The Tough Kid

The toughest kid, the one who always acts like everything is fine, can break down at a moments notice. One tiny thing can shake the inner world of the strongest mind and bring it crashing down. They mitally collapse and the person you thought you knew changes before your eyes. And still, they put on a brave face, that of a mask, and act like nothing is wrong. But the brave mask they put on is thin and eventually breaks, shattering into a million pieces. It taks time, lots of time, to put it back together again. And when every piece has been put back into place, the mask of bravery looks different, more fragile somehow. And even though the difference is small, you can still see it. But to those who never knew the mask broke, or never even knew there was a mask in the first place, the change never happened. Life goes on without turning its head. But there was a mask and it did break and the change did happen. I saw it, and will never look at him the same way again.

A Friend Who Knows Me

Out of all the people one Earth, there is only one person that truly knows me. He is my best friend and I can depend on him for anything. Last night, I was stressed nearly till breaking point. There was just too much on my mind, the major thing being homework. I felt like I was running on fumes with hundreds of miles left to go and no fill-up in sight. So, when he texted me that he was going to bed and i told him good night, I was on the verge of losing it. And without me saying anything other than "night," he knew something was up and asked me if I was ok. To which I promptly said no. In a few, short words, I told him what was going on. And as if he knew exactly what I was missing, he asked "Did you talk to the big guy upstairs?" I had forgotten to pray to Heavenly Father for help in the hustle and bustle of the day. I told him thanks for reminding me and that I was calmed down, which was true for the most part. My stress wasn't gone, but I knew I could handle it. And then he said "Wonderful :) Just relax and let the Holy Ghost in. He's a cool guy too." Either he really know me, or the Spirit was guiding him in what to say. Or both. But regardless, I am so grateful for someone who knows me as well as he does. Thanks for the reminder Colt!

Life

You know, there are certain songs that you just love even if you don't really know what the lyrics are saying. It's a combination of the tune and the strange words. One of my new favorites is Wind by Akeboshi. The chorus says:

"Don't try to live so wise.

Don't cry 'cause you're so right.

Don't dry with fakes or fears,

'Cause you will hate yourself in the end."

Now those lyrics don't exactly make sense one line at a time but all together, they kinda make up my motto and how I live life. I tend to hide my feelings from people, or at least those feelings that I don't like: fear, sorrow, worry. But if I'm happy or even angry, I have no problem showing it. But still, I'm afraid for people to see the true me. And yet, I'm still almost as readable as an open book if people just take the time to open their eyes and look. I've locked myself up and rarely let anyone have the true key. But there are always those who can pick the lock. And against them, I have no defense. But I'm not as closed as I used to be. I have opened up and returned to my real self. I've been able to find true friends again and recognize the friends I already had but never really took true notice of before. Life is a funny thing. It all comes back around again. And recently, I've been remember a lot what Sarah Kay said in her poem If I Should Have a Daughter:

"No matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal.

Believe me, I've tried."

I've done that so many times: tried to heal the pain of myself and others. You can't handle everything on your own. People are there to help you. It took me a while to figure that out, but I did. Another part of the poem says:

"I'll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boots near by, because there is no heartbreak that chocolate can't fix.

Okay, there's a few heartbreaks chocolate can't fix.

But that's what the rain boots are for.

Because rain will wash away everything if, you let it."

Rain and tears. They roll down your face and disappear into your clothes and into the ground only to dry up and take your sorrows with them. Because:

"There'll be days like this.

There'll be days like this my mama said.

When you open your hands to catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises; when you step out of a phone booth and try to fly and the very people you wanna save are the ones standing on your cape; when your boots will fill with rain, and you will be up to your knees in disappointment.

And those are the very days you have all the more reason to say thank you. 

Because there is nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it's sent away.

You will put the win in win some, lose some.

You will put the star in starting over, and over.

And no matter how many times land mines erupt in a minute, make sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life."

Who could put it more eloquently? No matter how many time things go wrong in a second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, lifetime, life is still beautiful and no one should ever forget it or stop remind others of it. But still, remember:

"Always apologize when you've done something wrong.

But don't ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining.

You're voice is small, but don't ever stop singing.

And when they finally hand you heartache, when they slip war and hatred under your door and offer you handouts on street-corners of cynicism and defeat,"

You throw it right back at them and show them the way you see the world: with beauty and light and love. It's taken me a long time to figure all this out, but life is beautiful no matter the ugliness you see. The fact that you are alive is something to be grateful for in and of itself. Nothing can change that fact and don't let anyone tell you otherwise because if you do, you would have given in to the sorrow and loneliness of fear and anger. And with fear and anger, all the beauty leaves until your world becomes filled with grey. Believe me, I know. And there is nothing harder than trying to color a world filled with negative light. It took a punch in the face and a kick to the gut and getting the wind knocked out of me by the grey life I used to live for for me to finally understand  that this world is filled to the breaking point with happiness and beauty. It seems like a weird way to learn something but that's the way life was for me. It took that much pain and anguish for me to see the beauty of life.

And therein lies the unpredictablility of life. You will be surprised by what can make you change. Some things would seem to cause more harm than good but they do exactly the opposite. Things always happen for a reason no matter how random or reason-less they seem at the time. That's the way life is. It is never the same from day to day and you can never expect to experience the same thing as someone else because you are not them no matter how much you might want to be. And yet:

"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

 Robert Frost is a geneous. It's also how i try to live my life because the road less traveled is more often than not the harder and yet better/right-er thing to do. His poem is entitled "The Road Not Taken" as a rememberence, if you will, to the other road, the one he didn't take. Isn't that the way life goes? It's full of forks in the road and you always choose one but rarely, if ever, do you come back and start walking down the other road.