twelvethirtyeightehem

It's strange...my attitude toward school. I want so badly to feel motivated and driven, but I just don't. I need a goal, I have no clue what I'm working toward anymore. I can't use marks as my motivation because they are a monster to me now. I hate how competitive I am. I am trying so hard to just love life...but it's still hard sometimes. I still sometimes just want to SCREEEEEEEAM. I am not sure how much longer I can deal with this. The idea that there is so much out there...and I can do anything....scares the hell out of me. I do not want to become one of those people who just does what is easy...I want to do things that are hard. I want to be challenged, I want to grow and change and build myself. I want to experience...things. Experience silence, connection, love, ......

I have started wondering how much of what I claim to be "me" is actually just something I have stated to be me...but really isn't. How much of it have I just been too stubborn to let go of. When did I stop being sure I wanted to be a teacher? When did I convince myself that certain things were important to me...why am I so concerned about certain things....And I think maybe this reality is where my fear and uncertainty begins. I feel such a need to be accepted by certain people. I will go to any lengths to create myself to fit into the mold that they have for me even though I hate the way it looks and it doesn't fit right.



....so listen up the sun hasn't set, I refuse to believe that it's only me feeling....I'm a slow motion accident lost in coffee rings and fingerprints I don't want to feel anything but I do.... -ff

Read more...

heureuse.

This weekend my sister and I went outside at about one in the morning and made snow angels in the fresh snow on other people's driveways. There's something almost sacred about being the first one in the snow....We spend an entire half hour walking around and didn't see one car. It was so lovely. I'm beginning to love these everyday moments, and this life that I seem to be living...even though it still feels foreign and wrong. It feels so good to allow myself to be happy. I think that really was the problem...I wasn't letting myself be happy. I created a happy facade that I was content to hide behind, where it felt comfortable and safe to be unhappy...like it was my little secret, but it doesn't have to be. I don't need to hold that secret. If I'm unhappy...I can be unhappy...and if I'm happy, I should be HAPPY.

I am feeling so calm and almost at peace with university right now. I actually am thinking I might come back next year....it's strange. I am no longer letting it take hold of me, I control the way I feel about it. It feels wonderful. I'm starting to make connections with people and enjoy the process of learning, and to appreciate where I am. Christmas break is so soon and I am beyond excited to see everyone...but also kind of scared. I want things to go so well and I have such a perfect, beautiful picture in my mind of what my Christmas break and time with friends will look like...but I need to keep in mind that it will be wonderful no matter what happens.

**thank you for the journey to this new day** (xr)

Read more...

ill fitting grey sweater

This is a quote by Dawna Markova. But I want to make it my own promise. To myself and to the world.

I will not die an unlived life.

I will not live in fear of failing or catching fire.

I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to OPEN me, to make me less afraid, more accessible,
to LOOSEN my heart until it becomes

a wing
a torch
a promise

I choose to RISK MY SIGNIFICANCE
to live so that which comes to me as seed goes to the next as blossom
and that which comes to me as blossom, goes on as fruit.

Read more...

dixon. ticonderoga. woodgrain. 1388-2. SOFT.

It sometimes astounds me how many things I wish could replay in my life so that I could do them over again. Either to change how I acted or to just live and be that happy again, to trust someone again, to trust myself...How is it that in my short life I can have so many...regrets?...I hate that word. It's not that I regret these things, it's just that, looking back on my life just sometimes makes me feel empty. I am sad that I quit dance, because I truly feel that it could have been a passion for me. I feel empty because I had so many expectations for graduation, and for summer, that did not pan out in any way shape or form. I think I get into this mindset that my life will one day turn into a movie and things will be lovely and I'll laugh with my friends and my hair will blow in the wind and the sun will always be out; but that day is not coming. And I seriously need to come to terms with that...

I feel like, rather than helping me "find" myself, university has separated me even more.

I have no idea what I want to do with my life.

One moment I feel the urge to go help dying children and the next I want to get my psychology doctorate and have a beautifully extravagant house, the next I want to quit university here and now and go live in the bush. I don't even know what I want to teach or if I want to teach or what I truly believe about education. I feel the need to know where (generally) my life is going, and I haven't the slightest clue. I thought I knew who I was, and now I am learning there is so much more to me, and so much that I was wrong about. I do not understand myself and I just feel like the world is pulling me and screaming at me, wanting more More MORE. And I don't know where to put it. I just don't know. I don't know where to get involved, so I just don't get involved. I feel overwhelmed with homework, so I procrastinate. There are too many people I feel I need to keep in touch with, so I just don't keep in touch with anyone.

I was reading today about a class for students in grade twelve that helped them make the transition from adolescence to adulthood. My Lord I need(ed) something like that. I want something like that so much. I need a support group where I can cry, and be hugged, and kissed and I need somewhere where it's okay not to have the answer. And it's okay to stop looking for it. I started tearing up when I was reading that...not only because it was so beautiful, but because reading about those kids made me want to make a difference like that, and made me so incredibly jealous at the same time. It seems so natural and such an obvious thing to do, that I wonder why a group like that is not available to any teenager dealing with growing up (um, EVERYONE). Why is it that so many of us spend nights tucked away, alone, crying. Why do we delight in familiarity? What is so bad about just wanting to spend all weekend at home with your parents because you miss them so so much during the week? Why am I not ready for this? What's wrong with me? How do I do this. How do I come out of it. What am I supposed to tell myself to make myself believe that this is 'normal'. Where is the reason in this. The justice? I feel lost and alone and lonely. Scared. SAD. I feel like the beautiful world I worked so hard to build around myself, the personality that was well knit and well rounded have been washed away.

