Death... and Life

Photo-14

My friend took this from his iPhone.

Not that I've been thinking about death, though (although it is a fact of life we'd be happy to forget about some days.) But sometimes it just hits me. I'm going to die someday. And what do I have to say for myself so far?

Not that there's anything I can do from this point to drastically alter my story. School and family pretty much eat away all my time, controlling my decisions and virtually every aspect of my existence. And when I "grow up," my job will then dictate how I live and what indulgences I can partake in.

I don't like this system.

Not that I don't appreciate the value of hard work, that is. I fully understand that it pays off. I enjoy doing chores and getting dirty every once in a while even if I'm not paid for it in some way. There's satisfaction to getting something done. But something just doesn't seem right here.

And this is where I bring in The Lovely Bones. It's a great book with an excellent story. It's more than just a rape novel with imminent justice. It's a life story, more or less: the continuation of a life after a death. Of course, I could drag religion into all of this and tick - piss, that is - a multitude of people off, but really. Listen to me.

Susie has her own heaven in the book. Things she wanted when she was little, both things possible and impossible for our material world. I believe that our stay on Earth should be like a heaven of sorts. (Of course, we would be adding the Laws of Nature into the equation when necessary.) But why should we live our lives unhappy just because a boss or a job "tells" us to?

And again, I understand that we need those manual labor jobs and those small, necessary tasks completed to keep the world going round. But think about you. What are you doing with your life? What am I doing with mine? Am I happy? Are you?

My idea is to create my own heaven on Earth. I believe that everyone has the dream of a perfect life hidden somewhere within their mind, but if they don't focus on the details of that dream once in a while, they/I forget what we/I truly have. I believe in a lot of things. I believe in the things that make sense. I think everyone should take a few seconds out of their life to picture their most perfect moment, not being afraid to create it someday. ... And I don't mean bringing someone back from the dead or making someone fall in love with you or any of that. Just think about what makes you happy. Daily things that occur. A particular place you'd love to go again sometimes. And do it.

I don't think happiness is just a dream. I think it's a reality all in its own. And there are some who lead easier lives than others, and I understand that as well. But for me, being 15 and having nowhere to run, the future is just a mist I'm wandering through until someone creates the maze I must wander through for the rest of my days. I have visions of freshly-cut grass and mosquitos and half-melted ice cream cake with sparkling candles floating on the water. I have moments of fresh puddles and cool, salty air, of gulls' shattering breath carrying my heart out to sea. I have moments of sadness and joy, but above all, clarity. And guess what? No one can take that away from me.

I think that by envisioning what we want, we'll be able to see opportunities that could have simply passed us by. Where do you want to be? What do you want? Let it be impossible. Laugh with it. But carry with you the optimism I'm giving you. Make lists. Watch sad movies, even if they make you cry. Don't do the dishes for a day or two. Indulge. Escape, if only for a moment.

I'm currently a cynic, but I'm slowly learning how not to be. I'm conforming to the mold that I - yes, I - have picked for myself (however timidly I may be approaching my own solidity, that is). I feel that I am starting to belong to myself again; not feeling detached or wandering through snippets of conversations I don't wish to be a part of. Tomorrow I will undoubtedly start again from the beginning - I am not so strong yet. But I have had this thought and it is enough.

Me. I like the word. I like the sound.

I'll be creating my heaven within the next week or so. I'll give details later.

Can't Help It

I've lost my faculty of wonder, and you've burnt it out of me like a sinner. The cigarette stab that smolders at the very core of my being grows bigger and bolder with each day, creeping outwards to singe fingertips that try so hard to grasp at but thin air. A leaf it is, but set aflame before ever touching the deadened earth. Your pallid, lifeless fire crackles and consumes me, friends. You are but enemies yet unrecognized and deserving of nothing.

... that was the summary. Translation?

I've lost it. I really have. And I feel that I've been hiding it so long that it just... walked off. Left like an unsatisfied lover. Two beautiful windows but no heartbeat. Just a shaken fist and a cab ride to nowhere. I am but skin to my eyes.

... This may need more translations than I thought.

