It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted… probably the longest delay in posts that this thing has seen from me. To be honest, I’ve been wondering if I should bother continuing with the journal; I question whether or not it’s really worthwhile to continue writing here.. I’m not sure how much I get out of it. After all, I spend hours writing on here, whining and complaining and lamenting about the miseries of my life. Sometimes, there is a ray of light that shines through here once in a while, but, for the most part, this is me being a baby. And now that everyone who reads this thing knows how much of a suck I am, I don’t know if I want to continue hammering that image into your heads… Maybe I’ll just.. bottle everything up again. Things seemed to have worked out more or less the same when I did that instead.

In regards to where I’ve been, there’s not a whole lot to tell. I’ve been working 40 hours a week at semi-stupid times (evenings), so that takes care of most of the week. This past weekend, I went to Waterloo to visit St. Paul’s and with hopes to meet up with Kristin and other people who I haven’t seen in a little while. Sadly, she was busy, but I managed to hang out with the few people remaining at the college for the weekend. Crystal came up for a little while so we chilled for a bit, too. See the the files page of my web site for some pictures of my activities there.

Some of you know that I’ve had a lot on my mind for the past week or so. On Friday night, I didn’t go to bed until 6:30am, and I only managed to sleep intermittently for three hours. My head was very busy, wrestling with various issues that concern me. A similar story happened last night, although I did manage to sleep a bit longer. In any case, I’ve made a very important decision.

I can’t let it continue anymore; I can’t allow the feelings inside me to control my life. Instead, I have to fight them so that they will never get the best of me again. These negative emotions that make me sad and “mopey” have to be controlled, or I will continue to walk the road of life with fists clenched in my pockets and my head hung low. But that cannot continue. Get up, Justin. Get up.

For many days, I’ve been singing the sad songs. Today, I sang another, Made Of Steel (I must have heard it like thirty times this weekend on my Discman):

I can be anything that you want me to be
A punching bag, a piece of string, oh
That reminds you not to think

I found the note down in your car
And its not your fault it gets this hard
Gets this hard

Hold your head high
Don?t look down
I’m by your side
Won’t back down
You wanted a hero tonight

Well I’m not made of steel
I’m not made of steel
But your secrets safe with me

I can be anything that you want me to be
A holy cross, some sympathy, oh
That reminds you not to bleed

I found the note down in your car
And you climbed up here to fall apart
Fall apart

Hold your head high
Don’t look down
I’m by your side
Won’t back down
You wanted a hero tonight

Well I’m not made of steel
I’m not made of steel
But your secrets safe with me

No…
Your secrets safe with me

They knock you down
I’ll pick you up…
They laugh at you
I’ll shut them up

But I’m not made of steel
But I’m not made of steel
But I’m not made of steel
But your secrets safe with me
Yeah
Your secrets safe with me
But yeah

Hold your head high
Don’t look down
I’m by your side
Won’t back down
You wanted a hero tonight.

And that is what I must be: made of steel. No longer can I let the stuff that happens in my life get me down. I must believe, I must trust, I must have hope. And I do now. I’m starting to come around… I can feel it coming back now: the roller coaster is taking its ascent, and Justin is looking up.

So I’ve been talking to people over the past couple of days about me. Me at school, me at home, me as a person. Today I was called “confiphobic”, which turns out to not be word. In any case, the point that was supposed to have been made was that I lack confidence in myself and in others. Without hesitation, I agreed. How I would find a way out of this dilemma was also briefly discussed, and we concluded that there wasn’t anything either of us could suggest that would help. So it seems that I’m stuck with this not-so-optimistic, not-so-great mindset forever, right? Yes and no.

