Wednesday, September 26, 2012

You Can't Be Twenty On Sugar Mountain

I'm sitting at home, after just getting back from my friends' place, drinking a cup of hot milk, and thinking about life. Not in the general sense, but more in the nature of it.

I was reading some of my old posts and while I felt completely foolish when I wrote them, I read them again and feel as though I was wise beyond my years and I have regressed. I am not longer able to put words in to a stream that makes people think. I write about boys. I write about problems. I have not written recently about the little beautiful things that life has to offer.

Little things like the hot milk next to me. It is in a Norman Rockwell mug that I picked up from DI and it tastes like heaven right now. Why can I not remember to blog about things like that, instead of this boy or that (not that there are enough to make up a this and a that...).

Something that I have found is that I am just so completely insecure with who I am sometimes. When I blog it is because I know that I have felt what it is like to be Me when I am doing it so I attempt to recreate that feeling. However, that just results in me sitting at home alone on a weekend blogging about being lonely...just not bueno. I need to write about living again because when you write about living, it becomes integrated into your mind and eventually into who you are. I feel like I knew myself better in high school. Maybe that was because it was a safe environment. It was almost as though I was living in a lab, I could experiment with things and the consequences were minor if any. When I played with fire, I got burned. Now I avoid such things like the plague here...which results in a very gunshy me. How fickle my heart.

I have made myself a promise, and writing it on here is the same as sealing it in blood. My promise is to be honest in everything I do. I made that promise at the beginning of the year, but I make it again because it is always a work in progress. I will be honest in my dealings with fellow men and in my dress and speech. Too many times I say something to make someone feel more comfortable (that someone knows what they are talking about) or because I want to seem "cool". But no. That is all over. Life is art and art is never dishonest. The essence of art is that you are trying to tell your version of the truth, your paradigm, to the world and present it in a way that makes people think about their paradigm. I want to live my life in a way that people know exactly who I am and in a way that makes people question what they are doing. Not in a way that makes them change, just enough to make them understand who they are and how they got there.

That is all for tonight, hope it makes sense. I haven't been up this late in a while...

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Cowboys & Angels

That is a beautiful song if you have never heard it. Made me cry. A friend showed it to me today and I am completely in love with it.

I thought that I would share a quick experience that I had this weekend. A bunch of friends and I went up American Fork Canyon, and then a bunch of good stuff happened when we got back. I wanted to write this for my religion class. Hope it's okay:


I have learned so much about myself since I last wrote one of these. The change has been for the better, and if I do not write it all down and have someone as a witness I’m afraid I’ll change back.
During class last Wednesday, I felt that I should go to the temple. I had been thinking about it for a couple of weeks, but since I have moved across campus I was not ever motivated to make the walk to the temple. Now that I look at it, it was silly because even though the walk is long, it is beautiful and I should be extremely grateful that the temple is within walking distance and that soon two temples will be within an hour walk of me. The world is incredible!

I was finally motivated and went up to the temple. Since I had not been in a long time, I was expecting something akin to the trumpeting of angels and a heart full of warmth and love. But none of that happened. I found that I kept thinking about the outside world and I was simply not open to the Spirit. I knew I was supposed to go, though.

Then this weekend some friends and I went up American Fork camping. We got back Saturday morning in time for their volleyball game. I asked a friend to bring me some Sunday clothes and my recommend because one of my friends was heading up to the temple right after and I wanted to go. So I threw on the random clothes my roommate had brought and up we went. We got there and the whole experience was amazing. The words of a father’s blessing I had received just prior to coming out to school again came to me and I remembered that God was proud of me and was overwhelmed by the love I felt as I thought of that. I had been too hard on myself that week and I needed to remember that all that mattered was how God felt about me.

That night I hung out with some friends and I felt excluded and lost. Feeling of being unwanted and uncared for overwhelmed me and put me in a bad mood. As I was walking home, suddenly a thought came into my mind. After any spiritual experience or a time when I feel like I am worth something, however small, to the Lord then I am always hit with this feeling of being unworthy and disliked by people. Satan was exploiting that weakness I had to make me forget about the experience that I had earlier that day. When I felt rejected, I lost all feeling of love and joy and retracted into myself and feelings of misery. As soon as I realized that none of those feelings were true, it was like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

In church they always talk about how Satan attacks your weaknesses and he knows what you struggle with personally. I had heard that but I had never applied it to me. Of course he was not going to attack me by using myself against me. That was too personal. I was too weak there. I had always pictured him as an external force that comes as temptations and people. But he is not. He uses your weaknesses and makes it personal. Your temptations can come from within and you can think they are you but when you stand up against yourself in that way, you become so much stronger. You find that weakness that you never realized you had and you make it strong and fortify it. Only you have the power to defeat your temptations.


