Eject, Wipe, Play, Rewind

I'm sitting on my bed, and he's on a chair in front of me. It's hard to believe it's all happening, and it all feels normal. Except for this one second. Now that I stop to think about how normal it feels, it almost freaks me out a little. Sometimes you spend so much time wanting something that you don't even know how to act when you get it. The first instinct is to pinch yourself.

I'm probably staring too much. Then again, it's not my fault his eyes intoxicate me. Maybe he doesn't notice. We've been keeping a pretty healthy conversation. And almost as if he heard me think it, those chocolate brown eyeballs shift my way and weaken my knees. There's a pause. Not an awkward one, though. Just a passing moment of body language. Body conversation. Body talk. I've also been smiling like a huge dork for the past 30 seconds. I'm pretty sure. But when that smile creeps across his velvet lips, it makes sense. His eyes light up, his teeth grin, and I'm way too invested already. I've fallen on my face, and there's not a good chance of recovering.

He reaches his golden sculpted arm out and puts his hand on my leg. "Let's play hide and seek." His smile widens, his chocolate eyeballs shimmer. I can't even focus on anything. I manage to somehow fire a a few stray neurons, and my head bobs dreamily up and down. I'll count first.

And then it all happens at once, except it feels like it never happens at all. Like I only imagined it. I close my eyes and start counting:

One. I hear him stand up from his spot on the chair, but I don't hear the usual frantic footsteps that accompany a hider as he hurriedly conceals himself.

Two. And then I feel it. I can feel him close to me. Breathing with me. I feel the occupied space seeping into my skin.

Three. He runs his finger along my jaw brushing up my numbing cheek. His cologne seduces my heightened senses. I'm frozen. I don't dare open my eyes.

Four. His fingers brush through my hair. My breath is deepening, my heart is floundering, palpitating, perspiring in my chest. All of the air between us vaporizes.

Five. And then I feel those velvet lips on mine. The lightest, most delicate grazing, followed by more and more pressure. My shaky fingers clutch the comforter and I melt into the kiss. He puts his other hand on my thigh again, but I'm too dizzy to notice. All I want is for this kiss to last forever, but it's over before I even finish wishing. I still can't open my eyes. I have to let the moment linger. It can't be over yet. I hear him smile under his breath, and laugh at his own boldness. I'm trying to find the words, grasping for anything to say. For anything. I laugh a little and smile under my breath too. The connection lingers so heavily in the air, that it's hard to speak into.

The only way the moment could have been broken was by the loud buzzing of his cellphone. We lock eyes one more time, and he reaches into his pocket for his phone, but freezes before he can get it out. And the buzzing continues. Growing louder, angrier, more incessant. The buzzing is so potent I can smell it.

It was only then that I finally woke up, and actually opened my eyes. My phone alarm was buzzing on the shelf by my bed. My feet hung off the end of the bed. My left arm was still fast asleep. I groggily lurched for my phone with another arm, straining my eyes through my blurry vision. I sat up, turned off my alarm, and flopped back into bed looking at the ceiling. I swear to God I could still feel that kiss on my lips. As I kicked my legs over the side of the bed and sat up, I found myself wanting the same thing I had always wanted.

Fuck. I should have pinched myself.

Wait...

Is there like a Pause button or some cliché device for stopping time around here somewhere? Because I swear to God, Time really greased itself up with some butter. And everyone knows attempting to apprehend an escapee drenched in butter is like, the hardest thing on Earth to do.

Okay, you know when you're watching a movie, and your friend says something to you? You have like a 30 second conversation, and then suddenly you've missed like, HALF the plot. Or you know when you're reading a book and you let your mind wander for a couple seconds? You find yourself lost in the middle of a page on which nothing looks familiar. You just almost glazed your way through a full chapter. You know what I'm talking about, right? That's the feeling I feel right now. I'm less than an hour from my twenty-first birthday, and I feel like I missed some major plot-points. Or maybe I zoned out and glazed over for a few chapters without realizing it. Either way, regardless of the fact that I can't keep my metaphors straight, regardless of the fact that you might not even know what I'm talking about, regardless of the fact that I turn twenty-one in fifty-three minutes, I feel like I missed something.

