For Granted

                  There are things in life that have happened to me that I think it take for granted. Like I have two loving and supportive parents, who have always been there for me and kept me on the straight and narrow without killing my artistic side. Many people, more than I like to believe, come from broken families. Sometimes I take money for granted. I am not by any means rich, however, my family has been well enough off that I have never wanted for anything in my short life. Again I could name on two hands the number of people I know whose situation is as polar opposite from mine as can be. In my short 20 years of life there is, though very small, one thing that I have never taken for granted. My eyesight. You see it is hard to take for granted what is slowly slipping away. When I entered the second grade all those many years ago, I started to know what the phrase "I can't see" really meant. Not in relation to standing behind someone taller than you in a line, or attempting to see far off into the horizon like my parents. No this was a loss of physical sight, things were starting to get blurry. And so I got my first pair of glasses. When I then say that from that moment on my eyes began to deteriorate, I do not mean that as an exaggeration. Over the next 12-14 (can't exactly remember my age when I got them) years of my life I went from one prescription a year, to two and then to three. My eyesight was worsening at an astounding rate, even more astounding in that mine were the only eyes in the family to be doing so. All other family members with eye problems did not develop them until their mid to late 40's. So why was I different? Why was I heading toward total blindness like a bullet train without a conductor? After a while I stopped questioning it, the glasses simply became a part of me.
                 As I got older and began to discover the challenges that come with getting older, I started to use my glasses as a security blanket. Unfortunately, I have a very expressive face. This face shows exhaustion, anger, happiness, and even malice without hesitation or provocation. Behind the thick frames of my glasses it was easier to hide these things. Oh the happiness showed through in my smiles, sadness in the way my shoulders dropped, and even anger could be spied in the clenching of my fists. I suppose my whole body is expressive. But it was the malice that I wished to hide the most. The snide comments I made in my head that created lines of disgust next to my eyes. The look of extreme disapproval or worse as if I was looking down on you when I allowed myself to ruminate on how I actually felt about the people I dealt with. Don't misunderstand I am not a mean person by nature. But I am not confrontational. I would rather say something that I know would sooth your frayed nerves then speak my mind and jump into an argument. There are very few people I argue with, almost none of these people reside outside of my family. Now it is harder to hide this side of me. I don't have the thick frames to cower behind when I feel my spiteful side raise her ugly head and sneer at someone I know I could verbally punch into the ground. Maybe, eventually I will get better at hiding her again, as I haven't had to in the past. So I can not take for granted the protection that my glasses brought me, even as they hindered me in life. Loosing them was like being pushed into a lake without the ability to do more than dog paddle. I would not immediately drown, but as the time past and I could not find them the panic would rise, my strokes would turn wild and I would eventually sink. I have had more than a few panic attacks over missing glasses. Now that will no longer be an issue.
               So I must be grateful, and I am immensely so. I have never received a grater gift besides the gift of life. My eyesight has now completed me, I am as perfect as I can be. But still, part of me worries for that selfish, malicious part of me just under the surface. It will be harder to hide her now.....I'll just have to learn.

Anticipation and other complicated emotions.

Remember those Christmas Eves when you would go to bed as late as possible? I used to. I used to believe that if I went to sleep as close to Christmas Day as possible that I would sleep for less time and be able to get to my presents faster. I was filled with a sense of anticipation. What would I get, would I like it, what would my brother get? So many questions. For some reason I thought that when I got older I would stop anticipating the joys of Christmas Day present opening....but I still go to sleep as late as possible. In college there are many different things that can fill you with anticipation.

Like for instance those days leading up to getting the results from a previous test. Nervousness, Dread, and Anticipation. Those are your feelings for that. As you get closer to the end of college it becomes anticipation of graduation. The finish line is straight ahead, all you need to do now is sprint for it. And then there is the other type of nervous anticipation that involves other people in college. Like, I'm going to ask this person out I hope I don't get rejected. Or I'm going to go dancing, I wonder if anyone will dance with me. Not so much worries as random thoughts that sit in your brain and play out different scenarios based on what you know about your subject. The more you know the longer and more elaborate the scenario.

