Out in the Woods

I realized that there is something I think about a lot when my mind wanders and something that was the biggest thing in my life in 2008 which has changed my life for better or worse. Somehow in hell I got a position as a hotshot. Pretty insane really. First year guys aren't supposed to be on hotshot crews, pretty much as a rule. Nonetheless, I got the job. There is so much to talk about concerning the job. I will certainly post more about it as thoughts come into my mind. I really hyper analyze the experience quite often and seems to be on my mind a lot. It affected me in many ways.
In a lot of ways wildland firefighting doesn't fit me at all. In other ways it's perfect. I will make a list because that's fun.

Pros:
*Get to see beautiful places all around the United States
*Incredibly interesting (fire and human behavior)
*Free meals, motel rooms, travel expenses
*Get to do very dangerous stuff everyday
*Receive a lot of respect and cred from all sorts of people (unfounded though it may be at times)
*Always put in a good day of work
*Live outside for a vast majority of the time
*Pay is pretty good, and it is hard to spend money
*Rewarding at times
*Cheap housing
*Learn how to work with all kinds of people
Cons:
*Body gets beat to hell (feet, back, legs, hands, ears)
*Work is very hot, noisy, chaotic and dangerous
*Hard to be a vegan (hating salad doesn't help)
*Lots of machismo, sexism, racism, homophobia, and plain old ignorance
*Work can feel fruitless and like "busy work"
*When not on fire life gets really boring
*Some techniques and actions are very environmentally destructive
*Hard to live and work with people who share few beliefs with me
*Work for "the man"
*Pay really should be more (a lot to explain on that front)
*Monkey butt, needle back, swamp foot (gross)

So that's a short list. I could really do that all day. I won't.
There are a lot of negative aspects to the job for a person like me. There are great parts too. They seem to even out. I certainly don't ascribe to a lot of the attitudes that are prevalent in the community but am able to function well. I realize that no one is going to change how I think and nor am I going to change anyone else (not too much anyway). In that way I found that it is easier to talk to people. Many of the guys on the crew came from backgrounds nothing like my own. Talking with them allowed me to see their perspectives and was very helpful in understanding them.
There is a mystique connected with firefighters. I was actually called a "hero" one day. Boy that was weird. In other places we were considered minions of the fascist US government (ID, MT, etc.). I met a lot of people who I think were put off too. People I would imagine in other circumstances I would have gotten along with. There is this assumption that firefighters are ignorant macho idiots. In a lot of ways that's a valid argument, but we also cannot generalize. There were a lot of very educated and smart people on the crew. And some who were bumbling ogres. That's how it goes. before I got into fire I read a ton about it. Lots of books for months before I got on the crew. There is definitely a romanticism related to the profession. It isn't romantic at all. It is painful, dirty, and covered in bullshit. But I want to keep doing it. WHY? Why the fuck is more like it. In all honesty there is so much that I like about it, that makes it worth it. There's a lot of crap to deal with but I learned how and was able to make the job what I wanted it to be. To me, and others as well, I found myself in incredible situations amazed that I got paid to be there, doing something crazy. There are some amazing that one can see and do fighting wildfires. Being a hotshot is the best way to see wildfires. I would never do it any other way (well, almost). I will admit that it can be hard not to get an attitude when it comes to being a hotshot. It is easy to fall into the rhetoric that they feed you. I will honestly agree that hotshots are the best firefighters. Hands down. But that is in the woods. I found that when I left the buggy door or the station to go back into the real world I had to leave that macho, prideful attitude there. Because in all honesty, all I did for six months was cut down trees and move dirt. Plain and simple. My dad thinks I try to be a tough guy. I don't think I do in the way that he thinks. Toughness is relative. Simply because most people don't risk their lives trying to put out forest fires doesn't mean they're not tough or that we are so much more so. I think abut my grandmother who raised eight kids, lost one as an infant, lived with a stubborn, jerk who was her husband, drove him everywhere, chopped into her 80s, and only had electricity and indoor running water for half of her life. That's tough. Or even some folks i knew in school. there was one girl i knew who had three young kids, worked full time and went to school full time with intentions of getting her master's degree. That is tough too. Or a young boy in Africa that has had to run his whole life because his lost his family to war and worries every night that he is going to get caught and forced to become a soldier against his will. That's tough. As a wildland firefighter I'm pampered. As an American I'm pampered. It's all context.
I'll write more on this in the future.

