Echo

why is ashley messaging. i don’t think we’ve ever had a conversation.

i want you to be careful of identifying too much with your emotions because it causes you to identify too much with the undercurrents of interaction. you need to maintain objective perspective so you can understand other people and hear where to go. chase the language.

just ridiculous amounts of sex.

it was pointed out that sometimes i sound like a therapist or the voice of god when i talk to the people i love. the truth is, that’s how i talk to myself when i’m being strong.

everyone is both a question and an answer.

you are looking for the person whose question you answer and who is the answer to your question.

stay focused.

if someone doesn’t speak your language, shouting louder isn’t really going to help.

i remember the most beautiful sunset i had ever seen while floating on a surfboard the last night in Maui. in hindsight, i wonder why i watched it alone. it’s sad when we miss potential moments.

worked out at equinox with brian. it’s actually a really clean gym but i don’t like the layout. am interested in the demographic though. i also like the company of brian, that we can have something to do together. we’re back on the same page.

i wonder if i only hang out with people i perceive as a twin. it’s just the way i was born, where my eyes were looking when i first opened them. as long as i can feel we speak the same language and see the same things, i accept you as my own. it’s just the way i am because i’m so focused on what i want to see. maybe what it is…i can either seek through you, or around you. my eyes never seem to focus or seem to focus too sharply. i’m on a quest. you’re either the answer or not.

i need to meet more people. it was great watching tv with brian and being able to see things from a different perspective. everything was fresh and new and i could really see energies at work. i was especially able to appreciate energies i admired and enjoyed. i want to have fun with people. get to the root of their honest selves. give lots of hugs. get lots of hugs.

this is the first peaceful retrograde. i feel like the world from my perspective is being defragmented, and i can relax while the full picture reassembles. the energy is out there. now i’m just waiting for the results.

mercury retrograde got a shout out on chelsea handler’s show. that show’s the truth right now.

ghost. i am again

i see something bigger.

i have to follow.

i can see doorways. many choices.

will i finally get to find honesty?

will we finally connect

some people, when faced with disappointment, will take it out on themselves for having wanted too much, when really they should be telling themselves that they deserve more.

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” —Rumi

my man’s got a heart that’s a rock cast in the sea

Step one you say we need to talk
He walks you say sit down it’s just a talk
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
You begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Let him know that you know best
Cause after all you do know best
Try to slip past his defense
Without granting innocence
Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you’ve told him all along
And pray to God he hears you
And pray to God he hears you

As he begins to raise his voice
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you’ve followed
He will do one of two things
He will admit to everything
Or he’ll say he’s just not the same
And you’ll begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

yes! yes! yes! yes! yes!

home!

relieved to be back to who i am.

am going through it all

reflecting

i don’t want to eat for weeks.

am feeling existential

am feeling disconnected

am feeling burdened

am feeling focused

am trying to understand why we can’t get it together everyone getting exactly what they want

am seeing many beautiful people and wanting spring to be a more hopeful time for everyone

am looking for recognition

am back to me

am ecstatic and peaceful.

i have good moments and bad moments each day.

in the good moments, i have great clarity even though it’s sad. i know that i tried my best, my intentions were good, and there was great love there, but at the end of the day, what needs to happen will take time, desire on his part and a great deal of strength and faith to go to places that are daunting and will give him every reason to quit, and it’s a process that i can only support from a distance because it’s a journey into himself, his past and his future he will have to embark without me if something of true value and power is to be brought back. it’s the journey of reintegration and with it, the prize of great wisdom, wholeness, magic and peace. it is hard for me because i know there’s nothing else i can do anymore but wait and see. the things that give me strength are that i know others who have gone into the fear to reclaim themselves and have come back safely, changed and whole with the treasure of greater confidence and peace. my brother. my father. i saw them come through the door.