Is there a difference between the nervous feeling you get right before you stand before a lecture hall full of students and present something and the nervous feeling you get right before a first date? Yes, No? I'm not sure chemically speaking its the same reaction. A quickening of pulse, a slightly queezy feeling, and a nice dosage of anticipation (either for the end of the presentation to come so you can sit down, or for the date to start so you can determine whether you have finally found a successful match or are just wasting your time again.) In truth I'm not sure if the feelings are different. For that matter are any feelings different based on the circumstances that they occur in?

For instance are you the same kind of happy when a sibling is born as you are when you get married? Or are you the same kind of frustrated when you cant understand a concept in class as you are when you cant seem to open a pickle jar. Or even....are you the same sad as when a friend betrays you as you are when a loved one dies? Do the circumstances matter? Can your emotions (chemical reactions brought on by a change in your environment causing  a hormonal shift in your body) truly be completely different in one situation and the next?

.....This post was brought to you by that 1:35 am feeling and too much time to myself. Thank You.

Be Truthful

I would like to talk about lying, but not lying to one another. I would like to take a little trip into Lying To Yourself. Its actually a very simple concept and one that many people do on a regular basis. When you tell yourself that one more cookie won't ruin your diet, or that telling your child a small white lie is best for them and won't come back to bite you in the ass, this is a form of lying to yourself. Now I'm not saying that doing this is an all around bad thing, especially since most people do it subconsciously and don't even notice. No I am talking about those people out there that know that they are lying to themselves, that continue to lie to themselves and eventually start to believe their lies. This is especially dangerous because once you start to believe your own lies you start to share your lies with others as the truth. I don't plan to rant on this as I find that the subject tends to be so simple it becomes an abstract concept that many just can't seem to wrap their heads around.....no I want to admit my own lying. I have lied to myself for many years that I will be happier if I have someone in my life, romantically. In high school I didn't care if that person was male or female as long as I had someone to claim. In college I settled for males because the drama of being with a female is too much for even me, however, this trend of roping myself to someone has been alive and well within me for years. I have lied to myself many times, saying things like "You won't be happy if you don't get a boyfriend." or "Time is starting to run out, hurry up and settle down." This has becoming more common especially in the recent years. I admit this....I repent this, but I also respect this lie. It has become so deep rooted that it is impossible to fully dislodge. Because of this I feel justified in allowing myself to get this concept off my chest. I am fine being single. I do not need someone in my life romantically to be happy. These are truths, in fact they are well known and wide spread truths....so much so that most people forget about them. I am only 20 years old and have my entire life ahead of me. I do not need to tie myself down to someone when at times I can barley keep up with my own emotions, that isn't fair to the person I am with, and it sure as hell isn't fair to me. Now I know and understand that I will slide down this slippery slope of desperation again as anyone would in my situation, but I hope to impart words of wisdom on all who find themselves in my position. Stop freaking out about it and just live your life. I have found that on the rare occasions when I stop planning every second of every day, when I stop over thinking every single action I make and when I simply go with the flow that everything turns out much better than I ever could have planned. Go with the Flow. Live Life without Interference. And Love Freely....that would be my advice. Although life has no guarantees, living it this way makes things a lot easier to handle.

Event Writing

Event writing is exactly what it sounds like. It is writing about an event, or due to an event. If something huge happens in your life, good or bad, and you are suddenly struck with the need to write about it, whether in a story, a journal, a diary, or a blog, then that is event writing. As I have taken a step back to analyze my writing style I have found that event writing is all that I do. And truthfully that isn't a bad thing....for the most part.

Let me tell you why event writing is bad. For the same reason that basing a TV show on a single event is bad. Eventually that event ends and so too does the TV show. Understand? Let me explain. Many of my novels in progress are based on events in my life. I read a good book and become inspired by the concept so I decided to change it enough to call it my own and start a book. I fell in love with the writing style of an author and so imitated it using my own ideas. I fell in love and had my heart broken so I made up a story that allowed me to vent about it. Event writing. As with event TV shows, when the event has passed so too does my inspiration. Its like a spark, a flame suddenly lite in one moment only to be blown out in the next. My writing only lasts for as long as I am influenced by this particular event. And sadly that is no way to write.

