A Letter For Everyone Who Has Rejected Me

Dear people who never bothered to acknowledge my existence,

Dear people who find their phone more interesting than what I have to say,

Dear boys who never texted me back,

Dear friends who decided "I wasn't cool enough",

Dear teachers who don't remember my name,

Dear anyone who doesn't remember my name,

I'm moving on to better places. And someday, when I've reached my potential, you'll wish you had noticed me and treated me better. 

Now, if you will excuse me, I'm off to the stars.  

Sincerely, me

I Refuse to be Robotic

I want to be happy.

Error. Request not found.

I want to feel real.

Error. Request not found.

I need to feel alive.

Error. Request not found.

Am I alive?

Error. Request not found.

Sleep. Eat. School. Work. Repeat.

Sleep. Eat. School. Work. Repeat.

Wait.

Sleep. Eat. School. Work. Repeat.

Please, stop.

Sleep. Eat. School. Work. Repeat.

My feelings are gone.

Sleep. Eat. School. Work. Repeat.

My creativity is draining.

Everything is blurring together.

Sleep. Eat. School. Work. Repeat.

I’ve got to do something before my world is colorless.

I am breathing. My pulse is pumping. My eyes are working. So are my ears, voice, legs, arms, etc. Trust me, I checked.

But am I alive?

I’m still surviving. But have I stopped living and I’ve just got some time before my body catches up?

No.

I refuse.

I refuse to believe everyone must follow these empty patterns.

I refuse to believe that anyone wants to.

I will not just be a robot with working functions but without a functioning soul. I’m going to find the things that keep me aware of the fact that I am here.

I’m going to dance in the rain and lay in the grass and blast music and have a dance party with myself.

I’m going to notice the bones in my hands, the roughness of tree bark, the things that light up someone’s eyes.

I’m going to spend less time staring at screens and more time with people. And more time with myself.

I’m going to stargaze on a perfect night.

Climb a tree and see how high I get before I begin to panic.

Run and then focus on my pounding heart.

Look at photo albums and get filled with bitter-sweet nostalgia.

I’m going to get lost in a book.

I’m going to get to know my family better.

I’m going to get up early and have a moment alone with the sunrise. 

And if my bed is too comfortable for that, I’m going to stay in the covers and let the soft warmth fill me.

I’m going to get my heart broken and cry away the pain.

I’m going to hang out with my friends and laugh until my ribs hurt.

I’m going to feel things in this heart in my chest and think things in this mush in my skull.

I’m going to sit in silence and wonder how crazy it is that I’m just a pinprick on a speck in a universe filled with specks and I’m still sitting here worrying about feeling alive with my mind that is more complex than cosmos.

Because that’s why we’re here. To be curious. To create. To make discoveries. To discover ourselves.

That’s what separates humans from robots.

Robots just try to stay alive.

Humans find the reasons why.

Lightning and Boyfriends and Me

It's interesting.

Lightning.

The electric veins of the sky.

If you're not terrified of it, you love it.

The thunder rumbles your bones. Each flash of lightning caught in your eyes makes your heart beat a little bit faster.

We only see lightning on the way back up. The electricity shoots through the air, ready to grab onto anything. And when it does, we can see it. Making a connection visible for everyone.

I am lightning.

I am reaching out for something. Someone. Anyone.

My inner screams are thunder.

Can anyone hear me?

I see the couples holding hands in the hallway.

I hear the first kiss stories from girls younger than me.

I feel my heart ache as I fade into the background.

Will I even be seen until I make a connection?

I don't want someone to kiss and then avoid in the hallways forever after.

I don't want someone who is expecting to be my only love and has figured out our wedding colors and how many kids we're going to have and each of their names and blood types and-

I don't even want a boyfriend.

I just want someone who understands me and likes to talk to me and thinks I'm funny.

Someone who I can laugh with.

Someone who I like just as much as he likes me. Which is hopefully a lot.

I just want a connection.

Is a spark too much to ask for?

Orange Season

Autumn. Fall. Call it what you want. But I call it this.

Hot chocolate warming fingers through the mug.

Smelling pumpkin flavoring in almost every store.

The satisfying crunch under your feet.

The mountains rusting into a beautiful orange and red. 

Finally wearing a sweater without feeling like you're about to die from the heat.

