Alien

Sorry I’ve been M.I.A.

Since we last met:

• I finished my junior year of college.

• I made a short film in November that I’m only now beginning to edit—it’s really hard.

• For once in my life, I gathered up the courage to tell someone I like them. I got rejected; not surprising, but as with every past heartbreak—big and small—it hurt.

• I underwent surgery for something I apparently had my whole life, and was left disabled for a good six days.

• I spent the holidays with my family, but it felt like I was alone. I wanted to be in New York. I shut myself in on Christmas. To celebrate the new year, I stayed inside and got stoned while my relatives were sitting around a bonfire and watching fireworks.

• I visited Seattle for the very first time. I helped one of my best friends make a film that had been locked away inside of his mind since before we met. I’m really proud of him.

Monday of last week marked the beginning of my senior year. I’ve started preparation for what will hopefully be my thesis film, God (and funds) willing. I can walk normally again, but my old job won’t take me back so I’m stuck living on $30 a week—thank you Mom! No hints of a new romance on the horizon. Just aimlessly drifting in and out of consciousness a lot of the time. I can’t tell you what was discussed in my History of Fashion Photography class yesterday because I wasn’t all there.

All this is to say that, in the past few months, I’ve begun to realize how much of an alien I am. Not only to my friends and family and strangers, but to myself.

I am unfortunately all too aware of my physical self; how much space I take up, the expressive nature of my face, every awkward gesture, every unfinished sentence, every embarrassing slip of the tongue. It’s the source of a lot of self-loathing. I’ve learned to cope with it because there are people who love me regardless; some even think it’s endearing. But when I think of myself, when I create a 3D render of Marcos—the physical vessel—in my brain, it’s not who I am. Or maybe it’s not who I want to be?

Living every day is performance—I hope you all know that. But to what degree am I performing? Is the person I think I am… not me? Am I the Marcos that other people see?

Am I as intelligent as I think I am? Do I really like coffee? Do I like movies? Do I actually want to devote the rest of my life to them? Is my dependence on substances to lift my mood really a dependence, or have I conditioned myself to think that way despite the science behind it? Do I like listening to sad songs? Am I attracted to people taller than me? Do I like the colors pink and blue? Am I an artist? A writer?

What makes me happy? I couldn’t tell you. If you were to ask me in person, my immediate answer would be my friends. Yet, even around the people I’m closest to, I’m uncomfortable in my skin and my brain. Constantly second-guessing myself, pulling pieces of lint off of my clothes, adjusting my posture, fixing my hair, thinking of something to say that will make them laugh, racking my mind to find where I went wrong when they don’t. My brain, apparently the size of my two clenched fists, working tirelessly to keep up the appearance of a living, breathing, sentient being.

In the end, I know nothing.

I like to think of myself as a cracked pot. My shards lie scattered about, patiently waiting for someone to tend to them, to put them—me—back together with gold lacquer and love. To find beauty in my brokenness. But every day it gets harder to believe that I won’t be left abandoned on a cold studio floor. And what if my pieces don’t even align?

I hate getting older. It’s turning me into a helplessly clueless person. I thought I would have answers to the questions I had when I was a child, but all that’s come to me are even more questions. And the worst part is that I’m learning none of them have an answer.

This post is just a brain dump. I’m exhausted and sad, listening to a lot of Joni Mitchell, chewing on and picking at whatever is left of my nails. I don’t feel like myself. I thought I’d put it in writing. Tomorrow is a new day so maybe I’ll have shed this miserable skin I’m in by the time I wake up.

I’ll leave you with a poem I love that really moved me when I first read it. I come back to it a lot.

‘Never to Heaven’ by Lana Del Rey.

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May my eyes always stay level to the horizon

may they never gaze as high as heaven

to ask why

May I never go where angels fear to tread

so as to have to ask for answers in the sky

The whys in this lifetime i've found are inconsequential compared to the magic of the nowness- the solution to most questions

there are no reasons.

and if there are- i'm wrong

but at least i won't have spent my life waiting

looking for God in the clouds of the dawn

or listening out for otherworldly contact

30 billion light years on

No. i'll let the others do the pondering

while i'll be sitting on the lawn

reading something unsubstantial

with the television on

I'll be up early to rise though of course-

but only to make you a pot of coffee

That's what i was thinking this morning Joe

that it's times like this as the marine layer lifts

off the sea from the view of our favorite restaurant

that i pray that i may

always keep my eyes level to your eyeline

never downcast at the tablecloth

Yes Joe

it's times like this as the marine layer lifts

off the sea on the dock with the candle lit

that i think to myself

there are things you still don't know about me

like sometimes i'm afraid my sadness is too big

and that one day you might have to help me handle it

but until then

may i always keep my eyes level to this skyline

assessing the glittering new development

off of the coast of Long Beach

never to heaven or revenant

Because i have faith in man as strange as that seems

in times like these

and it's not just because of the warmth i've found in your brown eyes

but because i believe in the goodness in me

that it's firm enough to plant a flag in

or a

rosebud

or to build a new life.

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