The Tipping Point

Homesick

Haven’t felt this way in a loooooong time.

Buddha once said…

“behind the mask of heartache…lies motivation”. ;)

The fruits certainly grow faster than you can harvest them. You just have to know where they grow.

I was thinking about it today…

There’s certain people that I wish I met in a different life.

And then there’s those who I’m glad I met. I just wish I met them at a different point…in either my life or theirs.

Dear God,

…from today on, let there be less of me.

And more of you.
Amen.

Relationships

..should be a constant, equal distribution of give and take. It’s never synchronized, it’s hardly ever part of the thought pattern in arguments and issues, but regardless, it’s a must.

I didn’t strike up a random convo with someone like I normally do to come to such an epiphany. Nor did some text from a book i’m reading bring it to mind. It just…randomly popped into my head today. A single guy, not a girl in my mind, calculating the weight and balance of a Boeing 767 roaring right in front of me, waiting to be loaded. Tropical sun beaming down UV rays atop my forehead while the easterly tradewinds wave through my shirt like a flag. Planes taking off about a thousand feet behind me.

And the one thing that crosses my mind at that moment…relationships need to be give and take. Both sides, equally, all the time.

You spot a problem in your relationship? Good. Don’t bring it up. Bring up the solution.Because emphasizing the negative only seems to push the other person further away, or so i’ve learned.

Got an opinion? Good. That’s yours. She’s gonna have hers, and 50% of the time (if you’re lucky), your opinions will be the same. But for the rest of the time, don’t take it personally. Don’t scrutinize the validity of her stance or why she has to choose it, trust me, God gave us far from enough hours in a day to try and figure out women. We never will. So just nod and listen. If not agree.

Got trust issues? Work shit out. Believe me, i went through 3 years of trust issues. Arguments and sacrifices and lockdowns and whatnot. I’ve been through it all, and I can talk. For days. My 7th grade health teacher once told me “3 things in life you NEVER get back once you lose them…your virginity, your earings, and trust.” I guess trust is a make or break thing. I mean, you can trust someone and not love them, but you can’t love someone and not trust them. Shit, they should change wedding vows to…”I will promise to trust you, in sickness and in health,…” lol. And even that is give and take.

People are gonna do shit to you to make you not want to trust them. Let me replay that line for your absorption…people are gonna do shit to make you not want to trust them. Not “not trust” them altogether, just not want to trust them. Notice, it’s all you. It’s all in your head. I once lent some money to a friend, promised he would pay me back. Hasn’t paid me since, it’s been almost 2 years. Did I want to trust him? no. But do I now? I do, because he’s one of my best friends and maybe I just don’t understand the situation he’s in right now. Case closed, yolo, life goes on. This girl once left me for someone and gave everything I was fighting for to him instead. Do I want to trust her? Not really, I mean I found pictures of them in her camera while we were still going out. For 3 and half years at that point. But do I? Yes, i do. Bad move? maybe…but everyone makes mistakes, that’s what life is all about isn’t it? I’m driving on the freeway, a lane seperates me and this other car. I put on my blinker to move a lane to the right, when at the same time the other car could want to move a lane over to the left, crashing into me. Do i want to trust him? Fuck yes. Do i? not really, I barely know the person or their driving habits. So i head check periodically prior to changing lanes. It’s all in OUR heads. Who we trust and who we don’t. And how long we let that barrier further complicate our lives and social status.

Either way you break it down, its all give and take. From the blanket in bed, to parking stalls, to who gets say, to massages, to back scratches, to EFFORT, to understanding, to listening, to LOVE. It’s all give and take.

Check your balance from time to time.

And i don’t mean your bank account.

Word.

Alternative Love Sources

It’s so sad. The girls that want effort put in don’t get it, the ones that get it don’t want it.

At the end of the day, just pick me. That’s all I want from her. Any girl. Yeah she may stand in line behind a hot guy and then be stuck in traffic next to a hot guy and then order her dinner from a hot guy but at the end of the day we lay faithful and just in bed with her head on my chest as we discuss the deeper things in life. I mean, it seems like that’s too much to ask nowdays.

All girls want is money and raves and outfits and Michael Kors and candy and drama and whatnot.

You know, I’m not perfect. I’m far from it. I admit that. But wherever it is I fall short, you better damn believe that imma try. I mean, anyone is worth a little effort, right? I’m not gonna plant my foot down like…”i don’t do that”. Shit, I’ll try anything if the person’s worth it.

And still nothing. It’s like…they know exactlly what you want, but they also know they have the power not to give it to you.

Yeah I’ve made mistakes, who hasn’t? But I’ve learned from them. I’ve grown from them. Matter of fact, i’ve done everything some people asked me to do and still nothing.

