Maybe not.

So I’m sitting here in the office, waiting for the thanksgiving video to upload and process. The sun is finally starting to go down, not beating down as harshly as it did when I first walked into the empty space. It’s a Saturday so no one’s here, no one is even in the building. Seems that I won’t be going anywhere for about another hour.

My phone’s still displaying the text that said he won’t be joining us at the play.

“I don’t think it’s too late. He’s the kind of guy who if he didn’t want to be around, he wouldn’t. And he does.”

I don’t know if it’s my impatience that’s biting or if suddenly it’s changed. It could be either. My impatience is part of the reason for many of the headaches.

“I don’t know about you but I’m feeling a rift coming on.”
“I know.” Just a few minutes later she retracted the statement but I couldn’t help but want to smack her for denying it.

“Something’s off. I could feel it. And I don’t really spend time with you guys. I don’t know what’s going on.”

Even HE ^ saw it and he’s rarely ever around us.

Something’s changing and I feel oh so responsible.

She says it’s because we’re all so busy. Two of us busy with work (and school for me) and the other two trying to start working (and going to school for one).

It just so happens that this all happens after what happened last Friday night and after the other guy saying to me that he won’t see me until I finish the job.

At this point, I’m not sure that I can even do it. Or if there’s even a job to finish. Where I was once steaming with confidence to just get it over it, I feel like I’m going to be chasing pavements for a while. Not forever, just for a while. And it’s on the list to figure out whether or not that’s even worth it because that’s one half-marathon I’m going to run for sure.

He isn’t my soul brother but I still listened to the song he posted this morning.

I feel like I’m at a loss for writing anything insightful at the moment but my mind is clouded with things that it doesn’t need to be. Whose court is it again? I can’t figure it out and I’m just tired right now.

Mother of a son, if we don’t have our beach day tomorrow I will cut someone.

Z.

A few months, I was under pursuit by someone who I’d just met this past summer.

He was charming, to say the least.

He told me how he felt about me. Asked me what would make me happy, under the implication that he wanted to. Spent every day by my side. Listened while I spoke, even when it wasn’t to him. Made me curious about things I never meant to be curious about. Even without my knowledge, made sure I was properly taken care of. And taught me more than I anticipated to be taught.

And here I am. In the month of November, about four months later. Realizing the gravity of what I did in response to it.

I did exactly what I anticipated that he would do and didn’t really realize it. I ran.

And I ran to justify him pulling away. I ran so that when he finally did, I knew exactly what I did wrong.

“It’s easier to justify a person walking away from you if you are an asshole versus if you did everything right and he walks away from you anyway. At least you were in control of that failure. Because it sucks hearing you did absolutely nothing wrong and he walks away from you anyway.”

I think I just revealed a damage. Way to go.

“He gave you the ball and when he saw you do nothing with it, he took it back and started to play by himself.”

And here I am, making myself miserable in that aspect. Probably throwing away something that could have made this year a little less sucky.

But. Then I did something Friday night that might have allowed for an opening.

“The ball is still in your court. He basically said ‘I know I shouldn’t be doing this but….here.’ Now you have to try harder.”

And I wasn’t exactly trying to begin with.

Two months ago, this conversation happened:

“Are you happy with the way things are now?”
“I’m not unhappy.”
“So. You’re not unhappy. But you’re not happy.”
“…yes.”
“Well, can you figure out what will make you happy and get back to me?”
“I guess.”
“Okay. You figure that out and get back to me. And I will see what I can do to make you happy.”

Oh yesssss, I DID screw that up. Again, way to go.

Right before this we talked about not wanting relationships. And so it didn’t make sense to me to ask for it, especially since at the time I had no idea if I even wanted it. I didn’t want it to interfere with me, I felt like I needed to take care of me first. I felt like. Like I wasn’t ready. I felt like I couldn’t possibly know how to be with him, to make him happy. As if I wouldn’t be able to dedicate enough of myself to him.

“What happened to all or nothing? Even if you’re busy as fuck you always find a way to spend time with the people you care about.”

Nathaniel thinks severely highly of me. When it came to J, he told me “You basically gave him the world, and he told you your world was shit.”
Yayu as well, in fact, I don’t even want to hear his response because I’m almost certain it’s going to reflect more negatively on si Land than it will on me, despite the fact that ^ uhm, yeah…I screwed up. (So uhm. Look at the facts. I was horrible.) Yayu told me that I gave C everything I could and more, that I impacted his life in more ways than I could ever imagine.

