Topic 8/12/09 : Sex

This is the first post from a new project of mine where I ask someone to give me a topic and then have to write about it without stopping. This was written in approximately 10 minutes and has been posted unedited. Credit for topic goes to Rose.

TOPIC OF THE DAY : SEX

I can think of three negative angles from which to write about sex. Off the top of my head. Immediately.

The first – medical consequences. Teenage pregnancy. STDs. When was the last time a teenager heard something good about sex from someone other than a “worldly” older teenager who walked with that been-there-done-that air, the one which the virgins envied and figured they’d never attain?
Second – the unwanted. The risk of that baby, that huge responsibility, that living, breathing, permanent reminder of that one encounter with that one other guy or girl… and what about the babies? What if some, realizing how unplanned and unwanted they were, end up wishing they never occurred in the first place; not even a happy accident, just an accident?
Third – emotional anxiety. We spend all our teenage lives hearing about the consequences of sex; that the first time should be special, that we have to choose that first person very carefully, that it opens us up in a raw, new way, forming an emotional connection that’s very difficult to reverse. There are so many things that could go wrong, really, so many ways to lose control, it’s as if the general adult populace wants us all to become nuns or feel so restricted that we bust out into full-on Playboy bunny gear.
Wouldn’t sex be a little easier to deal with, a little less feared, if it was less taboo?

After all, isn’t sex the reason we’re all here? When was the last thing a teenager heard something positive about sex? Why do adults discuss it in hushed tones around us, with furtive glances over their shoulders and constant watch over the TV channels we check out when they’re gone, the websites we visit… what is the big deal, really, when we have hormones and we’re young and we were born and bred with a natural need to reproduce?

Yes, I believe by now that we all understand the dangers sex can produce for us. The constant drills of health classes and HIV/AIDS awareness days, the watchful eyes and looming consciences of our parents… But, if you think about it carefully, sex, like everything else, is a mix of good and bad. Positive and negative. The adults seem to know it. So why are they so determined that we don’t find out? Isn’t it a given that we will? And wouldn’t it be better coming from them than, say, some older friend, that friend with the mystery of someone who’s done something you haven’t, who makes it seem like if you do it you can get that too? And all of a sudden you’re so very sick of hearing the voices in your head. Be good. Hold back. Pregnant. AIDS. Consequence. All that matters is what your body wants and your mind shuts down, as it was programmed to do for centuries—millenia, even—as your instincts take over and your hormones do the talking.

All of you over the age of 27 need to loosen up, before your constant preaching about the consequences you worry over become the trigger for those consequences to be brought upon your children and the children you mentor, those who look up to you. Sex, like learning to walk, talk, laugh… is inevitable. Consider it a passing of age, really. Equip those around you to be ready for it. Warn them against it. Even repeat the warnings a few times every now and then. But don’t surround it with stop signs and strips of caution tape—because all that makes us want to do is break through them.

God, World, I’m Sorry If We Fail You

We’re just a group of kids trying to do the right thing by the world and by our hearts. Sometimes it doesn’t match up. We try to live each day like we’re dying and still take responsibility for our actions. Most of the time we don’t measure up.

All we can do is try, day to day, moment to moment. To believe without bleeding, to fight without losing our way, to make it to somewhere worthwhile. It’s not that easy, and we’re not perfect. We’ll screw up, we’ll fall short.

Please, if you see this, cut us some slack. Cut everyone some slack. Especially yourself. We’re all still young in that we’re all searching for something to believe in and the only thing we can do about that is try our best, even if it’s not that great.

You’re not alone. It’s all the same underneath.
Take a step back, let yourself breathe. It’s okay.

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.

3.7.09 : Falling In Love, All Over Again

[Block to Writer's Block: Jack]
Soundtrack:
Consequence – The Notwist
What New York Used To Be – The Kills
Glow – UNKLE
Right Round – Flo Rida
The Sun Ain’t Shining No More – The Asteroids Galaxy Tour

[ - Earlier text exchange -
J: How was NYU?
K: Interesting. People were one-dimensional so far, but teachers were nice and one of them was really fucking cool. I've already made a piece that I love. Far better than the class, though, was the neighborhood. It was magnificent. I explored today for an hour and I wasn't even with a friend. Can't wait to hang out there on Saturdays now]

