Status Update

Life lately has been disorganized. Sometimes overwhelming, a little more spontaneous than usual, a bit less fulfilling but also a bit more pleasant, much more stressful but more colorful.

I gave blood on the day of my birthday. I heard later on the announcements that each of us donors had probably saved between one and two lives. That was a strange and wonderful feeling.

A couple days before that, I discovered that my last girlfriend, who I once thought I was really in love with, is dating another guy. I haven't talked to her in a while, and I was surprised by how much I didn't care. I didn't feel much of anything. It made me kind of sad, how things change which shouldn't. Some things you think should never change, but they do. I thought one part of me would always be in love with her, but she's out of my thoughts.

I'm reading "Letters to a Young Poet" by Rilke. He asks of his young correspondent essentially, "If you could not write, would you prefer to die?" Only those who answer yes to that question, I think he's suggesting, are truly writers.

I'd like to answer yes, but I'm terrified of death.

My writing has been relatively sporadic and unfulfilling. I write maybe a couple of poems a week, and I do like what I write, but I have yet to become so totally engulfed in my own writing and my own imagination, which is what I've been waiting for for years. Maybe I'm lazy. Or maybe I just don't have it in me.

Also reading Cloud Atlas. It's one of those novels you can get lost in. Read it.

The girl I went to Homecoming with gave me a playlist for my birthday, and it's honestly one of the best gifts I've ever received, because it's so perfect. My favorite song on it is "Young Folks" by Peter, Bjorn, and John. I can't find it today, though, and am freaking out slightly.

I think people are really wonderful--meeting new people and discovering things about them. Or even just getting snapshots of them. I wish I would make an effort to meet more. To have more experiences.

We've been learning about String Theory in physics. It's incredible. I can only begin to understand it on an artistic level, which is a pity because I think it's likely that art, like earth, is very tiny. Physics and mathematics are as large as the Universe and perhaps far larger. Which I guess makes physics the universal poetry. Even if it's emotionless--the Universe is emotionless as well.

I've been sitting out most nights and looking at the stars. I always think I'm going to accomplish something, looking at them, but I never really do, exactly. Except maybe slowing down time, a little. Sometimes I don't think about all the things I remember, but all the things I know I've forgotten. Thinking of all my lost memories. By the time I die, I'll probably have a lifetime of lost memories. Lost moments.

My old piano teacher sent me a packed with Chopin's Nocturnes and Bach's Goldberg Variations. There was a note attached telling me what I meant to him as a student and how much talent he thought I had. I was reading it out to my family and choked up a bit. I've been choking up more often.