And all the bridges you've burned leave you trapped off at all sides...or I'm really kind of pissed off.

I'm really kind of pissed off.
I have no idea if this will make any sense at all.

First (and not really related): I am not stupid. I do actually know what's going on. (You don't have to pretend)

Now:
I burn bridges. You may or may not have heard this from me or realized this about me before, but it's true.
A lot of times, if something happens or I get annoyed, I just completely cut the offending thing (read: person) out of my life. (In fact, if you're reading this, you probably DIDN'T know this, because you're obviously one of the survivors). And it's easy. And it doesn't really bother me. That's wrong, isn't it?
I don't usually regret it. In fact, I don't usually think about it after.
And it's so EASY.

But here's what I'm thinking about: when it's not easy. Because it seems like, with me, it's either too easy or too hard.
Sometimes, I think I'm missing that gene that allows someone to get really really angry when someone hurts them. I like to think of it as the typical girl gene or the facebook status update gene (you know, "is SOOOOO better off without you!!!!!!" Or any Taylor Swift lyrics). And sometimes I wish I had it.

Here's the thing, though. I don't know WHY. I don't know WHY I can get angry at some people--so angry I decide I absolutely cannot tolerate that and want nothing to do with it ever again--and why I can't get angry at others--why I hold it in and bury it and strive to make THEM not mad at ME when they've done things that are probably worse and more unforgiveable.

The best I can come up with is that some people just mean more. Even if the reason isn't logical or good. Even if they, because of past actions, deserve to be cut out or deserve not to mean anything at all. I guess I must still need something. Or want something. Or maybe one day, the anger will be there, and there will be a big explosion. Or maybe I'll just keep going rround and round and round.
I don't know.

I just don't know.

Dangles on a string. Like slow spinning redemption.

I think of all the things I think are real (if any of them can actually be considered real at all), this is the one I believe most.

A lot of things I think are true I eventually end up seeing through. But God, please, PLEASE let me believe it every single day, just as much, for the rest of my life. Don't let this one get tarnished.

Hope.
It's the singlemost valueable, delicate, fragile, volatile of human emotions, and it is the most important.
You must always, always have hope.

If you lose it, to be frank, you're screwed.
It underlies everything you've got, past, present, and most definitely future. It is the only thing worth living for.
Without it, you cannot live.

If you lose hope, stop. Stop your life. Just drop everything, because none of it will matter if you don't, and none of it will matter until you find it again. (If you forge on, nothing might ever matter, ever, ever again.)
Put your life on pause, because if you lose hope you are NOT going in the right direction.
Whatever path you are on, get off. Whatever way you're going, stop. If you think it's right, it's not.
Fix it.

Without hope, you can not breathe.
It's delicate, fragile, impossible to find, easy to crush.
A beautiful truth.
But it's absolutely, undeniably, necessary.

The Digital Age.

Isn't it weird...in this age of technology...that you can GET so much more information than you're supposed to have?

Ok, so maybe this will make me seem like a stalker...I've accepted that.

But you can look up a lot about a person, and you can know things they haven't told you. And then you have to bloop right back into real life, and what do you do with that information? You kind of have to pretend you don't know anything about it. But you do. And that's strange.

I know it's a curse of the digital age or whatever, but that's NOT what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how that affects PEOPLE. And relationships. And how you function, day to day.

I just think it's strange that you can go about your life and live and interact and think nothing has changed in a relationship and then you see something online (with a tag date of..I don't know, a few hours or days ago, or something) and realize it's actually been there, running like an undercurrent, and you'd been going on like nothing happened and that person has actually been feeling however their blog or status says but you never knew because they never said anything and you never picked up on it and you never saw it til just now.

Does that mean emotions in this digital age aren't real until you see them on your feed?

Or when you actually know something BECAUSE it IS posted, but you don't see it in real life, do you say something? To try to help, to let them know you're there? Or do you ignore it cause they seem fine in real life and you don't want to look like a stalker?

What's real? Which? Internet and posts and blogs or talking and seeing. You can't deny that both have validity, and you CAN'T deny that we live in BOTH worlds. It's just a question of which do you take cues from when.

That's so, so totally twisted.

You make your past your past.

High school feels very far away to me right now.

It is, you might say. But what I mean is it feels infinitely farther than two years away.

I feel like a completely different person. Like the feelings I had then and the reactions I had then and how I did things and the THINGS I did...that were all so completely, completely paramount then--felt like the MOST important thing, then...are the unfaded mark on the wall when you take down a picture that's been hanging for a long time. They're just transparent spectres I can put my hand through.

And I feel like most of the people I knew then are in the same boat.

And here are the facts: We've grown up. All of us. Or maybe this is more accurate: We've changed.





Sometimes, I want to go back.

Sometimes, I wish really, really hard that I could take my life and transport it back. Back. Not because it was the best time of my life or because my life sucks now. (I definitely realize high school wasn't gold-coated. I'm perfectly happy looking forward too. And I know the whole "live in the moment" "just accept reality" stuff. Valid, all)

It's just because, for nostalgia's sake, I want to feel what that life is like again. To be that person again. Like trying on a halloween costume. Because, to be honest, I think I kind of forget. And I think that's a perfectly valid wish.

Sometimes, I wish it so hard it hurts.
But it never happens. And you know why?

Ignoring all the logical reasons about not being able to go back in time, it's this: Because as hard as you wish it, you can never fashion a memory into something real again.

A memory is just a intangible piece of crumbling tissue paper wafting through, always buoyed just out of reach by the breeze.

You can look at it, and it's beautiful.
But you can't catch it.
If you do, I suppose, it's only to find that it crumbles in your hand, leaving nothing but dust.

