semblance

Well, I can't sleep, so might as well stop trying. I have a gigantic swirl of emotions going in me right now and they show no sign of slowing down. Sometimes I do wonder if my host family thinks I'm crazy cause I'm in here typing away or I randomly go out or I sometimes talk walks by myself. Walks by myself are nice. They remind me of being in Sao Paulo by myself and how strange and eerie and crazy that felt. How alone I felt, in this gigantic place, with no one to tell me what to do or even worry if I came back home at night. They place me in this new realm of ideas and thoughts and ...and everything else. I have so many thoughts right now in my head its incredible. I know I need to do a lot more physical activity to get rid of it. I wish professors hadn't been so mean in their emails. They have no idea how I feel right now and no idea how that made me feel worse. I'm trying to scrap together a semblance of something that makes sense. Trying to build, something. At times like this you want to say you miss the simple days, but then you actually give that a bit of thought and you realize those never existed. I botched my grades my last year of school and I'm still not proud of it. I can't live with it like that so I'll have to do something.

If my mind wasn't going a million miles a minute I'd take advantage of this peace and quiet and get some really good sleep. But sometimes it just does that, you know? Sometimes you can't stop it. A lot of "something" and "sometime" in my speech tonight, help me cut that out maybe. Or it could be that I want to be vague and it's the best way to be at this given moment.

It's funny how love works. In high school I was convinced that it was what gave me meaning, happiness, and purpose. But I look back and I do understand that, but I also understand and rectify a lot more. Like the relationships I had with my friends and how strong those were, or the relationship I had with the land and the area. I loved that land, more than I loved most lands where I've lived. Loved to be out in it, exploring, and it felt wild. It's silly, and solitary, but its things like that that really make me miss Tennessee. The thing is, if you're really patient, love does come again. But that's not the purpose of this. There's something underneath, I just have to dig deeper to get at it. Michigan, the land itself, has always felt a little hollow to me, because it doesn't feel like something I can fully embrace. I can't love it for all that it is. Trust me, I love the people tons. I have met some of the best people of my life, there, and would never trade choosing it for a new home. But when it comes to the actual place, it lacks, for me. I long for the wild hills of Tennessee and how they would roll past my vision when I would drive or run. I long for how I felt out there in the middle of nowhere, sneaking onto farm land, or in tall grass, or dipping my feet in boat yards or rivers. I long for the sense I got when I was driving there. I feel none of that in Michigan. It all just seems flat and lackluster, and I can't fully embrace the forest or the land. It's really, really weird, and I've never fully understood it.

I'm vulnerable to things right now like professors being mean and thats why it stings so much and I can't get past it. In other circumstances I could blow it off, and just focus on the nice ones, but now, its stinging me. This transition period of my life is uncalled for. Don't think I'm not grateful for it, because I am. I'm always grateful for change that causes true growth. But it's still vulnerable. It's still soft-bellied, this time.

Sometimes I think Thoreau had the right idea. To true understand and give to society, we really need to separate from it. I'm not in a place right now where I can be at my best and give to a whole bunch of people. I can really only give to a few, and I really only have boundless energy for family or something close to it, because they give to me in the most generous of ways and don't necessarily expect anything in return. I need to be alone right now, in a whole sense of the word. Need to collapse, and sleep, to prepare for the next journey ahead. I'm just tired of giving and living in certain ways and need to rejuvenate. You can get so bogged down from your thoughts and your worries. You can think what you do is so important, but the truth is, if I drop out, if I leave? I'm just gone and the sand comes in to close up the gap. I'm just a tiny grain of sand in the sea of things, and there are so many things so much larger than me that I can't control. The only thing that is left in this world after we have burnt each other to pieces and burned our own societies down to the ground is faith. It's so ironic. We can build towers of ivory of gold or cement, we can create technologies that connect us in lifelike ways, we can create or engineer or more all of these things that make us believe we are fantastical. But we can't conquer anything. It's reminding me of CS Lewis, right now, this train of thought. And how the little girl...she's the only one who can see the lion. Everyone else is caught up in their own junk. But she sees him. And she cries because she believes him but no one else does.

Maybe half the battle is just the journey. It's just remembering why you are even on that path in the first place and reminding yourself to keep going. We lose hope in other people because human beings are broken creatures. It is our deepest desire to be wanted, needed, and loved, but there are just layers of other gunk that get in the way of us achieving that. If all else fails I want myself and I want my life. And I am just exhausted by the people around me.