This is going to waste your time, but was filling mine.

On nights like these when I squirm so restlessly and my mind rolls at an unearthly speed, I hate laying alone in silence. I question life; I question religion; I question myself.
It seems to me that my life has been a series of things that I have loved but could never have... I wish those words were mine, but I stole them from a book. All the same, I do feel this way. It's all forbidden fruit that I lust over. I like to pretend that it's for the best and that if I were to actually have what I wanted, the very fibers of my existence would unravel. I'M SO SELFISH. If that were fact, then I would be inferring that the world revolved around my life- all the decisions I make cause everyone else's existence. Ha.

I think the truth of the matter actually goes something more like this: It's not that I don't know how to love, it's that I don't know how to be loved.
Who am I to pretend I know what I'm talking about though? I would like to think that I am the most in sync person and that I can analyze any situation  and just know how to solve every problem. I'm arrogant, but ignorant. I carry on pretending to understand the abstractions of life, like hope, love and imagination. It's all irrelivant, I suppose.

Content. That's what I am. I could try harder, but I don't mind my life as I know it.
It's all meant to inspire but instead we stand, hands in pocket, facing foreword, afraid to exist as something more than normal.



I almost deleted this several times, but I didn't for some reason. It's all white noise.

Here's a blog.

I think we thought we were anticipating our futures.
I never anticipated what I am now, but rather made an ideal situation out of the presumable future, successful me. Here I am though. I wanted to grow up so bad and I knew that moving away was the solution, but in reality I remain as childish and aggressive as I always have been. And more than anything I hate that I know exactly how I am and can pin point every flaw and know exactly where I've gone wrong but I have failed to change who I am.

I mean, let me be honest. I like who I am to a degree. I wouldn't want to be anything else in fear that any other path might have left me less enlightened to my current situation. I hate that I thought I was so special for so long, and furthermore, I hate that people made me feel that I was something special that was going to make a huge dent on humanity by changing the aspects of how we live socially. The realization that I'm just like everyone else kind of upsetting but in a soothing way that reminds me that I am, indeed, human.

Being human is nice. Not that I really know the difference.

The Dangers of Growing Up Too Quickly

I woke up Friday morning at 4:00 am with a horrible case of pink eye. This, of course, was more than alarming to me because I am in college; pink eye is simply an excuse to skip school when you are in high school. I rushed into the bathroom and flipped on the light, blinding my good eye for an uncomfortable half minute. When my eye finally adjusted I could see my matted, swollen left eye. The sight freaked me out, causing me to immediately go digging for a rag. I ran it under extremely hot water, rung it out, neatly folded it, and held it to my left eye entirely too hard, as if the pressure would change the image I was seeing in the mirror.

Normal Eye

Pink Eye

I put the lid down on the toilet and just sat there. In the quiet of the night my mind began to get off track, and pretty soon I was remembering the last images I saw of my parents together:

For the first time in a very long time, my family all went out for dinner together at a Chinese restaurant. I was in a hurry to get out of there because I was going to stand in line to get one of the first copies of Breaking Dawn, a book in the Twilight Saga. All my friends were going to be there and I didn't want to be late. I chowed down and rushed away giving my love to the entire family. Even though the book release was very eventful, it didn't end up mattering in the end. By the time I got my book and got home it was 2:00 am. I tiptoed through my parents room to  use the restroom before bed. I caught a glimpse of my mom wrapped around my dad with her face resting on his chest, and his arm was wrapped back around her. This sweet image has been burned into my memory ever since. I thought to myself, "They must really love each other. If I could find someone who loved me that much, I would be happy... I would be happy." 

I stayed up until 4:30 reading and then went to bed. 

