Newest Life Lesson : Don’t Make All The Damn Decisions

One …

- flurry of text messages
- failed opportunity
- pair of bored teenagers
- replacement
- walk across a bridge
- decision or lack thereof
- day
- change of plan
- conversation
- step back

… later, the future is shifting all over again — in directions that I still can’t anticipate but am not afraid of. It’s a relief, really.

One or two days ago (one or two nights, really; recently my life has been more a series of nights than of days, beginning at 3 pm and ending at 5 am), I faced a decision that had the potential to significantly change the lives of a handful of people. Potential, mind, not guarantee. But even sans guarantee, the prospects of being able to make that big of a difference were so fucking terrifying I literally could not make the decision. The present was hazy. The future was hazier. The past was not too hazy to understand, but it was too hazy for me to want to understand it. And regardless of what I’d learned in the past few months, all of it in all its extremes, that’s just it — I learned the extremes. I did not –  do not –  know how to recognize middle ground. Where’s the line between my fear and my logic? Are there more reasons to say no than the burning humiliation of a rejected yes?

You’d think this is something that would take time to understand. But I didn’t have time. On August 9th, I’m leaving for liberation; to be technical, a beach house, but to be truthful, a chance at freedom. Freedom from my consequences, not my regrets, but even without the regrets I still want it.
This is a blessing and a curse.
Blessing? A crapload of opportunities to do things and say things and finish things I would normally leave as is, because I have a way out. Curse? Same opportunities. To take or not to take?

The first decision had a deadline. The extension of that deadline due to the failure of my original plans for today and the plans that took its place killed the need to make the decision, but no sooner was one dilemma dead than the other was born ; those new doors really do open when the ones down the hall are closed. Actually, scratch that — the doors to the first dilemma weren’t even closed when the second ones opened, so now I had two sets of entrances, two directions, four possibilities. One shot.
What did I do with it?
Nothing. I didn’t.

I stepped back.

The doors slammed shut.
Life looked manageable and ordinary.
But just as my subconscious was making that tough choice between relief and regret…

A third pair of doors swung open, when I wasn’t even looking, and unlike the previous two, this one doesn’t scare me.
A reward? A reassurance? Whatever it is, it proves life still is not that easy, not black and white, scared and not scared. This should probably be sobering. It will be, I think; at some point (knowing life, some point soon) I will look back wishing it was really a matter of fighting only fear, letting it win or beating it. But if tonight proved anything to me, it is that there is more, always more, even (or perhaps especially) when you settle for less. Particularly if settling means throwing the ball in someone else’s court. Who says I have to make the move all the damn time? What if an opportunity I pass up means an opening for someone else? What if there’s something to learn from saying no that I would never discover by saying yes? What if not knowing what I want means I’ll be okay with more than one outcome? What if, by stepping back, I give others the opportunity to step forward and find that they’re meeting me halfway; that we all wanted the same things, all along?

What if, in my determination to make things happen, I miss things that are already happening? Situations that I couldn’t possibly think of but situations that I like and– the best part– are right. in. front. of. me?
Hey, not everyone is worth the price of yes.

So maybe I learned to take control of life for the first time.
Now, I have to remember that when life takes control back, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to suck.

I Traded “True Love” — In Exchange For True Life

Today is August 4th, 2009. My name is Kari, and somehow, I still manage to believe in something I know nothing about.
Love.
That’s right, bitches, I’m back — the biggest decision of my life, a couple breakups, the birth of my balls, and an identity crisis later, I’m bringing my pearls of wisdom (and/or stupidity) back. It’s the 18th birthday of one of three guys I was cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die certain that I loved. Loved, sure, got the closest to that elusive something special that we’re all looking for whether we admit it or not (because you’re never too young to be loved! Never!); but was I in love?

See, that’s the part that I don’t know anymore.

Once upon a time, my life felt like it sucked. It didn’t. But it felt like it did. Except for that one thing I had which no one else did–love, love, love, love, looooooove.
Bullshit.
I don’t know anymore. Don’t know if I was ever actually in love. Don’t know what I believe about love, about now vs. later, fine vs. extraordinary. Short-term, long-term, my pursuit of happiness. The one thing I thought I had is the one thing I now believe that I don’t. I don’t know anything about love, really, and–let’s face it–who does?

But you know what I do know?

