I'm twenty-three now, and I'm still alive.

Not much has changed, but I may write a little soon.

2/3

Best 2/3. You know when you are playing Rock, Paper, Scissors against someone for something and you play best two out of three? If you lose the first two, your opponent has already won, and there is no third game. I have had two serious relationships in my past. In both of them, the amazing women I was blessed with changed. We aren’t talking good, productive, life choices change here. This is “what the fuck just happened and why are you doing this” type change. One went from a meat eating, christian, non-drinker to a vegetarian drug addict and got married to someone else basically within a year. The other went from an extremely nice girl, more in love with me than I was with her, (I loved her a lot by the way,) to the kind of chick that doesn’t want you to know her friends. And she started lying…. a lot.

…If you lose the first two, your opponent has already won, and there is no third game. After about two and a half years, both of these women changed into monsters. I don’t blame them for everything. I can’t, I’ve said to both of them that an argument can’t exist with only one person. It’s never specifically one persons fault. I believe there is something about myself, some character trait, that causes women to eventually change directions. I am trying to make this sound as self-critical as possible. There is something in me that changes girls. Some chemical that they react with. I don’t entirely blame myself, because this isn’t chemistry, and every action is a choice of your own, but I will never say that I am blameless. I’ve lost both these women. I have failed to keep them with me. Not only that, but some part of me has changed them into shells of the beautiful people I knew them as. Not to say they are horrible now, they are just not who I fell in love with in the past. Seeing sporadic, unwanted and unexpected change in those closest to you is the hardest thing a person can go through. After these two losses, I feel that I have lost enough times to know better. And I really, really don’t want to do that to another amazing girl.

…If you lose the first two, your opponent has already won, and there is no third game. This girl is really my MO in women, too. As much of a puzzle as she is, I can clearly see that much. She’s exactly what I look for: great taste in music, appreciates literature, and still has remnants of her youthful innocence. That gives me pause more than anything else. No woman will truly be changed by me as effectively as one that is similar to the others. I worry for her well-being. The last thing this earth needs is another made-by-me monster.

But she’s so god damned amazing…

I'm so sorry.

I have lost it.

I have lost my mind.

I have recently developed a severe case of emetophobia - the fear of vomiting.

I wake up every night and have panic attacks that can last anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours.

I hate myself.

I can't do anything anymore.

I can't ride in a car, I have to be driving. I can't work for more than five hours. I can't sleep. i can't eat without worrying about getting food poisoning. I can't drive in traffic. I can't go to theme parks, or drink soda. I can't laugh, it moves my stomach too much, and makes me worry. I can't enjoy a party. I'm taking more meds than I ever have in my life: Anxiolytics, vitamins, sometimes dramamine. I see the doctor monthly, I have an appointment with a GI Specialist on thursday, just in case any of the nausea is real.

Please someone help me. Please someone relate. Please someone take this away from me. Please God.

I feel alone. Foreign in my own house, my room, my own skin. I can't do this too much longer. It's hard. Impossible.

And I can't write while I'm panicking. I can't hardly think straight. Dear God, why is this happening? How did this happen?

JestemHolden

I have received a couple of emails recently that made me think a lot. And I apologize to you for not responding in a timely manner at all. I honestly can only write this when I'm alone, and that doesn't happen as often as it should.

I'm tired of sorting the massively important emails you are sending me out of a sizable lake of emails I really don't need to read or reply to. I will, of course, still read and reply to all the emails you can send me, I just feel extraordinarily guilty about not responding as fast as I should. *Sigh,* so I made an AIM account. I'll keep it online whenever I'm alone, so if you see me online, I want to talk to you.

I'm worried about whether I'll still be who I want to be without being able to proofread, but I can at least try it for the time being.
So, if you want to tell me something, you can email me. If you want to talk to me, you can instant message me.

Taking the technological approach to this is goddamn awful and I'm sorry. I just need to talk to you guys, and I can't find another way of doing it.