Yeah, I loved it.
Oh my god the NEIGHBORHOOD. You know those adorable little bookshops you read about in the old classics and in modern magazines where vintage is synonymous with cool? Okay, no, you don’t, but I do. At least, now I do. I’ve been IN one of them.
I think it was called Mark’s Bookshop. Apparently I’m getting worse and worse at remembering names, but I sure as hell remember where it was and what it looked like. Obviously I was unable to resist the pull (the last time I went to a bookstore that wasn’t Barnes & Noble was in Aspen, Colorado, 200…6?), so the natural impulse was to walk in, whereupon I saw a stack of The Onion newspapers before I’d so much as opened the second door. Instant credibility!
Ahhhhh, the smell, the setup. Sprawling rows of books in totally uncoordinated sizes oozed with a downtown charm that made Barnes & Noble seem as despicably chain-store-y as McDonald’s. It was, well, magnificent. (I haven’t outgrown that word since Juno. Although I guess my overuse is kinda blasphemous considering she was talking about sex.)
Anyway, I digress. Ty’s been trying to get me to read Lord of the Rings so we can do a roleplay on it (for all you sickos out there who don’t understand the beauty of the art, that’s not some synonym for cybersex. Some of us actually enjoy writing in our spare time). He even read the greater portion of the first chapter of the Hobbit to me over the phone, which was–well–<insert a word of accolade that does NOT start with an m and end with a t. What’s wrong with my mental thesaurus today?!> (This is the part where I stop sounding like I’m talking to Jack. Jack, if you’re reading this, which you most likely are not, I’m sorry–NO! Bad! Don’t you dare even THINK ‘don’t apologize’!) I figured I should reward such effort with, well, some kind of result. So I looked for the books. Tolkien. Not Ziegesar. Mark was bound to have it.
Horror of horrors! It didn’t. Or at least, I couldn’t find it. It went from, like, Till-something to Tolstoy. Straight to Tolstoy. Nevertheless, I had to resist the urge to make a purchase–not having read “War and Peace” let alone “Anna Karenina” is arguably even more blasphemous than using an adjective originally intended for sex to describe everything that is pleasurable in life. But it was too high up and I was too lazy to clamber clumsily on top of the stool (even though it was, like, right in front of me) in my polka-dotted black skirt and Henri Mendel graffiti boots, so I managed to walk away. Watchmen, however, was considerably more difficult to resist. I am not a comic/manga person–never have been–but after seeing that movie, I simply can’t pass it up. However, the scrooge within prevailed and I managed to leave it under the “Urban – NYC” category (which, by the way, makes no sense to me–what was it doing there?)

Scrooge or no scrooge, I still didn’t manage to walk out of there empty-handed; the March 2009 edition and consequently my first copy of Nylon magazine (cover: Kristen Stewart) accompanied me, and is now spread before me on my desk. For all of you Twihaters who will instantly condemn her for being involved with the franchise, I suggest you read the comments, in which I’ll post an excerpt from the article (I think she says ‘fucking’ even more than I do). Okay, so at $3.99, it had a hefty recession price, but fo’ serious this shit is beautiful. It makes my prized Teen Vogue/Allure subscription seem like Chiclets. And it also provided resistance power when I walked past two Starbucks in, what, three consecutive minutes? So technically I saved a buck and prevented excess calorie consumption.
Literature is good for the soul.

-Later-

I wrote that much about a bookstore? No wonder I never get any blogging done.
The remainder of my day went downhill from there, sadly, and I’m too exhausted to go into detail. I discovered heaven in Kmart, sat outside for an hour and slept outside for another while John Liu announced he was running for City Controller (in addition to seething in silence as Falun Gong staged another pointless, illegal protest that made me want to get on my tiny American feet and hurl profanity-laced sentences brimming with intimidatingly advanced vocabulary at their poorly educated faces), received the April issue of Teen Vogue, went out to dinner, had a lemon lollipop, procrastinated, and had an intriguing conversation with the subject of this blog whom I am now leaving the computer to call.

I love run-on sentences.

- End of Day 7 –

P.S. The weather today (upwards of 60 degrees) made me

Magnificently

Happy

The Problem With My Voice/14-going-on-15

I’ve finally understood why I was so discontent with the way my blog was turning out.

I’d forgotten the point.

A blog should read, in a sense, like a journal entry, not a school-approved essay–and injecting a profanity midsentence isn’t enough to make the distinction. As opposed to writing with a voice–my voice–I was churning out posts that read like summaries. Hence why the blog became an obligation as opposed to a source of enjoyment. It’s almost involuntary now; I open this “new post” URL and I start writing as if I’m going to fucking hand it in and get it graded.

Enough.

I don’t want to go through my blog and feel as if I’m going to publish it. I want to hear my voice. Rhetorical triangle. Speaker. Audience. I’m talking to YOU. So why don’t I sound like it?
It’s tough, though, to make this sudden shift- LISTEN TO ME! I still sound like I’m writing an essay!
… ! Lightbulb moment ! Why don’t I pretend as if I’m speaking to a specific person? This’ll go hand in hand with my blog revival project–the seven day countdown to my 15th birthday.

