Take These Hands and Make Some Use

 I often ask myself "Who am I?" to speak, to share, to voice my opinion. 

I realized today that I am no one, but that I can become someone. 

I've had the tools at my disposal to elevate myself to a place where my voice can be heard. 

I just need to use these tools to create that voice, to make the person worthy of speaking and sharing. 

Once that elevation has occurred then I will be able to answer that initial question of "Who am I?".

I will be an author, a thinker, a creator, a storyteller, a listener, a scholar, a scribe, and eventually a sage. 

If you strive for mediocrity you will always succeed, if you strive for success you will fail until you succeed. 

What Do You Want From Me

Why after years and plenty of dismissals do you return to my thoughts? Entering my dreams and making feelings resurface. How did a blink of an eye turn into something that keeps returning over and over again?

Why am I paying any credence to any of these thoughts? I doubt they mean anything more than just regurgitating old feelings. Feelings that haven't been strong for almost a decade.

Is it the fact that the thought of you for so long was something I attached so much to? Is it because the prospect and the idea behind our chance meeting hold so much weight to my romantic idealist mind? The fact we met for the briefest of moments and weren't tied down by harsh realities until the moment passed?

The memory of that night is faded and warped by actions taken since then but I guess the underlying romance of it persists like a blinking light, the battery slowly dying, succumbing to the darkness around it.

I haven't wanted you in years nor do I believe that there would be anything for us if we were to meet again. But the dreams still come at the most random of times.

No contact for almost two years and yet.

It's annoying to say the least. I wonder if you'll persist inside me for the rest of my life. I wonder if all my lost loves will haunt me and taunt me. If you and a few others who've occupied such a large part of my heart will walk with me in my dreams forever.

I guess the hurt comes from not having any one of you walking with me while I'm awake.

Only Death Awaits

I don't wish to burden those I love with my woes. I have many and they weigh more than I can handle. The logical thing would be to ask for help. And I've done as much but that help has only gotten me so far. It seems I need to start moving forward under my own power but I feel as if that power is lost to me.

I've lost my will to live. Seeing that my life will only be these woes over and over again. I wish to end my life and rid myself of them.

I've done things, I've made friends, I've had love, and I've done good, but that's not enough to keep me moving now. I've been in my own way for the majority of my life and now I see that the only way to get rid of that is to get rid of myself.

I know there will be those who mourn my death. I apologize for that. I don't want to hurt you, I simply want to end my own hurt.

I have become a stain upon my own life. A do nothing, with no future, with no capability for longevity and a failure time and time again.

The last one I loved is better off without me. The friends I have are better off without me. My family is better off without me.

I am nothing but a sack of meat with too many woes. Fear of failures that repeat again and again.

I've lost my willingness to try again. To start again. To live again.

As I wither away I contemplate my own death. How will I achieve this final failure? Since isn't that what suicide is? Succumbing to pain and disdain. Pain of life and disdain for oneself and the life they inhabit?

Not being able to overcome oneself to see a future. To walk the path. To care.

I've lost my desire to care. I've lost my willingness to strive for new heights. I've lost my will.

If it was possible I'd will my heart to stop beating. I'd switch my brain and body off like a light and turn to dust.

But that isn't possible so I must take more drastic measures. I must spill blood in one way or another. And cause great pain to end all pain.

My pain. My failures.

I am not worthy of the rewards I have been bestowed. I will never be worthy. So I must take myself out of the running.

I will end my life, one day. When, I cannot say. Sooner rather than later, at least I hope.

In Retrospect: The Finale

The past three years have been a whirlwind of ups and downs. It all started on the heels of the best summer of my life and has culminated in what I could probably say has been the worst year of my life. To go from such heights of feeling total and utter emotional fulfillment to a level of despondence that had the knife at my throat. To see all that I desired and loved wither away until all I could hope to desire was death. To still be reeling at the detriment of my own well being.

I have loved and lost much since that first drunken night expressing feelings that lead to nothing.