in quiet moments, i pray to god to give him the strength to do what his heart sees, the faith to believe in himself and his path, and the clarity to know that the obstacles must appear insurmountable and devastating to test how much he wants what he thinks he wants and how much he’s willing to trust and believe. impossible is illusion created by the reign of fear. but sadly, sometimes fear is introduced to our lives so early on, that it feels like death to imagine losing the only companion one has always had in the darkest, loneliest of nights. sometimes fear is the only thing a person knows, a shadow so loyal that it attacks even those who come with light. but clear eyes and full hearts can not lose, fighting their way through darkness.

throughout my life, i’ve dropped many sets of keys into the ocean feeling that if i were to ever find them again, somehow by their mysterious journey through the unknown they would suddenly be capable of opening the right doors. i’ve also known that to believe this is possible, would require a belief in miracles. staring at murky water and an impossible infinity contained only by the sound of something deep inside myself crumbling, i think of miracles. not just the talk and promises of miracles. but the possibility of a true miracle that i can see and feel and know without a doubt.

it’s been a very hard couple of days.

the very hardest thing for me for me to swallow, is that despite the best efforts and the purest of intentions from both david and i, this relationship seemed to bring out the worst in us and we couldn’t seem to stop it. it brought out a level of frustration out of me that made me unrecognizable to myself. mentally and emotionally, it pushed me to places i wouldn’t have believed could exist beforehand but in the end, it is my greatest fear and shame that perhaps i just wasn’t strong enough to withstand this level of stress, and as a result, it may have undone or prevented the healing of old wounds that i wanted for him, wanted so badly for him so that he could finally be free. it makes me feel so ashamed of myself. so defeated. so sad and desperate. i find myself crying a lot. sometimes i don’t know what to believe anymore. sometimes all i can feel is this sour heaviness filling my chest like poison working its way through me, and in those moments when it’s close to the surface, i succumb to such a painful awareness of time, of time’s unidirectional current that makes it so coldly indifferent to human hopes and dreams, that i feel washed under, dragged along rocks forming a million jagged edges.

it has really been really painful to face in the last few days. i feel like i’ve forgotten how to believe.

everyone has weakness. if you think of a person as a full circle, like a single drop of water on a counter, there’s an infinite space within them just as their is an equally infinite space without them. throughout life, forces from the outside will put pressure on the boundaries between this inner and outer world, just as forces from the inside will put pressure on this boundary as they exert themselves or react to mirrors within the outer world.

so much about life and about wisdom, knowledge, strength is about knowing about your specific boundaries, both where they lay and what they entail, and having the ability and discipline to control the flow of energy and entities through this boundaries.

this boundary that encompasses you, your you-ness, has weakpoints. this is the very nature of being human. every person’s weakpoints will differ. the empowerment is understanding your personal weaknesses, places in your boundaries that are more a reactive force due to preprogramming of the past rather than a conscious entity, and functioning at your highest potential despite these weaknesses. it’s this achievement, this acceptance and realization, that allows you to accept your humanness, and from this place, come from your positive power and strength because you know exactly who and what you are.

my strength and my weakness is my passion…my energy. i have more energy than the average person that can be used for positive transformation, but can also become nervous irritation or outright destruction if it’s not properly outletted. i know that when i want something, i can put a great deal of energy, and even when transformational change within the environment, another person or myself does not seem possible, it is this energetic passion in me that defeats the odds and makes it possible. a friend of mine once said that the thing about me is that everyone watches me chase what doesn’t seem possible or realistic. but then the craziest thing is that sometimes i come back with it and it inspires people to wonder if there’s really more to life.

i also recognize this as my weakness. this energy can just as easily become destructive without a positive outlet, and can hurt other people. often, not wanting to turn it outwardly, i take it inward and hurt myself. this energy can reach impossible heights, but if i can’t get it out, it can subvert into something so kinetic that i have no control over it. in fact, sometimes i’m afraid of it. that’s why i’m always fervent about getting it out in the most positive manner possible. sometimes i worry it may one day literally kill me if i get trapped with it in the wrong situation.

with an understanding of myself, i’ve always done my best to keep myself in situations where i can succeed, to avoid situations that can turn my unique strength into a negative. but my weakness has always been other people, my love for other people, my need to help other people whether or not they really want my help or can accept my help.

