So let me open up by apologizing to those of you who were under the impression I no longer have any vices and get out of the way that I have started smoking a pipe on occasion.  It’s a nice way for me to relax and often times I use as a bonding experience with a few of my other friends.  This is just so it’s not coming out of left field for the next part of this post.

So I just got back from a walk (it’s about 3 AM here) and decided to smoke while walking simply because I wanted to relax and get some thinking out of the way.  What follows is my thought processes not only of this walk, but also of the reflection over the past few weeks.  Bear with it if you like and if not that’s cool too.  I don’t really give a shit to be honest.  It should be added I was listening to Bright Eyes during this walk, but yeah I’ll get to that later too.  So in no particular order.

For the past month or so my body has been reacting like it is depressed.  Let me explain that I have gone through several bouts of serious depression in my life and my general reactions to this are trouble eating, insomnia coupled with the inability to get out of bed although more sleeping is not usually occurring and finally just general out of it feelings.  I am not depressed, at least not in the same way I have been in the past.  I am generally pretty happy as a whole right now and feel as if I have dealt with my mental health rather well this year, yet despite all of this the residual effects still reside.  I’ve had some off days (which we may get to), but overall despite all of this I have felt pretty good so I don’t know what else to say about this really.

To the writers of Skins: quote (or at least paraphrase) one of your characters “I hate you so fucking much, but I love you”.  You know what I mean.  Fuck you.  But thanks your show has done way more for me than I thought any television show could.  But yeah seriously fuck you especially for the last few weeks.

On this theme, I have decided that my least favorite of all of the tropes I encounter is when things do not work out for someone who gives there all to something.  Now I am not talking about things like feelings not being reciprocated or anything of that nature, but when someone truly gives all they have for someone and does so out of love and are left by the end, whether from the choice of another person or something out of their control like death.  It seriously scares the shit out of me.  I think I hate it so much because it feels so real.  I have lost many hours of sleep pondering the prospect of doing all I can for someone I care about deeply only to have them die.  It leaves me feeling the most powerless I have ever felt (and I have my experience with feeling powerless).  I have so much of my life planned and so much baggage that goes along with someone making the commitment to care about me that I literally do not think I would be able to move on from that.  I just become despondent, first in these scenarios and then when thinking about it too much begin to feel that way in real life.  It’s really quite a problem, but you are always there to bring me back to reality for which I am incredibly thankful.  *Edit* My grandfather was very much a victim of this problem as well which is another reason I just lose it whenever this shit comes up.  It hurts me so fucking much to think about it sometimes.

I plan to be published by the time I get my undergraduate degree.  I don’t mean a book, I mean an essay that I would like to write relating to how African American studies has helped me learn about and interpret myself as a person despite being white through and through.  A professor of mine told me she will help me with it and I am going to be working through it over the next year or so.

I think I have finally sucked it up and accepted that I am no longer part of my friend group from last year.  How much of this rift was externally forced and how much of it was self imposed I really can’t tell at this point and frankly just don’t care anymore.  The fact of the matter is I am vaguely uncomfortable the majority of the time I am with them and I just don’t need that shit.  We can all be friends on an individual basis, but that whole group dynamic is not really anything I’m interested in pursuing anymore.  I have enough of feeling shitty about myself (again not their fault, most likely self imposed) to last me a lifetime so I don’t feel the need to put myself in those situations anymore by choice.

