no title

Carolina Rose

I try not to regret, but sometimes I regret trusting you. I don't resent you, but I resent the bitter fear you left me with. You trusted your gut instead of me, and two years later I still don't feel any better about it.

Words don't matter anymore, thanks to you - you never left but you might as well have.

"It don't mean nothin with out my Carolina Rose"

generative writing

http://thoughtcatalog.com/2012/i-will-always-care-too-much/

Fall

"I myself am entirely made of flaws, stitched together with good intentions"

I wonder how it looks from the outside. 3 years, my life "mapped out", and I'm still holding up this facade that I know what I'm doing. I have said it so many times, and explained every step I have taken and will take to do what I want to. It makes it so easy to hide all of the things that could go wrong... all of the in-bewteen spaces that are still gaping holes, daring me to mess it all up.

It's ok to not know. I have finally learned that, which is why all of this doesn't terrify me half as much as it might have. Yet it's still odd to wonder how many of my mistakes, bumps, and scrapes, are just glazed over when I talk about where I'm going.

Sometimes I think about things I wish I could fix, or things I could have handled more gracefully. I wish I had handled friendships and relationships and arguments and conversations differently. I miss people and I know that I don't have to, and that I could have made things work out differently in the end. But somehow I never regret. I look forward because I need to.

I just want to prove that I can do this. I want to prove that I can be me, with no embellishments, and be successful. I want to prove that I made the right decision graduating early, that I made the right decision to apply for the Truman, that I made the right decision to come to Conn. I want to prove to myself and to my parents and to everyone else that this wasn't something I settled for...it was right. I need this to be right and I will make it that way.

"A certain darkness is needed to see the stars..."

be brave

7/4

"No one is born fully-formed: it is through self-experience in the world that we become what we are."

RIP

you were kind and well respected -- the two things I aspire to be.

"everything happens for a reason"

The Next "Great Generation"

"you're tough when you need to be, you just like to lean on people when they're around"

"we are a generation that will reclaim and rebuild broken societal institutions in response to a perceived threat to the nation's survival. We will ultimately rise up with social activism, collective confidence, civic engagement, and servant leadership."

I know the power of a song when a song hits you right -- the sound of a million dreams.

beagle

"I was overwhelmed, and frankly scared as hell...I really fell for you."



I wish single words could encapsulate so many various feelings -- why isn't there a word for "thank you for being more mature than me when I need it" or "I'm so lucky that even though you're a clean freak you understand when I'm messy, and we find a good balance" or even "I wish I could be half as friendly as you are." I'd write you cards with each word on them and inside I would list every instance I should have said it to you.

I know it doesn't make sense to many other people, and I know its soon and surprising. But if anyone could, for one minute, see the moments that I do... "I'm right here," you told me, "I've got you."

"It's a risk to love.
What if it doesn't work out?
Ah, but what if it does..."

songs about rain

"Some quick lessons: Don't let "those who have power" intimidate you. No matter how much power they have, they cannot prevent you from living your life, thinking independently, speaking your mind.
Find people to be with you who share your values and commitments, and who also have a sense of humor."

"Note that throughout history people have felt powerless before authority, but that at certain times these powerless people, by organizing, acting, risking, persisting, have created enough power to change the world around them, even if a little."

"Don't look for a moment of total triumph. See engagement as an ongoing struggle, with victories and defeats, but in the long run slow progress. So you need patience and persistence. Understand that even when you don't "win," there is fun and fulfillment in the fact that you have been involved, with other good people, in something worthwhile. You need hope."

"Is an optimist necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time? I am totally confident not that the world will get better, but that only confidence can prevent people from giving up the game before all the cards have been played. The metaphor is deliberate; life is a gamble. Not to play is to foreclose any chance of winning. To play, to act, is to create at least a possibility of changing the world."

dreher

trust fall

Its strange to me that something so beautiful and so fragile is inextricably tied to fear...that the feeling that is supposed to be so incredible cannot be separated from the worry that it might end. Maybe that's what makes it so coveted and so special - that you never know what could happen, that all you'll ever have to hold onto is that in that day, in that moment, it exists and it is wonderful.

I won't ever know how others leave it behind, or if they do at all. I won't ever know what it's like to think any more or any less, or to feel any more or any less. I'll never know what it felt like or what it sounds like or looks like or tastes like for anyone else.

