Just Thoughts...

I haven't written a blog in forever. I have way too much to say, but lately seem to be at a loss for words as to how to express it all. Life gets worse, life gets better. Life goes on and we just have one more story to tell. One more experience to learn from. One more memory that will be left behind. In the last week, I have driven over 1000 miles. Some of the greatest miles I've ever traveled if you ask me. But it gives perspective to how difficult life can be when you just are unable to STOP. Why the fuck can't money grow on trees? Do the wealthy even understand what they have? They don't. I can speak for almost all of them. The hardships of life on your own seem to disappear mentally and emotionally when you have the tools to solve them. Of course you remember...but you never can relate like before. I saw a couple in love the other day. You can tell they were in love because of the way that they acted with each other. He wasn't nervous...she was happy...they were laughing, kissing, and had some kind of look in their eyes. Like all of their problems were just dust in the wind. Avoidable. No matter what happens, at the very least...they have love. A fine quote from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. They have each other. I saw all this in a my rear view mirror while driving, go figure? We pass things in our lives and can't help but to stop and think. I miss that feeling of love. To have another person who actually cares to listen and speak back and cares enough to waste her time on you, because in her mind it's not waste, it's benefit. What an incredible thing it is. My friends hardly listen, and when they do they hardly truly care. There is something so ADDICTING to talking to someone and CONNECTING with them, on another level. It is completely morpheme and methamphetamine at the same time. Love makes you feel like you can fly, only to prove to you that you're an anchor. You fall faster than terminal velocity. You wait. You hurt. One of the reasons love probably feels so amazing is because you hurt so much. If I was constantly under pressure of being disappointed and hurt, then that special 10 minutes that I don't have to worry about it anymore would feel like Jesus himself gave me a Penthouse Suite in heaven, with valet parking. It's like finally being out of debt, or paying off a mortgage. Just with less relief, and more happiness in the present moment. But I am a realist in my sense of truth. I am slightly critical. People love because they love to love. Love is lovely, and it's natural. We were MADE to love. Encrypted in our DNA is love. Life can be so un-fulfilling, and sometimes at the most fulfilling times. Half the time, I like the idea of living alone, but by night time I realize that I wouldn't be able to handle it. Loneliness is the greatest enemy. I need healing. I need to kind of antidote to make my fears go away. I want to be able to trust someone with the confidence that man has never seen. But...I am afraid that is setting myself up for failure, and destruction. It always was before, even with myself. I guess that is the heart of the problem, I suppose. The other day, I saw a backwards freeway sign. Considering I have traveled every length of every freeway in Los Angeles county, it's not surprising. But really...what the hell? A backwards freeway sign? I laughed out loud. And it was not a sign for the other side of the road, there was only one possible direction at this particular part of the highway...the sign was completely backwards. It's ironic. Clearly demonstrates our lack of direction. I can't explain the feeling I get when I am at an airport. I need to write a separate blog solely dedicated to it. There is just something that makes me go nuts over airports...they are so beautiful in their own way. Something so precious about it. People seeing each other for the first time in ages, in the midst of people who are saying their last goodbyes. The smell of an airport. The idea of being able to go anywhere, anytime, for any reason. Clearly demonstrates freedom. With a little mix of power and wealth. Quite the elixir if you ask me. I am a completely sucker for romance. I am a romance addict. I will watch chick flicks, eat chocolate, slow dance, and light candles. Call me gay, I probably have more balls in 20 years than you'll ever gain in 100. I am a sucker for it. Ask any woman who I've been romantically involved with, there is just something about it that also acts as the perfect elixir remedy. There is something about France. Something about doing nothing, as long as you're together. There is something about snuggling up on the couch with wine and anything with Nicholas Sparks' name on it. Fascinating. Speaking of romance, I had quite the Valentines day. Beautiful girl, disposable camera, 115 miles down PCH and dinner in Solvang. It was, to date, the best valentines that I've ever experienced. Just amazing. I am going to drastically change the subject now, to something I saw the other day after I had dropped off an old friend. I accidentally missed an exit and got off the freeway. While exiting, I see a single cop car and a police man walking slowly in the road. It was 2:00AM, no one was around but me. I then see it. An image that was burned into my mind. I see a motorcycle laying on the side of the road, with a puddle of gasoline all around it, damaged. About 30 feet away, I see a man. No helmet, just a lifeless body laying on the side of the road in a puddle of blood. Not much to see, I suppose... He looked dead. There is no way of knowing, but I somehow thought I sensed alcohol in the air. It made me think for a very long time. I wonder what his name was, or if he even survived. If not, where is he now? If yes, then how is he living his life after this major accident? The questions flooded my mind. It impacted my heart. I felt pain for him. I felt his heart break...in some small way. I prayed for him. What a tragedy it must be to have your life cut short when you least expect it. What a precious game we play... I wish I lived in a video game where I always got a second chance. Life would pixelize before my eyes every time change was in the air. I could relive the good times as if they never ended, and overwrite the bad ones. Where mistakes would just be a click away, but after all it's just a game. Just a big precious game that we play.