Weird

Been thinking a lot the past few days. Lots of things have passed through my mind. But I just made a weird discovery, I suppose. Not so much weird as insightful. I strive for relationships with people but tend to not even begin them. I make excuses why I shouldn't and what it boils down to is that I don't want to be hurt emotionally or have to think about more than what is necessary for me to function as the person that I am. I think a lot of it has to do with my striving for rationality, which certainly can lead in the wrong direction. what this does it makes me think I am, afraid but of what, seems mysterious at the time. In retrospect it is not. I have to work on conquering this fear. If there is something I want in life I have learned that I have to go and get it myself. No one is going to give me anything. Easy to say but harder to do. In many parts of my life I have done this but in other I haven't.
Also recently I have realized what it is I want in life. i want someone to "be there" all the time for me. Someone who will accept me and challenge me everyday. Someone who will listen to rants like this and be able to put me in my place if need be. I'm good at being alone and have pretty much felt that way my whole life and to a certain extent I enjoy it. This "aloneness" (not loneliness) is also a cause of my fear of serious relationships. Probably. I am looking to have someone in my life who would still allow me to have this "aloneness" but it wouldn't be labeled as such. Free-will may be the better term. Freedom seems too loose.
I make excuses to myself to deny what it is that i crave so much. "I won't be here for long", "Being alone helps me see the world clearer", "I really don't need anyone", "I'm not around much, I move too often", "My itchy feet aren't conducive to having someone else in my life", "I'm too hard to live with", "You'd think I would be able to find someone, but I don't, oh well". All total bullshit. I am simply denying myself. I used to believe that this was virtuous and therefore lived a virtuous life. Certainly depriving yourself of things can bring insight but all of the time and in every part of one's life is not good for the conscience.
I need to relax and not fear being hurt. Getting hurt is a part of life, and if I want to continue living this life then I am going to have to accept that.
I often feel like I should be something or be doing something because at my age people do things that I want to do. I do things I want but nothing is enough. One thing at a time. That said, it is about time for something new, something I really want. I have to be cautious though not to look too much, get too into searching and let some things happen. Still be proactive but not desperate, or straight up creepy.
Learn learn learn.

The Goods

Lately I have been thinking about how things in life happen and are not even noticed after a while. Be it physical mannerisms or habits. For me, I've been thinking about things in life that I like. I'm going to make this an ongoing project and I'm going to be very specific. We'll see how it works.

playing music with friends
meeting new interesting people
thinking about girls I've liked the day after I met them
wind blowing through pine trees (favorite sound)
washing face with clean river/spring water
summiting a peak
hiking with friends
south facing windows
going back and forth with someone about a specific topic using minimal word (i.e. 80s and 90s baseball players, 80s metal bands, sarcastic reasons why women should stay at home)
runners high
a well functioning bike
aimlessly bike riding on warm summer nights
dumpster diving with friends
seeing a sunset and sunrise without going to sleep
sleeping in the woods
feeling comfortable around people
seeing a big tree in the middle of the forest
watching animals in the wild
birds on bird feeders
being alone in the forest
finding archaeological sites
working on bicycles
certain songs that give me an indescribable feeling
martin luther king speeches
laughing at inappropriate times
playing guitars, banjos, mandolins, etc. in music stores
knowing that I can really do whatever I want
making a pretty looking dinner
making food for other people
when people ask me to sing songs I have written
when people ask me to play songs by other people (that I like)
getting a new album and not being able to listen to anything else for a week without feeling like I'm betraying that album
thinking about the past (before I was around)
thinking about how much there is to do in the future
thinking about places I want to go
doing little things for people that they'll never know about
relaxed dogs
stupid jokes between friends
good fitting jeans
broken in running shoes
feeling exhausted after a day of hard work
the forgotten thoughts that happen right before sleep
dreams that make me feel better than in waking life
sweet flannel and plaids shirt acquired cheaply at thrift stores
good "bad" music (scorpions, alabama, gin blossoms, etc.)
desert sunrises
smell of sagebrush in the morning during summer
the insanity of monsoons
dry, windy lightning storms
seeing mountains after being away from them for a while
reading a book until it's impossible because I am falling asleep

all for now

Dick!

