I may not have my career path chosen. I may not know exactly what I want my job title to be. I may not have a solid plan for my future. But I know I want to write. And though that answer is not sufficient enough for curious relatives around the dinner table, it will have to do, because I found this.
And This. This is why I write. For all the reasons listed in the lovely Marissa's Blog post. Because I have to. Because even though the majority of what I write consists of grammar-less ramblings on my blog and mind numbingly boring essays for class, when I sit down and write, just actually write and create something that makes me feel so vulnerable and so alive, it's all I could ever imagine doing.
I vividly remember getting my first library card. My mother used to take us to the library on Saturdays and let us take out as many books as we wanted. AS MANY. but only until we got ambitious in our strive for genius and she limited us to 40. Every Saturday. Or least what I remember to be every saturday. It's always the most memorable things of our past that seem to have been more regular than they actually were.
We would fill our shopping bags with picture books and crafting books and thin little chapter books that made us proud of our skills, adorning little smiles on our faces as we walked out to the car knowing we had treasures in our hands. I remember my mother's library card, and how used it looked, how important it felt in my fingers. I remember the day she asked me if I wanted my own, how grown up I felt, how important it looked in my empty wallet.
Though books are becoming less mainstream as the internet steals away more and more of our daily attention and as school has been enforcing upon me an excess of reading which has damped my desires to read books of my own, books will hold a place in my heart forever. I owe a part of that to my lovely mother and her dedication to bringing us to the library. Books offer us a chance to experience a different world in a way that film will never achieve, for they have no time limit and because our imaginations are powerful and vivid.
I went for a walk in my neighborhood today. My new neighborhood. It still feels weird calling it MY neighborhood, though I've lived here for 2 years now. Change is hard to get used to. The houses I walked past and the front yards I gazed into reminded me of my childhood. Mostly because the houses in my neighborhood look as if they were all build at the same time as my childhood house was, but also because we used to go for walks when I was younger and just doing it reminds me of carefree days with my sisters and a stay at home mother who blessed us more than we will ever fully understand.
My childhood was amazing and it shaped me and taught me so much about life and how to love and just be happy. Carefree independence was given to me as a gift and I embraced being my own self very young, wearing tights on my head and singing when I felt like it. Somewhere along the line we tend to forget those key lessons we learn as kids, and it's the lucky ones that life chooses to remind. My childhood caused me to be a dreamer, and though I often forget the wild adventures that life has to offer, today, reminiscing over my childhood love for books and my incredible family is reminding me that this life is crazy and beautiful.
I keep having these unreal dreams. And so often when I wake up, I am excited and don't know why. Excited about life. Excited because of the small things. The little things that I forget about when I focus on the rain. The things that, when streamed together make up a beautiful life. The soul feeders. The things that come to mind when you just sit and listen to the ocean hitting the shore. My dreams have been reminding me about how big life is. I get so focused on the day to day, on the things that frustrate me or are out of my control. I need to remember that beautiful moments exist and that they make up for the rainy ones.
The other day I was at the beach in Bellingham with some of the most amazing people I know and my friend decided that she wanted to do suicides on the boardwalk. It didn't matter to her that she was wearing a skirt and toms, it didn't matter to her that she was holding a caramel macchiato. She wanted to, and so she did. It ended tragically but in the moments before, she was free and I admire that in her. Society has placed restrictions on our freedom in the form of appropriate behavior and fear of embarrassment but sometimes we need to just be free and enjoy being happy in the moment, and if it doesn't end the way we expect, we just get back up, and buy a new caramel macchiato.
No. That's not right, that is not how I feel. It's more than that. More without going deeper, how do I express that? Because I have no words. I have no way of expressing this surface level rainy feeling. I am not depressed. When I look at the bigger picture, I feel joy. My life is amazing and I am really excited for all of it. But right now, this week, this month I feel rainy.