Now I am trying something a bit different. Sure there are things going on in my life, nothing super big except a breakthrough in my physical health, but nothing that would inspire a story out of me. So I am going to try to write something during this time of my life. When I have no outside inspiration, and nothing but my own imagination to help me along. I won't say that my everyday life won't filter in, after all the saying is "write what you know", but these events won't control my story as they usually do. I would ask that someone check up on me (I do see that people read this blog though I have never had a single comment) and see if I'm still on track with this novel. I plan to finish around Christmas, and then maybe move toward getting it published (who knows, pipe dream?). Check in with me, see if I'm still on track or if life has gotten in the way. Or don't considering I am not accountable to a single person who reads this why should it bother me. Regardless, I will probably put up periodic posts about my progress. If for no other reason than to be accountable to myself through this blog. So here is the plan, try to write without an event....and if that doesn't work out it simply means one thing. I will need to get out and explore the world, cause if I don't gain new experiences then what will I have to write about? ;)

Happiness and Contentment

There is a saying that you should be happy with the life that you have. Some people are, and some aren't. I suppose that is alright in the grande scheme of things, not everyone can be happy with every aspect of their lives. I personally have been having a hard time being happy with my lot, medical problems up the ying yang. It's hard to be as young as I am and have to deal with the problems that people don't usually face until their late 60s early 70s. But you know I finally have an answer to my problems, and hopefully everything will work out. So I can now say that I am content with my life, maybe not completely happy but defiantly content.

There is a difference between contentment and happiness. To be completely happy means that there is nothing in your life that you would want to change. That everything is as perfect for you as it can be in this imperfect world. To be content means that there are things you would gladly change, things you would rather do without, people you would rather be with, or be without. I am there, content. And I'm happy to be there.

Family Values

I feel these days that there are two maybe three types of people. Those who believe that family comes first always, those who believe family knows best but doesn't always come first because there are more important things in life, and those who believe that after a certain age your family should take a back seat and stop meddling in your life. For the longest time I thought i belonged to the second group....today I found out that I am still firmly planted in the first group. Now I'm not saying that one group is better than the other, only that I thought I was more independent that I actually am.

I thought that if i was with someone that my family, that my parents, didn't approve of that I would be ok and just shake it off. After all it's my life not their's and they should respect my decisions on who I want to be with....right? But no, to actually hear them say that they would never approve of the person I had picked for myself was devastating to me. I didn't think it was going to hurt so much, and so I did the only thing I thought I could do. I broke it off....and I felt terrible for it. But slowly I am starting to feel better, to know that this time it wasn't me, or him, it was THEM. They made me do it, it wasn't because he didn't like me, or that I thought he was a lying cheat, or anything to do with us. It was all them, and though that seems messed up on so many levels....it makes the whole thing ok in my head. As long as it wasn't me....as long as the blame lays elsewhere. I can blame it on my family values and be done with it.

I still resent them just a bit though. But they are my family, and I love them. And they love me, and beyond everything else at least I can be sure in that....if nothing else.

Thoughts on Love

I know this is a relatively fast turn around rate for me, I usually wait for months or at least a few weeks between posts. Not that I really think anyone out there is reading my work. Recently I have been thinking more and more about love. Possibly because I am always surrounded by it within my family, and recently at school as well. I myself have no one to claim to be in love with, well not anymore.

Its so hard for a romantic like me, who only wants to be as much in love with the person I end up with as my parents are in love with each other, to see the word love being thrown around so casually. In this day and age saying I love you is as common as saying I'm hungry. Why is that? When did it happen, or more importantly why is it happening? Even though I am a romantic I will never claim love at first sight.....lust at first sight maybe. So many people my age and younger are suddenly "in love" with one another.....and they are doing stupid things. They think "its alright because I love them", and then they have unprotected sex have a baby and the whole relationship goes to hell. Because the kind of love they think they have for one another can't withstand waking up every two hours for a crying baby, bad tempers because of lack of sleep, and sudden complete responsibility of another person's life. Not all relationships end up this way, and I in no way mean to group the entire youth together. I just talk about what I have observed. What does my thirteen year old cousin know of love? I fell in love for the first and really only time thus far in my life when I was seventeen years old, a senior in high school. I was confused by what I was feeling, and had to ask my mother to verify it. So if I couldn't say I was in love when I first felt it, how could my young cousin possibly know what it feels like enough to claim it. I bet she thinks she knows by watching reality tv.....yuck.

