Let Your Mind Grow Into the Ground

Somewhere between suburban boredom and rural desolation. The word isn't lazy, it's irresponsible.

[andygofthetrees-blog]

2015 is here and this will be my last post.

Things are different now than I thought they would be. You can project and plan as much as you want, but things change. I have had to face aspects of myself this year that are downright ugly. But I will not be that person forever. During one of the last fights we had, my ex and I held each other, and through tears I said, "I'm gonna miss you." "I'm gonna miss you too", she said. "Not having you is going to remind me to be a nicer person", I told her. And it will. And it has. She is 3000 miles away now. Where she went is where I wanted to go. Hopefully when I make decisions regarding where I want to end up I won't care anymore. I am done with this particular corner of the internet. I can't figure out how to erase this because I am inept like that, so I guess it will just stay, but inactive. This just isn't good for me. Work, snowboarding, shows, my band, hiking: these all are good for me. Bye tumblr. I'll figure out how to erase you soon enough.

[this-episode]

[andygofthetrees-blog]

I feel like I just woke up

from a long sleep filled with lots and lots of bad dreams. You may know what I'm talking about. You are covered in sweat and but so happy that the horrible things you just witnessed were only fragments of a sub-conscious. You get up, the ground is real. Gently you open the curtains and the world is still the same, depending on your point of view. You are well. You are alive. This is how I have been feeling lately. The summer is long gone now, and that is truly something to be thankful for. I couldn't go on much longer living the way I did and I don't miss it nearly as much as I thought I would: going to sleep at 1: 30 AM or so, waking up at 9, staring at a computer screen for an hour before doing maybe five hours at most of gardening, smoking abusive levels of weed and feeling awful at all times. I just wanted to sit on the back porch and smoke. Much as I tried to escape thinking about the last year, I couldn't. I'd fall asleep miserable and wake up longing for someone who went from a trusted lover and other half to a stranger in almost no time. I know that I am so much better off. There is a hurt that comes from being on the wrong end of infidelity that will probably be at least sore for some time to come, but it has taught me to guard myself in the future. Could I have been nicer about certain things? Yes. Could I have been kinder, gentler, more understanding when I needed to be? of course. Did that give you the right to throw the last two and half years in my face because you needed to feel wanted? No. Never. The worst part is that you will never feel as sorry about this as you should. I have spent the last 12 months being sorry. Some days I tell myself "I will never forgive her." Now, I just accept the past as necessary to my growth. In time I will move beyond this, but I still need my anger to keep me warm for a bit. You once told me that I could hate your guts one day. Well, that hate is insulation for the time being. This too shall pass, but I will always hold your actions against you. I have a full time job again. I wake up at 6 AM and spend my day guiding learning as best as I can with an incredibly difficult population of children. This is where I belong, though. The school is meant to be a therapeutic for the students, but it is working for me as well. Day by day, moment by moment, I will get back to where and what I need to be. This winter will be crazy. I will be working at a small mountain as a snowboard instructor and heading out to Colorado for two weeks. I could have never done this before. I am free. Free as empty space.

[selfdefensefamily]

Andrew, talk some sense into me. I'm in my 20s and stopped going to house shows, and punk shows in general, a long time ago. However, last night an old friend's band was in town and I went to see them play some shitty garage filled with what I can only describe as "Olympia punks". I felt incredibly awkward and out of place, which makes sense, but what's fucking with my head is that I felt somehow inferior to these people for "selling out" and leaving that scene. What the fuck is wrong with me?

Scenes are an incredible vehicle for personal growth and deep friendship, if you believe the marketing. In reality, they are generally a shitty dump and act as a sort of failure cult.

You went out, you had that dopamine release that comes from shared experience and nostalgia, and for a minute you believed the marketing. You got convinced that Taco Bell is food. No big deal, it happens to everyone now and then. Just recognize it for what it was and add it to your toolbox of shit to not fall for.

-Andrew

[andygofthetrees-blog]

Damn this is truth.

[glowcloud-archive-deactivated20]

i know that we were all taught in school that mlk jr used PEACE AND LOVE and malcolm x fought with VIOLENCE AND RAGE and thats why we should all be like mlk and not big bad malcolm x but at a certain point you have to realize thats nothing but a sweet white liberal fairy tale and a total misunderstanding of the political actions of both of those important figures and its time for us all to grow the fuck up

[queersirene-deactivated20150724]

Amen.

[macabre-of-horror]

[emocionalmentestable]

[liamofagony]

Escape is unfulfilling, but warms the willing

[selfdefensefamily]

The older I get the more and more I get disenfranchised by society. Is it a cop out to buy a plot of land somewhere and start my own microcosm society (in hippie terms 'a commune') or should I stay and try to fight for a better society for all.

Why do you feel any obligation to save society? That’s some martyr complex shit.

Let it go. Start your commune.

[andygofthetrees-blog]

The days you can never get back

[andygofthetrees-blog]

The valley from the top of Stissing Mtn.

[andygofthetrees-blog]

The top of Stissing Mtn, Pine Planes, NY

[andygofthetrees-blog]

The first and only drunken selfie I shall ever take.

[esamaiween-blog]

fuente

[selfdefensefamily]

Andrew, how do I be around people in school who socially humiliated me and fucked up my trust? I need my reptile brain to shut off, I keep having panic attacks too and it's just stupid.

You are in school. School ends. Quickly. It’s shit you will not remember in five years. I went to school in the middle of a race war and couldn’t tell you the first thing about what I did for those four years.

What you living through is an actual nothing event. It means literally nothing. Just chill out, and enjoy watching everybody swell and talk about their mortgages at your ten year reunion.

-Andrew

[mikeerrico]

[andygofthetrees-blog]

Hawk Rock, Algonquian holy site near Carmel, NY