Email, as always: BrAveryK@Gmail.com
AIM: JestemHolden

Till again we feel the same,
H

At least he didn't die young. I never got to meet him, though with his mentality I think he probably would have just hit me. Someone should, and who better to do it?

I wish I could have at least seen him. He was a good man, even if he doesn't think so. And there's little more respect I could possibly have for him.

Rest in Peace, J.D. Salinger.

Away

I want nothing more than to be who I was before, but in my current circumstances.

It seems with the advent of Amanda leaving, and a new, more beautiful girl who seems to put up with me, I have lost the urge to better myself. Without the constant insecurities, I don't feel like I need to be someone better than who I am. That urge is something I have always wanted to keep around. The thought of losing it is daunting, saddening. Hopeless, in a way, if I can want something that bad and still lose it.

But now, I am trying to make more time alone. More time to think. With a roommate, a girl, and friends who basically live here, it's hard to get time alone from all the people in my life. Harder still to explain to people why you need it. I need to find things in my life than inspire me to be exactly who I was. In a stupid, contradictory way, I was the happiest I had ever been at the lowest points of my life. (I use the word 'happy' tenderly here.)

But I need more than that. If you connect at all to the way my posts make you feel, if you can hear most of the words here read in your voice, email me. Tell me that I've done something more than pointless.

I never thought I would be the one running at the cliff through the rye. I never thought I would slip away from myself, and become so bland, so improper in my own skin. I hate it.

braveryk@gmail.com

worth

I am disgusting. I am a creature of bad habit. I have nothing to live for, and I have entwined my life with nothing important enough to die for. I slip and fall without noticing because I'm so used to it. I treat no one with respect, and yet expect it from everyone else. I have never done anything right. I am not doing anything right. I will never do anything right. My life is waste. I am trash, garbage, and sewage. I will never be positive about it. I will never think anything I do is worth more than the time I wasted and the people I distracted.

This is my life. There are many like it, but this one is mine. Without my life, I am worthless. Without me, my life is nonexistent.

there is nothing worth doing anything for. Science AND religion are wrong.

Lucy the Backwards Healer.

"Just keep listening. It's important that you keep listening."

It's harder to post in this blog anymore. I don't want it to be. This blog used to be a huge part of my life. Now it's hard to even type. I blame a couple of reasons:

1) I may be moving on, whether or not I want to. Life has an annoying way of doing that, without you wanting it or even knowing about it.

2) People I care about very much now know about this blog. Every word I type has a terrible effect on those people. I guess maybe I was hoping they would eventually assume I never updated anymore.

I'm sorry to anyone my absence may have been detrimental to. There are those few I have been emailing back and forth, talking things out with. But now that I don't live in Seattle, now that that stage of my life is over, it's much easier to be a normal teenager. Some regular kid who spends his time with friends, or at his job making rent. Trying to do life normally.

That's never who I wanted to be, I don't want to be like everyone else, pretending life is something easy. Pretending I'm okay here, living it. All I want to do is encourage you not to fall into a regular life. Do NOT spend your time talking to friends, shopping, going to school and working and making yourself believe that you don't have any free time. The years of your life you waste doing this you won't remember later. They won't produce stories you tell your kids. They won't help you be a decent human. Go do something out of the ordinary, and don't tell anyone about it.

I don't know where I'm coming from or where I'm going, I just really want to update this blog. I think about it every day.

Sometimes I miss my old apartment. I miss the snow and the cold walks through snow with a jacket on. I miss numb fingers and steaming coffee. By the time I wake up now, the temperature outside is higher than any coffee I could make. Cigarettes don't feel good when you're already sweating.

I don't know what the fuck happened. I hated Seattle when I was there. None of it seemed appealing. I felt stressed and used and uneasy. I felt crushed and completely insecure. I worried myself sick every night of the week. I woke up before the sun two times a week. I rode buses everywhere. I saw at least ten bums a day. It was freezing.

But here it's hot. Here, I've fallen into uniformity. I hate it. I thought I hated myself in Seattle, I hate myself more now. And for reasons that don't make me want to be a better person.

