The MySpace Message that Changed Everything
Category: Blogging
Dear Justin,
I know you get lots of messages. You probably won't even to read this. I hope this doesn't bother you. I never wrote to you before this, I never have things to say like you do. Please dont think I'm stupid. My name is David, I'm 17 years of age, and I am gay. At the age of 12, my mom died like yours. It was really sad because she was my everything. Then I moved in with my grandmother. I know this sounds bad but I felt like I was trapped or something. I took care of her and went to school until last year. You havesaid things that hurt my heart but you are lucky to have them. I saw a quote on your blog comments one time that said something about loving and having lost and that its bettwr to have love and lose it than not have it. Please do not give up my Justin. I wish I could protect you from youre heart being broke but I know thats impossible. As you said, we have to learn from each other. If you read this far ;thank you. You inspire me. And the people who wrote comments to you inspire me to. Is there anything.
Sincerly, David
Anything Over the last year and a half, I've gotten a few messages like David's. Every one is tremendously important to me. But David's message especially struck me with the last three words: "Is there anything."
I asked David what he meant. He told me it was a mistake and that he intended to ask me if he could do anything to have me come back.
"Is there anything." Mistake or not, that's a chilling word arrangement. It's neither a question nor a statement really.
It's a thought. But not from our minds. No. It's one of those rare thoughts that come from our hearts. It comes from the hearts of the courageous and in-love, from the desperate and deprived, from the curious and overwhelmed.
Is there anything. Is there any love left to have. Is there any beauty in these eyes. Is there any hope in this life. Is there anything left to live for. Is there anything at all.
Not questions. Our minds know the answers. But our hearts—they wonder anyway. And it is where our hearts meet our minds that these thoughts are at their most powerful.
We are all victims first and foremost to ourselves. And in the same vein, only we can build ourselves again. Begin anew and tuck away "Is there anything." for the answer to the question that was never asked…
Yes. Hope.
I will stick around as long as I can, though my visits will not be as frequent and my responses reduced. My blog will be my top MySpace priority. As always, I will read every comment you post. Your comments, like David's message, make me want to do this. I cannot thank you enough.
When love settles in to stay, there's something new about the world. It's a little quieter when you need it to be, the mornings are a little brighter, the smiles a little wider.
Of course, as is reality, love's greatest enemy is neither hate nor indifference. Love's greatest enemy is life.
No matter how well intentioned, life is the schizophrenic nemesis that one day wishes love well and the next, condemns it to hell.
Life has recently thwarted a great love of mine in this way. My blog.
Through These Eyes I began writing this blog in September 2006 to write thoughts for myself. Something of a journal.
Today, more than 9,000 of you come to read my thoughts regularly, and a few of you give me something priceless in return: self-reflection and your most intimate truths. I cannot begin to thank you enough for this.
It's terribly frightening, then, to consider walking away from it all.
Why? My priority on MySpace has always been my blog and the comments I receive on it. However, I find that if I am unable to acknowledge other communications (such as messages, profile comments, etc), I lose readers.
I absolutely refuse to watch this happen. For a writer to watch his readers walk away—this would break my heart.
And this is problematic because I simply no longer have time to respond to every communication I receive. I am no longer at the helm of my schedule as I was in college. Stress has evolved from earning good grades into seriously intimidating stuff.
I wish I could write to you forever. But loves like this usually end not in eternity, but in tears.
I want to say that I will be back next week with my weekly ramblings. I want to promise you that we'll finish our talks about love and romance and heartbreak and innocence and passion and greatness and life and… But this would be empty.
Look at what we've done here. You and me—we showed hundreds of thousands of people that romantics still exist. We come in every shape and size, sexuality and color. And though our hearts break a little easier and our moods swing a little faster, we are needed. We are here to give people what they want: people to make the world smile.
I love all of you. Every last one of you. I cannot thank you enough.
If this is my last blog, I want to leave you with something I heard once that changed my life:
"If you don't go after what you want, you'll never have it. If you don't ask, the answer is always no. If you don't step forward, you're always in the same place."
As we wallow in self-pity after a heart-wrenching end to a relationship once so cherished, we have only the aftermath to blame.
Much like the tragic anatomy of a train wreck, the aftermath alone stings hearts and depresses minds. The event itself is a brilliance of chaos, a burst of ferocity with no deception, no tears, no anger. Even shock hasn't arrived. The moment is explosive but uneventful.
The wind that breathes life into tragedy happens in the moments following. And this is true of all our life's events. Only consequences lead to emotion. Happiness is a function of something else, as is love and hate, fear and courage.
Our own thoughts are often predicators of such consequences, and this power inadvertently influences even the strongest hearts. More than not, this is what we might label "irrationality."
And irrationality is the furnace in which heartbreak thrives most abundantly.
It's the Why did he hurt me? Is he happy without me? as much as it is Everything was so perfect.—when, indeed, it was not.