I commend those people who fall in love in high school and remain together for the rest of their lives. So far in my limited 19 years I have only met one such couple. My neighbors whose daughter I used to play with back in middle school. In high school I thought I had met another pair who would end up that way. Their love was so blinding at times that it was hard to look at them, and yet I couldn't help but stare. It was beautiful. They made it through a year of long distance, him half-way across the world and her stuck here. She brought him to our prom on her laptop, my my my that was love. They entered college and still their love was strong though they were no longer always in each other's presence. But after an international relationship college within the same state should have been a piece of cake. One year through college is all they got.....they aren't together anymore. It confused me so much when that happened. I mean really, how could people who are so in love, and have been in love for more than five years suddenly stop. And these people were children, I suppose if you wanted to blame the failure of the relationship on something you could blame it on their inexperience and youth.....but this sort of thing happens to adults to.

You have heard of the couple who was together for forty years with a handful of children, and then one of them just up and leaves. Like they only waited for the children to be big enough to not need the both of them so much before splitting like they wanted too since the birth of their second child. I don't understand that either....and I heard a quote the other day that made me laugh sad as it is. "When did the marriage vows change from 'Till death do we part' to 'Till the feelings go away'?" Sad as the statement is that is how the world is turning out to be. I'm guessing if I were to look it up that the USA has the highest divorce rate of the world....I would probably be right. It just makes me sad, because I would love to find my one true love. At one point I thought I had, but what was deep all-consuming love for me, was the deep love of a friend for him. Oh well, maybe my prince charming will come around eventually.....though i would prefer a much more humble pauper.

What I'm trying to say, trying to get you [whomever you may be] to understand is that love is something to be treasured, something to cherish. It is not something to be thrown around from person to person like ill thought out advice, or a bad cold. You can not be in love with someone after knowing them for a week. You can not be in love with someone the moment you lay eyes on them. Don't let yourself be fooled into thinking that those feelings you think you are getting are deeper than they seem. You'll set yourself up for heartbreak without even knowing it. There is nothing wrong with taking it slow, love needs time to mature, and it will mature with you. True there are some loves that are not meant to last, but look at the generations that came before us and even before our parents. Back then divorce was a dirty word, now its so commonplace I find it disgusting. Let's make divorce a dirty word again and just stay together. Being with someone is knowing that you are going to fight, you are going to yell and scream at each other, run away from your problems, say that you hate each other and then apologize because it's not really true. Its going through such fantastic highs that the lows seem that much more devastating  its making miracles happen and watching something you make together flourish under your attention. It's time to stop giving up when things get a bit hard, suck it up! Teach your kids that not everyone is a winner, not everyone gets a medal or a prize just because they played the game. That's a stupid way to make kids fight for something they want. MAKE THEM EARN IT! So that when they are adults and something gets to hard they don't back out and run away because they don't know how to handle it. Teach your children, and in turn they will teach their children, and eventually....maybe we may get back to a time when saying I love you is sacred and divorce is a dirty word once more.

Writer's Block

Every writer in the world knows this feeling. Hell every artist in the world knows this feeling. That horrible debilitating feeling, like everything that makes you special suddenly no longer exists. Like the reason why you breathe has suddenly been stripped away from you and you are left gasping for breath, unable to go back, unable to move forward. I just went through nine months of this torture  where I couldn't write, I couldn't dance, and although I could still sing the words were hollow and emotionless. It's like someone put a cork in the part of me that's more than everyone around me. Like the part of me that made me ME suddenly wasn't allowed to live. A month ago the dam broke, and I was suddenly flooded with new ideas. Endings to books I couldn't finish before, the urge to dance all my pain and problems away, a happiness that started from my core and filled me up until there was nothing for me to do but to let it out. The dam was broken.