It sounds a little childish at first - that red doesn't look the same for anyone else. But love seems so all encompassing sometimes, I wish someone could let me know what I'm doing right and wrong. I don't know why it's so hard to simply trust myself - the more I care, the more I think about my fears and how much it could hurt.

It's never seemed more worth it - I'm slowly letting go. It'll be easy someday, I promise.

Wide Open Spaces

"And finally, I leave you a responsibility to our young people. The world around us really belongs to youth for youth will take over its future management. Our children must never lose their zeal for building a better world. They must not be discouraged from aspiring toward greatness, for they are to be the leaders of tomorrow. Nor must they forget that the masses of our people are still underprivileged, ill-housed, impoverished and victimized by discrimination. We have a powerful potential in our youth, and we must have the courage to change old ideas and practices so that we may direct their power toward good ends."

Thank you for always reminding me, and for never letting me slip away.

cuba

sometimes I wonder if I tell myself that little things can change the world because the big things are so unattainable.

but sometimes I wonder if the big things really have any impact at all compared to feelings of compassion, love, and trust that are shared between individuals.

for all the work I put into being put together, sometimes I feel like I'm just floating further and further out into the water...I'm privileged to have such a beautiful view.

Walls

"Just when you think that love will never find you, you run away but then it's right behind you...

Scared of love but scared of life alone."

Overachieving and under accomplished. I know why I'm never good enough...but I'll never tell.

"love from one side hurts, but love from two sides heals"

apologies

I don't want to be vulnerable...not even with you.

Home

"searchin' for answers
to questions I can't find"

walking in my sleep

"Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard, do not let the pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place."

please stay

"We spend much of our lives practicing our social skills and we've been conditioned, in some ways, to think that there's a time and a place for everything we could possible want to say. We're concerned about how others might react if we let them know how we feel in what we perceive as the wrong context. So we hold it all in. And, as a result, we will never say the wrong thing at the wrong time -- we will never have moments of awkwardness. We can avoid those moments that can seem devastating when they happen...

But we also miss out on the chance to connect with people. We miss out on the change to tell others how they've affected our lives. We miss out on the change that they might feel the same way about us. There are so many things that we choose to keep to ourselves; things that we're sometimes dying to share with others and...I don't know, I just think that it's a tragedy that we choose not to. And I think it's a tragedy that this choice is almost a knee-jerk reaction because we live in a society where we prefer to be ignorant if the truth doesn't confirm something we already want to hear."




Winter always gives way to spring.

"fall every day"

"Don't believe the things you tell yourself so late at night

You are your own worst enemy

You'll never win the fight"

floralia

It's a lot easier to justify when I'm the one doing it.

Brain Drain 2/11

I think I don't write when I'm happy because it never needs an explanation, it never needs words or pictures to justify it or normalize the pain.

Instead its just a feeling -- always different, but sometimes like the sun is shining right down on me, asking me to smile and dance with it -- and there's no words for that, or at least none that could be taken seriously.

Why is it that we look down on things that are cheesy or sweet? What's so wrong with happiness, anyway?

overcalculating

"my deepest, most irrational fear [...] is that whenever a man truly gets to know me, he'll leave."

It's a selfish fear -- it ruined friendships, it hurt families, and it exhausts anyone who stuck around.
I don't drop it, even though it's silly. Even though it's worthless. Even though its gone and its done. Sometimes I try to reason with myself (I always try to reason with myself) -- it never wins. How do you promise yourself that forever exists, when you know it's never been there for anyone you love? How do you understand what love is when everyone hurts so deeply?
But who does it help to be cynical and bruised?
Confidence is everything. Pain is relative. Being jaded is overrated.


This is my apology. Not a promise to change, not a resolution to be untethered and carefree...but it's a start.

why they call it falling

"a man's doubts and fears are his worst enemies"

"it's like a knife, through the heart, when it all comes apart,

it's like someone takes a pin to your balloon."

"one's best successes come after his greatest disappointments"

romance

a story and a picture

I won't lose the feeling again. I can't and I won't.

a good scare

"I always know"

things people say

talking big just isn't cutting it anymore; but then again, words have never been enough.

what is love, anyway?

iron man

"silent hero bullshit"
"there's a way to find, better days I know."