A line from scrubs titles this blurb of my life. Between episodes I go outside press down on flint, I see the light from the fire hit the paper, the crinkle of burning paper resounds in my head from every movie where there is a closeup of someone smoking a cigarette. I often stare at the sky and think about many things outside in the air. First I take a moment to see how the day is, the weather, the mood, the feeling, how it feels like back home. I used to reflect back to home much more, now I consider this my home, I stand alone in my new home sometimes and just stop. I think wow, I am paying my bills, I am being paid, I am living my life, hmm maybe I should get a dentist appointment, hmm I need a physical. Things that hold true to a person on their own. I am not alone though, I have a loving family and friends. I left a lot back home but I have a lot here. But I digress, so I stand outside tonight and I think… like I think a lot, I have so much of my life in order right now then I go outside and regardless of the war movies where they smoke cigarettes or the cinematic presence it has, I am killing myself. Each drag I take each pack I buy I am asking for those helping hands on my shoulders to let go faster and faster.
I have this overwhelming sense that so much of my life could have been much worse and things could have turned wrong fast, but there was some hand on my shoulder saving me from a very bad path. I know I put effort and work into the stuff I love and the things I have excelled at but there is also this vast feeling that yes there is something that has helped you, saved you many many times and each time you smoke the cigarette you spit in its face. I was told this week that I am better with being able to stand up for myself than others, yet I look at it and think, excuse me I don’t do this as naturally as you think. I bust my hump for what I believe in and maybe if you took a moment to come out of the bubble you surround yourself in you would realize you just need to spread your efforts to all areas of your life and others sometimes. Hmmm talk about add I just saw the words err letters hitting the screen as I typed without looking at the keyboard and thought, that looks really cool lol… anywayyyy.. I know I want to quit, I know I have to but here I am holding onto this crutch. I sometimes think in this new environment in this new place called California and growing older I reached out during my time here and decided I need to hold onto my past. I need a connection to NY, I need a connection to my life before the panic attacks, I need to hold onto my life when I could drink or do drugs. I wanted sometimes still want the ability to do as I wish without caring. There was no mental block of sitting in a chair rocking back and forth freaking out because I smoked some pot or me needing to leave a party because when I drink the room begins to close in around me. I want to be able to just have ONE drink nowadays without having to worry about being depressed the next day because it reacts badly with the lowest does of Klonopin the drug that made it all better when I had panic attacks every second of my life. The drug I hate but know too that it may not be so bad because maybe it still does help. As we speak I cut the dose again because I feel it is starting to have a negative effect because of the lack of actually having the panic attacks without control as much. So without those poisons in my mind the drug fights against nothing causing me to feel weird. I also think it has to do with the cigarettes. So I held onto old relationships, old foods, and thoughts when I got here and I grabbed onto cigarettes hard because it doesn’t have a negative reaction on me as the drinking or drugs do now that used to not. Although the smokes do fuck me up and make me tired and feel like shit by the end of the day it is still not as much as the others making me almost unable to move. And the sad part it is in my head. But after not doing it so long I have adjusted and I love the fact that I don’;t do them, but what about the fact that for the longest time I thought that if I smoked pot here and there it brought me to a normal level of hyper activeness. Although sometimes dumbing down too much. I can make it make sense to myself by remembering the best times I had were in college when I did non of these. I didn’t even smoke. I was in the best shape of my life, yet somehow it is the hardest thing for me to quit smoking because of my weight, and perhaps this old tie. I went back to NY just recently and met with an old friend and realized when she said “We met when he was high” as to why I was not having fun this time and her life and my life were sooo completely different now that I had to excuse myself early, circumstances aside. An old tie to my old life put into the light. I think it also didn’t help when her friend said, how fucked up are you, and she replied with omg sooo fucked up and he said well here take a drag of this I plan to get you retarded fucked up awesome, or something along those lines. It is not the same when you are not DOING the stuff around you and you see it for what it makes people. It was like a room of people needing me to say, yes your new life is amazing and you totally changed and got out of the rut we called highschool, but I sat there disagreeing with the words I spouted out. But then I feel bad for judging their lives cause what makes mine soo much better they chose theirs as did I with mine. So my current problem, I smoke, I want to quit, I don’t want to gain weight, I want to quit, I want to eat, it allows me to eat without consequence, but the consequence may be beyond my control no matter how hard I work on it after it is too late. So is this just the next step to becoming who I am, another obstacle, a hurdle of sorts. Will those invisible saving hands have my back after I inevitably quit? Why is it I hold to this old fixation but the old fixation to work out and better my body is soo hard to do. Is it because of the idea that I didn’t follow the acting path in a matter of speaking and in this giant struggle of my mind where I fight what I lead myself to believe I would do to what I am doing and realizing omg, I think I may have been going after the wrong goal due to preconceived notions of what it meant in my head. Did working out and the constant struggle to look my best and lose the weight for a show in a matter of hours have an effect on me, definitely I cannot even see myself in a mirror I keep a record of photos. I can’t actually believe how much I love where I ended up and how much the old plan seems to have made sense in the fact that I didn’t follow it and I apply it to my life now in different ways. It was like when I directed my first play rather than acting. I was never more happy, comfortable in my life. Comfort scares me, it makes me think I am not growing and am getting too used to life, but who says that isn’t what life is meant to be comfortable instead of struggling for some American dream. But don’t get me wrong this comfort I talk of is not like omg I am sailing(hehe funny I just said that you will see why) aimlessly and without worry or challenge now with what I do and will turn into a cooperate potato. I am happy now with the choice, but obviously I will always have a question in my head as would anyone I suppose. But there is no doubt I ended up in the right place for here and now. It is just about being able to sort out NOW by figuring out how to fit in PAST. I have been working on it and I have come to conclusions of what I do is what I love, but currently I struggle with this damn smoke in my hand. Like my bills, my life, my writing, I decide when it is taken care of, however the world never stops spinning while I work it out. It is an interesting concept. Scary, but exciting. I go sailing tomorrow. That should be cool , never been on a sailboat before.
