This should be a rough draft but its not

I don't really know where to begin, today.

I feel like for the first time in at least five years
I'm finally getting to know who I am again.
I'm not letting a damn thing or soul control who I am, except me.
I'm ready to set sail on a long voyage; a self discovery.

I'm doing this in a matter of ways,
writing, reading, calling old friends, taking my cat on walks...
I've been allowing myself to go back to pieces in my past and take a step back.
Maybe I even take the time to heal the image.
It's not that it's particularly working perfectly.
But it's certainly doing something.

I have my sights higher.
I have goals and hopes.
Now the world isn't just dark and dreary, but there are people along the way to
pick me back up when I fall.
This is life.

So who am I?
Recently people at random will actually genuinely tell me what I should be doing.
I think they may have a point;
Nine years of photography...seems to me, that's a fairly consistent hobby.
But even if I've figured out what to do, there's more to life than that, too.
What am I doing with it?
Currently, nothing. I feel like a waste.
This often depresses me and digs me a deeper hole.
But I've also been spending time alone, collecting, organizing,
making sure to be true to myself! Always.

I know I'm slightly emotionally overwhelming,
passionate,
extremely compassionate,
anxious, scattered yet organized, and driven.
But are these characteristics who I am?
Nah, I think it's more the girl in me who wants to fix problems for the people I love,
that makes me who I am.
I'm responsible, stubborn, and very independent.
I'm afraid of many things, but recently, I've been facing my fears one by one.

I think it's this random jumble of things that define me.
It's hard to take a step back and see exactly who I am.
I haven't seen this woman, well, ever so it's a gigantic wake up call.
"Here's Reality!" the wake up call seems to say.

It's funny how reality changes. You can be so stuck in a picture that you forget there's stuff outside.
I certainly let all the windows fog over and I never cleared the fog and looked outside.
I am now. I see the world.
It's mine.
And I'm coming to get it.

One sad bird

For awhile I was locked in someone else's cage they'd made.
And I escaped.
But they got locked inside their own cage and cannot seem to find the key.
I'm flying around, happy to be free
but so hurt inside because I don't have the key to let them out either.
I want to just fly away and build a nest instead of a cage.
But it feels entirely shitty to just fly away from a trapped friend (whether old or new).
I can go pick out worms and bugs and drop them in the cage,
but in the end that's essentially taunting.
What to do, what to do.
I guess I'll just flutter around a bit more.

decision making, anyone?

generally speaking, i'm a very decisive person.
i may fret and teeter over a decision that needs to be made,
but i usually take the most logical route and
semi-randomly decide that that's the way i should go and i don't change my mind.

i think this is why some people really like me;
because i'll make a decision quickly and stick to it.
...its also why some others don't like me at all, probably.

i mention this all because when it comes to big life decisions, it's not that easy.
i usually churn over those ideas for weeks or months before finalizing a decision
unless it is freaky spontaneous and i just feel it.

people say "follow your heart" but that's harder said than done.
sometimes it's like your heart is ripping at the seams and taking you all different places.
do you go with logical, smart, emotional, or comfortable?
every route looks just a good as the next.

this is where patience is key (i think).
things just naturally have a way of falling into place if you don't rush them.
but the waiting...
it's so difficult to just trust.

should i stay or should i go? like the sex pistols wrote.
and not just in the obvious physical sense, but in all of life.

and then some decisions take control over your brain.
they become much larger than an idea,
in fact it's as though they become the conductor of your thoughts.
why is this?
they aren't all necessarily that important.
and then, since the decision is being your conductor,
you start to get nervous about absolutely any decision.
frustrating;
it really is.

and then there are times when it feels best to let decisions be made arbitrarily.
but what is the best way to make a decision?
and how do you know that you've made the best decision?
and more so, how do you deal with the results of decisions that you have made?
ah, this is life.

i do find comfort in being decisive though. even if i may make bad decisions,
at least i didn't waste time fretting over it and staying in an indifferent state.

i'm not really sure what i'm saying with all this.
just rambling.
all i know right now is that it's terribly difficult to take a step without knowing what it looks like.

