All awakening to love is spiritual awakening – bell hooks

We’ve done a thing or two this year. Well… if you count not doing things as a thing or two, then I did at least three. 2025, the year of the snake in the Chinese Zodiac. I had slated to move out of Arizona (hopefully in Chicago), with a new job, and a new lease on life. None of that occurred. In fact, I quit my job, have burned through almost 10 grand in savings, and am further back from my goals than I was at this time last year. It was disappointing… that’s kind of the year it’s been (for most people in the world). I made a choice, and I don’t regret it somehow. This year has done a number on me. I didn’t change much at all. But I think I’m starting to realize that maybe that’s what life is. An interconnected string of years where you’re largely the same. I just can’t see it out that way. I sometimes wish I could approach a level of profundity that most writers and artists have. I can’t seem to focus for long enough to get to that level. Instead, I just try to ping my thoughts out and hope that it means something. So that’s what I’ll do here.

I started this post with a quote from bell hooks’ All About Love. This year has made me think a lot about love. I’ve always enamored with love as a concept, its many mysteries, and why we feel it. I don’t think I’ll ever really find an answer, but I do love to ponder. It was practically serendipity that this year Olivia Dean, an artist I’ve been meaning to get into for a few years now, released an album that heavily refers to All About Love, The Art of Loving. It immediately struck me when I heard it for the first time. The beauty in it. She talks about loving the versions of herself that existed before and after, lamenting a past relationship that ended but kept the same feelings of love, and of course being the man she needs to feel loved (amongst a few other songs). I was struck by this album. It immediately became one of my most played and favorites of the year. While the music is great, the bond I felt toward this album was truly toward my connection to love. I watched two weddings this year, one for my family and one I’ve been yearning for since I was a teenager, one for one of my close friends. I had to reflect a lot on love this year. Especially in a non-romantic context. I’ve always seemed to crash out on the people I love the most. I sometimes think it was due to me fulfilling some sort of prophecy that made me unlovable and a bad person. Yet, the people I love remained. In the hardest hours of my worst decisions, they stood with their heels stuck to the ground, right there with me. And it saddens me to think that it took me this long to figure that out. I haven’t quite solved all my issues with insecurity, but at the very least, I have let myself be loved, at least for once.

I think I felt as if my 2025 would’ve been much more active, something better. But it wasn’t. I’d argue that it was possibly my worst case scenario. But again… I am at peace with it. I’m not necessarily happy, of course. But I am probably better off than I would’ve been sticking with my job that was probably mentally, physically, and spiritually killing me. Like I said, I wish I had a much more profound statement to say. Some sort of piece of writing that would unlock the innermost thoughts I have and really let my soul fly. But I don’t. Maybe try me next year. Or don’t, I don’t know…

Been on a kick lately… so at the suggestion of my new family therapist, I am going to write about what I want my life to look like in Chicago (or well… anywhere else but here). I haven’t sat with my thoughts on it, I’ve been so focused on how to get there and not really worried about the why of it. I was just looking at a meme and I think I feel it in a weird way. It was a screencap of a TikTok saying “Just realized that in order to achieve my dreams instead of maladaptive daydreaming I have to face my fears lol”, I relate but in like an opposite way. I am so hyperfixated on my trepidations and concerns of how it will work, I forget to think about a good day in Chicago. I let my fears face me, instead of thinking of the person I will be on the other side of those fears… so here goes… I guess…

I want to live in a walkable city, like truly walkable. I LOVE MASS PUBLIC TRANSIT BABY. Trains, biking, traversable streets, this is the kind of shit I yearn for. I think I’m so car-brained and I want to get away from that for once. I think it will not only help me mentally, but physically. I’ve heard people lose weight after moving to New York City, and I’d just love that to happen to me.

I somehow also believe that even though the cold is something I’ve never truly dealt with day-to-day, I feel like I want to know what it’s like. Arizona is so hot, and I want to experience actual seasons. My favorite time in Arizona is winter, when I can wear things with layers and find new ways to express myself with fashion. Plus, seeing snow pile up outside my window,,, what a sight that would be.

There is always something cool happening in Phoenix nowadays, the unfortunate part is I am at least 30 minutes away by car. Which requires a lot of planning and prep. I want to be able to walk out of my door step and just see things happening. A mural being painted, a museum 10 minutes from my location, a girl busking in the station, a life I am not aware of being experienced in front of me. You can find pockets in Arizona, but not as much as you can in a place like Chicago. There are just more people, more things, more life. It’s hard to compare.

