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