But all I did to this one was turn away. Because I figured he was much better without someone like me who barely had her life together. And perhaps that is what had me so scared.

So  last night, as I was drifting off to sleep I figured out what I wanted. And I had to verify that this is legitimate, that this is whole-hearted. Because this is not about me. I tore at him by doing absolutely nothing. And my actions only backfired on the both of us.

What would make me happy? If he were gracious enough to allow me to fix this. To give him what he deserves. I want him to be happy. I want him to teach me to make him happy. I have never let my guard down so much. And I’ve never wanted so much for the assistance, for someone to teach me something. I wanna see the world through his eyes. I want to see ME through his eyes. And I want him to see what I see when I see him.

Flaws and all.

When preparing yourself to tell the object of your affection how you feel about s/he, you should watch out for these three signs:

1. A sign that s/he is thinking about you

An invitation to coffee right before a really important meeting or a few phone calls in the middle of class — one right at the start and one right before the end —, asking what you’re doing what you get out or even a simple “good morning” text are all obvious signs that this person is thinking about you. You can talk about everything or you can talk about nothing but if you’re talking, then you hold some sort of significance to him or her.

2. A sign that the universe wants it to happen

Perhaps it’s your car breaking down and she is the only person within the vicinity who you know for sure can take care of it or making a deal with the next stop light that you will tell him for sure if it turns green NOW. You’re never sure what it is but if you can feel it in your heart that it’s got to happen, then it’s got to happen. All the spaces on the board say, skip to GO! then motherfucker, skip to GO! The only thing in the universe that could possibly stop it from happening is you. The universe will make it happen.

3. Rain

Whether it’s a hard rain after walking out a bar, deciding that you’re too frustrated to deal with it anymore, or a slow rain fall to your car illuminated by the fluorescent lights in the parking lot; if there’s rain then you better freakin’ do it. That’s some perfect scenery, Sleeping in Seattle, C-B-D-A grade movie-style crap. There is absolutely no reason to walk away from an opportunity you can write into a book and make millions off selling to a bunch of heartbroken teenagers and hopeless romantic 30 year old women.

The signs don’t have to come in order and they don’t have to come at all — just do it when it feels right — but hell, if they do come you better do it. Whether it’s a sit down at the beach, spilling your heart out or just tossing it over your shoulder as you speed away in your silver sedan, if you know you’ve reached the most opportune moment you better do it. Because the regret of not doing it and wondering “what if” is always more painful than being shot down.

As for me, I got all the signs. Every single one. Last night. But, little Miss Fearless somehow chickened out. After a full week of everyone realizing that it’s my turn now and a number of opportunities that I could have and him asking me “…is that all you wanted to talk about? I thought you wanted to talk about something else” and it all accumulated into my best friend — and ex boyfriend, mind you — scolding me for a good half hour and telling me that I better fucking do it (despite the fact that I made almost no mention of him for a month and didn’t tell him that I didn’t do it or even wanted to) and to stop being a “chicken shit”.

And I got into my car, saw the rain stop right after and slammed my head into my steering wheel for being so much of an idiot to miss the opportunity that the universe basically laid at my feet and said “bitch, move”. And I’m sitting here, shaking my head for missing one of — of not THE — last window that the universe is going to allow for me to get this right.

And I’m feeling in my heart that it needs to happen soon. Tonight, even. And it’ll be mini-grandeur. I just don’t know how or what. I’m just hoping it does.

So: Universe/God/Santa Claus/Mr. Postman,

Please answer me. Allow me one more shot. It doesn’t have to be today or tomorrow but please give this to me. No more screw ups. I will get this. I promise, hard. I’m not done yet. And I know I can and will do this.

I’m just waiting on the rain.

Love always,

Z.

That my cover photo was taken by him.

Or that his is the first initial of my name at so much of an angle that you would have to ask me to see the original picture before you make the connection.

It means absolutely nothing. At least that’s what I tell myself. Because it means nothing. Yet I wouldn’t hate if it did mean something.

I started a public blog the other day on word press. Specifically for the people to see what I’m up to and keep my writing alive when I don’t feel like talking about my personal life.

Don’t try to find me. And I hope no one who sees my public blog doesn’t try to find my private one.

Z.

I’d never met anyone who understood this, who could possibly be on the same boat about this but it was always so weird to me. So when she told me her connection with him, I almost dropped everything I was holding on set. It took me a few months before I said anything. But I did eventually. Because I didn’t think it was real.

“He’s my best friend. He knows. I don’t even have to say anything and he knows.”

“So, I’d just like to tell you that C is to me what R is to you.”