So, I think a lot of people think I'm a jerk. Why not? Makes it easier to not have to get to know someone. Anyway, I think the big misconception may be that because my opinions are "harsh", abrupt, or definite that I don't think deeply about those opinions. Just being the person I am I think about issues from every angle I can imagine. I come to conclusions by that way (for the most part). I try to put myself in other peoples shoes per say (cliche). Being trained as an anthropologist has also helped me in this way. It's easy to think you know someone by first impressions. Everyone does it. Being on the crew really helped me understand people a lot. That is what I learned most of all from that experience. I can honestly say that if it weren't for the crew I would never have even talked to or looked twice at any of the guys on the crew. But since we lived together in such a crazy environment I had no choice but to get to know them. I disagreed with pretty much everything they were about and everything they did, but I still got along with them and was able to hear their side of life and understand where they got their ideas.
One day I was having a somewhat heated discussion with one of the guys. He was saying that he had no problem treating Maricopa county prisoners poorly. I countered and said that even though they committed crimes they were still people and deserved better treatment than they were getting. I asked him if he ever thought about how those people had been brought up, or the fact that it was easy for him to cast them aside because he was a pretty well off white guy? He countered if I ever thought about the former loggers I commented on? Of course I had. I thought it was funny that he asked me that. Logging had been a hot-button topic on the crew, as it is all over the west. I had some great conversations with a native Idahoan about it and really enjoyed his take on it. The guy who was arguing with me didn't know I had these conversations and was well aware of the sentiment among former loggers and their families. Regardless, I came to my own conclusion by looking at the issue from different angles. I vividly remember him saying to me if I thought about the perspective of the loggers and I thought "of course, duh." I then realized that a lot of people don't try to look at all sides of an argument. Simply because we have opinions doesn't mean they're superficial. They should often be challenged and questioned, but also well founded. I suppose that is why I have tried to stray away from labels. They're so final and decisive. I've never affiliated myself with a particular political or social view and even have had to come to terms with calling my self a vegan (*shivers*). As humans we must label so as to make sense of the world, but sometimes it's so restrictive.
So in conclusion, I may seem like and asshole but, I believe that stems from the fact that I know exactly what I believe, know how to demonstrate it, and have looked that those beliefs in a critical light and continue to. I do like life and people, and the world, it can just be frustrating.

yeah, but what about protein?

