All the pictures are here in a seperate gallery.

My vision is really quite horrible. Without my glasses I nearly have to resort to feeling my way around. Some day I will try and get the laser surgery to fix this. But whenever I take my glasses off I can’t recognize myself.

This is how I go through life: unable to read the posted signs, missing the exits that lead to home.

Picture: Exiting on to I-75 South.

Sometimes I feel like nothing more than a shadow from a yet to be seen object looming in the background. Shadows are such a part of our daily lives, that you don’t notice them, unless you really look for them.

Being a photographer, part of what I always look for is the shadows, and what causes them. I notice all the shadows literal and figurative.

This year I would like to be seen and not be a shadow that you only see if you are paying attention.

Picture: Lonely Shadow at a Beach. Traverse Bay, May 2003.

I have plenty to say, but I find right now at this moment I don’t have the words to properly explain these thoughts. Or rather, I have a lot of mixed emotions going on, both happy and hopefully, and some very negative. Of course these are all at odds with each other.

What I do know, is I get accused often of not taking enough chances in life. When in reality I take chances often. I’ve always been willing to risk everything I have for a chance at happiness.

I also find people more then willing to say to me I should be happy… by myself. This would be fine, and I agree, there are times when you should just be happy to be alone. But after 3 years of being alone, it is no longer a happy thing. I’m tired of being alone. There is no other way to put it, except I’ve been there, I’ve done that, and it’s time to not be alone.

Picture: Wyandotte River Front on a January Morning. Desolate and alone.

20090819 Andrea Set II

20090819 Andrea Set I

Sometimes on a crisp morning, as the sun crests over the horizon the rays race across the surface of the earth, hitting you full force, there is a beautiful transition that occurs. You become the apex between darkness and light, positive and negative, then and now. For a moment, you can feel this actually occur.

When your life is in transition there are moments like these. You meet someone and they simply just make you feel good. Their positive energy flows over you like the suns waves do, as they push the darkness behind you. And at the right time, if you are paying attention you can feel this moment happening to you.

Picture above: Sunrise over the Detroit River in February, another moment of transition in my life, where I stood at the apex between darkness and light.

Lately, under the advice of a couple people, I’ve been trying to be more positive. For awhile it seemed to be working. The idea, was to “fake it (happiness) until you make it”, and eventually I would just be happy. Sunday was about the best I accomplished, but it was all fake, or maybe it was real, but just too quickly fleeting.

There is a hidden danger in just trying to be happy until eventually you are happy. If you don’t successfully make it to being happy, you crash back down into your depression and everything seems worse than it was before and with nothing accomplished. It’s as if realities elastic band is always there to snap me in the face, whether I’m good or bad, it doesn’t matter much.

My normal approach to dealing with these feelings has been too recede away from people. To disappear. I’ve been trying to resist this urge, but everyday the desire to just disappear gets stronger.

I’m going to try again to be positive again, perhaps my current feelings are only a set back. But I fear that when reality snaps me in the face with it’s rubber-band, yet again, I won’t be able to fight my primary instincts: just disappear.

Anyways, the picture. This is me. I’m a toy that people use for their enjoyment, getting more and more broken from neglect. Mostly though, I’m a toy you quickly forget about. Notice that I’m stuck to the ground, I have no chance of moving on, I’m permanent fixture. Also pay attention to the plastic smile…

Three years, of singleness, depression, fear, and loneliness. This has been my life. The simple fact of life is it is hard to be happy without love. Love of a good friend, of a lover, of a parent or sibling. I have none of those, I am alone.

I have friends, siblings, and my parents are alive, but I’m not very close to any of them, very few people know that much about me. Someone you see once every couple months does not represent a close relationship.

I know what you are thinking ‘loser’. Perhaps you are right, it has been said about me more often than not.

Actually, most peoples reaction to this is: think positive, be happy, change your routine, put yourself out there, etc. I’m 34, I know these things, I’ve done these things, thus far it has all failed. Not just a minor set back kind of failures, but colossal ego-killing failures. I have no passion for the fight anymore.

It isn’t that these people are wrong, the cliches they speak are based in reality. The problem with changing ones habits is when you have explored as many viable positive options and all those fail you are left with viable negative options. A regression of personality, this is where I’m headed.

Barring that you are left with just pain management and that’s what this life is for me, utter pain. I sometimes admire people who commit suicide. I don’t agree it is the cowards way out, it’s people who are in such incredible pain and their friends either don’t care, know, or are incapable of helping. I would imagine their last few moments have to be some of their happiest of their life, they see the end of their pain.

No this isn’t my wish for me, I’m too much of a pussy to do it myself. I’ll have to wait till life does the inevitable and dims my lights for me. I just admire their courage.

So what does this have to do with forks? I took this picture for my last girlfriend. It is a visual representation of how I felt about her, and how I feel about any lover, if it isn’t obvious. She was my last fork and I fear I have run out of cutlery. So now I think I need to do another picture, of a single solitary fork.

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