Soul-mates.

That’s what most people call them. Two people so entirely connected that separation is not possible. Not even if they were to try.

It started at the beach last year, at Yayu’s birthday. I stopped walking back to the car. My left knee was stinging with pain. I couldn’t bend my knee without it. Of course, MY knees are perfectly fine. I’ve never had problems with them. I used to dance. I have ankle problems because I overwork them but my knees are perrrrrfect. They joked that it was because of him and I laughed but I couldn’t help the thought it was true. The pain came and went, it never stayed for more than a day. But the fact that it even came was strange to me.

I woke up this morning with a burning elbow. My left elbow. And it remained for the day. And while I’m trying to study, it’s quite bothersome because I like to lean my head on my hand with a propped up elbow. So:

“Hey did something happen to your elbow?”
“Why?”
“Just answer the question.”
“My left elbow has always been weaker” — I had no idea of this — “It’s been hurting a lot recently”
“Okay. So don’t get weird but my left elbow has been hurting all day”
“How does that tie in with me?”

So I told him.

I don’t know if it means anything or if I’m right because….well I’ll never know. But I could believe, can’t I? That the only reason my freakin’ elbow is currently stinging with pain is because my best friend, who is thousands of miles away, has been having problems with his.

But I have to explain what he is to me for those who have no idea. Yes, we were together for a while — we broke up at the beginning of the year. We’d only known each other two years prior and even then, we barely spoke. Our relationship was spontaneous to say the least, and was something we both felt we had to do. As if the universe basically called for it. So it happened.

What always perplexed me about this relationship was the ability to know. I barely knew him but he knew the ins and outs of me. He could read me like a book and I could him. Now, it’s easy for people to read people as long as they’re literate in such a language. However, it was not that he could read me it was that he knew exactly what I was thinking without thinking it. He and I had this unspoken language that we would react to and a lot of the time, it wouldn’t surface until months later. But that was the problem between the two of us: we knew each other so well and understood each other so well, we felt we didn’t even need to talk about it. But of course, we needed to talk about it instead of solving the problems on our own….we should have done them together. That is where we failed and there’s no way in hell we’re going back to try that again.

He isn’t my everything. I’m not head over heels for him. And I don’t think of him before I sleep.

But he is my confidant. My go-to. The one I know I will always have, no matter what happens.

“You are my best friend forever. And the only one who I can truly say that it will stay that way”

I can’t explain the phenomena in words that doesn’t downplay it or make me sound like I’m crazy.

But it’s not something that he would ever deny.

“We are connected. We are one. I should hurt my finger tomorrow and see what happens to you.”

Mother of a son, my elbow better stop hurting when I wake up or I will be PISSED.

Z.

I’m suddenly reminded of Salvador. In about 19 hours we’ll be in a theatre doing what we do best: watch an animated with Megz.

So I’m on my usual Facebook sabbatical. This time, I’m not letting Spotify get in the way. I can use it on my laptop no problem, at least my offline playlists, but I just have nothing for the road which is why I’ve been paying for Spotify in the first place. I might have to find an alternative way to sign in because of this.

So many things have left my brain despite my want to write down my thoughts. Laziness. Negligence of myself. Whatever the hell. And now I’m here at the end of the day, start of the day, whatever, collecting my thoughts on the last 24 hours. 24 hours ago, I was definitely asleep or about to. I believe I got home from dinner around 1130.

Everyone who matters knows how to get a hold of me without Facebook so that’s not going to be a huge issue. I’m just going to assume that those who don’t bother don’t need me. But they all have to assume that a lack of response means #iaintgottimeforthat. Facebook is, of course, a distraction. And I don’t need the extra stress right now. It’s time to refresh and replenish myself and find my center. Those who matter will come forward. Those who care will not come forward with things that will stress me out. Those who love me will only come forward when they know I need them or if they need me or if they know I need to take a break.

No one will plead.

Yesterday I had a little spat with Yayu. Hey, that happens with siblings right? Brothers and sisters fight. But brother, you’ve tainted your name. It’s time for baby sister to come to terms with the fact that she’ll never get a big brother. So I’ll stop searching now. I love you but you’re not supposed to be anything like my real family. And brother, I’m sorry. Don’t beat yourself up. Don’t believe that you’ve done anything wrong. Don’t believe you need to change. It really isn’t you, it’s me. I can’t handle our friendship. So no, you can’t have your friend back.