Like a father who's in the shower when his son takes those first few precious steps, I missed out. When I turned sixteen, I thought, "Look at that. I'm just a hop, a skip, and a jump away from being seventeen. And right after seventeen comes eighteen. Nineteen and twenty will blend together into nothing, and before I know it, I'll be twenty-one." Who was I kidding? I had 5 whole years before I could walk into a bar and drink myself into a coma.

The funniest part is, I was right. My juvenile naïvety turn out to be some sort of redundant, archaic wisdom. Somehow, I let my mind wander, and I glazed over five years. And so much happened in those five years! Everything happened. Everything that shaped the Ryan Roschke today happened between then and now. So why do I feel like I only turned sixteen yesterday? Why do I feel like I'll just turn thirty next week?

I'm sorry I'm being vague and not really elaborating on anything. It just feels like too much to type into one little white electronic space on website with hundreds of thousands of other little white electronic spaces on a laptop in my room. I guess what hit me is this: I spent so much time looking forward to my twenty-first birthday, and now it's finally here. And what now? Big deal. Should I find something else to look forward to? The thing is, we spend so much time looking forward that we miss everything that happens. We spend so much time looking forward that a 30 second conversation results in missing half of what's going on. And when we stop running out of things to look forward to, all that we have left to look forward to is death. And at that point, we've missed the point of living.

But how can I even begin to train myself not to look forward? Focus. Presence. Even then it's still too hard. In the words of my mama, it's always just about living one day at a time. Today this is happening. And what else matters? I guess we look forward because we are often disappointed by today. If you can't live in your own now, you have to look forward to a better future. At my worst point, all I could think about was how badly I wanted to feel better. How badly I wanted to be anywhere else but in the now. In the end, my mama always told me to live one day at a time. That's all you need to do. And eventually, baby steps lead up to an entire journey. It was only in my last few moments before I fell asleep that she'd say, "Tomorrow will be a better day." And I found that tomorrow when I got my transplant.

So here I am. Twenty-one years old. Two decades and some change. And what else matters?

Six Month Check-Up

So, we're about halfway through 2010, and I think it's been a fantastic year overall. I mean, there's been heartbreak and sadness, but laughter and smiles, and overall it just balances out and it adds up to life.

So much has happened already this year.

I experienced genuine happiness and love with another person. John taught me so much about myself and who I want to become. I learned how to be with someone else, and how to put that person before me, when it came down to it. I learned that I can commit if I want to, I just have to find to perfect person to commit with. I learned how to be more patient, but I also learned how far my anger can push things. I also learned that I have a lot more to learn. Maybe John wasn't the love of my life, but he made me realize so many things. And now that he's here, I hope he never goes away.

I grew closer to home friends too, this year. My friendship with Cory feels like it's stronger than ever. It's funny, I used to think you can't be best friends with someone in your family. You see them enough anyway. You're obligated to be with them. They don't need to be your best friend because they'll be with you, whether you like it or not. But the more I live, the more clear it seems that Cory and I are best friends. We have so much in common, and we get how the other feels sometimes. We have these 20 years of baggage together, and it helps us understand each other better than anyone else (we have the same brain, I promise). But also, we're close enough friends now that he can call me out on bullshit (gently), and we help each other grow in the process.

I've also learned so much more about Ariel Price this year. I've seen sides of her I never would have imagined existed, and I can sense that I've only chipped away at the top few layers. I can feel more that has yet to come, and it makes me happy. We're still basically new friends (in comparison to my friendships with, say, Cory and Michelle), and we're building this organic trust that just sort of happens. I really love it. We have this sort of silent acknowledgement that there's a no bullshit rule in our friendship, I think. We don't lie or cheapen our thoughts, we just let loose. I can't tell you how many conversations we've had that begin with, "Okay, so, this conversation doesn't leave the car," and then we just go. It's beautiful. And yet, I know there's things she still has yet to tell me. I guess it's all about finding the right moment.

