My Moccasins

My moccasins aren't just any old run of the mill moccasins. No, far from it. They are, in their warm, soft glory, a symbol. Of what you ask? Keep reading, and I'll tell you. Right now! They're a symbol of my entering adulthood. That's crazy, you're saying to yourself. But let me ask you this, who's the one's talking to themselves, hm? That's what I thought.

Moving on, and slightly, albeit it very, more seriously, these shoes, these bastions of comfort if you will, have come to mean to me adulthood. They are something a man wears in his home, his house, his castle. You don't wear them anywhere else, because 'anywhere else' isn't yours. But this house, this life, this 'me', is me. I am me. I am not something that remains to be seen. I am not on the verge of becoming. I am not on the cusp of some life altering awareness of my true self.

If anything, that is the awareness of my true self, but not so much in a life changing way, but more of a life reaffirming kind of way. This is me. I am 27 years old now, God help me, and feeling older every day. Now, don't be confused, I continue to do, and intend to continue to do, stupid things on a semi-regular basis. It can't be avoided, and I'm enjoying the learning experiences as they come. But that being said, I'm also enjoying getting a little bit more focus. A little clearer picture of what I want.

I am not going to be a different person. I am who I am. However, I can change how I act, what I act like, why I do things, where I do them, and who with. The base is set. The rest is something I can work on. It's cost me a lot to get to this perspective. Tim now would have never lost the girl Tim back then lost, because she was* the perfect girl for me. Tim now would have gone to school straight through and had a good job now. But the Tim back then failed out, quit jobs, screwed up jobs, and basically shot himself in the foot a whole lot.

Life goes on. Tim goes on. I can't change who I am, but I can change what makes me who I am. I can change the parts, and how those parts fit into the whole that is I. Part of that, for me, is a re-dedication to being someone my grandfather would have been proud of. Someone my nephew will still be proud of as he grows up. I will work on being the kind of guy my sister wants me to be, especially in how I treat my women. I know too many great women, and yes I mean my mom, my grandma, my aunt clara, beth, lynnie, and many more, to be a 'guy'.

I will work on school, because apparently people were right and I'm too smart to be a college flunky, and I'm tired of not having proved it. I will work on working. I will work on working hard, and making a good work ethic a habit. I will work on money, and bills, and debt. I will work on this house, making it mine, little by little, and making it my castle, as a man is to do. I will plant my feet into the ground and own who I am. Because this guy's not half bad, with just a little aesthetic work here and there.

The first step was the moccasins. The rest will be way more comfortable in them.

TJQ

*Absence may indeed make the heart grow fonder, but it feels like it was perfect now. Ahh, history, you distorting bitch.

2011

It's a new year, and with it comes, at least in theory, a clean slate. An opportunity for a fresh start and a new direction, be it in life, or work, or anything else you might want. Setting aside how silly it is to think we need the first day of the year to start fresh, I've been thinking about what my New Years resolutions should be.

The first, if only because it's the 'easiest' is to lose 100 pounds. I've been doing Weight Watchers for a few months now, and though I've been knocked off course by the holidays, or I should say, because I turned 90 degrees either direction and ran off course for the holidays, I am starting back with it tomorrow. I also intend to join the gym in town soon. I've been intending to for a while, and it keeps getting pushed back by other things I think my money should be spent on instead. This paycheck however, I spent enough money on food and alcohol that my prioritizing skills are lacking, to put it generously.

If I want to really lose weight, and get healthy, and live the kind of lifestyle I glimpsed living out west, then I have to commit to it. As they say in Weight Watchers, it really is a way of life. It's about so much more than dieting, and tracking points. It's about deciding what life you want, and how you want to live it. As basic as it sounds, it's about deciding you don't want to be so damn fat anymore, and then committing to it like you would commit to a job, or woman, etc.

As I said, that's the easy part. I guess, if I had to put it in words, or since I'm choosing to put it into words, what I really want to resolve to do this year, is to feel like I am how other people see me. Of course, by do this year, I mean begin to do. Incremental change in that direction would be good. I have been blessed, it's no surprise, by a large and loving family. Many, if not all of these family type people seem to adore me. I don't get why. I hear what my mother tells me, that I'm a good person, and I'm generous and kind, blah blah blah. But that's not how I see myself.

I define myself, or have, not by my successes but by my failures. I have everyday proof of where I've gone wrong in life. I work a crumby job making mediocre money because I didn't try in college. I'm fat because I choose to eat so much and work out so little. I'm single and lonely because I made a bad decision for a horrible reason. To define myself in a positive way is harder for me. I'm nice, because, well, my mother said so. I'm a good guy because my uncle told me I was.

It's not that I think I'm a terrible person. I'm a pretty decent person, and I get that. But it's nothing special, it's nothing I've accomplished, and it's nothing I had to work for. I just am, because Grandpa was, because Mom was, because Jim was, and Beth and so on. And maybe looking at myself in this way is wrong. And maybe part of my resolution should be to be a little prouder of the good things I am, and a little less worried about what I haven't done. But that's not today.

