It's been 10 years and 20 days since I published the first post on this blog.
I would say 6-8 of them were dormant of that 10. I didn't do the best I could've at maintaining this, and in a lot of ways I see my work on this dumb little website reflect in the garden I grew within the time.
Believe it or not, I did come look at this site at least once a month even at it's lowest points in activity - I always meant to make more posts, to write more, it just... never came to me naturally. The beguiling thing about reading back on the earliest posts I made is that I am able to catch glimpses of myself through the guidance of my thought process. Procedurally speaking the text was self created - my thoughts were crystal clear font with bold, sharp edges and stability in how to verbalize them. I lost it. I don't know if I will ever be able to find that part of me again in the way I timed it with this blog the first time.
I deleted 47 drafts that I never posted before writing this post up. Most of them just a diary of sorts, emotions ran high, I needed a place to visually observe the things in my life but it was a chaotic mashup of emotions and confusion. In many ways I don't really feel like the same person that wrote some of those older posts; I own the experiences and remember them but the perspective I take would not be the same back then as it is today.
Today will mark the start of a new time, I will do my best to write in a more organized and constructive manner - and in a relatively consistent fashion. Starting things off I figured a new introduction would be fitting.
Missoula is where I have called home for the last five years. I work for an insurance company as a trainer and quality assurance auditor for the customer service reps. I've been married for about 8 months, and recently just got back from my honeymoon in Cancun - which was somehow my very first time in Mexico. I love music, and was recently gifted an electronic drumset by the best valentine, my wife. I irregularly play guitar, ukulele, and now the drums with a heavy affinity towards mariachi style music. I'm a community leader for an online group of nerds that play a geopolitical simulator. I watch professional dota 2 like a football fan watches NFL, playing fantasy drafts and all the works. I love to learn and stay up too late nearly every single night to read a wiki article I stumbled across about some historic politician from feudal era Europe. My roman empire is the roman empire. I love to teach, the best and favorite part of my job as a trainer is the self-gratification I feel when I can see the information click in their eyes. I wish I was more talented as a singer, I can barely put together coherent sentences because my mind is moving so fast the words mash up together. I love writing because it forces me to make sense of those words and slow down a while. I smoke weed because it makes me pay attention to things, to notice the small details and etches of the items that would otherwise be unnoticed. I'm relentless in my ambition but so critically blind in my knowledge of how to even begin things. I half begin every project I begin, then battle myself to give it another round. I've half written multiple songs, started three intro to coding lessons, downloaded duolingo thrice, and have a blog that's lain dormant since before the 20s. Sometimes I wish there was a written guide for everything, something to tell me which step is the best one to take next, but at the same time that's where I find purpose in my life. To teach and to guide and try to make sense of the world with context, not only for others but for myself.
The stability of my life can be attributed with a center-focus on my wife, Cheyenne. From the very beginning we connected on a deep level, and I think we both were cautiously optimistic in the early days. It was meant to be. We have three pets, I brought James/Jimmy into the relationship with me; he is my three legged orange tabby. She brought in Kitana, she is our responsible and kind old lady. Kitana is a border collie mix and is emotionally tuned in ways most humans are not. The newest addition and most expressive of the lot is Pepper, she is our forever baby as she quit growing around six months old. She's a orange and white speckled gray tabby. We live in rural Montana, and have attempted to start growing our own food. Despite our setting both of us are chronically online, for better or for worse. It's quite wholesome being married to your survival game best friend, and I'm very thankful to have the life that I do.
I carry heavy burdens with the past relationships family members have with me. There are many regrets in the actions and things that I have said, but they don't out-measure the depth of the hardships placed upon me by those individuals. The closest needle to my heart is the one with my sisters name carved into it. She knows me in ways that no one probably ever will, and through the obstacle course of a childhood we navigated together, I feel the same about her. I can still see her every once in a while, buried in the eyes of the person that has been at the wheel of her soul for the last ten years or so. I don't think we will ever reach a point of amicability. She has a son now. My mom is the one that is his mother in all regards but title, without getting into details that are not mine to share, I don't think I will ever see past this shadow of parenting my sister has cast upon herself. My brother is my best friend and confidant. We had a few rough years, we never were at odds, but we had lost touch. It's quite significant to me that he put in the time for as long as he did before my eyes opened to the importance of his presence in my life. He is of a quality that is rarer to find than the most scarce minerals on the planet. If my brother is proud of me when I die, then I know I lived a life that had meaning. This feeling is the same for my mother. Often times I find myself wondering how it happened, my mom and brother come from the same world I do, and many others who I have worked hard to break away from. It's a mystery to me how such beautiful souls can be developed surrounded by so many blocks. While I'm sure they have chiseled themselves to reach the person they are today it is something I'm constantly trying to work on for myself.
It's been some weird times, and some hard times. The last couple years I've been in an on-and-off battle with revitalizing the creative elements of my brain. This blog was a key piece of my creative outlet, and spit-ball inspiration for so many other things I had going on at the time of regularly posting. Thanks to whoever read.
