reflection, the things we don't want to see

it has recently occured to me that i am not like anyone else. i am completely different in many ways from all of the people around me. but i also know that everyone is different, everyone is weird, even if they don't show it and everyone, at some point in their lives, feels alone and isolated.


sometimes i wonder if it is just me that feels this drastic flaming difference between themselves and the outside world. i have come to a place that i never imagined myself staying in for very long and i have tried to make a home here.


Los angeles is weird. los angeles is bipolar. in some senses it embraces all of these different people and gives them a place to stay. drive six miles from where you live, and you see a whole different demographic and a whole different lifestyle. but for me, that transition is slow. if you drive six miles from where you live in san francisco, chances are, you'll end up in the water. people in SF don't have to go very far to step outside of their demographic. LA is weird like that. in la, you can stay in your own little bubble and you never have to experience life if you don't want to. you go to your local coffee shop, your local grocery store, your laundromat. but that's what irks me about it. people don't step outside of themselves. people stay in their neighborhoods and keep to themselves and never experience anyone different from them. it's frustrating for someone like me who loves to meet new people and find out what their lives are like. i have worked in non-profits for years and i always meet new people and i always find out something new about life. it's hard to be in a place that is so "diverse" on paper, but so segregated in reality.


in san francisco, you only have to walk two blocks before you enter a whole new neighborhood. i live on the edge of two neighborhoods and all kinds of people are always coming through.


i'm never comfortable in just one place. i like scenery. i like to change my atmosphere and shake things up. i am not tame, nor am i boring. this has become painfully obvious in the past few months. school is daunting and perilous and i have been scraping my way uphill for the past two months. home is tugging at me. my father has been in and out of the hospital this week and i am missing my family very much.


but still, i am trying to find the beautiful things in life. i think what keeps me going is those little bits of beauty that we see everyday and take for granted. sunsets, intense formations of clouds, how clear the night sky in LA can be after it rains. i have not seen the stars so brightly since i moved here until the other night. to see the entire orion formation brought up something in me that has been repressed for almost three years. the need to be in nature. the need to know that i am still a part of a living breathing earth. that we are all so small when we look up at the sky. mostly. the comfort of knowing that we all look at the same sky, that we all live on the same planet, and that even though war and hate may separate us, that those things keep us united and have made a bond that goes deeper than that.


as i carve my path in this world, i try to remember that everything i do affects people. every move that i make has an affect on someone. as an artist, i have a responsibility to express humanity. i have a responsibility to show people that they are not alone in the world. that someone else feels like they do and that they are not freaks, that they are not abnormal, and that they are just like me. so when i feel isolated and alone, how am i supposed to make everyone feel included in my little world?


i'm missing my lost ones, my angels. i walk through this world, pretending that i have not experienced the things that i have and that i live a normal life like everyone else. we all have our demons, but how often do those fears and paranoias come through into this world? i call them angels because that is the closest word that i can think of to express what they are to me. i look to them for guidance, i look to them for protection, for comfort in times of dispair and pain. the thing is, the loss of these people has caused much of the pain that i often need comforting for.


i realize that i live two lives. i live the one at home where everyone knows me and my deal and understands that when monica is upset, she's upset for a reason. but i also live the life here in LA where when i'm upset people are like, "whoa, what the hell was that?"
it's hard to balance these two lives. it's hard to feel like a whole person when i feel like so many pieces of me are missing.


i know....emo, right?