The Unbearable Lightness of Blogging

I’m not sure what to do with school. I’m so close to graduating but at the same time, I may really be out of gas. I’ve been going off of fumes for about 2 and a half years now, and it gets harder and harder to keep that up. My grades are poor, which is a complete testament to my lack of motivation. I start off the semester strong, empowered by the pep talk I give myself at the beginning, then at some point all that pep depletes and I kinda just “whatever” the whole thing. I try and reassure myself with another pep talk but I can’t deny the logic. School, for me right now, is stupid and an utter waste.

My degree is so far from important to my field. I’m in school being left in the dust by people that skipped that all together and just went to another country after HS. I haven’t learned anything significantly important to my industry in school in years. And on top of that, even if my degree was anywhere near important, the job market is terrible. If you’re not working on medical or law school, your degree might as well be art too. My peers who finished with their bachelor’s are all jumping back to school to get master’s, and I have yet to hear anyone say they’re doing it cause they want to further their knowledge in their field. They do it cause the simple jobs they want are being bum rushed by folks with master’s, cause at their level no one’s hiring cause they can’t afford that master’s degree level wage. So over-qualified people are entering entry level positions and the folks that are fresh out of school can’t compete. So they end up with jobs they didn’t go to school cause they need money. And what comes from that is they work so hard at that job cause they need to accumulate to pay for either more school or just living as an adult that they end up stuck doing that job, making whatever career they had setup a distant memory. And with all that going on, wtf am I doing?

I’ve gotten further on my own, without school. I’ve built a company from absolutely nothing. And when I say nothing I mean, when I started I didn’t even know how to work a camera. I bought books and educated myself, worked for my equipment and hustled my way up to wear I am a reputable photographer and manager for my level, with no inside connections. It hurts like hell to go from working with Spike Lee to turning him down for test in global history. Like, wtf am I doing? If the point of school is to get the knowledge for the job you want, and I have the job I want, can’t I just say peace out? Nope, because the point of school now is to get a degree. Really doesn’t matter in what now, just have one. And that’s what makes it so hard. I talk to my professors, not as a student, but as a peer, and they talk to me the exact same way. They know I have actual real world experience. What am I doing sitting here reading The Iliad for a grade? (Not that I don’t like The Iliad, it’s actually dope.)

It just sucks that no matter how much I amount to on my own, unless I become some superstar rapper or basketball player or something way up there like that, me leaving school without a degree is looked at as a fail. And that’s really me being judged by society, which I wouldn’t care about normally, but unfortunately that society does include my mother, and she’s really the only thing holding me to school. She really wants me to graduate and I would love to see her watch me graduate, cause I know that’s a real big thing for a parent, especially on a college level. It’s just…perfect example, last week I bumped into someone I used to go to HS with. Cool dude, telling me how he just graduated with a degree in Civil Engineering. Awesome. The rest of the convo is followed up by student loans and the struggle to find a job. He had already switched majors, from another form of engineering, to civil because this one would open up more opportunities, but looking for jobs is still fruitless. He’s down to looking for retail jobs cause he needs to get student loan folks off his back. How grim is that looking for me? I’m wasting time that I could be applying to my company to sit in these classes just to enter some crappy struggle with folks that have better chances than I do degree wise? I’m really only doing this for my mom, cause that light at the end of this tunnel is looking like a really weak lightbulb right now.

It hit me that my friends all work on the principle of comfortable space. I talk to the majority of them infrequently. Only reason my best friend is even talked to as much as he is is because we’re in business together. But we can go days or even weeks without talking to each other, then at some point we find a way to meet up or just contact each other and catch up. We don’t have awkward feelings with it, trying to get re-familiar with each other or anything, we just pick up where ever we left off, making weeks apart seem like mere hours. It’s an amazing quality I love with all my friends, cause I need that kind of thing to function.

