Different.

I didn’t quit.  Not once.  Despite how close I came.

That says that something has changed.

Observation:

Strength is found in strength of will, in unwillingness to give up, unwillingness to falter, in going a little farther.  Strength is not measured in a man’s muscles, but his heart.  It seems strange that I hadn’t made sense of it that way before.

Chicago

Chicago was “fan-fucking-tastic” as Tiago would say.  More to follow later, but that trip was two of the best days of this summer.

How One Loves

To understand how a person loves, look at what they give up for what they love.  Look at what they sacrifice for love.  It shows the order in which they value things.  A person who gives up sleep, who gives up time, who gives up money, who gives up their own health or happiness, that person is in love, in love with someone, or something.  Love takes your equation out of balance so that someone else’s can be.

Different

Now is very different from last year this time.  I take that back.  Now isn’t super different, but it’s different from the year I spent at Ball State.  I feel much more grown up, but I also feel like everything I’ve done in the last year has kind of been negated, and like everything I did in high school doesn’t count for anything at all.  I hardly remember it anymore, nor do I visit many of the people from there.  Ed’s taken on an entirely new role with his being in Chicago all the time, and Kerby’s really the only one from high school (that I hung out with, that is) that I’m still meeting up with now.  Rachel is entirely new, more a friend from college than from high school.  I’ve worked full time for an entire summer, learning to push myself far beyond anything else before hand, none of my high school grades helped me get any scholarships to Purdue, not after that first year, and yet, people still graduate from Jeff, their lives there still end, and they move on.  I guess I just feel like I missed something in that transition-like things are moving way too fast for me still and I want to stop them and say, “Hang on a minute, let’s get this sorted out before we move right along to the next thing-I think this is gonna cause trouble later on.”  In a lot of ways that works out to growing up way too fast.  This whole year has felt the same in that every day seems to flow right into the next-between BSU and working it really does feel like that.  And it’s tough.  I feel as though I’ve completely changed-simply because I can’t remember that far back-because the situation is so much different, I don’t know how to act.  Everything’s been turned on it’s head-I’m not who I used to be, and I’m not sure anyone else is.  And it makes me want to spend a lot more time with people who haven’t changed-people who haven’t left for college yet-and to cling more tightly to the past, rather than let go to get to the future-but I only have so much processing power, and if I want to continue forward, I can’t be using that all up on the past-but the opposite is also true.  What I really want is a lot of time and a lot of paper, and someone to talk it all through with, to sort out everything that’s happened since I graduated over a year and a half ago.  It’s not so easy for me to move on.  Rachel described it as “People change and forget to tell each other”.  I guess I argue that I changed and someone forgot to tell me.

God Damn It

I can’t even write about love anymore, it’s so confusing.  It’s to the point where I get angry when I try, because nothing comes out right.  Nothing has come out right for a full year, I don’t have any answers, I don’t have any clever insights, all I’ve got is a bundle of cynicism and anger wrapped up in a nineteen year old.  What a fucking way to start out the week.

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Observations

I’ve been making a lot less observations about how the world is working lately, and more about what’s happening as a record.  I wonder if that’s a result of me really not knowing what’s going on, or if it’s in part a problem with thinking versus action, or a lack of energy, or simply not enough time spent analyzing what happened and how it makes me feel.  But it kinda seems like a problem.  Like I’m not going to go anywhere if I don’t figure at least part of that out.

Also, I know that it’s a combination of my tempo and distance set up that makes me unable to land touches.  At all.  I know.  And I know that most of that is a result of bad feet.  I close too fast and I’m not in control.  I can’t control that distance so that I can just make the final action a wall drill action.  I can close that distance fast, and I can hit with wall drill actions, but I can’t combine them together.  And it’s been that way for a while now.  So…it kinda bothers me when every single fencer I talk to tries to explain to me what my problem is.  I’m not stupid, people, I do pay more attention than that.  I mean, I appreciate your advice, but give me the benefit of the doubt.  Also: I would ask if I had no idea, I ask questions ALL the time in lessons.  All the time, just ask Mark.  I just don’t have the feet and feeling for tempo developed yet.  I know you’re going to keep telling me, but…since you are, would you mind maybe just…point out something different once in a while?  Thanks.

Confession to no one in Particular:

I had a pretty good time Friday night, and I would like to do it again sometime.

Love is a two way street

Relationships really work best when both people love the other one.  If you have two people loving each other, then they realize that the other will screw up, and they work through it together.  With that love comes forgiveness and the ability to move on.  Instead of one person alone, there are two, and the two work to conquer greater things than the one alone, “by their powers combined”.  Powers do not combine when one person sits passively by and the other sticks out their ring.  It just doesn’t work.