Thriving to Live but Sobbing about it's Misfortunes

I'd be fine just taking steps forward
even through mud, sand, water, rain storms, etc.
But I'm not fine when
I'm trudging forward and things just pile up on my shoulders.
It certainly makes it hard not to fall down.
And I'm all alone carrying this load, there's no man helping me.
I don't want there to be.
I've been there, done that.
If they help me, they want to own me.
I'm a very unique individual;
my passion over flows everywhere in life.
Sometimes that can overwhelm people,
or sometimes their selfish with it and want to scoop up all my passion
and keep it for themselves.
Some days, I'm so sure of how to move on.
Other days, I just cry and cry and cry.
I want to just run into someone's arms and sob.
But I'm so damn picky about who.
I guess I'm chasing my own imagination and that's what makes it so difficult.
I have to trust the person on a very very intimate level.
I'm extremely vulnerable right now,
to share that with anyone seems weak.
I don't like being weak.
I'm one of those people who tell people to "fuck off"
because I'm going after my dreams and you should too.
But sometimes I'm not this strong.
It used to be that I had someone to run to, who would build me back up
and shine light on my braver side.
But now I'm alone, and I keep making mistakes.
And everyone's judging me for them
Which is fine, because I'm going to go on with or without judgements
but it certainly doesn't make it easier to be alone.
I just get so down on myself and feel no value when I stop distracting myself with
all these activities and friends.
I just want to hop in my car and sob on the road while I'm traveling to my next destination.
Camp everywhere with my cat.
Somehow I feel I'd find peace here because there wouldn't be anyone standing over my shoulder
and I feel all my friendships would be deeper and more meaningful.
I'm sure I'll give up on this dream right before it becomes plausible because it will seem
smarter
to just settle for the stairway instead of just making my own.

Person or picture?

I believe that sometimes life sends people into our paths to show us a picture or in some way a story. I think it's more often natural for us to make the mistake of falling for some sort of an affection for those people. But I strongly believe that we should be resisting this impulsive urge to fall into an affection, even though it could totally fulfill all of our desires, because I think first we must see the larger picture and from that decide whether we have grown affection for the person or the picture.

...but I do believe it's possible to have both, but I haven't truly witnessed it in any real understanding so it's hard for me to say it in any sort of an absolute sense.

what the fuck love is

love is one sided.
it can be two sided,
but just 'cause you love someone doesn't mean they love you back.
love is the ultimate vulnerability.
it's believing in your heart that whether or not the other person returns your love,
you undoubtingly adore them.

it's an interesting thing.
we fall for the idea of it all the time...
each and every one of us.

but when it comes down to it, you're not just alone in life,
but you're alone in loving people deeply, as well.

they could die.
they could love someone else.
they could be a user and a whore.
or they could be just really broken already.

that doesn't mean you can't love them, but
it certainly doesn't mean they have to or will love you back.

and that's why we all get to broken when the story is over.
because truly, all along, it was one-sided.
whether or not it really was,
it was.
because again, it doesn't really matter whether or not the other person loves you or not
you love them. infact, adore them. right?
and even if you're the one that's being loved and doesn't love the same way back...
it's the same picture, just backwards.

it's heart breaking.
you feel like you can't breathe.
you feel like you literally have no value on the planet.
you feel like there couldn't be a person out there who would want to invest even one minute in your soul.
you feel like compliments are like food stamps are just terrible attempts to make you feel better.
you feel like sad songs aren't sad enough.

but the truth is, it gets better.
separation.
space.
time; just letting the hands spin.
fresh air.

tomorrow is a new day. and then there's another one after that.
sure, we don't know if we are going to live
nor do we know if those we love will live...
but love deeply without fear because each day comes whether you want it to or not.
and pain eventually goes away.

there is no one who can take away all your happiness.
you just have to find those little things that few value as much as you do.

Metaphor of my life?

I'm shoveling, a mountain of soil into a lake to build a city. There's still quite a bit of not composted items left in the soil so I have to sift through it all. It takes time.
Sometimes I feel like I'll never get all the not composted items out of my soil,
other times I lose faith that I will build my city and
even worse, sometimes I disbelieve that anyone should ever visit my future city at all.
I get caught up in my mind asking myself questions like:
"Why am I do this?"
...
"Am I actually building anything yet?
...
"Do I really want to be filling in this lake to make a city?"
...
But every night I dream of my future city and see it in all of it's glory
So I keep shoveling.
Then sometimes the earth decides it has other plans for that part of the lake
and there's an avalanche.
I get covered in dirt and have to dig myself out.

But I think that's just part of building a city,
well, I hope so, anyway.

I have the base level filled in now and its mostly secure,
no more newly placed land breaking off and into the water.
I'm starting to really be able to see my dreams come to life;
the outlines of buildings, the foundation of roads, the idea of big parks.
It's all coming together.

But it's really just a flat piece of land right now.
And I'm the only one shoveling.
It has to be this way
because otherwise it becomes someone else's city and not mine.

And I'm not even sure what city I'm building yet,
I've only figured out the touristy spots.

[First draft]