And for the idiot that asked why I wasn't over Amanda after the pool incident over two years ago: We got back together. We started dating again, deciding life wasn't worth it without eachother. We got closer, got insane for each other, got engaged, got our own apartment. That's fucking why.

Maybe she was the only reason I wrote in this blog. She's the only one that made me feel like I could write this blog from a perspective that was meaningful.

My girlfriend now doesn't hurt me, doesn't make me feel insecure, doesn't make it so apparent that every other guy is better than I am. On the other hand, that means I don't have to strive for her love. She doesn't even think I'm an asshole.

And I am an asshole.

Everyone needs to know that. For some stupid reason, everyone needs to know.

BRAVERYK@GMAIL.COM

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/8129782.stm

How does this make you feel?

suicide

The number of cigarettes I have a day has increased dramatically. I'm at about 12-14 now. Spending so much time doing it, I think it's about time I analyze it.

When I started smoking, I smoked because Amanda never let me do it. It made me feel better to think that there was at least one "benefit" that came from the break up.

I kept smoking because I was depressed and wasn't strong enough to commit suicide.

I kept smoking because all my friends do it.

I kept smoking because I was used to being the judgmental asshole, but try smoking a cigarette in a public place, and see how everyone else reacts. It's a pretty swift role reversal.

I smoke now because I am addicted, and tonight, I will smoke purely for the suicide.

braveryk@gmail.com

If I wrote a book about my life, it would be called "Asshole."

I've been telling people, when they ask, that I'm an asshole for about a year now. Ever since I discovered that fact about myself. I find people deny it almost immediately, and dismiss the fact that I said it.

And I almost believed them. But times like this make me realize that I am. I mean, I really am. So when someone else tells you that they are an asshole, believe them. They know more about themselves than you do. Isn't that the point of life, thought, and intellect?

THIS POST IS NOTHING LIKE USUAL AND SHOULD BE DISREGARDED.

I don't have any inspiring quotes for you, I don't have any meaningful phrase to base this post on, I just feel like writing. I'm not even sure what to say.

I want to find someone who I really relate to. Sharing the thoughts you thought no one else had feels so liberating. But, at the same time, it's sad. We realize we aren't the only one striving for novelty.

Oh, I remembered a quote, and in doing so, decided a topic.

I have a friend who thinks that being a "good person" depends on your amount of "street cred." After feeling like Iknew that being a good person was decided by your thoughts and how you act on them, the mere thought of this made me angry.

We got onto the topic by discussing a mutual friend, whom I have an almost immeasurable amount of respect for. Throughout high school and college, he has made nothing but good choices. He is a devoted, caring, and genial person. I respect him for not only putting up with distasteful habits, and temptations, but his ability to be social, even though he doesn't partake in the usual drugs that make a person that way.

My respect is the most valuable thing I could give him. Although this may sound like I do agree with the importance of "street cred," I think there is a large and important distance between the respect I give the mutual friend, and the type of respect the first friend referred to, which is the type you give the strongest guy in prison.

But what really does make someone a good person? I always thought of a good person as someone who values thought. Intellectuals. I respect those types of people. Maybe that's how I connected 'good' with 'respectable'.

You are good when you make good choices with a good mind. Anyone could open a door for the girl. some will do it with hidden resentment. These are who Holden would call, "phonies."

Some do it while looking at their girl and smiling. They smile every time they look at her. These are the good people.

Who gives a fuck if everyone else respects them, when they have no insight into your thoughts. You are who you are when you are alone. There has never been a truer word said.

"Your mind will be like its habitual thoughts; for the soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts."

I don't know why I wanted to write this, I just really feel like getting back to who I was three months ago, when I wrote more.

BRAVERYK@GMAIL.COM
I would love to hear more from you guys. It would help me.

I come towards you.

"We are generally the better persuaded by the reasons we discover ourselves than by those given to us by others."

I urge you to read this blog. while thinking about yourself, and not me. I'm just an asshole.

Suitcase tracks in the snow.

