Honesty makes an appearance... in song. For a song that flowed right out of my consciousness, it has more thought put into it than I would've expected. Too much Indie lyricism in the morning, perhaps?

Independence Day

I have spent too long
waiting on my by-gones
things that won't change for the life of me

Seeing for the first time
her beauty in the moonlight
even though it finally cost me my mind

My head was spinning like a turbine
While i was wishing that you were mine,
While finding out changing your mind
Ain't easy when your truths were lies
fine, just fine.
just lies.

Seeing for the last time
I've crossed all of your lines
or at least enough to lose your precious favor

I feel no gain
seeing you suffer in pain
even though I convinced myself that I would

What is there left to know
Whether or not I'm right or wrong?
Believe my ways are set in stone
it's just how far I am when I say so long
so long farewell
so long.

[break]

My head was spinning like a turbine
While I was wishing that you were mine,
While finding out changing your mind
Ain't easy when your truths were lies
Fine, just fine.
... good bye.

That title's silly, huh? I had to pick something. Okay, I didn't have to... whatever.

Planning on recording this one. For me.

-b.

Driver Friendly... indie rock with a synth and horn line? I'm down. 

Instead, it's the ghosts we cannot see. That scares us. >.>

Life has been good to me lately. I have few to no complaints, and things have been feeling rather in control lately.

Back in the gym lifting, studying MCAT, playing the same old computer games I used to play in elementary school... except with college friends. Who knew anyone still cared about a computer game released in 2000.

There's this far away uncertainty regarding my future academic plans after this semester (grad school or more undergrad fluff?).... which has not gone away even after finally meeting with my adviser this week. It's like having an ominous dark cloud looming ahead. But until then...

Just going with it for a bit. What else is there to do?

YOLO? ha.

-b.

PS: Once in a while, I think about where I am in life, and I do wonder "how the mess?" Not bad. Somehow.

"Some nights, I stay up cashing in my bad luck
Some nights, I call it a draw
Some nights, I wish that my lips could build a castle
Some nights, I wish they'd just fall off

But I still wake up, I still see your ghost
Oh Lord, I'm still not sure what I stand for oh
What do I stand for? What do I stand for?
Most nights, I don't know anymore..."

So instead, I just work on myself. Not just some nights... some days. Some weeks, even. Maybe a couple months this summer.

Perhaps.

I think this will be healthy.

-b.

Some real (amusing) nuggets of wisdom from an AskReddit thread regarding sayings passed down through users' families:

• "The grass is not greener on the other side of the fence, it's greener where you water it."
• "Sometimes getting the wind knocked out of you reminds you how much you love the taste of air."
• "Only boring people get bored."
• "If the little things can't make you happy, the big things can't make you happy."
• "Farts and love are very similar. If you try to force either one, it'll probably be shit."
• "Early is on time, and on time is late."

And including one of my favorites of the night...

• "Marriage is like a cake. Sex is like frosting. You need a strong foundation before you cover it with tasty treats. No one wants a life of just frosting. Trust me! At first it's delicious and you can't get enough, but after a while your stomach begins to hurt, and if you eat too much you'll eventually throw up. You're going to need a good solid cake to even out your frosting." - Someone's Grandma

Damn, Grandma! Wonderful honesty?

Perhaps soon I will share some of my dad and Madre's sayings that have been engrained in me through the years...

-b.

You say you miss me.

Well, how so? In what way?

What is this supposed to mean to me?

I have difficulty discerning what I want now from what I am used to wanting and what I am used to being comfortable wanting.

Sometimes what I want now seems like what I used to want, but it may also just be a scenario of wishful thinking because I can never have what I want if you have decided to become who you are.

Also because I have so many reasons to doubt your sincerity... that's never a good start.

-b.

I was left with two choices.

I could either a) care more and become vulnerable b) care less and ditch everything that was going well before prospects worsened any more. I decided that I saw potential and decided to care more and test it out, walking the thinnest of thin lines in the grayest of gray areas.

I made the wrong choice.

Before I could catch myself, I was yanked back down to the reality that things don't always go as peachy as planned.

In fact, they can go the exact opposite of what's convenient. They often do.

