I never loved nobody fully.

As I sit here, listening to my dog bark downstairs, waking up my sister, I can't help but reflect upon this great big collapse that I'm busy recovering from that happened throughout the last three years.

I think it started the moment Alycia broke up with me. I took it as if she had left me at the altar even though we had only been dating for two weeks. She left me in disarray for no apparent reason other than I was way too creepily into her and I couldn't understand that it was just plain weird for that to be.

That year, 2004, was a downward spiral. I was transmuting all of my feelings onto another girl, Katelyn Duffy, who I don't think I ever really liked. But, she was blonde and she was christian and I was crazy--she was my surrogate. And I could never understand why she didn't want to date me. Until the other day when the "Holy Shit, I never realized this even though it's so goddam obvious that I should have realized this" moment happened: what kind of girl would want to date a guy who's madly in love with another girl, of which she knows the ENTIRE situation and how crazy I am about her and about everything else. I am stupid. Or at least was. Hindsight is 20\20, right?

Anyway, by the end of 2004, I was diagnosed bi-polar.

(( and I know that all of this is shit you don't care to hear about, but whatever. I was on meds, finally, and was ready for my senior year. ))

My senior year was basically a plateau for this whole collapse. I had a girlfriend, so shit couldn't be too bad for me. But it was, all the same, because of my feelings for this girl in marching band. Because of Kailee, I couldn't ever fully commit to Kaitlyn. She's why I broke up with a girl who was mad about me on the day of prom (yea, I know, dick move on my part). I thought that I could regain some sort of relationship like Kailee and I had had near the end of 2004, right before I was diagnosed and medicated. The funny thing, here, too, is that, since I could never actually talk to Kailee (don't ask why, I had some sort of ultra-broke-down-sad-ass notion that she was way up in the echelon of sacred-goddesses, and thus could not be spoken to about anything. I think I just wanted to revere her), I always ended up transmuting those feelings onto her best friend, Christina, who I don't know if I ever really liked, but at least she was more human in my mind and thus easier to talk to. So the only girl I had actually expressed my feelings rightly to, and had success with it, was Kaitlyn.

And, by September 2006, I was using Kaitlyn for my own lust and private adoration. Trying to get my fill. I think that, when I realized this and broke up with her for the final time, was the edge and bottom of the collapse. Of my collapse.

And for about a year I floundered at the bottom, not doing much, not surrendering much, just kind of... at the bottom of this big cavernous valley which I had unwillingly, but divinely and unavoidably, climbed down into. And now I'm on the opposite side of this big great valley, having meandered across the bottom of it, climbing out the other end toward normality. I'm ready for it, I've seen the greatest of the lowest, and I'm working on getting my God and my sanity back.

The day I got my letter of acceptance from Humboldt was the first day I started up the opposite side of the valley, when things started looking up for me, y'know? I'm so tired of everyone knowing me. I've had my years of thick-headed, shit-for-brains, dense-ass, stupidity, and now I'm ready for my less-naive self to takehold of my feelings for one girl and actually use them on that same girl, and not on some other surrogate that's never quite the same because no two people are the same (we're like snowflakes, really. We all seem the same at the beginning, until you survey us under a microscope and we're really not all the same because I have a crevice and a turn where you have a dash and a point. Then you look a little deeper, and see atoms, and realize that we're really all the same, no matter where God folded me and cut me with scissors and paper [a vaguely worded allusion the those snowflakes we'd made as kids around Christmas time to decorate the classroom with]). We are all beautiful, we are all serial killers. Moby thinks we are all made of stars.

So, I'm climbing out, I guess. I know now that the stories I wrote in 2004 are shitty. I know now that I put Katelyn and David and everyone else who was ever close to me in 2004-early 2005 through way too much shit to even be apologized for, though I would in a heartbeat if I felt it were something that could actually be forgiven. It can't be forgiven. I can't be forgiven for what I've done to you. I can't be forgiven by you. It's too big for mortals to actually let go of all that crap. It's only for me and Jesus to sort out. And we've got a shit-ton to sort out, it seems. But we also have a lot of time to sort it out as He and I have this big long hike in front of us. I'm glad he can make rocks give us water because damn am I thirsty. But, yea, he's like the accountant that has to sort through a closet-full of unorganized paperwork to figure out why I got a $100,000 tax return even though I haven't paid my taxes in 6 years and 7 moons. Once again, another convoluted analogy.

Anyway, God is love and I am at Peace.