First Love.

Ugh. I'm too tried to write, so I am just going to feel. I'm too beat to think and articulate in metaphors, so I am simply going to let my mind speak with my fingertips. This is my freestyle.

Damnit. It's been like over 4 years since I've had that dream. Starting out as nothing but an idea I thought I'd never achieve, but finally when I get somewhere...it's JUST ENOUGH to taste and experience without quenching satisfaction. It leaves me craving more...like life is some kind of extravagant pickup artist and I am its target. If that is the case, then shouldn't I be excited to be favored by life and all that it offers? Or should I be terrified of what is to come? It sickens me to see so many people reach a level that they do not deserve and are not worthy of...in today's twisted world. I am not saying that I AM deserving, but one with a mind like mine, you'd think would be prone to success. I wonder...my life and all of the wonder that it entails...am I 'special' to be the one to go through it? Am I some kind of chosen one that was designated to inherently be put through shit and beauty mixed together? I wonder to myself... If you ask anyone that knows me well, they will tell you a few things about me. One, I have lots of stories. Lots and LOTS of stories. True, life-lived stories that are usually FILLED with wonder and suspense. They'll also tell you that the reason that I have so many stories, is because I am constantly put under and through enormous and strenuous amounts of shit that not many other people deal with, or that most other people deal with in a different way. Somehow...my story and my situation is always different in someway. I can't explain it. I wonder if I was meant for this because my creator knows that I can handle it...or if it was meant for me to grow stronger, because I am an alpha by nature, or if this happens to be for no apparent reason. I don't know the answer...but it happens. Possibly, it happens because I am one of the few people that sees darkness in beauty and beauty in darkness. Maybe I was meant for victory...I mean, it is the very name I was given at birth. Victorious One. The one who conquers and achieves. However, I also wonder if all of these stories are just a result of my perpetual lack of wisdom in my abundance of shitty situations. I suppose that is absolutely possible. I posses something that a lot of people don't. I see my own potential, and I am not scared of it. I see my 2010 version of myself, and I see the future version...and I am constantly striving and correcting myself every day to resemble the second better. I know I have a lot to learn. I know that these next 2 years are going to show me SO much in my life. I am so finished hearing that phrase...because some just can't understand that I do understand. I see myself as a different breed among the rest, and I wonder if this is normal, or if it is actually special. I guess I will learn soon enough. But I still wonder about the little things. How every time that it rains, my life seems to turn directions. How every pair of shoes I have ever owned, marks a new chapter in my life, and the end of an older one. I wonder if this is just me, or if there is someone who is tracking with me. Are you even still reading? Does anyone even read these damn things? I mean, of course I have fans and followers...but are you even reading what I am writing? Are you TRACKING with me?

I wonder...

Regardless of what I say I want out of life...there are too many answers to that question. Nothing makes sense at this time, and I am okay with that. But I still travel back to my first love. I used to be so faithful...and now I only see it as a distant miracle. Of course, the odds of success in such an industry are slim to none...but I see the people who have made it and I have such a desire to shut up and listen and LEARN from them. They are steps ahead of me...the steps that I NEED. I think of the people who I once knew, personally or acquainted, that are now a name and a face. The pit in my stomach deepens, in the midst of my happiness for them...my lack of vision and ignorance of windows of opportunity explodes within me, silently. I still feel exhilarated when I feel eyes and lights. I feel rumble of applause and cheers. The flashes and the drive. Do I sound like anyone else you may have heard before? Definitely...but I assure you, you are not tracking with me. I am on a whole other level. Have you ever had the privilege to FEEL music running through your blood, while you are performing? Very few can say that they have. I can say...it is more powerful than any earthly drug. The mouth of my heart waters for this. So I sit back and I imagine...one day, maybe. Maybe I'll be a doctor or a writer or whatever...but maybe...one day.......I'll make it too. Just maybe.

