I'm different? Since When?!?!?!

     What makes me different? I think its this sense of family I bring to my groups. Like, as much as  I like hanging out with groups, I like when we work as a team.
     I don't know if that came out right, but I love the team aspect of hanging out with the guys.

   Maybe, whatever it is I do that makes people like me is possibly the ditzy comedy. And for some its the fact that I care about them. I tend to make people open up.

    I'm also crafty. I don't mean to say I'm sneaky, its just in terms of how I play games with my friends, theres a lot of me that knows these guys and I plan it out, like, "How am I going to react to Steve when he's got the advantage? Laugh! That always scares the shit out of him cuz his biggest fear is that he's not man enough. What better way to bring that to the game than to laugh at a strong play. What about Eddie? He plays it too cool. But he worries when things don't come together immediatly. Do something his plans dont include and bring him to a level he's uncomfortable with."

     Thats the part of me my friends, expecially Steve, and my therapist find interesting. The ability to think logically and creatively about things. He insists that its a good thing to have now that I'm getting more and more mature. (I don't see a therapist beccause I have a disorder. I see him beccause sometimes you need a pro to talk to. Someone who isn't really your friend.)

Community of Weirdos

     Everywhere I go, I can make at least one friend. Through them, I make another friend. Through those two, I've made two more. Through those four, I've made even more. I make communities of my own. My own eco system. But there comes a time when you think, "I'd rather not belong to these people." Its not out of anger that I decide on this, but its more out of the fact that I want a break. I have Twitter and facebook killing my text inbox. Friends who wanna go out. Family that constantly needs me. A former patient in the hospital. And the list goes on. I g out wanting to make clouds of friends. I come home realizing I've made a giant storm cloud.

     But in the end, next year I wanna make a bigger cloud full of other actors all over Baltimore. I want to make my movie by the summer and make more afterwards.

Catching up on Prompts "Letting Go"

Numero Cinco:

Ok, I know I said I wouldn't do these anymore, but I need to do somethin right?

I'd be lying if I didn't say the thing I had to "Let Go" of wasn't my ex. Like, that was a pretty awesome relationship till the day we had to end things. Or, she ended things on me. I mean, I took it really hard. My friends tell me that was a horrible time for me period. I went through a lot during the end of the relationship. It made me a bitter dude. But in the end I've learned to be more optimistic about things regardless. And I do admire those who are optimistic in the light of heartbreak and pain.

There were times when I wanted her to call and times when I wanted to call her and times when I hated her. Now, I'm still contradictory, but I've got control over it. I regret a lot of things I did while dating her. Things I did, things I let her get away with.

What began the "getting over her" process? Inception. A movie about a man who can't get over his ex wife and the effects of that in his personal life.

Therapy Through Blogging

I'm thinking on about why I quit writing in the first place, in regards to the Reverb 10 thingy. I'm sort of understanding I really just wanted someone to read my thoughts and tell me what they thought. Sort of like, seeing a therapist.

Reason for this:
Friends seem to be on the receiving end of my help.

I have spent a lot of time using my grief to help my friends and my experience as well. Influencing them and motivating them to be something with their lives. And I don't get that. I'm not listened to anymore. I'm help. Which wouldn't be a bad thing if not for the amount of days when I'm holding back a lot.

I felt weird as days went on about writing personal journal entries to complete strangers. I wasn't much bothered by the readers. I wanted more readers. I loved that kind of stuff. But I always wondered if this was going to be my first impression to the real world. Was this going to be the image I would project into the rest of the world? And what if people who read this got the wrong idea of who I am from these little windows into my brain.

I have a lot of things I want to say or be challenged on. It just never happens to me. I think. Well, only person to come close to actually challenge me was a friend of mine from CCBC. Didn't want to tell her why I cried. I just felt like, these are things I need to talk to someone else about. Someone interested in my shit. I mean, its not like I'm not interesting. I'm just interested in being interesting in another way.

I dunno, I think honestly this all comes from me looking at a marathon of In Treatment. A show I've been looking at for three years now. And I envy these fictional patients. On this show a therapist picks the minds of his patients and... well, he listens to them tell him things about their personal lives. And all I think about is, how freeing it is to let someone have all of that.

I remember benefiting greatly from counseling this semester. I would not be happy if I didn't see a counselor. I  was a wreck and days later I showed improvement. But this week has been different. I've been craving drugs. I've been craving anything that could make me feel good.

I think about this and I think about today, being on stage. And how I didn't feel an audience. I felt like I was wearing a big wool jacket. Like one of those jackets you see Eskimos wearing. I felt safe. I felt like I was somewhere I could grow. I remember tweeting, "I feel safe."

So, I wanna be listened to, I like counseling, I currently crave drugs and stage makes me feel insulated & safe.

I think maybe, I want to get back into counseling. I think that'll be awesome. And there was a difference between Aaron the drug abuser and the when I prepare to go on stage. I'm not concerned about drugs. I'm only interested on being on stage again.