14 being my favorite number, it makes sense that my 14th year on the face of the planet was the psychopathic joyride it turned out to be. But I’ve only got seven days left to be fourteen. Ever. There’s no going back, and I feel like it deserves to be commemorated somehow.
So I’m going to record each day to some degree.
Now to decide who to write to on each day…

3/7 – Jack
3/8 – Nira
3/9 -
3/10 -
3/11 -
3/12 -
3/13 – Myself

I’ll fill up those spots as I go along. Hope it’ll work.
Fingers crossed.

It’s not that my LIFE isn’t perfect. It’s that I am… not.

NOTE: If you are not comfortable with me being a selfish, bitchy, self-pitying ingrate, I would not suggest reading this.
<VENT>
As opposed to
a) having to tell each of you individually and feeling a huge lump at the back of my throat every time
b) sitting in my room unfit for human company (even over aim) and doing absolutely no work
c) both…
… I am going to BLOG about the storm cloud of epic proportions raining miserably useless hundred-dollar-bills on my greasy head.

If you’ve been talking to me at all over the past couple weeks, you will have heard of my too-good-to-be-true plans for February involing a certain member of the opposite sex. Well, this time around, it really IS too good to be true; numerous complications have made it entirely impossible for me to see him before summer.
For those of you that are, like me, mathematically challenged, that is SIX MONTHS. Twenty-four weeks. Around one-hundred and eighty-three days. 4, 392 hours. 263, 520 minutes. 15, 811, 200 seconds. In Kari-Time, that translates to, well, infinity.
And when he does come? Well, two weeks would be lovely. If by some miracle we can manage three (I highly doubt it), my joy will reach unparalleled proportions. But that’s, what, 14 out of 365 days of the year? 21/365 if we are blessed by some gratifying higher power?
I’m not even sure that’s the worst part. What is, then, you ask?
Knowing I can do nothing about it other than WAIT. At which I, frankly, suck.

Of course I expected my little Christmas miracle to make this long-distance matter quite a bit harder. And of course you SHOULDN’T have expected not to hear me complain about it.

I am grateful for all the good things in my life. A beautiful “bond family”, members of whom have never deserted me despite my many, MANY shortcomings (this post being one of them). A mindblowingly understanding father who keeps stealing my stuffed animals and pretending to twist the heads off those given to me by Tyler (at least he doesn’t insist on e-pepper spray). The love of the ages, bestowed upon me, a mere, unremarkable fourteen-year-old. An opportunity for a, well, good education. Presumably. Which I am pissing away by- big surprise- whining about it.

So why, why, why am I sitting here wasting my time and rotting away in my misery? Who knows? Human. Flawed. Undeserving of the 12031893948190283018 blessings I have. That isn’t stopping me, though. I sit here armed with a large container of water, a pack of gum, and a popsicle stick that previously held ice cream, waiting for some kind of apocalypse. My life is amazing. But it doesn’t feel like mine.

It was not half this difficult before, when I did not know what I was missing. But how do you go back to drinking crappy refrigerator beer after your lips have touched the world’s finest wine? Stale Milky Way bars vs truffles overflowing with soft, warm caramel? (Okay, let me now make a mental note to resist the urge to run downstairs and raid the box of chocolate cookies.)
I digress.
Those few hours I spent with Tyler on that unbelievably cold December weekend were more than just the physical consummation (by this, I do NOT mean sex) of an excruciatingly long and unfulfilled relationship. I expected magic. What I got was life.

I cannot remember ever having felt that… alive. Or at least, alive in the way that I was at that point in time. And after the first four grueling months of freshman year, laden with the typical adolescent apathy, “why-do-I-exist” questions, and mundane daily life where I felt like I was viewing the world through third person; well.
I should be the good, grateful, responsible girl my life deserves. I should stop wanting what I don’t have, what I can’t have. I should instead what I DO have. Love, opportunity, unparalleled friends and family.
Key word? Should.

So why is the only constant thought in my head a question, the kind that prompts me to throw away everything I have? Why is that dark little devil dancing the cha-cha on my left shoulder taking up such a big part of my mind?
Stop living for others and start living for yourself.
Oh yeah? Well what if the only time I feel alive is when I’m with someone miles and miles away? What if there are too many obligations for me to throw away everything I and those that love me have worked for in order to follow a baseless, impossible whim?