The weird thing about that is…I don’t carry that into relationships at all. Or I should say, I forget to. I get interested in folks and want to stay in contact with them. I get in a relationship and I end up with a phone permanently glued to my ear. Talking after every meeting or class, texting during these meetings and classes, it’s constant. Wake up to calls, sleep on the phone. I can’t even blame the girlfriends for the behavior, cause I not only go along with it, I want it. There have been times I’ve felt a little off about not talking to them at times, for whatever reason. I guess it’s cool to miss them, we are in a relationship and that’s perfectly fine, but the issue I’m thinking about is space. I don’t do it with my friends because that’s just what we agreed upon, it’s what I need. And it’s not to say I need it so I can fill that slot with girlfriend time, I need it for me. So I work well with my friends with it, and when it comes to relationships I throw it out, which is okay with me at first but I think deep down it bothers me, and grows. By that point I’m not sure what to do about it though, cause to bring it up so late makes it seem like something is really wrong, like it’s a decline of feelings or something. So I end up sticking to the script I wrote, and having to deal with it, which is sometimes okay, sometimes not.

I think my next relationship should have that established early…same way I somehow worked it with my friends without it really being sat down and talked about. I, no, we need to be able to have our time apart and our time together. Probably the reason we fall in those situations is because my last couple relationships had a degree of distance to them..which is another thing I need to remedy in my relationships. But hopefully I figure it out…cause I would love to have a significant other who I can hit up and say “hey, let’s do dinner” and we meet up and talk about what we’ve been dealing with and essentially, just pick up where we left off.

Kinda just hit that I grew a whole lot this year…actually, I think this may have been the most growth I’ve ever gone through in one single year. My mind frame at this present time is way ahead of where it was a year ago and further ahead of where I thought it would be. That’s a great thing really, but only thing with that is…that growth hurt like all hell. I damn sure grew the hard way this year. I’m wondering if the pain involved was a result of the amount of growth or was the growing I had to do just going to be painful nonetheless.

Relationship wise, I’ve grown mentally, in a way. This is the first year I’ve ever had 2 relationships. Both were, I think in the overall grading of it…bad. Well, no, lemme take that back. The first wasn’t really bad…I think there was just so much potential in it that the ending of it was kinda disappointing. And it was kinda like…maybe it would’ve been better if the relationship hadn’t happened at that time…but of course, because it did happen, that means it had to happen when it did. And I guess for the knowledge acquired, it was worth it. The 2nd relationship…man…I’m not even ready to get into that one yet. Really.

On the family side I think I got hit the hardest. The surprise and speed of it made it hit so hard and cut so deep. I really did not see my family breaking down like it did. As much as I like to over think, that didn’t cross my mind at all. I didn’t realize it til it was already broken, but family was kind of my backbone. If I ever hit that “back against the wall” situation, the wall was my family. Really sucked that they were the cause of my back against the wall situation…so in a way, I had nothing. I guessed I needed to stand stronger on my own, which I’m definitely working on. I was never really one for dependency, but I guess I need to be even more stand alone. In my heart of hearts I think it absolutely sucks but if that’s what must be done…I must be built for it.

Business was definite growth..and I’d say the most positive growth. My name and my company has become widespread a great deal. I’m getting closer to that point where I feel like I can just do whatever I want artistically and just let my creativity flow. Of course there’s still bugs to work out here and there but I’m definitely looking forward to the year ahead.

As for me…as a being incorporating all of this…I just don’t know. I’ve grown into a higher consciousness I think. I feel kind of isolated, staring at, not earth, not even the universe, but existence itself. I’m looking at my life as if I’m looking at it all in hindsight. Like even the present second is just some past reflection. It actually makes life really simple. I don’t have the anxiety associated with making a decision, I somehow feel like the decision has already been made. I’m simply progressing the story. I guess the downside to it is in feeling like I’ve done, and not currently doing, I sometimes feel like I’ve lived, and not exactly living. So then…what am I currently doing? And that’s where I am.

Either way, with all this, it does make me extremely interested in what the following year will hold for me.

