Sometimes it feels like "I can't" instead of I don't want to...

This is going to be a good one. Bear with me.

Then why did you leave?

So I have had a lot on my mind lately. More than I can blog about right now. But tonight, I had some unexpected guest's. Story first though. When my father was still alive, 16 years ago, he disappeared for a while. He left without telling my family where he went. Turns out he ended up in Kansas. While he was there he made friends with a Mennonite family and helped them on their farm, and what not and stayed there for several months. They really liked him. So these people kept in touch with my grandma. They were in town tonight and stopped by. They seem like some of the nicest, most genuine people I have ever met. It was nice to hear some stuff about my dad... I know so little about him, it was good to get a non-family perspective. It was interesting talking about him because normally these kind of stories are told while the person is there, recalling on their adventures... my dad was very much not there. It was a nice visit, but it was hard for one reason. The sweet old lady Lorraine kept saying "your dad had a picture of you boys, and oh he was so proud and loved you guys so much" and if you could see how she was saying it, with such excitement, sincerity, and just the look on her face... You would want to believe her. And I do. But it was hard to hear that, because if he loved us so much then why did he leave us like he did... Suicide is so terrible.... it leaves so many doubts, and questions without answers.... such a feeling of inadequacy... and absolutley no closure at all. Always a little void, never able to be filled. I know I was young and its not our fault, and there are things i couldn't understand, nor will I ever understand, but thats just it. There will always be "What if?" and "Why?" Sometimes its hard and sometimes i find myself feeling mad about it, and I hate that so much, its a terrible feeling. In other News... Ross fell through, I had the job, but it got all messed up... so here i am. 6 months from a mission with no second job, and barley 17 hours a week at my only job and its stressing me out big time... Im going to keep trying but damn.... life has a funny way of kicking you when your down.

Im scared.

Sometimes i will take just a moment, and think about something. I don't plan it but I will be sitting and all of a sudden i just get a weird feeling and think. This occurred today at church as i was sitting during passing time. I didn't like the thought that i had. I was reflecting, and all of a sudden, I found myself wondering "who the hell am I?" And for a moment i didn't know... I mean 9 months ago i was a completely different person than I am now. New faith, new friends... new life. NEW EVERYTHING. Everything for the past 9 months has been going well, bumps in the road for sure, but overall a good sense of direction and purpose in life. And today i lost everything for a second, its like I'm standing outside looking at myself wondering where I went, and wondering who this person was. It was so surreal, It was like i was sitting in the passenger seat of life watching someone else at the wheel of mine. Ever since i can remember i have been afraid of change, I still am in a lot of ways. I can't make decisions on anything of significance, or even stupid decisions, because im afraid to shut the door on anything else that might come, which let me tell you has muffed a lot of opprotunity in my 20 years of existance. I guess everything has been happening so fast I havn't had time to be scared, and I've just run with it. Today it all came down so hard and so fast that it caught me completley off gaurd. I am scared of who I was, and not even realizing the fact that I am who I've become. But Most of all I'm afraid i might just be happy where I end up, but not letting myself get there... I also hate the fact that I feel like i have no one to turn to accept this stupid blog. DAMN YOU BLOG. poop

I guess its ok to feel like your losing everything because it means you thought you had it all to begin with. Oh wait, that still sucks.

