Lost.

It's been too long.

I don't even remember the last time I've even visited my blog, let alone written in it. December 27th, 2012. What a year that was. The year that changed everything. The year that made me and broke me at the same time. The year that I finally found myself.

But of course, anything that can be found can just as easily be lost. And that's just where I've been lately, although it appears that I'm starting to find my legs again, beginning to get a feel for what life was like before all this. Oh, if only I could tell you all of the things that have transpired over the past couple of years. I wouldn't even know where to begin. It all seems so insignificant now, so distant, almost as if it was in a past life. And yet, at the same time, I feel as if it were just yesterday. The mind works in mysterious ways. Sometimes our interpretation of time and space couldn't be farther from the truth.

If you ask me to tell you about it, I wouldn't be able to tell you anything. All I know is that those days are far behind, with only a slight glimmer of them still in my rear-view mirror. Sometimes I think that it was all for the best and that leaving it all behind. At other times, I yearn for it. I crave it. That sense of belonging, of family and familiarity, of being missed. Occasionally I receive reminders of what those things feel like, and for that, I'm grateful. Perhaps I'm being too selfish or needy in feeling this way. Then again, is it really asking too much?

At the end of the day, one thing holds true: I am hundreds of miles away from the place I call "home". That much is true. What I make of it, that's entirely up to me. What others make of it, that's completely irrelevant. At the end of the day, we all have nobody's lives to live but our own.

I look up, and I see the stars and the moon in all their grandeur. I take a moment and wonder: is anybody else looking up and seeing what I'm seeing? Do they see the same moon, the same stars, the same constellations, arranged in the same manner across this tapestry of night sky? Do they miss me, the way that I miss them? And in the blink of an eye, I snap out of it. There are no answers to be found in rhetorical questions.

Soon, things will come full circle.

For now, I just have to keep going.

Gem.

"The first thing you have to do is plant your seed... Find good structure in your life and be surrounded by those who only bring out the good in you. When you realize that you have those kind of people in your life, things will just sort of fall into place. The seed will start to grow and your life will just start to blossom into something so beautiful."

Language.

It's been quite some time.

Have you ever wondered where you'll end up in the future? A year from now, two years, ten? Do you ever feel as if there's someone or something up there watching your every move? And although you might not know it yet, you'll be okay. They watch you with eager eyes as you slip and fall and struggle to get up. "Why don't they help me?", you ask. Perhaps some mistakes are yours and yours alone to make.

To be quite honest, I would never have guessed that I would be writing here again, but somehow, a strange turn of events has made me realize that maybe its about time things came full-circle. 

She texted me out of the blue. "Are you on campus?". The last person I would expect to talk to me after that drunken debacle of intoxication and lust that occurred several months ago. But, playing the role of the curious cat as always, I decided to meet her anyway. From there, it all came in stride - the mutual give-and-take, the unspoken agreements that we made not to keep in contact lest we needed something from one another, the seething disdain that was underlying our every action. Neither of us was worth each other's time, it was decided. We were just out to get all that we could get our hands on, while making sure nothing of ours was taken in the process. And it worked.

My friends hated her. All of them. She was a slut, a tramp, a hoe, a hoochie, a whore, whatever; just about every name in the book was thrown at her. I won't lie: I was the first to throw many of those names. Yet despite the joking around, something about me never committed to the things I had said. I just didn't feel it in my bones. And as the entire group fell deeper and deeper into this idea that she was a vile, hopeless girl undeserving of love or warmth, I simply couldn't. I fell into something else altogether.

There were things that she told me that made me think. She told me, one Wednesday afternoon, as we were returning from a routine pickup, that I had changed. That I used to be such a sweet boy when we had first met, some eight or so months ago, before the drugs and the events and the people and lifestyle that came along with it. She told me that something was different about me, but she didn't know what, exactly. Just something about the way that I carry myself and the company I keep, how I act and talk when I'm around others. And at first, it annoyed me, no, it infuriated me. I sat there quietly in the driver's seat, nodding, uttering, "yeah", but all I could think at the time was, "How could you say all of these things about me? How could you tell me that I've changed when you barely knew me in the first place?". When it was all said and done, I coldly unlocked the door and watched her leave.

But over the next couple of days, I thought about what she had said, and what I had found when I began to take a closer look at everything was...oh my god, she's right. I am different. Perhaps not a different person altogether, but still different. Colder. I was the same person deep down inside, just a little lost. 

I thanked her for it. For someone with a reputation as soiled as hers to have to audacity and gall to call me out on my own character was a breath of fresh air, an unexpected slap in the face that opened my eyes to the world outside of my bubble. And from there, we kept in touch. What really got to me was how she appreciated the little things. We would talk, and she told me that she liked that I remembered things that she had told me many months before, in the tender stages of our friendship - little things such as where she used to work, or how she would give her little brother rides to and from school, or her notorious habit of sparking up as she was driving to school, how she always promised me she would quit smoking after she finishes her pack, yet show up a week later with a brand new one. She told me it was sweet of me to remember the little details, and that she liked how I would walk her to class every day and sit around and chat with her, keep her company despite having my own things to attend to. She had even asked me how come I'm not an English major since I (apparently) write very well, and when I asked her how she knew I had a way with words, she at first attempted to be coy and play it off, but in the end admitted to having read my blog, despite me never directly informing her of its existence. I thought that was nice.

We continued talking and hanging out. Just catching up, for old times sake. One thing lead to another, and that to another, and that to yet another, and by the end of a few weeks, it was the same old routine, all over again. Only this time, the feelings involved were different. There was no...adoration, no lingering desires for emotional closure, no puppy-eyed "don't leave me" faces. It was a mutual agreement, unspoken but known to both of us, that whatever pleasures we enjoyed together were strictly of the flesh. And I was fine with that. Still am. I don't miss her, nor long after her heart. In fact, I may be able to safely say that my emotions lie comfortably elsewhere. It was...nice. A change of scenery, that's for sure. Am I "easy" for it? Maybe, only if you think I am. That's up to you.

What this journey has really taught me (other than the fact that I've still got it) is the true worth of a human being. Despite all the names we called her, all the mistakes and bad decisions that she's made, her constant thirst that is seemingly unquenchable, deep down inside, she's still a human being with a heart and emotions and her own struggles. I honestly believe there's good and bad in everyone. That's why I could never hate anyone. I always try to see them for what they're worth and I believe that everyone deserves to love and to be loved in return, despite any bad decisions they may have made in the past. Sometimes we get so caught up with what is right and wrong that we forget that we are all only human.

And even more astounding to me was what she had said. About how I was sweet, and that I'm a good person, and that I have a heart and that I'm not like the rest, that sometimes I just get a little lost and lose my way. It made me realize...if even someone like her, out of all people, with her flaws and mistakes and all, could appreciate me for the person that I am, the person that so many have discarded and passed up on before...then maybe I'm not a lost cause, after all. Maybe I'm not a hopeless romantic, and one day I'm going to find someone who loves me for who I am. 

Maybe. Just maybe...

Food for thought, isn't it?

Goodnight.