Today I want to be thought of as kind because I act it, all the time. I want to be thought of as generous because I give. I have more than I need, and waste more than many ever get. That's just wrong. Today, and this year, I want to work on being more honest, more loyal, more hardworking, and more committed to myself, and my life. I want to finally, finally, finally own the skills, intelligence, and support I have in my life and get something to show for it.

I want to lose weight sure. But I want more. I want, this time next year, to be promoted to some better job. I want to have a semester of school done. I want to have paid all by student loans for a whole year, uninterrupted, so I can raise my credit, so I can keep building towards a home and a life in the ballpark of how good Jim's looks. I want to be much less single, even if I haven't found the right girl yet, I want to be looking for her, and I want to stop being distracted by the oh-so-wrong ones.

I want to feel as good as everyone who loves me thinks I am already. And when I think about why they would I want to know. I create this blog, or ones like it, many times. I write stuff about how lucky I am often. I'm inspired to be better on a regular basis. A year from now, I resolve to actually maintain the drive I feel tonight. I resolve to work harder, be better, and act more intelligently. I want to actually accomplish something. I want to act better, feel better, do better, and actually be better because of it.

We'll see, next year, how any of it goes. But I'm hopeful.

TJQ

wow

I haven't posted anything in over a year. I was just telling my sister I should create a blog again, so I came to Blogger.com, and here this was. Now I don't have much to say. I will soon though I think.

breathing...

I haven't felt this light in a long time, and I don't mean my weight, I'm as fat as ever! Things aren't technically different, I'm not really any closer to accomplishing anything than I was before. But. But it's different still, even if everything may look the same. Maybe it's just me, maybe I'm different. But I haven't felt this relaxed, this light, this able to breathe in a long time.

Life is hard work. It just is. Nothing good comes easy and nothing worth having is free. I get those things better than I used to. I believe them now anyways, and so, now that I can breathe, I can work. I can do what I need to do, or dare I say want to do, to make my life what I want it to be. It feels good.

tj

a leap...

Moved to Portland a while back now, but just tonight took probably the biggest step. You all know who I mean when I say I've attached myself to someone back home that for better or worse I didn't let go of for a long time, even out here.

I did tonight.

It's all on me now. Time to see what I'm made of.

Wish me luck.

tj

searching...

For something. For answers I suppose, but that still seems more abstract. For questions, I think,s is where it starts, at least for me. I am searching for the right questions. I can move all over the world, and live wherever I want, but unless I ask the right questions I'll get the same wrong answers.

When I left home, I think part of me envisioned the move, the drive, the whole thing as an epiphany waiting to happen. I actually expected the relocation to refresh me, and just somehow make things better. What I've come to learn however, is that it wasn't the location that needed to change, it was me.

It's only been two months since I've been gone, and I know that's a short time to expect miracles, but I say when your right your right, and there's no point delaying admitting it. Don't get me wrong, I like it here, a lot. I enjoy the lifestyle, being active, going out and doing things. I've loved spending more time reading and biking, talking and hiking. I've enjoyed learning new things, and I still look to the drive here as one of the best times of my life.

The point of that last paragraph though is that the things I'm doing, the things I like here, have nothing to do with being here. Yes, being around new people and new places kick-started my own new perspective on myself, but none of the things I've enjoyed the most are limited to here. I can have them anywhere. Wherever I go, whatever I do, I can enjoy those same things, because they're me, they're a part of who I am, or hope to be.

So I guess it has helped to move, in that I could get a new perspective. But when I left I was asking myself how to look at the world differently. How do I view this life and see it better, or more clearly? The reality is though, I simply needed a new perspective on myself. How do I view myself better, and more clearly? How do I make myself what, and who I want to be. It isn't where I am that counts, it's who, and it's how.

With that idea in mind, I can start asking the right questions now at last. What do I want? What will I do with this gift God gave me? As far as I can tell, this is my one and only chance at this, and there's no point not taking advantage of it. I need to ask myself the questions, and then find what, and who, and where will make me happy, and then get it. Don't wish it, do it. Don't want it, be it. No more daydreaming, leave the dreams for when I'm sleeping, the day has to be for living...somehow, somewhere. Anywhere. To quote a Green Day song, " I've been waiting a long time, for this moment to come. I'm destined...for anything at all".

That's really all I have for now, and it's not much. But it feels like a start. As I write that, I'm wondering how many times I've said it before, but everyday is a new beginning I suppose. Love to all...

Im saying no more. I refuse to settle. I refuse to accept things. I refuse to stop dreaming. I refuse to give up love, to give up passion, to give up the idea that it's there. I refuse to sell myself short. I refuse to fail because I never tried. Ive spent so long, too long, wondering why things didnt work. I refuse to sit still. I refuse, as some have said, to sit in the room full of doors and choose none. I will go through them, around them, or kick them the fuck down. I refuse the notion that my soul should not be set on fire. I refuse to settle for less than a passion to light the skies with. I refuse to be the one holding myself down. Fuck that and fuck me for doing it for so long. I refuse.