Reflecting

So, no one reads this. Which is fine. Cause I don't need anyone to. I need this for me.

This has been a very difficult year. I'm not gonna say "the worst in my life," because I will need some time to reflect on it and make that determination later. The year before Meredith started dating Ryan was extremely difficult. I don't know how this one matches up just yet. But, it's been really tough. I have become a different person entirely, and I'm really not sure if I like the New Shannon yet. I thought I did. In fact, I was sure of it. But, reflecting now, I don't know. I really liked the Old Shannon. He was a pretty cool guy. Very sweet. Very naive. Extremely. He had rose-colored glasses. He saw the good in everything and every one. But, it's safe to say that he's dead. As in, I will NEVER be that Shannon again. Which is kinda sad in a way. But it also means that I HAVE to learn to love the New Shannon. This New Shannon is extremely cynical. He's angry. At specific people, at no one, at the world, at the idea of optimism.. That's not to say that I'm miserable. I'm not, anymore. I was. Here's that story..

In June of 2009, I moved into the apartment with Tim. Great decision. Leah kind of pushed me toward that, and I am eternally grateful for her. I would NEVER have left the comfort and safety of the nest if it hadn't been for her being there to tell me that I could do it. But, about 4 months into living in the apartment, she and I split up. It was rough. And by rough, I mean "I'm fairly sure I kept my upstairs neighbors awake crying hard into my pillow for months." rough. But, I had an EXCELLENT support network. Many of the people involved were people I barely knew. Marissa was SO helpful. I mean, but at the same time I never will be able to get over the fact that if I had never met Marissa, I would never have had the courage to break up with Leah. So, part of me really hates Marissa for that. But another part of me is thankful. Which is really unfair to Marissa, because every time I talk to her, she has no way of knowing which Shannon is going to be there. But, regardless, at the time, she was there. Also, Heather from Domino's was essential. I needed a place to point the love in my heart that I could no longer give to Leah. I'm not saying I was in love with Heather. I wasn't. But I had something to... yearn for. Finally, Kristina was there. Sort of. Sure, she lives in Oregon and goes to school in Idaho and we've never actually met, but she was there to talk to about Leah and it really helped. So, long story short, I had people there to fall back on, as opposed to when Meredith and I split, where I had no one. So, I survived. I started to move on. Then Leah moved to Branson. That made things difficult. It wasn't her fault, though. We were both trying to figure out what we wanted. Neither of us knew for sure. Ultimately, we don't talk anymore, which is a huge bummer because she's a great person. I'll always miss her. Anyways, it complicated my already complicated life. But that's okay. Again, support network.

So, I started hanging out with people again around March-ish, partly because I was back in school and partly because I had some non-school friends. But, I ended up getting caught up in something. I don't necessarily regret any of it. But, regardless, it happened, and it was dangerous, and I'm glad it's gone now. But, it slowly started consuming me, even though I was SURE that it wouldn't. It was like the black suit from Spider-Man. It felt good, but ultimately it was corrupting who I was. This, in combination with the heartbreak from Leah and the next part of the story is what eventually killed Old Shannon.

So, in May, I moved out of the apartment. My lease was up, and I wasn't working, due to grad school, so I moved back into the parents' house. I figured it would kinda suck but that I loved my folks so no big deal, right? Wrong. They did everything that they could to make me okay with the situation, but the seeds of depression were already planted. The fact of the matter was I had gone from 1) being in a happy relationship that I fully intended to see through to marriage and beyond. 2) having a somewhat lucrative job. 3) having a bunch of great friends and 4) living on my own to 1) being mind-blowingly single 2) being jobless 3) having absolutely no one to talk to and 4) living in my mom's basement again. I had taken my little car in the game of Life, removed the pink companion peg and moved it backwards 7 years. I was in the same exact position that I had been in when I was a sophomore in high school. THAT is depressing. Imagine climbing Mount Everest for 7 years, and then looking down and seeing that you've actually gone BACKWARDS! That was also heartbreaking.

