so this might be the end

i have lived too long in fear, denial and unhappiness. i decided a few days ago that this needs to stop.

what makes a man is not how his body looks, or how he measures up among others, or how wealthy he is, or all that other vain bullshit. i have come to realise that the goals i've set for myself are a lie and there are some lessons i needed to learn on my own.

people learn things differently. some learn things quickly, some need to take a different path. i've walked a long path (i'm talking years) to reach the place where i am. and where i am is the realisation that i have a bit more to do before i can accept myself as a man.

i've come a long way since i started this blog. truely, i can say that at the start (the end of 2005) i was a confused youth coming out of his shell. i couldn't stand in the company of other guys without feeling lesser. i felt inferior in every way. whether it be my body, my height, the colour of my skin, my accent, or my bank account, i felt like i needed to work on things to make myself stand up and look at society in its face. i felt as if i had no story to tell and that i was insignificant.

it's changed. i have changed.

i haven't written in this blog for a while now, and when i do it's at a much less frequency than i used to. and this is because my mind's torn between what i want to say and what i should say. it's also because i know that what i want to write will make me sound weak, and will only illicit comments reassuring me that i'm alright - which actually makes me feel even lesser.
there are things i need to learn and apply before i can stand on my own two feet and truly call myself a man. and i've reached a point where i have finally learnt to let go of the false promises i've held on to all these years and can pave the path to finally being comfortable in my own skin. right now this is more important to me than anything else.

this blog has helped me with a lot of things in my life these past two years. and so too (more importantly) have the commenters. whether i continue on with another blog is uncertain. but if i do i hope it sings a different tone: the tone of a guy who doesn't constantly complain about how he's got it bad, or how he needs to improve on things, but of a man with no fear who is comfortable in his skin, able to tell a story of the beauty life is.

i'll be turning 26 this sunday. and with that day, gav25 will no longer be maintained. life must move on. maybe there'll be another blog, maybe not.

downer

god i feel so depressed.

it's really a frustrating feeling when you've been putting so much energy into something, tyring your best at it only to come out feeling like you've pretty much ended up back to square one.

there's a goal i've had for a while now. i've tried almost everything. and i've put so much effort into achieving this goal. well i've now stopped. i've momentarily stopped caring and i've accepted defeat ... for now. instead, i've started asking, rethinking, reprioritising.

i guess it's been conditioned within me to work hard to the goals i want. it's worked before for other things but in this case it looks like this just can't happen. all the effort i've been putting into this has amounted to nothing and i'm so frustrated right now i could pull my own hair out.

i've taken a step back and taken a look at how far i've gone with it all. and i can see where i've gone wrong this whole time. if i could use an analogy, it's like i want the trophy for being the world's best swimmer, but don't actually enjoy swimming.

thoughts eating my mind

i caught up with my dad a while back. he often amuses himself with memories of my childhood, the simple things i used to say when i was a toddler. things such as when i'd complain about how my mind would be "talking me too much." and that no matter what i did i couldn't make it be quiet. i would have been 5 years old at the time.

i often have moments when my mind's flooded with negative, angry thoughts. they won't be anything relevant - they could be childhood memories of being bullied, a fight i had a few years ago, an argument, anything. i don't know why my thoughts keep magnetising to such negativity, but when i'm in the thick of it it's like my mind wants to replay these events over and over again, forcing me into a pit of depression until i'm mentally exhausted. it could be when i'm trying to sleep or when i'm walking to work or anytime when i'm ... not meant to be thinking of anything at all.

i wish there was a way of switching my thoughts off. or even better, to switch them instantly to something positive. or at least being able to be aware of where my thoughts are heading. but that's kinda of impossible because i'll have to be conscious about my consciousness. does that make any sense?

the challenge is that when my thoughts are fixed on one type of emotion, whether it be anger or lust or whatever else, the thought of changing it to grasp on another emotion seems impossible. when i'm pissed off about something it's hard to remember a time when i was happy and shift down that path instead. it's like i'm pissed off and i want to stay pissed off. it's like if i let go of being pissed off then i'm somehow leaving business unfinished.

i think that many thoughts work this way. when they latch onto an emotion, logic seems incredibly hard to use. when we're feeling happy we want to remain happy. when we're pissed off it feels strangely correct to seek more things that keep us pissed off. when we're in lust, logic suddenly seems like a foreign language. i guess it's an outlet. we need an outlet for emotions and stopping it short just seems like, as i said, "unfinished business".

