beauty missing

When I was in San Diego, I would sometimes drive an hour out of my way home from work to stop by the beach and watch the sunset. I had a place that I used to climb at was situated on a hill. If you looked out, you could see between two mountains all the way to the ocean.

DLI offered me a place to sit on the Harbor. The squid boats would float on the fog with their sails unfurled and look magical as Adam and I smoked cloves.

At West Point, there was Kosciuszko's Garden. I'd look out over the Hudson at barges going down the river in the dark and see the trains going to and coming from New York City.

I don't have a beautiful place in Killeen. I haven't had a place beautiful to sit in quite some time and I'm beginning to think it's actually affecting me. I don't know for sure, but when I was climbing last weekend and I saw the river, I just felt so good seeing something beautiful for a moment even. I only wish I could go there daily to be alone with something beautiful.

olympic flame

I remember watching a short documentary about Bosnia a few years ago. They were showing burned out ruined villages superimposed upon tape of the Bosnia Olympics many years prior. There was audio of a girl, maybe fifteen or sixteen years old, talking about how she just couldn't fathom the flames. How many years before, the Olympic flame was so beautiful and hopeful, and now, flames were burning everything she loved. How could a symbol--the flame--be so different in so short a time?

Love is similar, it seems. One day, the person who could make you laugh just by being in the same room or make you smile with a gesture like a glass of water and the next, the same person will make you want to cry just by seeing one another. I imagine it is the very passion and love which drew you to that person is the same emotion that makes you feel visceral hate. It's because you loved one another that you hurt as badly as you do when it's over. It's not the person who changes, the person is the same. But it is what you associate that person with. Sure, you'd like to focus on the laughter and smiles and fun. But instead, all you can see in him or her is the pain and tears and sadness. Even if it wasn't caused by that person, like the flame, it is what one associates the person with.

I've run into a crisis lately. Not much of a crisis, just...reality setting in I guess. I have no friends. I do have friends, actually, just none within near vicinity of me. No one who, when I get bored, I can call and say, "hey, let's get a pizza." No one who when I find something awesome going on I can say, "sweet, let's do this awesome thing."

What's worse is, I have loads of acquaintences. That's worse than not knowing someone. Acquaintences talk to you about what awesome things they did over the weekend or say things like, "You've never eaten there? You really should, we went this weekend and it was delicious."

It's so bad I look forward to the work week. At least then I know for eight hours a day I have an excuse about why I'm not doing fun stuff. Fri through Sun I just sit at home feeling shitty and self-pitying. It's true. I'm not happy to admit that, but it's true.

So, I've applied to leave TX early for another course that I might be able to take in Arizona. Arizona kind of sucks, but, as I wrote my old friends, I'd rather be in Arizona with people I haven't already grown weary of with nothing to do than here in TX with people I'm not close to and lots of cool things to do...but no one to do them with.

I'm not sure if this mood will pass soon, but I'm sure it will pass eventually. But right now, I'm just waiting for the roller coaster to hit bottom.