I remember the night she broke up with me. It didn't rain, like it should have. It always rains in books or movies, when change happens. It'll suddenly pour, like the clouds don't give a fuck to what you're going through. "Here, now you're wet, on top of all that. Go inside, where you used to sleep with her."

It didn't rain, it snowed. 

It was like rain, but much, much colder.

And I had to roll her suitcase through all that.

And it's not even warm where I live now, like it should be. Like you always imagine when you hear of the place. Even at noon, I'm uncomfortable without a hoodie.

braveryk@gmail.com

"You still owe me all those sodas."

Finally, I feel the urge to write again. It's been gone so long, I had forgotten what it felt like. Phrases sounding like music rushing through my head. The Frenzied fear that they will be lost from my memory before I get them written down, somewhere safe from my own forgetfulness.

Though once penned they will seem foolish, disorganized, juvenile, they sound like music.

I remember trying to kiss her, the first her I ever had, for the first time, for my first kiss. It was in a movie theatre of all god damn places. I remember setting it all up in my head carefully, like dominoes. I had a script written in my mind, and expectations that could have busted through the roof of the place. I leaned over and said my line, a bit too quickly, I think. I remember that, because she didn't hear me. She said "what?" as I sheepishly leaned towards her. A quick peck, the strangest feeling in the world, and I pulled away.

I felt sick, I felt depressed and I felt angry. I remember my best friend at the time, and still to this day, trying to get me to do that the entire movie. Jesus Christ, it wasn't like I didn't want to.

Her small lips provided little surface to put my own on. And I don't really know what I was expecting at all. Explosions, fireworks, cheering? Nothing like that ever happens. I swear life would be better with a special effects team. Now I realize that what I felt was the correct feeling. It didn't feel wrong because I had any problems, only because I was a beginner. The feeling doesn't change if you don't have a well-intentioned heart, unfortunately. Oh, the things that could be avoided if physical advances only felt good through true love. Of course this world is too bitchy to give us any outside indication that we ARE with our true love.

True love, I'm not even sure I believe in it. How can you know, anyway? You haven't met every girl in the world. You haven't had the time or chance to analyze even all of your friends.

Anyway, I still want to hear from you. BrAveryK@gmail.com

Any one of you could write these entries. It's just a matter of remembering who you are. You'd be surprised how many people relate.

Thank God for those of you who are The Narrator.

Amanda, please read this. I know you won't.

My fiance left me yesterday.

I love her.

I will always love her.

I've fallen in love with taking care of her, and now it would be wrong of me to do so. What kind of sick fucking world is this?

I will always be here for her, no matter what.

Unfortunately, she will never read this, she won't hear me cry in the shower, or on the bus. She won't get the letters I won't send. She won't know my thoughts. God save us.

"Wow, you're so young."

I'm rereading Catcher in the Rye. The first book I have ever read more than once. Holden seems so young, just sixteen! At the same time, he knows so much. Not compared to any other 16 year old, but compared to my expectations. He is so influential to me, I can't help but to want to call J.D. up.

I'm going back home for a visit soon. It'll be nice to have friends again.

thought

I had to walk from 63rd street home tonight. The bus stopped there because the road was closed. Police cars and fire engines crowded the next couple of blocks. Apparently, there had been an apartment fire.

I couldn't sit at home. I went outside to think by the old brick school building near my house. A window has been boarded, and I've been thinking about putting a bit of paint on it.

unfortunately I was underdressed. As I started home I saw a small nerf dart on the ground. Hopefully the kid playing with it has a few extra. I took out my lighter and singed the tip of it.
I don't know why I did, I just want the kid to understand that life gets harder. I want him to be ready for something as huge as your apartment burning down, or a car accident, or a break up.

I also realized I value thought above all else.


I still want you guys to email me. Just to talk.
braveryk@gmail.com please.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

Sorry about the lack of posts. I'm trying to write a book. Something like catcher in the rye. I think we all needed a little more than J.D. gave.

Just a little bit, right?

Can you guys please email me things that you have always wanted to ask holden, or just to talk to me, or anything? I just want to see how this "human connection" thing really works.

BrAveryK@gmail.com