Be glad I didn't post the other 18!

I know I know, it's been forever since I posted. I actually wrote a couple but didn't post them, they were written a bit hastily perhaps.

So, Thanksgiving is past. I was lucky enough to get invited over to Meagan's Aunt's house for mine, it was really good (homemade strawberry jelly!).

I've decided to pick up on some hobbies I have been neglecting. Writing and drawing. I've had an idea rattling around in my mind about an interesting story idea, I won't spoil it here, you'll just have to wait! Stephen King advises to write what you know, so I'm writing about a 20-something Mormon man finding out who he is. It will be fiction obviously, and I've got an interesting enough premise for myself to start writing it however, I started yesterday. It's pretty interesting to me and it's going much better than my previous attempts. I even came up with an interesting title for now: The Prodigal Son of Perdition. We'll see what happens! The other hobby is my art. So, with these two picking up the slack when I have downtime instead of WoW or other games, I'm feeling pretty good.

I was in a pretty lonely place, feeling pretty worthless a few weeks back. I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing and I didn't want to do what others advised me to do (which caused me to feel even more worthless). However, this lonely state I was in, was self inflicted. I learned the difference between being alone and being lonely, and it was a nice step for me. A good friend of mine told me it's important to be okay with being alone, and it's important to keep yourself busy. So, once I actively decided to do these things and not long for a reprieve, I was strengthened enough to come out of that lonely place I felt inside my heart. We are not meant to be lonely, but sometimes we are meant to be alone and stand on our own accord and make decisions by ourselves, for ourselves. I often tote my desire for independence around like a handbag, conveniently pulling it out when the argument requires it. But I don't think I've ever been as independent as I feel now, and it feels... sturdy I suppose. I'm somewhat of a torrent of feeling at the moment however, and to pinpoint it wouldn't be fair. I think I could write about twenty pages on my feelings at the moment (good and bad), but I will spare you... well I guess this sort of turned into a page or two, so I'll spare you 18 pages.

I made a list of goals for myself a week back and I think I might revise them in a week or two to include more things because I'm knocking them out easily. That feels good.

-A

All Aboard the "This is Life" Boat

Just posting a "I'm still alive and am not addicted to sleeping pills" post.

Just chuggin' along... I've found some form peace for myself once more. It's fragile I know, so I've got to nurture it and guard it for a little bit but... it's there, so I'm content for now. It's caused me to reflect about myself when I'm feeling down...

I wonder if I enjoy feeling depressed sometimes or if I don't get to feel enough in my life that feeling something is better than nothing and I'm not willing to let that go as soon as I could because of that. It's kind of a depressing thought I know, but I'd prefer to be honest about with myself than to ignore the possibility. And for me, it's not nearly as depressing as it sounds. I mean, nothing changes when I feel the onset of a deep feeling of loneliness in my life. It's hard to describe but sometimes I just feel pessimistic about certain things and just that slight change from optimistic to pessimistic can alter my mood so drastically that it seems to last for... a long time. And I'm learning how sensitive I am about it, which is really bad, because friends unknowingly will say something and cause me to depress. I like to pretend I've got my mind and emotions under control and in check but these occurrences tell me otherwise. The real difficult part comes when I have to explain this weakness to hopefully help those I care about from accidentally saying something that will cause me to feel hurt or alone. Having friends and family walk on eggshells around you is not pleasant and just deepens whatever negative feelings you have.

This isn't to say any of you, my dear readers, are doing this to me, I'm just reflecting about my state of being when I am feeling low. I'm currently quite content, but storms never seem far off the prow of my ship and if I can't be in complete control of my ship I'd like to know where I can find a secure spot on it.

See that! A boat metaphor! I was once using a 'swimming alone' metaphor, and now I'm on a boat! Glad someone came by and helped me aboard! heh. And that's a pretty good analogy. I mean, life is better for me, but I'm still in the seven seas it seems. And you might ask me "What's the deal Aaron? I thought you were doing so good? I thought you were on land!? (sort to speak)", and that's what made me so sad I think, it was realizing that I wasn't, when like you, I thought I was on land too.

Okay, enough boat metaphoring, it's not that good of one. But anyway, more people whom I love have much greater problems than I, and focusing solely on me would not make me very happy.

My dear niece is very, very sick, and I know everyone who reads this is aware of that, but I'd like to close this post with my my love and support for my sister Jenell and her husband Craig. I'm sorry I can't be there to help out, because I would love to. I know the feeling of someones testimony of lesser trials compared to what you feel you're experiencing can seem trite, and maybe they are, but I can't testify of what I don't know. I can testify of God's love for us. And I can testify of receiving blessings while feeling unworthy and ashamed I could merit them. I love your family so much and I can say that God has a plan for all of us, even if that plan includes temporary pain. It sucks, but that's life I suppose, and eventually we'll see the plan if we're patient enough to hold onto our faith.

-A

Caution: Unisom may cause bad blog posts

I feel like writing something, but these sleeping pills I've taken might prevent me from exploring my mind in order to write about what I really feel like writing about. So, why don't I just right later? Meh, because I'm writing now that's why.

I think I could have named this blog "finding balance" because I seem to talk about it more than anything else. I never knew how unbalanced I was at so many things I guess. I always thought myself moderate in most of my endeavors, but I guess that's part of the 'unbalanced' part lol. We just naturally tell ourselves we're 'normal' or even if we do accept our oddity we normalize it by saying "oh well, no one is normal!", it's a nice warm layer to keep us from really looking at things. But I don't know, I've been criticized for looking at things too much too (and hurt from doing that as well), so finding the balance, once again, is what this is all about.

When I can't understand why I am concerned, hurt, happy, or confused about something I feel the need to know why. I do this with metaphors in my mind, seeing the action and the reaction in a simplified form soothes my mind. And that moment, where it makes sense, and my mind relaxes content, is priceless. But sometimes I find the wrong metaphor, and the result from that is generally bad hehe. I look for metaphors because I've found that I just can't understand things very well unless it's simple, and my mind doesn't tackle complicated things very well without simple instructions.

I think I have more to say, or some point I'm trying to make with all this, but I'm kinda tired and it's not coming. I think I'm just trying to find some metaphor in my writing to ease my mind. I usually stumble upon some nice simile or metaphor by now... but it's not coming heh, I'm glad Meagan told me about Unisom, otherwise it would be another long night...

-A