I’m growing and I’m moving forward and I’ve said before that the saddest part of moving forward is the people you leave behind. Frankly, I don’t believe you can catch up. You seem to be stagnant, in a rut. And I don’t have the means nor time to help you get out of it. You have to find that within yourself. I apologize. Because I know already that I am a very bad friend.

People use people. I am no different. And I used you to help keep me sane, keep me stable. We have had a symbiotic sort of relationship. But it seems that we’ve reached a point in which you have nothing to offer me but stressful situations and a longing for a time when we used to have it good. But if you can’t even be complacent with where you are right now, then you will never be happy when you get to the place that it IS good. It is a shallow happiness. Fake. Nonexistent.

To add, you are the single person who has ever uttered the words to me “I just want to have my friend back”. That insults me. That insults you. No excuses. Natural selection, buddy. Survival of the fittest. And you claim to be “surviving” but I don’t think you are. Because survival insinuates not needing much to move forward. But you seem to be lying on the ground letting the elements keep you alive as they come to you, rather than being resourceful enough to push. Which is sad because you’re resourceful enough to do that.

I can’t help you. I can barely help myself. Stop relying on my return to keep yourself alive and becoming happy. No one else is doing that. They miss me, I know. I know that by the way Ed showed up at my house during a cancelled tea time, and Ferzan texts and tweets me “PENIS” on a random occasion and Ren comes out to me and tells me that he’s taken Thursday every day off for two months so he will have the time when I finally do. But no one else is begging for my return. And this is not the kind of begging I’m keen on.

So I don’t expect to hear from you while I’m on sabbatical, nor am I sure that I even care to hear from you. The very thought stresses me out.

I’m sorry that I’m not sorry.

Z.

“Good job. I didn’t hate it.”
“I did. Or well. Just that ending though.”
“You just don’t like open endings.”
“No, I don’t”
“I love that shit.”

At the start of our summer film, I remember detailing to two of the crew members about the one week period during the summer when I didn’t sleep and just reread and rewrote the scripts that I had written since middle school. Something that stuck out to me as I was doing this was the fact that every character based on me ended up alone for some reason. It wasn’t always that something had gone bad, it was just that for some reason things wouldn’t work out. Initially, there was much panic. As if I was looking to end up alone at the end of my life, as if I didn’t want to eventually settle down. But I know myself. While I am unafraid of walking the rest of my life without a husband, I want to eventually marry and have the thousand kids I long for.

It took me a couple of hours, and by the time I told the crew about this I had figured it out, to realize it: I like open endings. Maybe at the end of each piece things fall apart (not just romantically), but the end is still open. It insinuates that anything could happen at that point. The end of each story is really just a beginning. It recognizes that there is more to the story than what is. I never know the ending to any story so I never write one.

It’s not necessarily that I don’t like happy endings. It’s that I feel like happy endings aren’t realistic. Or. Not necessarily that they aren’t realistic but implies that that is the end of the story. There is never coverage of what happens AFTER the happy ever after. It implies “this is it, everything is perfect, nothing more to see here” but really there is ALWAYS something more to see. A happy ending is much too black and white while there is an entire universe of complexities waiting.

Happy endings leave people happy, sure, but it leaves them all chasing after that nonexistent happy ending. No one realizes that there will still be hardship after that second of complete happiness and just don’t want to take on the hardship. That’s why people end up believing they will never be happy — because they just don’t know how to find happiness in what is rather than what isn’t. That’s how we have so many people unhappy. This is why I would prefer a sad ending versus a happy ending: after a happy ending, we all assume the story ends there, but after a sad ending we are still left with the hope and belief that everything will get better.

Really, anything that ends with “we’ll see what happens next” has a good ending in my book. As long as the premise is tasteful, of course. Because the reality is, that the story never really ends.

The reality is as the lovely Mitch Albom puts it is that “all endings are also beginnings. We just don’t know it at the time…”

And really, your story is never really just your own. “…each affects the other and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one”

Z.

It would never matter the fact that people actually make their living from it. What matters is that it isn’t practical. It isn’t nursing, it isn’t teaching and it sure as hell isn’t computer programming. You tell someone that you want to own a business out of nowhere and they will give all the support in the world. Tell someone that you want to make films or make music and they will tell you that you won’t go fucking anywhere with that. Tell someone you want to change the world with your degree from medical school and they will give you a round of applause but you tell that same person you want to change the world with your bachelor’s in Fine Arts he will scoff.