I know consequences are better than regrets. I know the sound the city makes when they open the lawn in Bryant Park during summer movie nights. I know what it feels like to kiss someone with the sun in your eyes. I know the way time freezes when you jump without looking, almost completely certain that you will fall on your ass–but you do it anyway because god, what if there’s that one small chance that you’ll be able to fly? I know what it feels like not to pass it up. I know I’m one terror-stricken step closer to victory because I have finally dared to fight fear. I know failure. I know the taste of teenage passion. I know the way he looked at me. I know the mortification mixed with relief that comes the next morning when you remember what you said last night. I know what it means to want more. I know what it means to live for now and not for later. I know tomorrow is a gift. I know what it is to give up a good thing because there just might be a great thing, even if sometimes there isn’t. I know adrenaline, I know crash, I know burn.

I know not knowing is worse than a no. I know the lyrics to my heartbreak. I know what it means to take a chance–because you’re afraid opportunity only knocks once, more afraid than you are of the risk that comes with it. I know the release that only comes with truth. I know the space outside the box, the world outside my comfort zone. I know consequence, I know rejection. I know how vivid everything becomes when I breathe life into the words I used to write. I know despair, I know betrayal, I know what it means not to sing alone. I know the hand of a beautiful stranger. I know the world isn’t fair and we can’t change that, but we can change whether we have to go through it alone. I know what it means to have secrets worth keeping. I know when you don’t love too much, you don’t love enough. I know wrong. I know wild. I know instinct. I know fear, but I know courage… I know pain, but I know life. I don’t have any more of my shit together than I did in March — if anything, my life is twice as chaotic and three times as exhilarating. So, in a strange way, I have it all figured out.

I’m still in love.

I’m not in love with a guy. Not you of my dreams, or you of my nightmares, or you of my past, or you of my future, or you of my late-night secrets or you of my poetry or you of my songs ; I’m not in love with any of you.
I’m in love with my life.

That is the one thing about me that has always been the same — my capacity to love. I do it all wrong, all reckless and all emotion and all music and too much and too stupid but I do it and I do it with every single fiber of my being.
Once, I was afraid to live.
But I was never, have never, will never be afraid to love.

Internet, I hope you’re happy to see me. But even if you aren’t, I’m not going to shut up.
Why? Fuck, it’s easy. Because I no longer care if what I have to say is stupid.
I don’t write to sound perfect.
I write to sound human.

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 – Freewrite

Prelude (First Band, English)
“Happy Inauguration Day.
President Obama, you will be forced to make some tough decisions. Follow Bruce Wayne’s lead and make the right ones, because even if short-term America resents you for them, long-term world history will remember you. Well.
They didn’t start dissecting Lincoln’s second inaugural address until long after he was dead anyway.

Townsend Harris High School
1/20/09
Writing Process – 6
Kari Wei

*written on Microsoft Word*
This fill effect is called daybreak, which is actually quite fitting for the occasion.

Inauguration Day.

 

          A new day dawns for America- and for the universe. Because no matter how far we have fallen in the public eye, this is still the greatest country in the world. We are the focal point in the international eye. Our glass ceiling, albeit still intact, has 18 million cracks within it. Our president- our president- is a half-African man, and a full American man.

            President Barack Hussein Obama.

            President Barack Obama.

            President Obama.

            Washington. Jefferson. Madison. Lincoln. Jackson. Kennedy. Johnson. Reagan. Clinton. Bush. Obama.

            Welcome to a new day, America. Welcome to change. For better or for worse, we are moving- forward or backward, we are moving, and this man has both hands on the steering wheel. We, America, we, the people of the world, the next generation and the future of the universe, pledge to follow you wherever you may take us.

            You are both the white knight and the dark knight. You will maintain a beloved public image while simultaneously making the right decisions even when they do not please everyone. You are Barack Obama, 44^th President of the United States of America, the leader of the modern world. You will uphold our constitution, our bill of rights, our spirit, and our hearts. You are the colors I use to write this (red, white, blue). You are the flag. You are America, and America is you.

            Good luck.

What Would It Be Like To Lose Control

My sister recommended this book to me.

It’s called Bloom, by Elizabeth Scott; a counterpart to Sloppy Firsts [see earlier posts]. I shouldn’t be surprised, really. Something’s always connected us in a way that we might be connected were we really sisters by blood- so much so that shouldn’t come as a shock that we managed to stumble upon the same kind of book that we both really needed to read at the same time.

I knew the second I read the back cover that once I picked it up I wouldn’t put it down. I didn’t. I flipped open the page at 11 and now it’s 1 a.m. and I did not stop for a second. Except for that one spot where I turned the book over, looked up at my ceiling the color of orange sherbet, and said, “something big is going to happen on the next page and I’m not sure I want to know what it is.”
Regardless, I kept reading.

