Making sense of the impossible

I have been scared to write-on this thing at least. But I am not scared now. In fact, I am only sorry I was scared at all. So to you all, please feel free to read my words and take them however you please because I am selfish and there are things I want to say and, more importantly, want you to hear.

I want to say something about the end:

I don't know how to wrap my head around it, but the end is here, and no matter how many times I try to rationalize it ("Holy crap, we only have a month of school left... We graduate in a week... That was my last time spinning around in my advocate chair..") it doesn't really help me understand the situation at hand.

So I won't go on. That's not why I am writing. I am writing to say thanks.

Thank you all for all the ways I am different because of high school; we all stand out, simply by being ourselves.

Thank you for singing in the halls, dancing in squares, running in circles, spinning in chairs.

Thank you for teaching me how to breathe and hold my tongue and hands and yet know when it's time to let go.

For showing me how to look at a rock and know its history, a cloud and know its altitude, an essay and know its lesson. Everything has a journey, ourselves included. Everything had a story to tell.

Thank you for caring for me when I didn't care myself and being careless when worries were useless.

For giving me support, unconditionally.

For building houses with me, learning how to be capable, installing windows and using power tools, turning uncertain hands into tools of their own.

For treading on dormant volcanoes, eating lunch on the grass, being my own cool breeze.

I can't rationalize it, but I know I am grateful.

The end is here; it's sweet and sad and exciting and impossible for me to understand. But it's only the way it is because of you all.

 Thanks.

Unfound

What lies in the shadows?
Never to be found.
Never to be heard
or read
or seen.

What goes not unwritten
but unpublished?
I think the words, they're out there
somewhere,
but I think they're collecting dust
instead of the admiration they deserve.

Everything, everyone, needs a spotlight,
at least sometimes.
We all need attention,
someone to listen to us
to appreciate us.

Just think what could be hidden
in darkness.
You're favorite band, unheard.
You're favorite book, unread
You're favorite photo, unseen.
You're favorite person, unloved.

What if the light passes over
but passes on?
What if we never find what
we never knew we were looking for?

A Word to the Wise

Mottos, let me begin by saying, are great. They are just little phrases, but the ones in my life ring through my head over and over.

Have you ever been faced with a situation that leaves you without a clue as to what to do? Suddenly your brain is a black space filled with nothing and you need it to be filled with wit or logic or instinct or something! Then something filters through, a ringing something. It's that phrase, that motto, you may have forgotten about but presents itself when you need it most. It's that thing that gives you guidance in the blackness.

Recently, I have been working on a new one.

This is how it goes:

Life is easy if you make it easy. 

This is my reasoning:

Things in life can be hard and because they are hard, we complain about them. Studying. School. Practices. Meetings. Relationships, especially. Life, man. But if you approach something with the right attitude, I don't think that something that is hard can't be easy. Let me give you an example.

There have been some conversations that I have been meaning to have for awhile. I didn't want to have them because facing the problems or the people just felt so hard. I was nervous. Then, I just realized that this is life! Why on earth (get it?) should it be hard? 

It was just talking; it was just being honest, open, truthful. I didn't need to be nervous. So I decided that I wouldn't be. It was a hard subject to approach, sure. But that didn't mean I couldn't laugh or joke or be myself. 

You know that test you are dreading or that person you have been meaning to tell how you feel? Well, remember this is life and it doesn't have to be hard even if it seems that way. Enjoy it.

These are my other favorite mottos (maybe they will resonate with you, too):

My own self at my very best all the time

You do you, I'll do me, and one day we'll do we

Live simply so others can simply live

My Happy Place

Sometimes being the baby of the family has its perks. I, annoyingly so according to my two older sisters, got a phone earlier, a higher allowance, a later bedtime that turned into a later curfew. But as my sisters have gotten farther away, the spotlight of attention has focused in on me. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with spotlights; I am an attention seeker. But that light can get hot after awhile. 

On my stage (i.e. the dinner table), I would answer questions as if I was in the Miss Universe Pageant and I would do my best stand up act and I would report with a Fox News bias on my day. And my mouth between all the chewing and talking never seemed to stop moving. Then again, I have always been known for babbling, rambling, spewing words without having a clear point or purpose. But I think after awhile, I forgot what it felt like to listen.

When my older sisters were home over winter break, the light dispersed. I reveled in the coolness of its dimming. All of a sudden, I got to sit in the audience and watch the performance unfold. Stories from England and Vermont, pubs and classroom hooligans, cooking and rock climbing, new friends and new jokes. I was enraptured--laughing, looking, listening. I felt myself growing silent and my mouth could finally take a break. 

