Unnoticed Beauty

You can find beauty in the most unexpected places and overlook beauty in the places it is will known. Those places that we know beauty is, we often take for granted, hardly ever looking out from our most immediate path. Everyone that does this, including myself, miss some of the bigger picture. Or maybe we miss something even more simple, like those moments that change nothing around us whether we witnessed it ou not, except maybe the inner play of our emotions starting to move in a direction or our emotions shifting to a different direction all together.

Last week an incident like that happened to me. I was pretty much "sleep walking" for lack of a better word. All I was focused on was the sidewalk just ahead of me. Than I noticed two of something fly past my face. At first I was going to ignore it and just get back to my room as soon as possible. Of course curiosity got the better of me so I turned my head to see two butterflies tumbling in the air together. Having seen that I couldn't help smiling that that had happened. At the same time though I was sad that I hadn't noticed them when they were right there in front of me.

Think about how a moment of beauty would affect you current situation, day, and life. No matter how you look at it you can only benefit in on way or another, so look "out" for your health. I'll definitely take myself up on the challenge. Maybe I'll have the pleasure of catching the butterflies crossing my path once again.

BreathingNow

Another School Paper About Melissa

Disclaimer: In no way am I able to tell the future. This is one of many possibilities. It any part of this does indeed come true it is merely coincedence. Keep in mind this FICTIONAL STORY is a product of my own imagination and in no way reflects my thoughts or feelings on Melissa, it pretty much is a story based on real people.

It is May, a month of endings and new beginnings for every high school graduate. It is also a time for parents to say good-bye to their children and start a new life without their children to look after. To everyone this is a time for second chances. To Melissa, the future may hold more for her than her son. While Levi is going to go to college to become an adult, Melissa gets to go home to an empty house and be a child. Melissa has looked forward to this day and dreaded it at the same time. It seems her whole life has revolved around her son; she poured all her resources into raising him better than she had been and giving him opportunities that she never had. Her life is a series of tick marks: childhood, before Levi, pregnant with Levi, and many others centered on Levi’s achievements. Now she can’t be as involved as she is used to, and thinks that maybe she should have spent time “raising” herself. Melissa credits Levi’s successful upbringing on the time she didn’t spend on herself. Levi has a strong set of morals instilled in him and even though he tried drugs a couple times he isn’t a druggie. He is everything Melissa wanted; he is nothing like his father.

The last eighteen years have brought many trials onto Melissa. Time has certainly laid its mark on her. She seems much older than she really is. Being over worked has worn her out, and she has paid the price for being the good mother. She has no regrets for what she had to do to raise Levi right but she wonders what life might have been like without him. Would she have stayed in Grand Junction? Would she have continued life with Sean? Would she have gone to college? Would she have worked on her own ambitions and grow even more as a writer? While she knows that her life looked bleak and dark like a never ending winter before Levi and that her life probably would have continued down that path she can’t help but wonder, “What if?” Some nights Melissa has a hard time going to sleep because the “what ifs” consume every corner of her consciousness.

Now there is no turning back and she can’t try a different “ending” like a “choose your own story” book; she has to be happy with the choices she made. Melissa knows when it comes to Levi, she made a lot of good ones. Now it is time to choose her new life to take advantage of the time she has to construct the life she would have wanted before Sean and, consequently, Levi.

It’s been so long since the reality of being able to do something else has taken hold in Melissa’s mind. There are so many possibilities that it’s overwhelming, but at the same time, it is kind of daunting because she isn’t nineteen anymore, she is almost forty. She hardly noticed her youth pass her by she was so preoccupied with Levi. Melissa has never been vain, but now she takes a look in the mirror and notices the crows’ feet around her eyes and the grey peppering her hair. Does life hold the same opportunities for her as it did almost twenty years ago? It there ever a time when it becomes too late to start again, when second chances don’t exist? Than again, forty isn’t as old as it used to be. Opportunities just take different forms now. There are people all over that recreate themselves all the time, some much older than Melissa. Now she just needs to find out what she really wants out of life. It is defiantly time to push Levi out of her mind, even just for a little bit. I’m sure he has. It is time to move on to different things and new adventures.

Thinking for Myself? What?!

I'm so trusting of many things. When I'm told something I rarely ever question if it's presented as fact. Especially when it comes to literature. I'll believe anything an author wants to led be to believe. I have a hard time questioning an author's position, at least the position I get from the first reading of a piece. Maybe this is more of a problem of lacking textual imagination. When others suggest a flip-side it's like I've been awakened to a whole other story and I feel inferior because I wasn't "sharp" enough to think for myself. Than I wonder what kind of English major I'll turn out to be. Can I be a "good" one, or can I be a "great" one, or do I have to settle for a "proficient" one?

Are we there yet?

In the last book I read before school I found a line that really hit me hard that I felt the need to write it down. Now I will share it with you. "We all want someone to build a fort with. We want somebody to swap crayons with and play hide-and-seek with and live out imaginary stories with."