You can look back and smile and laugh and remember, but as hard as you try, you cannot make a memory be something real and living again. Just like you cannot make someone love you. If you think you have, there's a good chance you're lying to yourself.

It's sad. Sad that some things don't last. Sad that some things die. Sad that you can't really ever go back to before.
But here's the glimmer of hope: Memories, while you may always look back on them with the vague and unidentifiable pang of longing in your side, will always be there to remind you that it did--in fact--exist, once. And though you may never be able to inhabit them fully again, you can make new things. New things that are real. New things that will become memories, maybe, someday, too.

Call me crazy.

(I have no idea where this is going. I haven't really thought much about it.)

So, so often I find myself pausing. Standing in the middle of the sidewalk or in a room full of people, thinking...How the hell did I get here?

It's that moment where you look around at the place or the people and look back on every single choice you've made that's brought you to that point and you get so confused because it's not at all where you imagined you'd be or how your life would go and it doesn't at all fit in with the elaborate imagine you've constructed of yourself for yourself.

More often than not, it's more like...How the hell did I get here again?

I seem to find myself back at the same crossroads over and over and over. Despite what I think I've "learned" or the steadfast dedication I (apparently) had to never, never do (insert thing here) again. Despite whatever pain or frustration it casused me before.
It makes me wonder. Am I destined to continually follow the same ridiculous circle path--even when I can't really see the end and think it leads somewhere else? Am I even making sense right now? I don't think I am.

I continually make the same decisions, even when I should know better. I put off that paper. I go out on Saturday night. I stay up late. I have that argument. I put myself out there.
And I continually reap the same consequences. I am stressed. I am sick. I am tired. I ruin relationships. I get hurt.

Someone told me once (or maybe it was a quote) that the definition of crazy is doing the same things over and over and expecting different conquences, and it made me squirm a bit. Because honestly? I knew that was me.

I think that not learning from your mistakes is one of the worst things you can do...whether is be because you're too stubborn to pick up the pride or just too stupid to see it (though the second gets a little reprieve...until they DO realize it. Then if they ignore it, it's worse. Sadly, that's me.)

It's like...stagnation vs. dynamism. Like... the contrast of realtionships in Wuthering Heights (only not.) The same stale cycle of over and over and over vs. having the strength to break out in one bold, all-in move.

But how do you do that? I mean. How do you learn? How many times should you try before you have to conclude that nothing is changing? You don't want to give up too easily. Before you're brought to the absolute precipice and change is essential to survival?

Just call me crazy.

Time takes time, you know?

I haven't written anything here in a long time, but I've been thinking about it. I just have a bunch of free, unrelated thoughts. So. Here's what I've been thinking:

Creative Writing has truly been an experience this semester. I've never written much before because I've never FORCED myself to write...and I've never really seen what I can do. And you know what? It's more than I expected. It's challenging and stressful and hard to push myself, but it's rewarding. I've grown in a lot of ways. I've discovered different parts of myself. I've put that out there and let it be critiqued, and I've gotten better because of it. And guess what else? I've discovered that I've got some good stuff goin. And I've learned to embrace those things. And to grow.

I love fall. But I love fall in Bloomington more. It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen, and I just can't help but walk around campus every day and think...I made the right choice. I never question it. More importantly, I'm constantly reminded that life is beautiful. And that's a beautiful thing.

Songs are so inextricably tied to emotions. They will always take you back to that time to which they're connected. Even if it doesn't make sense. For instance the song "Bubbly" by Colbie Caliat makes me want to throw up. And it's no offense to the song. Just a thought.

There are certain days that will always force me down an introspective tunnel, and today is a day for me. These days make me look back and ask "What was I doing at this time last year? What was my life like? What was I like?"
And here's the answer I've come up with this year:
I've changed a lot. I've woken up to a lot of things, and I've accepted things. I've learned to let things go. I've learned to love myself more. I've learned to care about other people more. I've learned a little more about life and reality, and I've gotten more mature. More responsible, more assertive, more independent. More stable.
I've grown up and changed and things have changed and I feel like I'm more on the road to who I want to be and that I've got a clearer idea of what that is.
And despite what is lost in that, it's a good thing, I think. It gets me one step closer to the question that is inextricably connected to the one before that I always ask right after, and one that I think defines the pinnacle moments in my life/reflection upon it:

"What will I be doing at this time next year? What will my life be like? What will I be like?"

Stop and Stare

It's easy to get caught up in how busy life is.
It's easy to let yourself get caught up in a routine (because that's how it HAS to be or you wouldn't get done with all the stuff that needs to get done, right??).
It's easy to let yourself just walk from place to place and become numb to your surroundings because you're either walking too fast to pay attention or because you've seen it so many times that it's all so mundane.

It's easy, but don't.

That's what I've learned over the past few weeks.
I've learned that when you actually take the time you have to slow down and talk to someone from your Spanish class last semester (even when you probably should be walking to the stupid business school) you see things and people you normally don't. And the funny thing is, they're there all the time, but normally you're too busy walking to notice. If you take the time you actually DO HAVE (if you'll let yourself realize that) and slow down a little, I think you'll find that people and things actually come to you. You don't always have to seek them.
If you actually take the time to sit in the arboretum and do your reading during a break, you might actually get to SEE the ebb and flow of classes. See how empty campus can be even at 2 in the afternoon if it's the right time, and see how the sidewalks are suddenly innudated again.

A lot of my classes this semester are about seeing. Seeing from the perspective of a writer, a reader, and a photographer. My journalism professor is encouraging us to look at things in new ways. He says we tend to "tune out" the things in our lives that we see everyday and thus take for granted.

And he's right.