I felt relieved. I felt happy. I realized I felt younger; I was in my rightful place.

My sisters are always there for me, sometimes when I wish they would just leave me to make my own mistakes. But where would I be without their words of advice? They make me feel younger because they make me remember that there is so much I still haven't experienced. There is so much they still haven't experienced. Lucky for me, they have made a path for me to follow. Sometimes I choose not to follow it. But it's nice to know it's there. 

Actually, being the baby of the family definitely has its perks.

How Strange

College talk has left me thinking about the future and all the things that it holds. There are people in the world right now, people who are no more than strangers that will one day be a part of my life. They are out there just reading or sleeping or watching The League like I am. One day we will cross paths unexpectedly and then ask how we have never met and how have I gone this long without knowing you and how could I ever have lived without you in my life. And I can't wait to meet these people. 

But then again, all this college talk has made me realize my amazing friends will all be going their separate ways, finding the strangers that will come to fill their lives with love and laughter and memories. But not yet. Right now we are still all living in the same small town, and we have a bit of time on our hands-a rarity-during Winter Break. And as years go by, we will come home from college and still have this bit of time to meet up again, catch up, maybe introduce strangers that have become friends to one another. This is our time. And I guess what I want to say is that I am going to appreciate it and the next eight months because not seeing some of my friends for ten days already feels like forever because I am a melodramatic teenager who isn't used to being patient and as crazy as it sounds I miss them! Sorry this is the most pathetic blog post ever but just appreciate the fabulous people in your life-one day we may become the strangers.

Wait up, guys!

I bark sometimes, okay? And yeah, I will admit once in a while I bare my teeth and growl too. Sorry about it all, but I am unfortunately not referring to the metaphorical this go around.

There is just something about a dog's life. Yeah yeah, they get their bellies scratched and they sleep all day and they live the good life, but there is something more to it than that--or maybe something less.

Dogs live through instinct. And their instincts are pretty good. They know exactly what they want and it's not a lot.

Eat.
Sleep.
Play Outside.

That's all I want too! I really don't think it should be that hard. When I was younger, I lived a dog's life. K-5, I followed my instincts too. But something happened. Someone told me that I needed to stay inside at a desk and hold a pencil in my hand and write things because then I could be happy. And the weird thing was I believed Someone. Don't worry, I still was allowed to eat and sleep. But playing outside turned into practices and meetings and studying and procrastinating from studying and remembering and forgetting until I forgot the world used to be a playground.

Luckily, I have two dogs. Their doopy smiles hold more wisdom than Someone ever had. I open the door when I get home from school and they rush out, out to run and chase and smell the roses (or, more accurately, the shit they scared out of the squirrels that dared to cross onto their side). Aside from the whole sniffing for poop aspect, I want to follow their tracks.

So yeah, sometimes I try to forget that I have opposable thumbs and that I can actually formulate words with a tongue that fits within my mouth. I forget because sometimes that helps me remember my instincts aren't so different from my dogs. They may not be different at all.

Puzzled

Maybe we know each other too well.

I was struck with this realization today. It's so fun to uncover pieces of people's lives, new facts and faces. I love listening to stories, but maybe now we know each other's all too well. Walking down the halls, I could point out who that person is and how many siblings they have and what they are good at and how well I really know them in the end. Maybe not that well. Maybe I don't really know them at all. But maybe the fact I have an idea is enough. Actually maybe it's more than enough; it's too much.

I have been showing around a new student for the last month. She moved, coming to a new high school her senior year. Being new is hard enough, but I feel like being new senior year of high school may be the worst of all. At the lunch table, she said she had the option to go back to her old school after winter break. Her situation is complicated and messy and it's not my place to expose it online. But even though she missed her friends and even though they missed her too, she doesn't think that she really wants to move back. 

At first, I couldn't really understand it. Not wanting to return to what was comfortable--normalcy. What's not to like? There are a lot of things not to like, I realized. Having to explain yourself is one thing, but she has already met so many new people. She has a boyfriend here already--after only being here for a month (good thing I can't say the same after four years)! She rotates lunch tables. She is whoever she wants to be. 

I forgot the excitement that lies in talking to someone unfamiliar, trying to put the pieces together until they begin to create a clear picture. Maybe breaking the comfort of normalcy is just what we need.