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.
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
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.
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.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
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?
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?
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