It's so good to see you, you know it's been too long

"Isn't it amazing? Human emotions. It's weird how two people can be so close with each-other, tell each-other everything, ring up at 2 in the morning when you need someone to talk to..."

These are words from my diary. According to my diary, I written this on the 19th August 2008. According to my calender, that's six years ago. I'm 21 now, I was 15 then. So that's six years; six years of building who I am and tearing it down and building it back up again. I find it interesting looking back at my diary and seeing what I was thinking back then. I'm amused especially because I constantly refer to my "thirty year old self" in a self-deprecating manner.

"Just think, I could've been watching Dr. Zhivago right now. :( Ah well! My Thirty Year Old Self (hello) probably thinks it's crap."

I still haven't even watched Dr. Zhivago, but it's nice and funny to see how much I was in touch with who I was and who I wanted to be. I thought I had it all figured out when I was fifteen - I knew what I wanted in life, I knew what I wanted from existing, I knew who I wanted to surround myself with and I knew that I wanted to fall in love desperately. In fact, I'd hazard a guess that my pursuit of the perfect romance was probably the defining aspect of my teen years - I was disastrously unsuccessful with girls for too long, and so I seemed to fall in love with the first one that showed me the least bit of attention. Yes, that was a reference to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a film I was so obsessed with that I announced dramatically that my first-born would be a daughter and she would be called Clementine. I remember, embarrassingly, finding one of those character-based Myspace pages that some poor fella made, to curb his own romantic shortcomings, based on the character of Clementine from Eternal Sunshine. I chatted back and forth for months with that account, knowing full-well it was likely a middle aged man, but also somehow hoping, using it to fill in a gap I knew I had.

Now I'm 21, and these intervening six years from that diary entry to now have been, to say the least, tumultuous. I've done some good things. I've done some bad things. I've learnt to love myself, and I've learnt to hate myself. I've hurt people, and I've hurt myself. Lately, I've been feeling lower than perhaps I've ever felt before. In fact, a few days ago, I went into my kitchen and held one of the knives to my body, gripping the handle, just wanting to know what it feels like to be near death. I'm a shell of who I was, and in that moment, nothing made sense and nothing was real. My eyes that saw the world were miles ahead of me, my vision a peephole in the distance. The light took too long to travel from that peephole to my emotional state, and finally the gap got to me and I just wanted to know what the escape route of suicide would be like. So there, in my kitchen, holding that knife, something happened. Something small, insignificant and mostly ordinary. My dog, whom I've lately bonded with more because I've empathized with her lately (she's had two miscarriages, she's never been the same since) came into the room. She was frantic. It's like she knew something was up. I've since researched and whilst the jury is still out, I'd like to believe she recognized something in my behaviour, that she felt my deep pain. She ran over to me wagging her tale so hard her spine was cracking. I looked at her and then suddenly put the knife down and burst into tears. I fell to the floor and let her jump all over me. It was incredibly comforting. I didn't think I'd be so comforted by something that doesn't even have thumbs.

A lot of things have led me to the point I'm in now. I've been horrible to most people in my life - one person in particular. I've ruined any sense of self-identity and I've disconnected my emotional wellbeing from everything I do. I have acted fake around everyone. It's really something: some people know me as shy, some as charming, some as manipulative, some as alluring. No one really knows the real me because I've become so good at wearing different costumes. But it creates a dichotomy - my duality rips apart who I am into little pieces and uses each of these different pieces (manipulative, funny, whatever) and builds from there. The real me, the dustless empty space where the pieces used to form one, longs to get out. When I act cocky and assertive, the real me, the neurotic and anxious me, scratches and claws to get out but I never let it. It confuses me, and makes me feel even more disconnected.

So I finally decided that I needed to change. Earlier this year I made a vow to become a better person and this is the last step. I anticipated how low I'd feel - I've had to face the abyss of my own past and my own demons and it most certainly has faced me back. But here I am, laying it all out. This is my declaration. So whenever I can, I'm going to talk about a different topic. I'm going to weave topics I care about and topics that have relevance to me with my 'life-story' (don't worry, I'd like to think I'm a good enough writer to not make it boring) and I'm going to thematically weave all this in with different songs. Because music is incredibly influential in my life. I just want to find who I am again, and become a better person, because lately I haven't been either of those things and deep down I know I'm good.

So this is my declaration. My name's Ryan. I'm a writer. I write screenplays, mostly. They're all about love and death and legacy and ego and depression. I want to direct films as a career, and I'm making my first film next year (although my depression seems to tell me I'm not, but fuck that guy). I'm constantly asking myself whether I'm a good person or bad person. I think it's easier to be bad, so I usually opt for that choice even though it kills me inside. I have an odd family life. I collect vinyl records and I used to collect Chucky dolls. You'll get to know me a lot more during the foreseeable future, but for now,

you'll be hearing from me.