So once again, I find myself a bit down in the dumps. Which is unfortunate, because things were going really well for the space of 3ish days. I know there must be opposition in all things, but Dang.... can't sometimes something just go right and not have an equally or greater bad thing go wrong? Please? I am sometimes amazed how i can deal with being alive really. No im not crazy or suicidal, but im just saying. The crap i put myself through emotionally on a daily basis amazes me. Its like the think part of my brain says"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" to the emotion part thats saying "DONT TELL ME HOW TO LIVE MY LIFE!" Every day is a battle like that. Not to mention there could be a million things going right in my life, but i will pick out the 1 crappy detail and focus on it until the point where i make myself sick over it. Who does that?! what the hell is my problem? I just want to be happy and stay happy... HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY. Ive been praying quite a bit lately for help. But i don't think i want help if that makes sense? Because its been my experience that prayer will help, not neccisarily make it all better, but help. But something in me wont accept the help, and if i wont accept it then it cant help ya know? Does this make sense at all? Probablly not, thats what i get for eating 2 donuts and drinking an energy drink late at night for dinner. A late night emotional mess. I hate feelings. I guess that what i get for growing up without a dad... I look like a man, act like a man, smell like a man, play rugby like a man, and am a man, but have the emotions of a girl. Not cool. Everything is going to be ok... or maybe it wont? No one really knows.

Wrote in on facebook, so why not here too.

So many people are jumping on the Note band wagon, I figure i might as well too. I have been a bit down lately, and when i get like that i tend to think about stuff and evaluate life etc and what came to my mind first was getting baptize... For those of you who do not know, I was baptized about 9 months ago. I became a member of the restored church of Jesus Christ. Aka The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon). This was probably the biggest decision i have made in my life. Everything became different. Everything, I lost a lot of my closest friends, made some of the best friends i have ever had, changed my outlook and perspective on life, changed my course in life, like i said Life Just COMPLETELY changed... In a way who I am now, hated who I had been, and that isin't easy to deal with all the time. I have gotten A LOT of crap about this from pretty much every important person in my life. Accept from, my Mom, and my Great Grandma (who is a Momo). I expected a lot of the crap, because if you knew me pre-mormon days, you would have probably given me crap too. Hell sometimes i want to give myself crap. If you told me a year ago that I would get baptized, start attending church regularly, loving church, loving Jesus, and then plan on spending 2 years of my life being one of those guys I once would tell to get lost when they came to my door, I would call you a liar, and probably punch you in the face. But now, I don't want to think of life any other way. I really don't, in fact I can't. This conversion story has been shared with a lot of My Momo friends but now I am writing it on here to share it with some of my non-member friends. I started dating a girl who was a Member. She was an amazing girl, loved her to death. As i said, she was a member, so naturally she asked me to come to church with her, (In Mormon talk this is referred to as "Flirt To Convert") and of course i went. I figured it will probably give me more ammo to make fun of them and see how crazy they really are. I was right. It did. I thought wow Mormons are crazy. So later Kristen and I broke up, and I didn't go for a while. Then Kristen and I were still friends, so once again she asked me to go... Im a sucker for a pretty face so i went. This time, it was a little less weird. Again some time later we went again, and that time, i even liked it. So Kristen left for college ( we started dating again), I started talking to the Missionaries, Elder Jacox and Elder Jackson. Two of the coolest people I have ever met, pretty much my best friends. Love those guys. So i take the discussions and learn some stuff. They ask me to read and pray, so I did. One time I prayed, for real, the most sincere prayer i ever had in my entire life, not some rehearsed bull crap or anything like that, and I asked if anyone was up there, and if this hodge podge in the Book Of Mormon I was reading was true... I got a very deliberate answer, it was a resounding yes. Which mean Joseph Smith was a prophet (yes a prophet, not jesus or god or anything of that sort). I can't tell you exactly how my answer went, because it was felt more than completely understood. So yada yada a few more lessons and BAM, I got dunked. During the time i was deciding to get baptized there was a lot of opposition, myspace messages, phone calls at 2am telling me I'm crazy and have no idea what I'm doing, but i still decided it was for the best. So about a week after I was baptized, I broke up with Kristen, well she broke up with me but that's besides the point. I am not going to go into this story because its not pretty, even though i think it would just strengthen my choice about continuing to be a member. After this, the first thing everyone asked wasn't "Hey Mike are you ok? Or "Hey Mike what happened?" it was "Hey Mike, are you still Mormon?" (I suppose it was justified) but sure enough I was, yes still am. I know crazy, i didn't do it for a girl. I now plan to serve a Mission in the fall of this year. People often ask me questions, and try to make me contradict myself to prove how silly Mormons are. To them i say this. So what If I am wrong? What if when I die, nothing happens, and I just die? I tell you what, I am living a better life because of my belief and faith. I live life with a deeper sense of purpose and understanding. I live life with a constant love that comes from something, that can express more feeling than the human heart could dare to dream about or comprehend. I live with a knowledge my heavenly father loves me, and Jesus Christ died to save me, and everyone else. When i get married, I get to love as if it will last forever, because it will, which is the only way love should be felt, as the forever kind. I am taught and try to demonstrate the teachings that, every soul counts, and that I should love every person for who they are and who they are not. I know there is more to life than just life itself. So your right, I don't drink, or do drugs, or have meaningless sex with every girl I can. If i wanted to I could, I can do whatever i want, just as anyone else can. I choose not to, sure some things seem strange, but its all for my benefit in this life and the next, and the things I gain, far outweigh the things i "lose". I am not claiming to know it all, or have all the answers nor am I saying I'm better than anyone else. I am also not saying life is going to be a breeze from now on, or telling you life isin't hard. However I am telling you what i believe and what I feel. So bring on the questions, and the jokes, the attempts to un-convert me, and whatever else you desire. I won't always have the answer or reaction you want, but I will be glad to do my best to explain what i do know.