So, I'm a vegan. Not an asshole vegan. Both of those things independently, yes. When I first became vegan I'm not sure I did it for the right reason. I felt some sort of pressure. From where I don't know, but it was there. So from about March 2004 I have not purposely eaten any animal product and haven't really had any desire to. It has been hard. Not on the eating level so much as the social level. For instance, I don't eat anything my grandfather offers me when I go to his house. I often wonder if eating non-vegan items would be justifiable just for his sake. I have felt, and in many was still feel at times, that I disappoint my family or that I'm betraying my heritage. I am, after all, an alcohol-free vegan from the state known for it's beer and dairy production. Weird huh? My father was raised on a daily farm and cattle raising is a large part of my history. I have come to terms with this problem as much as I can and I understand that for me to be myself I have to make my own decisions. That includes evaluating the choices by my ancestors and my culture and society as a whole.
With that overblown sort of introduction out of the way allow me to answer the second most asked question I get as a vegan (first being "Where do you get your protein?"), why? "Why?" is the best question that humans have ever asked. Mainly because it is a question that can always be asked, answered and asked again with authority and validity. The reason I am a vegan is simple: I am a vegan because it is the choice that best follows my beliefs. It took me a long time to realize that. There was a time when I would have begun a lecture on every technical aspect of veganism. I have come to realize that people don't want to be preached to nor do people care about real life facts as much as they should. But telling someone as personal as that statement says something about you, about me.
Where this stems from is my opposition to "mainstream" vegan groups, or rather group. I am a vegan against PETA. Lord those people are a bunch of rich So Cal weirdos who applaud fast food and junk food producers for making vegan but still unhealthy products. What the hell? When I became a vegan I became so much more educated about good nutrition and how to be healthy overall. They also want the world to convert immediately to become like them. In many ways the world already is, full of a bunch of fanatical assholes trying to push their agenda down others' throats. That is a big problem with most ideas, people don't listen not because of content but because of how content is presented. For a long time I didn't want people to know I was vegan in fear that they would harshly judge me or ask me some stupid question or tell me how unhealthy I must be. That is because of crazy vegan people. People still say crazy stuff to me and probably judge me harshly but I have learned to accept and not hide this part of me. In a weird way being vegan is like being gay. People know you because you're gay or vegan because not many people are either (though I suspect there are more gay people than vegans). My vegan status certainly does not garner as much attention as gay people nor do I feel as oppressed or marginal as many gay people unfortunately feel, nonetheless I am known to many as first and foremost a vegan. Weird huh? I do a lot of stuff but that seems to be the thing that sticks. there is a girl who I know that knows me mostly as "The Vegan". I have even left messages on her voicemail identifying myself as "The Vegan". I think it is actually quite funny. It was only a year ago that I read two books that changed how I see myself as a vegan or as someone who lives an animal free diet. I read Diet for a New America and The Food Revolution by John Robbins (not a big fan of the titles, neither is the author). These "bibles" of veganism I only read after four years of being a vegan. Up until then I knew what being a vegan meant but I didn't have anyway to see it in an organized way that made sense. I am always skeptical of books like these and definitely evaluated them the whole time I read them. I was impressed. They enlightened me and made me realize how ignorant I was about a lot of stuff. These books offered a lot for someone like me. Firs, Robbins cites all of his sources. So, so important. It's easy to have an agenda but it's something else to present your point of view with facts and citations from reliable sources. Second, he didn't preach. He made his case and actively tried not to preach by letting the reader know that. And the most important part, which helped me with my answer, is that he presented information, ideas, and feelings about an animal free lifestyle in a very open-ended and comfortable. He is certainly not ashamed of his ideas and is willing to share them with people in a non-threatening way so as to get a broader audience. It was simply his tone that helped me. Sure the contents were a watershed moment for me, but how he came across made me feel good about my choice. I'm sure this is what he was going for because he is a total hippie and probably listens to Hearts of Space every week and has for the whole time it's been on the air. That said, I have also come to terms with my quasi-neo-hippie status. Though I don't like jam bands, listen to The Dead, use patchouli, or go to Sedona for the vortices I certainly fit many stereotypes that are assigned to "hippies" (who arguably never existed, really).
I used to be a purist. A purist in everything I did. maybe not a purist so much as an authenticist or genuinist. I always wanted things to be how I wanted things to be. Right? I'm not so much anymore and my life is better for it. I do not know many vegans personally so this is a topic I find difficult to discuss. But from what I have seen on the all knowing interweb many vegans are crazy perfectionists. To be a vegan you have to subscribe to a 10000000% vegan lifestyle. Ok, so nothing can be 10000000%, but neither can it be 100%. People who claim to live a 100% vegan life are crazy and wrong. I'm a "vegan" because the culture in which I live needs labels and it's on that I don't mind suing to describe myself. As a wildland firefighter I have no choice, no choice but to purchase and wear leather boots. That is a requirement of the job. If there were non-leather boots that worked as good as leather I would buy them asap, but there aren't so I can't. That makes me not a vegan to some extremists. Great, good for them. I have had non-vegans challenge me on this issue. I say to them "how often do you go against what you believe?" I would imagine a lot more than myself. I have a lot more pressure to deny my conscience than they do. Sure it sucks that I have to use leather but I don't let it sit on my conscience because it is a choice I am making. Not only to wear the boots but also to have a job which requires them. Let the world know, I am not perfect.............oh good the ground didn't open up and as far as I know most of the mountains are still standing around the world. Wheew! As far as labels I am more of a "hesitant vegan". Right? Maybe.
There are a lot of things I think are funny about non-vegans who think I'm crazy and who ask me questions. First of all they ask if I know what I'm doing and if I know how to keep myself healthy. I need to start answering that question with itself. Do you know how to keep yourself healthy? That idea stems from the fact that people have come to believe that there is some sort of magic nutrients that are only found in animal products and that people who don't eat them are not sufficient in these miracle nutrients. I recall one instance when a guy told me that too many grains can be bad for my intestines. Ok, what about too few, as I knew he mostly ate junk food and meat. It's strange. I don't even answer the protein question anymore. Every animal gets their protein from somewhere that's how it's in them (more or less, let's not get technical).
I can discuss this topic for a long time but I don't want to. So I will more some other time. As an ending point I'll make this statement: I truly believe that someday the world will recognise that a plant-based diet is the best way to live. The best way for the environment, for animals, and for the health and well being of all people on a global scale. I truly believe this. It won't happen in my lifetime, but I know that people will eventually take their blinders off and look at the overwhelming evidence in favor of a plant-based diet. This is as close to fanaticism as I want to get on any topic, but I really believe it. No one told me to think this way, though I have of course been influenced. I challenge it everyday as well. Most people don't challenge what they do and therefore are complacent and don't think and make the world shittier. everyone does it. I make myself ask "Does what I do and think best reflect what I believe, and is that belief correct?" Is it? today, it is , though may not tomorrow.