i feel i have made a grave mistake and for this i am having a hard time dealing with it. i’ve been trying to give it to someone for months now who didn’t want to or couldn’t accept it, and it put both of us in an ugly volatile situation. i never want to go back to that place. even if it means giving up something i treasured dearly, i will never allow myself to be caught in that place again.

the situation itself was a near impossible one. it’s not crazy to want to change someone for positive benefit, but it is crazy to want to change them if they don’t want to or can’t. my parents sat me down and had a long talk with me about kindness and compassion. having good intentions is a noble thing, but pushing someone towards something if they don’t want it or can’t do it is borderline cruel, even if your intentions are completely pure and unselfish. i’ve spent the last few days contemplating how it is that i didn’t see it. i guess i wanted it so bad, i wanted to give him what he wanted so badly and could see how close he was to getting it if he could see things from the right perspective, that i lost who i am. my inherent kindness and compassion turned to cruelty. and that makes me so sad.

i sat in a situation for much too long, letting the stress and frustration get to me. i really did have the best of intentions, and it didn’t make logical sense that we could be so close but so far, that we could be two chemicals that wanted to mix but couldn’t believe how we were inherently combustible. but even though what i was pushing for was not selfish, it was something that was what we both wanted, i was driven to places where the energy became dangerous and because i couldn’t give it away positively in the way i wanted, so it turned on me and swallowed me and those i loved with it. now i feel so terrible because i know i did these things and i can’t take them back. i can’t undo them. i can’t say they weren’t me, even though i know they aren’t who i really am but in a way, what the situation and stress brought out in me. yet i have to accept that i, I, did them, and that knowledge brings me to my knees because these are still my hands, and this is still my heart and i don’t know how we got to this place. because all the good i set out to do with david, all the good i had done, i’m terrified that i’ve destroyed it all. i’ve played into his self-fulfilling prophecy and fear that people can’t be trusted, regardless of how my own trust was wounded, and i’ve become another dark figure when it’s not what i wanted. when i did try so hard, i fought for it so hard, i wanted it for him so badly, to be able to open up and see the world, see that it’s so much bigger than the fear and the hurt and the mistrust, but i let my own wound of mistrust bring me down. and i let us down.

i’m ashamed that i’ve failed myself and those who believed in me for having lost control and not being true to myself and my boundaries, for actions that were not of me and the things i stand for, but of a shadow me that was filled with pain, hurt, mistrust and resentment. i can only face myself and accept that, and try to find the road back to myself again. it’s a hard pill to swallow but there’s no question that i will swallow it because there’s no other alternative. if nothing else, i need to always be able to look myself in the eye. at the end of the day, i know my intentions and i know that people will find there way with or without me towards happiness when they are ready and it’s not for me to push, even if i want it for them sooner rather than later and feel they’re so close. through all this sadness, i’ll always have great love for the ones i love. in t
he meantime, i have to be responsible. i need to work on myself and rebuild myself, otherwise i’m no good for the world.

awesome

Real New Year’s Eve

I’m supposed to be compassionate today. I’m supposed to be compassionate by nature but sometimes I don’t know what that means when it sounds an awful lot like letting things slide into dishonesty. But what the hell. I’ll go for it. I don’t care about much anymore these days except just getting back to my home.

We all just got back from Maui. The last few weeks have taken me to Vegas, Big Sur, a crazy Christmas Eve feast at my parents house and Hawaii.

We headed out to Vegas for just a day. We stayed at the new Trump Towers in a suite that was one of the nicest hotel rooms I’ve ever been in. The place doesn’t have a casino, but since all the rates were so low, we figured it would be a good time to get a great deal on a really nice hotel. It had an amazing view of the strip and everything was really classy. We planned to only stay for one night but the next day we ended up getting snowed in by that freak storm. I thought the lady from Southwest was lying when I talked to her about why we couldn’t fly out. We’re in the desert! It doesn’t snow! But when we walked outside, indeed, the cars had high fades of white. I bet $10 on the Warriors to beat the lowly Pacers and they lost, and I got the most wicked case of food poisoning/stomach flu I’ve ever encountered. I was still throwing up at the airport before we got on the plane, but one of the attendants gave me Benadryl which got me through the flight. It was pretty brutal because we were supposed to have a day of rest before heading to Big Sur, but instead, we only have a couple of hours which I stayed in bed trying to feel better. We finally made it out, getting to the cabin just before they closed for the night.

