Everyone is a DICK.

They say, the world is at my disposal. What they seem to leave out, is that I don't have the power to control or keep track of all that will and DOES go on in this world. The world is FAR from your grasp.

I may have mentioned before, but growing up really does fucking suck. Now maybe you're in high school, and you're thinking, "Oh my my, high school is so hard and there is so much going on." Well, I will tell you it's nothing compared to what you will soon experience.

I will give you a quick overview of my life. I am 18, I have moved out of my home and now live with my amazingly beautiful girlfriend and her two-year-old son. I have a job at Papa John's, and it would seem like everything is golden. Not quite the truth. The truth is that when you become an adult, you will do what you think you have to do, what you think is the right thing, and then your heart will tell you it is wrong. Now, our hearts tell us what we need to do, to be fulfilled that is. I am happy where I am, but I could be happier. I deal with much stress each day and the fights I get into with my loved one get more and more intense each day. I don't want this, and neither does she. BUT WHY DOES IT HAPPEN??? On top of this, I have friends that I never see anymore, and every time I come around I never seem to have enough time to get to see all of them, and I have a friend in particular that I needed to call... but so far I haven't called him back. I feel like a bastard every time I breathe. My music is no longer differing from the other shit that I write. THIS IS BEING AN ADULT??? All of my friends are lying to me about the people that they are having sex with and the love that they are having, as if I gave two shits (SPOILER ALERT: I don't give a shit. I'm only upset because they lied to me). My life may seem like shit, and that's only the half of it. But I'm not gonna sit here and tell you about my problems. I just need to get the point across that growing up is the worst thing that can happen to you. It DESTROYS you as a person, and turns you from a human being into something mechanical and not living. Every day I think about all the shit I have on my agenda, and the days when I have to work, and I actually wonder whether or not I'm going to have sex that night.

After seven months of dating, things don't stay the way they were, and as you get to know someone, you see how much they let you down. It's a sad, sad fact. And there is something I want to say to my friend that I haven't called because I was too ashamed... I love you friend, and I'm sorry. I don't want you to be disappointed in me for my actions, for they are just the poor exertions of my soul. My body cries out for freedom, yet I will never receive it. I WILL NEVER BE HAPPY.

Let's say for a second that I did what was right. I left my girlfriend... and I lived alone in solitude where I want to be. Would I finally be happy?

NO.

I would get what I truly wanted from life, but lose what I had that was so good. WOMEN are a curse. AND PEOPLE are a curse. LIFE itself is a curse.

Yes, it's horrible, and yes, I seem like a troubled person, but at least I can admit the pains of my life. I'm going to call that person which has been expecting my call for so long, and GOD DAMMIT, I will talk to him, and show him that I am not a bastard, just ashamed. Ashamed of the life I am living.

And so we will blog on... into the night, and for awhile feel like we are free of our problems. When really we're just preaching to a choir... a choir of socialpathic liars and cheaters just like us... looking for answers just like us. I say that I am a wise man to some extent. But I am not that wise. I try to follow these two easy guidelines:

1. Don't lie.

2. Don't be a piece of shit.

Happiness

Ah, Happiness, my old friend, it's been so long. I'm glad we've decided to see each other again.

This morning, I woke up in a daze. I dressed myself with almost no thought, and I was listening to Something Corporate as I walked up to my class when I suddenly realized something: I live in a beautiful place, surrounded by some of the nicest people I've ever met. I could not ask to be in a better place to spend my college years. Maybe it wasn't the most thoroughly researched decision, but I'm convinced that it was the right one.

During my two month stint in the prison of Misery, I questioned going somewhere so far away from home and everyone I knew. I told myself that I should never have come here, that I don't belong here, that I had no future here. It took a very tough decision to make me finally see just how beautiful things were here. I can finally drink deep from the cup of life and really get the most out of my college experience.

I'm going to meet people. I'm going to push my limits. I'm going to grow as a person. I'm going to learn more than I ever have before, and I'm going to actually experience life in ways completely new ways. Sounds cheesy, but it's the thing that I want more than anything right now. I can't wait.

It only took me a whole semester plus two months to actually get to begin that. Oh well, there's no time like the present, eh?

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes...

I... don't even know where to begin in my mind. You know that feeling you get when you're standing on the edge of some ridiculously huge precipice and you look down and you don't really get dizzy (so I don't know if it's the same as vertigo) but you get this awful twitch in the back of your mind that, for some reason or another, you're legs are going to jump your ass off the edge, even if your mind doesn't want to?

