I know there is something fundamentally wrong with people who don't like animals.

Not wanting them as pets is one thing, but actively disliking animals is wrong. How can anybody hate dogs, for example? They just unconditionally love! What kind of person would dislike unconditional love? A sociopath, in all likelihood.

If you know somebody who doesn't like animals, stay the hell away.

“You can judge a man's true character by the way he treats his fellow animals.” - Paul McCartney has my back on this.

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

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.

"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.

"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.

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...

almost nothing, actually.

I know I can't go back.

"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"

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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...