Entering this club last Friday to shoot the artist that were performing, this drunk dude taps me on the shoulder trying to get a photo. I had just walked in and got checked by security so I’m like gimme a sec let me get my stuff together…At that point the club’s staff photographer informs me that I’m only allowed to take pictures of the people on stage and that’s it. It’s understandable, I can’t go around taking pictures of people like that’s my job for the night. I really wasn’t even in the mood to take pictures at all. So drunk guy comes back tapping me asking about a photo with him and now his brother. I tell him what was told to me, how I can’t take his photo cause I the have a guy for that, and he starts getting upset. He tells me that he’s spent $400 at the bar so I should be able to take his picture. As if that has anything to do with me…better yet, as if his measly $400 means anything to that club. But what I tell him is I’m not allowed to, best thing I can do is take his picture if he comes near he stage, once the performances start. He doesn’t want to do that. Now he starts telling me how he can put me on to big name industry people and all this junk. Now I’m just done, cause I already know the BS going on. I’m trying to make my way away from him at this point, ready to hand him a business card and tell him to just hit me up. But he wants to go on trying to impress, so he gets real close, and starts telling me how I shouldn’t treat him like he’s some small time dude, and how just a couple days ago he was just on stage with Meek Millz “and ‘em”. Man…I was prepared to hit dude in the face. Why would you stand there and try and talk to me like I’m some hoodrat chick? Meek Millz? Like I was really about to say “Oh wow you’re right he is a boss, let’s have a photoshoot right here and now to show you’re a boss too” Name dropping is so seriously lame, especially when you don’t know who you’re talking to. It’s the quickest way to show that you’re not really apart of that high life you’re trying to portray. I ended up just sliding him off to my biz partner to handle while I went along my business.

It hit me today, in a heavy flash of thought, that my ex’s weren’t bad people. Not that I thought they were villains or something but obviously we’re not together for a reason, and they can’t all be my fault or 100% me to blame. What hit me is the fact that I didn’t leave because of the person, but more because it hit me that we were not meant to be together. I realized that because my ex’s are still awesome people after our time together. I don’t really have any that I can think “good riddance” on. If they were bad people, I wouldn’t have gotten with them in the first place. They’re all as great as when I started dating them. but I think on them and it’s just like….yeah, we had to end that. It sucks because it makes it a bit difficult to not want to go back to them. My brain, or better yet my heart I guess, sometimes disregards the fact that we don’t work on that level and only sees the great person they are. I end up wanting to be around them again in some capacity, which ends up having us fall back into place…which is bad. One of my best friends is a great exception to that. We dated in HS and broke it off, then somehow met up months later and was able to pull out a great friendship from there without awkward ex moments. We can even talk about our past relationship without being awkward, which is extremely rare I feel. I don’t think I want that with all of my ex’s, but it wold be cool to keep great people in my life. And, of course, how could I forget, it would be awesome to revisit sex with at least one of them.

It sucks that I don’t mind sleeping in my bed alone until I’ve slept with someone and they’re gone. I really have not the slightest thought on it. Then I’ll sleep in a bed with someone, and following that my bed feels extra spacious and cold and all this stupidness. It’s weird cause it’s a feeling that’s parallel yet separate from sex. Like I know the feeling of wanting to have sex with somebody…that’s simple. But there’s something else that’s going on when I’m not even focusing on that and I’m just thinking about the feeling of wrapping my arms around somebody. It’s just all around weird.

First time I ever had a Thanksgiving like this. I haven’t seen one single family member all day. I decided I was just gonna chill out by myself and not let all the family issues be rubbed in my face. Only thing that really sucked about it was the food. I went out and ate with a friend of mine, which was cool cause we needed to catch up and we planned a shoot, but there’s nothing in the world I could’ve ate that would’ve compared to home. Sadly though if I had not done this, I would’ve ate home-like food but, it wouldn’t have been the same without the family intact. No collabs with my mom and sis making stuff and my nephew trying to help. Me on outside, duty, picking up whatever last minute thing is needed then coming inside o be a taste tester. Us all laughing at some dish that failed, whether it be burned or just horrible tasting. The more I think on that stuff the more my family’s current state sucks…but I hope we find a way out of it. As for being here by myself, it’s pretty cool. I do hope to be able to get this place for myself, cause that would be beyond awesome.

