Change

My first b/f is back, and the story still reads the same - "I've changed. I've realized you're a great person, and I want to pursue a relationship with you." Has anything changed? Of course! But will it affect us? Doubtful.

They say a person only changes when they really want to change. And even then, it can take a miracle to solidify those changes. In my experience, it takes baby steps - like realizing how much you're worth so you can leave the worthless relationships you have, behind. Maybe it takes a certain amount of times that someone chooses their pride over your friendship together to make you quit an addiction. Or maybe it takes watching someone not face what's right in front of them over and over to make you see what you want. But whatever the case, knowing what you want is half the battle of changing for better or good.

And every day, I get closer to the core of what I truly want. What I'm starting to realize is that life isn't about how things are packaged or how it's varnished, but more about the quality of the material and the craftsmanship with which it was made. It's like a violin that is beautiful on the outside, but on the inside, everything is broken and disfunctional. Appearances mean very little when everything on the inside is broken.

I know that I'm broken, but I also know that I can be fixed. And I also know that most of the men in my life are broken, do I wait for them to fix themselves, or do I replace them with more functional units?

Who Needs Viagra?

When I was 17, moving out of the house and starting a new life in another city was so easy. I found a place to live, a job, friends, boys to date, and was busy with school. Now, at 23, it seems like finding a job, making new friends, and all of the other things that go along with a change of residence is just so overwhelming. I guess it goes to show that as you get older, things only get harder.

Six years ago seems like such a short time ago, and yet, I had the world at my fingertips. Chasing after dreams didn't seem difficult at all, and if there were, well, it was worth it. So why is going after your dreams so hard for me now? Maybe I just don't believe they can come true. Or maybe I am just afraid to leap into something I don't know the outcome of.

Whether it's new relationships, or interviewing for that job, or working towards that goal of making Carnegie Hall, fear is what keeps us bound to our seats and away from dreaming. When you fear failure (and sometimes success) doing nothing is the best thing you can do. But when you do nothing, nothing ever changes, does it? Getting older may be harder, but so is having nothing to show for it.

All Hallow's Eve

All Hallow's Eve is the Wiccan equivalent of New Year's Eve. It symbolizes Divinity as it enters the reincarnation process, and thus, urges Wiccans to undergo their own reincarnation process in which they shall start life anew.

It seems that I'm always trying to leave my past behind. Good or bad, I want a fresh start. And yet, I revel in the fact that my past creeps back into my life now and then. Ever since I moved back to San Diego, things have become all too familiar, and yet, I've experienced a whirlwind of change, imperceptible to everyone but me.

When I first moved to Los Angeles, a guy I was dating at the time told me to not "become LA" - I had no idea what that meant at the time. But having become LA, slowly over time, that came came to mean being more self-centered, less compassionate, a little more impatient, and a little less genuine. I became all of this and more. That became who I am, and I saw no problem with it - not in the slightest.

Eventually, work and school took its tolls on me and I broke down. I begged to move home and relished the day that I could leave LA and move back to my hometown of San Diego, vowing to work on who I wanted to become. I had no idea how much of my identity stayed in LA - with my friends, my career, and the apartment I called home.

Nothing changed. I never worked on becoming more spiritual, my music, or even trying to define my philosophies on life. Instead, I wasted the days away keeping busy with dating and socializing.

In a grand gesture, embodying the exact lifestyle I vowed running away from, I broke my foot. And with it, came the idea that I had found LA in San Diego, because I had created it for myself despite my new environment.

In the days after that, I spent time successfully deluding myself - telling myself that everything I did and everything I thought was alright because no matter what I did or didn't do, I couldn't control the way life was meant to be for me. Nothing could change and resistance was futile.

Eventually, I noticed some changes. Things that could not be denied no matter how I wanted to rationalize things. First were my emotions. They were so alive, and I couldn't control them any longer. I cried nearly every other day. And if I didn't cry, I choked back sorrows I didn't know I could not swallow. Whether it was watching a love scene in a movie or waking up to seeing a woman give birth on TV, I cried and I felt - and I felt things that I did not know I could feel. It was beautiful.

The second thing was that even though I have a problem with lying to others, I stopped being good at lying to myself. No matter how I flipped it around, I always saw my situations as they really were. And even if I tried to rationalize it, I understood the truths there were at the root.

All in all, I stopped being able to hide from my emotions and my thoughts. If I was in awe, I was completely amazed. And if I felt hurt, the pain would pulse out of my heart, through my neck and into my throat. And that feeling would stay there in my throat as if someone were choking me or the pain was too terrible to hold back. Slowly, I realized that LA's grip on me had begun to wane and my journey to become more human, more compassionate, had been trudging on, one day at a time.

And so, on All Hallow's Eve, if this is to be my chance at "reincarnation" - at redefining myself - then I hope that, somehow, I can finally learn to let myself just be.