With a sigh of distance and panic

Sometimes it escapes me how people around me can miss the signs of my unhappiness, or unease, or general warnings. But then, I guess it's easy to forget that it isn't as obvious as it feels like it should be. I feel as though I'm screaming to the world pretty much all the time, but when I look at myself in the mirror it just looks like a slight slouch. Baffling.

At any rate, married life is, categorically, just about the same as life was before marriage. There are "married people things" that are now available to us, but that's really the only major difference. Life at large is harder for mostly unrelated reasons. Things just... hurt right now. Melody has far too much on her plate and is suffering badly for it, and I just don't know how to be my own person, it seems.

We'll have to just wait and see how all this plays out, but for now I'll just sign off with a sigh.

Mawwiage

"Mawwiage is what bwings us togevver... today. Mawwiage, that bwessed awwangement..."

As the context here may perhaps suggest, I am now a married man. Melody Redmond, my wife, is currently right next to me in our hotel room at Lava Hot Springs, just over a day and a half into our life (officially) together. And boy, is it ever official. Yesterday morning, I met her at the Jordan River Temple, and we were sealed for time and all eternity at approximately 10:30 AM, October 12, 2011.

Thus far, the only real change is that we are allowed to take part in more of the procreative side of things. Otherwise, everything is shockingly similar to how it's just sorta always been between us. There was no Earth-shattering change made. Just a simple sealing ceremony -- beautiful, but simple -- and then a series of parties thrown on our behalf. That really was just about it. Next week, I think it's going to start setting in just how nuts this is for me: that is, that I'm moving out of my parents' house, into my grandmother's without her even being there, with a girl that I've only known temporally for a little over two years, and all of it for the sake of a future that will never exist if my faith is somehow misplaced. And yet, for all the reason I have to be terrified of all that's coming up, all I can do is just be happy with her. She's my life, literally the missing parts of my soul, given their own form. I love her with all that I am, and I will do anything necessary to ensure her continued joy and happiness.

Everyone kept asking me, right up to moments before the ceremony, whether I was nervous or getting cold feet. All I could say was no, simply because there was no reason to be. We were already basically at that point in our relationship, and going to the temple was just to formally officialize it. So what reason had I to be nervous? It was, and is, so completely natural to be with her... I am a happy man.

One Chance

In a very short time, I am to be married for time and all eternity, according to the customs of my religion.

I've also been playing One Chance, which the creator describes as follows:

One Chance is a game about choices and dealing with them.
Scientist John Pilgrim and his team have accidently created a pathogen that is killing all living cells on Earth.
In the last 6 remaining in-game days on Earth, the player must make choices about how to spend his last moments. Will he spend time with his family, work on a cure or go nuts?

As I see it, it is in essence a game about consequences. There is an auto-save feature that uses Flash Player's automatic storage feature to make choices permanent. The player is doomed to failure, because of the nature of the choices ahead of him: save humanity from certain death, show your family that you love them, escape the horrifying trouble facing you. Any of those are acceptable courses, but in all of them you lose. Not necessarily everything, but you lose at least one important thing no matter what you choose. Save humanity, lose your family. Show your family how important they are, only to allow them to die in the end. The game is highly fatalistic, to say the least.

But at the same time... it rings true.

"You have one chance."

I stand at the edge of the greatest moment of my life. I have one chance.

I'm taking the only path that wins.

 

I am choosing to be with Melody forever. That is my chance. That is my victory, and my chosen fate.

It is nearly time for forever to begin.

Anger

I've discovered that anger -- real anger -- is a very rare emotion for me. Specifically, it's something that has only cropped up twice in my specific memory (I believe I've had a precedent for this set during the year I was on Ritalin, though I'm not certain... not fun days, those). The first was some two months ago, perhaps. I'm not sure of the exact timing, and I don't want to be. I feel anger very deeply, when it comes along... mostly I cope with difficulty via depression or sadness, but very rarely I'll feel anger as the response. This first time, I felt real anger towards my father. I felt (and I stand by this in retrospect) he maligned both me (acceptable; I already think of myself as plenty of a screwup where his expectations are concerned) and Melody (not acceptable; his claims were completely one-sided and biased against her, for no reason I could nor can discern, and essentially painted her as some kind of irresponsible vagrant who would just fail at any and every endeavor).

When I went to speak with him about an unrelated but already sensitive and emotionally raw concern, I heard him speaking with my mother about my and Melody's future together. I was already hurt and having difficulty, but hearing what he said about her was... It was too much. I trembled with pain and anger and rage and possibly even hatred (though I don't know if it's fair of me to go so far as to say that) and walked, or thudded rather, down the stairs to speak with him. I warned him as best I could with my voice barely in control that I wasn't thinking clearly, because I wasn't and I knew it, and then did my best to express my concerns and emotional injuries in a fair way. I don't think I did all that well, but at the same time I cannot imagine a situation where his response to my words was justified. He took a few moments in shock that I would stand up to him in the specific way that I did, and then wasted no time once he'd collected himself in just utterly ripping me apart. He tore into me like I've never seen nor experienced, and the very first thing he said was "Where in the h*** do you get the balls to talk to me like that?" So that gives you an idea of how bad it was. I just stood and took it as long as I could, then advised him in a decreasingly stable voice that I wouldn't listen to him speak to me that way any longer, and left.