Moving is a pain in the ass…and since Sept. that’s all I’ve been doing. If all goes well with this room though it’ll be great….I’ll be back near campus and that whole area and have my own space. If I get the bigger room, I can have a tiny studio in there…maybe not for big client work but I can shoot around at least a little…If I get the smaller one I can just focus and work relentlessly. Either way, I need the distance from the family. I feel like I’ve had them on my shoulders for quite a while and it’s not allowing me to do what I need to to help everybody. Or at least help my mom, sis, and nephew. Everyone else is just more annoying than anything.

Before I get into my disdain, I should probably explain the difference, at least how it differs to me. Liking someone is the genuine notion of your feelings rising for a person. You want to find out more about them and when you do you like them even more, thus fueling more interaction. If you find out more about them and you don’t like it, you like them less. It’s simple yet challenging and when it works out it’s great.

Crushes on the other hand, are just one sided and illogical. They’re like feelings that sneak out the window and run wild while your brain’s asleep. Of course you want to learn more about the other person, but your mind’s already compiling how they are for you. You take the little bit that you do know about them and use it to fill out the rest…and when it’s all said and done you start to like THAT person, no, that figment of your imagination that’s pretty much a cyborg, part reality, part fantasy. Crushes give you rose colored glasses to that person’s entire being. They’re as perfect as your perception of perfection will allow someone to be, and your mind will even work double time to justify the wrong with them, even if it’s against you. The exaggeration of their good with the diminishing of their flaws is bad enough, but I think the worst thing is it puts you completely at their mercy in a way. Usually the person has no idea, leaving you to either go through the agony of having to put yourself on the line revealing your feelings or taking it silently in stride, pining over them like some friggin’ puppy.  Even when they have an idea they may or may not choose to do anything about it. They may actually LIKE you but the fact that you’re CRUSHING means you’re rushing through all the necessary steps to really establish something. You end up running so far ahead that you either try and rush the other person, which is a terrible idea, or you feel like they’re not feeling you, and you hit the killswitch before it even really started.

Crushes are just stupid and once I realized how stupid they are, I told my self I’d have no part in them. If I can’t comfortably like you and take it from their then I’m wasting my time. And if you come at me in what feels like a crush it’s a waste of time as well. All that to say…throw all that logic out the window, I’m crushing. It caught me so off guard I was confused. Like I caught a damn cold and didn’t recognize the symptoms. It came from one of those “they were the right person at the right time” kind of moments. Now I’m thinking about them a tad too much and it’s really for no damn reason. I don’t have enough info on them or what we talked about to warrant this much thought. I don’t have the time to chill with them even half as much as I’d like to. And the worst thing is, they make me a complete idiot, which annoys the hell outta me. I really want this crush shyt to dissolve so I can either actually go through liking them properly or just get back on track with what I have going on.

I’m thinking I’m going to give them some space and let the situation air out. Thing is though, when do I not solve an issue with distancing myself?

Reason 1 is, I wanted a place to actually talk about stuff I deal with. I don’t do that on my other blog. I talk about stuff, I discuss things, but it rarely actually has anything to do with me. I like posting random observations on life, things I find interesting, or just whatever pops up that I feel is worth it on there, amongst the other random pictures and reblog stuff. Outside of that though, I wanted to actually have a place where I can account for the things that went on with me. I like being able to look back on things like this and see how far I’ve come. I think that kind of thing can really help you grow.

Reason 2 is, I wanted to read a “real” blog. When I say real I mean as in, an actual account of your life from your point of view. I feel like I read a lot of stuff that’s close to it, but there’s something missing. For whatever reason, whether it be they don’t want to post that kind of thing out of shyness or fear of being judged or having to defend it, folks seem like they omit quite a bit. I know for a fact all these blogs I read aren’t matching their blog with their life correctly cause when I actually talk to some of them, they have so much actually going on. And in a way, I do like actually talking to folks over reading a blog post, but it would be cool to at least have a couple blogs that really talked about life issues and such. It’s always a great read. Guess I figured I couldn’t really complain and be apart of the prob so….here I am.

Now, I’m not sure how long I’m gonna stick with this or how great I’ll be with this. I suck at opening up. In any capacity really. I have these kind of things in the past and have left them all out in the cold to die. But let’s see if I grew. Anyway, read if you’d like. If you IRL know me, you may end up mentioned in some way. just so you know.

Cool? Cool.