Bittersweet endings

I write this post after a year of sorrow, of joy, of victory, of defeat, and of pain. I'm back at home now, mulling over my thoughts as I write this blog post. Another year, another step closer to finishing college; another year of friendships made and friendships broken. I suppose of this entry's theme is friendship.

I was wrong, of course. I wrote last time that nothing ever ends; yet, I was proven wrong when a friendship was ended this week. An argument over the smallest of differences escalated into a very heated and nasty debate on Facebook; and when the ashes had settled, I found myself with two less friends. I still don't know what to make of that fact; at first, I was rather shocked that this event could actually break a friendship. Now...well, now, I've accepted it for it is. I find that I am not irrevocably changed, or broken; instead, I've simply just acknowledged it. It seems like a bittersweet way to end the school year, but I guess this lesson about the loss of friendship could only be learned through life's most effective teacher: pain.

Flowers

"From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity."

Thomas Moore

Running

Today has been a day long in the making. Today marks the beginning of the end, the birth of a new month, and, soon, the close of another year in college. And it also marked the beginning of a lesson that I am now, in its entirety, beginning to understand.

Nothing ever ends.

My story begins with a typical Friday of the last few months; sleep deprived, I went to take my last Genetics test. Of course, it was obscenely hard; last year, I would have been in near tears at the feeling I had walking out of this test. This time, I simply shrugged. Amazing what a year's worth of experiences can do to a person; or rather, what Pacific can. O. Chem lab was mercifully quick; I checked out of lab in about an hour and a half. And then I took a nap.

My lesson, on the never-ending qualities of the universe, began when I went to take a run today. Outside. I had not done this for months, and so, I thought that taking a run in the rain would be refreshing, and something different. I was not disappointed in the slightest; the run was indeed invigorating, as well as enlightening. Not being confined to the walls of the gym, or the artificial slickness of the treadmill, I felt free, feeling real, polluted air run through my lungs instead of the recycled air in the gym. Seeing the cars drive by endlessly, a stream in a constant river, I also fell, feeling myself swallowed whole by memories as a younger man running along those same paths, stepping in and out of shadows both figurative and literal.

This entire year has felt like a marathon. Running constantly, never stopping, never yielding, never surrendering...I've come to realize that pinning all my hopes on summer as some sort of respite is a very foolish thing to do. We are all runners, constantly trudging along this path we call life, either dragging our heels along the ground or sprinting with the one-minded drive of a beast; we are always running, for there is no real end in sight. Any end we see is only temporary, a visage; something akin to the mirage of an oasis produced by a desert to a thirsty man. We will always have goals, always have something to strive for, to strive towards. And so, I finish the night off with a lesson learned.

I am beginning to understand that there is no end.

Everything In Its Right Place

The title of my post is also the name of a Radiohead song. And it is probably the most infinitely listenable song that I've heard in my life. I admit, I have bizarre habits (I like to look at myself in the mirror, or any reflective object a lot; although, that probably has to do with vanity and narcissism than anything else); but, I'd have to say one that is probably the most annoying (aside from recycling old, shitty jokes) to most people would be the fact that I like to listen to certain songs. A lot.

This one is no exception. What I like so much about this song from the album Kid A is that my head, my brain, associates so many different memories, images, and ideas with this song. I'll give you an example; when I'm on the treadmill at the gym and pumping up the incline and speed to a level that leaves my legs quivering, this song plays in my head. And so, I feel as if I am ascending beyond the pain that wracks my body; the inferno that blazes inside my lungs stays contained, a fire that I will not let spread; the agony that shrieks from my legs is drowned out by my long, ragged gasps for air. Everything is put in its right place; and so, I eat the pain, let the embalic fire that consumes me burn outward, and my pain becomes my strength. From the embers and ashes, I rise, wearier, exhausted, but ultimately....stronger.

Of course, I don't think that entire line of thoughts as I'm running my jollies on the treadmill. Pretty much my main line of thought is "Don't fall off or you'll fly right off this fucking thing". But, as the pain of pushing myself to my limits eats into my consciousness, the aforementioned thoughts echo throughout my mind, crescendoing into a wave. I've never surfed, but I imagine that riding that wave is a lot like surfing.

Another song I like to listen to a lot is Womanizer by Britney Spears. Go figure.

Faith

People seem to define faith in many ways. Some people think of faith as faith in God, or perhaps faith in some deity. My faith, from what I've discovered upon further introspection, is faith in everything being right. Call it naivety, call it ignorance, but my faith in the universe has been kindled by my experience that everything will turn out all right, after all. I've learned that there's no use in worrying about something; what will come, will come. We need only the strength to face our trials; winning, I've come to realize, is not the same as fighting. I've learned that life, no, existence, doesn't really demand a person to win all the time; it simply demands that we fight.

Once again, I've rambled off topic drastically...but hey, that's just how I think (and write). This year's winding down, so I don't know see my next entry on the horizon. Have a good night y'all.

Creature of the Night

I don't know why I'm up at this late hour of night at the library. Ideally, I'd like to think I'm studying, but I'm not really getting shit done. Instead, I'm thinking about happiness. Or rather, my current lack of it. I'm also wrestling with the conundrum of putting one's own happiness above the happiness of others, and how far the extent of my selflessness will go before I give into my own selfish whims. Ah, 4 AM....how I loathe thee.

Tired

Too tired to give you a full survey of my scattered and useless thoughts, I leave you with this quote from The Dark Knight Returns before I wake up in 6 hours to work out.

"The time has come. You know it in your soul, for I am your soul... You cannot escape me. You are puny, you are small, you are nothing--a hollow shell, a rusty trap that cannot hold me. Smoldering, I burn you — burning you, I flare, hot and bright and fierce and beautiful. You cannot stop me, not with wine or vows or the weight of age — you cannot stop me, but still you try. Still you run. You try to drown me out... But your voice is weak."