And boy, did I leave. I stormed up the stairs and out of the door, not even sparing Melody a look, simply because I couldn't handle the possibility of my fury hurting her. I went outside, walked to the tree in our parkway, and sat down to try and avoid just leaving -- after all, if I just took off in an arbitrary direction, Melody wouldn't have known where I was and might have been hurt by the worry over my safety. Yes, I was concerned about that at the time. It took me most of the rest of the night to calm down even to the point of functioning at all, and the entire rest of the week to actually speak to my dad again. I still haven't really forgiven him for that fully, partly because on some level I don't think I really believe he's sorry for it. Mostly because there are some things I just am not yet able to forgive, no matter how little good it does me to keep it that way.

The second time I referred to, and I suppose the one I'd prefer talking about less, was tonight. And all of the past day.

This time I didn't do anything dumb and speak up about it, because this time I had the sense to realize the consequences of speaking my mind before I actually did it for once. I'm sure this is going to wind up just eating me up all the more over time if it isn't handled, but at the same time I know I couldn't have handled the situation properly if I had spoken when it really should have been said.

I guess part of the problem is that I just don't know any real ways of coping with this yet. I just keep taking it for granted that it just never happens and acting on that, because other than those two instances, it never has, to my recollection at least. The fact is, this is really scaring me, that I am capable of feeling this, and all the more because I don't know how to take the edge off it enough to deal with the problem without causing very serious harm.

This seems as though it may require some growth. How unfortunate.

Food

I've been eating poorly of late. Specifically, today I have had several Oreos (breakfast), a bowl of noodles from Noodles & Company (lunch), and one and a half shortbread cookies (dinner). And though my pre-work meals tend to be a little better, today was only mildly uncomfortable due to how accustomed I am to this kind of diet.

Any suggestions on how to fix this?

Projects and a new dream

So I dreamed a blog. Like, legitimately dreamed that I was doing professional web development, and in that dream I designed a blog for someone, who was going by some name beginning with C and alluding to monarchy. Then he handed over the website to me for doing some kind of content distribution, I think for a podcast, and I renamed it to Abdicating Monarch and changed it so it looked like this, more or less:

Mostly on the "less" side, actually. But you get the idea.

Also, in a surprisingly related turn of events, I've been working towards being able to do quite a lot of projects, of wildly varying merit and attainability. I think I'll list them in semi-chronological order, rather than the likeliness of them actually getting done.

First, a vlog. Just straight-up recording to YouTube, talking about life and maybe answering questions or doing segments or something. This seems like it's actually quite redundant, since this is updated just about as often as I think I'd get around to recording, so it's low on the priority list.

Second, a Heroscape campaign between at least five regulars. Of all of these ideas, I think this is the one I'd get most enjoyment out of, and also the one I think would be nearly the most work, second to my 52-week podcast idea. Basically this would consist of weekly-or-so Heroscape matches in conjunction with a larger-scale map across which armies move and territories trade hands. I've got a lot of the background work done on this, and from here much of the effort would be in schedule-juggling. Which bites, because I can't get anyone together when I'm free most of the time, plus I'm barely keeping up with classes right now.

Third, a podcast about trance work and altered states. This is the huge weekly one, specifically one 'cast per week for a full year. I'd release it at the beginning or end of the week, based on a queue, and it would feature script readings, discussions of concepts, potentially request or commission work if people showed interest, and a pronounced focus on the mystical -- specifically by means of tarot cards, with some assistance from other fantasy and occult systems. I'm excited for this one, guys. I really am. I've got an editor already set to work on it, and a whole backup community that I may or may not be able to enlist for conceptual help. That said, I know for a fact that about a third or more of the people I know in person would majorly, majorly object to me doing it in the first place. In my experience, normal people really knee-jerk against this sort of thing. Hard. And I'm really not looking forward to explaining to anyone that would need to ask. Still, I have high hopes.

Fourth, a podcast that had its genesis from an offhanded comment about a podcast the author of an excellent tutorial specifically  mentioned as something he would never listen to. A podcast in which I simply cough into the mic one time per week and post it. I call it The Weekly Cough. This is the one that's probably going to be easiest overall, and I think quite funny. I have plans to make an A.A. Milne reference in the first episode.

Fifth, a livestream. I'm pretty much all set up on this one. I think I want to do Minecraft on it a lot, but there are plenty of those out there already, so I also want to play through and review art games. Now, this is going to require a lot of content moderation by not-me, because I have a hard time showing art games that I've already played through and not spoiling them right off the bat. I have a huge list of games I can do, though, so I'm rather looking forward to giving it a shot. The main difficulty involved here is promotion and finding a time when I can actually stream regularly and any reasonable number of people will be able to watch.

