An Overview

I suppose I'm guilty of not telling my own life story properly. That is to say, you kind of need to know what's going on with me in general, to see what motivates me. Otherwise stories about my daily life have no context at all. So let's fix that!

A while back I was happily in a relationship with a girl named Alexandra--in love, even. We spent 10 months together, and in that time she was my focus. I was her boyfriend first and a writer second. There was more than a bit of talk about someday getting married.

When that ended, I was devastated. Partly because I didn't know how to live without her anymore. Partly because when she left me, she said it was because I had become a depressing person, and because I was still so shy and awkward all the time that her family saw me as a weak man. She told me that she'd felt that way for four months already--four months! She said she was only waiting to see if I'd get better, and I didn't.

So there I had it. I wasn't enough. The next girl that I had a short fling with told me the same things, and that led to a big fight that ended things before they began. I started dating even when it didn't make sense--flirting with close coworkers, dating girls too young for me, considering girls that I honestly had no interest in. I needed them to tell me that I was worth something, and that I was more than just some nice guy.

It turns out that approval was not what I needed. It wouldn't have helped me one bit in the long run. Luckily, I found inspiration instead. It came from a guy that was like me once, and in fact had it even worse at times. Without going into too much detail (for his sake), he taught me what it is that really attracts girls, and at the same time what it was that I needed.

Confidence. Plain and simple. He showed me how to walk the walk, how to meet other people's eyes and hold contact, and to never, ever look at the ground. And that was just one part of what he told me about. That was a little over a month ago, I think, and in the last couple of weeks I've seen myself improve a lot. If nothing else, people at work keep telling me lately that I seem really happy and that I'm doing a great job there. I joke around quite a bit more and people smile at me.

Still, there's a long way to go. I still won't just walk up to someone and talk to them, and even around people I know, I don't dare to interrupt conversations even when what I have to say is probably more important. At this point that's a pretty big barrier to the overall goal of becoming a more social and truly confident person (which may involve meeting girls or not--I'm past being too concerned about that!)

But that's where I'm heading. I want to better myself, to take responsibility for all of my actions and become someone to truly admire. That's my new path and nothing's going to stop me from doing that!

My First Car Crash

It was between Saturday night and Sunday morning, pretty close to midnight. I had been out clubbing with my best friend, John (expect to hear a lot more about him in this blog) and it was time to go home. I dropped him off with no problems, then set to the task of finding my way home.

Now, I come to a blinking red light. Inside I'm going, okay, this is basically the same as a stop sign, because that's how I learned it. Then I think, guess it's a four-way stop. My turn to go!

Not sure why I had that last thought. Because it wasn't a four-way stop at all. The car coming across didn't stop because they didn't have to, and it smashed right into my door at probably 50MPH.

I can't describe what that felt like. I envision it really well when I'm sitting in a car at night, probably a psychological thing. I can tell you that the four airbags on the sides went off, and that's probably why I had absolutely no injuries at all. And other than those hanging out, you could have sat inside that car and not known anything had happened.

On the outside, though, the doors were unrecognizable and one of the tires was off. The car ended up being totaled. I'm on a rental right now until we make other arrangements, and I'm scared to death of driving in the dark even at the shortest distances. Kind of a problem right now, seeing as I have classes until 9PM two days a week, and it's been getting dark as early as 6.

For a while I was so shaken up that I didn't go to classes at all, and I didn't make any appearances online. Nor did I write much of my novel. I just couldn't. Announcing the creation of this blog was one of the first steps I took to getting back into normal life.

Introductions

Hey there. Have a seat. Grab a cup of coffee. Or tea. (I'm a hot cocoa guy myself.) Make yourself comfortable, because I have a lot to talk about and nothing to say.

If you're reading this blog, we're about to get really friendly. You're going to find out a lot about me on a personal level, I'd expect--that's what it's here for! I like to say that writing is my life, but if that were completely true you wouldn't have this. If it's the thing about me you're interested in then head over to The Texts of Madness, my other blog that covers writing stuff.

Here you're going to find out about the other things that matter in my life. The people that are close to me, the events that make a big difference. There may be a little skipping back and forth between updating with new things happening and recalling things from the past. My backstory, if you will. If it weren't for me being a real person and all, that is.

As of now this blog is still kind of under construction, but then again so are all my projects. Hopefully I can keep up on making entries--expect one soon enough!