It’s not so much the person, its more so the principle. How despite being left, I still wanted this girl. So i worked, and put in the effort. Back to square one. worked, put in effort, back to square one. 4 times over a span of almost 6 months now. And nothing. How do you watch someone that you push down work their ass off everytime, puttin gin effort, and still pick someone who puts in no effort.

In what guidance course or physics book or any time in life does effort subdue to no effort? I don’t get you girls. If a guy gives his all to make you see him, give him a chance. I mean, atleast ONCE out of the 4 times.

But then she said it. “At the end of the day, I’ll pick me”.

And that’s where we need to be at people. Selfish and focused. Because the less things we let close enough to us, the less we get hurt. The more time and effort we have to put into things like our career or family or hobbies or pastimes. It took a pie in my face 4 times for me to see it.

By the grace of God I have done everything I could have possibly said and did everything I could have possibly done to let this girl know that before I go to sleep every night, she’s the one I think about. The one I used to envision a future with. The one I’d pick time and time again if you lined up alllllll the girls in the world. And she still can’t decide. Girls, input please? Cuz after 5 months, I still can’t figure it out, myself.

Its not so much giving up. More…realizing that if you take a road 4 times and you end up at a dead end,

what makes you think that same road is ever gonna change?

Some people just don’t realize the power they posses, and what they could do with it.

Last Night

…changed my life. 

7:30 pm.  I picked her up from her house.  No I don’t like her that way or ever have, it was just a random cruise sesh with another friend i’m trynna keep in touch with. It was the first time I’ve ever hung out with her.  Or said more than two sentences to her for that matter. 

Now, this is where the punch line hit like a right jab to the stomach.  She sat down, buckled up, looked me in the eye and said…

“I’m gonna be straight up with you.  No guessing, no secrets, no regrets tonight.  Every friend i have gets to spend one night with me.  And that’s it.  You can do whatever you want to me, with me, or for me.  You can drop me off in a couple minutes or we can cruise til’ tomorrow morning.  But tonight is your one night.  After this, I’m not gonna come out ever again.  I’ll probably ignore you, but not because you did anything.  Tonight you can develop feelings for me, or you can hate my guts, or we can act like kids and do stupid shit or be adults and just talk.  We can drive around the island or stay parked right here, or go to the moon or change the world or get arrested.  But once you drop me off, i’m gone.  Forever.”

I’m sitting in my driver seat like…What….The…Fuck.  I barely knew her.  But I think that’s what helped to change my life from that moment on.  I mean we all talk about…blah blah blah YOLO this and YOLO that live like we’re dying and “if tomorrow never comes” and whatnot.  But we all put shit off.  We all take people for granted.  We all make rain checks.  For the first time in my life, I knew what I had coming.  I knew how shit was gonna pan out.  I knew that I had ONE night, one opportunity to stretch every single minute with a mere stranger, make a friend out of it, make memories, and make it count. 

10:30 pm…she explains why she is the way she is.  She doesn’t let anyone get close enough to her to break her heart (again).  Her life is just a constant cycle of one-night cruise sesh’s.  She doesn’t have a circle of friends, on the flip side, she doesn’t have enemies because of this.  Every person gets one time. 

8:30 pm- Manoa Valley, 9 pm-Tantalus Drive, 12 am-Waikiki, 2am-opposite side of the island to Campbell Industrials, 3:15 am-asleep, windows down at a Jack in a Box in Waipio, 4 am-woke up to drive to Salt Lake, fell sleep again.  6:30 am-Aiea Heiau.  7:30 am dropped her off, a full 12 hours after I picked her up.  Tripometer on my truck registered 106 miles…on a 30 mile-wide island mind you. 

All in all, i didn’t have the time of my life or anything.  But it was a time in my life that slapped me in the face and said this is how you should live….always.  This is how you should treat everybody.  Don’t ever take anyone or anything for granted because there may not be a next time.  I made every single minute count.  Asked every single question I could think of, told my life story, got busted by cops, freestyle rapped, tried new things and trashed old habits. Sober and drug free. And I will never forget my one night with a stranger. 

It forever changed the way I embrace opportunity and appreciate people in my life.

You ever notice that last hug before someone gets on a plane is always the longest?  Or the first letter from prison?  Or how grudges collapse like straw huts when one person gets put in the hospital?  Because we get slapped in the face like I did.  This is it!  The last one, possibly.  The last time. 

Take someone in your life you do stuff with all the time.  Your boyfriend, girlfriend, best friend, neighbor, brother, sister, whatever. Now pretend there won’t be a tomorrow.  There won’t be a later.  If you had one day or one night with that person, and never see them or talk to them ever again…would you be different?  Would things be different?  Would you say things you’ve been holding inside for how long?  Would you be down to do more spontaneous, dangerous stuff?  Would you do everything you could possibly do to make that one time count? Got that in your head?….good, now LIVE IT.