Unlike Sloppy Firsts, it did not bring on a set of realizations. Maybe because my life is less of a mess, in terms of how much I’m fooling myself with every passing day. Maybe because I’m trying harder to stay true to myself and still get somewhere.
But all the same it’s not enough. It might never be enough.
Because we’re human.

Humans, oh, we waste so much time trying to be something we aren’t. And every one of those wasted seconds is a second you could’ve spent being free. Being you. The world is a very large place, even if high school isn’t. There is a space on this earth for everyone, for every kind of person from every kind of background. You. Me. Him. Her.
But no matter how many times we hear it- “believe in yourself. be yourself.” I don’t know if any of us actually listen.

I have to be honest- I don’t.
I’m calculating. Manipulative. Most of my actions are the result of careful thought, a pick-one-option-out-of-ten-possible-ones that has gone on for so long it is involuntary and no one ever notices, most notably myself. I can tell myself a lie as easily as I can fabricate a story about why I don’t have my homework. But the difference is, the story about my homework dies the second my lips stop moving, whereas the lies I tell myself always manage to catch up to me.
Even when I try so hard to let go, to just be for a minute, it doesn’t seem to work. I’m still trying for something. It’s as if it’s too late for me. I want and I wish and I yearn but I can’t seem to let go anymore. And everytime my exterior starts to fall a little bit someone picks it up, someone notices and calls out my attitude, asks about my day, wonders if I got enough sleep or am being intentionally bitchy or was somehow offended- does anyone ever consider that maybe I’m just a little bit tired?

My mind works so constantly that sometimes my head hurts. I’ll be standing in the line to return books at the library and my brain will be going at hundreds of thousands of miles an hour and I can’t have ONE MOMENT of peace where all the thoughts will stop going and just shut up! I grit my teeth and beg myself to stop fucking thinking for even the barest of seconds, to give me some sort of relief, but I can’t. It never stops. Life never stops. The game never stops. It’s exhausting and I want to hit the brakes but I can’t find them. I want to let go, but my hands are glued onto the rope and even when I tug with all my strength it’s still not enough.

But I live to hope that perhaps, someday, it will be.

Maybe someday I’ll graduate surrounded by the right friends, not the wrong ones- the ones that everyone’s watching to see if you have. Maybe someday I’ll be able to close my eyes and shut down. Maybe someday I’ll be able to sleep without tossing and turning and dreaming of a day where my life will be better than it is. Maybe someday I’ll look into the eyes of my children and everything will make sense to me.
Maybe someday I’ll sing because I just realized music is the one haven I have where I don’t have to think. I only have to feel. Maybe someday we’ll realize perhaps it’s not that our parents don’t listen; only that we aren’t screaming loud enough. Maybe someday we’ll tell our parents what we really want even though we know they love us and thus can’t bear to disappoint them- because if they truly, honestly love us they will never stop us from forging our dreams to get better lives. What use is a better life when you feel empty when you wake up every morning? Why be right when you’d rather be wrong? Why is wrong defined as wrong when it feels so much more right than right?

No one ever said it was easy to let go- it’s not. But take it one step at a time. Sooner or later, I hope, there will come a time in your life when you’ll have reached your limit.
Sooner or later I hope we’ll all start living for ourselves.

Learn to look a little deeper.

I don’t have time for more than a short entry. But I’d just like to say this;

everyone these days goes around saying, “oh, I never judge the books by the cover. I hate people like that. I hate posers.” They’re so convinced of their hate that they go on to truly believe they don’t judge.
… Really?

I often find that the ones who are absolutely certain that they simply do not judge are the most judgemental.
We’re humans. Humans judge. We ASSuME. At first glance, your mental database on the people around you is already busy registering a myriad of aesthetically-based speculations. The question is not whether we judge (face it, we do); rather, it is whether we allow our judgments to dictate our actions.

I don’t give a shit what you think when you see someone. But to let those thoughts get in the way of digging a little deeper (“oh, if she dresses like THAT she must not be worth getting to know”/”if he hangs with THOSE guys he must be such an asshole”); well, fuck you. It’s not true. I’ve made that mistake in the past. I’ll make it again. I can admit it because I know I’m imperfect. Admitting it also makes possible for me to try my best not to repeat it.

So next time you see that girl in the hallway or that guy on the stairs, do a mental double take. Examine all the unconfirmed and preconceived notions you have about them. Then approach them- using only what you know, not what you think.

You’ll be surprised.