ON MY MIND

There’s been a bunch of stuff on my mind lately.

I can’t wait until I go back to work, which (hopefully) is soon. Unemployed life is boring and it sucks to be broke. I need to save my money up… for a lot of practical and impractical things. I need to get a steady income rolling.

I feel like shit because I haven’t been to the gym in like… six months. I hate being lazy, for the most part. I love to work out, I just hate being surrounded by disgusting jocks in the weight room at school. I keep telling myself I’m going to get back into the habit; my gut has become slightly larger since the holidays and I can’t stand it. Definitely need to start eating healthy again and get back into old work out habits & commitment.

School is pretty breezy nowadays. I love AP Lit. I love having only 3 classes again. Unscheduled 4th period is a God-send. I even managed to swing a 4.33 GPA. I haven’t done that since freshman year. High school is almost over, I can’t believe it.

I got accepted into SFSU, woot woot-! My mom still wants me to go to community college for two years to get my general studies out of the way. It makes sense, but goddamn. I want to get out of this town. Well, I do and I don’t. I just really need a good dose of adventure & new things. I love meeting new people, and I’m very greatful to have had the opportunity to meet a handful of new people this past couple months. I need more of that. More adventures & more new people.

My writing has been slowly progressing, and that’s better than nothing in my book. I’m making an honest attempt to resurrect The Hot Dog/Cab Incident short story, but I really don’t know where to go from where I left off. I figure once I do something good with that story, then I can advance to Cheese, Chocolate & Grapes.

I’ve been feeling more disconnected from church lately. There really isn’t anything I can do about it. I don’t like the priests, I don’t pay attention during the readings- let alone the sermons, and I still don’t like the music. There isn’t much point in talking to my mom about it, because she’s really stubborn on the subject. I wish there was something I could to to renew my faith in my religion, but I’ve been drawing up blanks when it comes to that.

I’ve been feeling really restless due to lack of a driver’s license. I think if I had my license, I wouldn’t be so damn lazy all the time, and I hate wasting days away doing nothing but nap in bed. I plan on taking my permit test again sometime soon (for the 3rd time). I know. I suck. I’m a horrible test taker, I’m not even kidding. I absolutely HATE taking tests, no matter what. I get nervous, no matter what. It’s ridiculous. I need to get my license soon. I’m most likely going to be stuck driving the ugly janky Mexican van until I get a real car. My brother-in-law says I can have his old Nissan. The only problem is that it’s a stick shift, and I have never even touched a stick shift car. If I go up to San Francisco to visit my sister and stuff during spring break, I plan on driving the car back home with me. Summer is going to be here before I know it and I can’t not be without a car.

My love life… hah. Well, it doesn’t exist. The existance of my non-existant love life is pretty much the story of my life… that makes sense, right? It sucks, as always. I guess it’s better to be in no relationship rather than an unsteady one, right? I could ramble on and on about this, but I shouldn’t. And I won’t. It looks like a friendship got ruined because of a so-called “relationship,” and you have no idea how much that has really bummed me out. It would be pointless for me to ramble on and on about that as well, because no one reads this blog anyways, and… rambling wouldn’t change anything. As much as I wish it would.

LOVER’S LIE

I hope I can keep this semi-brief.

I kept telling myself that the decision I had made was the best for me, when in reality, my insides were having a fit of kicking and screaming. I figured that if I continued to reassure myself that I would be okay, that I eventually would in time. The past 12 days have been confusing as ever, and really took a toll on my heart. I kept lying to myself, saying that I was stronger than I gave myself credit for, and that it would be easy to get over James. Bullshit. I can’t possibly get over someone I never lost a breath of interest in in the first place. It’s really discouraging when people you’re close to don’t have any faith in your relationship whatsoever. Not even the slightest hint of optimism. I’m sick and tired of people not having faith in my relationship. I’m not going to allow anyone to influence my feelings negatively anymore. I appreciate eveyone’s honest-to-God concern for me. I know everyone has my best interest at heart, and so do I; that’s the thing: my best interests for my heart revolve around James.

Call me weak all you want, because it does not matter. At the end of the day, I’m going to be the only one who’s living to satisfy my own happiness. That may sound selfish, but that’s the way I see it; and if I’m not going to be the only one who lives to satisfy my own happiness, then who the hell will?