The existence of such people are few and far between. I am one and so is he, and perhaps another that I know of. Cynics of humanity, ready for something better. But what? I'm tired of searching. The people that I interact with every day have, like I said, "burnt" this wonderful infinite feeling out of me. I'm extremely sensitive to social situations and criticism, much more so than they are, and it affects my entire existence. One particular instance, one negative thought directed towards me, and I spiral downwards. I use you as the excuse to learn how to truly think and act.

What I end up forgetting is that everyone is different. There's no true way to act in a situation; what comes natural to some is a nightmare to another. I don't embrace my own feelings and fears; I only try to take everyone else's actions and blend them into some socially-perfect conceptual person that I begin to model myself after. In a way, I am never myself; just bits and pieces thrown together in shambles. I have her blindness for compassion, his obsession with images, her lack of a voice. Or maybe it's my own lack. Fuck people. I can never tell who I am when they're around.

However, I also have tried also to shut out the negative aspects of being a human from my model. Focusing on one's self too much, approaching the wrong group of people, awkwardness, and many other downsides have been "deleted" from my "being." I use phrases such as "well, I'd never do that" and "but I'm not that kind of a person" in conversation to lead you to believe that I'm NOT acting that way, even when I am. "Disclaimers" are the death of me. They only make me feel more guilty for being human and being the way I am. I only do this because I notice these flaws in people and don't want to be around them because they are that way. So I avoid being that way to the extent where I feel guilty for even acting that way a little bit. It's a tightrope walk while being pulled in all directions. I'm falling into fire.

And I'm already being egotistic in this post by my use of the word I. See? Guilt perpetual and unescaping.

In reality, I am a very babyish person. By trying so hard to use these disclaimers and focusing more on becoming someone else, the toddler-esque emotions and feelings never left my head. I am an  insanely jealous, unbelievably insecure, unnecessarily guilty, and overly melodramatic person. The life lessons that I was supposed to be learning throughout the years were learnt by this "model person" and not by me. I saw everything two steps ahead of what it really was, overanalyzing far beyond what need be and using this botched image to further alter my behavior. What a life.

Now I am nothing. Too far behind to catch up, but too far ahead to feel connected to others in any way possible. This cursed mind, this damned lie I lead.

I have decided that my mind is too easily molded by others' behaviors, so I have to make do and just hide until I can be alone. I don't have any true personality that I show in public: I am only you a million times over. In my head I don't even have a voice. But what is the reason for my incessant need to be accepted? Why? I have a dream to be lost in the woods, to run naked and not feel that I can brag about being that special and spontaneous. But why should I feel to brag about something so innocent and pure? What is the point? I would only learn that I'm being a "weirdo" from some uncaring, unimportant soul and then feel the need to erase the part of my being (because it surely isn't myself) that had a love for special and spontaneous things. That would be what would happen, I can assure you. Confusing, but so is everything else. Fuck it.

So that is me. My mind is infinitely more active than the norm, and it's slowly eating me alive. I doubt I'll ever be happy in life and be able to fully realize it. I only see my own faults because I am unable to see beyond you. You. All of you.

I crave being alone, but I'd be lost because nobody would tell me who to be. I need it, but it's killing me. It always will in the end. I will never crave company.

So, self-analysis over. I was hoping it would help me gain some of that wonder back, and I think I succeeded somewhat. And the wonder that I mention is, now that I think about it, just the voice that I receive when I am around people like me. I realize I must surround myself with these kinds of people, people like me that have already molded themselves permanently into beautiful, opinionated people. I feel that every day, my clay is slowly starting to settle into one of them. So my entire goal at this point is to avoid rocking the boat and to wait until college, when the 1,700-odd student body will all fall into their own niches and I will not be forced into theirs. I will blossom alone: fully, completely, and alive.

Until then, here I am, surviving. What a wonderful three more years I will have.

Nobody In Particular

Nobody reads this, I'm assuming. Which is all right with me, because then I can go and write stuff that I'd never be able to Facebook. (Facebook is now a verb. Yeah.)

So... it's just so strange. Your first love is never your first love. Your first kiss is never your first kiss. Your first anything is never really your first... because there's always something better along the way. Nobody stays together forever, and nobody loves you and only you. But you can try.