And then there's Michelle. Michelle and I have had the weirdest, most troublesome relationship, and I feel like it's riddled with the most ridiculous traces of baggage. We just have such a complex history, it's almost too hard to believe, and too fucked up not to laugh at. Michelle is one of the few people who makes me hesitant, worried, and vulnerable. And I don't think it's a bad thing. It's just something I have to learn to get over. I'm always paranoid about texting or calling her or making plans. Sometimes I psych myself out, and I let my imagination get the best of me. But, in the end, I have to remind myself that we're old enough to communicate if something's really long. It's a hard thing to learn, and it requires a good deal of repetition. But I'm getting there. All I know is I could never bear to lose what I have with her. Michelle makes me laugh harder than any person in the world. How many times has she left me breathless, gasping to turn oxygen into laughter, my sides hurting, my smile hurting? Too many to count. We're both ridiculous together, and we know it. And we love it.

I finally got a wake up call to change my body. At the beginning of the year, I was unhappy with my body. I ate everything. I had two of each meal, so much McDonalds, copious amounts of In-N-Out, and every french fry I touched was unceremoniously dipped into ranch dressing and shoved down my hungry (or sometimes not even hungry) throat. I tried to lift weights every once in a while. I tried to run here and there. But in the end, I still felt gross, unhealthy, and uncomfortable with my body. And now, I'm an organic vegan. I do yoga or some form of exercise daily, and I cook for myself. Every day, I feel more and more comfortable in my scarred traumatized skin. What the fuck, guys?

I went through so many stages of growing up without even knowing it. And yet, I know I'm still not fully mature. Isn't that weird though? How it takes a mature person to acknowledge their immaturity? It's just about being aware of the relative balance, too. You can't just go around saying you're mature. You'll look like a fool. Maybe no one ever really finishes maturing. And that's what we have to tell ourselves. There's always room to grow.

I guess you might be wondering what prompted this entry. Well, I found my New Years Resolutions today. And I thought maybe I'd stop, take stock, and see what's up. Here's the list I wrote on January 1st (2nd?), on the way to Hawaii (and some change):

10 New Years Resolutions for 2010:

1. Write something once a week (Getting there)

2. Keep a sketch diary (Maybe my drawing class will kick my ass into shape?)

3. Try one new recipe a week (Or at least every two weeks [What a cop out, right? But hey, I've been doing pretty well at this one.])

4. Workout four times every week.

5. Don't text and drive (Drive better).

6. Get a 4.0 at Berkeley (I was so close this semester!).

7. Listen to others. Listen to yourself.

8. Work hard for the body you love. And then love it.

9. Learn how to be wrong (I'm really trying on this one. It's so hard though).

10. Be grateful! Breathe! You're alive.

And then there's an attempted drawing of Lady GaGa. Perfect. You know, I'm taking inventory of this list right now, and it's pretty strange how well it relates to growing up in general. Like I was saying, you can't ever really say you're mature. And will I ever really say I've accomplished these? I mean some things are finite. Like, I'll be able to say I got a 4.0 at Berkeley if I do, indeed, get one. But even after that, it's not an excuse to stop trying. I'm still going to have to try just as hard the next semester.

We get a chance once a year to revamp this list, to make new New Years Resolutions. But do they ever really change? Sure, we might rephrase them, or focus on a different resolution each year, but it doesn't mean it's not there anymore. I'll always want to cook new things once a week. It seems to me that this is just a reminder to work and love the results. We can make New Years Resolutions, but they'll always just be Life Resolutions to me. Some of them are silly, but some of them aren't. And no matter what, I don't think you can ever really check something off the list. You just acknowledge it and keep doing what your doing. There's always room to improve, right?

I'm pretty happy with the direction I've been going in this year. My Life Resolutions are coming along quite nicely. How's your list coming along?

... And, on that incredibly cheesy rhetorical question where I break the forth wall and address the reader in a kind of stupid but hopefully sort of effective way, I should go have some fun. And, you know, enjoy life or some shit.