Everything is so fragile. Why am I not stronger?

Read more...

white and red flashing lights

there were an unusually large amount of sirens in the neighbourhood tonight. and it made me worry about the three little boys that came to climb our roof this afternoon. it made me hope and pray that they are all safe at home, tucked into bed with a kiss, a bedtime story, and a night snack. but the harsh knowledge of the likelihood that my prayers are presently being answered also burns in my heart. I want so much for them, and for all the kids in my neighbourhood...and beyond. there is so much there inside of children...so much more than there is in me. more life, more wonder, more excitement, more imagination. perhaps the path to death is just simply a slow process of emptying. and then refilling. and death comes once you have learned enough to be full once again.

today, talking to these boys brought back strong feelings and memories of volunteering for a day at pritchard place, a drop in centre for children in the north end. it seems so close to my heart, whether it is because i grew up so close to here or for some other reason. all I want to do is give my love out. i remember reading the glass castle and teaching those boys about climbing roofs reminded me of the parenting method that was so clearly evident in that book.

i love living here. experiencing so many things that are new to me; talking to the lady at the MCC store about the other second hand shops in the area, talking to the old lady there about how she knows my old neighbours from steinbach, seeing a little boy riding his bike by himself, meeting a friendly man, watching a young mother show her baby son a singing stuffed animal, breathing in the air that has become such a comfort, seeing a crazy stray dog chase bicyclers (ok, i admit that one freaked me out a bit more than it made me smile), reading at my desk, biking past all the 'renovations by timbuck 2' signs, smelling perth's as i ride past...there are so many things that are becoming a part of my daily routine that are so beautiful.

'dream big dreams'.........

Read more...

A night without end

This is going to sound depressing...but I guess it kind of is. I often get these feelings of emptiness. That I am entirely alone and that nothing I can do and nothing anyone else can say will ever make that go away. It's a feeling I would describe with the colour black. An absence of light...an unending abyss of nothingness. At times like these I will look in the mirror and see absolutely nothing, and feel nothing. It is not that I am angry...because I'm not, or that I'm happy. I am simply existing...and I suppose for me, existing as a machine has never been, and will never be good enough.

I had a moment like this last night. We had just got home from readymix and I felt completely meaningless. It's such a low...because I believe that everyone is connected...that if you go to the very very depths of every human being, we are all one. So a feeling like this seems unnatural and ignorant to me - but it happens to me often, particularly when I'm going through a change. I know that I think about and contemplate things a lot more than many people my age, and that's what my parents often diagnose this feeling of lonliness or nothingness as...but I don't think that's correct. I think it's simply giving in to what constantly pushes on the edges of my consciousness...for a few moments...the possibility that we are not here for a reason. That there is nothing more than taking in oxygen and putting out carbon dioxide. Although I very strongly do NOT believe this, I know that it is one of the endless possibilities that could be true of existence. And maybe it scares me a little bit.

I know that others feel empty sometimes too...and maybe it is our emptiness...the feeling of a lack of connection...that truly connects us. Perhaps the real meaning in life is realizing that there is no meaning. I don't know...I don't really think that...at all...but...yeah. There has to be something more...but I just don't know what it is...but what do I know anyways, I'm just a little kid.

Read more...

vibrations on a namebrand mousepad

well here I am...an official university student, sitting at an ancient computer in the library...it's kind of weird. I've been feeling so many different things these past few days; confusion - about whether or not this is really where I want to be...not only in university, but which program I'm in, and if I am being the person that I want to be. I have felt anger - at myself for not embracing the experience to its fullest potential, at others becuase they can't read my mind...I have been sad - because I find new beginning difficult, and I want to be myself and be unafraid to show the world and everyone in it who that is, but I still struggle with it every minute of every day. Because I'm still attempting to figure out who exactly it is I want to show the world. I have been tired and stressed and worried that I don't fit in - at university or with the people in my house.

I suppose these are all very normal feelings to have, particularly at this point in my life, where so much is ending and even more is starting to bloom. But they do get overwhelming from time to time. I am worried that I will get caught up in this new 'university' lifestyle that I will cease to continue contact with my friends who are not within a ten minute bike ride of my house. I am scared that my relationship with my sister may suffer from the distance, and I am worried that her spending her last few years at home, which are crucial to the forming of the personality, may be tainted because I am not there to guide her through things that our parents seem to have pegged as taboos. I just sometimes wish that parents would be more honest with themselves and their children...

I guess a lot of people just need to stop denying things to themselves and dive into the depths of the unknown. I just read an English assignment that talked about how, when we finally surrender to ourselves, when we allow ourselves just to trust, this is when we begin to understand the vastness of our knowledge and wisdom...just food for thought.

Now I'm going to get free food for my tummy...because with becoming an official university student comes becoming an official poor university student who takes any free food possible. :D

Read more...