I think that in today's day and age we find the concept of just being ourselves a little cliche. Like of course I'm going to be myself, who else could I be? But after watching numerous Single Girls Guide episodes with Erin Foster and reading her articles on Hello Giggles and on her blog, Totally Confident and Completely Insecure, it has hit me that this concept is so so so important for us to grasp. For the past little while I have really embraced who I am and the things about me that I maybe used to be ashamed of. Like the way I laugh so so loudly sometimes, and the way I talk ultra fast when I have something I need to say, or the way that when I get excited about something, I just go bananas. This has not always been the case. I used to take on the impressions of the people around me who led me to believe that I was annoying or childish, but the truth is that those things I do are just a part of who I am and when it comes to me, you just have to take the whole package. Sometimes I'm going to talk your ear off about something you could care less about, and sometimes I'm going to declare that I'm just too funny, more often than is appropriate. But I will also love you more than you realize, all the time and be there for you when you need to just get wild and cut off all your hair. There are good and bad qualities about everyone and it would be unfair for us to think that we can just pick and choose which things we want a person to act upon and which we do not. Now don't get me wrong, I am all for self improvement and if a friend who is near and dear to your heart approaches you about an area in your life that they feel needs help, I believe that you should respectfully consider it, but I don't think that we should let others impressions of us shape us into the people we are trying to force ourselves to become. If you just be you, completely and fully, all the time, then the types of people, be it friendships or relationships, who are going to compliment your personality the best will be drawn to you, and the people who you are going to spend your whole life trying to impress, wont have a space in your life to input their negativity. Not to mention how awkward it is when we try to act like some other person who we think is either really cool or more interesting than us. You were not made to be anybody but you and until you embrace that quirky, loving, beautiful soul that you have, your just going to exhaust yourself and end up feeling like life's greatest disappointment. We all want to belong, but its when belonging becomes more important to you then being who you are that there is a problem. Are you still going to have moments where you feel inadequate at life? Are you still going to wonder how anyone will ever love you after you ditch all your friends for 2 weeks to spend time with your new bunny named Oscar? Are you still going to want to grab the attention of that cute boy from English lit? Yeah, but you'll figure it out with time, bunnies are always worth it and your probably pretty cool and he's probably just already in love with you, so be yourself and go for it. There is no one else out there quite like you, don't rob the world of the opportunity to experience how great you are.
Shout out to the lovely Erin Foster for her inspiration annnnd you should all go check out her stuff because she is the sh*t.
This is an example of how the power is shifting from the few to the many, and through tools like blogger, twitter, and facebook, we now have the power to use our voice more than ever before.
There has been a lot of debate about the validity of this cause. There has been a lot of debate about what state African countries will be left in after Kony is arrested, and how we should be focused on establishing stability in the countries he has left behind, such as Uganda, rather than going after Kony. Do I think that stopping Kony will solve every problem in the world, absolutely not. But I would rather get on board and do something than sit back and do nothing because I'm afraid it wont help. Do I think that there are causes worthy of our attention right here in Canada, of course, And I think that we should all be more aware and get involved. But I don't think that we should hesitate to use our voice for good, just because it wont fix everything. Is invisible children the best organization for the job, maybe not, but they are doing something, and here are some facts that invisible children has put out there in response to peoples skepticism, if you choose to be critical. I choose to be unreasonably passionate about injustice and the cause to Stop Kony even if it is not perfect, because raising awareness and using the voice I have to promote change might do something good. Is there a chance it will all be for nothing, is there a chance it wont bring change, yes. But is there a chance it will do damage, I don't think so, and those are odds I can live with, because we need to show the world that we care enough to use our voices. I personally don't believe that Invisible Children Inc. has corrupt intentions, I believe that they are in this for the right reasons. But even if there not, even if they are not spending their money wisely, even if they are not being truthful in their claim to be a non-profit organization, even if they are doing this to benefit themselves, if it brings about the arrest of Joseph Kony, if it prevents him from abducting, raping, or killing even one child, I think its worth it. If all we need to do, to ensure that people do not stop looking for him is to show that we care, then lets show that we care. And if it were not for Invisible Children, I wouldn't know anything about Kony or what he has been doing, and if I didn't know about it, then how could I care.
