Pills

She takes these pills and she moves along. She takes these pills and it's better. -Pills by Hurt.

So, I figured out I'm not alone in how bad certain addictions can become. I have issues with addictions. I'm easily addicted to substances. I like drinking. A little too much. I like pills. A lot too much. And I'm not the only one.
A lot of high school kids have this issue. Even more college students do. I know a girl who took xanax to help stay aware for finals. I had a girl come to class drunk, and not just a little drunk. Very drunk. I was worried.
Addictions haunt you. They come back. They remind you of the euphoria. They remind you of how much it hurts. How much it hurts the ones you love. How much you loved the thrill. How much you hated the aftermath.
Addictions change you. They leave emotional scars. They scar those you love. They break trust. They don't always scar you just emotionally. Sometimes it's physical. I know a girl who cut herself. It was her release. Once upon a time, it was mine too. It hurts, when you get reminded of things like that. Memories always seem to pop up at the worst times. Like when you're really in a great mood and you see a scar on your wrist. Or you see an old friend who drank with you or popped pills with you.

It isn't always bad. Sometimes, as much as it hurts, it reminds me that I need to be good. Being reminded of a broken relationship can sometimes remind me why it broke originally and stops me from doing it again. It isn't easy to stop. It isn't easy. Believe me. There are times when you feel like you are more broken and worthless than  the wreckage left by a bomb. You feel desolate. You feel dead. You hurt worse than anything imaginable. You hurt.

But hurting isn't just negative all of the time. Sometimes it teaches a lesson. Or, really, sometimes we're willing to learn from it. If we learned to learn from the hurts in our life, eventually nothing will truly hurt us. We can move past things and focus on the good, the happiness, the love. We were made to love.
Thanks.
Tyler.

Girls and the meaning of life.

So tonight I'm sitting here pondering girls, the meaning of life, and how girls think.
It seems to be an exercise in futility. I have gotten nowhere with this.
I thought I had things figured out. I really did. I had it figured out. Knew where everything stood. Knew everything.
Then got a slap in the face. I now know absolutely nothing. I'm in an emotional landmine and I'm surrounded.
I figured something out tonight in the midst of my fuming and musing.
Sometimes, we need to just pause and look around. We have a tendency to trap ourselves in awkward and potentially hurt ourselves and those around us.
Sometimes we need to pay  more attention to how we affect people. Both good and bad. We affect everyone around us. We really do.
So maybe the meaning behind life is that we all are interlinked. Maybe we are. Maybe girls are just connected to us guys differently. Maybe girls think differently to give us something to think about. Who could say?

Thanks.
Tyler.

Screwing up.

I grew up early. Loss does that to you. Dad was always working or sleeping. My birth mother sat by while my brother and I were beaten. I guess it all kind of screwed me up.
I learned how to ruin things in my life at an early age. I did pretty well at it. It carried into my early teen years. I found alcohol and pills. I ruined friendships. I ruined my education. I ruined how I react around people. I ruined my perception of life.
Tonight I feel like I'm about to explode.
Ever have a moment where every negative thing that has happened to you in the close/apparent past decides to just hit you at once in one big splash of unpleasantness?
It's happening tonight to me. I feel unglued, high strung. I hurt, and I'm numb.
Talking to a really close friend, I realized I don't know any escapes anymore. All of my relaxation spots got ruined by memories of an ex girlfriend for me.That left me with nothing positive. I learned that alcohol, drugs, and sex are all terrific escapes if one doesn't care to pay any mind to consequences.
Really, they only make everything worse. One of the last times I drank, I woke up bloody with a concussion. Last time I did pills I gave my best friend every reason to hate me. Last girl I got even close to intimate to, I can't even talk to anymore because it ruined our relationship and friendship.
I even seem to be able to screw up ways to unwind and escape. Sometimes, this isn't the worst thing.
Maybe it's good I woke up bloody. I sure learned from it.
Maybe it's good my ex and I stopped talking. She was only holding me back from moving on.
Maybe it's good that best friend and I ended up like we did. Made me realize loss can't always be ignored.
Sometimes we focus too much on escaping and not enough on making things right.
Tyler.

Take me away

I feel like it's time to move away. I feel like I need a change. I think the situation I'm in isn't going anywhere. What I'm doing right now isn't working. So things have to change. I'm working on it.

Carpenters and loss

"There's a sad and lonely comfort in the hollow of your eyes. Don't you let it take you over, because it'll eat you up inside."