Well not nothing. Because of that confession I saw myself leave my family home to venture out on my own to be semi self sufficient. I made plans to create a life with someone and felt love spring anew.

Though all those plans and feelings and hopes have been consumed by the passing of time. No future existed with ties to those lines and because of the ultimate failure of the endeavor I feel bereft of the will to live beyond it.

I've been in a cycle of self consuming suicidal tendencies, anxious paralysis, and fear of loss. Too much of a coward to end it all and too much of a coward to make things better.

I feared that a year hence my last update things would be different. I could never have imagined that they'd be the same in so many ways. With these choices I feel like a hamster on a wheel.

Yet, things don't all remain. I lose with each revolution. I've lost friends and love. I've lost prospects for the future. I've lost my will to carry on.

Though that string has been weak for years. I've attempted to rebuild it with each passing day. With each new interaction. And in 2017 I felt I was going in the right direction. But damn it all if I didn't trip myself up in the process.

I wasn't crippled by a relationship. I wasn't lost in the depths of depression. I wasn't wishing for death. Until I made that fatal mistake. Those drunken words.

All ups since that day have been false positives. Leading me longer down this road of self destruction I thought I was off all those years ago.

I've sullied my haven and now I feel that is nothing that can bring me back from this self inflicted hell.

People are better off without me. Not the me they have in their minds, not the me they've known and come to love, the me that exists right now sitting in this chair lamenting life. A mentally crippled soul, courting death with each passing breath.

I love you but that love will only go so far.

Time Is Running

Two people occupy my mind:

- someone who wants to travel, have no anchors, no children, no ties that bind, except the companionship of a lover.

and...

- someone who wants deep roots, a home full of love and children, a foundation, and a wife, living a traditional life.

I can see happiness in both these lives. I can see a future down both these paths. I don't know which one I'm on however; which roll of the dice that has been cast before me.

Perhaps, I'm on a different path entirely that sees me not achieving either of those above.
Perhaps, the two people inside me will cease to exist after battling for dominance.

I just need to feel the spark to know which track my train is on.

new year new me

when you get up in the morning and you turn on the light the person you see in the mirror is the same person who went to bed the night before. it doesn't matter how much you drank last night, it doesn't matter whose bed you step out from, it doesn't matter what city you're in. you are the same. nothing about your circumstances will change until you change who you are. your life won't improve. your prospects won't increase. your pain won't disappear...until you change. 

you could move to a different state. date a new person. find a new job. start a new diet. make new friends. buy new clothes. listen to new music. write different words. see new sights. 

but if you don't change internally none of those things will matter. 

you don't get fixed from the outside. you get fixed from the inside. 

that's something i failed to realize. 

In Your Arms I Feel Alive

It's a terrible thing to not know who you are, but it is equally terrifying to actually know. To know your weaknesses, your faults. To know the cause of each mistake and each downfall that has come from your own soul.

I'm not as independent as I claim to be. In certain aspects I can hold my own. Small fleeting instances. But in the grand scheme of things I'm not independent.

I thrive when I'm with someone, made whole by another person. All worry and doubt falls away in the eyes of a woman who loves me and shows it. I am a better man when I am in love and loved in return. Complete. Secure. Happy.

I am in chaos when I am alone. Grasping at straws and worried what the next day will bring. Full of self doubt and self contempt. Destroyed by my loneliness. Afraid I will end up this way for the rest of my life.

I've always been a romantic. Someone who strives for love, who dies for love. Someone who gives more than he gets, and gives even more the less he receives. I pour my heart and soul into a bond with another person with little to show for it.

This is all I know. Each endeavor is spent to win over someone, to win their love, and finally feel whole again. Writing poems, bending over backwards, looking past faults, and clinging to the light that is love.

No matter what I give, however, I never find what I need for more than a fleeting moment.

How do you build a life off something so fleeting? You can't. It's not possible.

So what is someone like me to do? Wait on the back burner for love to come around? Keep searching for new avenues hoping one will last longer then the past? Or give up entirely?

