Childish Jealousy

Hey again! Maybe I need to cut down on the posting since this is my third in a row and midterms are coming up.... Anyway, here's an old post I wrote that I never uploaded. I can't seem to get it off my mind. Some information is out of date, unfortunately. Enjoy!

When did I get so old?

So here I am at 5 am still awake after a night that didn't end until 3. I found myself running to my friend's room because I couldnt sleep but that just resulted in too much body heat for one dorm bed. So I left. I don't know what's going on in my head right now. I wish life was as simple as it was in first grade. Back then boys had cooties, the future seemed so distant, and you could make up with your best friend by bringing her favorite lollipop to school the next day. Kids were trusting, fearless. Nothing could permanently hurt our worlds or our hearts. Everything was carefree and i remember that my biggest problem was when my mom mixed up my lunch with my brothers and I ended up with a pb&j sandwich. Not everyone had it so easy when we were young, but even those problems seemed distant. What happened? Yes I am now more educated, more mature, but what has that done for me? Tonight I fended off several inebriated guys, worried desperately about the future, and eased the drama with my best friend. My world has become so complicated and I just want it to be simple. I want words like " I'm sorry" "I promise" and "I love you" to mean something again. I want the future to feel limitless. I want my relationships to be carefree. I want to be 6 again. These are the things I think about at 5am on a Saturday morning. I should be sleeping but I need to clear my head. I'm going to go for an early morning run and maybe I can close my eyes and convince myself that the world is simple. Maybe I can convince myself that all those words mean something. Maybe, just maybe, I can convince myself that I am a kid again

Survival of the Fearful

Everyone is afraid of something. Fear is our mind’s way of telling our body to stay away, that we are in some sort of dangerous situation and that we need to escape. We learn fear in order to survive. Take for example, that one time when you were a kid and your mother told you not to touch the hot stove. You didn’t believe her did you? No, we just have to try these things for ourselves, even if people tell us it’s going to hurt. Once we get burned, however, our body will instantly jerk our hand back, and we become afraid of touching it again. But what happens if it didn’t hurt THAT badly? Maybe we’ll try it again, just for the hell of it. And again. And again. Until that one time when you are so confident that your mom was wrong that you end up with a 3rd degree burn. You’re never going to want to touch the stove after that, whether it’s hot or not. So, though it may take a few tries for our brain to get the message, eventually we learn to be afraid of things. Fear can change our lives; sometimes it's healthy, and sometimes it’s not. But regardless, when something, or even someone, hurts us enough times, our mind tells us to run away, so that we don’t end up with another burn, scar, or broken heart. Fear helps us survive; and if you keep getting burned by that damn stove over and over again, it’s time to take your hand off it.

The Good, The Bad, and the Optimistic

Something good comes out of everything bad. Yeah I know it sounds cliché, but in my life, I’ve found that it’s absolutely true… without exception. While my short 18 years certainly haven’t been the worst, I’ve definitely had my fair share of rough times. There were a couple times where I was hanging on by a strand, with little reason to go on, but by some marvel I kept struggling, relying on my optimistic nature that told me that something good would inevitably come my way.

Think about it. When was the last bad thing that happened? Is there anything good that you can find that came out of it? Granted, it may be hard to find at first, but once you get into the habit of looking at the positive in the negative, it gets a hell of a lot easier.

It doesn’t have to be something as big as the stories we read about 9/11 with the people that got coffee spilled on them and therefore were late for work and not in the buildings when they crashed. It also shouldn’t be something cynical like reasoning that not getting chocolate for Valentine’s Day is good because it’s fattening anyway. We all know you would have liked to get chocolate (whether you would have eaten it or not is a different story). I’m talking about the rough times that everyone goes through, like break ups, failed tests, etc… that may feel terrible at the time, but if you look hard enough you can find something positive in your life that changed because of what happened. Sometimes what happened will outweigh the amount of good you find, no matter how hard you look, but the point of it is to realize that SOMETHING positive came out of it, regardless of how small that something might be.

I’m not saying that when something bad happens, you shouldn’t be sad, because it’s always important to feel the hurt of what you’ve gone through. But it’s also important to remember that things will get better, no matter what. Life can throw you some pretty wacky curveballs, believe me, I’ve been hit by that damn pitcher a couple times too many, but regardless of the bruises, scars, and broken hearts I’ve suffered, I still choose to be happy.

Anything can change in an instant. Today might be the worst day in the world, but tomorrow morning you might wake up and meet the love of your life. That’s what’s beautiful about this whole future thing… we have no idea what’s coming. It could be good, it could be bad, who knows? But instead of dreading, or being pessimistic about tomorrow, wouldn’t we be so much better off if we decided to greet every morning with a smile, regardless of our yesterday?
I’m not writing this post from an awesome time in my life and looking down on all the sad souls, telling them to perk up. No, my life is far from perfect. And I’ll be honest, there was a point, very recently, where I scoffed at my own principles and told myself how stupid I was to believe that life is anything but cruel and unfair. But with the help of some amazing friends, God, and my damn determination, I’ve come around once again to the fact that life will give you what it gives you and all you can do is try to be happy and hopeful, no matter what the circumstances.
The whole point of life is that it goes on. We’re all in it together and we can look at it whatever way we choose. I choose to be optimistic. I choose to believe that things happen for a reason. And I choose to believe that if I look hard enough, there’s going to be some sort of rainbow after every storm.