Trust me, it will change your life and the people you keep in it.  Be spontaneous, be thankful, be willing, be honest, be down, be square. Never take anyone for granted and make every damn minute of your life count. 

Our days are numbered.  All of us. We come out the womb and our clock already has started ticking.  We’re born, and then we start dying.

But the moment we stop dying…

…is the very second we start to LIVE. 

Happiness

Life, for the most part, is a constant pursuit of intangible, invisible, innate standards and  benchmarks.  Some aim to fit in, some aim to become something, like a doctor or a teacher.  Some aim to reach a goal, like eating healthier or quit smoking.  Some aim for lower standards so that they are attainable and some aim for standards a little too far from reach to assure a constant hustle.  But all, and we can all agree, that all of us are in the constant search, the constant pursuit, the neverending easter egg hunt…for happiness. 

Which led me to write this.  In a state of self-content and the need not for external approval, I ponder on the very concept of “happiness”.  As of this moment, I am single.  I am content with how I look physically, with who i am, with the things that make me individual, the way my schedule is, with my material belongings and my disguised blessings.  And I am happy.  But, it took me a long time and nice train ride through the worst point of my life to be here.  People broke me down so that I could learn how to put myself back together.  Tests were given so that later in life I will know how to pass them.  Just a bunch of…pretty people doing ugly things, to distance barriers (both geographically and metaphorically), to my dad almost dying numerous times, to lies, to phonies, to plastic representation, to the question of the quality of my own appearance and attributes, to this to that, etc.  And somehow, some way…amidst the most unhappy point of my life…here I am shortly after.  Happy.

It’s not the first time I’ve ever been happy, but..its the first time i’ve been this type of happy. 

Once upon a time, I loved a girl.  With all my heart.  I’m not too ashamed to admit that, regardless of who reads this.  And atop the arguing, the dissagreements, the sacrifices; I was happy.  I was happy to be with someone, to have someone.  To have her.  The end.  Obviously.

about…2003…walking a dimly-lit street on Lana’i.  This girl pushed me up against a house’s wall and kissed me.  It was my first kiss.  and I was happy.

March 2010, I was hired by Hawaiian Airlines.  Something I’ve wanted to do since I was young.  I was happy.  Circa 2006, my father overcomes medical odds and beats some rare form of throat cancer.  I was blessed, and happy.  Ocotber 2009, after 2 years of a car with no A/C and had to kick start everywhere i went, being embarassed in fornt of countless people that just stood there and watched me struggle and push my car to get it started…I bought a brand new truck.  I was and still am happy.  Vegas last year, hit about…i dunno $300 something dollars on a nickel slot.  I was happy. 

The list goes on and on and on.  But these are all different types of happy.  When you finish solving a puzzle, its never going to amount to the same type of joy as looking your baby in their beautiful eyes just as they enter this world.  An oreo McFlurry will never satisfy one’s soul the way graduatiung with a bachelor’s degree after years of schooling will.

And this is what drives us.  It’s what pushes us through years of debt and college, it’s what pushes us past our shame to go up to a girl and ask her out, it’s what pushes us to be strong, to change things we have the power to change and leave the rest in God’s hands.  It affects the way we eat, talk, sleep, think, dress, write, draw, sing, work, trust, doubt, all these things…affected by how happy we are. 

For some, at the end of the day, the only thing preventing us from being happy is ourselves.  For some…it may not be accepted by anyone else.  Like…same-sex marriages, or graffiti, tabboo hobbies, or religious conflicts. 

But bottom line, just be happy.  And if you’re not, then stop.  If you’re unhappy in a relationship.  Leave!  or go on a break or talk shit out or do something!  If you’re not happy with how you look.  Go to a hospital’s burn treatment center and then look in the mirror.  If you hate your job, find another one.  Trust me, your working life is gonna pass you by and you can’t neccessarily collect 401k from a drive thru window.  If you’re not happy with who you are, try and realize that if you constantly compare the taste of milk to the taste of water, you’re always gonna side.  Or you can accept that they are both different.  And beautiful in that sense.  Because cereal with water just isn’t the same, and us crying milk wouldn’t feel the same.  Things are the way they are for a reason, and we are who we are for a reason as well.  Accept it, be thankful, and be happy.

Always.  Life is faarrrrrrr too short to be anything otherwise. 

Somehow…

Bad things happen to good people, plans get cancelled, parades get rained on, hearts get broken, promises get broken, minds change, people change, life goes on and shit happens.

But somehow we always manage to end up exactly where we’re meant to be.

Lord thank you for this weekend, for the people I met, and for the memories made. ;)

I’ve learned that everything happens for a reason. They’re not always good reasons at first, but eventually we learn to appreciate them as a whole.
Making them good, just as this life you gave me.

The only way to change a situation that were not in is how we choose to handle it