Thank you, God. Thank you for speaking through other people. Maybe it's just another person saying and doing what they will...but I'm just glad You spoke.

Do not focus on what might have been, what cannot be. Instead, live in the moment and see things as they are. I am now armored in an iron resolve, and do what is right. I'm done being a fool.

The Less I Believe- The Proclaimers

The life that I’ve been living
From the day I first drew breath
Has been my way of forgetting
I’m on the journey to my death
You make my soul rise up
You make my eyes to see
When I place my faith in you
And I lose my belief in me

The less I believe in me
The more I believe in thee
The less I believe in me
The more I believe in thee

I don’t believe in beads or crystals
Instant karma or mother earth
I don’t believe that what I think
Makes any difference to what I’m worth
I don’t believe in reincarnation
I’m not coming back as a flower
I don’t bow my head to kings or priests
’cos I believe in your higher power

The less I believe in me
The more I believe in thee
The less I believe in me
The more I believe in thee

Oh you’ve given me a plan
That I don’t understand
’cos I’ve wandered over half the world
But I’ve remained an ignorant man
One thing that I know
Is when the final bell tolls
Human love won’t be enough
Good deeds can’t save my soul

Well I’m not afraid of dying
But I am afraid of you
Because you hear me when I’m lying
And you see the things I do
So the hands go round the clock
As the light goes from the room
And I can’t help thinking to myself
I’m going to find out much to soon

Oh you’ve given me a plan
That I don’t understand
’cos I’ve wandered over half the world
But I’ve remained a ignorant man
One thing that I know
Is when the final bell tolls
Human love won’t be enough
Good deeds can’t save my soul

Yay. Birthday and all that good stuff. 18 and all the inherent fun from that. Yar.

*has other plans, and is thus gone*

I make decisions.
I make sacrifices.
It's hard, to be sure.
But it's smart, and it's right.
Trust me, it hurts; no doubts to that.
But I had to do this.
I know this will hurt,
but if I don't break your heart,
things will just get worse.
If the burden seems too much to bear
remember, the end will justify the pain it took to get us there.
Two mutually exclusive things wanted
Cake cannot be had and eaten.
Unless you cut it in half--but this is not one of those cakes.

Never is my promise. I don't lie.
Let me assure you, the insight wasn't something I wanted.
It was something I needed, which is different.
I can't let it stay the way it is.
Falling to pieces, knowing the way
I can't stand and fight.
I can't stay and pretend it's all right.
My only remaining option is flight.
So fly I shall, into the night.
Chase the dark from it, make it white.

I must make the hard decisions, because you won't.
I know where I have to go, what I have to do.
It means slashing away a piece of my heart
but it is something with which I must part.
New information, new insight
These are the things that let me know right.

I don't claim to be faultless, O contrare.
I just know that I can't be there.
I don't wanna be no Superman.
I can't be your man, nor can I be super.
You stand in the sunshine.
I stand right here in the rain.
I'll be fine; I'll win the day.
This is the hardest battle I've had;
against the force I cannot resist
and against myself, but I cannot desist.

I must press on, though the wounds bleed.
My flesh remains pristine; tis my heart that trickles.
I'm not taking another chance on this.
It's only made it harder.
I'm running, running farther.
But I still can't get away.

I'm hiding, and you'll never find me.
Never find me again.
It hurts to do this, but I have to.
I should have done this a long time ago.
Back when things between us were slow.

I'll just disappear.

It's not my lack of faith in humanity.
It's not my lack of faith in the other sex.
It's just my lack of faith in my ability
(rather, the lack thereof) to make decisions
in this realm that will benefit myself and others.
I ask for guidance; I'm answered "Wait."
I ask for assurance; I'm answered "Not this one."
I ask, I seek. Still I find myself coming back to that which has brought about the lack of faith. 
For years, I've thought it better to take the chance, make the leap, figure things out in the air.
For years, I've hit walls, missed landings. I've thought nothing of it, and kept going. Why then am I now given so much pause?

I'll push it to the back of my mind, carry on. I've got bigger things on my plate; allies to aid, dangers to abate.

Well, today was a very good day swordfighting. Only really hurting in one spot, and considering the hits I took, that's good. We had a couple fun drills...I got to fight off multiple people. I'll figure out a way to win one of these multi-against-me fights. Sometime. Oh well.