If you don't burn as passionately in love as me you won't understand this problem. Not many do. And sadly it's too much for some.

I hate admitting I'm the type of person that needs someone to be happy. Especially when all those around me say, you need to love yourself first. Is it wrong to say I get my worth from the smile, the soft words, the lips of another? To gain confidence in myself when someone is rooting for me? To feel love when I'm pouring my heart out at the feet of someone else?

It's all I know, all I've ever known. I'll keep being this way no matter what happens.

Until it kills me.

In Retrospect pt. 2

A year ago today, I spoke of love with secret lips. Wondering what it would be like if I could sweep you off your feet and out of your bad situation to show you a better world that included me. I wondered if it was wrong to tell someone you loved them if they weren't alone.

For you...I'm glad I did.

Since that time, there have been many nights of silent longing, hopeful wanting, pain from distance, silence and repentance, intimacy and connection. I've kissed your lips, like I said I would, loved you like I promised I might, and thought of you with open heart and open mind.

It's been a long year from "just so you know, it's you" to where we are now. A long year of love and pain and strife. A long year, that I wasn't sure would end here.

It's not hard to reiterate these feelings for they have been strong and I'm sure you're tired of hearing it by now. But an anniversary such as this should be cited, even if it doesn't mean much in the long run.

A year ago we weren't much, just friends talking about a fantasy future, conversations where I made you blush and wish for me never to stop.

Now things are a little different.

We tried our hand at something and it wasn't what we had planned, but we both got something out that I think we needed. In a different life it would have been all the things we wished and hoped and dreamed it would or could be, but here we got what we did. and that's okay.

I got to be with you, which is what I wanted. I just hope you got what you wanted as well.

A year from now things will likely be starkly different. Whether that means we are more or less than we are at this moment I can't say. I do know that things will undoubtedly change as they always do. It changed from being nothing to something, so it will change again.

Here's to another year.

Rewind

I often think about the end of time. I try to imagine what it would look like to stand at the edge of existence. I see a wall that shimmers like black water on a starlight night. I touch it and its cold but I feel nothing on my fingertips.

Will there be eyes to see at the end of time? I doubt it. Whatever that end looks like there won't be a witness to it, save the celestial bodies floating in negative space inching ever closer to their nonexistence.

I often think about the nature of time itself. I try to imagine that no choices matter as we progress down this track. In this life then becomes a series of pictures playing slowly before our eyes. No motion from our bodies make the pictures change, no outside force pulls at these strings.

What then do we do in the meantime?

Drift slowly down the river...

I touch the black waters, twinkling with the light of a million stars. My hand is cold. What does it mean?

stfu

Why are people constantly passive aggressive on facebook? Posting their issues and drama and would be problems on their timeline?

Are those words and memories things you want to recall in the future? Are you that desperate for a crying shoulder you turn to the cold blue screen?

I get it. We all have problems and dealing with them is hard. I've had my fair share and true, in my past I too posted passive aggressive bullshit from time to time. But that doesn't mean it's okay to do.

You're going through a struggle, You're dealing with stress, You're dealing with problems innumerable to you. I understand.

Just don't post it online. Deal with it offline. That's where it exists. Posting it in a short line, saying how much pain you're in, or how hard your days are, won't fix those problems. It just creates a tag with a ribbon that will exist for eternity.

Jettison the calls for attention, leave behind the need to whine, and grow up.

We don't care about your problems as much as you wish we did.

Keep it off the internet, and ask a person for a hug.

And so on.

As the world turns and my life progresses the more I become attuned to others who lived before me, had love and lost before me, who suffered before me. Who died before me. I feel the same pains and the same pleasures. Have the same worries and distractions. The same doubts and convictions. We repeat and repeat as the sun spits its hot light from its center to our eyes. And this is fine.

