Taxation

Talk about a fucking headache...

My back hurt this morning, so I worked for 18 hours. Now my knees hurt. Shit. That doesn't even make sense.

So last weekend (Not this past weekend, but the weekend before, alright? Ok.) was Antioch 2006. It was a blast, and I really miss those kids already. Which kind of sucks.

It was strange because Antioch always gives you this sort of high, and before you could just let it go. Just ride with it, enjoy it. It's not like that anymore...now you sort of have to force yourself back down so you can continue to function in this shithole of a world. Sucks, don't it?

So oddly enough one of the first things I notice post-Antioch is that I was due for a raise. So I gave myself one (the fact that I can do that still rocks.) So now I decide that I'm going to take $400 more a week. Which (by some fucked up ass math) seems like enough more than I make now so that I can afford a house. Yeah...I didn't put much thought into this one.

Now look...I waste money. I really do. DVD's by the hundreds, Xbox, big tips and plenty of rounds on me. I buy multiple Comedy CD's from the same comedian on ITunes, even though I know half the jokes on the damn CD are the same.

Anyway...

So I take $400 more per week. Not a stunning amount, but a lot to me still. And then I actually get my check. I feel like calling up Uncle Sam and being like, "What the hell happened to my $400 bitch?" Because there's only like $200 extra there. And I understand taxes, I really do, but what the fuck man?

No taxation without representation. But I don't have representation anymore. My guys lost. Does my vote count as my representation? Because then I'm not represented all that well. Shit, I'm paying for some other guy's war. Somebody else's representation is using the dollars my ass worked for. Shit.

All I want to do is buy a nice little house so that I have something to show for my 18 hour workdays. Because god damn and I shot to shit. And I have nothing to show for it.

I am so damn tired.

Hallelujah

"Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah" - Jeff Buckley, Hallelujah

Antioch 2006 is over...and my god was it as amazing as ever.

I think that the greatest thing I learned this weekend was that, in the end, I really am just like everyone else. That I hurt, that I heal, that I know I'll be hurt again...but I keep going anyway.

I didn't realize it till I said it, but the worst part about hanging on for so long is that I've had to say goodbye to so many great people, so many people I didn't want to say good-bye to. How can you guys just keep on leaving? Don't you know I'm going to miss you?

Somebody said last night that you are either a college person or a high school person, and I definitely know what she meant, but it wasn't till well after she said it that I realized...that's not really true. You see you can be either a college person or a high school person, but you don't have to be. You don't have to be. I'm not. And I hadn't realized it till she said it, and I can't believe that it took so long for me to figure it out but...I'm a life person. I just keep hanging on, I just keep going, I'm not waiting, I'm moving...I'm trying.

Last night I sat in church with my little brother and sister by my side and thought about how much I loved the two of them, about how I'd do anything for them. And I looked at the Antioch kids sitting around me and I knew...I'd do anything for them too.

We don't really live in that big of a place, but somehow I never manage to run into any of these kids. I don't know how that is, maybe I just don't get out enough anymore. When we walked out those doors last night, that was it. I'll never see some of those kids again. God damn.

I can never figure out exactly how to look at it, have so many people left me behind? Or have I left them behind?

I don't know. I just know that it doesn't really make a difference.

It always hurts.

I'll get where I'm going someday...and when I do maybe I won't have to lose anyone else.

Until then?

I'll just keep hanging on.

After all...what else is there?

"Maybe there is a God above
But all I've ever learned from loveWas how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya
And it's not a cry that you can hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah." - Jeff Buckley, Hallelujah