Born for This

I'm taking a break from my researching for the extended essay to write a blog. I actually find my topic absolutely fascinating (you know, which is why I chose it in the first place), but I do need to take breaks or my brain just kind of dies.

It's July 28th. I have NO idea where the summer went. There are only 3 weeks until school starts again, and I feel like I've spent 2 months sitting around doing nothing. I mean, I've gone to work and couple Wrock shows (including an amazing one in Boulder on Monday). It's also not entirely my fault since we had to reschedule my driving test, so I don't have a way to get anywhere during the week. But basically, I don't know where time disappears to.

It's as if I'm standing still and the world is rushing past me, full of people growing and changing and living their lives. I desperately want to yell at the world to stop, or tell it to wait for me to catch up. But instead I just watch. I don't know what I'm waiting for, or why I can't join the crowd. Well, that's not completely true, but I don't know why I can't let go of events that happened so long ago. I hold onto the past and dream of the future, but I never really make an attempt to change anything. And I so wish I did.

"What you have to decide...is how you want your life to be. If your forever was ending tomorrow, would this be how you'd want to have spent it? Listen, the truth is, nothing is guaranteed. You know that more than anybody. So don't be afraid. Be alive." ~Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever

I hope that as I'm going into my senior year of high school and preparing for college, I can learn how to be less afraid. Learn how to let things go and how to be happy in the present. Learn how to LIVE. And mostly I hope I can not only say these things, but believe them. I think so much about changing, about being happy, about how beautiful life is. But I need to allow myself to believe them, and need to allow myself to love people and love being alive, as scary as that is. I've been given a forever to live out, and I have the right to choose what it contains and how I live it. Maybe someday soon I can actually believe that statement.

I love so many things and so many people and so much about life, but I don't allow myself to express or admit that. I need to. I don't say the words "I love you" enough. I need to. I'm afraid of love because I'm afraid of loss, but that fear is keeping me from...well, everything.

So here it is:

I LOVE YOU.

I'm addressing that statement to everyone in my life, all the things I care about. But I'm also addressing that statement to life in general. It's a beautiful thing to be alive. Even if I can't always believe that, it's true. One hundred percent.

"I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing." ~Agatha Christie

I know this isn't a very exciting blog post, but...as I said, this is a journal mostly for me. So I can go back and remember what I was thinking as I grow up. I do hope you find something in it, too, though. =]

In other news, BEDAugust is coming up...sort of. I think Maureen said she wasn't doing it, and I'm not sure if I will be at the moment. I think I'll try, but they won't be nearly as long of blog posts as BEDApril in 2009. But I won't pressure myself too much, more just encourage myself to try to blog everyday.

All right. I guess it's back to reading about ethnicity and Belgians and the genocide. (And appreciating the life I have).

Cheers!!!

Days left of summer: 19

Inspirational quote/photo of the day:

Power Outages and Metaphors

I really am trying to get used to writing in a blog again, but it still feels really weird. I don't know that anyone will be interested in what's going on in my daily life...But I'm going to try.

My summer is honestly incredibly boring this year. It's mostly work on the weekends, summer reading, Extended Essay, rereading random books, and mindlessly watching old TV shows on Netflix/YouTube. Seriously. And I go to bed ridiculously early because I have NOTHING to do. The ROFLCOPTOUR concert at the end of June was the most exciting event of my summer so far. I thoroughly enjoy work because it means I get to talk to people and go out to dinner afterwards (on Sundays) and actually laugh and smile.

On Sunday I got off early so I walked around with my friend Scott who I literally have not seen since August 2009, and it was just so nice. I felt a little awkward at first, but then I realized I have no reason to feel awkward around him, because he knows me and cares about me. I laughed a lot and smiled a lot, which believe me, is something incredibly different for me lately. He also bought me this lovely Licorice Spice tea even though I didn't ask him to. And gave me a massage. :D I really honestly do enjoy talking to people and hanging out with people most of the time, but I can never make myself do it anymore and I don't know why. But Sunday was good for that, since we shared a lot of stories at Chili's too.

ANYWAY. I feel like that paragraph was incredibly boring. Sheesh, I need to just MAKE my life more interesting.

Slightly more interesting/strange story:

Today the power randomly went out in our house/neighborhood. TWICE. The first time was for somewhere between 30-45 minutes and the second was only for about a minute or so. I was just sitting in my room reading, and all of the sudden my lights go off. Okay, it must just be the light bulb. (I forgot I'd turned on both lights and that it was incredibly unlikely that BOTH light bulbs would die at the same time.) Nope. Because I then noticed that my computer was on battery power and my satellite thing on my TV wasn't turned on and neither was the air conditioning. It was just WEIRD. The only way it really affected me was that I couldn't microwave lunch, so had to revert to a sandwich (ugh). And, annoyingly, it came back on JUST as I was finishing lunch, so if I'd waited another 15 minutes, I could've had the lunch I wanted in the first place. But, whatever. We have power again, I can see, and I'm fortunate enough to have so many things that need power to work--including our fridge and microwave...

Right. Now for my weird metaphor. I was just thinking that people have power outages too. Sometimes we just lose power completely, for no reason, but we can pick ourselves back up again, turn the power on, and do our best to find our that reason and try to work through it. I've been in a power outage for months now, and I just haven't had the courage or strength to work through it. By now, I know the reason. And maybe, just maybe, one day I'll wake up and find what I need to work through it. And the power will come back on, and I can truly get back to living my life. (Wishful thinking?)

I'm sorry. That probably makes no sense to anyone but me and perhaps a few of my closest friends. But this is a journal, and I'm trying to be honest with myself. For once. Hopefully, someday soon I'll have something happy to write about that won't bore people so much. (Bastille Day Party on Sunday?!)

Right. Well, I have 54 pages left in our summer reading, but I've decided to just leave that for tomorrow. For now, I'm going to go catch up on YouTube subscriptions, because I always let them sit for too long.

Cheers!

Days left of summer: 33

Inspirational quote/photo of the day:

New blog?

I can't even count anymore the number of blogs I have had. I think I must have had my first one when I was about 11 years old, although before that and for a while after I kept paper journals (up until about 2 years ago, I think). But they have (clearly) all died, and I don't wish to try to revive them because there was a REASON I let them die. I still post on Maureen's ning, but it's not the most convenient place to tell people to go. But in general I haven't kept a blog/journal for over a year, and I kind of miss having one.

Mostly I'm writing here for myself, like I would in a paper journal (though obviously not things I don't want to make public), but I do like the idea of getting to share myself on the internet. I do have Generation of Awesome to express myself through vlogs. However, in all honesty, I am much more coherent and sure of myself in writing. This is true for even some of my oldest friends. I just make so much more sense and am so much more honest and heartfelt in writing than I am when I'm speaking.

I have my doubts that anyone will read this, but I did have a fair amount of people reading my BEDA last April, and that's coming up again in August, so maybe I will get a slight following? Not that that's what matters. But I do like to know that people read about my often boring life with occasionally funny anecdotes and actually care sometimes. I suppose we'll just have to see.

I will leave you (any random people out there reading this first post...) with a gorgeous picture I took on the last day of school of some flowers in our backyard that I've never shared anywhere before for some reason. :)

Cheers!!!