Day 240. You wanna know what’s scary? All I’ve been thinking about whenever I have a free moment at home is how much I want to buy some wine, drink it, watch some TV or play video games on my iPad or draw on the Paper app on my iPad, and then go to sleep early. Sometimes that former routine from my life pre-blog was so satisfying and necessary that I really miss it. I miss how it made me feel. Free and relaxed and unburdened by anything. I’ve missed it deeply since drinking on Sunday. Right now I don’t want to do anything other than going to sleep. I want to get this entry over with just so I can do that.

What’s happening? I think I can officially say I’m burnt out. I’m done, I guess, trying to be the best I can be. Maybe I’m just supposed to fail, or maybe my sights were set too high, or maybe I just need some time to recover, regroup, and restart my routines. Or maybe I don’t need to do all that I’ve done the past eight months. Maybe I just needed to do that for those eight months just to get to where I am today. I don’t know exactly where that is yet, but that’s the point of living, right? To just live and figuring out how to live it the best way you can. Maybe. Or maybe I’m just coming up with excuses to hide the fact that I’m flawed and human. Maybe I’ve been too focused on keeping these streaks alive that I totally ignored the signs all around me that I should slow down and live a little.

I haven’t read in about a week. That’s the only streak I’ve broken for longer than a day during the past eight months. Sadly, I’m not too torn up about it. I also stopped journalling in my paper journal, but that was a more deliberate decision. That fulfilled its purpose quickly, and I didn’t like the outcome. I’ll come back to it once I figure out what I want to use it for again. To be a better writer, I need to be a better reader. Remember when I wrote that? I don’t know what happened. My writing has been terrible recently, and maybe that has something to do with it. I think I’ve just been pushing myself too hard. Maybe I do need to drink some more every night. Maybe then I will lighten up and get more work done. Or maybe I’d spend it all playing video games on my iPad. Or maybe I’d start yearning for her for no other reason than the fact that I have nothing better to do.

No. I won’t do that. But maybe I will drink. I’ve written before about how I don’t like myself when I drink. Maybe it wasn’t the drinking; maybe it was just me that needed to change. I don’t know if I have, and I don’t know if I will. Maybe I’m just always gonna be a fuck up. That’s enough of a reason to drink.

Day 239. I have a little over four months left before my year is up, but I don’t know if I’m going to make it. I don’t know if I want to make it. This blog satisfied its purpose very early on, and once I got over her a few months ago, I lost the reason for this blog’s existence. I tried to make it into something else, but each of those ideas failed. Now I’m lost.

My worst entries are those that I force, and in hindsight, I like that I forced myself to keep writing because that’s what I have to do, to write, regardless of whether or not I feel like it and regardless if what I write is shittier than shit. I have to write. That’s both the burden and the life I’ve chosen because that’s who I am and who I want to be. Even if I have nothing to say, I have to keep writing. Oh god I hate that sometimes, but I just have to do it.

I’m really hoping this fire season is prolific because I need a break from my life. I need to finish my novel before I go out so I do not feel burdened by it, and I can just focus on what’s right in front of me. I’m buying multiple battery packs so I can still take pictures and write on my phone while I’m there, but that’s more creatively necessary than something I feel forced to do. It’ll be nice to not worry about what I’m going to eat or how I’m going to spend my days. That’ll be decided for me. All I have to do is hike, fight a fire, eat, hike, fight some more, and head back to camp. Best of all, I’ll get to spend time with a crew full of awesome people. C’mon wilderness: catch fire so I can have something to do.

In other news, I restarted my Max: 30 workouts today, and it was a nice change of pace from what I’ve been doing for the past two months. I think my neighbors hate me since I work out almost every day, and I work out hard, so I’m sure I’m shaking the whole building every time I do. It’s like a consistent earthquake for them, and that sucks for them. They haven’t complained so I’m not stopping. I didn’t like how my body felt today after drinking yesterday. I don’t miss that part from drinking. I like the way I feel while I’m drinking, just none of the after effects. I thought about buying a bottle of wine today, but I decided against it. I don’t know why yet. Out of habit, probably. Maybe I’ll change my mind soon.

I remember when I first started this blog, I limited myself to at least 400 words. I since changed that to 500, but I think I might change it back to 400. I didn’t want to be restricted, and that’s how I was able to ensure I wrote during that first week. Since, though? Shit. I don’t know. I’m floating right now, not sure what to do or where I’m going. It’s awful.