The crazy grin mask did exactly what it was supposed to--intimidate. There's something to be said for stepping up to cover an ally who lost their footing, and doing it with the grin of a man who's totally lost his mind. A couple of strong swings and battlecries added in completes the effect. So much fun. 

Only hit I still feel is one where I got clobbered on the back with a shortsword. I had to defend someone unarmed, and against two armed opponents. We lasted WAY longer than we should have, but then, Cale did a good job getting us away from the guys with swords and keeping me fighting one-on-one.

I may have scared some people with the grin...and the requisite personality mask beneath it. The mask beneath it revolved around letting myself be consumed by the battle--someone asked what I wanted, and I said "I want you to die." All meant in good fun, and in the context of "oh, you got hit three times. You're dead(out)." Not dead as in not breathing dead. Not dead as in daisy chow.

All in all, two hours of fighting=two hours of fun.

Warrior's Way

My life and death are my own
All of it seeds I've sown
I've fought through countless battles, some on the field, some in my mind.
I bear the scars on my heart, I bear the scars on my soul, though my body remains pristine.
I grow weary of fighting at times, but my tour of duty doesn't end until I do.
I rely on my own strength, and that of my friends.
They help me, whether or not it suits their ends.
I help them out, without a doubt
I crush their enemies, tail to snout.
I know only battle, fighting, and war.
I know how life works. I know the score.
Once I've ended, then I'll know for sure.
Until then...I'll ride into battle again, fighting off my enemies or the enemies of my friends. May my tour of duty be long and prosperous.

Describes my room, this journal...my life, pretty much.

This is my private place
Everything is neat and clean
The skeletons are hidden in the closet
This is my private place
Come and get me out of here.

People keep talking about the ever-constant march of progress. By whose mark is progress an improvement? Is it regress? No gain?

We've gotten so smart
We know how to blow the whole world apart

Well...I found this place... a very interesting site, we have here.

Membership has its benefits, in any case, anywhere. Time to go around looking for friends, looking for fun stuff going on.

I have concealed this here because it needs to be visible but hidden in secret.
12-16-12, hidden in something six and a half years old.

I watch as you turn and head back to the real world, taking off your mask as you leave the stage we've made. I turn and take off my mask, walking back into the anterooom, the vestibule, my study. The air lock between our spaceship and the earth, where we go to different destinations.
As I look in the mirror, holding the mask in my hands, I realize that my face has begun to shift its shape to match the mask. I knew I had crafted the mask to look similar to my own visage, but when I made it, I was different from it. Whether it was the mask changing or me changing, it is getting harder and harder to keep it separate from reality.
I am Becoming The Mask.
The character I play in the tale we craft, the one who tells lies and confidently strides through his cockpit, steering the relationship and the spaceship and his life with aplomb. He loves your character, knows her, has seen her vulnerable and cares, protects.
I see it in your eyes and you see mine, that we would love for it to be real. 

I know we want to meet once. I want to make you need to meet me again, to hang out and do stuff and as we part, to kiss your hand, your cheek, your lips, pleading that I had to know. What it might be like, what I'm missing. What might be, or might have been. If it's like I've imagined. I know fictions aren't facts, but I know you. I see through your mask, not sure if you're playing along or utterly ignorant, but we could very easily be very nice together.

I had to know...because I needed to know if you're happy or stalling, content or test-running. I've got a bombshell to drop on you one day soon. It will demand action, and attempting to preserve the good you have will end in failure. I have tried that route. You must have a finish-line partner, not just someone to take you for a leg of the race.

I told you that joining up would have a price.

My villainy is as follows: you were not a valid target for pursuit when we met. I saw you would be amazing with Jesus, that I wanted to see what that would look like. It was around then I realized both that you were interesting in your own right, and that you were with an absentee someone, a guy I didn't know and didn't see.

Seven years of doing it wrong taught me one thing: Jesus first, charm second. This time we are close friends first, and maybe eventually I can convince you all those people who talked about marrying their close friend and still being together twenty years later, still happy...maybe they had a point.

Perhaps I've become like the thieving, charming con artist, because that's what this looks like to me on the face of it. The secret's out now, though. The ambush blown. I've finally managed to do this right. I've beaten the monster...but I haven't revealed this to you. This is the black hat blindsiding white hat, clearing out the guilt without solving the problem. My villainy continues unimpeded.