I have lived a thousand lives in rapid succession and died a thousand more in repetition. All the sights and sounds of the world have been heard by me. All the thoughts and secrets have been shared by me. I am here in the garden, I am there on the field. I am standing on a balcony on a snowy afternoon in Stuttgart, I am buried in the cemetery behind St. Luke's Cathedral. I'm flying over the Atlantic from Boston to Stockholm. Floating on a wave from Hong Kong to Sydney. There's a breath in my lungs filled with sand from the Sahara. Heat on my head from the humidity in the Amazon. A bite of rhubarb pie in my mouth homemade in Nottingham. A kiss on my cheek from a girl in Lisbon. A hand in my hand on the streets of Moscow. A love in my heart for the people before me. A hate in my soul for the darkness in us all.

Through them I am, through me they are. The connection isn't seen, it is felt. I can feel it in every word I read, every thing I write, every thought I think, every voice I speak. I feel it.

We are one, we are no one. I am everyone, I am no one.

The lives of the past live inside me, and I will live on in the future self.

So it goes.

I finished reading Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut at 5:30 am on a Wednesday morning, some twelve hours after purchasing the short piece. I laughed, I reacted, and was taken in most by his character Billy Pilgrim going on a pilgrimage through his life in time. The anti-war sentiments weren't lost on me completely but it speaks to the difference between 1969 and now, that I'm more intrigued by the science fiction aspects than the actual true war aspects of the story that captivated, infuriated and made move the feet of so many youths in that time of publishing.

The US was in Vietnam, a war no citizen wanted to wage. Had come out of the second great war, filled with atrocities perpetrated by all sides, bar none, which we felt justified in committing for the eradication of Nazism. Were moving forward into a new age of information and technology, where I find myself now. In a world post moon landing, post globalization, post internet boom, post war, post peace, post intellectual highs, and post societal lows, or so we hope.

In reading reviews or critiques of the aforementioned novel I come across words like fear, and guilt and forbidden things. Talk of how certain things can't be written about to protect the soul of society from the ills of its protector. The world I occupy is free from that protection and has become more awake and cynical to the ebb and flow of big governments and the wars we wage, specifically. It makes me wonder what things are too taboo to write about now. What thing in twenty years hence will be wrote about shedding light on this time like Vonnegut does with the bombing of Dresden, Germany, which he was witness to.

We have first hand accounts of the war in Iraq, and Afghanistan. The tallies of civilians killed in Syria and the truth behind the curtain of North Korea. We know the bad things that are being done now, right now, because our information engine spits it at us so frequently we are numb to its affects. In the past time information was kept from us to keep us safe and to keep us ignorant to the truth. Now we are bombarded so often, so ferociously, we can't find an emotion to attach to it all. We move through life with an inherent cynicism towards events. At least compared to the world back in 1969, the year we landed on the moon, the year DHL became a company, the year we got Slaughterhouse Five and the American people first laid their eyes on the horrors brought by that fire bombing.

What novel written now or twenty years hence would excite us or destroy us as this novel is said to have done to the public upon its release? What horror exists now still shrouded in so much shadow we can't even guess at it? What truth lingers undiscovered or untold by a fair few for fear of retaliation from the powers that be?

Perhaps I'm not intelligent enough to venture a guess. For I am just a baby stuck to the tit of information, sucking the day away. My eyes are closed and the world around me spins as the sweet sour milk of "news" fills my bosom with disdain and fear. Perhaps, there is no more hidden truth, none of that like anyway, left to break free to the world. Maybe the veil isn't real, it's imaginary and the true veil is the sea of information, our head bobbing just below the surf, with no attempt to gasp for air.

The timeline will forever be fixed and the events forever repeating as the track goes along. Until we all perish with the sands of time.

