Changes

On Saturday, I went to tour Castleton's campus. It was exciting and terrifying all at the same time. I had decided early in this semester that I was going to transfer for next spring, but now that the time has finally arrived and I'm almost there, I'm scared. I don't know why exactly. I'm nervous to live away from home for the first time. I don't know how long it will take to become friends with my roommate. I'm not 100% sure about the food (from what they had available during lunch, or brunch as it's called on the weekend when they serve omelettes and chocolate chip pancakes at noon.) It's certainly not home cooked meals. I just suddenly unsure, but it's going to happen.

I'm confident about some things though. I'm looking forward to the new learning environment, to the teachers that I've met and all the potential courses. I'm excited about my major; Global Studies. (I'm not too thrilled with the need for 12 credits in a language alone, but there are worse things.) I get to travel abroad for a semester, it's required for a Global Studies major. I might become a journalist because of my degree, and I am just excited for my future, even though I have no idea what it will really hold. It's all unknown at this point, with a lot changes about to happen, so it's completely terrifying but amazing all at the same time.

Long Post Alert

I've been watching Slam Poetry for the better part of the night. Here are some of my favorites.

Actively Procrastinating

I find when I am actively avoiding doing something, whether it's homework or housework or whatever else is on my list of things to do, I happen to come across the most interesting things the internet has to offer. Justina knows I have a Tumblr blog as well as this one, but for those who don't know, Tumblr is a massive blogging platform that allows people to share and reblog and post things. (I recommend it, but just know that I created my blog in August of last year and I can't remember what I used to do with all my free time before it. It's very addicting.) Anyway, some of the blogs I follow post the most amazing things, like the poem in my last post, or some of the inspirational advice I've posted in the first few weeks of this blog. Today's little gold mine is this poem, called "For Women Who Are Difficult To Love" by Warsan Shire. You can listen to it here, read by Warsan: Audio

you are a horse running alone

and he tries to tame you

compares you to an impossible highway

to a burning house

says you are blinding him

that he could never leave you

forget you

want anything but you

you dizzy him, you are unbearable

every woman before or after you

is doused in your name

you fill his mouth

his teeth ache with memory of taste

his body just a long shadow seeking yours

but you are always too intense

frightening in the way you want him

unashamed and sacrificial

he tells you that no man can live up to the one who

lives in your head

and you tried to change didn't you?

closed your mouth more

tried to be softer

prettier

less volatile, less awake

but even when sleeping you could feel

him travelling away from you in his dreams

so what did you want to do love

split his head open?

you can't make homes out of human beings

someone should have already told you that

and if he wants to leave

then let him leave

you are terrifying

and strange and beautiful

something not everyone knows how to love.

She has a book called Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth, which I have ordered and am currently waiting for it to arrive. Some of her other poems and words of wisdom are also amazing; I'll post my favorites below.

“My alone feels so good, I'll only have you if you're sweeter than my solitude.”

“two people who were once very close can
without blame
or grand betrayal
become strangers.
perhaps this is the saddest thing in the world.”

“make love
like you have no
secrets
like you’ve
never been
left
never been
hurt
like the world
don’t owe you a
single
wretched
thing.”

“Loving you was like going to war; I never came back the same.”

“It's not my responsibility to be beautiful. I'm not alive for that purpose. My existence is not about how desirable you find me.”

“the year of letting go, of understanding loss. grace. of the word ‘no’ and also being able to say ‘you are not kind’. the year of humanity/humility. when the whole world couldn’t get out of bed. everyone i’ve met this year, says the same thing ‘you are so easy to be around, how do you do that?’. the year i broke open and dug out all the rot with own hands. the year i learnt small talk. and how to smile at strangers. the year i understood that i am my best when i reach out and ask ‘do you want to be my friend?’. the year of sugar, everywhere. softness. sweetness. honey honey. the year of being alone, and learning how much i like it. the year of hugging people i don’t know, because i want to know them. the year i made peace and love, right here.”

Persephone Lied

The truth is, I was bored.

My mother blissing ahead of me, rosebuds rising in her footsteps,
And I skulking behind, thinking,
Oh look. She walks in beauty.
Again.

Her power could boil rivers, if she chose.
She doesn’t choose. She scatters
Heliotrope behind her.

And me, I’ve no powers. I think she’d like
A decorative daughter. A link to the humans
She feeds with her scattered wheat.
A daughter wed to a swineherd’s just the thing
To show that Demeter’s a down-to-earth
Kind of goddess.

Do you know what swineherds talk about?
Swine.
Diseases of, ways to cook;
“That ‘un’s got no milk for ‘er shoats;
Him, there, he’s got boggy trotters.”

And when he leaned in, smiling,
While we sat in a bower sagged with Mother’s honeysuckle,
When he said, “Now,
My herd’s growing and I’m thinking I could feed a wife—”
That’s when I snapped, I howled, I ran.

