So It Begins

Hi, my name is Mario Villalobos, and I’m flawed. Super flawed. Undeniably flawed. I’ve made and will make many mistakes as I live my life in this tiny sliver of time. I’m supposed to be a writer, but I don’t really write all that much. I finished my first novel last year but it’s a huge mess, and I’m confident it’ll never see the light of day. I’m planning to rewrite it, though, but that plan is still lurking unfinished in an OmniFocus project. I’m also a wild land firefighter whose third year has just ended. It was fun.

I don’t consider myself an alcoholic, but I don’t like who I turn to when I drink. The things I do after drinking — things that seem and feel right to do at the time — are the mistakes that have cost me friendships, relationships with people I’m always going to miss. My memories of them will always be tainted with a tinge of regret. Always, and that will never change. It saddens me.

I have trouble moving on. How many people find it easy to move on? What’s their secret, I wonder. Our time is so short and limited, and the thought of never again spending time with someone I used to care about hurts. I wish I could express that pain more clearly, but… I’m supposed to be a writer. Ha. It simply hurts that I can’t see them anymore, that they cut me out of their lives and are themselves moving on. But I have to. I have to.

I’ve always wanted to write a blog, and I started (and stopped) a few over the past decade or so (oh yeah, I’m 28 years old), but none of them stuck, obviously. And when Twitter and Facebook started, they became convenient vehicles for me to express myself that negated my (then) need for a blog. But there’s something about a blog that always appealed to me and also frightened me. I always thought I wasn’t important enough to write so personally to an audience beyond just myself. That’s my goal, though, one I hope to see through.

My purpose of this blog is to move on. I’m not sure what that means, exactly. In one sense, to move on from the people who no longer want anything to do with me. In another sense… I don’t like who I’ve become recently. Something changed this year. Maybe it’s been growing for a while, but it definitely manifested this year. I became someone I don’t like. There’s always the possibility that I didn’t become this person but instead have always been this person. If that’s true, then I need to change. How?

Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?