Reflections

Hey, guys. It's Chris. Bet you never thought you'd hear from me again. It's...well...it's been a while. Weird how I seem to come back to this every two years. Maybe my next post will be in 2020. Maybe there won't be a next post, and this blog will sink back into the relative obscurity of the old abandoned blog.

Anyway.

I've been moving around a lot over the past two years. Who am I kidding, that's a lie. I've been in New Orleans. I like New Orleans. It's big and loud and it doesn't much care if you're a blue undead half demon cursed to forever roam the world in the body of an eight year old. New Orleans is no stranger to the paranormal. I fit right in.

I think I might leave soon, though. I've been feeling restless lately. But I think I'll stick around for one more Mardi Gras. They like me at Mardi Gras. It's one of the few times my stagnated growth has come in handy. Kids are cute, and consequently are showered in gaudy plastic beads and given the least inappropriate (and arguably the cutest) toys. Call me childish, but I like toys.

Of course, I'm not actually a kid anymore. I'm twenty now. A full-fledged adult in most countries. Just half a year away from being legally able to drink in this one. Not that any credible seller of alcohol would believe I was. But it's still a milestone. The last barrier on the way to adulthood. It's exciting.

It's also mind-boggling. Before deciding to write this, I looked back through the archives. My Blogger profile says I'm eighteen. The profile Jace wrote me back at the start of all this says I'm fifteen. It's been five years since I started this blog.

It's been five years since I started this blog.

Looking back at my posts from 2012, it's kind of jarring how zany everything feels. Sure we had our struggles, the truly horrifying moments that naturally arise from being a group of undead teenagers, but for the most part it was light-hearted, even whimsical in a gothic, Tim Burton kind of way. I miss that younger me who would wax philosophical about prime numbers or share random pictures he found funny or scare unsuspecting high school students into respecting me and maybe given up smoking. I miss the me who would apologize constantly for missing a week's post because sometimes life just happens, who tried to see everything in an optimistic light, who thought he could control his demonic instincts with a cursory knowledge of basic neurology and a practically cartoonish ability to make gadgets do what he wanted. I miss the me who thought he could help others control their own instincts the same way.

I miss the me who refused to acknowledge that he was half demon.

That me is long gone, worn away by two years of wandering and four years of coping with the kind of harsh realities that naturally come out of being half demon for more than half your life. It's astounding how much someone can change in just five years. I suppose that change is part of growing up--the much maligned loss of innocence and slow acquisition of perspective and nuance.

But more than that, I miss the society. The community it brought. The feeling that I didn't have to go through life alone. I still don't know where any of them are, if any of them are even still around. I probably never will. I've been trying to move on. Build new bridges to replace the ones that burned away in a haze of blood and bad decisions. For the most part, I think it's been working.

For the most part.


Last time I resurfaced, I likened my situation to trying to rebuild a house of cards in the midst of a kaleidoscope of giant butterflies. Recently, I've been thinking cards are too flimsy. I'm thinking of switching to gumdrops and toothpicks. I think the resulting structure will be a lot more sound. A lot more prepared to withstand the damage caused by an entire kaleidoscope of butterflies.

Did you know a group of butterflies is called a kaleidoscope? I think that's pretty neat.

Anyway, that's where I'm at right now.

Will I ever update this blog again? Who knows. Maybe. I'd like to. If only because shouting my thoughts into the void is pretty cathartic. And, if the Blogger stats page is anything to go by, sometimes people even read them. I'm no internet celebrity, but my page-views are shockingly consistent, given the years of inactivity.

So, yeah. If you've read this far, thank you. I'm glad you think I'm worth paying attention to. Maybe leave a comment if you want? It might be nice. Who knows, I might even respond.

Until next time, or possibly forever,
Chris