I went to my niece’s 3rd birthday party today, and I had a lot of fun. I drank for the first time in 237 days, and I really really enjoyed it. Maybe a little too much. I missed it. Since it had been so long since I had a drink and since I barely had any food before drinking, it went straight to my head really quickly. Now I’m thinking of going to the grocery store tomorrow or sometime this week and buying red wine and drinking it after work like I used to when I worked at McDonald’s. But then I remember why I wanted to stop drinking. When I drink, I don’t want to do anything, and I have too much to do to feel that way. Maybe I need a break… I turn 29 in one week after all.

I wasted this weekend… again. I didn’t transcribe any pages today for the first time since I started transcribing A Farewell to Arms. Instead, I finished watching the last season of Sons of Anarchy on Netflix. I didn’t do any tasks from my todo list, and I’ve been in bed since I got home from the birthday party. I talked to my friend for about an hour, which was super cathartic and more necessary than I thought, and I felt better afterward. This next week will be better than this last week, I think… I hope.

I’m back to where I never wanted to be again. I’m better, though, than I was back then, but I tried so hard not to be here to find out. I really don’t want to do anything right now. I don’t want to write — hell, I don’t want to be beholden to a daily entry anymore. I don’t care if I don’t make it to 365 daily entries. I want to skip one day, just like I broke my no alcohol streak, just to feel relaxed and more free to do what I want to do.

Montana has been shitty to me since I’ve been here. Sure, I have the best job I’ve ever had in my life and I have done three amazing fire seasons, but I don’t know how better off I am. I think I’m doomed to live a tragic life regardless of where I live. It’s my destiny. So I don’t know how better off I’ll be in grad school; I need to reconcile myself with myself. This is just who I am, and it’s stupid to try to change.

Maybe I needed to crash. Maybe I need to tear myself apart before I can start putting myself back together. Maybe I need to keep getting stronger. I’m definitely better off now than I was 238 days ago, no matter how similar or how bad it hurts. This cycle is part of who I am, I think, and I’m just living through the worst part now. I’ll get better soon enough. I just have to keep fighting, and I have to fight to win.

I made it to the end of my 200+ day Insanity workout by finishing the Championship video in my hybrid the Asylum Vol. 1/Vol. 2 workout. I feel good but not much different than I normally do. I still need to do more work on my body to get it where I want it to be, so on Monday I’m doing the Max: 30 workout again. I don’t think I’ll look or feel much different after I finish it, but it’ll keep me active while I figure out what to do next.

I’m revisiting old emotions right now. I don’t think I belong here, and I don’t know if I belong back in California. I don’t want to move anywhere yet, but I can feel that my days here in Montana are numbered. I have a great job and I’m super afraid of leaving it any time soon, but I know I can’t be there forever. I’m almost done with my novel, and that’s what I want to do with my life, and that might have something to do with my desire to leave.

I haven’t met anyone like me. I don’t want to sound arrogant or even myopic, but I think I’m incapable of making and keeping friends because I’m unsatisfied with all of them and they’re unsatisfied with me. I haven’t met many people I knew I’ve wanted to be friends with forever, and with those I have, many of them didn’t feel the same way and left me. Montana is too white, too traditional, and too complacent for my tastes. That might cause arguments with a few of my readers, but whatever. I turned off the comments not too long ago.

To celebrate the end of my workout today, I went to watch the new Avengers movie. Granted, I watched it before I worked out, but I knew I wasn’t going to skip it or anything, so I felt okay watching the movie. It was okay. It wasn’t as good as the first one, but it was worth the $6 I spent for the ticket. The last movie I saw at the theater was Interstellar, so it’s been a few months. I miss the movies, but I hate the theaters where I live. I could drive to Missoula, but driving fifty miles for a movie seems extravagant to me. Maybe I have no reason to bitch.

I have been thinking of going to Missoula to sign up for some sort of martial art. That and trying to be more social. I need to move away from here, but I don’t know where to go. I really hope I get into a graduate school next year because I want to leave. I might change my mind soon or have my convictions deepen. I’m writing about how I’m feeling now. That’s all I seem to be okay at.

I really feel tempted to drink again, but I like the idea of staying sober. I feel stronger that way, and I want to feel strong right now. I want to feel like I can do anything because I haven’t felt that way recently. At least today was a good day.

