The weather is turning. The seasons are changing. The cool cold air has arrived in Los Angeles and I guess we are heading into the “cold” season of the City of Angels. Maybe it is because of this change that things are changing in the air. Maybe it is because of this change that I am getting the inkling feeling that I will be sick again. I don’t know, but I do know there is a change in the air.

I welcome the newfound weather in this city. It is a quick and nice change of pace from the hot heat that I still have not grown accustomed too. It is just too hot for me. It’s just weird weather when last week we were reaching upper 80s and now we are in the mere upper 60s.

No wonder I succumb to the bug that is floating around. To this day, I still don’t think I’m at 100%. Not yet.

* * *

Looking back at some of my earlier entries again last night and today; reading what it is that I’ve gone through at that time, the emotional state that I was in, it just blows me away how much I’ve grown up and changed, even from a few short years ago.

I’m able to write an write and spill everything out onto these blank pages of mine, whatever that seems to be troubling this pea-brain of mine, whatever that is wanting to spill out, and it helped me work things out. I’m glad to have found a therapy that works for me, and a relatively cheap one at that.

Writing. My therapy. A hate that I learned to love because it just opened up so many facets of my mind and shaped me in many ways to be who I am today. To be able to just write things out, getting it out of my system and seeing, reading, and understanding my problems and then realizing what it is that I must do to fix it.

I’ve came a long way from that really nice, soft, gentle guy who tries to please everyone, no matter who they are. The guy who is so considerate that he thinks of others before he puts his comforts and happiness first. The guy who is easily pressured to do things that he usually doesn’t.

I’ve come a long way. Every day, so it seems, seems to be a day of discovery, of what I’m capable of, finding new facets of me to explore and manipulate.

It is approaching that time of year again. It is approaching the end of the year, for the yearly diatribe. My how this year have gone by so quickly. A blink of an eye and it is gone, and there were a lot of things that happened this year.

Lots.

But there is one thing that keeps coming up with some of my colleagues and friends. One thing in my life, in all aspects of my life that I have noticed and is a point of repetition.

THIS IS THE MOST STRESSLESS AND HAPPIEST TIME I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED IN MY LIFE.

There is a sense of zen in my life. A calm, cool, collective everything is A-OK and I have nothing to bitch about. I’m not saying life is perfect, but life is pretty damn near it. Life.

I’m sure a lot of it has to do with the new job I got this year. The change of scenery, the change of environment, responsibilities, the appreciation I got for my efforts took a lot of the stress out of my life. Before, everything was just pressing down on me. Now, the responsibilities and the expectations are different. I’m surrounded by all of these IT guys that knows what it means to be in IT. They understand the life, the job, the duties, and they know what the expectations are because they all have been through it.

Maybe the job is relaxed too. Chill. No pressure. We go about our daily business like we do with anything else. As long as the job gets done or if it is a problem, it is a problem that stumps all. Everyone is involved to help figure things out if it is an issue that is beyond my abilities. I have help. I’m not alone.

My office mates help too. They are genuinely decent guys. Funny. Cool. Dorks and geeks like yours truly. We all understand our job and we are just there to do it. No stepping on other people’s toes. Just there to do our job and to help out where needed.

* * *

I don’t know what I’m trying to say today. I don’t know what I’m trying to write today.

There’s just a lot of things that are rumbling and bumbling its way around in my head, bouncing off the echoey walls where it just clatters with its deafening noise and it ripples with other noises from other thoughts and now my brain is just a mess of dissonance.

Reading an old blog of mine that I wrote way back in 2004, I realize that this is the point in my life where things started to change. This is the point in my life where things took action, because it was a point in my life where I started to see myself for the first time who I really am.

I started to see the core of who I really am, this person before you today.

I vaguely remember writing it. I think it was Labor Day weekend in good ol’ Fresno. I wasn’t out at a coffee shop writing. No. I wrote this lil’ entry in a handwritten journal of mine.

Since then my writing took a different turn. Instead of the more direct passionate writing that started my journal, it became the lyrical whimsy that filled years and years of entries. The mish-mash rambling styles of philosophical speak that makes no sense.

It was a time where I just let my thoughts run free and jot everything down. It was the time of my soul searching. All those nonsense had a core purpose of disclosing who I am and what I was thinking. It was the second phase of my therapy.

The first was tackling my anger, writing everything down. The other was focusing on me, the way I think, the introspections that makes me who I am today. My thoughts, my philosophies, my rules in life.

That entry. It sparked the beginning of something that was needed to get me, my life back on track.

I realize the entry before is the first one of the newfound free flowing writing that I got comfortable with, the philosophical jib-jab of late night ramblings that spilled out everything that I was thinking in my life at that particular moment and that sad depressed phase that i was going through. That was the beginning or near the beginning of my road to recovery. The road to me. The Phong before you.

It just seems that I’ve been a lost soul for quite some time. Confused as to what my life means and what I’m to make of it. Questions in the ether that just cloud my mind during that time, always asking what am I? Who am I? Where am I going? The ultimate questions of figuring yourself out.

The Quarter Life Crisis really got to me. It was a big part of my life. It was a answer to what I’m feeling, to know that I am not alone. Well, from that entry, again, it only applied to the first paragraph, of not knowing what it is that I want and the finding myself out.

Life just seemed so different back then, constantly dark and black. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel as it collapsed in on me. But then for some reason, some time, things took a turn for the better. I don’t know exactly when, but it did.

It seemed like a slow subtle change in me. It was a gradual ascension to who I am, as layers and layers of this onion peeled away to reveal the true heart that is me. I do not miss that point in my life. It was rough, sad, but I am glad that I experienced it and conquered it.

And here I am today with a much better understanding of who I am today. What I’m willing to do and what I’m not willing to do. A better understanding of why I am the way I am and a sure found knowledge of who I am and in a way a sure confidence of the decisions that I make.

Life is good. Life is damn good.

I don’t know what came first, me getting better or me thinking optimistically? I think there was a mixture involved as I got a glimpse of who I am, saying to myself that I’m not this bad person who’s always angry at everything, who is a victim, who was dealt a bad hand.

I realized that I made that happen. I made those decisions. My decisions affect who I am and my happiness. I need to do things that I am comfortable with and that benefits me and not other people. Me. It’s all about me.

* * *

I think I’m done today as I really do need to go to the bathroom now and I need to make my movie. I think I’m done today because I have no clue how I came about writing what I just written. I had no idea what it is that I wanted to say today, but I managed to say something. I don’t know.