And when a hole opened up, a beautiful black, in all the pastels of my mother’s sowing.
Let me fix the lie: Nobody grabbed, nobody pulled.
I jumped.

I thought it was a tiny earthquake,
Thought I was killing myself,
Starting a long journey to Hades.
It was a more direct trip
Than I’d imagined—
I landed in his lap.

He just looked at me, said “Well,”
And kept driving his chariot down,
Flicked his leather reins near my face.
He did not give me flowers.
He never spoke of pigs.

Didn’t speak much at all. Just took me down in darkness
And did dark things.
I liked them.

I stumbled through his grey gardens, after,
Sore and smiling.
And the gardener said, “Little girl,
Little sunlit flower,
You belong in the world above.
Trust that they’ll come for you,
But while you wait
Don’t eat the food of the dead, for it will trap you here.”
And I said give me the fucking fruit.

But when I ate I could hear her howling,
See her spreading winter on the world.
My poor mother, who missed me after all;
My poor swineherd, starving.
Huddled up for warmth with the few he hadn’t eaten.

I spat out half the seeds.

So now I suffer through the summers,
Smile at the swineherd who tells me
Which shoat is off its feed.
Smile at my mother and walk behind her.
My powers have come to me now, and in her candy-colored wake I scatter
Sundew and flytrap, nettles and belladonna.

I smile and wait for November,
For when I come back to you.
Your clever cold hands and your hard black boots.
I don’t ask what the leather is made from.

I don’t think I want to know.

-Spuffyduds

I love, love, love this poem. I think the only one that even comes close is What Lot's Wife Would Have Said (If She Wasn't A Pillar of Salt).

On Happiness

“Don’t ever put your happiness in someone else’s hands. 

They’ll drop it. They’ll drop it every time.” 

—  Christopher Barzak

I hadn't ever thought of anything like this. (Maybe one day I'll be able to coin my own inspirational thoughts that people will blog about, or post in Facebook statuses or on Twitter, but not today.) I am the only person who is in control of my happiness, which makes sense. When I depend on others to "make" me happy, I'm usually not. I can be happy because of other people, but they don't control my happiness. 

To This Day

I first saw this video on Tumblr (thanks Justina!) a week or so ago. I've been thinking about it ever since. I've decided to share my own To This Day experience.

So as many of you know, depression took over my life my sophomore year of high school. I was still involved in many school activities though, trying to hide how this invisible disease had taken over my life. I was in Student Council, National Honor Society, I played soccer, I managed Varsity softball, and I was class secretary. As class secretary, I was just supposed to take notes and make sure everyone knew when the meetings were, but as the school year went on, I had to start taking on more and more. I was coming up with class fundraisers and designing bulletins by my self. I was organizing events like a 50/50 raffle and middle school dances and trying to organize meetings, because we had Junior Prom to start thinking of for next year. I was doing everything by myself. Every time I tried to get someone else involved or tried to get someone else's input, they'd blow me off or tell me point blank that they didn't care. So I took over completely. I had decided to make my classes problems personal. I was Atlas, holding everyone else up above me, when I let go.

I got sick the day before a scheduled movie day I had single-handedly planned. I got permission to use the schools library; I wrote, signed and addressed permission slips to parents; I got an after school bus for kids who's parents wouldn't be picking them up for free. I did everything, but by the end of that planning, I was so stressed out. Thursday afternoon, before the movie day, the softball team I managed had a game in the pouring rain and I got sick. I didn't go to school the next day. I texted, emailed, and Facebooked everyone who had "agreed" to help with the event that everything was taken care of, all they had to do was set everything up. I didn't get a reply from anyone.

I came to school on Monday and the world I had been trying to hold up for so long had crashed all around me. My "friends" were angry at me and wouldn't tell me why. I was replaced as class secretary that week, without being told there was a class meeting where the entire class would vote. Apparently, they didn't approve of me doing everything on my own and wanted me to include them. I learned a lot that year, about myself, about my classmates, and about the world. It was the first time I realized how much growing up was going to hurt.

To this day, I'm still afraid to take on too much, to really push myself to accomplish something. I'm also afraid to trust other people to help me. I'm scared that if I let people in, they'll be part of what brings me down someday.

NaNoWriMo

So for those who might not know what that is, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month, (November). And I just signed up. I'm excited, but also a bit apprehensive. I want to further the writing that I do in class and turn it into a novel. I have to write 50,000 words in just the month of November, so filling in the blanks from where my writing jumps from one subject to the next is what I'm going to do, since the writings I've already completed don't count. I'm hoping that by telling all of you here will keep me motivated and will make me want to write in my spare time. This project will give me something to do, something to focus my writing towards. And maybe I'll get a book out of it. Who knows, right?