Changes aren't permanent, but change is.

In the six months that I have lived here in Colorado with Lalita, I have forced myself to grow up faster and faster to meet the challenges that faced me. To begin with, I moved out of my parents' house, where I had an address for sixteen years. Some of my most intensely formative years passed there. I could feel the twanging of my heartstring as I snapped it from that place. I drove west into my new life and true adulthood. No longer could I rely on my parents for housing and food. However, the break wasn't necessarily so clean.

In the months leading up to early September, I depended on Lalita and Jake for my housing and food. I helped clean the apartment and cook, but I did not bring home any income. The economy, my relocation depression, and my reluctance to face and navigate job-searching all contributed to how long it took for me to finally land a job here in Colorado.

Fortunately, through a pivotal interview, I managed to become a paraprofessional for Denver Public Schools' Deaf and Hard of Hearing program. I drive between three or four schools during the week to support D/HH students in their classes. It is a job that I enjoy greatly. I have connected with the students I help and gleaned much wisdom from interpreters and teachers of the deaf. I feel more at home working at this job than in any other I've held. Even more so than when I worked at my old local school district. Soon after that, I found a new car and will soon fly out to Georgia to see my family, Scott, Taylor, and Julie again. My heart wells up merely at the thought.

I cannot leave out the fact that the last three months have been the stage of some of the very worst emotional turmoil I have ever experienced and caused. I encountered the fight-or-flight response more intensely than ever before. Coupled with immense stress, painful longing, fear, and anger, I made some rather stupid choices. I hurt Lalita and threatened our relationship, and sometimes during the very worst weeks, it seemed like it happened daily. I lashed out and instantly regretted it. I was amazed at how much of a fool I could really be. I do not wish to relive those dark days in detail, but I can tell you that I'm still deeply disappointed in myself for showing my love the worst parts of myself.

Blood running cold
Mind going down into a dark night
Of a desperate panic
Or a tempest of blind fury
Like a cornered beast
Or a conquering hero

Sometimes I freeze
Sometimes I fight
Sometimes I fly
into the night 

At least now, no one can say that we haven't endured each other at their worst. I believe we are all capable of causing grievous pain and despair. Every single one of us carries this potential. No one is inherently good.

Today, I tangled with a very critical train of thought. I tried to dig deep and discover one of the ways in which I hold myself back from reaching my potential. From growing up.  A few hours ago, Lalita told me that I finally have seen what she has had to do with Jake throughout their relationship firsthand for myself. She said that she was sorry for having to push me so much and so far with so little time. But she had to so we could survive. Such is this life. She knows that I needed a great deal more time in which to deal with all of my feelings and the unresolved business related to them, so that still helps. Seeing my therapist, talking with Lalita and my friends, and writing in here have helped. But, as for the foreseeable future, I don't know how all this will end up. I've had to change so much about myself this year in so little time that it's impossible to tell what sort of person I will be on the other side of all this.

Ever hopeful, yet discontent
He knows changes aren't permanent
But change is

There's a young boy I'd like to introduce you to. He's fifteen years old, full of wonder, a melodramatically wilting romantic, and riding on a surging wave of hope. It's the year 2005 and he could not possibly be more excited for Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

He's in his second year of high school band. He just found out that he'll march a show inspired by Gustav Holst's The Planets. He cannot wait to play "Mars, the Bringer of War" on the field at contest. He just began reading Stephen Baxter, a hard science-fiction author who will change how he sees life and the universe forever. He would tell you that, in the words of Ben Kenobi, that he has just stepped into a larger world. He could go on and on about his crushes on the girls he believes are the most beautiful he's ever seen in his incredibly short life. At the same time, he doesn't realize the unimaginable pain he's in store for in this area of his life years down the road.

This spirit of his is indefatigable. You can knock him down, but you will never be able to keep him there. The energy, hope, and sheer (and sometimes stupid) raw determination driving him will carry him to seemingly any goal he sets--except finding that special someone who will actually love him for him and treat him like a human being. Even then, though, those girls who will break his heart won't break him. He will always get back up and try again. He wouldn't forget to tell you that that's what Son Goku, the Saiyan from Earth, always does. The film scores that play endlessly in his headphones and his mind, from Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, the Matrix, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, and any number of those penned by James Newton Howard, give him the soundtrack to his life. They firmly root his feelings in his memory and motivate him to move forward every day. He would most likely annoy you with all the minutiae he learned about each of his favorite film scores that he painstakingly pored over on filmtracks.com.

This piece, in fact, is him in a nutshell: "Celebrate Discovery" by John Williams

And so is this: "Harry in Winter" by Patrick Doyle 

He has no idea about how to be in a relationship, but he has written uncountable pages and pages to his crushes for years at this point. He pours his entire soul into his cramped scrawl and yet somehow finds that he's got plenty left. Without fail, it refills to maximum with each massive orchestral swell that rises like a tide in his heart. It's silly, but he can't stop. It's just who he is. His heart is pure and in the right place. He is about to turn the corner into knowing real pain, but he has no idea what that is right now. So he blissfully plays more Ratchet and Clank until his eyes grow too heavy.

This boy provided the foundation from where I would grow over the next ten years. His optimism and hope carried me through my most grinding jobs, my saddest days, and my worst relationships. Motivation to give love and help others learn suffused every cell in his body in ridiculous quantities.

However, he developed some counterproductive qualities. He would infuse his overwhelming hope into specific ideas and plans he had for the future. He imagined that his future love life would unfold in a very specific way, for example. He placed those hopes on others and fell into disappointment again and again. Somehow, though, he wouldn't change his approach. He was a slow learner.

Lately, these qualities have driven me to the dark days that I mentioned earlier. I still expect my relationship with Lalita to take a certain shape. I get disappointed every time life takes a left turn. I focus too much on my own pain and forget that Lalita feels pain too. I get caught up in my personal melodrama and act very childishly indeed.

It's true that love can change us
But never quite enough
Sometimes we are too tender
Sometimes we're too tough
If we get too much attention
It gets hard to overrule
So often fragile power
Turns to scorn and ridicule

Sometimes our big splashes
Are just ripples in the pool 

And, this, I'm afraid, is what I finally understood today, after having heard as much from Lalita for months now. Just like that fifteen-year-old from 2005 inside of me, I'm a slow learner.

It's not like I'm killing him off. I'm just taking him off the wheel. He's driven me far and to wondrous places that I could never have imagined seeing myself. He also drove me to dark places out of rage and selfishness. He had a good run, but it's time for him to sit in the back. His influence still lives. However, I've moved to a new world with new rules and expectations. I have to have something to show for all of my experience and growth over the last eleven years. And move bravely (and fearfully) into the future. Fifteen-year-old me wouldn't know the first thing to do with Lalita and all the responsibilities I have in my relationship with her. I've got to let the more experienced and deeper parts of myself take over.

Lalita has said that I am a deep thinker. Thinking deeply can help me process through the problems and challenges I will face from this point forward. I can still channel my hope and optimism into those efforts, though. I have all the pieces. I just have to remember that I have it in me to put them together.

All four winds together
Can't bring the world to me
Shadows hide the play of light
So much I want to see
Chase the light around the world
I want to look at life
In the available light

I'll go with the wind
I'll stand in the light