We got locked out of our cabin on the second night. We were outside toasting marshmallows when I wanted to go inside and wash my hands, only to find the door locked. I tried it, David tried it and we decided to check the check-in booth even though it was an hour after closing to see if there was someone there or a number we could call. Turns out there was a number for emergencies but since our phones were inside the cabin, we had to use the payphones. I tried to call the number collect but it was an automated menu, so we ran into a guy at the recycling bin and he lent us some change. We called the number again and the system gave us another number to call. I called that number collect and the woman who answered just hung up. We had to walk around until we found someone else at their campsite, a German guy by the sound of it, who lent us 50 cents to try again. We called the woman and she apologized for not recognizing my name as one of the campers. We told her the situation and she said she’d be out in a few minutes. I felt really bad because she has a 2 year old at home and it was late, but we really didn’t want to sleep outside at night.

We headed back to our cabin and waited. As a joke I said that we should try the door again to make sure we were really locked out or we would look like idiots. So we tried the door, bu this time it opened. wtf. It was so bizarre. So we panicked about what to do. We were going to look like idiots. David thought we should grab the key before we locked ourselves out again so that in case she couldn’t open the door, we would have the key. We stood there panicking and then I closed the door…a few seconds before she drove up. She opened the door for us and we thanked her, waiting for her car lights to disappear before laughing and saying wtf. It was so bizarre, like some higher being playing a joke on us.

We headed back to Fremont and chilled for a few days getting ready for Christmas Eve. I was cooking the feast I usually cook on Thanksgiving for about 20-30 people, and I was excited because Rie and Eric were coming, as well as my friend Sarah from softball as kids and her husband Jef. I got about 4 hours of sleep the nights leading up to it because I had to start baking early, but ended up getting most of it out on the table and hot. The menu featured fresh-herb roasted turkey with cornbread and jalepeno stuffing, french bread stuffed with gruyere, mushrooms stuffed with crabcake, praline yams, parmesan garlic mashed potatoes, cheddar/jack-pepper mac & cheese and regular mac & cheese, cajun green bean bake, rosemary roasted potatoes, turkey gravy, fresh cranberry-ginger sauce, a caramel toffee cheesecake and two kinds of pecan pie – chocolate pecan and coconut pecan. We also had chocolate oatmeal cookies and a sugar-cookie decorating station where we let people decorate their own cookies. Mine came out looking so retarded, I tried to claim they were the work of my 3 and 5 year old cousins.

It was great to see the whole family and also have friends around, and everyone met David. We stayed up pretty late, but had to be up at 6 the next morning to catch our flight to Hawaii. Otherwise, I would have loved to spend more time, especially with Sarah and Jef since they live in Florida and I only see them once every few years.

I started crying when I laid down for bed. Not like distressed sobbing, but a kind of silent weeping, like some valve in my heart had opened filling my being with an overwhelming pain where I understood that time stops for no one and nothing, and I only bear witness. This in turn, opened up valves in my eyes and as I lay in bed, they just streamed. It felt like laying there as my heart bleed and my eyes leaked. It hurt…everything hurt, in a way where I was seeing things as they were and simultaneously accepting them so I was not resisting, but the realization still hurt and I had to let it flow through me in order for it to pass. It was a great amount of pain but in a way, it felt like it was important that I feel all these feelings that were passing through because the worst thing that could happen was for them to get stuck inside me.

Hawaii was good because we had a giant group including my cousins Bohr and Bing. I’m probably closest to Bohr of all my cousins. It was raining for the most part in Maui, but we did get a chance to surf a couple of times, scuba-dive for the first time and see a sea turtle while snorkeling (they’re amazing creatures). There was some drama between David and I. There’s always drama between David and I. But outside of that, I loved being there and being around my family.

My hopes out of 2009:

To get back to the place I found in early 2008 and honor it.