Friday, January 10, 2003

Today, my sister and I fought. We argued and it turns out I am a horrible brother. When we were younger, when I didn't think about the importance of things, I treated her poorly, ignoring her for my friends. I was thoughtless and she remembered this. (I can't write more.)
I have tried to make up for back then, tried to spend time with her, but it doesn't help. I have this strong feeling that everyone I love the most is tired of me. My family, Anna, Hanna, Nick.

posted by McKain | 9:33 PM

Thursday, January 09, 2003

It is now six in the morning and I am wishing that I could feel the sun rising. What a great title; The Sun Also Rises. I will have to someday read that one. If it is anything like the one I just finished, it will be ultimately worth it. It's not about war, though. I think it's about the bull run, The Running of the Bulls in Spain. There was a lot of talk of bull fighting and showing of courage within For Whom the Bell Tolls, so I guess Hemingway was just working these in as practice for the main one. My eyes are getting heavy and I am letting myself ramble. I want to see me broken down on some battle field, believing in something more than myself. I don't care about being courageous or serving any sense of honor. I just want to be sacrificial. My arms are going weak because I don't want to type this, I don't want to have this anywhere written down. But I will do it because I will forget. And when the day comes when I am told of how terrible that kind of self-effacing mentality is and when I believe it and I believe I never was this way, I will come and read what is here and now fact. I wish I didn't feel the need to get rid of myself for someone or something else. That is how it crumbles, though. That is what Lain did. That is what Gandhi was willing to do, to starve himself for a cause. But I am not so great as Gandhi. I just want to be another nothing who is gone in the struggle for what he believes in. I want a story like Robert Jordan's. Here I am again, trying to fictionalize my life, trying to make a novel out of my day-to-day. She was completely right about me; I am trying to live my life like a character in a book. It doesn't happen that way. Things are not that organized, do not end up that right. It doesn't happen like in the books. If I went out to die, all that would happen is that I would die. There would be no validation, no glory, no deep internal universal peace or calm or understanding. And in it all I wouldn't be dying to sacrifice myself, I would be dying for me, to feel good about myself. This is horrible, I should quit. I take everything too seriously. I will keep living until I am swallowed in the beauty of things.

posted by McKain | 6:10 AM

Having read For Whom The Bell Tolls , having felt all the complexity of trying to have life in the midst of so much death and there that love that held him together and tore him apart, there was that. This much complexity in four days, no, in less than four days.

And I began doubting Hemingway because the simplicity didn't catch my attention at first. Silly me.

posted by McKain | 4:51 AM

Tuesday, January 07, 2003

Thought much recently about the loss to come, about graduation and relocation. I've tried to get used to the idea that in a sememster I'll have to try to pretend that the last two years of my life didn't matter. No, the last eighteen years of my life. The rest of it is supposed to be the important part. This was just the introduction. How sad.
I can't recall another time when having things stay exactly the same would have been what I wished for. I feel I have always been about expansion and assimilation, about growth through extending my path of ingestion. I have lived like a slug up to this point, like a virus, but it's over. I have never been happier or more comfortable with people. Oh my tragic life. I know that this is nothing new, no pain original. I have heard this story since elementary school (boy moves away and is stripped of all his friends, his parents do not understand how hard it is to leave old friends and old life) so I should not be so surprised. Silly me.

posted by McKain | 5:57 AM

Sunday, January 05, 2003

This is what I thought better than to say. During the time I spent with McLean, I did feel really worthless, I suppose the thoughts were really self-destructive, not anything so bad as suicidal because those kind of thoughts are not worth it. I did the whole thing where I felt like it would have been better if I were never born, where I realized that my sister and mother would have such a better relationship, where I thought about how much happier certain people would have been if I didn't leave them confused or upset. That all was fine and normal, the product of some of the media I've taken in. But I hated it when I tried to go over some of the scenes of my life, comparing the ones with me in them to the ones I'd imagined without me. So many times I've brought others down, so many times I've taken people away from whatever made them happy. This is what really got to me.
But then I realized that understanding that should not bring me down. It should motivate me tomake my presence felt less, to hold in things I wish to say and hide my emotions more. If I show myself less, it will be closer to the world that I'd imagined without me and I will still be around to enjoy it.

I write this now because I want to remember it, almost as though it is an elucidation of some kind. When I read over this in the future, I don't want to feel like I am being depressed and trying to hide it because I have never felt a contentment like this. I've never been so sure of my own worth or known exactly where I fit in with all of this. Now that I know these things, I can start living without feeling unappreciated. All is in the sunshine.

posted by McKain | 12:00 AM