There's got to be more to life...

There's got to be more to life than constantly thinking, "I'm graduating in a month. What the heck am I going to do now?"

You want to grasp everything at once, and you're afraid that if you let things slip through your fingers, you won't get a second chance. It's difficult trying not to let your tears spill over because you're completely freaked out and yet happy at the same time. But it's not confusion that's sweeping over you in the middle of walking through the rush hour commute. You know, by using your reason, that you hold these conflicting emotions at the same time and that they are valid because you're feeling them, right now, breathing with every senseless heartbeat beating through your chest.

But you also know that you can't drown in your tears forever. You have to rise above it and find your way back. You know, deep down, that there's nothing else you can do except to keep holding on, to keep trying to find out what's out there, never losing the hope that eventually, you'll find your own place in the world. And maybe someday, someone with whom to share your world with.

The Tricky Part

Ever feel that you'd rather read an entire shelf of library books on breathtaking stories, fascinating histories, and weird science that actually excite you and get you asking questions instead of numbing your mind with another term paper you have no desire to write?

And it's not that you're lazy. It's that school somehow became... a little less inspiring, maybe a little bit stifling. Like your curiosity grew into this electric ball of frenetic energy and you can't stand the thought of sitting through another boring lecture taken verbatim from the textbook. But you persevere anyway because you want that diploma and it's your meal-ticket to the future. Your future. The title of being an honors student doesn't even matter as much as it used to...

What matters the most is discovering that you have this natural inborn curiosity about the world and how it works and that you want to make something beautiful to inspire ideas in people. Like leaving a legacy behind, an imprint, some kind of indication that you lived and that you contributed something to make this world better off than it was before you became inspired.

The tricky part is figuring out a way to never lose that part of yourself, the part that never stops believing, the part that allows you to embrace the possibilities and work through the mess to find out the world's essence. To find the beauty, the truth, and the light in yourself... and to inspire others to see that in themselves. 

Poetic Prose: The Seemingly Nonsensical Logic of My Disquieted Mind

So many thoughts lingering in my mind, at the tip of my tongue, waiting for my lips to form the words that would breathe the sounds to life. I'm living in a mess of indigos and violets, my poetry blurring into my prose. I haven't felt this way about writing in a long time.

How does one convey emotion through images, rather than merely tell?

Perhaps that's precisely what has been troubling me about my writing. I have the paintbrushes, the paints, and the canvas. Perhaps I need to trade in these old specs for a new set of lenses. Maybe I just need to hone my brush strokes. Or maybe...

Maybe I just need to get my hands to stop shaking.

I flip through old diaries, the paper cracked and crisp betwixt my fingers, until I feel peeled and distant from the teenage girl who authored them. I slam each diary shut. I wish for a furnace, but burning these well-worn leaves won't stamp out the invisible imprints that the past has branded in my mind. But that teenage girl, the one who bared her ideas on those personal pages, will forever remain a part of me. She's grown up and she's moved beyond the silly narration of those pages (I can only hope).

I stare at empty pages as my thoughts dance in circles, waiting for my voice to give them weight. Instead, they linger, waiting for an unassuming passerby to catch the barely audible whisper.

So this is my journal of discontent, my heart's manifesto, the seemingly nonsensical logic of my disquieted mind.

Clearly, I still have a lot of figuring out to do. I won't cross my fingers, though. I need to write.

False Starts & Indefinable Fresh Beginnings

False starts and fresh beginnings. We've all had our fair share of those.

Just when I think that things are finally falling into place, life shifts and I'm thrown against a corner with the breath knocked out of me and my heart making a break for it. The problem is, my heart's got nowhere to go. The exact direction has yet to be determined.

The words escape me. What was I thinking? Why did I say that? I can't take it back. Did he really mean what he said? The part about me being a "worthwhile challenge"? I can't for the life of me, fathom why.

All I did was paint the world the way I saw it. The way I dream it, sing it. Live it. The way I twist my doubts, wring them in my hands and set them free, turning them into hope. Hope for the better, hope for the right answers, hope for the possibilities, hope for the future. All this, my odd and misplaced philosophy. Yet I never once considered myself to be a philosopher. I'm just someone who likes to think.

Am I really that strange? Am I really that crazy for thinking that I can live my life outside the confines of a  black-and-white box? Am I foolish to believe that I have the freedom to choose which combination of right ideas will be the hues that color my world? Am I naive to believe that I am the master of my doubt, that I can bend my doubt like a helium balloon and set it free so that it does not stomp on my free-spirit?

Sometimes he talks a mile a minute, and I'm still hung over the first words that left his lips.

I don't know why I bother so much.

Arguing in circles. There's a reason why they're pointless. You forget why you cared so much in the first place. Taking a stand and then you forget your purpose as you trip over the semantic wires you used to tie up your argument. You then end up tying your own tongue with words you hope you won't have to eat later.

In the middle of washing dishes, in the midst of reorganizing my bookshelves, in the hours I spent at the laundromat watching the clothes spin in repeated circles, I felt it: that first inkling, that indefinable emotion, the way my heart slowed down for just a tiny beat the moment the thought surfaced in my mind: it bothered me.

It bothers me that I care.

It bothers me that I'm even writing this, wondering why he's even got me thinking about questions that I thought I answered long ago based on the premise that you can't always ask the same question twice. Situations may be similar, but there will always be the nuances, the subtleties that people often tend to look over and forget. There are black-and-white issues, but there aren't always clear-cut answers. The circumstances determine the form the answers will take, so I have come to believe, and continue to believe despite his prior efforts to change my mind.

Why did he want to change my mind so badly anyway? It bothers me to think that he cares about what I think. It bothers me even more to think that I could be completely off the mark in making this assumption.

I don't want to think that this is another one of those false starts, another one of those foolish moments when my imagination usurps my reason. It's a scary thought, one that leaves me awake at night, awaiting the next day with breathless anticipation.

Do dare give this thought, this breathlessness, weight? Do I dare utter the words out loud, write it down on paper, record it into this media for all the world to see?

I'm not sure if I will just yet.

But I'm not going to cross my fingers or twiddle my thumbs while the hours pass. Instead, I think I'll reorganize my closet. Read a book. Take a walk. Write some more crappy poetry until I finally get the words right. Maybe then I'll have some more answers, whatever form they shall take. Maybe then I'll finally step up with the courage to say the very words I dare not speak.

I'd like to believe that it's just the sun rising, gently brushing new colors onto a fresh beginning. Whatever this is, whatever it turns out to be, I hope it's all for the better.

Maybe it won't even bother me at all anymore, and I won't mind so much that I care. This should be interesting.