I need to make some changes, but I don’t know what that entails yet. I’m almost done with my novel, so I know I want to spend a lot more time with it. That means not only finishing it but working as hard as I can during the rewrite and making it the best it can be. I’m not expecting to write anything “literary,” far from it, but what I am expecting is to write a really well-written, well-told, and highly entertaining piece of fiction. If I can do that, then I’ll be happy. Once I finish this first draft, though, I do also want to start thinking about writing some short stories, simply to pad out my writing portfolio for when I apply to grad schools later this year. I also need to make a list of what grad schools to apply to and what their requirements are. I haven’t been putting too much focus on that these past few weeks, but I’m going to have to find the time this month. No excuses.

Another thing I have to think about is my workout. I finally finish my 200+ days of Insanity tomorrow with the last workout of my Insanity: the Asylum Vol. 1/Vol. 2 hybrid workout. I’m going to do a bit of pre-celebrating by going to the Avengers before working out. Once I come back and write, I will workout and make it official. On Monday, I’m planning to redo the Insanity Max: 30 workout, which feels like an appetizer compared to the past 60 days. The more I workout and the better I feel and look, the more I want to workout and the stronger I want to get. I don’t know how much Insanity Max: 30 will help me, but I know it won’t hurt. I need to figure out what workout comes next.

This is the first day of a new month. I turn 29 in less than two weeks, and I don’t know what I want to accomplish during the last year of my twenty’s. I know I want to get into a good grad school, but I’m yearning for something more than that yet I don’t know what that will be. I want something epic to happen and far from tragic. I’ve had too much tragedy lately that I need something good to happen to me this next year. Maybe I’ll have a great fire season, and I’ll fight many fires and make many friends. Maybe my novel will turn out better than I could have imagined, and I’ll get it published somewhere. Maybe I’ll start doing something I can’t even imagine yet — photography? — that’ll make me super happy and fulfilled. There are a million things that can happen between now and then, and all I hope for is that I’m healthy, strong, and happy. If I’m those three things, then I know I’ll die happy.

I’m thinking of taking my blog offline but continuing to write on my computer and not in my paper journal. I like this routine, but I don’t know if having a blog is a good idea, at least not with this type of content. That’s one more thing I’m going to have to figure out.

I’m grateful for the familiarity habits and routines bring to my life, especially after some tough times. When the world seems to be against you and all you want is an ounce of normality, habits and routines are there to provide that. I really really love that. Work has been hard the past few days, where I’ve come home angry and frustrated. Working out has helped me out a lot, and once I do and I shower and eat and watch some TV, I feel better and I forget about all of my troubles. I couldn’t sleep last night because I had a million thoughts running through my mind, so I’m lying in bed right now ready to fall asleep. I’m tired, especially since I have two more days of my hybrid workout before I’m done with it.

Music helps, too. There’s nothing like a good and familiar album to invade your ears and fill your world with glee. I’m falling back to these simple pleasures to keep me centered and focused on what matters. Life is too short for bullshit, but bullshit sometimes get stuck under your shoe and you only know about it once you drag it all over your living room floor. It’s one of those things I know I need to handle better, and that’s not something I’m going to master quickly. It might take me my whole life; I might never master it.

Sometimes I feel like I’m destined to lead a tragically funny life, but then other times I feel like I’m destined to lead an epic one. I’m a slave to the whims of my emotions. If I could map out my emotional states for every day in a month, that graph will look like a seismograph during an earthquake. I will feel totally different than I do now tomorrow, and that unpredictability amuses me. I want to not know because I make most of my mistakes when I force things instead of letting them happen naturally.

One thing I don’t like about myself is how my mind projects what I think other people think about me — which is mostly negatively — and how that thought affects how I feel about myself. I’ve never been able to know how to shake that off. I always tell myself to let myself feel everything I’m feeling in the moment, just to get it all out of my system, but that’s apparently easier said than done. I’ve tried to do that sometimes, and I definitely didn’t like how I felt or the thoughts I had, but I think it helped. It’s cathartic, in a way, and I’m better for it afterwards. It’s like crying, if I could cry.

This blog has been an incredible document of my journey and growth as a human being, and there are times when I don’t want to update it or wish I never started it, but I’m always going to be grateful for it. It has helped me see my life in a new way, and I’m better for it.