So I feel the need to address suicide for a few reasons.  One it is popping up everywhere in my life right now.  Two I haven’t really taken a look at my own attempt from several years ago yet this year and feel like it is important for me to do.  Thirdly because I have begun a transition about how I view that event despite my “vaguely suicidal” feelings that are ever present during these winter months.  So let’s start at the beginning.  I decided last year that I liked the idea that I died 5 (now 6) years ago when I attempted to kill myself to no avail.  No one knew about, but I changed that day in many ways.  I extended that in my own head earlier this year with the idea that it was the death of Andrew and the birth of Nelson since it was around the same time that my name switched over (also I think a bit of why I wanted to change my name to Sirius last year because I felt for once I would be able to choose my own self and name along with it).  Nanu died long ago and I miss that small child the most of all.  He only comes out amongst my closest loved ones now, meaning my cousin Marcella, my grandparents and most recently Soph.  Others in my family occasionally try to use it and creates nothing but resentment from me when they do because they don’t understand.  I’m sorry to say that is true.  Anyways in a book we were reading for my English class the author tries to commit suicide.  The book is in graphic novel form and she attempts the whole process in under a full page of a 400 page book which cause one of my classmates to question why that was done. After a few other theories, I found myself with much more passion and almost indignation than I intended to use or knew I possessed responding that the author most likely did not want the reader to come away with the idea that was the defining or even a major defining event of her life.  Just like that I realized that I am the same way.  I think it is something that affected me a lot, but frankly I feel as if I have myself internalized it too much as something about me and therefore attributed more value to it than it deserves.  I have always socially taken this approach, but literally not until today decided it doesn’t mean shit to me personally/internally either.  Basically while it is still something that will affect me and I will probably address in a lot of my writing and whatnot, I am done with any sort of self pity/resentment/hatred/guilt associated with it.

I have also accepted the other problem I have that is I often live in the future too much.  While I am trying to work on living in the present, I am realistic and accepting of the fact that I have a lot of my future planned and frankly am happy about it even if it is liable to change.  I plan to be teaching in Chicago shortly after graduation.  I am going to be married within five years.  I plan to have three children (variable obviously) one adopted and two of my own.  Ideally I would like to adopt a boy from Africa and if he does not already have a name, call him Yaya.  I would then like to have at least one daughter of my own because I would love to raise a daughter so much, although if I end up with all sons I would love that as well.  I plan to get a masters in education.  I plan to eventually get a Doctorate or at least write a thesis in African American Studies, either using my experience in the classroom as my research or accomplish it much later on in my life when I am retired living in Europe doing research on Blackness in Western Europe.  I plan to be the most loyal and hardest working friend/husband/teacher/father I can be until my body or mind literally can’t do it anymore.  When I die I want there to be no question about my caring.

I have not been able to write poetry recently but have a few lines I know I want to include in some poems including “Fore(head) on the floor”, “I am going to…until I have a hood on me like Abu Ghraib”, “I like to steal lines from minds greater than mine”, “I supplanted my depression with some brash hip-hop aggression”.  Along with all of this I am currently attempting to write a poem about my grandmother I never met.  The central theme I am playing with right now is if she had lived in the time of the music I listen to would she have gone through with killing herself or been able to say “fuck it” about some many things like I have now.  I have decided that I am directly connected to her despite the obvious facts that I never met her and her life was hidden from me for the first 18 and half years of my life.  I miss you Grandma Charlotte and wish I could have talked to you.

The reason I titled this progress, besides the signs of progress previously discussed is that on my walk today I realized it was the first time I had gone on one of this late night walks without feeling awful beforehand.  I just needed to think and decompress a little, but didn’t feel like I wanted to die or anything like that.  My pipe ran out about halfway through my walk back and I have been playing with writing using the ashes of tobacco that gather on my pipe.  Without thinking about it I walked over to a park bench area and on the ground next to it attempted to write “Progress” in the black ash.  It came out rather shoddily with the “o” and “g” blending together, and will probably be blown away/washed away/not even show up by tomorrow, but it still made me feel really good about myself for some reason.

So there you have it.  I tried to best capture my thoughts and whatnot, and while I think I missed some of them/a few got a bit hazy that is more or less where I was at this evening.  Feel free to ask about anything mentioned in this.  Also, if you read all of this awesome and I’m kind of impressed and if you read none or some of it that’s cool too.

As a last note I would be remiss if I didn’t say that being able to talk to you during winter has made my life exponentially better so thanks again.