Shut the F*ck Up And this irrational course to which our hearts so effortlessly damn themselves after tragedy—this is the christening of self-pity, self-deception, self-frustration, self-everything.
We analyze and question every move we've ever made in this fragile state.
We consume ourselves with torture.
We are, in every regard, masochists in the shadow of heartbreak.
Most of us distance ourselves from tragedy with time, and though the self-everything will hardly vanish entirely, time bandages those wounds begun by an event and left open by our minds.
But isn't there something else, something other than time, to mend our hearts? Perhaps another relationship? A selfish rebound. A newfound busyness, maybe? Distractions.
Or maybe it's even simpler than that. Maybe we can just tell ourselves to shut the f*ck up. Tell ourselves: "Listen, I really like you and all, but we've mourned and we've mourned. There's nothing we can do. Life is passing us by. Our irrationality fuels our wounds, it does not heal them."
Acceptance What I suggest isn't that we banish heartbreak. Rather, we embrace it for all it's earned. We exhaust heartbreak with our own burst of ferocity. And then we advance ourselves by acceptance—an affirmative appeal rather than a passive anticipation.
We must accept that our hearts were broken rather than torture ourselves over the Whys and Ifs. Acceptance, with time, will double our efforts to recover the pieces of our broken hearts.
Acceptance means growth. It means accepting that more heartbreak is inevitable. It means saying, "And still, I know I will remain the person I am. I will hurt and I will recover just as I have today."
As I looked through an old journal yesterday, a name popped out that I hadn't seen in years.
The name gave me chills. Somehow, a name that once struck fearsome curiosity in its acquaintances had escaped my memory.
Please note that when I say "name" I do not mean "person." The person behind this name I never knew. I am aware of no one who knew this person.
He was a mystery to everyone. Something about him. Something strange. Not in the typical rush-to-judgment/oh-my-god-he's-different strange.
No. There was something about this person that was frightening.
E.A.J. Recently I wrote about a girl I went to high school with.
She was still on my mind yesterday, so I decided to go through my old journals to read some of the stuff I wrote when I knew her.
That's when his name jumped out at me. The initials "E.A.J." were the title of one of my journal entries about him. And, as I mentioned, the name reminded me of the uneasiness I felt when I was around him.
This is a snippet from that journal entry:
"I went to use the bathroom today in world history and when I was about to leave, EAJ came out of one of the stalls. It scared me because I didn't know he was there. He smiled at me and I smiled back. He got some paper towels and patted his hands with them. He hadn't washed them, though. He looked at me the whole time he was doing it with that spooky smile on his face. I turned around to leave and as I walked out, he said 'bye, Justin' really eerily."
Another memory I have of him comes from the only class I ever shared with him. I sat beside him in algebra:
"Karen told me about this stuff EAJ used to write in his notebook during Health. Today in algebra, I caught EAJ writing something about Jesus in his notebook. I couldn't read it all, but it said 'Jesus turned to the two of them and said that sometimes things happen … (hand in the way) … where were the stones? Where were the stones?'"
?
And that's who he was, this EAJ. A mystery. A riddle to his classmates.
Some people exercised their curiosity via cruel intentions. Some were more passive about EAJ. And others, like me, tried desperately to find out who he was. I was always nice to EAJ, though I always had a tough time hiding my uneasiness around him.
I felt sorry for him. I wanted to befriend him, but his demeanor didn't permit entry. And his seemingly purposeful strangeness didn't help.
Though I had only a few interactions with EAJ, the feeling he instilled in me was unique and is hardly gone. I find myself still quite curious about him. I Googled his name last night to see if anything would come up, but nothing.
I moved away from that school district after my 9th grade year and lost touch with my friends shortly thereafter, thus limiting any efforts to keep track of developments EAJ might lend himself to.
His writings, and more broadly, his intentions, were always the subject of his classmate's elaborate fantasies and theories.
What was he writing about? What did he mean when he wrote "where were the stones?" Was he writing a sort of Jesus Fan Fiction? An interpretation of scripture? Or were his musings darker, more demented?
There will always someone who is prettier, smarter, more charismatic, and all around more desirable than you.
Some people are better than others are at taking this in stride and moving on about their lives, secure with their own abilities, their own passions, their own physical selves.
And, as age so boldly reminds us, our lives are not the never-ending ones of the lucky men and women who roam the pages and reels of fiction. We do not have the ability to relive our lives' events to analyze, to interpret, to improve.
I am painfully insecure.
Even inevitability isn't enough to thwart the feelings of inadequacy I have of myself. The same is true for everyone. What matters, then, is the balancing act between irrational interpretation and reality.
I'm insecure neither of my intelligence nor of my professional life. Instead, I am insecure of my physical appearance. I know I'm a decent-looking guy, but rationality has no weight in the heart.
Many of you are this way, of course. Many are not. I childishly envy the latter rather than wrapping myself around it.
Her One of the most confident people I've ever met was a girl I went to high school with. Her name was Annie. She had a skin disease that left her easily bruised and deep red rashes would often form overnight. Her skin disease did not allow her to tan, and she was moderately overweight.
