Life in the fast lane

There are so many things I have to say right now, so many thoughts written down in my red leather journal. I have stories to tell, questions to ask, and rants to drag on. But rather than put any of what I am thinking to words, I am taking this blog post to talk about why I suddenly have so many things to say.

Finally, I feel like I have reached a point where life is moving. Rather than sitting around waiting for things to happen, I feel like the world is waiting for me. I am busy as a bee and have no time for half of the things I am involved in, but I love knowing I always have somewhere to go next. Sure, it would be nice to enjoy a moment before moving onto the next one (some call that smelling the roses), but for now, I am really loving my life in motion.

But it's not like the earth suddenly started turning faster. Rather, this new speed of living was sparked by a cliche that I stopped listening to and finally HEARD what was being said. This life-advice used to be just words to me, an inspirational quote that teachers would hang on posters in the class rooms. It was a cute saying, and I thought I understood what it meant, but I never put those words to action.

Seize the day.

There are so many things I have wanted to do and have put off thinking I would always have time, but some recent medical affairs in my family have reminded me that this might not be the case. I am so lucky to have today and twice as lucky if I get a tomorrow. Why would I wait for the day after that to do anything? Saving something for later is an insult to the current moment. In this unpredictable life, there are not always take-home doggy bags, so why save the left overs? Just finish what is in front of you RIGHT NOW. Carpe the fuck out of every diem.

When you are moving at a memory per minute, you won't have time to stop for gas.

Words about words about words

Today in my Honors Seminar in Writing class, we spent some time discussing words. The point my teacher and the editor of our summer reading book made was that we both enter and leave our lives as words. Before we are born, we are a whispered rumor, words formed of a life that has not yet happened. After we die, we are a memory, remembered through stories, words a life that once was.

And so, I beg to wonder, do actions really speak louder than words? I understand where the expression came from, but if you take the time to think about it, it feels less and less inspirational.

If, as my teacher suggested, we leave this world in words, than those words become our legacy. Once we are gone and can no longer act for ourselves, we become whatever it is that people say about us. This legacy, this accumulation of words, will exist for a duration time (hopefully) longer than that in which we lived. So, how could the actions you made on earth be more prominent than the things people will say about those actions? True, we must do loud things to have loud words said about us, but ultimately it is those words, not those actions, that will face a slower silence.

Why we live

Bare with me, readers, as I am about to embark on a slightly depressing but unavoidably true tangent that crossed my mind this morning.

So this thing we're all doing right now, life. It's a pretty odd occurrence. How strange is it that we are anything at all? But, more than that, how strange is it that we put effort into being anything else? The fact that we are something should be enough. Why do we all feel the need to prove ourselves as something else?

But really, what I want to say, is that we spend our whole life living and then, sometime hopefully not too soon, it will all end. We will die. And everything we ever lived for, every memory we ever had, every thought we never spoke, will die too.

Think about when you plan a birthday party. You spend so much time sending out invitations, ordering decorations, picking out the perfect outfit. And then, eventually, the date listed on those fancy invitations will come and it will go and everything you planned for will be over. The party was your final product and when the last guest leaves it is no longer part of your worries.

How weird is it that, in life, the one thing you live for is to die? Your final product, what all of this living is leading up to, your birthday party, is the moment you take your last breath and leave everything else behind. We live, truly, to die.

And once we are dead, that's it. We will not worry about if the birthday party went well, if all of our guests had a good time and enjoyed their fancy invitations. Those people will know that they were invited into our birthday party which is life but we will never know if they came, if the cake was too dry, if people enjoyed their time with us. We will be gone, and although it may be sad for the party goers we left behind, we will have completed our life's goal because we will have died.
And they should not be sad if they realize we finished the only thing we were put on this earth to do: die.

Happiness: as sold for $2.00

Something I wrote for HSW and felt the need to blog. Does that make me lazy to reuse the same composition? At least this one's not graded.

I have an utmost appreciation for dining. On vacations, my biggest concern is not seeing this historical monument or lying on that beach, but rather where we are getting our next meal. From what people eat, we can infer so much; the biggest difference between cultures can be found in the spiciness of their food, the saltiness of their sauces, the importance of each meal. I remember trips in flavors and I remember home in one particular taste: Denny’s white chocolate chip strawberry pancakes. Maybe that strips some of my epicure status, but I would be lying if I claimed that my mother’s homemade soup or my stepbrother’s raspberry gelato were more memorable to me than my solitary trips to America’s favorite breakfast chain diner.

In the most predictable way possible, I like to eat my feelings. It doesn’t matter which emotion I find myself in; if I am feeling something, so too am I feeling hungry. When I am upset or confused or delighted or guilty or greedy or stressed out or just plain bored, the only food I crave is white chocolate chip strawberry pancakes. The times I am most successful in making coherent thoughts out of abstract emotions is when creamy white chocolate and sugar coated fruit is melded together in my mouth to form a boldly uniform taste.

