Everyone one is making love or else expecting rain

Some of the best news I have had in a while is that I am getting two days at my retail job again.... if you know me I am not big on money, but everyone knows you need a little to survive. Working that two days a week lets me survive.....

I relish the role of being "the sweet guy you talk to for advice" it used to bother me, now I love it. Its because I do like attention, but also I have a strong track record of a long broken relationship that has left me emotionally psychotic and a list of failed flings and short term romances.

Wow...... that sounds pretty sad

But I'm not that sad about it, I used to use it for motivation, now I use it as a library.

Women I talk to are obviously shocked when I say that I am not that into sex or not that into having a relationship...... sometimes I'm shocked too. Its not that I am not into those things, they just are not motivation. People, not just women, need people to be unoriginal, they expect certain things from people they have just met, for girls...... they expect guys to talk to them for sex, but in a broader sense. Everyone is expecting to get used..... boys and girls meet expecting that, they ask themselves, how is this person going to try to use me?

People use each other for different things, and it seems to me people use their boyfriends or their girlfriends as blankets, or some kind of snow globe they see themselves in. I try not use people, that surprises and bothers people, I hate borrowing 5 dollars from a friend, so imagine how I may feel about meeting girls.... I guess thats why I feel that I don't need sex or romance, those words have no meaning without love, I think people try to use those words without love. It never works that way, in fact too many people use love as a word too......

There is a difference between want and need, I mean I want these things, I don't need them, I never think about them, I never think my life would be any better or worse with them...... just different, different is good...... change is good. I meet women, I am attracted to them, they are attracted to me. Everyone can meet someone...... its just that I used to feel like I need a woman in my life, and now I realize I just want someone, and I don't want someone all that bad.

There is a certain kind of selfish in me, a part of me that still feels like I need to do some things on my own..... I don't think I would be a good boyfriend right now. There is some weird mixture of arrogance and insecurity inside of me that I don't understand right now. If I can't understand myself, how I can understand anyone else? I hate when other people try to understand me, like I said they need me, you know friends and family, they feel like they need to understand me

I honestly feel that I have loved my great love already, sometimes those great loves don't work out, mine didn't. I made peace with that.....

I haven't talked about love, girls, women, sex, romance.... whatever these words represent, in a long time. These words used to be important to me, now they are just words. What they symbolize is more important, I still care about that

I feel like I am somewhere else..... not a better place, just a different one. My own parents are starting to think I need some kind of therapy. Do they mean in the literal sense? I think people try to get themselves some therapy every time they wake up, I guess I do too. Maybe its my art, maybe its me writing in this blog...... but I am trying to do something to make some sense around here.

We would worry less about what others think of us if we realized how seldom they do

As an emerging artist, not much can beat another artist, especially someone you feel is very talented and produces great work, telling me that I am talented and I produce great work.

In the art world a confidence boost like this can be constructive from time to time. I am not the arrogant type of artist, I am the type who always feels he can be doing better or more. So it is always nice when peers or mentors have nice things to say about my work.

I was also able to talk to a big mentor of mine, and we discussed making our art first and foremost for ourselves, we need to be happy with whatever we are creating regardless of what other people may think or feel. I have noticed that how I feel about an artwork and what others say about it can go hand in hand sometimes. My happiness or lack thereof can project on the painting and then in turn get projected to the viewers.

I think I have come a long way when it comes to not caring about what other people think or say about anything I do, but I still have a long way to go. I know public and society's perception of me are going to get negative, mean, and harsh. These perceptions may eventually come from the closest of friends. They may say it to my face, they may imply it, they may just project their perceptions without knowing it. I need to be prepared and able to handle that. I need to be strong and patient. There will be people that will try to tear me down, I cannot let them. I survived these first attacks last Fall but that was just the warm up.

I can't even care what I think and feel at certain times. I am probably going to get impatient, and feel stuck, and feel like I am not doing enough, I must ignore these thoughts and feelings.

We all sit here stranded, though we're all doing our best to deny it

I never thought I would live in the modern day depression.

Where blind optimism and unbridled capitalism once ruled the day, now lay pieces of worthless paper telling us what we own and reminding us we don't make anything anymore.

As a result of the ignorant greed of the few, the rest of the us..... the citizens, the common man lay stranded not in bread lines, but unemployment lines to collect food stamps to shop at walmart to buy food from distant lands.

It hurts to see people I know, and people I don't know try to do their best not to fall through the cracks, to not become statistics in this financial war. I respect and honor sacrifices they all have to make just to live, sacrifices I don't have to make because I have been put in a position by other people where I don't have to.

A combination of my own will and these recent series of unfortunate events leaves me stalled on the way to my crossroads. I know which turn I am going to take, I just can't get there to make that turn. That can be frustrating, I must remain patient

But

I hate having to bear the burden of societies expectations of what is to be my life at the age of 25. I am always split by not caring at all and caring too much, from being arrogant and being insecure, knowing what I want in life one day and not having an idea the next. Sometimes I feel naked.

Sometimes I feel like taking that short cut away from those crossroads.... but that road is unknown and I will walk it alone.