Well, that's how things are for me. Have been. For quite a while now.

Thankfully, it hasn't all been awful... Oh, wait, yes it has. HOWEVER, I've managed to not only:

A) actually grown in my faith, but I've also B) grow as a person more than I have ever thought possible, at the expense of my happiness and ability to function in normal society. Considering the way my parents raised me, anyone who knew my family would assume I was a good, upstanding person living a moral and positive life.

Not so. I'm not a model citizen, and I'm not the ideal standard of virtue for people. I'm pretty much the opposite of that. Normally, this is the point where I would deride myself, call myself awful things and hate myself with a burning intensity rivaling that of the sun. But I don't anymore. I accept what I am, and I've learned to deal with it in a constructive matter. So many things that I've done were completely terrible and I had absolutely no idea at the time of how destructive my behavior was, not only to myself but to others as well.

One of the biggest problems I've had was jealousy. I was insecure about myself, and found every other guy imaginable threatening. Looking back, it was the stupidest, saddest display of cowardice and insecurity that I've ever seen. As a result, it ended (with other complications) in the eventual undoing of my relationship. I accept all the blame, and I've been able to overcome it. Now I know how to feel, and how to act properly if I'm ever in another relationship (this is one of the biggest if's in the entire universe).

I don't regret being in that relationship. I feel bad for the pain I caused, both to her and girls in the past, and I can't say I enjoyed the way things had to end, but I've learned that to regret something or to wish something never was is like saying you wish you had never experienced something good. The good and the bad in life are inseparable. And the amount of good I received from those experiences is extraordinary. 

I wish nothing but the best for them, with no ill will and only the request for forgiveness for the way I've acted. If any of them read this, all I have to say is: thank you, for the beauty and joy you showed me in our time together. I will treasure the memories forever, and carry you in my heart.

I'm not making any claims to achieving some kind of saintly status or anything. I'm still a pretty shitty person, and I have a long way to go before I'll ever call myself "good." But sometimes, you have to look at the distance traveled, rather than your current place in life.

Growing Up.

Milk.

So it's a really nice day today, and after having some spectacular dreams I'm in a kind of strange mood. You know, the one where you don't want to do anything and because you're not in school you don't have to? Yeah, hell yeah.

It's now 2:00 in the afternoon. Time for some breakfast.

Unfortunately today I find that I am out of milk, and not only is milk probably the most important thing in my fridge aside of the whiskey. Which unfortunately, I can't eat a bowl of cereal with whiskey. Well... actually I probably could but afterwards I would then be very drunk and my cereal would not have been fulfilling (because whiskey flavored cereal doesn't sound so good to me). Anyway so it's a beautiful day and I'm just pumped as hell to walk to the gas station to get my damn milk. So I get strapped up and start walking.

(Now it's important to remember that there is a point to all this.)

What I did not realize about this beautiful day is that is was in fact:

WINDY

AS

A

MOTHERFUCKER.

It was when I was walking to the gas station that I decided to hum a Lightspeed song in my head, until I started thinking about this commercial about some credit card or something. Either way it was interesting because this woman talking about some sort of future credit card apocalypse was a stunt man. Or stunt "woman" I should say. To this, I realized, Damn. This chick has got to have big hairy balls. Kind of depressing, this thought. Because now I don't feel like so much of a man myself because this girl is running around on fire! (Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.)

So now I'm at the gas station and I got the milk. I only have 4 dollars. This milk is $3.48. Now, I haven't been an adult that long, so even though I've known how to do the dishes, vacuum, and the laundry, I still forget how to do things like math, bank stuff, basically just math, and that food doesn't get taxed. Like milk. So even though the whole time I was thinking it's okay because tax is 7 cents a dollar and so I would be fine, but still freaking out, it turned out I had to pay $3.48. That's 52 cents in my pocket. (Also just a side note: they have this new thing at gas stations (apart from televisions at the pump) that essentially is a small bowl that all of your change rolls out into for you to grab. So people now don't have to hand you change back. America just got lazier.)

Okay I think that whole change thing was the point but one more thing I need to mention. As I was walking home with my gallon of milk and I saw a couple walking towards me from Quizno's Sub, and I raised my hand for a wave, and said, "Good aft- mor-" As I stopped trying to think of which one I should say, I realized...

What time was it???

So remember kids, you can pay for milk in exact change and check the time twice when you get up. Then check the time again.