So, let's recap. A) I had gotten involved in something extremely dangerous and destructive that I actually enjoyed. B) I was depressed from the loss of who I considered The One. C) I was depressed from the idea of returning back to "You're a bum who lives in your mom's basement with no friends and no girl" status. I quickly became attached to the destructive behavior. Why? Who knows. But it was probably half "It makes me forget all my problems for a while" and half "It's bad for me, and I hate myself".

So, naive, happy-go-lucky Shannon died over the three months of summer. What emerged was this man. This cynical, doubting, unhappy, jagged person. I'm no longer attached to what I had become attached to, which is for the best, but the change has already been made. And I'm no longer naive enough to think that I can change back. That's not possible. The rose-colored glasses are broken. But that's okay, I think. I don't hate who I am anymore, and I think it's because I've come to terms with it. I enjoy that destructive behavior, but I realize that moderation is the key. I've lost Leah forever, but I realize that she may have been The One for Old Shannon, but there's someone else out there for New Shannon. And I'm gonna find her some day. I live in my mom's basement, but I realize that I'm in grad school and that once I finish, I'm going to get a job teaching somewhere and get outta here. It's a pit-stop. It's not the end of the race.

I would still say I'm cynical and doubting, though. I keep entering into these relationships with these girls, and then I find some little nit-picky thing to dislike, and I sabotage it. Or I just become a direct asshole and make her hate me. I've done that... twice over the past few months. And I will probably be doing it again soon. That's the one thing I can't really figure out. I'm not sure why I keep doing this. I mean, with the first one, I know why. With the second one and with the one that may or may not happen shortly, I don't really get it. Why am I pushing them away? Do I subconsciously think they're not good enough and so I'm ending things before they get too complicated? Or am I just a shallow douche who isn't content with settling down? I'm not entirely sure. I'm sure I'll figure it out as time goes on, but it's not necessarily fair to the people involved. Which adds to the dislike of myself. But, the fact that I'm capable of getting these girls to become interested in me is countering that dislike. At least mostly.

With this current one, she's great. She's a sweet girl, and we have very similar senses of humor. She seems to genuinely care for me. She hurt my feelings today and when I called her on it, she legitimately wanted to make things right. She got upset and the fact that she hurt me. Really? I haven't felt that since... late 2007-early 2009. That's kind of incredible. But, for some reason, I can feel the urge to screw it up welling up inside me. Even tonight, when I was over there, the whole time, in my head I was thinking "I wonder how long I'm going to let this go on before I come up with some reason to end it." Who does that? I'll tell you. New Shannon. Why? Don't bother asking him. He has no clue.

We watched The Machinist tonight. Man, that's an excellent movie.

That's about all the reflecting I wanted to do tonight. I should get some sleep. I've been up till like 6 or later the past 3 or 4 nights. So yeah, time for sleep. I may get more in the habit of doing this blog thing, depending on whether or not I need to crank out some more of my inner crap. This was definitely helpful tonight. It didn't answer anything, but it allowed me to say some of the words that had been forming in the cloudy murky mess that is my mind. So I may empty more of my thoughts here later. Till then, stay classy Interwebs.

New Shannon

Girls

Theres a good chance i wont post this, but at the moment, i wanna get it off my chest.

Im definitely ready to be back in a relationship. Im ready to show someone that i can be everything they need. I can make them happy. I can be selfless for them. Im ready for a girl to show me those things too. Showing me that im cared for and that they see no other men but me. Problem is, no one im interested in feels the same.

Theres one girl that id literally, literally do anything for. She's just flat out not interested. No matter what i say to her or do for her, its just not gonna happen.

Theres one other girl who im pretty interested in. She told me that she doesnt like relationships, but that she loves making out and wants to spend more time with me.. well, honestly, i think im looking for a little more than just making out. And at some point, this is going to leave me feeling unsatisfied.