Halloween filling yards with cheesy decorations that make the season.

Corn mazes and haunted houses.

Trick-or-treating nostalgia.

Stuffing your face on the fourth Thursday of November, and quickly thinking of something you're grateful for when Grandma asks everyone at the table.

"Um, mashed potatoes?"

Day-dreaming about Christmas.

But still getting irradiated when it's October and Walmart thinks it's December.

The last couple months before it takes looking like and Eskimo to go outside.

The air becoming cool and crisp, reviving your soul with every sharp breath.

Raking leaves and diving into dew filled piles.

The trees making their huge year finale, bursting into fireworks on the branches and letting all their hard work finally be harvested. Giving us a beautiful moment of beauty before the chill of winter robs the world of color.

"He looked from the high window at the land where the crickets were strewn like dried figs in the creek beds, at a sky where birds would wheel south now through the cry of autumn loons and where trees would go up in a great fine burning of color on the steely clouds. Way out in the country tonight he could smell the pumpkins ripening toward the knife and the triangle eye and the singeing candle. Here in town the first few scarves of smoke unwound from chimneys and the faint faraway quaking of iron was the rush of black hard rivers of coal down chutes, building high dark mounds in cellar bins."

Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

Now entering FEAR

Now entering Fatal Energies and Anxiety Restraint (FEAR). Proceed with extreme caution. 

Ear plugs, heart protecting vest, and comforting object (blanket, sweater, plush bear, etc.) required. 

For your defense, Logic Rifle must be on hand at all times due to frequent escapes.

Courage Guards always on watch. Find one if encounter with escaped prisoner occurs.

Contentment supply always available after an encounter.

Missing Person

Sorry for troubling you, but have you seen this little girl?

Who is she?

She's the little girl who could never keep her crazy curls in a pony tail. By recess they were always down.

She's the little girl who would write stories about her adventures as a superhero, or a spy, or an explorer.

The little girl who would have story time with her toys, and set each one up with a friend so they would never be lonely when she was playing with someone else.

The little girl who believed in magic long after everyone else stopped.

She's me.

She's been gone for a while and I'd like to have her back.

When did she go missing?

I'm not sure. It could have been sixth grade, it could have been eighth. Maybe she never went missing and has just been hiding in my closet this whole time, busy having a tea party with the teddy bears.

If she did disappear it might have been because she wandered off into the forest in search of the world she made up in fifth grade. Or the dragon she had finally picked her up to save the earth. She might have been defeated by her evil robot clone.

I dearly hope it was one of the first two options.

But I doubt it was any of those. Chances are she vanished when the sketchbooks started collecting dust. When I got a Facebook and forgot the password to my Webkinz. When toys stopped looking like friends, and more like pillows in the shape of animals.

The limits of this 'grown up' life are getting to me. I need a more optimistic view. A younger view.

I need to find myself again.

I need to have the heart and mind of a five year old to help clean up this seventeen year old's head. It's got a lot of murky stuff and if the little girl I used to be came back, things would be a lot clearer in here.

What do I need to do?

Do I need to start coloring again? I have dusty crayons in the office.

No?

Okay, we can play dress up. I've still got some of those costumes, but I don't think they will fit.

No?

Do you want me top pull out the play dough? It might be kind of hard now, but we can buy more.

I'm sorry I abandoned you and grew up. Where did you go?

You never left?

So you signed me up for creative writing. You're the one that's got me drawing more. The one that cranked those book ideas out of me. The reason I did NaNoWriMo so many times, even though the adult knew I wouldn't succeed. You're the part of me that squeals every time I read a good book. The piece that throws the phone when I've been on it too long.

What do you want me to do? How can I get my crayons back?

Keep growing? But I'm trying to unlearn all of this stuff! I'm almost done with the growing up thing. I'm almost an adult, and I don't know if I'm going to like it very much. So I need you to stop me.

What do you mean growing up isn't a bad thing? It's okay to become older?

Can I still be an adult and think like a kid? Can I still be innocent without being ignorant? Can I learn more without forgetting what I've already known?

Can I become the new me without losing the old one?

It'll take some work. I'll have to keep society out of me and keep this heart young. I can't go missing again. But,

Yes.

I think I can.

You're Okay

It's okay to cry.

