Sure it is Christmas
Yet that doesn’t seem fitting

For today feels like any time of the year
Which is why I’m quite contrite

Though it all I learned that there is more to life than money if it means working at a job you hate. That sometimes you have to take a step even if you don’t know the outcome just to do something.  I learned nobody rocks like the girls I’m rolling with. When you think you know it all there is always something to learn. I think most importantly I learned a lot about myself and never giving up. I can’t wait to see what this year brings, this new beginning, this fresh start.

I wait
Things don’t improve

Have patients
Change takes time I’m told

I wait
Change never comes

Hold on
It hasn’t been long enough they explain

I wait
Losing motivation

Not now
Just wait a little longer I’m informed

I wait
Giving up hope

You’re young
You have plenty of time they reply

I wait
Time becomes the enemy

Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.
–Heraclitus

I’ve been blogging for the past six year (on this site for about three and a half). One of my favorite things about blogging is being able to look back at my life and see where I was. Even if the post doesn’t explicitly say what was happening it’s often the jog I need remember.

I find it’s easy for me to think that my life is stagnate. I find myself wanting change to come, now. It’s only after I think back about my life I see that things have change, some good, some bad. I am able to see that life is a process. The hard part for me is balancing patients with lack of motivation.

Do my goals just need more time or do I need more motivation, or both?

John Reuben said this so gracefully in his song Boy vs The Cynic:

“…yes your heart will break and go numb lots of times before this life is done
You’ll look for answers but there’s just one
Patience one day it will make sense
But waiting is a pinch waking you up from the worlds you’ve made up
The one where you dream and the one where you gave up time
To create a new atmosphere where the boy and the cynic can both play fair”

I think it’s time to set my fear of failure aside and just dive in just go for it. But how? Hopefully I can find that place where the kid and the cynic can both play fair.

P.S. Poem on this topic possibly to come shortly.

You know, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender – people are people.
Judith Light

This is my third year writing about Transgender Day of Remembrance. I feel that each year it’s important that we take some time to reflect on those who lost their lives over the past year for being different;  not fitting the cookie cutter mold  the world tries to force upon them . This year is a big year in particular for the LGBTQ community as so many people have lost their lives due to suicide and murder based on sexual orientation, gender identity or their perceived orientation or identity.

I would like to encourage each one you reading this to think about how this year you can take a stand and do something to help stop the deaths, hate, injustice of people just for being different. What can you do on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis to change the lives of others around you?

“Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.” -Cyril Connolly

If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time you’d know that I try to update at least once a month. It started out as a once a week ordeal and then quickly turned into a once a month blog. Often these blog post would be dated in the last few days of the month just to barely get posted before the month was up. Well you may have noticed there is no post for July 2010. So what happened, well I failed.

Failed, what do I mean I’ve failed? I think sometimes it’s easy to forget the driving force that causes our actions. If you go back to my first blog post you’ll see that I started this blog to be a personal diary, a place to share thoughts. Alas, here we are four years later this blog seems to have become a place where I try force my thought out of my head and on the page.

The problem is not that I have nothing to say or don’t know how to say it. It’s this lack of motivation that prevents it from being said. I don’t know what the future holds for this blog but I fully intend to continue to write from my heart. I still hope to write once a month, if not more, but the days of force blogging are over.

The new era has begun.

“People matter. This includes you. Stop trying to sell everything about yourself to everyone. Don’t just hammer away and repeat and talk at people — talk TO people.” – Maureen Johnson

With keeping with my New Year resolution I’ve been reading more. In my reading I came across an article written by Maureen Johnson entitled “Manifesto: I Am Not a Brand.” She writes about how often on the Internet people feel that they have to brand themselves to get their message out. She writes her thoughts from a social networking point of view.

This got me thinking how in other areas of life people will turn themselves into brands. Think Steve Jobs and you think Apple, think Bill Gates and you think Microsoft think pop music and you may think of Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson or Brittany Spears, the list could go on for sports, TV, movies many people spend their lives to get noticed, rich/and or famous. Myself, I refuse to sell out to become a brand. I strive to be an individual who is out to create a better world who listens and cares about others not someone who is out to have the loudest voice.

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” – Winston Churchill

Maybe it is because I’m shy. Maybe it is that I find it interesting to hear what people have to say. Possibly it is for a reason that I have yet to think of. Yet, the fact remains that I’ve always liked to listen.

I find that I learn more from listening to others than speaking. That’s not to say I refuse to speak or that I don’t form my own opinions. It is to say, however that I think there is something great to be gained from listening to others. Especially if we don’t agree. The views of others can challenge our own in a way that helps us grow. I step back here to say that I’m not talking about arguing or debating those are things in which I don’t particularly enjoy. I do believe that we can enjoy listening and maintain conversations with people without always having to be right.

I think you’ll find that people love it when they realize you care or will listen to what they have to say. So my challenge to you is to have the courage to listen.

What do you think? Write it in the comments and I’ll listen.

“…you know what it feels like when all your teeth are falling out really slowly and you don’t realize and then you notice that, well, they’re really far apart. And then one day… you don’t have any teeth anymore.” — Carol, Where the Wild Things Are

I recently re-watched the Spike Jonze film Where the Wild Things Are based off the Maurice Sendak book.  I picked up on things I missed, forgot, or didn’t touch me the first time. One of these moments is the quote from Carol above.

Relationships are something I’ve been thinking about quite a bit lately. It has become apparent that oftentimes people who I was once good friends with slowly drift out of my life. This doesn’t make then (or me) bad people, it just means our lives are going in separate directions. The analogy of teeth falling out is dead on. One by one situations, distance, schooling, work or many other things get in the way. These things can be thought of as loosing a tooth until one day you realize all your teeth are gone, or to follow the analogy, a relationship has been lost.

So what can be done to prevent this? I don’t know. For me it has come down to picking the relationships which I wish to maintain (and in which I believe are mutually maintained) and not looking back. Part of growing up has been learning that some people will come and go from life. Some I’m happy to see leave, others I miss, some stick around though anything, yet others come and go as life allows. I am thankful for all the people who have been in my life and the things I’ve learned from each of them. I look forward to both new and old friendships thought the rest of my life.

What about you? What’s your advice or thoughts on relationships, Where the Wild Things Are, life in general? Let me know in the comments.