omg

Great title huh? Well, this is about religion. I have had religion in my life since well before I was born. Being raised the son of a preacher was interesting, but not as bad as some might think. The church was a good place to grow up. People were generally nice and accepting. There is certainly a sense of family which is derived from the mutual belief in God among the congregation. I find myself thinking how nice the church community is when it is that I visit. That has become rare in and of itself. When I'm there I get all these good feelings and think of what a nice place it is, and then I realize what it actually is. A church is a place where people go to talk about ghosts and a man who may or may not have existed over 2000 years ago. There is also a big man who lives in the sky or wherever heaven happens to be. This man sees and knows everything about everyone, no matter what. From him there is no hiding. Sounds like a scary movie or the portrayal of communism by the West during the Cold War. But God is your friend, you must do what Jesus teaches because he loves you and you don't want to let down someone who loves you, right? I was sitting in church recently (weird I know) and this topic really struck me, the idea that Jesus loves you (this I know for the bible tells me so...). That song certainly has much wisdom and insight in it. "Jesus Loves Me" is a christian standard. It is probably one of the first songs I ever learned. It's equivalent to songs like 'Let it Be" or "Johnny B Good", really famous and easy to recognize. So how do we know Jesus loves us? Because a book tells us...so. Well ok, great. Usually when I read a book concerned with the "truth" or at least something close to it I expect at least some research or some cited references to convince me that it isn't a total waste of time reading it. The only thing the Bible, and subsequently Christianity, have is this thing called "faith". Huh? Exactly. What is faith? Faith is belief. Belief is faith, and so on forever. Faith is the idea of trusting the intangible. But wait, to Christians God (and Jesus) are tangible. God is in everything, you can even fell the "presence" of God at times. Ok, sure. I'm not sure what I am getting at. What I feel when I go to church or hear about religious fanatics saying or doing something crazy I am amazed. I'm amazed at how narrow their lives are. Gosh, to me life is huge and should be explored from many different angles. To me that is the definition of life. For religious people they need no proof at all to justify their beliefs. They simply believe what is in a book or has been passed down for thousands of years. On that alone I question religion. I have a hard time accepting things that are considered common knowledge that came into being in my lifetime nonetheless several thousand years ago. In short, religion is slavery. religion is a crutch. I am always amazed at how people credit their success to God to whoever. That frustrates me because they invalidate themselves. to me the individual and their mind is probably the most important thing to a person. To give credit to a ghost or someone who died or never lived is absurd. For them they are nothing without God. I will use myself as an example as someone who lives without religion. I "lost" religion, or rather came to my senses, when I was 11 or so. Why? Well to be honest, it was the devil's music. I discovered rock n' roll. Music became my religion. I had never been so enamoured with anything in my life. From the homosexual Elton John, to the sex themes of Led Zeppelin, to the screams, fast beats, and social defiance of punk and hardcore I had found my faith. Maybe not "faith", but something I could hold on to and have as my own. As a young music fan i drifted towards the most screwed us musicians and bands. I found dark and deep lyrics and melodies intriguing and I always wanted more. The Smashing Pumpkins and The Doors ruled my life for several years. Listening to those bands changed me, for good and bad. I began to read poetry at that time too. Jim Morrison because a huge figure in my life. I wondered how he could do so many drugs, drink so much, be around for such a short amount of time, but be one of the most influential individuals in music history. It was because of him that I started drinking. I was never a big drinker but I did like to get hammered a couple times a month to try and reach the plain that he was on. I did write a lot and make music, but I just wasn't that kind of a person. Throughout this transitional period of listening to new music and discovering mind altering (expanding?) substances, I was involved in the church. Why? well, it was what I knew. I did it because if I didn't my parents wouldn't be happy and would make my life worse. They saw the change and they knew what I did. They never really stopped me or told me to change though. I always felt weird going to church on Sunday when only a few hours before I had been "high as fuck" from smoking pot for hours or still a little buzzed from a bunch of beer, or unkempt from a night of sex and pillow talk. It was crazy. Not really though. I always felt a little guilty when I was at church. Not because I was afraid of a God I had quit believing in but because I felt the people at church who had known me since I was a kid