It's Nothing Fancy

"Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up you heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all of these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore."
-Neil Gaiman

I've only been in love twice in my life, like the real honest-to-God love. The kind where you're willing to change every plan you had for the future so that you can spend forever with that one person. The kind of love where you know each other's major flaws and you don't care. The kind where nothing else really matters, so long as you're together. And it's one of those things that's both horrible and wonderful.

I think sometimes the concept of love is overrated. It's blown out of proportion, made into the monstrous ideal that no one can possibly achieve. All those love songs, all those romance movies, they contribute to love being something so complicated and intense. I don't believe that's what love is, not the kind that really matters anyway.

You want to know what being in love means?

It means there's someone who's willing to put up with all your bad behavior, all your shit, all your annoying qualities, and love you in spite of them.
It means someone is on your team and will defend you & stick up for you, even when they know you're wrong.
It means being willing to rewrite every plan you ever had because you know you could never be happy without that one person in your life.

It means having someone's laugh to wake up to.
It means stealing kisses in the dark.

But more than anything, it means you have someone you can come home to, that you can get through even the shittiest day because you know they're going to be there. 

That's it. It's nothing fancy. So stop making it that way.

Happy Goddamn Valentine's Day.

Love you.
Mean it.

What Does It Mean to Let Go?

What does it mean to let go?

It seems like you can do everything possible to forget, to give up on things ever being the same again. You can replace pictures in frames, you can delete numbers off your phone, you can give borrowed & forgotten clothes to charity. You can do everything you can think of to rid your life of reminders of the way things used to be, but even then it's no use. Your dreams suddenly become infected with memories you've tried so hard to forget. People you have deliberately tried to erase from your mind appear in your dreams and there's nothing you can do about it.

It isn't fair.

You try so hard to let go, to move on, to forget but you find your nights haunted with faces & feelings you could have gone a lifetime not remembering. And you wake up with those ghosts still fresh on your mind. Like a sneak-attack, you're caught off guard. You've worked so hard to build up a giant defense, impenetrable to such painful thoughts, and in those first few moments of the morning they are all brought crashing down. You feel everything all over again, all at once. All the pain. All the betrayal. Everything you felt in that one moment when you knew you've lost everything and you can't breathe. But thankfully as your senses come back, you're able to shove all those awful feelings away, lock them up and rebuild your walls so you can function once again. But those first few moments every morning are unbearable. And it's all so unfair.

You do everything you can to let go of the past but then you're blindsided by an attack from your own subconscious. You're suddenly afraid of your own mind. And you wonder each night before you go to sleep, what torture will you experience this evening? What horrible things will you remember tonight?

What does it mean to let go?

I wish I knew.

Love you.
Mean it.

I'm Going To Bed Unhappy

I'm going to bed unhappy
not by choice but by habit.
I have no one to stay up with
so what's the point?

it's just this whole ridiculous impossibility of proper timing.
seems like everything must be
just so
to squeeze any happiness or love out of the moment.
And once you find that moment, that perfect serene moment,
it then fulfills the title of "moment" and is gone before you even realized
it was here.

I'm just so sick of being told it's not the right time.
it's not the right time for risks,
it's not the right time for chances,
it's not the right time for happiness,
it's not the right time for love.

bullshit.
I can't think of a better time for love and happiness in a person's life
than a time that is labeled
"not the right time."

And I don't mean to complain (though I'm doing it anyway)
but deep down everyone is afraid.
And I try to be tough and cynical,
make self-depricating jokes about being
"The Dateless-Wonder"
but that doesn't mean I'm not afraid.
I'm afraid
of what everyone else is afraid of.
And if you don't know what that is,
well, you've never had your heart broken, I suppose.

And it's not that I'm insensitive
or impatient
(though I have been at different places at different times)
but when you have a good thing staring right at you
ready to put up with your shit,
ready to be patient,
ready to listen,
ready to give a damn about you,
you'd just be stupid not to grab at that.

But now I'm just rambling and maybe tomorrow I'll regret writing this,
but like I said,
I'm going to bed unhappy
so who gives a shit?

Love you.
Mean it.

Letter to my Unborn Daughter

To My Unborn Daughter,

Right now, I am sitting in the hall that connects the GT building to the CS building on the campus of Utah Valley University. I've been reading Robert Louis Stevenson for my British Literature class, waiting for someone to text me or call me so I'll have somewhere to go besides home. The sun is starting to set but it won't be beautiful for another hour or so. Hopefully I'll be gone by then.

Why am I telling you this? Honestly, I had no idea how to start a letter to you without it sounding terribly cliche or trite. But now I don't know where to go from here. So if the rest of this letter is a bit all over the place, like I'm making it up as I go, it's because I am.