We are artists. We look at the world and we try to open your eyes by mirroring it in the most creative ways possible. We don’t want to make money; if we did, we wouldn’t exist. Hell, we hate money. If we could figure out a way to do what we love without going bankrupt and with no strings, we’d do it every damn day. We aren’t here to make you happy; we’re here to make you think long and hard about the shit that you’re doing. We’re here to empathize and give you every reason to believe that you can make all the difference. We’re the good guys, we promise.

Okay so evidently on the list of things I have to do is to figure Xanga 2.0 out. And find the time to do so.

Today I may have officially reached my breaking point as seen by this beautiful video my dear partner in crime decided to post on instagram, which involves me crying and slipping under a table.

“I just don’t want you going cray cray”
“I know you have stuff to catch up on. Go ahead.”
“The only thing you need to worry about is relaxing.”
“I’m just concerned, okay?”

My social life though, is lagging very much behind. I’m not saying that I’m a thousand times busier than all of you. But it just feels like it. When you’re never off the clock for 2 jobs, have  a thousand projects to work on and are taking 19 credits at school then yeah I have basically no time. I barely have time for Tea every Wednesday. I didn’t even get to put work away like I had wanted to. And the thing I have to struggle with is the fact that if they can’t keep up or even try to understand that I’m bailing out because I have so much work to do, then I have  to leave them behind. I have no choice.

I need to get ahead of my schoolwork if I want to be able to clear my schedule for the film festival, which is the priority. I also have to train my coworker at the other job at the university. Having started a new project with someone with no experience is rather difficult. And I HAVE to abandon all things during the festival. I cannot work for it. I have to do work for the festival. Period. That never ends. I’m constantly doing something for the festival and it’s hard to keep up with everything, okay? I didn’t get to prepare for school like I was supposed to because we didn’t get the two week break we were supposed to. So I had to jump right into it and I’m pretty much already falling behind.

And I have to have everything organized until this week.

So yeah, sorry social life that isn’t within my immediate presence. I have to say goodbye to you. At least for now. If not for ever. I need you to understand that I don’t hang out with you not because I don’t want to and find my coworkers oh so fascinating. But because my coworkers are within my immediate grasp. My coworkers work with me and KNOW how busy I am because they SEE my work load. Because they know that they COME TO ME. I don’t have time to plan tea time like I used to. I don’t have time for anything like I used to and I need you all to understand that.

I’ve got a couple of things to work out personally before I put it all on hold. I need something to clear my head. Guess that’s why I run. And why I’m going to start a running blog.

For the next few weeks, I’m going to consider revealing my identity and making it known all around that I have a blog.

That is, if everyone can keep up.

“Ain’t nobody got time for that”

Z.

“So. They asked me about you. That boy’s night? They wanted me to spill about you.”
“Like what?”
“They were just asking me about you being a good girl, wanted some dirt.”
I processed this for a second.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t say shit. I wouldn’t do that.”

I smiled.

7 years ago, I was dubbed — and people still call me this — the nymphomaniac. I was totally down to party hardy and get all up in the grills of other girls, which I did to some extent.

But I’m not a “good girl” because I’m a Christian. Or well, I am. But it started prior to. I’m a “good girl” because I’ve seen way too many bad things.

As a kid, I saw the shit you people consume on a regular basis tear my family apart. Almost bleeding eyes were something I used to see almost every day — and not from weed. I didn’t think too much about it and almost ignored the fact that it was around me until I hit 16.

When I was 17 I came out of a relationship that was abusive and amounted to almost no trust. A huge part of that lack of trust was alcohol. Because to me, alcohol = lies. Wherever I went, alcohol made me very uncomfortable. You ask me back then to hang around the people I do now, I would have said no. The very same people who I love now would have completely disgusted me then. And it would take 19 before I would even lighten up a little about it. I still get flashbacks when someone takes it too far.

What happened to the girl who used to beg her best friend to kiss her by senior year? Who used to down wine coolers because that was the most action she was going to get until she started hitting parties with real drinks? Who could actually prove that she was a total freak without anyone questioning her?

She became traumatized by her own life. And then she got married to the Army and made herself comfortable there. It was her safe haven. It was something she could trust, something that was honorable. It was the safety and all of the comfort that she had been craving for prior. Then she found God and the rest is history.

I don’t have to prove shit to any of these assholes who rounded themselves up and tried to get the dirt that doesn’t exist on me. They are all of this world and I don’t want any part of that, as tempting as it is. Though my pride is shot from being unable to prove myself to be the girl I used to be, I have enough within myself to know that this is not where I belong. And knowing that, knowing Him is much more important to me than allowing for any of you to get to know me.

But even then, I don’t think you’d be able to freakin’ handle knowing me. So tough.

Z.