year, and while this hasn't changed, it would be nice to know how old I'm going to be without having to pause and do the math. It's as though my brain refuses to age me beyond 25, like it's saying, "Whew! look at them apples! A whole quarter-century has gone by. I think I'm gonna take a little break". At least that's the last age I can readily recall whenever I have think about how old I am going to be. I've discussed this with Ben and he agrees with my observation. He hasn't been 25 since 1998, yet he feels as though he's not aged a day beyond that. I think I shall spend some time researching this further to see if this is common, or if we've just got something in our water that's affecting our minds. Either way, I guess my mind will have me fozen in time as 25 until another milestone age (40, maybe?) comes to pass.

There is, of course, another possible explanation for this. My mother, thinking I would act as my sister did as she neared 30, tried to tease me by asking me "how it felt to be just three years away" from that age. I told her truthfully that I never really thought about it at all, and that I actually have to stop and think about how old I'm going to be. This seemed to impress her. She said:

"Yeah, I don't realize how old I am until I stop and think about it. I don't pay much attention anymore to my birthday or how old I'm going to be. You know your father's never paid attention to his birthday."

So, there you have it. The inablility to remember how old you are going to be on your next birthday just may be one of the early indicators that you are becoming your parents.

Why is life such shit?

Today I went out to check the mail as I do every day, except today the mail fucking pissed me off. I got a letter from the Department of Human Services to let me know that my medicaid was denied. I am now going to have to pay the entire $13,000.00 that I owe the hospital. It is such bullshit. The surgery took only sixteen minutes and yet my bill is higher than Tommy Chong on April 20th.I could not understand. My day has been a real shit bomb.

The Test Loomes

This Thursday I have to go take some placement test at Montcalm College. It should go well. Probably an easy test. I have studied all week, so I will be prepared. After the test I just have to get all my financial aid crap taken care of. Hopefully I don't get denied on that as well.

Today the night sky is grey, filled with clouds. I can't seem to find myself in the world, and I feel like I could explode with all of the thoughts in my head that keep flooding me each day, but I can't. I can't express anything in a way that I feel would be appropriate. I long to be different, but I don't know how to be different from all the people I see and meet. Nothing I do seems to stand out from the rest, so I've just given up. There is a despair that surrounds my body and heart, that weighs me down. The sky is beautiful because the sky is grey. The sky is beautiful and appropriate to this night.

Today I found beauty I didn't know existed, and today I realized how wonderful life is. Today felt worthy of writing something down, so maybe someone else could remember it with me. Today is beautiful, but my heart feels ugly - too ugly to be in a world full of things such as... the sidewalk, covered with leaves and water that has run through the cracks, the flowers that are wilting and wet and trampled on by feet... The cigarette that just wouldn't stay lit because of the rain.

I can never make sense. I long to make sense, but I suppose making sense for the sake of making sense isn't what you should do when it erodes the very essence of the feeling you're trying to capture. And I'm hung up on dead singers and actresses, wishing I could be like they were. Sometimes I think I'm living in the wrong time, the wrong decade. I don't know what time I'd like to be living in, but I just get so down sometimes. Watching television gets me down as does listening to the radio.

The things that make me happy will lead me nowhere. I'm trying to go to school, to find something I'll be able to do for the rest of my life. Still trying to figure out what to major in and all of that normal bullshit that everyone "has" to go through. Sometimes I get so sad, thinking about the days when I was an anarchist... When I vowed never to be like everyone else, when I thought that I could truly be free straying away from society, jobs and everything that Americans strive for. Maybe I'm hung up on the past, and I probably shouldn't be as I'm still so young.

I know I have a voice, and I want to use it so badly. The only thing I really want is to be able to share what I feel with others. I don't know if I write well enough to do so, and I sure as hell can't sing worth a damn, although all I do is listen to old records and let the junk in my room pile up until I can't stand to look at it anymore. And it's pouring rain and I have the window open. And I keep shutting myself in the house to read books on existentialism, reading nausea by sartre for the eighth time. That book depresses me, but I keep reading it again and again, pouring over the pages until I'm asleep... waking up with that Johnny Cash album still playing.

