Now keep this line open to get this call from you, speak the words that keep me coming back to you. (Day 84)

So today is a special update of Days Gone By.

The last time I really talked, it was to announce that for a while I was gonna go on a hiatus.

I know the whole thing seemed kind of pretentious. But the thing is, I know there are a few people who read this blog, on the regular. And God help me, I'll never know why. I mean, who the hell am I? I'm just a kid with a dream, with aspirations and an admiration for the written words.

The syntax, the symposium of thought and dialect, the structure and iambic prose that fits like a piece to some puzzle.

The whole reason for this blogs existence is because of several reasons. I...I'm such a guarded and secretive person, and I'm not fully sure why. I just know that I don't want to get hurt again.

It's just that...every person I've ever trusted has either died, or hurt that in some way. And I'm not here to collect sympathy, I just refuse to make the same mistakes over and over again. I have faith in history, it's lessons it's taught us in the past are to be markers, teachers and stepping stones to not emulate and repeat the past, but to make new mistakes and make our own marks on history that are not only bad, but beautiful and great as well. Martyrs don't exist to give credence to a specific cause; but rather shed light on a time frame of intolerance of fear.

And I don't want to be a martyr, I don't want to be a person who repeatedly makes mistakes that I've made my entire life. I fall into the trappings that I react one of two ways: I either overreact, or I act foolishly at periods of time that I needn't.

I recently went off my medications. I'm back on the now, but for a short time frame, I went off my medications and the effect was something bad.

Prior to these medications, my moods would swing so violently that I never knew which ones were real. Each mood was fleeting, brief and untrustworthy.

One moment I'd be happy, ecstatic and prepared for the future. Literally seconds late I'd be depressed and finding myself questioning and telling myself, "whats the point? I'm born to lose, I'm going to fail."

All my life I've bee sporadic, on the moment, hard to have anything stick. I moved out a lot of times before, because it seemed like the right thing to do. I moved out of my house when I was a senior in high school, before I turned 18.

But then I started taking this medication. And whether some of the effects are placebo, or if they to most people seem inconsequential, to me they are more than that. I never wanted to think I needed to rely on medication to get through. My pride is sparing, but when it's present, it's overpowering.

But a few months ago, 84 days to be exact, almost three months, I started taking Lamictal. And after a while I started getting these headaches. I know now that that was the genetic make up of my brain evolving and changing.

Everyday is a learning process for me now.

I've never believed in myself. And about half a year, I took a gamble and tried to get hired by a magazine. While I hate being apart of anything journalism related, I just want to write. So the lesser of two evils, you know?

I had a lot of tragedy happen in September, though. One such tragedy caused me to want to bring happiness to people, and while I meant well...it cost me a lot. Every bit of writing I did, for the most part.

I wasn't good enough to be picked up for a little blurb in an "alternative" magazine, and everything I'd done up until my mistake with a little online zine...I wasn't good enough, hadn't done enough for a second chance.

So I sunk into depression, and viola! Lamictal, this blog.

But going off the medication made me realize just how much it'd helped me. How much I've changed in almost three months. How for so long I never had stability, and now I have it. I have to relearn so much now, but it's an exciting process. Finally getting it right.

I believe in myself for the first time in my life.

Maybe I wasn't good enough to be a music journalist. You know what? Thats fine. It's not something I wanted to be anyway. I never fit in at Racket, I wouldn't at the other magazine.

Every writer needs a muse. I don't care whom it is, a writer needs a muse. Be it a girl, or a person in their life, or even a pet. Something to inspire me.

For so long I never had one. Nothing to inspire me, and as a result what I wrote always, to me, felt somewhat hollow because it was lacking a bit of something. A bit of soul. A bit of heart, and passion. That extra little something for me to prove myself too.

Almost two years ago, I met Velvet.

She came into my life while I was recovering from a lot of things had happened. Burying my Aunt, issues with my mother, health issues...and just a lot of hard times in general. I was scrambling for a sense, searching for a former clarity, if you will.

My Aunt Jane succumbed to cancer.

She never told anyone except for her husband, my fathers brother. One afternoon I got the call, and within minutes my father was home packing up and leaving for Colorado.

He's such a strong man. But to see him cry, to be so desperate and lost...it shook me to my very core.

I never got the chance to say goodbye. I never got the chance to mourn. We had to stand strong for him, and to be honest...I wish every moment since then that I could have went to her funeral. I never did though.

I met Velvet during a very rough period of my life.

It's so hard for me to trust. In the beginning I wanted so badly not to trust anyone again. I just didn't know if I'd have it in me anymore. There was potential for loss, for a broken connection, for so much.

And I acted like such an asshole.

But somehow she's stuck by my side throughout it all. I'm so very blessed to have a friend like her. The truth is...I've never had a better friend, ever. I love her...in and out, through and through. I trust her with my life.

See, a writer needs a muse.

And you can write, and write, and write...but without soul, without heart...it's just nothing but ink on paper, word soup.

It's her belief in me that got File Under Powerviolence finished. It's her faith in me thats helped me to regain some of that confidence I once had, so many years ago.

Everything about her...how she handles the troubles in her life so gracefully, how she lives life with a flair and sense of style thats unmatched...shes never stopped impressing me. And it's hard to impress me...I'm a recovering nihilist.

But she'll kick me in my ass when I need it. Call me on my shit, and encourage my stupid dreams and thoughts. Shes so talented...it's scary.

She's so beautiful, it hurts.

And I'm lucky every single day I know her. Just to be another pixel in the picture of her life. I'm grateful for that.

I went off my medication not too long ago, and I wound up back to where I was months ago, in feelings I had so slowly lost I didn't realize that they'd evolved. I always wondered why my dosage was so high...and now I know why.

I had no plans of taking it anymore, and I sunk to a really dark place. Enough so that I walked away from here just as soon as things had started to pick up.

And there was Velvet. Fighting through my evasions, and dark moods...and practically forcing the medication down my throat. Days later, I'm back to this.

I still get depressed, but now I'm just so thankful for it. It lasts, and I can assess it, know it, and learn from it. When I'm happy, I can enjoy it...and to be so very honest...it's great to be alive.

She might have saved my life. I'm eternally grateful for that.

Thank you, Velvet.

See, I'm proud of who it is I'm becoming. I'm working on changing some things, but honestly...every day is a new story, or a continuation.

Not many people get that second chance, and so many want to cut that story short. God knows I've wanted too so many times before. I didn't care to turn the page, and for so many years I've been rereading the same paragraph because I was scared of what comes next.

And I still am. But I'm ready.

Days Gone By is going nowhere. This is a means to end. For sanity, for me to learn about myself, to document the roads I've traveled and where I'm going. I'm back.

There will still be Guest Updates. But in the interim, I'll be back here. This is where I'm happy. It killed me not to spew words, and I felt so naked and useless.

And I guess the most important thing I've ever learned...

-I'm fucked without you.

Thank you, friends.

-Until tomorrow.