Apparently, I'm filling out my Facebook profile like it's on a dating site.

What I'm about:

I’m cheerful at first brush, and I am level headed most situations. I’m actually at my happiest when I’m wading through chaos, slipping into the background and slowly putting things back in order. Maybe my attraction to dischord stems from that hidden mad scientist in me. Lucky for everyone, I’m too dumb to cause any damage.

I attribute my quirkiness to the circumstances presented to me. Not everyone’s past has been idyllic, and mine was no different: a sister robbed of normal motor and mental functions because of disease, the ramifications of that event on my family, and the end result on me that I’d care not talk about. There are times when I wish that I had survived my trials a bit more gracefully, so that I would have ended up as a better role model for my siblings and others. At least I got through them. There aren’t any stickers for living past childhood, but I’m okay with the pat on the back I give myself.

But living through crap isn’t the only reward, isn’t it? I’m glad to say that my experiences have pushed me into a number of interests that I hold dear.

Writing counts as one of those interests. It’s been touch and go as of late, damn you writer’s block! Regardless, I get real jazzed when I think about the trajectory of my writing habits. An interest that started with Final Fantasy fan fiction, complete with self-insertion (I was always the roguish dude), shifted to adventures involving my high school band geeks and a trombone, and lately into poems and stories about love and isolation that, to this day, gives my brain a real workout - and headache.

Photography is another thing I love. Most of the themes that I touch on are, well, that whole “love and isolation” thing. Let’s just say that those two things are very present in my mind at the moment.

Other traits that were fostered from my experiences: I am loving to a fault (i.e. vulnerable). I am ethical to a fault (as in killjoy). I am detailed to a fault (read: perfectionist). You can say that I’m pretty faulty. I’m quite guilty of that, actually. I come from a Catholic background.

This leads me to the thing that I struggle with the most: though I’ve been granted a number of good quirks and traits because of this life, the one real bad thing is that I am too harsh on myself. I have a tendency to catastrophize my situation and, as a result, I literally make my life worse than it should be. It’s a major bummer. I work so hard to make good with people I like and know, only to panic at my good fortune and purposefully withdraw or alienate myself from it all. I basically slice off my Achilles tendon just when I’m about to win the 500 meter dash - metaphorically speaking, anyway.

Some people see me as a mess. Hell, most of the time I see myself as a mess and find it unbearable. But on good days, like at the time of this writing, I see my chaos as an opportunity to confuse and delight anyone who will listen.