The Beginning

So apparently, as I look back, I have been at this existential problem for a while, dating way back to my childhood, as can easily be seen in this picture of me contemplating the numerous questions of the universe... Just kidding of course, I have no idea what I was thinking about at the time. Likely the delicious caramel corn they have at the boardwalk, or why I'm at the beach when its obviously too cold since I have a sweatshirt on. At least we can all agree that I was stunningly cute (what the hell happened?).
Moving on...
The first evidence of the thoughts of my former self (without having to go through all my old school papers) and that which was written just for myself are a few journal entries that I wrote on my now antique computer that still sits, monitor-less, in my room. These sparing entries date from Sunday, May 19, 2002 at 12:18 a.m. to Sunday, September 14, 2003 at 2:04 a.m. (end of my freshman year to the beginning of my junior year of high school) and comprise a 15 page Word document. It's mostly me just rambling on about video games, how much I hate being stuck at home during the summer, all of my crushes, and the random and trivial things I got in trouble for. Some funny/embarrassing tidbits...

"YOU, Who is you? Am I writing to myself as I addressed in some entries, or to the computer as I did in others? Who knows? I guess I’m really just writing to myself in the present. Just getting my feelings out in words."

"That means that I’ll probably only be putting $150 in there [the bank], although you’ll probably yell at me for not putting in more."

"Well, back to my money calculations and evil conspiracies. TTYL."

"You may have noticed that I did not use @ in replace of “at” is it is commonly used. That is because I am boycotting its use unless necessary such as in e-mail addresses. This is because “at” is such an easy word to type and an abbreviation should replace a long word not a short. The other reason is that there is another word that it could represent that not only fits perfectly with the symbol, but is also actually long. That word is “around.” Thought I’d just add that thought since I believe in it so much and have already gotten support from others so I may start a movement :-)."

And now to the more juicy ones (or just embarrassingly funny). All of the following entries still have eerie meaning to my life. Each characterizes something that bothers or inspires me to this day, so I have written after each the effect they still have on my life.

"During the day today I felt a real urge to type on here again. I hadn’t in such a while and it was a load off my back. I don’t have too much more to add, but some stuff I still want to get out."
To begin with, I thought I’d just throw in this little quip about how psychologically beneficial journaling (or blogging ;-) ) can be (yeah, you can rub it in my face Gloria), and how I haven’t really done it in a while. As I'm now entering a new phase in my life after graduating college, I think it’s as good a time as any to start again. While I stated that this blog is going to be for you, it’s obviously going to be for me as well in being able to reflect back on my life so far and recount the lessons I have already learned from, and that maybe you can learn from as well. And now on to the true meat of my old journaling…

"My crushes from last year are starting to haunt me again. First, I will talk about X. I now sit next to her in Trig class and we actually make some conversation (Like two or three sentences, if u can call that conversation). So its very small talk, but still an improvement to say the least."
This one is quite funny looking at it now, but I’ve really never had the whole conversationalist thing going for me. Now around friends it’s never usually a problem, we can talk about the most random and dumbest stuff, but when I’m trying to have a civil conversation with someone, my mind just always goes blank. And it is my fault too, because I just don’t keep up with the news enough. I can remember last summer when I had to eat lunch with my research lab mates, which would seem to be the worst case scenario for me, but I was actually able to contribute to and even create conversation (wow, really?!, yeah sorry this is so boring, it gets better eventually, I promise...) because I would read the Metro newspaper on the metro every morning. But of course I fell out of that at school, and many can recall the excessively boring conversation I had with that girl on the bus ride to the Cubs game because I just had no material and she wasn’t really coming up with anything herself either. So there’s one goal I can set for myself, and if you have the same problem set it for yourself too, to stay in the know so you don’t have to worry about going blank when a real conversation is needed (not that our conversations weren’t real, guys ;-) ).

"So, I’m starting to try to ease X and I back into a friendly relationship, since I don't (didn’t) have a crush on her [I'm obviously in denial here] and I really want to be friends with her because I think she’s a really cool and interesting person. But then I have the dream. I dream that I'm on a bus with X and Y, her best friend, and all the sudden they both turn to me and X says “Reed, I like you.” That may sound cheesy but it was just enough to bring back my crush that I had had on her (stupid crushes, as I did and still do think they are)."
"Darn those dreams, complicating my life (and I always say that I wish I could remember my dreams, and the ones I do ruin my balance in life so I may have to retract that statement)."
These two separate entries bring up a very important factor in my life, my dreams (I’m going to forgo an entry on the evils of crushes for now, as that came to a head in my freshman year of college and which I have much more journal material to add from that time, but I will say that I still agree with myself here). You know I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a solid response from anyone on whether this happens to them or not, but when my dreams involve someone I know, they have this property of sticking in my mind and affecting my life to excess. My brain has this weird capability of convincing me that the actions of those in my dreams are those that they would actually perform if put in the same circumstance. Now this is not always true, such as the skinny-dipping dream I recently had ;-), but when it is, I can’t help but wonder if my brain is right about them or if it’s just an idealization. Either way, this character in my head just adds to my anguish because it refers to a static situation that I just don’t have the guts to change. If you couldn’t tell by now, I’m talking of dreaming about people I’ve had crushes on (or recently broke up with… ugh, that was the worst of it). Now, to be honest, I haven’t had a crush in a while, but now I have all my friends from school that I’ve left behind and there have already been a few days where I’ve had dreams that stuck with me the same way the old crush ones did because you guys are just as far from me as my crushes once were (That's me trying to say I miss you guys). There doesn’t really seem to be anything I can do about having dreams, so it has been a recurring theme in my poetry, which I will eventually add to the blog.