But really though. Be grateful. Breathe. You are alive. And that's something.

Life Lessons From Regina Spektor

Sometimes I listen to songs forever without actually hearing them. And it's not like I'm only vaguely familiar. It's not like I can only hum the tune. Sometimes I mark songs as favorites. I know all the words, I rack up a high play count on iTunes, I sing it in my head for days, etc. And yet, I never really hear the song until one day when it just seeps in and resonates from a cranial epicenter of understanding. Suddenly, the lyrics click and my awareness shifts, and the whole song really sinks in.

This bizarre phenomena happened again to me today. I was driving my dad home from lunch, he was passed out in the passenger's seat. I was coasting up the main road home, the windows were down, the wind brushing through my hair, the sun lathering my skin. I had put my "Sunshine Mix" in the CD player. I value Sunshine music a lot. It's the music you can feel the warmth coursing through. The beat is happy, the tempo is all smiles, and you are physically obligated to sing along; it's an impulse that's impossible to control. With Sunshine music, the windows always have to be rolled down.

So, I was driving in the car, and "On the Radio" came on. "On the Radio" is secretly one of my favorite Regina Spektor songs, and I feel like it's severely underrated. The lyrics are great, the beat is potent, and the orchestration is pretty flawless. I added the song to countless playlists and CDs, racked up 42 plays on my iTunes, and even gave it an astounding 5-star rating. And yet, I somehow managed to avoid connecting to the song until this afternoon. Then, very suddenly, I felt the shift. The song started speaking to me, just like "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)," and I heard the lyrics.

"This is how it works: you're young until you're not, you love until you don't, you try until you can't, you laugh until you cry, you cry until you laugh, and everyone must breathe until their dying breath."

It's going to sound stupid making cliché statements about the lines that smacked me in the face, but come on. Regina just fires off these amazing truths, these common sense-isms that most of us subconsciously know. And yet we're completely oblivious to them. We ties ourselves up in these superfluous complications in our lives, and we forget the most simplistic things. We forget to just live. Life becomes cluttered with education, car payments, vanity, fashion, broken relationships, everything. And, in the end, all that should really matter is that we're alive.

...Shouldn't it?

"No, this is how it works: you peer inside yourself. You take the things you like, then try to love the things you took. And then you take that love you made and stick it into some, someone else's heart pumpin' someone else's blood. And walkin' arm and arm, you hope it don't get harmed. But even it does, you just do it all again."

I don't even know how to articulate how I feel about these lyrics. I think Regina just knew it though. I don't know where she pulls these lyrics from, but they're completely brilliant to me. Who knew there was a step-by-step guide to loving yourself? Who knew there was a step-by-step guide to loving someone else? I don't know... Maybe I'm reading too much into these lyrics. Maybe I'm kind of crazy and they're not that great, but damnit! It just makes sense to me. We get so worried about everything that's happened and should happen, and we forget what's happening.

But the most important things are all there. We are young until we're not. We must all love fiercely until we stop, and be honest when we do. And we can never stop trying. Life should be full of laughter. Hysterical laughter that brings tears. And when it hurts and life sucks, the best thing to do is to laugh anyway.

In order to love someone else, we have to love ourselves first. We have to find that love within, because it's only after we've found internal love that we can express it to someone else. Maybe that's how to truly know what it is to fall in love. Once we feel our own love, we can feel the love for someone else. We can give them the self acceptance, the joy, the compassion. The tighter we embrace ourselves, the wider our arms open for someone else. And that person has to embrace themselves to embrace you too. Maybe love doesn't work until we reach that perfect symmetry. Without the symmetry, we get harmed. And then we try again.

What else matters? I just want to try my hardest to get to that point. Because in the end, the only thing I care about is that I'm breathing still. As long as I'm breathing, I can live, love, cry, laugh, cry some more, try my best, and love intensely. And I will keep fighting and breathing, until my dying breath.

But until then, it's all or nothing.

Post Script: I apologize for the crippling amount of cliché epiphanies in this entry. Sometimes cliché is the only way to go, I guess.