would be disappointed in me if they had known what I did. Few of them ever knew or suspected to much of an extent I'm sure. Throughout my teenage years I always felt weird about sex, drugs, alcohol and music and where it placed me socially. I did all of those things and was told that by doing them I was a bad person. But why? To me a bad person beat their kids, raped women, killed people, not people who played songs about sex or played Atari stoned out of their minds. For years I lived with this guilt. I got over it. I always considered myself a follower of what Christ taught, for the most part. The bible is a great book, and just because I ceased to believe in an omniscient being didn't mean that I had strayed from a path of goodness and respect. I am still trying to be a better person in every way I can. I owe a lot of that to the bible and my upbringing. I have not believed in God for over half of my life. It's weird to think about that. It's just as long as I've been smoking pot. Neither of those things is something to brag about. They just are. The question arise: when does a person become their own person? We have personality from the moment we're born, more or less. Up to the age of 11 or 12 I was my parents kid. I wasn't perfect. I had a habit of being made fun of constantly up to that point and had another habit of reacting in a bad way to that torment. Up to that point I was a kid. One who never fit in (or was never given the chance to) but a kid the same. I think I became myself when I discovered rock music and drugs. Why? because they were my decisions completely. No one told me to listen to Pink Floyd or to get high on the beach with people I didn't know. I learned how to make decisions. Then I started to look at my life. Man, was it boring. We never did anything too cool or exciting. Middle of the road was the norm and was expected. Still to his day I am the most controversial person in my whole extended family. I'll always be weird to my midwestern, country bumpkin relatives. Fine with me. One of the aspects of my life I looked at was the role of the church. To this day is the the single most influential component of my life and has directly molded the person I have become. I remember listening to Billy Corgan sing about god in a way that wasn't flattering. "Wait a minute!" that's my savior, he loves me. Then came, "Wait a minute!" who's savior, he loves me? I have a few weird memories that I look back and am amazed at. I have always been one to talk to myself when alone. Midwestern summers are full of torrential thunderstorms which always flooded the streets and turned them into torrents. There was nothing more fun than going out and running around in the street getting soaked with the rain pouring from the sky and lightning flashing while thunder cracked. Amazing. There is one time I remember vividly. I was testing God. I stood out there, in the middle of the day, in the rain, yelling at God to kill me, hit me with lightning (...you motherfucker!, I may have said). Needless to say I have yet to get struck by lightning. That was when God became god. That's when I became me, for real. I was finally a person. We're all slaves to something, but I was sure glad to not be a slave to my parent's beliefs anymore. I felt free. I believe that freedom manifested itself by making me into a more vocal person and gave me the ability to be heard. It wasn't long after that that people more or less stopped making fun of me. I like to think they saw that I was over the small town where we lived and had defied my parents concerning a major issue. It must have been obvious that I didn't care about the shit that everyone else I knew cared about. So, now for what I have been trying to get at. Who was I before I was an adolescent? A dorky kid who got made fun of. I believe that when I was an adolescent I gave myself a chance. I let myself explore what world a little more. I started developing my own perspective and ideas. They were certainly skewed and may not have any basis in truth and may be absurd now, but then they were what was defining me. That's why it frustrates me that people either contribute their successes to god or feel they have to use their talents to tell other people to be like them. For me, I see myself as a kid in them. Someone who for some reason had an overbearing obligation to a mystical being I really never knew and only claimed to believe in because that's how I was raised. I'm glad I found myself through all of that. I'm sure it could have been predicted what kind of person I have grown into when I was quite young. It just took me a while to free myself. Since I left god and the idea of faith behind I have done some amazing things, met a ton of people, come to terms with issues in my life, and have continued to grow as a person without faith who admires the words of Christ, as well as Buddha, Daoism, anarchism, humanism.
I try to live everyday following my beliefs as closely as possible and questioning everything I do, so as not to fall into the trap of the first 11 years of my life. Just because I don't believe in god and feel very strongly about religion does not mean I am a bad person. I have always figured if there was a god he would think I was an alright guy, not perfect, but alright.
Goddamn it feels good to write again.