In the morning, around 7:30 my dad came into my little house and woke my sister and I up claiming that he had something to show us and it was really important that we got up right away. I sluggishly crawled out of bed and changed into some normal clothes. My older sister had moved out nearly a year before and my youngest sister was school shopping with my mom, so it ended up just being my and my little brother and younger sister. We drove about 45 minutes into a neighboring town and pulled into an apartment complex. We all hopped out of the truck and followed my daddy into an apartment on the first floor of the building. The rooms were small and the carpet was an awful, faded christmas green. I could hear the people in the apartment above us pacing back and forth through their home and a baby crying in the distance as a dog barked.

"I've been thinking about what to say to you guys," my dad started out, "And I still don't have the right words, but I'm going to go ahead and tell you... this is where I'm going to be living from now on." With every syllable my dad was pronouncing, I could feel my heart rip a little more as all the blood from the pain seemed to resignate in my throat, making me want to vomit. I could feel my eyes filling with warm, salty tears that soon began to trickle down the contour of my face. My siblings seemed to have disappeared in my memory, despite the evident presence of their sobs.

I began to back up against a wall and slide down, until I was in as compact of a ball as my thick self would let me be in. My dad began to speak again, but this time with a less stable voice, "I'm going to need some help moving some furniture in because I don't have any friends. All your mom's and I's friends aren't talking to me."

He then realized none of us were going to look him in the eye and became silent. I felt so deceived by the image of my parents from the night before burned into my head. 

As I sat on the toilet, remembering the treachery, my good eye began to fill with tears and it suddenly became hard for me to breathe and my body started trembling. I wept for a good 5 minutes before gaining my composure. I was embarrassed by myself for loosing it over a matter that happened over 2 and 1/2 years ago. I realized that that was the moment I grew up, a moment when I was merely 16 that the weight of my world was no longer held up by my parents but by me, a child who had never been trained to be alone and unprotected from the world. 

I wiped my eyes down again, ran the rag under more hot water, and took it to my room where I laid in my bed with it held to my eye, just looking at the ceiling until my alarm went off at 8:00 am.

Live, Love, Be Happy.

I'm not afraid to live

I'm not afraid to live tomorrow

I'm not afraid to live forever

I'm afraid of tomorrow; I'm afraid of forever.

The things that hurt the most are the uncertainties of life and the scariest part of living is life itself. I don't know that I'll ever find true love; I don't know if I'll ever look for true love; I don't know if true love really even exists. All we can do is hope and wait and love unconditionally. Love that is not exclusive and not inhibited, given to absolutely everyone, is true love. I don't want to sit in my tower and wait for someone to tell me they are coming to rescue me... I want to jump out of the tower and know the grass beneath my feet and experience the wind in my hair.

Life doesn't have to start here. There is time to remain a child and feel the warmth of the sun in your soul. It's not all high heals and brief cases... sometimes it's about letting loose and showing your true colors, exposing your heart and letting yourself become vulnerable. When people can see who we really are, they fall madly in love with the very being that you are. It doesn't have to be a romantic love. When you love, you will be loved. We only have one spark of genius, so don't be so quick to smother the flame God has given you. 

Why do we let ourselves become unimportant? Part of love it being able to let yourself be loved. It's not about finding love because everyone has the ability to love; it's about giving love and in return, the love you think you are looking for will find you. God made us to be creatures of habit and love is a habit. So make one out of it. When you are given love, make an imprint on your heart of the love because there will be times when you will need to run your finger over the grains of that imprint to remember why you are still where you are with the people you are with. 

If you wish to be happy, be.

You are the only person who can control whether or not you are going to find the joy in life. Stop blaming others for your decision. If you want to be happy, take action and make yourself happy. If you start finding the beauty in things, there is no way you can avoid being happy. Hurt is going to happen; you either live and learn or leave. 

Time is your possession, now you have to decide what you are going to do with it. You can make it your best friend or your enemy because it's going to happen no matter what. 

On The Inside

Naming the way one's heart feels is a very sensitive thing to do.
All hearts are confused; we all desire the same fruit but don't like the bitter core.
The sweet aroma of acceptance and purpose lure us in to each other, and we partake in the consumption of the sweet nectar of love, closing our eyes, letting every taste bud of our soul become addicted to this bliss.