There are some though who are still in that dark place. Where they have nothing to own, to make them unique. Where that creative, artistic part of them is still locked away somewhere deep inside, where either it can't come out.....or they won't let it. Let your creativity come out, let the world know "Hey this is me, there is more to me than you see, Now Look At Me!" Go paint a picture, write a poem, write a book, write a song, hell sing a song, dance to the beat of your own drum, share a world changing idea with someone and watch how it grows. Do something other than walk through life in a haze, following the other sheep on a path that leads to the socially accepted. Stray from the path, please do it. The best places to eat are those places that hardly anyone knows about because they are off the beaten path. The most beautiful place i have ever come across is a glade in the middle of the woods, hidden by trees who shield it from the busy dorms and soccer fields that surround it. Go discover someplace magical, because if you don't you will be stuck behind that dam holding you back.

Call it what you will: writer's block, artist block, musician's block, etc. It is a block, something stopping you from achieving all that you can. So take a sledgehammer to that block and get on with your life. Let your imagination out to play. After all, the world isn't black and white, why should your mind and personality be any different?

Exceptional Talent

I wonder if anyone truly thinks about the real exceptional talent out there. The little four year old girl who has the voice of an opera singer. Or the little boy that wrote an entire short novel before he was ten. Of course there are the people we know about, child actors that never got out of show business and just went from one job to the next. People who were randomly picked up on the internet, or on television shows because they had the talent and the guts to do more than showcase their talents to family and close friends. Then there are others who have talents that no one knows what to do with. What about the man who fell from five stories up and didn't break a single bone? Or the college student who only has to glance at the pages of a book and they know everything there is to know about that book. What about the professor who is both a teacher and a magician, a real one? I have a friend who believes that magic is real, but there is a secret society that will simply kill you if you spread it. Of course no one has died because no one in this day and age believe in magic anymore....fewer and fewer are believing in miracles as well. I digress. [And no I'm not talking about Harry Potter]

Exceptional talent goes unrecognized for the most part, but not by the general public. Oh no. When the general public finds exceptional talent they make a huge deal out of it. Throw it all over the news, the tabloids, anyway that they can to get the word out. And then they start to invade the lives of the talented one they have recently discovered. They pry, and question, and lie because nothing is sacred anymore once you become a recognized talent. And maybe that is why there are so few truly exceptionally talented people. I think they either don't recognized their own genius or they are too afraid to be pulled in to the scary world of celebrities. I for one know i wouldn't be able to handle it. The pressure and the constant "always in my business" attitude of the world would cause me to either, cut my losses and become a recluse, seriously hurt anyone who tries to meddle in my private life......or off myself truthfully. I love to write but hope to never become a celebrated author. I love to sing but hope to never become famous. And last but not least, I hope to never fall for a celebrity or have them fall for me [a very unlikely happening but still] because i think to be connected to a celebrity is almost as bad. I mourn for the truly exceptional....its a pity they don't feel as free to express themselves as they should.

Spiraling: Drowning in the chaos

I can hardly function sometimes with all the junk running around in my head. I feel as though a thousand thoughts are all running around fighting for my attention. Some are about school: things to study, exam coming up, friends I've met, conflict, drama the usual school life. Others are about money: I should get a job and stop mooching off my parents, where will I get money for my Masters, my PhD, I don't want to have loans....and still others take the form of characters from my stories. Each character becoming a voice in my head trying to get me to finish his or her story. The constant noise keeps me up at night sometimes. There are times when the unimportant voices overpower everything else and I become forgetful....all the important things suddenly don't seem so important anymore. And when I finally realize what I have been overlooking, it's like I start to spiral out of control. I start to worry, about anything, and everything. My worries have worries....and I can't stop. Each new worry produces its own concerns, like what if I can't do anything to fix this worry....what if I'll never be able to fix it. It;s terrifying to feel so out of control of your own thoughts. Like there is someone else thinking through everything for me, and they just push all their worries on me leaving me with nothing to focus on but the worry. But this other person is ME, so I get done what needs to be done and I move on to new worries. Yet still things get put away on the back burner to be fretted over and worried about later. Like finishing my book, egged on by the voices constantly clamoring for my attention. Or getting a boyfriend, starting a family as I so desperately want to at times, because I'm too lazy to put in an effort and there is so much else I'm worried about. Constantly worrying, spiraling out of control, lost in a sea of tasks and desperately  helplessly trying to find a way out. Out of my own head, out of my body just for a day, an hour.....just to find some peace before the chaos once again comes crashing down. It's terrible....horrible....and yet.....it's my life.