For awhile now, during occasional moments of clarity, I've recognized that something in me changed when I wasn't paying attention and I became aware of an absence.  I realized that I felt empty somehow.  The last time I wrote on here it was about the disturbing idea that what I had lost was my soul.  I'm still not entirely sure that that isn't the case, but whatever it is that fell away from me– I think I may have gotten a piece of it back.  I'm also starting to regret it, but I'll get to that later and start from the beginning.

     I started reading the Twilight Saga during my flight home for Thanksgiving break and I almost immediately became absorbed, as I always do with fiction.  I know to avoid picking up a book, because I almost certainly won't be able to put it back down unfinished.  If I'm forced to break away from it for any amount of time my mind continually obsesses over the characters and story-line, playing out possible scenarios and carefully  mulling everything that has taken place so far.  I'm used to my own behavior by now so it didn't surprise me at first when I felt the hooks of the first Twilight book sink into me.  The books in the saga aren't perfect by any means, especially after the first one, but that didn't lessen their appeal any.  It initially bothered me how slowly the first four-fifths of each book progresses, with all of the "action" compressed into the end, but I quickly garnered appreciation for every detail and every action that was meticulously described.  It made me feel more like I was witnessing events rather than being told a story.  Anyways, before I get too far off track the point I wanted to make here is this: two hooks caught particularly deep into parts of me I had all but forgotten since I started college that really made it impossible for me to turn my attention away from the books, and I've been almost constantly obsessing about the fantasy world of the saga ever since.

     The first really caught me off guard.  I've never been a big fan of romantic fiction.  You could probably ask any one of my good friends and they would answer with confidence that it wasn't the sort of thing that appealed to me.  The romance between two of the characters in Twilight, however, hit me unexpectedly.  All I can say is that after reading about it I became painfully aware of a longing I never knew I had.  With some embarrassment I admit that I want an Edward, badly.  In every way that he is in the book (emotionally anyways) that is what I want— not entirely for selfish reasons.  I certainly don't long to be worshiped by someone, praise tends to make me uncomfortable.  It's actually the other way around: I want someone that I feel so strongly about that it hurts to be away from them.  If they feel the same way too, then great; we will both feel so compelled to be in each others' presence that we won't be apart to ever feel that pain.  Now before you feel the urge to caution me about being eager to give my heart away, I don't give it away.  No matter how much I want to I don't.  I might not even be capable of that.  Somehow it's become entirely too guarded.  Despite how truly great some of the guys that I have dated are, I have never been able to develop those sort of feelings or to even care to have them around much.  I do genuinely care about them, but it's doesn't really go beyond that.  I suppose thats why I want an Edward so much.  He's that guy that is just so incredible you have no choice but to surrender your heart.  The saying "I've been waiting my whole life for you" comes to mind, and you just can't believe that he wants you too, that you deserve it.

     The second hook is one I'm more familiar with; one that I've struggled with for a good portion of my life.  I don't know how many of you know this, I'm rather embarrassed to be admitting it now but I absolutely loathe the world.  Not people, but the world, or more appropriately, I guess, existence.  I hate it for being so utterly uninteresting to me.  I get absorbed into fantasy and fiction because it offers an appeal that the real world lacks.  It's a double-edged sword, though, because it gives me a frame of reference to compare reality to that probably makes me even more aggravated for it not living up to my hopes.  Either way, there's really nothing that I truly look forward to in any of the possibilities for my life.  Often times is almost more than I can bear.  I might prefer to fall into a coma and dream endlessly until the day that I die rather than just be another head in the crowd.  I know there are ways to make yourself stand out, but again none of them really appeal to me as providing the sense of fulfillment that I seek.