Someone Else's Sins

All this baseness. I wish to wither away completely. Old joys hold no sway on my heart any longer. The day hath passed to night and another day is dawning to replace it. Only faint memory remains and with each passing moment the memory fades. It becomes a shadow of its former self and causes me only pain. A throbbing disdain that rushes to the back of my eyes with each new remembrance. I yearn to jettison these woes completely but I am not the master of them, not yet. They ebb and flow just out of reach to push them away and send them to the abyss. A nagging in my mind that echoes past hopes, drowning out my will to move and see brighter sunshine over the hills. The sounds produced in the echo confound my heart and emblazon my hate. Lack of caring doesn't wholly relieve me of these burdens. I still cling to the threads of the past, not willing or simply incapable of cutting them free for good. Once the connection is made it's as if hooked to bone and sewn into the fabric of my being. To cut them free would be to cut apart my own soul. To cast them away would be to send away all my hopes and futures. To say goodbye is to shut the doors I had swung open with a smile and heart full of love. It is cold now in that hall where the door once stood. The walls constrict, not letting me move from them. There's no escape. A recourse exists: burn the structure down. But where is the tinder? Where is the match? From whence will I conjure a flame strong enough to destroy this place? Not in my soul, for that flame has gone out. It's weathered its final storm. Now the ashes are snuffed out. Cold and base. All that remains.

Roulette

I scarcely want to write the words in my heart because all feelings are temporary, but writing them gives them some tinge of immortality. A shout in the dark still makes noise. A voice in the twilight hours is still heard by the walls and held in their memory. Only in the vacant halls of the mind are feelings safe to live and die in solitude. The true darkness of thought. 

I'm in many ways, both hopeful and deathly afraid of the future. Conscious that small decisions impact the next decade of my life. 

This came to a realization in me during a lengthy conversation with a friend. I'm no stranger to retracing my life and my decisions only to say "what if" regarding some big change, but this conversation shed light on a small, almost insignificant decision made a little over a decade ago. 

I'll recount that now:

In the winter of 2008 I turned 18 years old and moved out of my father's home and started living with my aunt and uncle. I drove to work and school and lived that way for two months, until I could start living with my mother. In the same weekend, I moved, I lost my job, and started dating a new girl. In the summer of 2008 I was simply living and not working. I did however apply for a few jobs here and there since it is hard to go on dates with no money. I had an interview with the management of the still under construction Rave Cinemas in Florence. And here is where the small decision comes into play. On my application I put my home phone number instead of my cell phone number. A rather insignificant thing right? Well, I never got a phone call from that job and eventually got a job at Amazon, and spent my off hours playing World of Warcraft and browsing the internet a little too much. So much, that I ended up applying for a film school, since I couldn't attend Northern Kentucky University in the fall like I had hoped to. I subsequently spent two years at that film school. 

However, it turns out, two months after I interviewed with the movie theater, my mother found a voicemail seemingly hidden on the home phone answering machine. We had had issues with the phone for a long time, not ringing or dropping calls or not showing it had messages. I remember sitting at the computer and hearing her say, "By the way, you got that job at the movie theater." It being two-three months since the call came I didn't see it feasible to follow up on that job and thus my life played out how it has.

In thinking about this little thing I realized some threads would be different in my life. 

Had I put my cell phone on the application I would have received the call that I had been given the job. I would have worked nights, presumably, so I'd have less time to be on the internet. I'd have more money, so I'd spend more time with my girlfriend, and less time on the internet. I'd be out of the house and too busy, to be on the internet. Essentially the biggest change would be that I wouldn't have applied to the film school. With that change I wouldn't have gone to that school, gotten into debt, met the people I know, and a whole host of threads wouldn't exist. 

All because I put one phone number down instead of another. 

It makes me wonder what other small choices, innocuous in nature, have shaped my life. I can track down most threads but for the past ten years I never realized a phone number would affect this much of my life. 

I'm now sitting thinking about the future, my next summer, my prospects for life and wondering: How did I get here, where do I go from here? 

My heart is heavy with the possibilities. 

Contentious Content

I've been thinking a lot recently about my media channels I've started on Youtube and Soundcloud and here. About the things I've made so far and the things I hoped to make in the future. I'm not sure now how strong in my resolve I am about these things.