When you are a man (or who knows, maybe its just me) it really bums you out when you feel like youve shown that you are or can be everything that a girl could ask for and she STILL doesnt want you.

I realize that im just supposed to be patient and wait it out, but thats easier said than done when the one you want is in your face all the time. I dunno. There is no solution. Im not looking for an answer; im just venting my frustration. I guess i have to just keep doing what im doing and hope that either one of these girls changes her mind or that someone totally new falls into my life. Unfortunately, i see both of these possibilities as unlikely.

Oh well. Sometimes you get lemons..

Location : 1710 N Ozark Ave, Springfield, MO 65803,

Firefight / Seizing the Day.

Been playing Firefight with Mark a lot recently. Last night Tim joined us. It was hella fun. We basically have nicknames based on what we do. Tim's Snipes, I'm Wheels, and Mark's Gunny. Tim, obviously stands on high ground and kicks the ass of unsuspecting folks down below. Mark and I get on a Warthog (basically a jeep with a rotating turret on the back), I drive, and Mark guns.

We actually worked well as a team. I'm a pretty insecure person, so it makes me feel good when I'm part of something that is made better by my being there. Mark is impressed by my wheelman skills. I'm impressed by his gunning. Everyone's impressed by Tim's headshot ratio. We need a fourth person, though. I'm trying to think of a good strategy for the 4th.. I suppose he would either suppliment Tim, or he'd run around on the ground with a Grav Hammer and beat the shit out of the people the rest of us miss. I guess I'd have to come up with a nickname for "The guy who beats the crap out of people by using the Grav Hammer repeatedly." But I can't think of one. Smacker? Wacker? Beater? Mace? Mace! That could work! I like it.

Alright, random topic number 2

I read a blog post by Brentalfloss, who rocks, btw, (http://twitter.com/brentalfloss) (http://www.youtube.com/brentalfloss), and he mentioned seizing the day. And how a lot of people don't, simply because they are worried about the consequences it will have on tomorrow. "I better not go out with my friends to the bar cause I have to get up early tomorrow." Sure, I get that. But Floss's argument, or at least, what I got from it, is that, yes, your tomorrow may be somewhat less than ideal, but how many times in your life will you get the opportunity to do the things that make you happy? Not as many as you'd like. People get older. People move away. People get more and more busy.

Cherish the time you have. Do what you want to do. Screw tomorrow (to an extent) because you HAVE to live for today. Today is what's important. Tomorrow will work itself out.

I've never been that sort of person. I've always been a "what about the future??" guy. But, reading Brent's blog really sort of woke me up from that. Dude. How many times did I refuse to go do something with my friends because I was worried about waking up the next day, or whatever else? Tons! How many of those friends still live in town? Not many. Sure, it might have sucked the next day, or I may have gone from an A+ student to a B student. But in the long run, who cares? Your life is short. Shorter than you think. Grab it. Wrastle it down. Make it your bitch.

Now, I'm not saying go get drunk as hell every day, do drugs, and eat yourself into a coma. We all must exercise restraint. But find the happy medium. DO something! You were given this life, this gift. Don't spoil it just because you don't want to have a hangover. You don't want to gain a few pounds. Who cares?! LIVE!

I'm also kind of referencing the movie Yes Man here.. I'm not just gonna blindly say "yes" to everything I'm asked. "Hey, Shannon! Wanna smoke this crack?!? Wanna make out with this 60 year old man?!?" But, I am gonna focus on being more of a yes man than I did before.

Bottom line. Take risks. Sure, things may sting for a while. You may crash and burn. But, wouldn't it be better to lay there, bleeding on the pavement with your best friends, laughing and screaming "THAT WAS AWESOME!!!" than watching from the sidewalk, wishing you'd had the guts to try it?

Friendships, relationships, plans, activities. Just go. Just have fun. You only live once. And you don't have NEAR as much time as you want. It something makes you happy, just go. Do it.

