Eleventh Post.

Happy first of the month. My last post was almost three years ago. Well, that's completely irrelevant to everything, so here we go with the real introduction.

When I think about things that end up changing my life, or things that teach me the most necessary things, I think about people, important memories, or really small, simple things. You can then imagine my embarrassment when I find myself changed after watching a movie like "The Great Gatsby". 

"Learn to love the most, learn to be loved the least." 

Many of you, or maybe only some of you that enjoy being anonymous, have asked me questions like "Do you still love her?" and "Will you ever share your side of the story?". Some have given quite lengthy messages telling me to stay hopeful towards her, while others tell me politely to move on, stop trying to change what I can't, and that I have better days ahead. This post will be my public way of answering and responding to all of these messages.

I have a need to be needed. I not only love to be loved, but I breathe it, and without second thought, I allow anything that I can allow to fill the space love leaves when it leaves. Lately, and as before, they are not healthy things, but hurtful. Hurtful enough to make up for the amount of hurt that love is capable of giving, and numbing enough to make up for the amount of happiness that love is capable of providing. 

Today I've finally learned that the need to be loved is a need that shouldn't exist. 

This is regardless of the fact that the need to be loved is a need that can never be completely rid of. Clarifying, I am referring to the love that the majority of us search for--the animated Disney ending, the tear-jerking movie, the soulmate/princecharming/dreamgirl, kind of love. Needing to love hurts, and will always hurt, because most of the time, you'll always need more of it even once you've finally gotten it. Not to say that there aren't any exceptions to this. 

There are always the lucky ones. I've given up trying to be one of the lucky ones. 

It's the people who aren't loved that deserve it the most. 

Ironically, these are the people who have the opportunity to love the most. To amount to something greater than themselves, to amount to a change that everyone can feel, by sharing love. Sometimes, they settle for the small things; by being that art teacher at the middle school, by being the soup kitchen volunteer, by always going out of their way to find another smile on another face. It doesn't mean that they've stopped needing to be loved, or that the fact that this love refuses to find them has stopped hurting them inside. It only means that their capacity to love has grown as much as the time has of them not possessing love. These people live off the other love, the kind that you get from family, from friends, from people you mentor, and from people they've inspired. In their lack of being loved in the way we all want to be loved, they provide more of the love that keeps them breathing, and consequently provide the change in the world that makes it a better place. 

This isn't to say that they still don't hope for it. 

But hope is a dangerous thing--all good things in amounts of "too much" are the most dangerous. Not being loved also provides the more appealing route to give up. Most do, and they pass. Even death is a better place than a place without love. I've been on that route, though not completely. The great thing about giving up though, is until you've completely stopped breathing, you can always take steps forward. No matter how small they are, they're still farther than they were. 

I changed Krystle. Throughout our relationship, she was in a bad place, and she needed to change. She did. However, the transformation didn't completely finish until I hurt her. She's happier now, so please don't hate me for what I've done. 

In this same way, she's changed me. Throughout our relationship, unbeknownst to me, I was in a bad place. I needed to be loved on a large scale that I still live with, and that I am still ashamed of. She made that scale smaller. However, the transformation didn't completely finish until she hurt me. And only months after our breakup, after her love has completely gone away, that I've realized what transformation I'm meant to make. 


I've always wanted to change the world. I will now. 

But I still hope. 

You ever feel like you've been so wrong about something that you must have been wrong about everything? Even if it wasn't your fault in thinking that way, that you felt as well as others felt that you were right, but over and over again it seems like you're not?

If you think that I'm wonderful, an inspirational leader, someone who just has life in the bag, I want you to understand that I go through this and am going through this. I don't know who I am just as much as you. Maybe even more so (or less depending on how you think of it).

Sometimes, I feel like I'm the very scum of this world, spreading messages that I am only hypocritical to, or messages that aren't actually the best ones even though my intentions were good. Sometimes, I feel like I do nothing but hurt the people around me, especially the ones closest. Sometimes, I feel like I'm really just a bother to everyone and they are unknowingly being dragged down by associating themselves with me.

These are all my thoughts and insecurities piled in to a paragraph. And this crap part of it is, the things in my life don't prove them wrong. I don't go out anymore, I try to be the best that I can be and only limit myself to a very select number of very few people to be close to. But even still, I can see myself abusing them, hurting them, and because of it, see that I'm only dragging them down.

I'm trying my very best.
But sometimes, I really truly feel like my best was never good enough...

that maybe its only made things worse.

Dear Chelsea:

You started off intimidated by me, you, a veteran dancer of 16 years, intimidated by a second-rate freestyling hip-hop dancer of four. Funny girl you. You only broke the barrier at NFLC because of a mutual friend you were creeped out by. You went from intimidated to estimating the shortness of my manliness in 2.3 seconds. Then to the lack thereof in another 1.2. That's how we started getting to know each other. Great story.

Then throughout the beginning of the year we stomached getting up and arriving at the high school at six every morning. Six o'freaking clock. Both of us with our bed faces and bedhead still on, sweatpants dragging, we'd start up the ancient 135 year old espresso cart taking inventory, getting milk in to the fridge, getting the money. We did that for a couple of months as we got to know each other and began realizing that we shared the same ferocious [lol] passion for dance. You realized what only a few people know about me from our high school, my aspirations, the things that drove me, the things that kept me waking up, in that first month. And still, only a select few know the real me, the real Ulyber with his real insecurities.

You taught me things that I didn't know I could learn, things I needed to know but didn't have a starting place to learn them. You taught me how to dance.

Before then I had never really learned combinations or choreography, I didn't know what a stupid plié was or the difference between contemporary and modern. You were the one that eventually got me in to Betty's godforsaken Jazz II class and the Company. And you were the one that gave me the confidence in knowing that my aspirations weren't just dreams but tangible goals that I really could reach. Shit, you even let me take your speakers.

I'm graduating in less than 4 days now and I thought that it was about time that I thank you for everything that you've done. I'm really not the sentimental type that likes to be gushy about things like this, but I want you to know that you really have no idea how much I appreciate these things... even just being my friend. I still read that post you posted on my birthday. Friends are hard to come by for me around here, but you made up for it.

Thank you for making my senior year wonderful.

I know an 8GB iPod is nothing compared to your massive library, and I know it really doesn't come close to how much I really do appreciate everything, but it's all I got. Hopefully that's a good enough thank you for now.

We'll keep in touch. :D <3