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As much as I hate to admit it, with the steady transition into adulthood now beginning to reach its final stages, I can’t help but to reflect on all the different changes and parts of myself that have appeared over time.  Out of everything, though, in the past three years the one thing that really sticks out to me is the way in which I’ve come to understand the depths to which my emotions run.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m no where near the most sensitive guy in the world.  I’ll step on toes.  I’ll say stupid stuff.  I’ll even sometimes take jokes a bit too far.  To be sexist to myself: I’m a d00d.   That’s how we roll — well, mostly.

But no.  That’s not entirely fair on myself.  I’m not just a d00d.  I’m the guy that’s been to hell and back.  And I have therapists who will agree with me on that.  Growing up hasn’t been easy, especially living in a household which was and is frequently rife with conflict between my parental units; though, albeit, they are courteous enough to curtail it in front of friends, generally.

And in some ways, I think I have to thank my parents for the acrid, poisonous pain they’ve caused me through my life.  While they’ve given me many years of time in therapy, they’ve also allowed me to see what it’s like to be on the other side.   You know.  The side only found when you’re still awake at 2AM because you’ve cried so much it physically hurts to breathe.  The side only found when you’ve contemplated — repeatedly, to the point of not being able to know how many times — of killing yourself.  And when you’ve had the means to do so.  I’ve been there.  I’ve almost done that.

But you know what?  I treasure those moments.  In a very real way, those moments have provided me with an insight not many other people in the world can truly understand.  And that’s why I value them so, so dearly.  They allow you to see a world which no one else sees.  And, maybe, I don’t know, they carved a hole for me to see the true emotions hidden under all the layers.  The angst.  The anger.

And, currently, the empty, gnawing fear.  I won’t admit it.  Not to anyone but you.  But it’s there.  It’s twisting my stomach invisibly.  Waiting for my moment of weakness so that it can rise up my throat like the moment just before you vomit.   Ugh.  Horrible imagery.

I won’t pretend my life has been easy.  And, likewise, I will never pretend my life has been filled with hardship.  I live in a middle-class family in a middle-class village in a pretty middle-class area.   My family has, for the most part, been financially comfortable throughout my entire life.  And I know that there are so many people out there that would probably overload with joy if they swapped places with me.   And, likewise, I know that there are also endless amounts of people that live in their McMansions that wouldn’t even recognize the luxury that I live in.

But you know what?  It doesn’t matter.  Whether or not my life has been an epic romance or tragedy is, honestly, not important.  The moment is important for me.  Treasuring the fact that I don’t have to worry about war or famine or losing a family member to cancer.  Not now.  Never before.  Possible in the future.  But right now, there is safety.  And peace.  And health.

And I value that.  My darkness has shown me just how important it is to recognize the light in my life.  And for that, I am happy.  No matter how strong this fear is.  No matter what happens.  I’ll treasure the soft things in my life.  The feel of a cat’s  fur under my hand, or the cotton wool, buzzy feeling in my head when I’ve been on a long run or even the tender peace a song can evoke in me.

I’m grateful for my darkness and my pain.  Not so that I can appease some ‘Law of Attraction’ or anything like that.  Simply because I know that without the chord of despair, I wouldn’t be even a fraction of the person — the man — I am now.

While I’m sure it’s just to do with the fact that I’ve never really been sat down and told what all the different terms are and what they mean, I still believe that the internet has about the same amount of terms that a first-year medical student learns. MySQL, IP addresses, FTP, Proxies — sometimes even *bandwidth* confuses me.

What I don’t really understand is why we can’t just have a big, central repository that contains all the data which lots of cables link up to. When we access a website, we access the big repository. I think it would look almost pretty. And I reckon the simplicity of it all would be even -more- beautiful. No scary terms. No random assortment of letters dumped casually together by techie people when discussing google.

But no, it just can’t work like that. Not with the Perl, XHTML and the C++ and the rest of the craziness. No way José. Frankly, I think this fundamentally comes down to the question-mark-raising that occurs whenever I try to process the idea that a computer is run on 1′s and 0′s . I mean, seriously, you’re telling me that a computer is just a big long chain of binary? Next you’ll be telling me that everything is made up of super teeny, tiny things called ‘Atoms’ or ‘Xenus’ or ‘Tweets’.

But I digress.

To frame this in a way that’s less ranty: for the past week or so I’ve been pondering over the idea of changing my little blog’s undies to big boy boxers. By this, I mean getting myself a domain and hosting and all the other ‘stuff’ that comes with having your own site. Oh, and some blog design, too.

I mean, having a wordpress blogger blog is fine and all. But really? Having a site all to oneself with no .detracting-extension on the end of one’s blog’s name, to me, draws the line between a rookie blog and a pro blog.

Though the last time I considered myself a “pro” was when I also used ‘lol’ as if it was a period.

But -anyway-.

While I continue to flail about with the internet, I pray that some guardian angel out there, who has absolutely nothing better to do, can grace my little brain with divine e-intervention.  Or, you know, maybe even a spam queen called Shelly Ryan who sells scammy products to point me in the right direction.

However, now that I’ve decided that I need to think bigger — and thus make my blog more professional and stylish — the time has come to get the WordPress out.

Though I can’t shake this feeling of being judged by the people of WordPress, let’s hope that it dies down in time.  If not, I may have to go back to Blogger for a second time, and we wouldn’t want that now, would we?  :]

Nor ends with a ‘d’, a ‘p’ or a ‘t’.

The word I’m talking about is ‘Compassion‘.

It’s as if people are afraid to utilize the concept behind this word.

And here’s a tip about its usage: if someone on Twitter blares subtly about their lack of worth, don’t reply back with something that’s less than compassionate.

I’ll unfollow you.

I’ll block you.

I’ll seethe with passive aggression.

Sometimes silence is better than disagreement, douchebag.

You know who you are.

It’s kinda depressing when I think about it.

And so, as each time I find that I’m being too mean on certain individuals around the world, I’ve come to the conclusion that –as per usual — I’m just going to write something that’s nice and easy on my very under-used yet ever-tired brain.

So. With the UK summer in full swing (which means it rains at least every other day), my head has been all stuffed up with pent-up energy because I can’t get outside much. Couple this with the fact that we (well, no, I) stumbled on a wasps nest inside the house a few days ago and then the fact that thunderbugs have invaded my local area with supreme force. Not pretty.

To sum up: my head’s been thumping.

So I scurried around to find something which would soothe my head and, after much searching, I found these two. I hope your head finds comfort with them as mine did. :]

Also, for some strangely strange strange reason, this song also helped a bit. I usually find it a bit high-pitched and scratchy on my hemispheres, but it helped — somehow.

Contents:

Blog Numero Uno: Hey, you, that’s my body!
Blog Numero Dos: When exactly do people go wrong?