electric blanket evacuation

So, I was just lying in bed and thinking. Usually these thoughts are complex and slowly fade with me as I go to sleep. Almost as a rule they are forgotten and I fall asleep with questions that aren't remembered nonetheless answered. But tonight I had to get up and put down something that I have been thinking about for a long time.
I used to think abut the past a lot. I used to reminisce, recall, and regret. I was only good at looking at all my mistakes in the past, or as seeing what I did as mistakes and not just reactions to the circumstances. Now, I don't think about the past so much as something to critique but as something to guide me and understand how I got where I am. Back to the issue at hand. I will openly admit it: I really want to be in a relationship with a female. No doubt about it. I seem to go on long bouts of having no relationships with women in any romantic way. Let's just say it's been a while since I have even stayed up late thinking about a girl who has the possibility of wanting to know me as much as I her. Now that's out of the way I'll get to the heart of this midnight endeavour.
I have discovered that many of my dreams are about me and women. Just her and I in a relationship of some sort doing regular things together. I can't say I really remember most of the dreams. They seem to melt into morning as I head towards being awake. There is one pattern that I have noticed about these dreams even though I can't remember them in any real detail. That pattern is that the girl, in one way or another, is the same girl, and a real girl that exists. Well, she exists in my dreams as she existed when I knew her and during the times that make up my favorite memories of her. She's a girl who I have known since I was eight years old. For three years she was the most important person in my life, even though we had an on-and-off relationship. At the time she was the only person I could think of spending my life with. We eventually realized that our lives were going in different directions and we softly let what we had go. And that was fine. Several years later I went to see her in her new life. Seeing her and the change that had come to her life was what allowed me to let go, finally. I remember driving through the Appalachians that night and feeling better than I ever had. At that moment I knew I had finally been able to let that all go. It was one of the most odd and wonderful moments in my life. I felt that I could be myself, apart from what I felt had defined me for so long. That is where my conundrum comes in. I have been seeing her in my dreams for at least two years, and I'm sure longer. When I first realized what was happening I was perplexed and somewhat worried. Was I not over her? Did that time still haunt me? Really? I stayed up many nights in bed, just like tonight, trying to figure out why she was there, why what I thought I had let go of was still around. I think I know why she still comes around, and visits my dreams.
The first thing I realized was that she was one of the last women I had a connection with and a serious relationship with. More so, the relationship wit her is to date the longest and most defining one I have had with a woman (girl, female, lady, ad infinitum). She is in my dreams because she is the face I have seen the most when I felt the best, when I felt as I wish to feel now.
Secondly, she is the girl I have spent the most time with, physically and emotionally. We knew everything about one another. Our relationship worked out really well in a lot of ways. That was evidenced, I believe, by the fact that we were able to go our own ways with respect for the free will of the other. That was the defining moment, I believe, in the relationship. We were able to let the other go because we cared so much. We joked that we'd probably end up getting married someday far into the future anyway. As of right now, I don't think so. So in this way she appears in my dreams because of all the time I have spent with her. It only go to reason.
Furthermore, for the most part our relationship was great. We did a lot of things together that i cherish and look back at and smile. Of course it wasn't perfect, but those times that we had trouble only made us better people and brought us to a better understanding of one another.
She is in my dreams. I don't think I can change that, and that's ok. It is not her that I seek. I seek the feelings and moments I had with her again, but far away from where I first felt them, and with a different face.
Will I ever be free of those few years? Of course not. I would hate to forget those times and not have the knowledge I gained from them. But I must not fear her face in my dreams, because it isn't her as a person, but her as a concept and reminder of how great moments can be with someone for whom which you care so much about.
I've left her behind. I've left my ancestral home, and become semi-nomadic, and have come closer to the man I want to be. My home is no longer where I had imagined ours would have been. But I can see that the home where I want to spend my life with someone is within the abstract idea of the soul, of us as people. For so long I couldn't imagine life without her, of life without her where I knew her. Now, I can't imagine life without the things I hold so close to me that are thousands of miles away from those days when I held her close to me.
So, here I am, writing this at leaning-towards-one-a.m. Have I made any profound discoveries? Naw, probably not. I suppose that isn't the point, that doesn't matter so much. I have put down what it is that is in my head. A head that gets too full sometimes. Not blood letting so much as thought letting.