Be strong and of a good courage...for the Lord, thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. Joshua 1:9

Monday, September 3, 2012

In the Arms of Another Day

"I'm trapped but I'm not quite there...busy chasing a lost dream."

That is a line from a band called the daydream club, and you should check them out because they are super chill and practically perfect in every way.

I wish that I could write down feelings. I know that you can write down how you are feeling, but I wish that I was talented enough to get you to feel what I am right now, because it is one of the most lovely expressions of a soul that I believe is possibly out there in an ethereal existence. Now I see where Willy Wonka had issues. The feeling right now is one of soft anticipation on a summer night for the next day when you are going to do things with people that you know love you and that you can have a good time with, unmarred by drama or anything like that. THAT is a small part of what I am feeling right now. The completely contentment followed by a subtle excitement because you know good things are coming your way.

The music that I'm listening to is utterly ideal right now. It is the Burberry acoustic stuff, and honestly it is perfect. My dad was bored at work the other day and sent them to me...I'm trying to find a semi-legal way to download them all but to no avail. We'll figure something out.

This last weekend I went up into the mountains for the night with some friends. It was one of the most incredible times I can remember. The mountains themselves were beautiful, but they were completely transformed at night. We went up to the lake there at night (because we were going to do something...but lightning changed those plans). It was a blue moon and stormy. The mountains were illuminated in the light and made the most awe-inspiring backdrop. When the moon shone, you could see every feature on everyone's face. You could also see your own shadow. Someone said something about how they didn't know how people could say that there was not a creator. I second that. How can you not say that there is something after death when you see something like that and your heart yearns for something that you do not know or remember? Your soul is telling your body something. It is yearning for home. I believe that when you get those butterflies and soaring feelings in your stomach that you are experiencing something like what heaven was, that your soul recognizes some aspect of the moment and it makes you suddenly homesick.

The next day I was feeling a little bit lost, and so I started doing my own stuff up there in the mountains. There is a rock there that we would go to, so I decided that I'd go on a walk up there by myself. (everyone else was playing a game). It has started to rain, and there is something about rain that I find so intoxicating. Rain permeates every bit of my existence and it happens regardless of whether I am wet or not. [I have gotten my brother as hooked as me. One time this summer when I was back home it started to pour. I suddenly was like "Does anyone want to go out and play with me?" so he came and had a hurt foot so I would carry him into the puddles and stuff with him on my back. We had SO much fun. The next time it rained, he was practically chomping at the bit to get me out there so we could play again. One of my favorite moments this summer.] So I walked to this rock and it started to get darker and rain harder. I was with my friend's dog (she just went with me. didn't need a leash or anything!) and she could tell a storm was a brewing so she started heading back. But i kept going and stood on the edge and looked out at the canyon. The storm was traveling through the mountains and it must have been one of the most beautiful sights in the world right then. At that moment, there was no where else that I would rather be. Everything was lost in the echo of rain in the trees and the thunder rolling over pine-covered ranges. It started to realllly rain so I started walking back to the cabin. As I went back, I just felt so alive. I don't know if I have ever felt that alive, at least for a long time. I just wanted to scream, laugh, cry, and shout all at the same time. THe feeling of power and freedom was almost overwhelming to the point that I opened my mouth to scream but thought the better of it. Needless to say it was amazing.

I'm going to try something new this semester. I'm going to have confidence. I am going to wear all the bohemian things that I never thought I could carry off. I'm going to ROCK IT. Life is going to be great. I'm not going to be afraid of what other people think. Because who cares? Not I.

I'm going to head to bed now, listening to some more acoustic stuff. I just wanted to say that I've got another Dexter, just like in the book too (minus the drugs and sex). But I don't think it will quite work out that way. I am glad to have him as a friend, and he is one of the few people who I think could actually hurt me. There are a few out there, but I really care about his opinion. (Dang it. I've tried to not.) If he isn't telling the truth this time, I might not be able to bounce back from that one. (Friendship wise.) Fingers crossed. But I don't know whether to hold out for this one and to trust him again or to just face reality that he is just playing along to get me to stop talking...what is my mythological paradigm in this situation? Hm. It was because we were best friends. But he has moved on now and so have I. And I feel completely okay with that.