Sixth, and to my memory last, a personal podcast, basically for me to rant and do basically the same stuff as would happen in the vlog except with only audio. I don't think I'll actually do this one either unless a lot of content magically drops into my lap.

So in summary: I want to make a trance podcast, a cough podcast, a livestream, and a Heroscape campaign. Not sure if all of those are achievable, and I'm already probably dropping the vlog and personal podcast right out of the gate. I'm most excited about the trance podcast and the Heroscape campaign, but the livestream will likely be very rewarding as well. Plus I get a huge kick out of the idea of doing something like The Weekly Cough just because someone I don't know specifically said to not do that. Not much work, really stupid, but highly, highly amusing. I also love the idea of someone just marathonning TWC in the middle of the night and giggling manically, just 'cause.

Sadness

I'm told it's important to allow yourself to be sad once in awhile. I personally hate that concept, but I have to admit it's exceedingly true. I'm not sure what that means for me right now, since I'm not honestly certain whether this current feeling of depression and irrational emotional pain is internally or externally sourced, but frankly it makes me uncomfortable to realize that it's probably best for me to just try and experience this as deeply as I can while still functioning in the world.

My emotions are erratic, and that itself is a huge problem for me. I keep breaking down over nothing, and it's tough for me to get things done. I'm worried about this semester, because even without my feelings going haywire all the time it's going to be relatively difficult for me. I'm... well, I'm displeased with this. Things are crazy enough without having to deal with falling apart all the time. I'm getting married, for crying out loud! But I still haven't gotten this troublesome little emotional issue under control yet.

And the worst part?
The worst part is...
I can tell you right now that if this grows much further I'll doubtless return to my suicidal urges.

Still won't act on them. Too much to lose, and too many to disappoint. Whatever keeps me alive, right?

But still. They'll be there again before long, if this doesn't get a lot better in the meantime.

I wish there were an easier way to get rid of it, once and for all, but I suppose it's never that simple. It would be nice, but sadly the only ways I know to do that are far too destructive to far too much besides the problem. So I guess the thing to do now is just live with it. Maybe have some shenanigans or something to take my mind off it, though that probably will only work as a stopgap. Until next time -- and there will be a next time, don't worry -- I'll keep moving ahead on this path. I have little choice but to do my best and trust it will lead me free of this trouble.

Spirituality

So I've had an interesting day. I got a living ordinance recommend this morning, pretty much first thing, which represents a big step forward for me. Then the prophet showed up to our sacrament meeting. Wow. That was... nothing short of incredible -- and oddly hilarious. Turns out Pres. Monson has a really good sense of humor. I got to see Bengt again for the first time since he took off for his mission in Seattle, WA, and he's still just about the same as he left, which is quite different from my past experience dealing with new RMs.

After church, I picked up Melody and went to her parents' house for dinner and had a decidedly un-spiritual couple of hours before we went and saw Rose for advice on how to further our wedding plans. She was very helpful in that department, and more importantly, launched us into an excellent spiritual conversation. Several hours later we finished up there, much-enlightened (and me with the sense that Jewel could easily turn out to be that particular sort of awesome person many years down the road), and headed to Melody's current residence to let her get some sleep. There, we had another major spiritual discussion, after which I went home. And had ANOTHER spiritual and uplifting discussion with my dad that may or may not have ended with him finding his way to the path towards self-forgiveness over what happened to my brother Caleb before I was born.

So yes, it's been quite a day. A lot more specific stuff and stories were experienced and shared along the way, but if I try to write them all out, I'm pretty sure I won't get any sleep at all tonight.

Repurposing

Renovations to the blog are underway. Not that you couldn't tell, what with me actually posting here. I'm strongly considering placing an adult content warning on the page, but I think I'll hold off doing that for the moment, at least until there's adult content to be hiding. This blog, from this point forward until something causes me to decide to change it again, is to be a journal more than anything else. I'm going to be documenting more or less whatever I'm thinking about when I decide to write, and much of this will be influenced by her, who for the moment I won't be mentioning by name because I don't know how she'd feel about that.

At any rate, I'm really tired at the moment. I've been going through back entries here, just sorta remembering where I've been before I try to go someplace new, and it's done some good but mainly it's made me want to sleep very badly. Today as a whole hasn't been great, but it definitely hasn't been a bad day either. There was some frustration, some confusion, some disappointment, but there was also some humor, some (or possibly more than just "some") spirituality, some reminiscence, and certainly a lot of love. My situation at the moment is weird, as I'm now just slightly into the second of three weeks of having my parents' house entirely to myself due to a road trip that school and work prevented me from joining.

In related news, I hate washing dishes. And also my job, ughhh. Still haven't found my way out of that one just yet. But it's alright for now. I'm surviving it, though long-term I feel certain it will be the death of me if I don't get out. But as I say, I am still surviving. It's a huge pain at times, but then again what isn't, right?

I'm going to go to bed now, mainly because if I don't, I'm going to pass out right where I am, and that will likely make it rather tough to hear my alarm in the morning. Look forward to more updates in the future, though I will give you all a fair warning now that a lot of it is going to scar more-sensitive minds. I've come a long way since last time I was here.