Nowadays

when you are lost in yourself where do you turn? there's no way out and the only choice is to hide behind some wall you've already built. by the time you understand what character is, yours is already set in stone. or thats how it feels. and even if you dont like it and try to change it, its just an act. deep down we are who we are; at times we may feel like we've grown but at the end of the day we realize there is no changing. or at least some of us do. those who don't have it easier i would imagine, they get to feel good about themselves and actually believe it rather than be forced to pretend. it's tiring but it's life.
keeping busy is the only option i have found, because when i find free time it usually equates to time to think about how unimportant life is. where is the meaning? what do i live for? is it for what i believe in? for my future? for my family and friends? do they matter? what does matter? please, give me something.
i guess it all started freshman year. i remember walking to class every day walking the same path. most of my classes were in the same building, i only had one that was separate, and even then i would walk the same way. anyway, i would walk to class and think to myself, "kill me, just kill me... let me die. who would care? it wouldn't matter. if i end it now i can avoid the years of meaningless filler to come." because to me, that's what life was... an extended time slot which you had to fill with whatever you could. some chose drinking and partying, others chose studying, but most were a combination of both, including myself. i liked to study occasionally, something about the focusing that went along with it. if you had to concentrate on school work you couldn't be distracted by the thoughts that burn your soul. but then again sitting down to do work was the difficult part. so i tended to lean more to the partying side. alcohol took the edge off, but at the same time it occassionally ( probably an understatement ) led to a darker depression. darker in the sense that under the influence you are more prone to actually acting on certain thoughts. a few times i had to do some things i'm not proud of to snap out of it. freshman year is full of "found memories" but they are just a disguise to hide the ugliness of how i actually felt. i mean if i look back and think "oh yeah that was so much fun", then i can kind of erase the pain that i felt, at least on the surface level; i think it left a mark that will never go away. i think it left a rift that tears a little each day.