Nuff said. Any thoughts?

New Direction

So, I haven't done this in a while. I just stop caring every once in a while. If I had a large number of followers and people who wanted to read it, I'd pay more attention. I don't really see the need for my to post updates about my life to essentially a blank wall. I did for a while, when I was hurting and needed to do it for therapy purposes. But now, I'm mostly happy(esque) and I don't really see the purpose.

I see/talk to most/all of my friends on a daily basis. I talk to my parents like once every two days or so. So there's really not much to update that people don't already know. So I guess for now, whenever I'm bored, I'll blog about something I happen to be thinking about at the time.

Sound good? Ok!

That'll be my current plan, until such a time occurs that I need to use the blog for therapy again.

My second post today will be the first in my new direction.

Friday December 18, 2009

Woke up at like.. 4:30 or 5:00 AM. Couldn't go back to sleep. Got up. Played some games on Kongregate.

Plan for the rest of the day:

Take a shower and get dressed.

Go Christmas shopping for friends and family. Yes, I haven't done it yet. No, I'm not retarded. Yes, I've been busy as crap. Step off.

Grocery shop for Chili makings. Yes, I'm going to try my hand at actual cooking today. Who knows? Maybe it'll be awesome!

After my shopping is done, I'll come back here and cook.

Some time this evening, I believe Heather is coming over to watch movies. And perhaps taste test my chili.

And this shall be my day. I'm excited. I'm actually going to DO something rather than just sit around on my arse.

OH! Fantasy Football Update!!!

I'm in the playoffs. Only four teams (out of ten) made it this far. The playoffs take two weeks, and your combined score at the end of two weeks must be higher than your opponent's. So, last week, none of my people friggin showed up. I got 65 points out of all 9 of my players. However, most of Alec's people didn't show up either. He got 76. So he wasn't beating me too badly. So this week, I agonized for hours over who to play, who to bench, who to drop, who to pick up.. And I finally decided to go ahead and play Peyton Manning and Reggie Wayne, even though the Colts have clenched homefield advantage for the playoffs. A lot of people figured that they'd pull Peyton and Reggie out of the game early, to preserve them for the actually NFL Playoffs. Well, I figured there was a chance, but I decided to take it. So, I watched the game at B Dubs with Tim, and agonized the whole time. Alec has Maurice Jones-Drew, who was going mostly crazy. Two touchdowns and a crapton of yards. Peyton wasn't doing back, but Reggie was like no where to be found. Then, all of the sudden, in the fourth quarter, Peyton throws a monster pass to Reggie Wayne who takes off and runs it in for like a 65 yard touchdown! Saved my friggin day. So, after it was all over, Peyton scored me 39 points, Reggie Wayne scored me 30, and MJD scored Alec 35. So, I'm in no way secured to win, but if this hadn't happened, I probably would be secured to lose. So, phew! What a game!

If I beat Alec, and if Tim beats Jackie, Tim and I will be in the Super Bowl against each other. The apartment will be tense those two weeks if it works out this way.

Anyway, that's all I got. I'm gonna go get ready to shop, and then shop my little heiny off.

2009

Note: This will not be just be whining about how much this year sucked. Granted, I'm writing this warning before I write the actual blog, but I have a feeling that I'll meander around to a point eventually.. Sometimes I do that.. No promises, though.

So, 2009's almost over. It's safe to say this this year was the absolute worst year of my entire life. Yes, that's true. Worse than all four years of The Meredith Saga. Worse than my freshman and sophomore years of high school. Worse than the year that I was uprooted from all of my friends and family in Gulfport and forced to move to Springfield. This year takes the cake.

I'm gonna try and do this chronologically. No, I'm not trying to get you to pity me. I just feel like taking a moment to take stock of this year, so I can see whether or not I learned from each of these.. mishaps..