Five days can make up for a whole three months.

It's not that delirious-kind of happy. It's just a remote feeling that you get in strange places throughout your body. Your neck. The inside of your elbow. A sparkly feeling around your toes and fingers.

Anyway.

cheyeah.

Everyone says "cheyeah." Well, they did. Apparently I'm so vintage-haute that I can make it work.

i want to type in lowercase today. anyway, i finished the project. up until 3am (and change), but it's finished! i think i did a great job on it, even under pressure. i seem to work better that way.

this will be a short post because i'm just... tired. yeah. and it's late. yeah. and i just reread all of my posts and i have decided that, in the right circumstances, i am quite an interesting person. and poetic when i don't mean to be. i guess that's good, right?

anyway. uh. new stuff on deviantArt soon, i'll think of it eventually. just tired. summer will be the Renaissance of my existence.

Hmm

Photo_196

So I've realized that I'm my most creative, free-spirited, idea-crafting self at 2:30 am. So I'm inventing a job where you sleep 4 hours for 3 days straight, tackle some giant, creative project, then sleep for the rest of the week. That would be awesome. Of course, Mountain Dew would have to sponsor us so we could actually stay awake.

So I drew this for my Holocaust portfolio (i.e. ginormous English project). I like drawing in pencil. It's not done yet, but I'll finish it tomorrow. At least I got the bulk of the awesome work done. But you'll have to read it backwards just because my webcam won't flippy-flop it.

... at 2:30 am, EVERYTHING is awesome.

There really isn't much else to say now, is there? Night.

So this is what it is.

To feel sadness for someone else and not for yourself. To be that selfless, yet so selfish at the same time. To walk around with the knowledge you have hurt someone and still expect to feel so much better in the end.

Time will pass; this may never.

I guess it's true: loneliness is a chronic disease with recessions few and far between. It will kill us all eventually. I guess he was my chemo, but I was dying inside anyway. (Ok, so I made that last part up because it sounded dramatic.)

My eyes are blurry and I don't want to write anymore. I'm not sad; just guilty. I'm always guilty.

?

So somebody stole my ipod. I'm tired of telling the story, but I know who did it and we are not going to comply with this person's wish to go without some kind of punishment. The law is on our side.

Speaking of that, I just watched the You Don't Know Jack HBO movie about Dr. Kevorkian. It was pretty good. I wondered how much of it was realistic, but it was interesting seeing how he set himself up to be in court that last time and then lost the case.

My two favorite parts were quite brief - the first was when he was going to "kill" the first woman. She and her husband were inside a car and they were kissing, then hugging. It's almost painful to see old-people love; you know the end is coming and they don't have much time left. You hardly see older couples kiss and hug, so it's just this enormous thing that tugs at your heartstrings.

The second part was when the last lawyer compared Dr. Kevorkian to the genocide in Germany with his battle for a legal lethal injection, and Dr. Kervorkian just stands up and yells, "How dare you! How dare you!" over and over again. To that I have no comment.

I have hardly started my giant English project. I've done all the creative things for it (besides the collages, which I'm going to do Monday, I hope) but I haven't even started on the report and the analysis. I wonder what my procrastination issue is. Maybe it's hereditary. -hinthint-

It's raining outside. I used to think the sound of it was comforting, but now it's just... rain. Always.

By the way, I don't think I am depressed. There was a point when the monotony just turned to... I dunno, despair? and then back to the elation of living, and now I'm back to monotony. I'm sure the cycle will repeat until I graduate, and then what?

I've been using the topic of my future for a lot of 750words.com posts, but... I dunno. I'm thinking of going into English (what else) or psychology. English wouldn't pay a lot and psychology would involve a lot of advice that I don't think I would know how to give correctly. But I'd have a lot of interesting stories when I retire. Or maybe you have to swear some kind of oath not to tell.

Not sure if I mentioned the purchase of a netbook for me, but I love it. It's a little lacking in some things (speakers, brightness control, ability to change the wallpaper) but I'm grateful for it all the same.

Not much else is new. I have a desire to own a rat someday. And I want to grow old with somebody and kiss them before I die and take a stand for an issue I believe in. And write a book. But probably the book thing will come first.