Ode to 2009

I been meek
And hard like an oak
I seen pretty people disappear like smoke.
Friends will arrive, friends will disappear,
If you want me, honey baby,
I'll be here.
- Bob Dylan

It seems only fitting I would start of with a quote from Dylan, for he has been the soundtrack to my year.

This year started off rocky. I wasn't exactly sure how it would play out, but amazingly it was one of the best years I can remember. This was the year I met El Grupo, and these people have changed my life. Changed me. Into a better stronger more self sufficient person so I no longer need to rely on the affection of a man for happiness. I have several people who can make me smile almost any day of the week. My affinity for the art of cycling and bicycle mechanics is astounding. A year ago I could not have guessed I would have been as in love with bikes as I am now, it really is amazing what time does. I can still remember my first ride, I thought the people were loud and obnoxious and gross and bike riding was the dumbest thing on the planet. Now its all I want to do. I have started to appreciate the little things, like that pure satisfaction when you reach the top of a climb. Or the view when going down a mountain you spent hours trying to attack. I've begun hiking more and being more self aware, and honestly I really have never been happier.

My best friends and I have now known one another for about 6 years at this point, going on 7. It seems lately we've been growing apart, but I can't say I view this as a bad thing. I feel that this year I've become more independent, more mature and able to be on my own. I do intend to be friends with these people for a long time to come, but I don't need them for my happiness. I've found ways to be happy without human companionship, but I have to say having someone to be there for you is always nice.

My relationships have been strange. After me and my last boyfriend, which hilariously ended on New Years last year, I have had a series of pseudo-intimate relationships, all of which truly unsatisfying. I hope this coming year I will prove to be more successful in finding someone who fits into my happiness. I think I've been afraid to be honest. I think I've been afraid of caring about someone because it hurts when caring just isn't enough anymore. Twice has been too much for me to handle, even if I was the one who instigated the breakups. Perhaps this coming year I will be a little less cautious with my emotions and a little more relaxed and understand that whatever will be will be, and when it ends it'll suck but those things don't last forever, and I've gotten better at recovering fast. Its hard to imagine I was actually feeling all the things I was feeling a year ago, almost to the day. Its nice to know whatever happens, that time will inevitably pass and my wounds will indeed heal. So maybe this means for this new year, I will be less cynical and bitter about relationships.
Perhaps my resolution should be,
to trust more.
to love more.
to truly appreciate the beauty of everything I've been gifted with, more.
Hopefully I'll remember not to forget that.

Masochist

I want to live,
I want to give
I've been a miner
for a heart of gold. - Neil Young

And I don't know when my writing started becoming so.... vulnerable. And I don't know when I stopped being able to recognize it.
It seems somethings changed, my thoughts, the foundation of who I am hasn't changed. But somewhere along the way, at some point the way I process them has altered in some way. I no longer get upset when things aren't going the way they should. I tear up when I watch sad movies, and my ability to fall and deal with it, dear god its frightening.
I fell pretty hard yesterday, physically.. I think. The funny thing is, I couldn't care less. I have a fat lip and a crooked tooth, and scratched my glasses, but it felt good. It felt good to feel the rush of being alive, and falling, and having to nurse yourself back to health. And I cant help but wonder when this sensation went from making me want to break down and cry, to grinning, joking about, and displaying these scars proudly. I am not perfect, and I love that. God every little thing that could be wrong with me, the scars, the mental aberrations I totally adore. And I'm starting to see that this is the standard I hold people to, its not conventional.
I want to know people who wear their wounds with pride. People who are different, but not on purpose, that's just the way they are and they love it. Screw these people with perfect teeth, and hair, and skin, and whatever. I want someone with character. Someone with personality in every way you look at it.
And once I realize this, I notice all the people in my life I hold dear maintain these characteristics, and I couldn't ask for more.

Whims-i cal?

I can’t help my feelings;
I’ll go out of my mind.
These players come to get me
’Cause they’d like my behind. - Weezer


If I was suddenly cheesy and cliché would you hold it against me? Or would you appreciate my attempts at good humor and acknowledge how hard it is to truly convey an emotion without falling to the cliché.
And perhaps its only cliché because anything I could say, or would want to say has all been said before. Is that my fault?
But alas here I am again pondering whether a confession of my true emotions would yield either A) a positive appreciated result or B) a truly embarrassing rejection.
I know you wish I would just stop thinking so much, but as soon as I don’t I make the wrong choice. Every single time I didn’t think about it thoroughly and allow the better part of my psyche take over I make the decision to trust a truly untrustworthy person. I would argue perhaps that’s just me over-analyzing, maybe its just all in my head, but to the contrary I would be proved that my intial instinct to shut off was the correct one.
Then why is it one someone true and genuine comes along I do this thing where I pin all the sins of a former romance on said person? I know I might sound whiny, but I am trying not to complain, just understand.
Why do I do the things I do?
Maybe I make these mistakes so that when something truly worth putting myself out there comes along, I’ll be able to identify it instantly. That’s wishful thinking though, because my ability to decipher my emotions has been steadily getting worse.