Overall, in the end...music will never fail me. It is the only place that I can go and erase my mind. It listens and speaks simultaneously. It lives and breathes. It bleeds. It is alive to me, and I live through it as it lives through me.

Little Things.

In a quick turn of events, leaving with an incredible story...I will not be moving to Santa Barbara at this time. I want to tell the story, but certain parts of it I am not allowed to disclose at this time. Watch for my upcoming book, "The Adventures of Nicholas Ryan" that include all of my undisclosed and illegal stories :)

That's not what I am writing about today though. Today, I have been thinking and realizing some little things, that are often overlooked by all of us. Life is so short, precious, and beautiful. We take it for granted so much. I am not one to talk, because I may be the most guilty of this crime. I spend too much time looking ahead at the future and making corrections...instead of slowing down and enjoying the moment. It seems the only thing that allows me to slow down and enjoy is Love...but love doesn't always act as a large vicodin or oxycodone. Sometimes love can be Chinese torture. I think, instead of seeking out love in life, we need to seek out life in love, and love OF life. Wouldn't we be so much happier? If only it was that easy.

In my midst of not moving, I have been thinking about the place that I have lived for 17 years (and will continue for a while). This Valley...it's beautiful but it is so dumpy. It is HOME, but still overgrown and overthrown. But in the middle of my focus on the the negatives, I've been seeing some beautiful positives. What does it even matter? Life is going to run its course. I have been focusing on the little things, what everyone overlooks.



The other day, I saw a truck where its rear lights were reversed. It was wired in such a way that when the brakes were applied, the white turn signal / reverse lights would light up, and when he reversed or put on a turn signal, the red brake lights would illuminate and flash. It made me smile.

It's funny how dancing in the middle of the street at 2:00AM in the morning or playing under the covers, with someone special, can make your heart feel like you are flying.

There is something about blasting music down the Interstate 5 at 3:30AM, and you're all alone on the entire freeway, going so fast. It's almost as if things are slightly put into perspective at night time.

The other day I saw a limousine pull out of a church, followed by a Hearst, followed by about 2 dozen cars, mostly Mercedes, Audi, Lincoln, Buick, and BMW's. I wondered who the person was who had passed. Someones child, sibling, parent, best friend, mentor, roll model. Who's lives had they affected and what kind of accomplishments did they achieve? Though seemingly morbid, I wondered about my funeral. Who will be there? How will I have affected their lives, whenever that time comes to pass? It is such a concept to consider.

I've been thinking more about how, though sometimes I may deny it, I am completely addicted to chaos. Sometimes, I become so stressed, but I know that if my life were to ever significantly slow down, I don't have any idea what I would do with myself. I thrive off of the adrenaline.

The other day, I found two black cats on my street, violently fighting. Purring, snapping, scratching, and biting each other like nothing I've ever seen or heard. I just sat and watched until they stopped...and for about 5 complete minutes, they just stared at one another, directly in the eyes. Nothing broke their concentration, until a car drove by and spooked them off.

I've had multiple conversations with friends about my wedding day. I have been thinking about it a lot. The most important day of your life...(to some extent). What will it consist of? Who will be the lucky girl, who will eternally be my princess? What will it be like? I enjoy running scenarios through my mind about it. It will be a day that will live forever.

The beauty of a single acoustic guitar and a microphone, in a dimly lit, empty room. It is a feeling that completely exhilarates some people...I am one of those people.


Just so much to think about. There are appropriate times to slow down and just observe. Listen...and not speak. Sometimes the littlest things, can be monumental.

There are only two ways to live your life...
One as if nothing is a miracle,
And the other as if everything is.

- Albert Einstein