I think the greatest test for me has been owning up to my mistakes honestly and courageously. I’ve learned that mistakes are simply a part of life; life is too short to let mistakes affect me in a negative way. Of course I need to learn from my mistakes, and that’s why I’ve grown to really cherish (in a way) my mistakes. The more I can learn about myself and from myself and grow into a stronger and more honest person, the more happy I am with myself and the way I choose to live my life.

I’ve been off my game lately, I think. I’ve been here before. I’ve been productive for months and months at a time until one day I crash and I’m no longer productive. This has happened before, and I thought I’ve learned from them. It’s become this cycle that has repeated a few times, and I’m in that cycle now. I’ve been on an almost eight month streak of productivity and adventure and maturity and growth, and that’s awesome, but I’ve been having to fight for every inch of that for the past few weeks. I can feel myself slipping away from this life and into a more casual and lazy life. I don’t want that. It might do me good sometimes, but not all the times.

I can recognize some of the patterns to these past mistakes of mine, and for some reason, I can’t always course correct. It’s like I’m stuck in the tornado I saw forming and rushing my way. I just stood there and let it engulf me. Why do we do this? Why do we let this shit happen to us? I don’t know. All I know is that I have to be better about this. I have to learn when to course correct and be better. I have goals, and I want to accomplish them, and deviating from that path — even a little bit — should be and is unacceptable.

I have to be hard on myself because I still make these stupid mistakes. The only way I know how not to make them is by being hard on myself. I made a stupid mistake before I first started this blog, and I was hard on myself because I thought I deserved it and because I knew that was the only way for me to stay on that path I knew I had to be on. Some people might disagree with this, but I’ve lived most of my life alone. All I truly have is myself since the shit I struggle with the most I’ve had to handle on my own. So I’m very comfortable with myself and being in my own skin, and it’s tough for me to depend on anyone other than myself because of this. I surely have blame for this, but it is what it is, and I’m okay with that.

Internally I’m fine; externally: it’s other people that have the power to disrupt my flow, and that’s something I don’t like. Maybe that explains me in a nutshell. I don’t know.

The easiest thing to write about is what I’m feeling right now, and right now I’m feeling tired. It feels so good just lying in bed right now. My muscles are healing from the brutal Insanity workout I did today, and since work was extra tiring today, I’m really tempted to just rush through this entry and heal. But since I keep preaching about how nothing hard is not worth doing, I must march on.

I taught my first real drama lesson today. It was only a few minutes, maybe ten minutes, and the kids didn’t seem at all interested in what I was talking about, but I liked it. I definitely need to practice and get better at this, but I liked it nonetheless. It’s been awhile since I’ve personally dissected a move scene, but it was fun involving the class in it. I talked about the director and what he brings to the scene, the editor and what he brings to the scene, and the actors and what they brought to the scene, and I prefaced all of that with what a story is and how important conflict is. It looks like next week I start my focus class, and if I do, that’s where I’ll be delving even deeper into this subject. It’s fun, and I’m having fun.

It’s a bit past 8 PM right now, and the sun is shining brightly outside. I love Montana during spring and summer. The days can get so long, and there’s something about the sunshine — especially when I took it for granted in California and after these dreadfully long winters without it — that makes me happy. I signed up (finally) for firefighting this summer, I met my good friend Matt there, and we caught up briefly. He’s not firefighting this summer, which was horrible news to me, but I know I’ll see him around.

I love fire season. I love all the friends I’ve made and the whole environment, where I hang out with other firefighters and we live together on the mountain, and we fight the fires together. There’s a camaraderie there that I really love and miss, and I can’t wait to get back there. I need to take my physical exam on Tuesday, then my pack test and refresher course someday after that and I’ll be set for this season. I can’t wait to get all of this done.

Did I mention how tired I am right now? I did? Okay. I won’t mention it again.

I don’t know exactly how I’ll feel about this entry in the future, but I have to admit (if you haven’t noticed already) that my lethargy has caused me to produce a subpar entry. Like I said in the beginning, I’ve only written about what’s on the surface of my mind because it’s easy to do so. Sometimes I have days like today, where I’m more tired than anything, and where pushing myself might not be the best thing. I think I need to learn how to take it easy. Either way, here’s to 233 days!

I watched the Social Network on Saturday, watched the first scene a few times yesterday, watched the last of my Drama students perform the scene in class today, and finally showed the scene to the class. We ran out of time before I had a chance to really talk about it, which I’m still really sad about, but the point of all this is that I’m having fun thinking about what I want to talk about. It’s surfacing many many memories from college, which have made me super nostalgic, but also grateful that I was able to get the best film school education at the best film school in the world.