Jumping to ridiculous conclusions and fear of history repeating due to my own insecurities. That’s all it was. If anything, this is only going to make us stronger. Neither of us are ready to call it quits. This is for the long-run, and this was just a small bump on the road. It’s past, and that’s that. I love you more than anything, James Carlson. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

FREEDOM OF RELIGION

I’m a Catholic, and I go to church just about every Sunday. My mom gets upset if I ever miss church and will go to any lengths to make sure I never do, like going on Saturday or extra early on Sunday, for instance. When I was younger, I wasn’t exactly fond of going to church, but I didn’t really dread it, either. I really enjoyed the sermons our priest delivered and the music our music director and choir performed. Over the years, however, priests moved to different parishes, and our music director moved to New York. Their replacements weren’t exactly great compensations to our losses. The changes that were being made to my church sort of discouraged me, simply because I began to loose interest. The new priests were not engaging, and the new music was… to put it lightly… horrible. Our former music director was seriously top-notch, I mean… he was amazing, and for the church to hire such a downgrade was completely disappointing.

I can remember a time when I really didn’t mind practicing and following my religion. I used to pray every night and everything. I realized that I haven’t been doing that as frequently anymore. It’s not like I want to live my life without following Catholic beliefs, but I’ve also realized that something that has been pushing me away from it is the one person who has been trying relentlessly to get me to follow it, that person being my mom. Whenever I pass by her in the living room and she’s watching TV, it’s usually on this Christian/Catholic religion channel, and she never fails to say “You should watch this once in a while instead of that garbage you usually watch” (Or something to that effect.) I can’t help but roll my eyes every time. And I hate it how almost every non-religion topic of conversation I have with her turns into exactly the opposite. I can bring up something like school or relationships, or my career goals, and she somehow takes advantage of the conversation and ends it with a long speech about how it’s important for me to pray and go to church and yadda yadda yadda. Not to mention the fact that she makes me feel guilty as hell every time I do or say something that either she or the Catholic faith (or both) would not approve of. I know she’s just trying to steer me the right way, but she should know by now that I’m not a fuck up, and I’m not going to put a bad name on the family; I am old enough and fully capable of making my own decisions however I see fit.

Of course I want to be a good person, but I don’t think that should be based on whether or not I practice my religion or not. Following your religion does not make you a good person; your judgement and the choices you make is what determines whether or not you are a good person. Honestly, I would like to have the strength to follow my religion -on my own terms. I don’t want to be forced to go to church or feel guilty if I don’t live up to the religious expectations my parents may have of me. Everything becomes tainted if I go into something I’m not capable of dedicating my heart to. I hate having to go to church every Sunday and just sit there while the priest puts everything he’s got into something that goes in one ear and out the other. I want to be able to learn from whatever he’s got to say and have it stick in my head. I’m tired of being forced to believe something I was slowly losing faith in. I’ve tried explaining this to my mom, but she didn’t really take me seriously, and continued to push it. The way I see it, is that I need to start over fresh with my religion, the problem is that I know my mom won’t let me handle this the way I’d like to. I’m not too keen with the old-fashioned way of doing things; in my experiences, I’ve noticed that the “motivational speaking method” seems to stick more, simply because the speakers have more enthusiasm in their voices, compared to the elder priests who speak softly and slowly. I think if I found a more contemporary Catholic parish to join, I’d have an easier time understanding myself as well as my own religion. I want to be able to “save” myself, because I want the same unconditional faith and dedication that so many other people have to the Catholic faith because when you reach a feeling of fulfillment with anything (not necessarily just faith/religion), it makes you feel good. I’m all for self-improvement in my life, and I can honestly say that I believe the pursuit/achievement of new-found faith will be a factor for me. It’s important for me to maintain the things in my life that make me feel good and happy, whether it be strong friendships, inspired writing, or simply a positive state of mind. I want that same effect for my religion.

Religion can’t be taken lightly, and you certainly can not force someone to believe in something they aren’t willing to follow, that’s just not how it works, and I understand that better now. My mom would always be upset that my brother-in-law was not religious, and she kept wishing and hoping for him to at least meet her half-way so my niece and nephew would at least be baptized, but even that took a good 5 or 6 years to get through. People have to be willing to see what another person sees -sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it takes time, and sometimes it’s just plain hopeless. No matter what, everyone needs to respect others’ opinions, because if not, you’ll always be stuck on that same track you’ve been leading your whole life. Open minds and open hearts are key in this crazy, crazy world. I hope I made at least a little sense… if not, oh well, at least it made sense to me.

BOTTOM LINE: I want enough strength to save myself from losing faith in my religion completely, because it is important to me, it just needs to be handled in a way that I can progress from and build off of.