Even faced with the stigma of her aliments in such a harsh environment as public high school, Annie was more secure with herself than any one of her classmates. In drama class, when Annie took the stage, she mesmerized everyone with breathtaking talent. In my only other class with her, Physical Education, Annie impressed everyone not with her physical ability, but with her humor and friendliness. Even the most athletic amongst us appreciated her presence in class.
She was one of the most popular girls in school, and I'm sure everyone remembers her to this day.
Why? We have to make do with what we're dealt. Like Annie. That, or do something about it.
Or, alas, shut up whining.
That's a lot harder to do than it sounds, though. I know when I go out, no matter how long I've prepared or whom I'm with, I feel just as insecure as I always have. Nonsensical? Maybe. True? Absolutely.
Why is it, though?
Why do we know that insecurity is NOT sexy and yet we still feel the way we do?
How is it that we know that it just doesn't matter and yet these feelings do not change?
And how do we reconcile that we know life is too short to waste it on insecurity, yet this knowledge does nothing?
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"Someone messaged me and told me it was a sin to have you on my friend list."
This message comes from one of my MySpace friends—someone who always finds time to read and respond to my blogs. She promptly defended me and blocked the self-made spiritual advisor.
The person in question claimed to be Christian. While I am no Christian, I am at least fairly certain that there usually isn't a secondhand smoke effect from interacting with people perceived to be sinners.
I respect Christianity, and I do not try to dissuade Christians from their religion, nor do I perceive people any differently because they are Christian (or any other religion). I view religion much like race or sexuality—it's just a part of who we are.
"SIN" When I see the word "sin," I think of words such as "naughty," not "damnation." The word has been secularized much like Christmas and "Bless You" have. Millons of non-Christians celebrate or acknowledge Christmas; almost everyone says "bless you" when you sneeze; and the word "sin," well, it's sexy.
I'm not trying to steal these things from the hardcore people. Millions of people celebrate Christmas with Jesus in mind, they say Bless You and mean it, and to them "sin" is a bad thing. I'm totally fine with that.
But actually insinuating that someone's a sin altogether?
Suddenly, I feel like a smoker banished into some dark corner of a restaurant. Maybe forced outside to indulge my vice.
I mean are there actually people out there who think that sins can be… caught? Am I so out of touch with organized religion that I missed the boat? Not that I want to be on that boat, but it would've been nice to watch it sail away.
Suddenly, it hits me. I'm not smoking in a crowded restaurant. I don't push my lifestyle or my points-of-view onto anyone.
As I begin to refute my reputed sin-ness, I realize that I kind of like the idea. I'm a sin. To me, that means I'm sexy and secularized! I strive for the former and embody the latter.
Sin Pride! Just as the gay community has embraced "Queer," I'm embracing the label "Sin."
Why? Because I know I'm a good person. I'm honest, loving, and non-judgmental. If that means I'm a sin, then so be it. I'm down.
If you need me, I'll be at the bar with the other sins.
-justin;)
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Farewell I recall being a first-year student shaking my first-ever roommate's hand for the very first time. I was so nervous and so excited to embark on this fascinating new journey. And I couldn't wait to see what would be next. I find myself at that moment once again.
In one month, I will pack my memories and begin a new life 1000 miles away from home. Away from the astonishing friends I've made. Away from the brilliant love I've lost.
It's an exquisite mixture of heartache and excitement, this transition. I'm terribly sad to leave, but I'm happy to go.
I'm ready to begin yet another incredible adventure into discovery and growth, failure and heartbreak, misery and bliss.
And that's what it's all about, isn't it? Finding yourself when you're not really lost.
It's about transforming hopes and dreams into reality and action.
Though it sounds romantic, this transition is perhaps one of the most difficult obstacles on our road to greatness. The courage such advances require—the risks involved—the sheer weight of being invested: these make hoping and dreaming comfortable and seductive.
I am 21 years old. I'm not lost, but neither am I found. I don't know who I am. I'm not sure yet what it is I want out of life. I know, though, that sitting with only hopes and dreams without the courage to pursue them—this does not afford actualization.
Friendship And then comes the harshest reality of all: Goodbye.
Saying goodbye to lovers is expected. A natural progression of romantic maturity.
But saying goodbye to friends—those beautiful creations that expect only your happiness and understanding—these goodbyes aren't supposed to happen.
I suppose it isn't really goodbye, though. It's a "see you later."
That doesn't feel any better, though. It reminds me of high school, where everyone swore to stay in touch, but only the closest relationships persevered.
And now I sit on my bed, thinking of the lovemaking it has seen, of the love lost in its presence. Of the tears that have stained its sheets. Of the friends who have sat. Of the laughter it has heard. Of the dreams it has nurtured.
Though my bed won't travel with me to my new life, the memories and dreams made on and around it will stay with me forever. As will the memories made the world over with some of the most spectacular individuals on earth. Friends.
