Justin Drunken Explains It All...

I know I should be asleep. Or writing that damned paper. But I can't. I won't. The prospect of having to wake up at 5:30 on Saturday still doesn't phase me. It's that I keep thinking of my friends and family, and what life may be like a year from now. I don't have a negative outlook about it though, as some people might automatically assume, myself included. It's just a sense of wonder.

I found out today that my stepdad is going to pay my way to SETC this spring. Which enables me to go at all. When I was talking with them (him and my mom) over lunch last week I was prepared to ask them to go back to Fayetteville. I got the sense they really didn't want me to. Not because they had this ick feeling about me being in the house again (which may be totally true), but because they knew there was better out there for me. I felt like they wanted me to reach higher, and go bigger.

This casting choice for Dining Room couldn't have come at a better time. I've felt these past four years that I have kind of been pigeonholed into stage management. Not that I would want to perform as a career, but just to know that the potential is there. Beth's affirmation is incredible and though I may not have shown it, I wanted it really really bad.

My first thought, even though I was happy for myself, was that two real good friends weren't on there. Two that I was hoping would be on there more than my own. I hope this hasn't cracked their self-esteem, because they are probably 20 times the performer I am. I can't wait to see what they do in the future.

This (hopefully) last semester will be filled to the brim with things to do. Dining Room , SETC, Who Knows What's Going to Happen: The Musical and then the big G.

I often think about the first night I arrived at Catawba, scared shitless and picking the cockroaches off of the waterfountain in 4th floor Abernethy. I figured I wouldn't be there more than a semester after I ran into my room crying.

How far I have come. How much I have seen. How much my views have changed. How much I have done since that terrible first night. 40,000 dollars in student loan debt later and overall, I still don't regret coming (or staying) here. My ass stuck it out. My ass got what I wanted. I have loved some people and hated some, and will miss some terribly when I'm gone.

I love you all. Teachers, faculty, friends, family. Thank you for what you have done for me over my lifetime, but especially these past four years and the years I will experience after that.

If the title induces some type of worried-about-Justin syndrome, don't succumb. But rather, read on. As I have had a revelation to last a while.

Two days ago, I went to visit my grandfather. My grandfather, whom I have been upset with for many years now, as I feel he has let our family fall apart in some way. Although now I understand it takes far more than one person for the dynamic of an entire group of blood relatives to be dismantled.

My grandfather is dying.

When I arrived to the white farm-style house he stays in with his second wife, Shirley, in little Mayslick, Kentucky, I was greeted to him on the front patio in a rocking chair with a big smile on his face...total grandfather style.

I love my Grandfather. I hadn't seen him in probably two years.

I gave him the most meaningful hug I could possibly muster, full of reserved energy considering that his frail tiny body probably couldn't take an aggressive hug. Seeing him was reminiscent of my younger years before divorce, death, remarriage, and money issues had taken their toll on the big family I once knew.

Mind you, this reminder was a good one. It's nice to think about, but I also realized what great things I have now. I'm healthy, going to a good school, I'll always have somewhere to go, and I have really good friends, even if I don't realize it sometimes.

Since I was probably 13, I have never stayed at my grandfather's house more than 3 hours. This time was different. Whatever powers that be gave my Grandfather enough strength that day to be able to go out to dinner with me. And we talked. We talked about politics, and healthcare, and gas prices, and normal stuff. Stuff we cared about. We watched Wheel of Fortune, Deal or No Deal, and Jeopardy, shouting out the answers we knew. This whole time in the back of my mind I'm thinking; I've wasted so much energy placing blame instead of taking people for what they are.

I'm going to stop doing that.

I went to the graveyard down the street where my grandmother and uncle are buried. I passed the funeral home and church where I had been twice before as a kid. There was a child in front of the funeral home, a reminder of the youth that I had so weirdly experienced.

The outskirts of the graveyard was littered with graves dating back almost 350 years. The newer ones located in the center. I parked my car just behind my Grandmother's and Uncle's graves. My breath didn't seem to change the way it used to when I visited them. It was like clockwork. I got out of my car with ease and approached the gravestones which the mere presence of was chock full of memories for me. Both my grandmother's and uncle's gravestones are two hearts together; one for my Aunt Chasity, and one for my Grandfather, eventually.

I sat down for an entire hour. And for the first time, I didn't break down. I just admired the surroundings. The blue sky I never take time to look at. The air I never truly take the time to FEEL against my skin. And the sounds of the wind, bugs, birds, and even motors in the distance that I never take time to hear.

This I know, is my Grandmother's ultimate message to me: Stop.

This year, I have focused on many things but myself; things beyond my control, things I have not made the best choices about, and sometimes, things completely beyond the scope of my interest. I had lost what was important, to stop, and really consider my options. Because I do have them. My mind and emotions are running too fast for my body to keep up, and it soon got to be more than I could handle.