While we have our eyes closed, our hearts become the most vulnerable. And when we finally get to the core of this relationship, it is bitter. Getting to the core leaves us with two options:
1. Throw away the remains.
2. Plant the seeds and allow the relationship to grow.

If you haven't caught on, the fruit I'm talking about is any type of relationship, whether or not it's romantic.
I would really like to pretend for a few seconds, for the sake of heartache, that the line between the two options was clear cut. But the fact that you still taste the fruit, even after you get to the core can really taint your decision. You see, I feel like I've gotten to the core, replanted, and gotten to a new core in a lot of my relationships. I'm planning on sorting through the seeds before I plant again.

Now that I'm done with that completely ridiculous metaphor, I will speak a little more comprehensibly.

Home?

I had a disturbing epiphany the other night: I AM HOMELESS.

It's hard to belong when you just don't. Here, in Fayetteville, in college, in my dorm, I am not at home. When I go back to Jonesboro to see my family for the holidays, it won't be home. It's like I left with expectations that everything would pause and life there would wait on me... but it didn't.

After this realization, I began to adjust the way I was thinking: I have been determined to make Fayetteville, Arkansas my home. I have been shunning everyone here who has tried to befriend me in hopes of returning to the friends I left... they aren't there anymore and it's never going to be the same. I have to adapt to where I am.

And so I have.

Who would have thought that the change was as easy as a decision? Not me. I'm not saying that I'm not homeless anymore... because I still am. I'm homeless, but hopeful!

This month marks three years since my cousin's death. 

I think that's where all this extra heart is coming from.

I just can't believe how much it still hurts to put it down, to know it's real.

How does life just happen so quickly? These years have been packed with so many lessons and I've been so broken.

I think what I'm really longing for is a real friend. Someone to just lay with me and talk about everything; someone to share music and movies with. I'm just ready to have someone there again. I've had my several months alone- it's just time.

Loni Love and I. I think we might be friends?

On a strange note, I keep having nightmares about clear, carbonated beverages. I thought withdrawal was supposed to happen like the week after you stop doing something??? I stopped drinking cokes a few months back and I've been fine up until this week! It's the strangest thing. I think these dreams are reality in so many ways, until I wake up. Speaking of which, I cannot believe how real my dreams are! I can't tell the from reality lately! 

Once upon a time, I too mistook bricks for love.  

Emmily

My mood turned melancholy quickly. It's funny how the little things in life can place a smile neatly on your face for hours... but then the darkest part of your being feels need to rip all the good feelings to shreds, pulling them into a black hole that is simultaneously spewing acid into your throat. 

I do not like this feeling. When it happens, warm tears drip down my cheeks.

There's not a person to pin this on. There's not an event to pin this on.

this is born of my insecurity

I just need to STOP.

And come back when I'm happy again.

bye

If you don't talk to me, I'll talk to myself.

Life's really confusing right now. It's like I've been thrown on a one way street and told to walk without an earthly way of knowing which direction I am going.

Today, I sat in the Greek Theater and just contemplated my life as a whole. What exactly does everything I am doing mean? It seems as if I am growing up, as if I am growing apart from the person I used to be. All my desires, thoughts, and concerns are so different from last year: 

Think back. Think really hard and try to remember what it felt like to live from moment to moment one year ago. It's hard to even remember what was going on in my life. It seems as though life is for mostly today, and then some for tomorrow. 

I walked a long way today, but I didn't mind. It was brisk and refreshing. For some of the walking I was even accompanied by my wonderful friend Jessica. Despite the fact that it was a game day and the streets were crowded beyond belief, I was able to see so much nature! 

Humphreys.

Bench.

Tree.

                    

Plate de la food.

Drawing de la table.

           

I just need to sit down and figure out life. That's all.