I wish I could believe in God and the possibility of heaven after I die, but I just can't. I know in my heart that it's not true. Ever since I was a little kid. I'd tell everyone I believed in God, but I never really did. I never bought into God, just like I never bought into Santa Clause or the Tooth Fairy. Maybe none of this is relevent... it's quite possible that nothing is relevent. And what is the point of anything, when it comes down to it? It's this neverending vicious cycle, and we just keep hurting ourselves, in whatever way is appropriate to each of us.

And I pour over this site like it's the fucking bible, and rarely find something good enough to write about... I have miscellanious poems, and a misspelled suicide note. A minor hint that I just might have some issues I need to work out. And I know this isn't a place to put in your diary entries, but I've got no where else. All I want is to be heard. And I know I can sound like a moron, but I'm not. I fill my existence with sad songs and daydreams. I used to go straight to the bottle every day, but now I just keep quiet and read, write, sing badly and try to make things in my life happen that never work out. I make all these goals that I intend to accomplish, and then half way through I forget. I wish I could just get whatever I wanted done, but I always get sidetracked.

I was born with a great hole in my heart. I'm not speaking medaphorically - I'm speaking literally. The kind that requires surgery... but my whole life I've felt this sinking feeling in my heart. Like maybe the hole in my heart wasn't meant to be fixed, like maybe I was meant to die from the very beginning.

I try to hold onto things that I love, but I never can. Friends and lovers mainly. It seems like everything I love I hurt or hurts me. Right now I'm trying so hard to make things work out with the ones I love, and I hope that it does like it never did before. All my close friends ended up breaking my heart, and with each lost friendship a part of me died. Some people that were closest to me betrayed me in ways I don't think I can bring myself to repeat right now, and then in return I hurt other people that I loved. Nothing I do or think makes sense. Do you ever feel like you might be crazy but you just haven't figured it out yet? Like maybe you're crazy inside your head but no one's noticed yet... or maybe they have, and your entire life is just some fucked up thought in the head of a crazy person. Like... maybe I'm schitzophrenic but I don't know it, and everyone I love is a part of my imagination. I've got a pretty big imagination, it scares me sometimes.

Today I tried to think of who I want to be, instead of who I am. There's no way for me to figure out who I am. I think the only way for me to know that would be to transfer all of my thoughts and feelings to someone else so someone else could get a perspective of who I am and judge based on what they think... I don't know. But I know that I want to be someone who is smart, someone who people can respect and want to be around... I want to be someone who is different and stands out from everyone else, but not in a bad way... in a good way. Someone who is happy, someone who knows where they are going. I want to be someone that you'll remember in a year. But see... that's the trouble. It's like, you know who you want to be but you don't know how to be that person.

"Now I realize it's so hard to see the rainbows through glasses dark as these. Baby, I'll be able from now on on my knees. Oh I am weak. Oh I know I am vain. Take this weight from me, let my spirit be unchained. Old man swearin' at the sidewalk and I'm overcome. Seems that we've both forgotten, forgotten to go home. Have I seen an angel? Or have I seen a ghost? Where's that rock of ages when I need it most?"
-"Unchained", Johnny Cash

I'm told that as a parent, I will make mistakes along the way, and the best I can hope for is that they do not lead to years of therapy for my offspring in the future. That being said, I'm pretty sure that after years of positive reinforcement to get my four year old to play nice--with lots of repetition of such family aphorisms as "we don't hit," "don't throw toys at people," "don't throw anything at people," and "if you want to talk about your butt you can do it in the bathroon"--that teaching him to play dodgeball was a mistake.

He loved it. He loved hitting me in the butt with a rubber ball. He loved me chasing him and hitting him in the butt with a rubber ball. He loved throwing the ball at his father with the express intention of hitting his father, who seemed to be having fun and not at all as angrified and scary as he was when he was hit in the eyeball with number one son's kaleidoscope.

After a good 30 minutes of running and laughing and saying "butt" many, many times, we call it a game.

"Oh, and by the way, son. You can't play this game with babies. Or your brother. Or at school. Ever."

Riiight.

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