I am terrified I'm going to be a terrible mom to you. I don't know why. I had a great example in my mom, your grandmom. You'll never meet a more loving, self-sacrificing, selfless woman in your entire life. Any time one of us kids needed something, my mom would drop anything and everything to help us. She would do anything to help us. I don't think I can ever come close to how wonderful she is.

I want you to know that even if I mess up, even if I am not always perfect, it doesn't mean I don't love you. There was a time when I was very angry at my mom because I saw all the mistakes she made in raising me. But now I realize she was just trying to figure things out as she went along, which is what I'm sure I'm going to be doing too. But I know, without any doubt, my mom loves me and nothing will ever change that. Even when I break her heart (and I have) she still loves me. And that's how it's going to be with you.

I want to tell you a few things I have learned to be true in my life. You can take them or leave them. If there's one thing I've learned with my parents, it's that they are not always right; what may work for them and be true to them isn't always true to me. But I'm telling you them just the same. Do what you will with them:

Always be kind to others, even if you know they don't deserve it.

To forgive someone is one of the hardest things to do in this life. Don't do it until you're ready.

Don't lie. It just makes everything worse.

Always search for those people in the crowd who don't seem to quite fit in, who seem out of place. They will end up being some of your dearest friends and will nearly always have the best stories.

Never be afraid to try something new.

Always say "yes" to adventure.

It may take time to learn to love yourself and your life. But I promise it will happen.

It's okay to be smart. It's okay to be driven. It's okay to be passionate. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't know what the hell they are talking about.

Read everything and anything you can get your hands on.

There will come a time when you will fall in love and he will break your heart. It'll hurt like hell for what seems like forever but I promise one day it will stop.

Be brave. Take chances.

I want you to know I will never ever stop loving you. I know you're going to do great things in your life and I can't wait to be right there with you.

Love you.
Mean it.

New Plan of Action

"Be so good at what you do that they can't ignore you."

-from the film 

Miss Representation

Long Shot

About last night,

I know people do silly things
when they’re not thinking clearly.
And alcohol is notorious for making one
not think clearly
Maybe it makes me too optimistic,
too hopeful.

But when I was driving home
I thought about everything that had happened 

and everything that had been said, 

thinking of all those reasons you listed, 

why you’re no good
for anyone.
When I said I liked you, 

I was telling the truth and 

even after you listed your reasons
I didn’t change my mind.

And while driving home in 2 a.m. fog, 

an occurrence so rare for this place
I’ve only seen it once before in my life,
I realized I was being foolish.

And while trying to sleep that night,
trying not to notice your scent still lingering on my clothes,
I knew I was yet again a victim
of my own wishful yet silly thinking.

And I don’t blame you.

It’s not the first time & 

I knew it was a long shot
to begin with. 

Love you.

Mean it. 

The Past

Once again I find myself unable to sleep.  I guess this is the sucky part of having a mind that is always working, always thinking; it's a real bugger to turn off.

Lately it seems I have a lot more on my mind than normal. Even when I manage to fall asleep, I keep having these dreams that wear me out to the point I wake up even more exhausted than when I fell asleep. I normally don't buy into any "dream theory" or the idea that dreams have special significance. I think dreams are just a manifestation of what's been on your mind. Which is why these dreams lately have been so troublesome to me. Without going into a ton of detail, in my dreams I've been encountering people from my past (most of whom I would like to keep in my past) and having to confront them with how much pain they have caused me, usually with violent consequences. Why am I dreaming about these things? I haven't thought about those people in months. Why now? Why now, when I finally feel like I've got my life back together and found happiness am I bothered with these stupid ghosts of my past?

I guess I'm slowly and begrudgingly learning I can't truly escape my past and that's okay. When I moved here, I had nothing but all my memories of Cedar City. I was lost trying to figure out where I fit in. Once I did find my place, with help from my improv group, school, working for the Review and some really great friends, I turned my back on my past life in Cedar. I didn't want anything to do with it anymore. It was almost as if I wanted to believe it didn't happen. Once I finally was able to enjoy living here in Provo, I didn't want to look back and remember how good I once had it.

I guess, like most things in this world, it's a matter of balance. I can't get stuck in my past, living in regret and yearning for the way things were. But I can't try to escape my past either. I can't deny who I was and how I lived my life. More importantly, I can't lie about how happy I was there nor can I lie about how, at times, I was miserable. And how often times the same people who were causing me so much happiness were also causing me so much misery.

Maybe it's time for me to write the story of why I moved here, the reasons and the people responsible for the abrupt and painful change in my life. The one-year "anniversary" of me moving is coming up. Maybe I'll have it ready for posting by then.

March 12th 2011. Save the Date.

Love you.
Mean it.