I have my own opinions, my own flawed views and my own biases flowing forth from my mind that sometimes I wish to express to the world. But the world we live in is afraid of genuine questioning, afraid of new ideas, and afraid to give a stage to something it feels is against it. The world we live in is an ever growing echo chamber to blind adherence and flame wars.

Not to say my ideas for content are controversial, I mostly want to talk about the things I love, History, Writing, Books, Media. But even those avenues are mine fields nowadays. No dissent is allowed on any front, no amount of differing opinions is permitted.

The discourse is dying.

I can't even have a rational conversation about a television show I've loved since I was a child without being called out for being fake. A television show. What ever happened to civility? Respect? And a willingness to see the world from the other person's point of view even for a second?

That's dying on both sides of the line.

I've tried to reform myself in many ways over the past two years. Politically, socially, ideologically, philosophically, but all the changes I've made in myself are still infantile. I still fall into old issues in discussions and get anger fast when people don't agree.

I suppose that's just human nature.

Although, we must not resign ourselves to saying "It's just human nature" because we are capable of changing our natures. To ascend our natures and become something better.

I don't know how much I'll post on Youtube or Soundcloud or if it'll even be anything anyone will want to hear/see. But I know on my end I'll still learn new things and take the time to reflect on my own life and the world around me.

3:10 to Salvation

We live in an ever changing world. With every sunrise and sunset things are moving, shifting, evolving. Minds are closed and opened like the valves of a heart, beating in time with the motion of clock hands. Ticking us further and further into the future. 

We are on a track, a train of movement, carried away by the ebb and flow of time. Nothing can take us off this track but we can't affect where it goes. We are the conductors of our destiny and we must take an active role in our futures. 

Sitting in silence and watching the world go by in flash out the windows is no way to be in this ever changing world. It is incumbent on us to take an active role. It is our duty as conscious beings to reflect and gain insight on our world and use that knowledge to help align our paths. 

We are stuck on a path of the future. There is no getting off the train, but we can decide it's trajectory. We can affect its path. We must. 

Prospects - The Journey Ahead

This is the first time in the life of the blog where I have posted something every day for a month. It's crazy considering in the 7 or so year span of it I'd have huge gaps in time of no posts at all. I didn't post anything for an entire year before.

Why have I been posting more in my blog? 

I've been trying to write more, produce more and work more towards writing as a career. Creative writing isn't simply or easy to make profitable. It takes a lot of practice, like any skill, to hone my abilities.

I've been writing a lot more poetry, attempting to write more shorts, and using this platform to flesh out ideas I hope to use in the future.

It's also an easy way to present my work to readers, people I hope will give me feedback on my work.

This blog started out as a way to vent my problems, used more in the first few years as more of an internet journal than a writing platform but recently I've decided to forgo my old uses and concetnrate more on writing.

Will I post every day in February? 

Probably not. One of the things that this month has showed me is that in the pursuit of trying to produce on such a busy schedule I'm not able to produce the quality that certain levels of time off can give me. I don't plan on taking huge amounts of time off between posts but they will be come more infrequent.

Why am I telling you this?

Well if you're reading this you're one of the handful of people I've given this link to. I value you as a reader and I value the time you take to read these pieces. I figured I should take a second to inform you of the future and say a little thank you.

My posts have been more read in the past two months than the past 7 years I've been posting. Mostly due to the fact I'm writing more prose/poetry than ever before and that's easier to give out to people and the fact that I think I've honed my skills a considerable amount in the in interim. My writing is much better to read, and having palatable writing that people enjoy is a good motivator to keep writing and to keep progressing.

I hope that over the next year I can learn more, produce more quality writing, and get closer to my readers (You) with my craft.

I love to write and I love to share my stories. I'm just glad I have a few people who enjoy them as well.

Thanks again.

Tripp Lake 2017

My first summer at Tripp saw the death of an old version of myself and the birth of something new. A man that is more confident in his own skin, proud of the person he can be towards others, and happy with the life that lay before him. I saw a stark line in the sand between the old me and the new me because of that place and the people and experiences in it.