So I found myself in the awkward position of having to expunge my mind of all self-convincing and then implementing a new ad-hoc policy to care less and ditch all of the potential I saw in our relationship. I need to care less about you because that is what you want --that's fine with me.

Except that the only reason we won't work is that your priorities rank the folks who got you into the whole mess over me. You then claim that I am the one who makes it complicated. I predicted this all from the start (from the day I met you) and have been trying to prevent this at every juncture while not being an outright dick. I have been the most honest person to you this entire time, even when they were manipulating you blindly.

I'm not proud to admit that I'm probably done being tactful with you now because I'm tired of you feeling like I'm leaving you out of the loop. I was trying to give others a fair chance, and those same people have now taken priority over me in your life. Tact hasn't gotten me very far in this case, I've noticed.

You said not to think about this too much. You know that'll do me some good.

Not.

I've been thinking a lot... and

Truth is: well, whatever.

-b.

"I told the truth, I didn't come to fool you." - Leonard Cohen

This feels like it's going to be very vague.

Every time I think I'm going to have a chance to get down to business and catch up, more obstacles appear. To complicate things more, the obstacles grow in size every time I scramble to regain my center. I feel like I am continually losing ground, with less time available to catch up. I need a reset.

I need to find serenity. Things feel like they are moving too fast. Too many plates, too much speed, too much inexperience all at once.

Reminder to self: Yes, stuff happens. However, I know many things better now than I did before, and I know them well. Some lessons come easily. Some lessons come with a little collateral damage. This makes some lessons expensive. It happens. I'll know better next time, and I really will. Madre still loves me.

-b.

Lots of good talks with Madre this break.

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

Pertaining to life in general...

"I like to see you fail. Not because I enjoy your failures, but because I can see that you are strong enough to stand back up."

And on the topic of romantic relationships...

"I like that after every time you are hurt, you learn to protect yourself better. I don't mind watching your heart get broken as long as you grow and learn. It's good to have your protective coating when you go into a relationship. However, based on my experiences loving others, the coating doesn't always hold up. That's okay, though."

After all of these years, we've recently reached a different kind of understanding, and life feels... appropriately different.

-b.

Two guys I knew from high school passed away unexpectedly this week. One of them, Hao Huynh, was the brother of a friend that I have known since elementary school. Hao was a couple years older than I was, and I looked up to him growing up. He always seemed so smart and capable... one of the guys who would definitely make it far. I don't think I ever told him that -- it can be difficult to find a suitable context to share those things between guys sometimes, I suppose.

It saddens me to see the permanence of loss and the abruptness of his departure. It is a grave reminder that nobody can ever foresee all the possibilities.

That, and sometimes life sucks.

"I got a basket full of lemons and they all taste the same,
A window and a pigeon with a broken wing,
You can spend your whole life workin’ for something,
Just to have it taken away.
People walk around pushing back their debts,
Wearing pay checks like necklaces and bracelets,
Talking ‘bout nothing, not thinking ‘bout death,
Every little heartbeat, every little breath."

-Brett Dennen

-b.

@Secretnevertold tagged, so I respond.

I feel like some shenanigans once in a while isn't such a bad idea at all. Let's see where this goes.

1. I have a set of personal rules to which I hold myself. These rules are my personal philosophy and up the probability of contentment in life for me. There are currently five rules, and more are added on whenever appropriate.
2. I have been losing a lot of weight lately (10-15 pounds?). Most people could not know that unless they've been living with me the past few months. This is what happens when I drop under my maintenance caloric intake level consistently. This undoes a lot of the progress I have made in the past.
3. I overthink my life to the maximum. I probably overthink others' lives to the maximum as well.
4. While I scored well in math and science courses, my interests in both subjects are very inconsistent.
5. I'm a cuddler. There's no way around that. Especially when it gets cold.
6. Music plays an unusually large part in my life. I spend a lot of my time making music and love it. Hopefully, I'll really have something in time.
7. I am rather afraid of clowns. My coulrophobia is not something that I grew up with... instead, it is something I have grown into recently. For some reason, I just suddenly started to find clowns scary a couple years ago. I used to think they were silly...

-b.