Why yes? Well, many conversations have taken place between myself and Kristin, some rather humourous, about stubbornness. My stubbornness (although we both share very similar mentalities in this regard, and seemingly every other one, too). There is good stubborn, and there is bad stubborn. Good stubborn comes through when one is unwilling to, for example, slack off at school. Clearly, there are no direct problems with this, save a certain deficit of sleep or lack of a social life from time to time. Bad stubborn is characterized when one refuses to return a stolen item (like keys… remember those days? Ohh boy…). I, like any other person, have both types of stubbornness. But the bad stubborn shines through in regards to this situation; I am fully aware of my self-confidence issues, but I find myself too stubborn to change. It’s unspeakably hard for me to do it. I actually made a promise to change the way I view myself, and I honestly don’t know if I can honour it. A vicious cycle exists here: I lack the confidence, and because of it, I don’t feel like I deserve to have a higher self-esteem, so I don’t work towards a remedy to this problem, as much as I would like for it to go away. But it was pointed out that I have some degree of confidence and self-esteem; after all, I am not suicidal, nor do I plan to ever be suicidal again (let’s not dwell on this topic). So obviously, there is at least something in my life that I find important enough for which to live. Indeed, there are many things that will always stop me from taking my life. But, all the same, I often find myself in the dumps.

Why no? It basically boils down to this: there are people in my life for whom I hold the highest regard and whose opinions I value very much. They insist, some more vocally than others, that there are a lot of really good traits in me and that I should have a lot of confidence in myself. I always feel somewhat bad inside when I disagree with them. Then they get fed up, annoyed, and.. yeah. Not good. But then I reason through the circumstances: some of those people are very close to me, so there must be something about me that they like… something that seperates me from the rest. So I suppose that there is a limited amount of faith in myself because of this. My hope with all of this is that I can expand this faith to encompass all of the other positive traits of mine and increase my self-esteem in that manner. I really wish that I can believe all of the things that they say about me… maybe, with time, I will.

All of this leads me to wonder where this whole problem started. I’ve given it considerable thought for a few hour tonight, and I cannot pinpoint one single event that triggered this. In fact, I can’t even determine any circumstance that I can say, with certitude, had a part in this unfortunate frame of mind. Perhaps it is a lack of faith in God so that I do not fully realize that I am one of His creations and, inherently, possess much goodness. Perhaps it is humility at abnormal levels so that I completely underemphasize my qualities. Or perhaps it is something so superficial like a rejection from a girl long in the past. Perhaps it’s simply the cumulation of these sorts of events that resulted in my being the way that I am. I don’t know.

So now my attention turns towards a solution. The road I want to travel will not be short, nor will it be without its complications. Undoubtedly, this and several other things will clutter my mind for many days ahead. The events of my life will certainly shape the way any progress will take, too. And to be perfectly honest, I’m scared of the future. Terrified, sometimes. But we shall see, I suppose. We shall see.

I was watching the NHL playoffs a few nights ago and a player was set up perfectly for a one-timer. The goalie had left a gaping net, and was in absolutely no position to prevent a goal. Rather than shoot the puck immediately, though, the player stopped it, skated a bit, and then shot. By the time he let the puck go, the goalie had slid over to stop the shot. The player, and forgive me because I wasn’t paying attention to who it was, must have been rather upset at himself. Knowing how these playoffs have gone so far, a single goal can almost decide the game. Now, I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but it occurred to me that this brief play in a hockey game encapsulates a lot of what happens in life: wait too long and you might lose out.

This is particularly true with me. For example, I waited for CitiFinancial to hire me for months. Months ago, I was certain that I had the job lined up so I didn’t give it a moment’s thought. When I tried to get more details and confirm my employment, however, I was met with silence. I assured myself that they were just busy or something, so I shrugged it off. But as time continued to pass by, I became increasingly worried and it became apparent that my hopes were not very secure. My faith in the people there sank and, for a time, I was quite miserable. I waited too long; had I realized this earlier, I could have applied to many more jobs as openings for summer students were plentiful in February and March. If there is one thing that I don’t like, it’s uncertainty; I like knowing and understanding everything. So it doesn’t take much for me to get on a downer when things are up in the air. I was very unsure about my employment this summer. I lamented about it, and I tried to find something. But, for one reason or another, things just weren’t working out. Sigh.

Keep in mind that I’m not suggesting that we should pounce on every opportunity that comes on the table. But the good ones need a quick response or they might just slip through our fingers.