In last 2016, I went to England to visit my then girlfriend, and we both decided to return to Tripp in 2017 for a second summer. Initially to spend it together but after our break up my reasons changed. I wanted to return because I wanted to see the kids again and be a teacher again and hopefully get a second dose of growth.

From December to May of 2017 I worked with one thought in my mind, I'd go to camp one last time hopefully see a new level of growth and return to my home in the fall to see myself start to succeed in my life.

When I got to camp, a week earlier than everyone else, I was greeted by three friends from the first summer, my eventual bunk mates from Woods 7. Josh, Mason, and Esteban welcomed me home with open arms as we goofed off and did maintenance around the camp, feeling like (as the returners) we were the hotshots. Running around on golf carts, taking care of business and setting ourselves up for the best summer of our lives.

As time went by, I was greeted by more old friends and the reunion made my heart swell with excitement. A good amount of people from my first summer returned and I couldn't have been happier. There were moments to reminisce and moments to meet the new counselors and make them feel at home. The first two weeks were amazing and that was before the kids arrived.

I recall one instance when a new counselor asked me how many years I had been at camp. I said this was my second year and they said "It seems like you've been here a lot longer." And I took comfort in that. I was only a second year counselor but people came to me with questions and concerns and found solace in my company feeling I had been a camp goer for five years or more. I think that just goes to show how much I grew from my first summer. The confidence that was built and that continues to grow as time goes on.

After the first few weeks of pre-camp the girls arrived and it felt like seeing 300 daughters coming to visit. By the end of my first summer I had learned and remembered the names of every girl from the first three age groups (Juniors-Subs), and I planned to learn and remember every girls name by the end of this summer.

Spoiler alert - I did.

I picked up my role as Archery counselor as if I had never left and spent the previous 10 months not working with children. Frankly, the whole time I was in Maine, ever since crossing the border, I felt like I hadn't spent any time away. Everything came flooding back and I felt truly that I was coming home.

The first summer saw me attempt and fail many times at being a good teacher. It was my first real attempt at it and it was a struggle. But while my first year saw many failures, my second summer is marked with many many successes.

I saw girls grow as athletes in their perseverance to improve. Many positive bonds were made and I saw the pure excitement a child has at succeeding from her own willpower. It melted my heart to see the smiles on their faces and the excitement they showed for wanting to do Archery that year with me and Mackenzie, (my co-counselor).

I felt that we had made a real connection with them, all the girls and not just the young ones. A real desire to succeed and have fun at a sport some of them the year previous didn't really care for or try to be good in.

Aside from the girls, I also saw an increase in my responsibilities when it came to administration either directly or indirectly imposed on me by my superiors.

I was tasked with leading trips, something I didn't do the year before, and I became an ear and arm for my co-counselors in the sports department. We saw a cohesiveness we didn't have the year before and it felt great to be a part of a team and not just in our own little box on the outskirts of camp. (Archery is far removed from the rest of the camp)

Again I saw myself grow as a leader, a teacher, a friend, and a person anyone could come to to talk about their problems. I felt a level of confidence I had never felt before and a level of contentment I had never felt. I had found my place and felt like I had finally grown up.

So it was sad to leave this past summer and return home but I had a resolution to take what I had learned and apply it to my life at home. The life I had never truly been happy in.

The bad thing is when I'm "home" all the progress I make at camp seems to fade and I'm clawing to find my footing again.

Camp has shown me yet again the man I can be and the person I hope to spend the rest of my life as. I just hope I can find him in myself and keep him around.

Tripp Lake 2016

(I started this in 2016 but never finished it)

How can I best describe my summer? It started out shitty before I got the call from Tripp to be a counselor. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with my time. I was still pining over a girl that would turn out to be a waste of my attention and I was wallowing in my rut.

When I got the call from Tripp I was in a supply closet and I jumped from excitement. The person I was with was confused but I told her and her first comment was "You better come back!"

