No Shame In It

I tapped the bumper of a Mini Cooper today coming home from work because I failed to check in front of me before turning. No damage to Dora (the '97 Ford Explorer on loan to me from my loving aunt), but I left a small-but-just-big-enough-to-be-noticeable dent on the woman's left bumper.

A certain word comes to mind in situations like this: FUCK.

Granted, this FUCK doesn't have the same shade of meaning as the various other incarnations of FUCK, but it's somewhere between stubbing your toe after realizing you missed your little brother's spring choir concert solo and your parents discovering you took the car when you weren't supposed to because you wanted to celebrate New Years Eve the right way even though you were seventeen.

What immediately entered my mind was, beyond the mild fuckery of the situation, was shame. Primarily, shame because my aunt spent $1,500 to get me this vehicle. Shame because it was such a silly mistake. Shame because my lack of common sense gets me into trouble on a routine basis and I don't have enough common sense to try and change it. Shame because I'm on twelve month probation for a misdemeanor drug charge in Oklahoma and being forced to comply with monthly random UA's while living in Colorado, where marijuana is legal.

All in all, I'm pretty shameful. But regret is something I don't believe in, like decaf coffee or a clean permanent record. And no matter how hard I try, I'm going to fuck things up. Not because I want to (honestly) or because I don't care but because I'm human. More importantly, though, because I'm 23. I still feel like a teenager living in the basement of his aunt's house! As much as I hate to admit it, I like to play the victim. I was raised the baby. I was babied pretty much until I got arrested in college and my family realized little Lukey-daw wasn't so little anymore. I guess I've adopted a shameful attitude. What can I say? I was a churchgoer for most of junior high and high school.

Stress requires no action. Stress requires no action. Stress requires no action...

No one is holding a moral compass near my ass every time I fart. Failed a drug test? So what. Fix it. Make it right. Someone doesn't exchange witty banter with you at work? Who cares. Move on. Right or wrong are so subjective that, in my opinion, they have little bearing on 98% of daily living. It would seem that the mundane is more like the amoral. Just boring business; not good, not bad.

The truth is, I want to be little Lukey-daw forever. In my heart, I know I'll always be the baby whose bottom lip begins to quiver when he gets in trouble for being too rough with the kitty or knocking a drink off the table. What's important now is that I realize that's part of who I am and just accept it instead of getting upset every time I do indeed knock the drink off the table or hurt the kitty on accident. There's no shame in it.

Under Someone's Spell

How do you explain why clouds disappear to a four-year-old? Well, I tried. I said, "When it's wet outside, there are clouds, but when it gets dry, they go away." I thought I pretty much covered it.

Sometimes the clouds are big and fluffy; sometimes they're thin and wispy. Each type is a sign, a way to gauge some aspect of the weather. To me, clouds are just water. Just ... water waiting to fall back to the ground or the sea or wherever it began its journey to the sky. The amount of water waiting to fall changes constantly.

So it is with emotions, right?

Why is it so strange for Fiona Apple to sing that she's only happy when it rains? I find rain quite cleansing. It's as if, when it rains, all the emotions that were pent up inside me just pour out, symbolized by the precipitation I see. It may be a stretch but it's what I believe. It helps me make sense of my emotional life and emotional tendencies (Don't even get me started on the moon's cycles).

I've been under someone's spell lately.

Because It's April

Winter was long. Winter is always long, though, in my opinion. It seems to suck all the life out of me, any and all desire to do anything worthwhile. Winter is a lot of sitting indoors, wishing I could be outside. April just gets me. Yeah sure it's my birthday month and people will say I'm biased (because I am), but that doesn't change the way I feel. April will always be my month, easily the most joyous time of year. I believe if Heaven exists, it feels like April.

I can't help feeling unfair whenever I criticize crusty Old Man Winter. He's beautifully misunderstood, like the crazy cat lady next door from your childhood. You knew she must've had a big heart because who in their right mind would take in thirteen cats? Yet, you always skipped her house when you were selling fudge door to door for that annual middle school marching band fundraiser. Winter is as hauntingly beautiful as death can be. So for those of you with winter birthdays, you have my respect as well as my condolences.

Back to April. In my delusional world, it's the best month because not only do you get to witness nature's glorious rebirth, you also have a huge list of reasons to celebrate, no matter who you are. For example:

1. National Poetry Month (okay that was lame I know)

2. National Mathematics Month (even lamer but stay with me)

3. April Fools Day

4. Earth Day

5. 4/20

6. Easter Sunday, which is all about the chocolate, of course

7. WARM SUNNY WEATHER

So break out those cardigans and get your asses to the nearest park and start celebrating.

Going Somewhere?

A classic line from Bohemian Rhapsody--"Just gotta get out / just gotta get right outta here"--is playing on loop in my head at the moment.

Do you ever feel like you've stayed too long in one place? The voice inside your head screams, "Let's go somewhere! Do something!" So you do something, but it doesn't quite fill the void. You write a poem, but you feel like you're speaking in circles. You take a walk, but the scenery does less for you than you'd hoped it would. You do some laundry then decide against it because let's face it laundry's boring.

It seems to me that no matter how old I get, I will never stop feeling lonely, I will never stop feeling frustrated, and I will never stop feeling the need to compare myself to the world around me in some subconscious attempt to validate my sense of self and keep my ego satisfied (or dissatisfied, at times). Fortunately, though, truth exists outside the vacuum of human experience. I don't need to go anywhere special to feel any certain way, unless that place is Wal-Mart on Black Friday, because only then and there will I feel the type of claustrophobia that comes once a year.