It's okay to laugh.

You'll be fine if you left your phone at home today.

Don't sweat it when you're not sure how to continue the conversation.

It's okay to make mistakes.

The world will keep turning if you forgot to do the homework.

Or failed the test.

You will go on if your boyfriend dumped you.

Or you lost your best friends.

It's okay to be "just okay."

For now.

If you feel like your drifting through life and darkness with no way out, no light at the end of the tunnel, no rope waiting to pull you up.

Don't stop.

The light will glimmer into view.

The rope will come.

But you have to look for it.

If you don't control your life your life will control you.

So take charge.

Stop drifting.

Decide now to be happy.

Because you deserve it.

Please, believe me.

Please, stop telling yourself that you don't.

You are amazing.

There is wind in your throat and thunder in your chest.

Your mind is a universe all to yourself.

Who couldn't be happy knowing that?

A girl of many hats

To get inspired for this post I put on every hat in my closet. Every one. I'm wearing them all right now. My family was a little startled.

I'm wearing ear muffs (I'm saying those count).

Two beanies.

A fluffy beanie thing?

Four baseball hats. One is a Christmas present. One is from Yellowstone. One is from Venice. One I inherited from my grandpa.

A Santa Clause hat.

And two bomber hats. (Like, cliche Canadian hats.)

I feel pretty fabulous and I look like a psycho. And my head is a little warm.

These hats tell me places I've been. Things I enjoy. People I care about. Little pieces of me.

Everyone is made of pieces. We're like big, deep, impossible puzzles that make something beautiful. But few people get to see the whole picture, if anyone. In different situations different pieces come up to the front. My writing piece is in the center right now.

Calling someone two faced is a lie. All of us have a thousand faces. Thousands of us-s ready to be pulled out for thousands of situations in the amount of time it takes for the conversation to switch topics, or to say goodbye to one person and hello to another. In a step. In a breath. In a heartbeat. We are transformed.

There is nothing wrong with this. I've spend hours struggling over 'who I really am' because I'm a different person in class than I am when the bell rings to go to lunch. But it took me a long, long time to understand that that is okay. I still down really understand it. I might never fully understand this fundamental part of human nature.

People are just too complex. If every part of us came up to the surface at all times, we'd be to freaked out by everyone to talk to anyone. So pieces get pushed back from time to time, and parts get moved forward now and then, and it keeps us balanced.

So don't freak out if you don't feel comfortable talking deeply about your Harry Potter obsession with someone you've known for years. Don't be nervous if suddenly you find yourself in deep conversation with someone about philosophy, then laugh uncontrollably about something stupid you did with someone else an hour later.

We've all got sides to us. Different hats in our closet waiting to be pulled out.

We are all just werewolves waiting for the moon to go down. Bruce Banner's waiting to take a chill pill.

Cloud watchers that, after sunset, become stargazers.

Child in the driver's seat

I went to a party the other day. I drove there and back on the freeway all alone. I usually don't drive very far on my own. I felt so old for a moment. So grown up.

Then I felt like a toddler who got thrown into the driver's seat.

Senior year has finally come. I've been waiting for this since kindergarten.Now it's here and I'm so excited.

But every once and a while it hits be like a freight train.

The only life I've ever known will be over in less than a year.

My feelings on that change. Most of the time I'm so ready to get started on life. Sometimes I'm in shock. How am I going to survive on my own? How am I going to pick a good career and support myself and future family? What the heck is going on?

Those thoughts usually come during financial lit. 

Seventeen sounds old and young at the same time. College seems like forever away and tomorrow. High school only started and now it's ending.

How did that happen? Could someone explain that to me? I'm confused.

As soon as I hit my eighteenth birthday I'm an adult. But the only things in life that happen that sudden are earthquakes and snapping bones. So when do we become adults? When do we shed off the baby to become the child, the child to become the teenager, the teenager to become all grown up? Is it age? It is experience? A little bit of both? Some children become adults way to soon because of tragedy, war, illness. Some adults are still children and haven't learned anything since the day they enrolled in preschool.

Am I ready to be tossed into the real world in a moment? Can I deal with what gets throws at me without running to my mom? Will I be prepared to balance my own life? 

I like to think I will be.

But we'll have to

wait

and

see.