Regardless of all the above- and that little devil- I will sit, I will wait, and I will take it. Simply because that is what I have always done, in the end. The good thing. The right thing. Thanks, Mom. Seriously.
</VENT>

In this era, we summarize our years on Myspace surveys.

Where​ did you begin​ 2008?
On the sofa with my dad and my now departed cat. I then went upstairs and called Ty. We’d been watching Times Square online and proceeded to have a conversation during which he made my first wish on a star.
It came true. What luck.

What was your statu​s by Valen​tine’s​ Day?
Single and although slightly miserable as V-Day is bound to be to singletons, I was far from hopeless.

Were you in schoo​l anyti​me this year?
Most, most unfortunately.

Did you go to the hospital?
Hm. Now that you mention it… I don’t think I have.

Did you have any encou​nters​ with the polic​e?
Probably. This is New York, after all. And we asked a traffic cop for directions yesterday. Born and raised!

Where​ did you go on vacat​ion?
Chicago, Michigan, Upstate (Lake George + Saratoga), New Jersey, Kentucky

What did you purchase that is above $100?
Love.
My heart is worth over $100 thank you very much (as in, that was the price I paid for it)

Did you know anybo​dy who got marri​ed?
Yes. It was beautiful. For once the cynic was silent.

Did you know anybo​dy who passe​d away?
Sadly.

Did you move anywh​ere?
Not technically.

What sport​ing event​s did you atten​d?
My first legitimate baseball game. Other than that, informal things.

What conce​rts/​shows​ did you go to?
I am a music nerd, I went to too many concerts to name. Same goes for shows.

Descr​ibe your birth​day:
I had my first house party to which I invited my entire family (as in, class from SMS). We had quite an amazing time both messing up my house and going to the park (as well as the lake within). I got a fabulously large amount of money in the form of Starbucks gift cards and a fish which remains with me to this day.

What is the one thing​ you thoug​ht you would​ not do, but did, in 2008?
Meet Ty and Nira.

What has been your favor​ite momen​t?
The year. All 365 days of it.

Any new additions to your famil​y?
Through bond, not blood.

What was your best month​?
Hallelujah December.

Made new frien​ds?
Boatloads

Other​ than home,​ where​ did you spend​ most of your time?
School. Repulsive, I know.

Have you lost any frien​ds this year?
Yes.

Chang​e your hairs​tyle?
Somewhat.

How old did/​do you turn this year?
14

Do you have a New Years​ resol​ution​?
Yes. In singular.

Do anyth​ing embar​rassi​ng?
Depending on who found out.
But of course there was always toppling down the stairs in the first week of school

Buy anyth​ing new from eBay?
The only eBay I’e gotten exposure to was the Weird Al parody during the talent show.

Get marri​ed or divor​ced?
In my dreams. And possibly yours.

Get arres​ted?
No, I haven’t got the cojones to get myself into such controversial situations.

Been snowb​oardi​ng?
Ooh, that’s one activity I didn’t think of

Did you get sick this year?
Of course, I missed the regeneration gene.

Are you happy​ to see 2008 go?
I’m ambivalent about it. It was possibly the best of my life thus far, though, which warms the heart. Oh, wait, shit- I kind of gave that away, didn’t I?

Been naugh​ty or nice?
The latter on the surface, the former underneath.
Shall we change that for the next round?

What are you looki​ng forwa​rd to most in 2009?
Change.