And who asked you anyways?

I'm the rainbow in your jail cell
All the memories of everything you've ever smelled - RHCP

They weren’t the best. They weren’t even close. But it didn’t matter because despite everything they weren’t, they were everything they needed to be, and that was what I needed.
I met them on accident, a twist of fate. The loves of my life. The friends I’d been waiting for, and I cant say if it hadn’t been an accident I would’ve met them anyways. I would never have talked to them. There is no way on earth we’d have similar interests… right?
Misfits is what we were, its what we still are. I have never once experienced that feeling of truly fitting in one place, and this was the closest I got. A bunch of bricks thrown in a pile together cause not a one was perfect enough to build a wall. I sure as hell didn’t mind and I don’t think anyone else did. We were not raised to fit. We were born to stick out like sore thumbs. That’s why we all got along. There was nowhere to belong and we all had that in common.

For the tacks in your bed

The end of paralysis, I was a statuette
Now I'm drunk as hell on a piano bench
And when I press the keys it all gets reversed
The sound of loneliness makes me happier

- Bright Eyes


And can it possibly be I'm a sucker for all these things?
I am full, to the brim, with lovely unmistakeably lovely thoughts that are beyond plausa-possi-bility. Sometimes in a totally surreal unhealthy way I would rather exist in my thoughts and forget to actually live. Sometimes that effort to make my life worthwhile just isn't worth it.
And in that isntance I would rather seclude myself in the expanse of my mind, where I can be whatever or do whatever I want. It's a beautiful thing.

I don't know how to interact. I think I'm just really good at faking it. I think I might be void of that ability to just truly connect to someone, and the people I do the people I do I never connect with long. Like a puzzle piece that looks like it'll fit but never does.
I'm just a puzzle piece without my puzzle.
But what a sad life to just fit.
I would like to do more than that.

Music

I'm in love with Mary Jane.
She's my main thing.
She makes me feel alright.
She makes my heart sing. - Rick James

Something old and something...

The same thing I would want today,
I would want again tomorrow. -Bob Dylan

Hands up.
Take me in.
I give up, hell I give in.

I’ll fall into your soul and I wont even mind when it absorbs mine, for the greater good of course. God just when did this all begin? The falling and absorbing and giving and taking? Christ I’ve forgotten to remember things. And when he looked into my eyes god I swear I melted, I did. Right then I just liquefied and sunk to the ground, and oh hell I couldn’t care less. Look at me again, I dare you look, I’ll probably morph into a gas and float away.
There’s another thing you do when you look the wrong way. It makes my blood freeze, right in my veins, and I turn to ice, my whole body. You can thaw me, melt me, float me any form of matter I can become with just, one, look.
Pathetic.
You make my heart stop. Stop. And I want to scream that at you, and make you understand that but you don’t, wont, cant. I hardly even know which “nt” it is anymore. On the bright side I’ll never see you again. And I think I’ll just stay here melted on the floor. If you ever come back I hope to god you’ll solidify me again, with good reason of course.
And im so blocked right now. I cant think of anything else but your voice and that goddamn smile. Its not even rare or special its just there, in the back of my mind. And I promise I’m not obsessing or writing about you again, but god that’s a lie. We know that’s a lie because no matter how hard I try to keep the words blocked up in this fucking small brain of mine it just comes back to you and an explosion occurs. A mess a fucking jumble of adjectives and verbs and nouns and commas and it just needs to stop spewing. I need to get the taste of these words out of my mouth, figuratively of course. They’re like sewage. I know my words sound harsh but its only out of affection I speak them. True acidic affection that only a woman could feel.
And when I rob myself of these words and send them out to roam where they might I hope to god that I will never think them again. Words don’t last forever, these words they’re only temporary. But don’t ever get me wrong, I don’t love you. I have never loved anyone and would care to never own up to it.
But your voice, your calm sometimes lovely voice is reverberating in my brain with the few words you’ve spoken. And that, that haunts me. But I’ll think about you this once, just this once, anyone, just once, and never think of them again. Once these words dry out, and their meaning lost, you will be too. I’ll have done the smart thing and kept my distance. But take this as my one bitter confession, I have thought about you. I have.