It’s true. Denny’s has gotten me through some of the experiences I naively called tough at the time. Although I know any of my overbearingly altruistic friends would open their homes to me if need be, there is no four walls I would rather surround a distraught version of myself with than those of the slightly chipped, burnt orange paint at Denny’s Pancake House. So, usually, I sit in a single booth eating my pancakes without talking anyone other than Angie, the middle-aged waitress who pours my frequently emptied water.

More than the deliciously fruity flavor I so often crave, physically being at Denny’s cheers me up. As alone as I may seem in my corner-hugging booth, the company I am with is among the most reassuring I have known. From the elderly couple whose years together have occupied every conversation worth having and sits silently, avoiding each other’s gaze, to the single mother of four, who still wears her nurse’s scrubs during what the children refer to as their “family fun night”, to the ageing businessman whose distracted eyes glance constantly at his watch, dreading the moment he has to return to wherever he calls home, I am surrounded with an oddly familiar company.

Who am I - a well-educated, well-provided for teenager- to be lamenting over anything when these people are experiencing nearly my lifetime’s worth of troubles in a single day? Watching a family rejoice over a full meal, watching a pair of time-worn companions more interested in a fork than in each other makes whatever it was I came here to think about suddenly seems laughable. My meal, if not my life, is so carefree compared to the people who surround me in this 24-hour dining establishment, as far as a meal’s worth of time can tell me. And yet, they all seem pretty happy. Denny’s is their big night out or a part of their drudging routine. Denny’s is my greatest reality check.

So, for every bight of pleasure I get out of fine dining, there is no restaurant I would more strongly recommend then the one impudently advertised off of Kingery Highway. Because, until I can find someone who can meld two parts white chocolate with three parts strawberries to create one part heaven, until I can find someone who can follow it up with an aftertaste of “cheer up, your life is pretty good,” I will continue to rely on Denny’s to be my 24 hour heart attack inducer and seven days a week heartbreak cure.

That's not charity

Motives. We all have them. We do things for other people for ourselves or do things for ourselves for other people. We try and calm down because someone we like said we were too crazy and we want to impress them. We turn everything in on time so that our teachers will like who we are as a student. We smile so someone will take a picture, joke around so people will think we're cool, talk so that people will listen to us. Every decision we make is motivated by, well, a motive.

I am not going to say that this is a bad thing. We need to have a reason to do things because it is a lot easier to just do nothing. What I am going I say is that, in situations when your motives are not pure, it IS better to just do nothing. If you are helping others for your own benefit, you are skipping over the "helping others" part and really just "helping yourself". That is selfish. That is wrong. That makes me sick to my stomach. Selfish motives are the reason people have so much doubt in the human race.

The person who goes to a food pantry to feed the hungry, on the outside, appears to be doing a great thing. But the minute he whips out the volunteer form for the club he is only in to stack on his resume and asks to have it signed by the adult in charge, he appears greedy and detached.

So, in short, before we do things, we should ask why we are doing them. Because if the reason isn't honestly to better the people around us and the world we live in, than it is probably not worth doing.

Furthermore, next time someone does anything for you, I challenge you to check their motives. Although they may be completely genuine, it is also likely that they are kissing up to you or someone who is watching. You really do not know someone until you know exactly what is motivating each and every decision he makes. That is, in my opinion, the best judgement of character-- not what someone does, but why they do it.

And, readers, of all people, I know I am guilty of what I just accused. We all are. But I am trying to work on only doing good things for good reasons and encourage you to do the same.



And no. "I need the points for NHS" is not a good reason.

Thirteen things to do everyday

1. Help more people than you hurt

2. Make ten people smile

3. Thank someone. Better yet, thank everyone

4. Find something beautiful

5. Do something terrifying

6. Meet someone new

7. Go barefoot

8. Drink eight glasses of water

9. Do something you couldn't do yesterday

10. Learn at least five new things

11. Help a stranger

12. Think of more things to add to this list

13. Make it to tomorrow.

Clarendon Thrills

I live in a town where everyone know everybody's everything.

A walk down the street becomes a stroll down memory lane. Every white picket fenced house is home to somebody who is anybodies aunt, who is probably, also, everybody's dentist. We are a town of "givers"- we are there the second the diagnosis is printed and the moment the casket is buried, although we are probably too busy to be there in between. We consume ourselves in everybody's gossip- who wore what where and which couples are having what problems. We are a town where everyone is optimistic until it is trendy to be pessimistic.

I live in a town where nobody knows anybodies anything.

Where my next door neighbors, bless their hearts, send me a birthday card for an age they have to subtract from their own to figure out. Every conversation is shallow, short talk followed by shorter listenings. We are a town of "she's so nice!" and nothing more. We know nothing of personalities, no knowledge of what makes who who other than the clothes they wear, the people they talk to, the money they spend. We are a town of whatever will get us on to the next thing to get on to.

I guess you could call this town a conglomeration of selective listeners.