Started off mostly bad. I was continuing my Masters at MSU with teachers that didn't like me and peers who thought they were better than me. Muddled through it and eventually decided to leave the program.

More bad as my anxiety increased, due to my impending move into the apartment.

Struggle to find a job. Failure repeatedly.

Roommate issues. No, we never fought. Nothing that bad. Just normal "first roommate" stuff that everyone goes through when they first live with someone who isn't their parents. At times, I wondered if he and I could ever reconcile the HUGE inequities that I'd built up in my head.

Then, of course, the powder keg that had become (what in my opinion was) the relationship that should have been the one permanent thing in my life finally exploded. Combination of my bad and her bad, but the bottom line was that the thing I cherished most in this world was ripped away from me, like a bandaid, but one where it doesn't completely come off the first time you pull. It takes MANY yanks. So imagine a bandaid and duct tape have a baby. And then you have to rip that off of you. Not pleasant. I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

I could write way more about that one (seeing as how.. um.. I have..) so I'll move on. Finally got a job. My boss is probably in the top 3 of worst bosses I've ever had. Constant tedium.

And, finally, someone in my family has been steadily declining, as far as health is concerned. Nothing major has happened, yet (knock on wood) but things aren't looking promising..

What did I learn from each of them. Well, let's go in order..

With the MSU thing, I learned that my life wasn't as planned out as I wanted it to be. This was good and bad. Not having choices makes life easier, but it doesn't make it as fun. I had the opportunity to totally revamp what I wanted to do and where I saw myself. I actually took control of my future instead of blindly walking some path that I created for myself in high school.

The move was a good thing. I actually appreciate spending time with my folks. And I think living on my own has shown me that, yes, I can in fact be self sufficient. I can life, day to day, and not just randomly die or set myself on fire. This is a plus.

The job failures gave me the opportunity to learn perseverance. I fell off the horse and got back on again. And again.. And again.

My roommate and I got better. Turns out, I was making mountains out of molehills, and now that I've realized that and lightened up a LOT, things are fine. Wish I saw the guy more often, but oh well. We're both busy.

I have no earthly idea what I was supposed to learn from the ex-girlfriend situation, so I'm going to skip it.

The current job.. Well, it gave me the chance to become much better friends with my friend Megan. I'm so happy about that. AND I had the opportunity to meet some awesome new guys and girls, and I'm hoping that my relationships with them will continue to grow and that I'll see more of them (well.. A few of them..), even though I'm quitting. Oh, which, yeah, that's what I decided to do. It's not ENTIRELY because of my boss. Yes he was a huge factor, but I'm going back to school in the Spring and there's really no way I could do school and this job simultaneously. I'll have day and night classes, so, yeah. That's that.

And family health stuff. Not gonna go into huge detail. Suffice it to say that there are treatment options, but these treatments usually make the patient feel worse than the actual ailment. So, we dunno what's going to happen, but it's making me learn how to cherish every minute that I get with my family.

So, yeah. Pretty terrible year, but I suppose there are silver linings to most things; you just have to look for them.

Regardless, 2008 was probably the best year of my life. Let's hope 2010 is more like 2008 than 2009..

Wrote a big long blog to try and figure some crap out. And I think it served it's purpose. It's in my drafts. I'm not going to post it, cause I don't know if it would be appropriate. If anyone happens to be interested in the inner monologue of a crazy person, let me know. I'll trim it down and send it your way. But I don't plan on making it public.... Even though I don't really think it's offensive. It's basically me going on and on about "what do i really want?" and "what am I going to do?"

But, the overall decision I made is that I'm just going to lay back and let God take me where He wants to. And over the past few days He has been bringing me somewhere, I can feel it. I have no real clue where, but I'm up for an adventure.

So, that's what's up. I'll probably write a more in depth "Shannon's Life" blog in a couple days. Meanwhile, I'm actually.. content with my life.. For the most part. (Check with me tomorrow. I may change my mind. lol)