I love stories. I love reading stories and watching them on a screen. I love telling stories, and I love writing them. Writing is my craft, and I love it so very much. I’ve transcribed the Great Gatsby, and I’m more than half way through transcribing A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. I write in the morning, I write after my workout, I write after dinner, and I write some more right after that. I’m so very passionate about this stuff, about this craft, that I really don’t want to do anything else. I don’t care about being a Renaissance man, even though I did for a long time (maybe I still do a little bit). I’m a writer. That’s who I am, and I love it.

One thing I’ve noticed is that I get pretty sad on Sundays, and I get sad on Sundays because I don’t work out on Sundays. I just performed a very very tough Insanity workout, and even though I was close to vomiting during it, I feel fucking amazing right now as I’m recovering and lying in bed. Those pesky endorphins — I need them. I need them so much to be happy it’s insane (see what I did there?). I feel so much better after a good workout, and my writing is so much happier after a good workout that I’m considering doing something on Sundays — something physical — just to see what kind of mood I’m in when it’s time to write. It’s an experiment that I think will bear fruit if I actually do something and not lie in bed all day wondering where my day went.

This is my last week of this hybrid workout. I can’t believe I actually made it. I guess I really didn’t have any doubt I would, per se, but it’s always great to realize when you’ve accomplished one of your goals. Next week I’m going to restart the Max: 30 workout from Insanity, which should be fun and much much shorter than these hybrid workouts were. Did I mention how much I enjoy taking my shirt off? I’m like: who is that sexy man? Oh, that’s me. That’s fucking me. I’m this writer who’s almost done with his second novel and almost done transcribing his second great novel and who has done over 200 days of Insanity and is voluntarily going to do another 60, and he has this blog where he’s been updating for 232 consecutive days. You best believe, bitches.

The world is moving quickly outside while I’m slowing down, while my feet aren’t moving as fast as I would like them to. I’d rather spend time watching TV or browsing Instagram or Twitter or Facebook instead of reading or writing. Part of me feels like I deserve some time off. I have been going strong for two-hundred and thirty-one days straight after all. At least, that’s what I tell myself. On the other hand, every task on my todo list is a promise I made to myself, and I’ve been breaking my promises recently. I’m not as diligent as I used to be. I don’t know when it happened or how it started, but it’s one of those things I didn’t even know was happening until after it happened.

I’m finding excuses to not do something. I don’t do that — that’s not something I do. But I’ve been doing it, and I don’t like it but it’s not going to change overnight. I have to start over. I have to rebuild that habit or replenish my willpower enough to get working. Part of me doesn’t want to, and that urge is stronger than all my other urges. I want to play and have fun and relax. I’m almost done with a few things, and I’m about to start other things.

I finish the Insanity the Asylum: Volume 1/Volume 2 hybrid workout this week. That means I’ve practically done an Insanity workout every day for over two-hundred days. I’m going to add another sixty when I do the Insanity Max: 30 workout again. I added extra ab workouts the first time I did, and this time I’m not going to do that. That means these workouts will only take thirty minutes out of my day, and that’s a huge relief. It’ll give me more time to do other things. I don’t know what I’ll do, though.

I’m so close to finishing my book, and I decided, 84,000 words later, that I’m going to cut one of my main characters (again). This story had three main characters, and I switched POV with each chapter, and now I think I’m going to stick with two. This story turned into a very personal and emotional story, and I really want to explore that more than what this story was originally supposed to do, which was talk about politics. No more of that. So I can really say I’ve written two different novels, and I’m very close to rewriting the second one.

So I’m working out and writing. I’m just not reading as much as I would like to. I love reading, but maybe it’s the books I’m reading or what I want to do with those books that is holding me back from really getting into it. Maybe that’s it: I want to do too much. Maybe I need to slow down and relax. Is that defeatist? Will I regret this later? I don’t know.

If it’s not hard, it’s not worth doing, right? I want to push myself harder than I’ve ever pushed myself. That much is obvious. But maybe I should listen to what I’m doing. I’m slowing down, watching TV, neglecting (some of) my tasks… maybe that’s all a sign that I need to relax. Maybe. As long as I’m writing and working out and living. I am, so lets try to relax, yeah?