Today is the Only Day That Matters Right Now

     Today. An odd word, really. Seems like nothing special, were all use it all the time...right? The truth is in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't mean very much afterwards but in the moment, it means everything. In most ways, yesterday and last year are insignificant to our needs or wants or hopes and dreams. We've already lived that day out and it's nothing more than a memory. Not to say that memories aren't important, sometimes that's the only thing keeping people or places with us. Memories are very important for our mental state, but survival happens today for some of us. Maybe not in some cinematic 'i have to jump from this bridge that ship before it explodes' kind of way but we survive in harrowing and very seemingly very small ways.

     Jim Carrey had a stand up bit that is hilarious and also very deeply true; he said life is all about impulses. We all have impulses every minute of every day. "Do I run this razorblade across my tongue or do I shave normally and go to work?" Carrey used as a funny example (it's on YouTube, check it out. He's a lot funnier than I am) and it's funny to use crazy examples but there's so much truth in that philosophy. Every moment, were have a ton of little options that could be detrimental or they could be just normal routine stuff or could make life better in some way. Or life or someone else's

     I guess now is as good a time as any to get you why I'm writing this. I have impulses regularly that are not good...no, I'm not saying I'm crazy and hear voices but I am saying that I have mental issues that make it very easy for me to see myself as worthless, bad for everyone around me no matter what I do and generally a curse on anything I touch. I know logically I'm not supposed to think that way, I fight abortion hard and defend second chances for people whenever I can; it's very important to me that when I see the chance to show someone that they can be better, that I do it or when I see a way that life can be protected, it's not taken lightly. I do all that with vigor until it comes to myself. To give you insight into time when I'm alone, when no one else can see me: I have trouble looking into mirrors, most of that is because I have this distorted view of me. When it gets so bad that it takes you actually time, like I actually think about how bad I am to friends and to co-workers for serious amounts of time, that's when it's something that needs real attention.

     There have been big things that happened throughout my life that led me to this thought pattern, some of those were my fault and some out of my control. I'm not trying to make myself a victim for the most part, I've made a lot of dumb mistakes that caused long term problems for me (my dating history is a perfect example) and I am also in fact trying to say that my entire thought process needs to change. I want that to change, really badly.

     I recently nearly made the worst impulse a reality, one that would have taken away my 'todays' forever. I'm not happy about thinking that way but I can't lie or act like it didn't happen. That day is now not important, because it's not today though and I'm trying to keep this thought in my head more and more. Right now, this very second...Yesterday isn't important. Only today is and only today should be when bad things happen or when you make decisions you regret.

     Learning from yesterday and honoring good things about yesterday is good, today is the only day that matters though. Today you can make choices count, today you can change things, today you can survive.

     Remember yesterday, survive today and have hope for tomorrow.

The Introvert/Extrovert In Me

     So I often feel the need to write when I'm in immediate negativity, which is why this diary is heavily leaning on the sad side but I do have good things in my life and Saturday was a decently (yes, I made that word up. No, that wasn't a typo. Yes, you can use it) good day.

     I went to Center City with some friends and we had a really good time just goofing around. I have become a hardcore introvert over the last few years and being out in public usually makes me want to be invisible, let alone making a scene. So getting to go out and sing and dance and make silly jokes and be outgoing and not care is a very rare thing for me. I got to do that in Philly. And more importantly, I had fun doing it.

I've had a few times in the last few years where I've been out with people and pretended to be somewhat outgoing and while I looked like I was doing fine, internally I was either freaking out and trying to find a place to hide or I just plain hated what ever was going on. That's never been because of whoever I was around, but the blunt truth is I'm so not comfortable being the 'life of the party' type. I'm not saying I was the life of the small party but I didn't feel the burning need to become invisible or miserable for not wanting to be wherever I was. That's pretty big for me.

     To put my internal works into protective, ten years ago I could have maybe 10 days out of a month where I had good days. Days when I felt outgoing and was able to step outside of my head. And skipping ahead to this year, I can think of 2 days where I even came close to being able to step outside of my discomfort. Yesterday was one of those days and the year is almost over, we're in August.

     Another good thing about yesterday is that I kinda felt like I have my friend a good day too. Maybe I'm being self centered and I'm wrong about this (although I hope that's not the case) but it feels really good to know I've helped my friends when in a way that they actually need. I feel very useless in society lately so to actually feel like something I did was actually useful, that's really cool.

     I was supposed to be somewhere else, doing something else and that had me really bummed so it's cool that while I was missing out on something I really wanted to do, I turned that into a really good day and a lot of fun. The only downside was the heat but I'll take being sweaty and having fun over being comfortable with the temperature and miserable.

It was a good day. I needed that.

This is where I live

     I try very hard to fight through the negativity in my life, I try to smile my way past those everyday things that happen and I try to remember my goal in life (make other people's life better, event if it's one person at a time in even very small ways) and it honestly seems like every time I take a step in that direction, something happens that COMPLETELY destroys anything I've put together. Completely. Sometimes it's my fault like I make a bad choice and just make things in my life worse and the rest of the time it's like I just get a bad hand in life and I lose.