Tripp Lake Camp, what I've been eluding to, is a girls summer camp in Poland, ME. Yes, Maine. 16 hours away from my house up in the woods, as my friend puts it, the Great White North. A year prior my friend Tony went to the camp and the following year he asked me to apply as he thought I'd be a good fit. That I'd get a lot out of it and appreciate it.

The phone call came in May but I applied back in March. Once the opportunity first arose I was super excited and ready to go do it that weekend. As time went on though my negativity rose and I wanted to withdraw my application and just fall down into my hole. Luckily, for my negative side, I didn't get a call like I thought I would and the feeling subsided. I made plans for that summer, shitty though they might be, and was set when that phone call came.

I told my bosses at the library and they agreed it was a good experience not to let slip by. They granted me time off to pursue it as now my mind was back to being excited. I had my interview and accepted the position as Archery counselor.

"Archery? Wait what? Do you even know how to shoot a bow?" - everyone I told.

Yes I do. Not very well and for not very long but yes. Plus I had the power of the internet to learn what I didn't know. I spent the next month until June 13th learning as much as I could about Archery (Thank you Nusensei) and felt prepared enough to go.

I left my house at 5am on June 13th and arrived at my Aunt's house in Connecticut that night. After skipping all the tolls and almost having a panic attack because of Maryland's roads, I made it to my first stop that summer.

I spent the next day visiting my cousin, her child and husband and shopping with my uncle. It was nice to be away from home and with other family. By this point my negativity was mostly gone, probably still stuck in my room at home.

After one more night I set out to Maine. The four and a half hour drive up through Mass, past Boston, NH, and then finally getting into Maine. I remembered cash this time and paid my tolls, slowly making my way north from Portland not knowing what to expect or what I'd see. After almost pulling onto Tripp Lake Rd (not the right road) I made my way to Tripp Lake CAMP Rd. (the right road) and made my first of what would be many trips up and down that road. (Author's Note: When I typed trips just then I put two p's.)

I pulled into the visitor parking and sat for a second. It was all quiet and I was worried that I'd be wandering around. There was no one to greet me, not that I called ahead. I got out of my car and started to walk down towards the front gate, stopped, realized I should probably bring my paperwork with me and went back to my car. Thankfully, either through age or my new found nihilism no dread or nervousness overcame me.

I retrieved my paperwork and walked onto campus for the first time.

I saw a group of three girls walking towards me and they came to my aid as they could see the level of confusion on my face at how lost I was. They pointed me in the right direction and went with me inside.

One of the girls, Emmy, said "You're Matt aren't you?" I said yes, and she responded, "Yes I knew it." And from that moment I felt at ease, that I wasn't in a foreign place anymore. Just that simple interaction set my mind from reeling at feeling like a fish out of water. They knew me, at least she did, someone whom I hadn't met yet. And she was nice.

The next few days progressed rather quickly (like the majority of the summer), I met a large swath of people from around the US and abroad, mostly British men and women, and started to feel more and more that I had entered into a new life. A new life so far removed from the bad thoughts and things I had back home.

Even before the girls arrived at the camp I started to feel myself changing, growing and seeing myself in a new light. Seeing myself through the other counselors eyes.

The summer wasn't devoid of stress however, I woke up many nights in a confused state thinking I had forgotten to do something for the kids and woke up my bunk mates many times. I also didn't escape completely from my darkness, still thinking negatively, and how this might be my last summer alive.

Thankfully, through new friends, I felt a great change in my heart that would eventually evolve to destroy that darkness inside me for good.

I woke up most days feeling refreshed and ready for a brand new day, without the old feeling of dread. I lost a lot of weight, felt my confidence grow and witnessed slowly but surely a new chapter in my life begin.

Tripp Lake Camp saved me from my darkness in 2016. I have a lot to live for now because of it. New friends, new family, new people that I love with my whole heart.

Thanks, Dad II

I made another rant about metal music to go along with my latest post.

You can find it here.

Metal and Me by No Menthol