"My first impression theory: See, for me I almost always leave a great first impression, but I don't go anywhere with it. Last year I put great first impressions on everyone but I didn't follow through with an invite over my house for the guys or asking the girl out on a date."
This excerpt is of special importance now that I’m kind of restarting my life here in Maryland. This one I find very interesting because I really think it’s still true. I’m not sure what it is about me, my quirky or random nature, but people seem to take to me pretty easily upon first introduction, but then I just seem to get old. A perfect example was in my freshman year of college when I went to a party with Ryan Downy and his friend, and they immediately invited me back and seemed to welcome me in their group enthusiastically, but eventually I got old and they pretty much shoved me out. Same thing happened my freshman year of high school, I was really popular at the beginning of the year, but that just fell apart by year’s end. So, if anyone has any clues as to what that quality is that seems interesting at first, but then drives people away, it would be appreciated so that I fix it and then conquer the world with my limitless popularity :-).

"All of the crushes that I had, and that are now coming back to haunt me, I always liked them, but when I imagined myself going out with them, it always seemed as though it could never work."
This one I’m going to take a step past how I meant it (which was that the whole hanging out together and circle of friends stuff would not mesh) and blame it for the reason I perceive my first real relationship ended, though it was actually due to this concern on the other side. But anyway, this one was also pretty much the main reason I didn’t look for a relationship the rest of my college career and efficiently avoided getting any crushes (high five!). I couldn’t really see a college relationship going anywhere so I didn’t put much effort into attempting another. It’s a fear we probably all have in starting a relationship, where’s it going to go if it does work. Personally I like the “we’ll figure it out when we get there” approach rather than the “it can’t possibly work later, but let’s keep it going for now” approach. But I digress, love will happen where it’s meant to and I truly believe it can overcome any obstacle. Moving on…

"Anyways, how I could ever make a school relationship ever work out is beyond me... Plus the jealousy that I would no doubt go through."
Oh the jealously… I’m gonna let this one apply to my first relationship too. Jealousy was something that I did notice during that relationship, something I apparently could predict would happen way back in high school. I was excessively jealous, but I noticed that it was more over the lack of communication in our relationship that I was sure was occurring outside it than an actually fear of other guys up in my territory. But if there’s one thing that I learned in that relationship it was that you can’t really have a relationship without communication and it was my fault that I felt jealous because I wasn't working on it. So, lesson learned and I’m not really worried about this one as much.

"I need an outside of school girlfriend. Wow, how that reminds me of Z (hostess at Captain Billy‘s last summer). Why I turned her down I shall never know, although I technically wasn't looking for a girlfriend at the time and I didn't know her that well so I just didn't give it a chance."
On rejecting girls… Thankfully this didn’t have to happen a lot (ok, at all) during my last couple years at college, but I have actually only fairly recently (four –ly words in a row, SCORE!) realized that I am an ass in turning down girls who are interested in me (hmm, guess I should take away those points on that note :-( ). Ok, maybe I’m a little harsh on myself, but for only having been in one relationship (and worse, complaining about it), I’ve turned down more than my share of girls. Of those I can currently recall, including high school, there have been three direct turn downs, and four others who obviously had a crush on me but never said anything. So I guess this is an apology for being shallow or emotionally unavailable and a reminder that I am still single... Anyways, speaking of the emotional unavailability, the excuse I used in this journal entry is especially eerie, because I actually wrote that exact same excuse (not looking for a girlfriend) another time after rejecting another girl. I still don’t understand why since it seems to un-Reed to me, but maybe I’ll figure it out when I get to analyzing those journals.

"I really wish that people would be more open and less shallow. These are the two qualities that would most improve my love life. If I could only be open with my feelings about others I would never have crushes, which haunt my life which I have said before, and people would actually know how I feel about them which would actually give me a chance with some people. One of the drawbacks of everyone being open, though, is that those people who I find unattractive and unappealing (I know it’s mean, but you know everyone feels this way) who do like me would be open to me. This is where the other quality that I need, being less shallow, would come in and would hopefully make me see the inner beauty of the person (kind of like Shallow Hal, which I coincidentally just saw today). Well, they’re just dreams, but hopefully as I mature at least I will grow in these qualities."
So for this one I’ll address the shallow part first, really just continuing from the last entry. I obviously still need to work on being less shallow because I didn't reject all those girls on "I don't want a girlfriend" grounds, but still i think college has really helped me out in this respect. Having such a diverse set of friends has allowed me the privilege of seeing the value and uniqueness of every person. Now, I’m still a guy and obviously still shallow to some degree (what was that saying I had about boobs?), but I’ve learned the value of really getting to know someone, no matter what they look like or where they come from.
Now to the second part, that on being open. This is really to the point of this whole blog. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned so far in this life, it’s that feelings are not meant to be held up inside. Even though I speak on the subject in this quote with such enthusiasm, here I am six years later only slightly closer to the same ideal. It’s really all a matter of pride and protecting oneself. No one wants to throw themselves out there at the chance of being rejected, singled out or laughed at. But if we really want to live our lives, we can’t just leave these things inside ourselves. Many people can find release, confiding in their best friend, keeping a journal, sending a postcard to Postsecret.com, or, as I seem to have found, blogging. These are only small steps, but good steps. But I don’t want to, and don’t think you should stop there. So beyond just an obvious ego-booster trying to get people to care about what I have to say, this blog is a challenge, to myself, and to all who read it, to be true to yourself and to others, to, as I, the typical college student, wrote on my late loft, "LET YOUR FEELINGS BE FREE." This is a path that I can only hope will lead to true happiness for all those involved.