What Do You Know?

I know if I had the choice, I would start over.

2011-12-12T03:02:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=

If you had nothing to lose, no ties to hold you down, if you were given the choice... how would you live your life?

I have built myself into this box, and I don't know how to deconstruct. Help me...

I know sadness.

2011-08-19T22:29:00.000-07:00

"Because now we say goodnight, from our separate sides"- Death Cab For Cutie, "Brothers on a Hotel Bed"
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I know what it's like to say goodbye to a loved one, knowing it's the last time I will see him alive. And he knows it, too. Is this what foreseeing the future would feel like? ...Why would anyone wish for that power?

This has been one of the saddest weeks of my life. And for the first time, it's an almost completely selfless sadness.

I know greatness comes from suffering.

2011-08-18T23:09:00.000-07:00

"With one simple pill we cured unhappiness and art."- A Softer World 437
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Art comes from internal pain. Van Gogh didn't cut his ear off because he was in a good mood. J.K. Rowling wasn't happy, I'm sure, living in poverty. I could literally go on until my dying breath because every artist, every author, every musician- they know great sadness. It will take HARD WORK to write something truly inspirational. I'll have to sift through layers so painful I've repressed them for years. I may cry, I may want to quit, and I may spend weeks in a depressed slump with writer's block. But if I can persevere over my body and take the reins of my unhappiness, I can do incredible things. If I can control this beast then I will have nothing to regret for the rest of my life.

(Link to the A Softer World quote.)

I know I am not a patient person.

2011-08-15T11:09:00.000-07:00

Patience is rewarding. Patience lowers blood pressure and elevates spirits. It's priceless but can't be bought. Patience is an old dog at a shelter, waiting for a home. It's not pressing the elevator button more than once. It's breathing silence through frustration. It's picking your battles, it's a bear in the winter, it's a mental traffic light. Patience should be a mother raising a child, but that is not always the case.

Slowly, I'm learning to lie in wait.

I know...

2011-07-17T21:18:00.001-07:00

almost nothing, actually.

I know I can't go back.

2011-07-04T12:17:00.000-07:00

"I know that starting over is not what life's all about.

But my thoughts were so loud, I couldn't hear my mouth" -Modest Mouse, "The World at Large"

I didn't always know my father, you know. I got to know him quite recently, actually. But I do now and I love him completely, and even though I'm not a child... I am so afraid of disappointing him. Maybe I feel like he'll leave me again. I have come a long way in the past couple years, but sometimes I feel like I forced myself to mature too quickly to overcompensate for my failures and poor decisions in the past- mostly because I want dad to be proud of me and believe in me. I project this image that I'm so together, but the more I act like an adult the more my pieces start to scramble. I'm not done being crazy, and I feel it bottling and bubbling and soon I will explode.

But, even if I wanted to, I can't go back to the places and situations I was before... not in the same way. I can't go back to when I was 19 and a crazy, high little punk chick. I can't go back and spend another year that way, making good stories and bad decisions. Maybe I would have seen more places. Maybe I would've gotten my beautifully tattooed back piece. Maybe I would have hitchhiked on a train like Allison did, or lived in a teepee in a dessert like Heather did. Maybe I would have taken a bus to Mexico with Kelly and a backpack filled with everything I own and been part of a socialist rebellion. Maybe I wouldn't be living in this flat, dull state that I love. I have ties now that bind me to this life and this place. My life has changed with the decisions I make, and that incapacitates regression.

Honestly, without Travis and my dad... I do not know where I'd be right now. But sometimes I'm wistful...

I know you have not read Charles Bukowski.

2011-06-29T20:28:00.000-07:00

"For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us." -Charles Bukowski
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Yes, this is a magnificent quote. Yes, it makes me want to read Post Office. But I may not because I'm getting older and my attention span, quality of eyesight, and daily free time have both waned. But don't say, "OMFG I LOVE CHARLES BUKOWSKI! He's one of my favorite authors! I have one of his quotes for my About Me on Facebook which says a lot about me as an individual!" if you haven't actually read his work. It's a diminutive homage, almost disrespectful to his art.

I know I'm better than this.

2011-06-22T20:44:00.000-07:00

"Distant flickerings,
It's greener scenery,
This weather's bringing it all back again.
Great adventures,
Faces in condensation,
I'm going outside to take it all in." -Imogen Heap, "Headlock"
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Is this the distant flickering of my long lost creativity that I feel? I know I still have it in me, but it's been so long since I've felt my old writing passion sometimes I have doubts. Instead of over-thinking it, just this once, I'm going to run with it and see where the rabbit hole leads.