This comes from a song that means a lot to me. It's in the voice of a man who lost the one person who meant the most to him. It's a song of bitterness. Of anger. Of sadness. It's full of pain.
It's a meaningful song. It talks of loss and unrequited love.
I'm in a musical mood today. I sang in the shower. I listened to music at breakfast. I'm listening to music as I type. Music disappoints me now. There are very few bands who write songs that mean something now. They're all about sex and drugs and alcohol. I guess that's seen as the ideal lifestyle by most teens now. Teenagers look forward to partying because they think being drunk makes things more fun. They think drugs make their lives better. Most don't realize how wrong they are until they're too late. Like me. 
Think about things sometimes.
Thanks.
Tyler

Blackout

I'm a theatre guy. Or at least that's what I'm considered to be at school. I guess you could call me one. I do the plays. Most of my friends are theatre people. So I think I qualify.
I have been doing theatre since junior year of high school. I learned a lot about myself when I started doing it.
I'm a natural actor. Perks of being taught to hide your emotions from a young age. I also figured out if I pretend that the world is a stage, I can be not so shy. I'm extremely shy. People terrify me. It's hard for me to talk to people. It's hard for me to do anything in public. As soon as I get home, I retreat to my room. I put headphones in and ignore the world.
I've always done it. Roommates I've had were probably offended because in public I'm loud and a "bundle of energy" (not my description). It's hard to explain to someone who doesn't understand what that's like.
I'm perfectly content with saying nothing for a whole day. Silence is always good in my eyes.
Theatre taught me that I can move past this whole thing though. It taught me that I'll always be scared unless I decide to fight it. It gave me a drive to make friends. It gave me a drive to have fun.
It started me on the track to healing. There's something like this for everyone. A hobby, a pastime, something. There's always something.
Thanks.
Tyler.

You can dream the whole store.

I've been daydreaming a lot lately. Like a lot.
Dreaming about having a perfect life. A perfect girlfriend. A perfect car. Just everything. It occurred to me that you can dream for whatever you want. You can dream that you're happy. You can dream anything. But that's where most of us stop. We stop at the dream phase. We rarely act on our dreams. We don't want to take the risk of failure.
We seem to do this a lot. A general consensus of friends I've asked about this said that the risk of failure is why they don't take risks anymore. We're more apt to stay in our comfort zones. We'd rather keep dreaming.
I personally think we need to take more action. Dreaming is all well and good, but it isn't fulfilling. If you fail, at least you know you tried.
Take risks.
Step out of your comfort zone.
Have faith.
Be strong.
Thanks.
Tyler.

A reminder

 As some people know, I haven't been exactly the best lately. I've been unhappy and pretty low on self-esteem. It's been easy to beat myself up.
I also recently started talking to someone I've known since I moved here to Galesburg. She's been having the same issue. She was adamant that she was fat and weighed too much for a girl.
I was adamant in saying she's actually gorgeous. She reminded me that I need to remind others and myself that we are awesome.
Everyone has good qualities. It's wrong to bring people down. We should strive to be positive.
We should remind people that they are awesome.
Thanks.
Tyler

Wishes

I have tons of wishes. Wishes, prayers, whatever you want to call them.
I wish I had money.
A job that was reliable.
A car that works.
A past that doesn't hurt.
I wish I was stronger.
Smarter.
Better looking.
Tougher emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
Less proud and more humble.
I wish I could stand up for myself.
I wish I could say how I felt.
I wish I knew how I felt sometimes.
I wish I could understand more of what's going on and why.
I wish things had worked out with a certain person.
I have a ton more wishes.
A ton more. More than I could list if I typed all day. Most of these wishes, especially the ones listed above are pretty selfish, in my opinion. Some are well-founded. Money would be nice when I'm looking for a place to live. A car would be nice to get to work and back instead of relying on rides. Will any of these wishes come true?
I think some might. I hope some will. I hope all of them will. But realistically, I'd be pretty lucky if any of those came true.
Why do we wish we can have things we don't have? Does it not make it worse? Doesn't it make you think of what you have as being not good enough? Doesn't it naturally make us look at what we have in a negative light? When do hopes of something better turn into a form of ungratefulness for what we are given? Think about it.
Thanks.
Tyler.

Stones

I carry a backpack full of stones with me. Everywhere I go. It causes me to slouch. It makes my shoulders slump. It keeps me feeling weak. It keeps me waiting for the next stone to be added.
More and more get added every time I relax. This bag should have ripped from the weight long ago. I should have collapsed weeks ago.
But for some reason I'm still walking. I'm still moving around. I can still talk. I can still function.
I might be crushed right now, but I'm still alive.
It's because I want to be. I have the will to not give up. I have the will to keep fighting even when there seems to be nothing left to fight for.
As hopeless as everything seems, especially this very second, there has to be something better.
Tyler.