what if i make a list of the things that make me happy - the positive things that have happened to me, the good things i currently have and the good things i am working towards. maybe if i remember these i can focus on them when i'm losing sleep over an argument i had with my family 5 years back. will this work?

i guess i should probably be asking myself why is it that i keep having these negative thoughts that consume me for hours. why is it that i struggle to think of happiness? why is it so easy for my mind to dive into the past and snatch all these angry, tired and overplayed memories? have i somehow made this an instinctive thing?

who knows. but while i'm losing sleep over it, it's a big deal for me.

single at 26

so here i am, about to turn 26 within a matter of weeks. this blog will soon no longer exist (i'll most likely be creating a new one) because gav25 no longer applies.

there was a time.. no wait... there were times over and over again when i agonised over why i still hadn't found a lover yet. i blamed it on the fact that i have no gay friends. i blamed it on the fact that i lived too far from people. i blamed it on my looks, my health, my job, my car, everything. and after attempting to fix each of these one by one i'm still here where i've always been: single.

i've heard all the romantic lies. that it "will happen" when you "least expect it". or that i'm too picky, or whatever. some people think i'm craving for attention and reassure me of my looks or whatever ...

for a good amount of time, and even up to now, i've reached a sense of peace with myself. i've accepted that some of us do find love, others just don't. it's not a formula you have to follow - it's just luck. being in the right place at the right time, meeting that someone and making the connection. it's an organic process. you can't make it happen. you can't influence it to happen. you just can't.

by making our minds consumed about saerching for someone we create an image of the type of guy we would like. being a guy, and hence a very visual person, we see guys in our day to day lives and think "yeah he's hot i'd like him". with this we create expectations, and with expectations we create a type of signature of what we're after and try to chase after that. by doing this we filter out anyone good that might come in the way. we might meet someone who isn't our "type" and cast them aside as we filter out anyone who doesn't fit the mental image of the person we are after. but what if that person was the exact queue to lead us to meeting someone through him/her?

i had a date with a guy 2 weeks ago. he was lovely and i thought how wonderful it would be to have him as a friend. but this wasn't going to happen. the result of the date is that he liked me, but i didn't feel the same way back to him. though i wanted to keep the connection there i knew it would be unfair to him. i of all people know the dangers of being friends with someone you have strong feelings for, and if there was the smallest of chances he would end up like that with me then i just couldn't do that to him. the fact that we had a "date" was already an artifical set up to begin with. add to this that we both walked in with a certain expectation (disguised as hope) of what sort of chemistry we'd have for each other.

i blogged before about how it seems to be a universal truth that if we say that we want something and go around telling everyone that it'll almost certainly never happen. if you say to your friends "i'm going to wake up every morning at 6 and go work out" then you've failed right away and it's definiately not going to last very long. i often wondered why, but now i think i've cracked it. by telling other people what we're going to do we're putting an expectation on ourselves and casting aside anything else that might come in the way that'll make us reach our goals. you might walk past an ad for joining a sport team, or a discount on swimming lessons or something that'll give you the same the same level of fitness you're after, but you'll probabaly ignore it because you're consumed with remembering to wake up early the next day, and therefore making sure you sleep early tonight, and making sure you eat right, and .... etc.

i'm single, yes. and i'll admit that there are times when i hate this fact because i feel as if i'm missing out on so much in life: the imtimacy, the highs, the lows, the sex, the fights, the feeling of being taken care of, the feeling of looking after someone. but like i said earlier: i've reached a peace with myself, because mostly i feel as if it's just not me right now. i'm single and that's it.

calmer

i've noticed a fundamental change in myself over the last few months. i'm a lot more calmer. i don't know what started this, but i've suddenly realised that the way i've been acting in certain situations is very different to the way i was.

in one way, i feel like i'm a little more wiser, more mature than before. on the other hand, it's a sobering feeling because it means that i've become just that little bit more older.

i can't explain it. there are examples i could give, but it's hard to describe it in words because it's more of how i feel rather than any descriptions of events.

i can see myself talking to people without feeling like i have to say something or that i need to speak/act a certain way. i am mostly myself at work (apart from my sexual identity) and feel no need to put on a face. i'm not stressed about not being able to catch up with friends. i'm not stressed about not "doing something right now" about the goals i have.

in a way it's a weird feeling being this way because the thoughts that normally pollute my mind that make me such a stressed out guy have reduced, and it's like i suddenly have this unfamiliar calm that's alien to me.

as i write this it's a saturday night and i have no plans whatsoever. normally i'd be freaking out.

right now i'm just... calm.