BreathingNow

Check this site out!

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/subliminal.php

Rain

Something else I found when I was packing. I'm guessing that I wrote it some time around my eight grade year. I can't remember the original meaning maybe you can guess.

Rain represents everything I love, hate, and know.

The tears that run down my cheeks when I'm hurt or sad. The tears that I cry when I feel alone, the ones I cry when I hate the world, and the tears I cry when I'm afraid of what I'm losing.

The rain reminds me of the place I lived and probably will never see again. Where I first saw rain and hated it. Then I was taken away and came to appreciate it.

It's everything I know because it falls with warning and stops when you just get used to it. That's me life.

BreathingNow

Pain

A poetic description of the pain I experienced when I got my nosed pierced. Found it when I was packing.

The pain it hurts,
It hurts so much.
How do you make it stop!
Make it stop,
Take it away.

Take my pain away,
Stop the hurt.
It is extreme,
Hurts to breathe.

I'm going numb,
Too much pain,
So I just ignore,
What I feel.

Sometimes it becomes
Too easy to ignore it all,
Ignore all the pain,
the hurt,
the agony.

BreathingNow

Dumping Taylor

I am so confused right now.
My emotions have been sent
Into a tangled
Mess of knots

I'm torn between
What I know
Is right and
What I want
So far I've been able to
Resist temptation but I don't
Know how much longer
I can hold out.

The solution is clear but
Not as easy to follow through.
I must break his hear so
I can be free.

His tears will be my
Saving grace.

No one said being
Noble was easy.

This poem illustrates my inner turmoil that I experienced before dumping Taylor before I left for Denver.

BreathingNow

Update

I registered of classes on Friday, I was able to get a pretty decent schedule. This quarter I'm taking Japanese, Mathematical Art, Literature and Ethics, and English 1111 (Critical Reading and Writing). I'm so ready for classes to start Monday I've already been here for a week with almost nothing to do.

I also register for dance classes on Monday that is almost more exciting that going to school. It's weird how I practically hated dancing three years ago but now I have been reminded of a dream older than becoming a teacher. I can't get enough.

BreathingNow

My Wood

After reading "My Wood" by forster I stumbled across on interpretation of this quote. When you own something you loose a number of things. Depending on the person what you lose is a good price to pay, to others it isn't but in the end it becomes a trade-off. It is up to the individual to decide what is important: freedom, selflessness, and the ability to have no restrants on personal creativity or possesstion.

The first thing you potentially lose is freedom. With every item you add to your collection of objects you become that much lmore tied to you enviroment. Making it harder to be a wondering traveler. Possesstions become you ball and chain to the place you live. I say this because with each added possesion it becomes harder to detach yourself from the life you have made for yourself in your enviroment.

Secondly, you lose a capacity to be self-less. With the ownership of possessions you shift your focus slightly more toward yourself because these possesstions are your things and and that might cause you to be a little more introverted and possibly become a marcissist (in the more extreame case). It is natural to become protective of you things and tend to be a little more selfish. Envy and jealousy may also find it's way into your heart because people will always have bigger and better things. Possibly even becoming greedy. Greedy people often are never stisfied with what they have alway searching to fulfill this new need for "everything" Which perpetuates your loss of freedom.

Lastly, you might lose a sense of creativity. Your possesions soon deceive you into thinking that it's a sufficent outlet of creativity. Causing restlessness of the mind we may not be aware of. We are substituting propety and possesstions for creation and happiness. Worst thing is none of us maybe aware of this shift of thinking. It may even cause loss of self.

This is a sort of parapharse and my own personal interpretation. I linked the oringinal essay to this post for you "reading pleasure".

T-minus 5 hours

I'm done packing. I don't think the 4-runner could hold any more of my stuff if I tried. When I had two big things left I thought I had run out of room. Luckily I was able to wedge them in. If I hadn't I would hear the end of it. "You should have packed something in the Caviler." I've gone through my room several times to make sure I didn't forget anything, I'm pretty sure I didn't.

I almost cried when I went to say good-bye to my mom. We had just started having a good relationship and now I have to leave her. She told me how proud she was of me and that almost did me in. In the end I did cry when I was walking down the stairs from her apartment. I'll almost make a bet that I won't cry when I say good-bye to my dad. I wish it was the other way around. My dad staying here and my mom driving me to Denver.

I have about 55 pages left in the book I'm reading than I'll have to avoid picking up a new book so I don't get hooked. Pretty soon I have to go to bed. Too bad I wasn't smart enough to leave out my pre-school reading assignment. Hopefully I have time to read it before I have to do anything with it. Or dig it out of the 4-runner. Of course it's on the bottom. lol. A little more than five hours left until I leave. Sad day. Another thing I wish is that I had a bed to sleep on. To avoid having to pack up my sheets last minute I packed them tonight I also packed all my clothes without leaving anything out to wear. I'm so smart. How did I ever get into DU?