2009: Uncensored

New Year’s Resolution 2009

1. Live like you’re dying.

I feel like there should be more fanfare.
Now that I look back, I’ve felt that way about a shitload of things this year. Everything seems to have come and gone so quickly and quietly that their passing makes no sense. There’s no time for me to absorb it, nothing that’s hitting me and saying, HEY. IT’S OVER. YOU’RE DONE. MOVE ON.
Hello?!
It has been a strange year, anticlimactic at some points and completely miraculous at others. My life is STILL a gigantic bloody contradiction, and I’ve realized that’s not going to change. That sucks. That means I’m going to be just as confused at 44 as I am at 14. Fuck.
Maybe I’m just overanalyzing this the way I used to, but I honestly believe the number 14 means more than all those other digits or combinations of digits. Whatever. I hate numbers- they make no sense to me, they’re constructs, they place tags on things that can’t be understood through statistics but nevertheless there is this one number I wish to hang on to.
I was fourteen for the majority of 2008. And though I hate to admit how superstitious I really am underneath all the cynicism I actually think that has something to do with why this year has been such a year. I turn around and the things I’ve gone through in the past 365 days could make up a lifetime, and yet in my eyes it’s still not enough, not enough, not enough. Never enough. It’s not enough until I hit my limits and I still have no idea what and where those are.
In 2008, my father and I became a team. I met the love of my short yet still rapidly waning life, ended a two-year stop in cyberspace, and started a chain of events in the real, tangible world that will go on to shape the next decade of my existence if not my life in its entirety. I lost my lip virginity and started sleeping at 11-12. I broke up with someone for the first time, rejected someone for the first time, even smacked a guy across the face for the first time. I went from the invisible girl to the one who could have anything she wanted if she could be fucked to try, the ugly duckling to the girl three guys ask out at camp. Camp Mason. Religion, Christianity, God. My aunt. A family. My sister. Nira Martinez. Irreversibly breaking a bond. Love too much. Too hard. Too little. Not at all. Taking chances and passing up about three times as many.
Which leads me to the only thing I want to bring into 2009.
At any given moment all of this could be over. I could be standing at a funeral thinking, why did I waste all that time? It could be MY funeral, my life, my wasted life, my nothing. We are never powerless to take charge of our lives. They belong to us, and what we do with them depends on motivation, will, and as always the healthy dose of luck. But what happens when my luck runs out? Is that really the only thing my life is built on?
So I guess looking back on this year, having thrown me headfirst and more prepared than I expected into the kind of whirlwind life I’ve been waiting 13 years to live, I walk away from it knowing that all this was given to me through a little willpower and a lot of luck. And if I don’t tip the scales, even them out- it will be over. If I keep waiting to be ready I will never be ready. I am ready now. Go. Move. Run. Jump. Live. Don’t look back. There’s the world full of experiences and your clock is ticking. This is your life. You control it. Make your decisions. Make your choices. You’ve spent long enough daydreaming every night before you go to bed. Bring it to life. Here’s the path, the runway. We’ve given you the four-inch heels. Walk in them. Don’t stop. Take control.
Then lose it.

Christmas Doesn’t Wait For You To Feel Like It’s Coming

Yeah, I know.
I haven’t been writing.
The reminders I got to quote “UPDATE YOUR DAMN BLOG” unquote ranged from friendly impatience to impatient exasperation.
I had no idea my blog was so popular.
Well, I could waste paragraphs going on and on about how craptastically sorry I am, but you’re all pretty smart cookies if you’re reading this (proverbially speaking, I don’t think any of you are actually edible *by my standards, anyway; I’m not too sure about Edward Cullen*) so I’ll just say it once. Drumroll please…
I’m sorry.
Now let me not waste any of your time and move on to something that’s actually of interest. Or not, as the case may be. Repeat drumroll… the holidays.

Most of the talk I’ve overheard concerning this holiday season is actually rather anti-holiday (shut up, Laurie, it’s not my fault “anti” is the best word to express it). Why? Maybe it’s the recession; there’s a reason why it was called the “Great Depression” (and how depressing was Black Friday? The masses were so desperate for the ridiculous discounts that one unfortunate shopper was actually crushed to death in front of… Walmart. No Prada, Mr. Scardino. Just Walmart). Maybe it’s the lack of snow in the polluted cement-gray skies; when was the last time you actually had a white Christmas? After all, it kind of sucks to have to listen to all these songs about sleigh rides, chestnuts, and kisses on your hypothermic nose on the radio when it seems like the only constants in your life are the infamous questions about your 2nd marking period average, freezing mornings with only your sheets for company, and the Townsend Harris track that has left its mark on both the soles of our “shoes for fashion” (Wanda Nix) and our tender young hearts.
Whatever the reason, it doesn’t seem like anyone is feeling the love this holiday season. But regardless of your lackluster holiday spirit, time doesn’t stop for anyone- as well all know by now (procrastinators anonymous, I’m talking to you)- and Santa is coming to town.
I’ve been wasting so much of my time on activities endorsed by society (i.e. school, homework, school, homework) that I think it’s about time we take up a worthwhile cause for a change. No, I don’t mean bettering your college transcript. I mean saving your Christmas so that when you wake up on December 25th, your first thought is not “thank god there’s no school”.
And what better way to do so than talk about the best part of Christmas? P-R-E-S-E-N-T-S.
I’d like to say I’m sorry for not generously citing religion instead of being selfish, but that would be lying. I am human, I am flawed, and I really love receiving (and giving; no lie) presents.

OPERATION RESCUE.CHRISTMAS.08. : HERE’S YOUR FIRST TASK.
If you’re one of the people who actually reads and enjoys my blog when I bother to update it, lend me a motivational hand here and leave a comment about what’s on your X-mas wishlist. Not exclusive to inanimate objects.

So tell me what you want- what you really, really want.

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.