Now, for a lot of this, it seems like I am just gushing about New York City or Los Angeles (well… maybe less on the walkability aspect). But what I think separates a place like Chicago for me is the friendliness. Chicago is in the midwest, which stereotypically is a friendly culture. They aren’t going to immediately accept me, but I’ve heard many a tale of the “Seattle freeze” or the “New Yorkers are mean”, so I have to take it seriously. Chicago is a big city with lots of people, I will find a tribe of people, that’s a given. But the thing is, finding that tribe will be much easier in a working class, friendlier city like Chicago. There’s just something that seems unpretentious about Chicago (which I know blog title). I guess I really just enjoy the sense of pragmatism and optimism I feel from the city. That’s something that can separate Chicago in my head. That’s my hope at least. At the very least, I can at least talk about the weather in Chicago versus Arizona, so that’ll be something.

I value access and freedom. I want to access the world. In Arizona, I just feel so closed off at times. Like this is all I’ll ever be when I’m around home. Even when I’m with friends, my world seems so limited. I just don’t like that aspect about living here. I’ve said many a time to my parents, friends, and others that I leave the door open to return to Arizona. It is my home after all… but something pulls me to a higher purpose. To see a new part of the Earth and truly taking it in. It’s why I love traveling, why I love novelty, why I love trying new things. I get scared and anxious, who doesn’t? But I just feel a gumption to try. This is my goal, this is my purpose. My why isn’t to run away from any thing negative here. I don’t want to abandon my home. But I’ve been too comfortable for far too long, and there needs to be some change. I need to will it. I need to act on it. So here we go. My life in Chicago on the other side of the fears, the anxiety. Maybe not new, maybe not even happy, but excited that I finally did something about my life here. That’s all I ask for.

“When I was six, I had a friend who liked to call me ‘big bird’. I used to be fucking tall as a kid, like I remember standing in the back of the class for class photos. Or like when they lined us up in gym class tallest to shortest.”

“What ever happened?”

“Dude, I know. I topped out at 5’11. It’s fucking tough.”

“Sorry for interrupting.”

“Nah you’re good. Anyway, my friend called me big bird. And I didn’t have a TV as a kid, so I had no idea who big bird was. I went home and asked my mom who big bird was. And she lost her shit. She was telling me he was trying to indoctrinate me or something. I, deadass, almost stopped going to school because my mom was hysterical.”

“Your mom? Isn’t she like a granola mom?”

“She’s chilled out, I guess.”

“You think she voted for Trump?”

“She voted for Jill Stein, prolly.”

“Then what happened?”

“Oh yeah. So my mom is about to call the school and tell them not to show me Sesame Street and stuff. But then my dad walked in, and he always told her she was too paranoid. He made her hang up, told her she was being nuts, and put me in the backyard. They argued for a while. I was playing basketball, when my mom came out to call me in for dinner. That night we went to Walmart and bought a TV, and I watched Ren and Stimpy.”

“Huh. That’s a crazy thing to watch first.”

“I know right.”

“Whatever happened to your friend?”

“Funny thing. I don’t know. He moved later that year, and I never heard about him since.”

“Isn’t that crazy?”

“Yeah.”

Sometimes my nostalgia comes to me at night. Late night. It embraces me in my loneliest moments, comforting me with a hug. Some nights, it’s warm and milky. Life is seen through rose colored goggles. Other times, it’s cold and vacuous. I’ve never really experienced trauma. Not in the same way my parents have probably had. No, I’ve lived a sheltered life. But the cold embrace of the nostalgia weighs on me. It grasps me. Not letting go, unless I force it to.

I have had issues in my life with dreams. I don’t really dream at night, when I sleep. Instead, I daydream. I think it may be due to my tired eyes. From the lack of sleep, I spawn the craziest dreams of things I never wanted to see. Visions of cringe, visions of the sexual, visions of a life I never wanted to live. There is a cynical side of me that I’ve grown to despise in life. It prevents me from exploring new things. Because what if it goes wrong. Unfortunately, you cannot avoid the pitfalls of life. It’s nigh impossible to. So what holds me back is the cynic in me. Making certain that things will go bad. Even if they don’t.

I remember times of childhood. They bleed into my dreams at times. I don’t miss being a child. Boogers in my nose till 13, stinky feet, awkward encounters with everyone. But I do miss the blissful ignorance. Young Jayden never had to know that his friends had sex while he was in the house. Young Jayden didn’t have to pay taxes. Young Jayden didn’t have to comprehend manmade horrors because that’s what everyone does now. I’ve tried to look up people I used to go to school with, see if anything became of them. Because of the nature of life, most times I’m left with nothing. People aren’t chronically online like me. I’ve seen some though. Kids who ended up swinging one way politically (like I knew they would). Teens who burnt out at way too early of an age (at too privileged of an area). Adults who have fucking kids now.