Maybe? Maybe not? You tell me what you think from this peek into my head.

I hate writing on my blog now.

I hate writing now beccause its sort of a mandatory project now. I rememebr when 750 words was fun and suddenly I feel like I'm punished for missing a few days because of reality. Or whatever. I dont know what to say without planning, but I'm goign to write what I had as a resignation to writing ever again for this Reverb 10 project.

First, I'm ashamed to say that I'm planning on leaving this project alone. It wasn't until I got home today from an errand that it came to me that this wasn't going to be good for me. All the dwelling on the past. I don't think it was at all worth it. This year at least. In fact beccause of this year, I refuse to look at any other part of my timeline aside from the past 3 months and what I see coming in the future.

I honestly thought that working on this project would be a form of therapy for me. Cathartic, a word I hate thanks to this year, is a good way to describe how I imagined I would possibly feel thanks to this writing. I remembered hearing about a man who wrote every day of his life and said each journal entry was a letter to God. A confessional. I don't want to confess to anything anymore. I'm through with reflecting on my past like somethign incredible happened way back in January. I incredibly wrong.

I think maybe, I enjoyed allowing this pain out because it got me a lot of attention. For the first time in a long time, my blog had viewers. Not dedicated followers, but I was doing my best and all that jazz. I, in a strange way, felt like I was communicating with people.  I enjoyed watching as readers from London and South Korea stopped by and I felt awesome.

But this year, cannot be talked about anymore. I'd rather not talk about a lot of things from my past anymore. I got out of my car laughing and suddenly I start crying. I'm reading a newspaper and I'm tired and the next thing I want to do is cry. I'm crying all the time and this reflecting stuff isn't helping anything. And the posts... they feel like things I honestly cant and wont answer.

I know how this sounds and I do not hate the REVERB team or REVERB10. I love the concept and success. I just feel so frustrated that I cannot and will not participate any lon

Wonder...

"Prompt: Wonder. How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year?"


So, this is like, an honesty box. 
So after the break up, I realized I had oodles of time on my hands. I had nothing to care about. It was as if I was ripped apart and I had to rebuild who and what I wanted to be. I didn't like it very much at first. 


So I went out and looked for something else. I joined a knitting club. I went driving anywhere and for anyone. I went to job interviews. I tried to get in school. I did whatever it took to stay outside of my home. I was doing whatever it took not to be upset. And it worked. I was slowly allowing myself to look at how good things have been since one of the worst things to happen to me. (everyone gets their 9-11, mine was just terribly cliche)


I tried to believe I could go out dating again. Wasn't happening. Not for me. Not anymore. I just wanna live and enjoy myself.


So yeah, I spent a good portion of the past months since July creating a new world. And its full of friends, games, money and good times.

Moment & Writing

“Prompt: Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).”

Today was THE moment of the year. I played Lazer Tag with my students. And in that moment, I transformed. I went from Aaron the guy to Aaron the assassin. I separated from my team mates and I hunted the students. I got better each round. I was on the top of the leaderboard for my team at the last round.

Round one, I was learning the layout. I was looking for my team mates. I was just having fun. But I never took corners as a joke. I checked most of them. There were a lot of moments when I shot my partners by accident. And they shot me. I didn’t mind. Accidents. Learned a lot about the board.

Round two, strategy. We tried the strategy of looking for each opponents base and taking them out. It worked to a point. But to no avail. We only won by 100.

Round three. I was alone. I hunted the children. I said nothing. I breathed through my nostrils. I looked out for blue or yellow lights. Signs that they were near my position. Depending on the brightness, I was in the clear for an attack. Bright, meant there were three or more. I judged each group cautiously. I never went after more than three.

I remember seeing them come up stairs. They came single file. It was almost too easy to pick them off one by one. They stood still. And before I knew it, they waited for their guns to turn back on to shoot me back. So I instantly learned, not to stay in one position for very long. Get your shot in and leave.

The dead zone, the center of the field, was almost infested with activity. I looked, nothing but fat kids. I took the two kids out and before I could make my escape diagonally, I saw the kids coming from that direction. So I ran to my right. looking out for cover, or another pathway. Nothing but dead ends. I was tired of a 2:1 kill death ratio. I got to my last dead end, turned around and shot both kids that were after me.

I felt like a super soldier. I felt the way video games are supposed to make you feel.

 

---

“Prompt: Writing. What do you do each day that doesn't contribute to your writing -- and can you eliminate it?”

 

I think, the biggest thing that does get in the way of writing is generally, like, life. There’s this feeling like, you have so much time in a day. Until you’re tired and you realize that you only have 24 hours to really make a difference in and throughout a lot of that time you are sleeping or in the middle of something just as important.

I don’t know, maybe its also because I’m a procrastinator. And Its what I do.