the week before Phoenix

I can usually sense a calm before a storm, like I'm riding the pre-cusp of change but know no specifics yet. I can feel huge shifts approaching. My stomach is in knots and I'm trying not to think too much about it. Reading and writing are my life lately, along with finally really dedicating myself to learning a foreign language. I stay motivated by watching french films and appreciating the beauty of the language.

The key to staying sane and focused is not to get caught up in looking too far ahead, even though I feel radical things coming soon and it's easy to wonder and attempt to analyze and get completely caught up in deciphering impossible symbols.
This is almost an art; it is striking a delicate balance. I'm finally learning patience after 10 years of embracing immediate gratification in every possible form. I am finally writing the autobiography that has been forming in my subconscious and it feels cathartic and inevitable.

For once I don't need to do anything about some feelings I have for a friend. Before, I would have recklessly pursued it in whatever way my impulses at the moment wanted me to... likely immaturely and thoughtlessly. I have felt this way for a while, but I am just now deciding not to pretend I don't or try to manipulate myself out of it. That never worked anyway, it would always come out in dreams. Instead I am letting it be there and accepting it and whatever may or may not come from it. Almost a year late but at least I'm finally dealing with it.

I am staying conscious instead of drunk or hungover or craving alcohol and this is bringing about many other realizations that were previously covered up by that cycle. I think I put off sobriety for so long because I knew it would bring an end to many illusions and I wasn't sure if I could handle that yet.

Once you shine the light of consciousness onto one area of life, it bleeds over into other realms. This honesty can be uncomfortable if you're not ready for it, almost like looking directly into the sun, but I think I'm ready.