We ran away, now all my friends are gone,Maybe we’ve outgrown all the things that we once loved

Sometimes Life is funny, well not really funny, but if i don't laugh then im prone to cry, and it's not pretty when a grown man cries. Ok so maybe i wouldn't cry, but i might go off the deep end, if i haven't already? Just when i thought i was getting ahead, making things happen, and things were going seemingly well, you know a step forward in life... BAM! 2 steps right back. It's hard being optomistic when things are going wrong, but i guess those are the defining moments in life right? What we do in the face of adversity defines who we are, in a way. It's hard though, adversity isin't fun, and were supposed to be strong, and push through but sometimes i just want to give up. Im not always strong, (I know this may shock some of you) what if, try as I may, i just dont make it? What then? When is the point where we decide weather or not we need to push on, or give up? And what if we just need to give up? I found this quote when i was googling random quotes to try and help put words to my feelings; "Most things break, including hearts. The lessons of life amount not to wisdom, but to scar tissue and callus." When i read this, It made a lot of sense. Things that we learn from (not all) but things we really learn from, often take a piece of us. We learn our lesson, we love another person hard, and it fails, we pay the price, that person gets a piece of us we never get back. We put our heart and soul into something and it fails, it takes a piece of us. We have a friendship that means the world to us, and something just doesn't go right along the way, another piece gone. Each leaving a little scar, each experience hardening us a little bit more, Yes we learned from it, but not without some type of dividen paid. I bought a journal in hopes of being able to use it, but I found i don't like too. I have these thoughts and feelings that normally i would just bottle up and let build up till they all come out and i have a bad day/week. My plan was to write them down and maybe get it off my chest, but i really don't like being alone with my own thoughts sometimes, so I really havn't taken advantage of my journal. On a lighter note, I went on a ride along Saturday with my friend Brad. It was awesome, i seriously can't wait to be a cop. I saw dirty rednecks almost get tazed, and then get arrested for brawling, people who drive crappy and get pulled over, people who get pulled over for some ridiculous reason (usually my fault because i would be like "hey that guy did that, can we pull him over?") And then some guy tried to throw his weed in his neighbors yard after beating his wife, got taken to the slammer. We ( Brad, myself, and like 6 other cops) sat at starbucks for like 45 minutes just talking, we stopped for 2 dinners, a delicious energy drink etc... The best part of the night though for sure, was driving really fast through the streets with the lights and sirens on.

I should be asleep... But alas I am not.

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