My grandmother also told me something else; this year will be a good one. I laid back, looked at the sky and agreed, this year will probably be among the most important in my life. I don't know why or how. But I know it will be.

I waited for the sun to descend beyond the gorgeous rolling hills of Kentucky, quietly whispered goodbye to my Grandmother and Uncle, and drove away in my car, completely calm and content with where my life is headed, even though I'm not sure where that place is.

I just watched 10 Things I Hate About You...

In its entirety. And I couldn't help but feel empty watching it. Empty like...there's nowhere else to go with it. The movie is one of those sense memory ones for me. Those staples of one's teenage years that I am now realizing are over with and I will never get back. Granted, most of them I don't want back...but sometimes I feel like I wished I would have lived those years differently...Unfortunate. Now I'm almost done with college and the time for dicking around is truly over. I'm in the last playpen.

Another thing I found really empty feeling-inducing when watching the movie was almost an empty nest syndrome/stage mom/wish I was God syndrome in that I felt like we all should have been able to save Heath Ledger, bless his soul. That's what happens with all the good ones...God's greedy ass takes them so they can be in movies only produced in the afterlife and we're stuck down here with the leftovers...like...fucking Harold and Kumar. Asshole Gad.

Sometimes I wonder why people are they way they are...

Let me be a little less vague about it:

I know this person. This person is entirely too infatuated with a sexual relationship...a multitude of extremely brief sexual relationships -- that it seems they don't even believe in anything long term actually existing. (No this is not a person I am into, nor is it someone that I particularly care for as a person.)

I just ponder the existence of someone with that mindset. Although they don't SEEM too upset about the way they see it. Obviously, this is not a recent discovery for this person. WTF?

For this person's own sake, I certainly hope it's some twenty-something sickness that will eventually pass as they realize there's much more to be reaped from humanity than the physical.

Or, if this person could grow up for two seconds and actually have an adult conversation, I would really like them to reconcile their opinions for me. Why? Tell me why?

This will probably not happen. I repeat. This probably will not happen. -- So in the mean time...does anyone want to attempt an answer to this unfortunate discrepancy in Justin's equilibrium?

It's been a long while since I have posted, partly because I just tend to forget about livejournal as it's often used as a mudslinging arena where I'm at, and partly because I try to really wait for something that's really important to me to come to my mind. Something I feel like needs to be documented in some way.

If there is one thing I have learned in the past year, it's that the boundaries of lies know no bounds. At first glance, this could be interpreted as something really negative. But when you think it through, we all lie. And I don't mean in the conventional way. Every minute insecurity we have about ourselves is a lie to someone. A facade. A barricade. A false premise. And it is these insecurities that provide for much of the complexity of human relationships and interaction. I have found that those people who seem genuine are anything but, and the others who I feel have wronged me in some way, are only reacting to their insecurities...which are rarely fixable...manageable yes, but rarely fixable. And who am I to blame them for these reactions? I have them. You have them.

There always seems to be something in the way that muddles our views of people based on specific actions. These actions are often too quickly analyzed and sometimes...it can take a year to figure these things out about a person.

What I would really like to say is that...I apologize. I apologize to anyone who I have misunderstood, and to anyone who is reacting as a way to sort out their own life --> Which should be all of us. For those of you graduating in May, good luck as you start your professional lives for the first time, and remember, if nothing else, that people are not always so bad.

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	4.7
Mind:	5.3
Body:	5.1
Spirit:	5.9
Friends/Family:	2.1
Love:	2.1
Finance:	5.5
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

I am tired. I am exhausted. I am done. Do I make myself this way? Or is it actually my life coming down on me? I just went driving for about an hour an a half. To think. Of course. But I drove without thinking, which is incredibly nice. There was no direction, no destination, just looking around at what was going on. There was no time limit, no people to meet. I just drove until I didn't want to anymore. I thought about my second thoughts about my career choice. Was this whole theatre management thing because I didn't have what it took to perform? What DOES it take? Or was this decision out of people conditioning me to think that I didn't have what it takes? (My apologies for tense agreement, don't have the patience to fix it right now.)

When I got home on Friday morning. My mother and I fought. (And now a note of sarcasm, "THAT'S NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE!" End note of sarcasm.) Thank god for my Dad, he's always there to help me out when she won't. I needed 4500 dollars to go back to Catawba next year. And naturally, she refused to cosign a loan for me. Apparently I'm too irresponsible to make payments after school. But apparently she didn't seem to be too worried about that when I had to sign myself when I got to Catawba. And never mind the fact that I have to go through all this because after her ten years of being with this guy she decided she couldn't wait two more years to marry him in order to avoid pitting me against the bureacracy that is Federal Student Aid. I'm paying 9000 dollars for her marriage, so I hope it lasts.

Enough bitching. It's not good for the psyche. In other news, the job hunt went pretty well, though the last place I want to be is in Fayetteville for the summer. Looks like it could be Buckle or American Eagle. Yay! More money....More problems.