     I often daydream about what I would wish for if I had the opportunity to have one granted.  I used to have a pretty solid idea of what that would be: it would somehow relate to making my life more interesting in the way I've always wanted.  Somewhere around when I "lost my soul" (I use this phrase lightheartedly), though, my wish started changing minute to minute.  Usually it was something shallow like wishing for an unattainable (physical) lust to come to fruition (e.g. Brad Pitt :-p) and often it would be something more noble but still material like suddenly finding myself with the means to relieve my parents of their mortgage and other debts.  Lately that wish has been rather constant again; this time it would be for my equivalent of an Edward.  It's silly and selfish, but I hate feeling that hole there and I can't imagine missing out on a perfect opportunity to fill it, even if it is just in a stupid daydream.  It occurred to me when I was constructing the semantics of the wish— because that's something I always do, I've read too many stories where wishes were twisted and fulfilled in wretched and sadistic ways— that I would have to specify what qualified as an Edward to me.  A soulmate?  Yes he was that in the book.  Nearly flawless?  Yeah that would make things easier.  But what about his being a vampire?  Would that be integral?  That is certainly full of negative connotations.  It really could be a horrifying notion.  I had to think about this a little bit.  Ultimately I concluded that, yes, this aspect would also necessary.  It is the fact the timeframe is eternity, that with infinite time and patience he still couldn't possibly have any other true love, just the one, that makes it so completely desirable and fulfilling.  Of course the whole superhuman abilities part of it doesn't hurt either.  That solves the part about existence being uninteresting and not standing out.

Well, daydreams are just that: dreams.  All I can hope for is to meet a great guy and fall in love with him, which I do look forward to, and also to get through school, build a career, and establish some sort of a life for myself, which I'm only marginally interested in.  I did regain a part of myself that was temporarily lost.  I had been stumbling through life with such apathy that I almost forgot what it was like to have an inner monologue and now my mind is constantly chattering away to itself in introspection and analysis.  I've remembered how to use my imagination again too, but at the same time I'm not numb and unaware of my discontent anymore.  I'm also losing my resolve.

The Biggest Disappointment In College

I often feel that the person that I was in high school and the person that I am now are two completely different entities that have very little in common other than the same general background and upbringing. In high school I developed a very strong self identity. I say I developed it in high school, but in actuality the way I identified myself in high school was something that was very much a part of me from the time that I was very young; it just evolved to include something I hadn't really come to terms with before then: my sexuality. Once that was integrated into my sense of self, though, it was as if everything became very solid. I wasn't exactly full of confidence, but I knew exactly who I was and nothing anyone said or did could change that. I was principled, moralistic, prude, intelligent, introspective, conscious of important controversial issues, and somewhat in touch with my spirituality. This strong sense of self that I had come to embrace in high school, however, has completely melted away since I moved away from home and entered college. Everything about me is so fluid now: I have no idea what I like to do, what I am passionate about, or what issues I stand for. Basically, everything that defined me as a person back then is gone. I don't even really remember how I would have answered someone if that had asked me to describe myself at that point. When people ask me that now the answer is a resounding "I don't know how." The absolute truth is that I don't know where to begin because I have nothing to latch on to.
This has been somewhat of an existential crisis for me for the past few years, though I've been able to push it to the back of my mind because I rarely take the time to examine myself anymore. Beyond that I really just don't stop to think about anything, I've just been living life day to day with the slight notion that there has been some sort of void inside of me. The other day I had a realization of what that void might be. I was reading an article about the photograph series "Ricas y famosas" by Daniela Rossell for one of my art history courses when I came across this quote:

"Daniela's book portrays a different form of poverty, a less obvious type of poverty: that of the soul. A spiritual poverty that comes from loneliness, boredom and an existential nothingness..."

To me one's soul represents everything that that person stands for, everything that they are passionate about and everything that they identify themselves with– all of the things that I now lack. I thought, "holy crap! I lost my soul." I always thought that I might lose my soul if I let myself become immersed in what I considered "the shallow gay lifestyle" like so many of the other gay teenagers I observed as they came out in high school and were absorbed into the gay subculture. But instead I lost myself in a more unexpected way: in the transition from my teen years into adulthood.
I hope that one day I will rediscover my soul. I hope that I will once again have a sense of purpose, that I will know where I belong in the world. I hope to be able to believe that I am a unique person with something to offer someone else in a relationship, with something to contribute to society. I just want something that will set me apart from the crowd, but until then I will be what it is I have become since I left high school, what my friends and roommates see me as now: the ditzy blonde boy who is absent minded, unremarkable, with nothing valuable to contribute and just a little bit pathetic.