paraphilia

There was something about the way his hands moved when he spoke that I’ll always remember for some reason.  The way his eyes would actually twinkle and he’d get that mischievous grin on his face.  The ease with which he simply did whatever he felt like doing.  Jeff passed away in an accident on Monday, August 4th.  He was my sister Jaclyn’s boyfriend and one of the best people I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing.

I’ve tried to figure out what to say and how to say it for over three weeks now and I can’t.  Sometimes things aren’t so neat and tidy that they can be wrapped up in a paragraph but I still have things like the sentences above float through my head in those moments when my attention drifts and I just reflect.

It’s strange how time seems to completely stop for a moment when someone you know passes.  Then suddenly it seems as though it’s going too damn fast.  Thankfully someone once showed me that you shouldn’t just wish, you shouldn’t wait, you shouldn’t regret, and you shouldn’t mind what other people think.  You search and listen until you find what you want then you work and work until you damn well have it.  You had better be working to help those you love, working to get what you want, or enjoying what you love–there isn’t anything else worth doing.

You aren’t there beside us to show us how to live life well, but you will always be inside us.

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It never ceases to amaze me how difficult it is to actually write something most days.

Working in the morning, getting off work with the whole day ahead of you…is just as vulnerable to routine as any other schedule.  It’s so damn easy to accomplish nothing on a daily basis.  But then sometimes things just happen.

This weekend was…strange.  Two parties, two places, two entirely different types of people yet I watched the same happen.  I saw a person be the wallflower, the one perpetually just outside the circle of discussion.  This time it was me trying to include them, bring them in to things.  This time it was me watching them leave early, leave alone, leave for no real reason beyond that undeniable urge to escape.  It all had such a surreal quality.

I’ve picked up a very strange habit as well that I’ve been watching for several months now: sometimes I don’t shut up.  I’ve developed the ability to motor-mouth.  It bothers me as part of me just watches it happen, predicting each move I’ll make, each intonation I’ll follow.  Sometimes it has such a surreal quality.

I finally managed to get myself more than one day in a row off of work.  In fact, I found three. Three days is what it takes, typically.  The first day to wrap my brain up.  The second day to do absolutely nothing for tens of hours on end.  By the third day my schedule ends up completely reversed (can you tell which day I’m embarking on?), I’m mildly malnourished, I’ve accomplished nothing, and I’m distinctly sleep deprived.  This all comes together to loosen my own grip on reality and cause a feeling of worthlessness.  The worthlessness stirs, the lack of reality frees, and the result is that I suddenly start eating/cleaning/exercising/organizing/doing.

That surreal quality I get sometimes is when I’m stepping back and watching myself, seeing what I’ll do.  It lets me figure out how I tick, how I choose, how I act.  I used to use this self-knowing to tear down, to break, to hurt my self (I mean hell, there are several good cycles of that crap in the history of this blog-thing alone).  Now I use it to subtly direct myself towards things that I want and want to be.

These days I don’t know if I’m steering or just riding in the back.  But I do know it’s my car, mother-fuckers, and you’d best be stayin’ off the sidewalk cause that’s where the good drivin’s at.

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Staying busy but accomplishing nothing. There’s a fun habit I’ve picked up.

Actions, deeds, memories.  They all become so familiar.

Traffic jams are good times to meet people.  That guy in the SUV told me to check it out, so I did.  And it was as good as he said.

Maybe our strongest traits are those that we make from our fears after all.  The difference between the brave and the coward are which direction they run after pissing themselves.