I sometimes feel like I keep the memory of certain people alive. Some of the more elusive kids I looked up. The ones who disappeared on everyone. Whatever happened to them? I don’t know. I want to know. I need to. But then the feeling goes away. The dreams stop. And then I am sat, wondering why I ever did it in the first place. I allow my mind to wander too much. Hm.

“Did we ever meet before”

“What do you mean?”

“You seem so familiar to me”

“I’m sorry. Don’t think we ever met before.”

“Okay”

I don’t quite feel at home anymore. Well, I do (I’m literally in bed as I write this). I just mean in a cosmic sense. Something I’ve had to constantly contend with in my life is feeling outside everything. Outside my body, outside my head, outside the world. I am by no means unique in this feeling. Plenty of people have felt on the fringes. And for me, nothing about me particularly stands out. But it’s this feeling. It inhabits me when I gain some sort of sentience in a conversation. Like I, all of a sudden, lost my ability to navigate through this and I need to desperately need to escape. I make it out because I’ve trained myself to. But when I leave the conversation, it creeps back in. Just staring at me in the corner, like my sleep paralysis demon. I tend to distract myself, telling myself constantly that it’s just me overthinking. And it often is. The feeling comes back though. Especially when I get flustered and lost in conversation.

I guess something this has spurned on me is thinking about my relationship to people. I can’t shake this image out of my head. One of my friends (who I probably had more feelings for than I am truly willing to admit to myself) was trying hard to hook up with this guy at a party, and she got really close to him. Like really close to him. They was up in each other’s grill, fam. I stared at them… for longer than I should have. It had me thinking. Has anyone ever showed that much physical wanting to me? I’ve never really been physically attractive. The proof is in the pudding. And I think there’s a huge sense that is something I’ve always wanted to experience. The experience of having someone physically finding me attractive. That they cannot even hide it. They are unashamed. That’s something I’ve missed in my life. It has been noodling around in my head a bit.

Recently, I went to a bar with some co-workers. I met this guy and his beautiful girlfriend. We got one moment alone and I guess I asked him about dating. He disclosed to me that he was divorced. I asked him how he was able to “bag a baddie” (these were my words, ashamedly). He advised me that I present too “feminine” and that girls don’t really like that… Now, I’ve been one to think about potentially changing myself to please others. But after that comment, it really exposed how out of place I must be. I don’t believe I do present too “feminine”, I am me. And surprisingly, I was being the most me I had been for a long while in that moment.

It’s these things that add up and give me some sort of sense that I don’t know who I am. My identity is being explored less and less. Work is draining me, and I am trying to lose weight. People say in times of struggle, that’s when you learn the most about yourself. But if I was being truly honest with myself, I’ve learned the most about myself in the moments where I’ve thrived. When I wasn’t floating by. Because in those moments, I truly feel like I can process what is coming at me. Those moments, when I felt outside of myself, always come at times where I disliked myself the most. When I was at my most self-conscious.

I am kind of over criticizing myself. It’s not good enough to make change. It’s not good enough to finding myself. An elusive goal, finding yourself. But a worthy one. At least, I think so.

I might have lost a few friends today. Maybe. I don’t know how to track it, but things have changed in the dynamic. And of course… it’s all over something that we can’t really talk about. This is the nature of the life we live I guess. But I’m allowed to lament the loss, right?

I have had a tough times with friends. Always. I’ve always felt like a temporary visitor in the lives of the living. Something about my face, perhaps. If I could put a finger on when, it happened when I spoke about our friendship in the future… and they said “we shall see.” Forever doesn’t exist. I know this. But “we shall see” is the nice way of saying, “I never hope to see you again”… The kiss of death on a relationship, when the future doesn’t seem to be in view. Because we’ve mentally/spiritually let them go in our mindspace. It’s disheartening to hear and see.

Of course, I put my chips into these friends. I wanted to. I figured it’d be time to. Maybe make myself a more permanent part of someone’s life. I caught a bit of feelings, and for whatever fucking reason, that makes people skittish. I knew it. I should have marked things as having ended right there. Because what else can we mine out of that relationship? Nothing, beyond angst and resentment I suppose.

I even apologized for being me and getting sad,,, and what did it lead to? Nothing but more and more empty feelings. I really only did this out of a sense of my other friends asking me to build a bridge. I built the bridge… and no one wanted to cross… I got tired of waiting for someone to cross. So here we go, losing more people in this life. There’s gotta be something wrong with me…