     I fully acknowledge that I make wing choices and do things that lead to failure. I take responsibility for things that I do that result in my life's non success, not just failure because failure refers to losing our logically bad or wrong things. I have been taught by a lot of people throughout my life that it is cowardly to not take responsibility for my mistakes, sins and won't choices. I also know that sometimes wrong choices aren't "sins" but rather just the not right thing in that moment, like if o choose to either l write something in pen and make a writing error. I made the wing choices in not using a pencil but I didn't do something bad, I just could have made a better decision.

     Then there are luck based situations, for lack of better words, that I just lose with most of the time. Things like: I go to the train station early and the machine that dispenses tickets didn't accept dimes and then the train comes early. I know that everyone faces these situations, but I have this weird curse where logic plays weird games with me more than normal. I have things happen like I'll pull on a paper towel and logic tells me the pretreated line will be where it rips... For normal people; my curse causes it to rip in such an odd way like it'll rip right around where I'm holding it.
   
This is a silly example but imagine every time you ever rip a paper towel, it rips in the worst way possible, how maddening that can get over time. That's where I live. Now imagine this weird logic happening with a lot of areas in life, like every time you hang a picture on your wall something catches the nail to make it uneven, no matter how many times you re adjust it. That's where I live.

These things wouldn't be so bad if there was something big that made hassles worth the trouble but I don't have much of anything to hinge my troubles on; I don't have a girlfriend/wife/prospect of a love interest, no kids, no career that makes it all worth it, no passion that I can't afford and nothing I'm looking forward to really. Knowing there's nothing that I come"home" to makes all these weird things feel ski much more...aimed...yeah aimed sounds like the best word, these things feel aimed at me.

     In fact, the only thing that I even have to look forward to is the thing that is going to alienate me from an amount of close friends...I have no way to end this because at the moment I'm at a loss for words. So I'm asking for prayers and hoping there's a light at the end of the tunnel. I hope things stop getting worse at some point

     Hope you have a great day.

The Good and The Not So Good

     How's your day, you ask? How's life, you question? What's going on, you...inquisite? I know that's not a word but you asked, you shouldn't make up words.

     Ok so I will answer your questions. So here it goes: Good, good.
Well that's what I say when I don't want to say that things aren't great or tell someone my actual goings on. The truth is things are tough. I've been dealing with a lot and most of them are things that aren't going away or things that can't be wished away by saying, "I'm here for you. You got this." In fact, most of the things I'm going through, I need either a massive amount of money or people to be actually around for semi long times.

     I'm not saying that encouraging statements are wrong or that I don't appreciate them when people who can't do more or don't know what to do say them. Please don't take that for me saying I don't appreciate the thought. But the honest truth is that I'm struggling. Usually I'm struggling with internal stuff like figuring out my gender identity issues or dealing with the fact that I have such bad luck that EVERYTHING that could go the opposite of my way does. Ev. Ry. Time.

     These are usually what I am thinking about or dealing with when you ask me what's up so you now know when I say I'm good that really, I'm not exactly good. BUT...

     But there is another side, a side that I sometimes don't acknowledge because my identity gets lost in misery sometimes. I look at myself as the sad or unfortunate one, kinda lie the Toby Flenderson version of Neo. (I know you like my photoshop skillz)

   Hahaha, anyway back to my point: I do have some good things that I think about and that I have in my life:

First thing that I cannot express how great it is would be my friends. My friends are my family, I'm not going to name everyone because I would leave people out by accident but you know who you are. I have lots of people who mean lots to me, these are people who have saved my life and continue to be a support system when I need it. They also on occasion use my services whether it's babysitting or helping out in some other way, they help me feel needed even in little ways.

     And there's another thing that makes me crazy happy that is a part of who I am. It's big and cold and has blue and red lines and it contains some of the coolest people and...it has...rubber...on it... Ok, I'm out, it's an ice rink. It's also hockey. I love it so much, I think I was born with skates, the Dr just hid them when I skated out...hmm...maybe I should curb my imagination. Nah, deal with it.
   
     Hockey has been my saving grace from summer every year since I became a fan, anyone on my FB knows of my countdowns from the first day of summer till the first preseason nhl game of the season...that's right. I can't even wait till just regular season, I go crazy for the first preseason. And as a Flyers fan, that usually means a game I can't go to but still keep up with the score as if it's a pivitol playoff game. Hockey was the thing God used to bring me into church in a way and it has been one of the biggest uses for me to socialize with society. One of my favorite memories was when the Flyers won game 7 vs Boston in 2010: we went to the Wells Fargo Center to watch the game being played in Boston. There were 20,000 fans there and we all enjoyed the win. Afterwards, as we exited the parking lot (which took us over an hour to just get out of the not that big parking lot) fans were high fiving each other, going around to random cars and talking about the game and sharing drinks and stories. The comradery of the sport is much fun.

     And art. Oh art, you make me swoon. Photography, drawing, painting, music, creating videos and short films...there's so much to talk about in this...this writing. This is another one of the best "goods" that keeps me sane and helps me on a regular basis. I don't acknowledge it because that's vain or something but I love knowing that I'm good at something and for it to be photography or drawing, that means a lot to me. It's so therapeutic to put what's in my head on paper or into a YouTube video is immeasurable.

     So although I, at times, don't see it I have some awesome 'good' and some terrible 'not so good' that is always on my mind. Sometimes I need to remind my face about the good stuff. That's kinda hat this letter to myself is all about.

Have a wonderful day