Maybe if I went somewhere different I'd find myself happier, or more at peace with the world. Past experience says most likely not. And who am I to question it?

My thoughts feel like they're in a race against themselves.

Joyce Meyer has always been someone I admire, if not for her stunning hair style then for her frank attitude and practical, no-nonsense approach toward personal joy. I used to watch her television program "Enjoying Everyday Life" every morning before school my senior year of high school. My older brother and sister had moved out of the house, my stepmom was usually working, and my dad had died that fall. I was alone the majority of the time. Something Joyce said about loneliness has stuck with me since the first time I heard her say it: "You have to learn to love yourself. Because no matter where you go, there you are." The audience laughed, and so did I. But it's all too true! That same feeling of loneliness can be the one that I cherish at times, so why do I fear it?

Even now, writing this blog, I wonder how many people feel the way I do at the particular moment. And while it's never wise to assume the feelings of others, I think I can safely say that everyone feels, at some point in their lives, stagnant. Should we all pack up and go to SXSW for a week? Maybe. But I doubt it would fix any longstanding problems in our lives.

Happiness exists indefinitely. It can't be experienced in the past, and it can't be experienced in the future. True joy can only be accessed right now, in this moment, in this place. Everything else is paperwork. The Bahamas aren't harboring my happiness like a fugitive. Neither is Paris. I am harboring my happiness because I feel like I don't deserve it. I haven't done enough to merit happiness. I haven't worked hard enough, prayed long enough, or loved deeply enough. These are the accusations of the inner sadomasochist that exists inside every one of us and feels justified in torturing itself for the sake of some imagined ideal state of living.

In this moment, though, I know I am alive and thankful. The dark side of the moon is still there. Maybe I should travel there more often and bring a flashlight.

Luck Has Nothing To Do With It

My friend Lori sent me a text last month that read:

"Did you know that, according to ancient Greek mythology, people used to have 2 heads & 4 arms and legs? Zeus decided this wasn't right, so he split the people in half with a lightning bolt.. now people spend their lives searching for the other half of their souls."

I didn't believe in soul mates until this summer. Even still, whenever I surround the issue with a cloud of logic, or at least attempt to approach it from such a perspective, I find the idea to be at best, plausible, and at worst, unapproachably mystifying. Who can say what the soul is in the first place, let alone who it belongs to?

As of late, I've been incredibly boy crazy, and not so much in the sense of just looking for someone to kiss or be intimate or share the secrets of my soul with, but rather, it seems I'm looking for something or someone so valuable to me I can't quite put it into words or even visualize what he looks like, so I just look for what I know I'm attracted to--vague surface qualities, like a pretty face, a kind smile, a willing heart, or a pair of brilliant brown eyes that pull me in. None of these factors seem to matter when I stop and think about why I might be feeling the way I'm feeling. When I strip away the paint, I'm left with a mirror, and the reflection is only me, asking why I'm not enough. Admitting this is probably one of the most difficult things for me to do. I would much rather continue living in my delusional world ruled by fate and luck, waiting for the Universe to do all the work for me.

Luck has a way of making me feel at odds with the world.

I secretly believe my soul is made up of little bits and pieces of knowledge it has collected over the course of its journey. I'm also a believer in multiple soul mates. Just like one can have more than one best friend, so can one have multiple soul mates. If you believe that human lives can and indeed do transcend their earthly time frames, how can you argue against it? Out of all my best friends, though, beyond the people I grew up with, and deeper than my most intimate family connections, I feel a calling. It's a voice so distant I can barely even hear it, yet it's so true I always return to it. Whoever that voice belongs to has my heart and soul without question, and whenever I find them, luck will have had no part to play in it.

Virgo!

Even though summer isn't technically over until the fall equinox (in my belief system), academic school years have a way of making it seem cut short. One day you're relaxing in the back yard 300 feet from the lake sipping a beer in a hammock, then the next thing you know, bada bing bada bang bada BOOM you're back in class. To be fair though, that's not quite how I feel my summer "vacation" ended.

Four years ago I came to college fully intending on graduating on time like a normal person. Then friends happened... then alcohol... then DUIs... then whatta ya know it you're a fifth-year senior finishing two classes while juggling three jobs, a new apartment and the inevitable, inexhaustible romantic affairs that come hand-in-hand with new seasons, stages and chapters of life. I may be in a new slash incredibly familiar location, and I may be meeting new people left and right like freshman year all over again, but my summer still feels alive and well.

Decidedly, Monkey Island is my home. Not my home away from home, but home. My family is there--people who care so much about me I'm not sure I can fully comprehend it. It's a truly priceless thing to have such people in one's life, but I digress...

For the first time, I feel like an adult. A bonafide, certified, balls-to-the-wall adult. No car, a sparse supply of personal hygiene products, and a dream to live up to the expectations I've envisioned for my self since I was but a wee lad. I'm starting to remember my dreams, in fact, and the more I try, the easier it becomes to understand who I really am and what motivates me (not to mention what has been motivating me up til now). My intuition has never felt more trustworthy. Nothing but positivity guides me. No more sulky, dumpy, self-loathing for this guy! Look out, world! Well... Okay, look out, Oklahoma City! You may be one hot, windy, metro-sized truck stop but you're a start!

You're my start.

Uh oh... Here I go. My mother's words are still ringing loud and clear:

"Luke don't forget your helmet!"

Virgin shmirgin. I'll run circles around this city.

Love, God

I spoke with God in high school and asked if being gay was wrong.