vent

finals week is the worst week of the entire year. after spending an entire term barely toeing the line, finals week is the week that all my procrastination catches up to me, and leaves me choking and gasping for air.

literally.

i wish i didn't have to cram, but i do. i wish i didn't have fifty billion chapters to read in the books that are still in the bags that i bought them in, but i do.

i wish i could say i have learned my lesson, but i haven't.

and i wish i could say i will never do this again, but i will.

fml.

realizations on a rainy day

Sometimes I want to lay out all the pieces of myself on a table for you to see. I'm a rainbow, a run on sentence or two, your last piece of gum. The best listener. A raving bitch (I'm working on being less 'bitch' and more 'raving')

On any given day I am the fifth chapter in your favorite book. Known to you, but nothing to anyone else without the beginning and end.
Blue and red make purple (if i remember correctly), but I cannot be blue and red and purple all at the same time, yet I still want you to know I can be all three.

There are two sides to every story, a million sides to a girl, and I wish I could show you them all at once, but I can't.

I am the sum of my past, my mistakes, my favorite books, my workout playlist, and the cheesecake I ate too much of for dessert.

But then I realize that I am only human. That I can only wear one face at any given time. That I am a lot of things, and that you will see this with time.

But most importantly, that I have nothing to prove.

get well soon

Procrastination is a disease. A serious, serious disease. The poor, poor victims of this disease are too often blamed for being lazy, when they are in fact, very, very sick. There are many horrible side effects of procrastination, including but not limited to:
- Lack of sleep
- Sudden onset of stress
- Lack of sleep
- Skin problems from lack of sleep
- Crankiness from lack of sleep
- Falling asleep in class and getting yelled at because of lack of sleep

Is there a Procrastinator's Anonymous or something?
If so please let me know. If not please let me know so I can start one.
I'm always looking for shit to put on my college apps.
The ones I haven't started yet.

the stranger i know best

Your probably don't want to be judged on your past anymore than I do, but it's becoming very difficult to keep from sneaking glances over my shoulder.
I don't like the picture being painted behind me. I don't want to judge you on who you were, but I no longer know who you are.

You're a stranger to me, all rolled R's and sounds I can't make at the back of my throat.
When you find your way, come back to me.

sometimes i'm not enough

my shoes are old and worn from walking to nowhere and back a million times.
i am lost, and i cannot remember which road leads home.

the great perhaps and other things

i finished reading tuesdays with morrie, and i would really appreciate it if you would read it.
there are a handful of books that will rock you to your core, cut you open so deeply and force you to analyze whats inside of you, and this is one of those books.
it made me realize that i want to be something more. i have taken a zillion breaths and a billion steps to nowhere and back, and i still don't know where i'm going.
you want to know why i started blogging?
because i'm terrified of being forgotten. i am terrified that once i die people will mourn me for a few months, and then i will only come up in casual conversation around the holidays. and then after that not at all. it will be like i never existed.
i don't want to be forgotten. i am so scared that i will live only to realize once i'm dying that I never truly did. i want to get up off my lazy ass and make my dreams come true, but to be completely honest i wouldn't even know where to start.
so i stay here in my head where it's comfortable and safe, and i never venture out.

No, I am not schizo

Dear J of Today,

Stop worrying about me. You've buried me, so stop digging me back up. 

You're not like me. You won't make the same mistakes I did.

Granted you'll make other, possibly stupider ones, but that's for J of Tomorrow to talk to you about.

 You're on the right track.

 Just keep walking.

Love,

J of Yesterday 

Lost and yet to be Found

So far this summer I've been doing a lot of thinking about life, about myself.
I've cut myself up and put myself under a microscope and I don't know if I like what I see.
So much self evaluation that I just want to get out of my head for a while and forget about everything and just live. But it's kinda like Pandora's box, once it's opened it can't be closed.
So this is what I've come up with.
I don't know who I am.
And Lord knows how pathetic I feel saying that.
Or maybe I do know who I am but I'm just pretending I don't?
And I know my parents worry about me because they think I have absolutely no moral conscience but that's so not true. I have morals and boundaries and sometimes I change them, but that's only because I donn't have my mind made up about everything in the world already.
I'll cross that bridge when I get there kinda philosophy on decision making.
I don't come pre-packaged and ready to serve.
I come in a million little pieces that have to be put together manually without instructions.
Come on, now. It's only fair that you're allowed to put things together wrong the first few times, right?

Too much thought.
I want to escape my thoughts, excape my mind, escape myself.
But there I am.
Jeez. I'm like my own stalker.

Dr. Laura

I love that woman. As of today.

Today as my mom was driving us home from the hair salon, Dr. Laura was busy saving marriages and solving family crises, and I was staring out the window, lost in thought, not really paying her any mind.
When one caller caught my attention.
He was a 60 year old screw up. To put it bluntly. And he was feeling horribley guilty for all the lives he'd ruined and all the mistakes he'd made. Dr.Laura interrupted him, as she's prone to do, and told him a story.
A story that I don't think I'll ever forget.
She used to take tennis lessons. Whenever she messed up a serve she'd freak out and then mess up the next five serves. One day, her instructor called her up to the net and said: "Once you throw the ball, it's gone. There's nothing you can do about it. All that you can do is hit the next ball."
She paused and then said those past 60 years? That ball is long gone. Just make sure you try your best from now on out.
And that is the most important lesson I have learned so far, even though it wasn't meant for me.
See? It's okay for me to slip up and mess up. What's not okay is if I remain stuck in neutral, doing nothing. I can let my past failures effect my future, or I can store them away for future reference and learn how to do things right. Practice makes perfect.
And no. Not tennis.
Life.

grew up a screw up

No this is not a post dedicated to that song.
So, yesterday we went to school to get my report card :/
Talk about buzzkill.
Basically, yesterday was the worst day ever.
My parents basically hate me, and I have ruined the entire summer.
I know that's a little bit of an exaggeration, but that's exactly how it felt yesterday.
That horrible achey feeling where you're heart's in your throat and your insides feel like mush? And you cry and cry and cry and cry and then fall asleep from exhaustion..
And my parents.
I know how they feel, but what about me?
Imagine how I feel. They think I don't care, but I do. I care so much it's like a physical ache.
I screw up a lot, I'm like a pro, but things are changing. I wish they could see how differently I think, how differently I act.
I wonder if they know that it doesn't matter how bad they want good things for me.
I have to want them for myself.
And I do.
Even if they think I don't.
All of this? This is going to shape my. It's like that quote "everything I'm not makes me everything I am."
So you see? Everything I do wrong, will only teach me how to do things right.
I can't go back, so there's no point dwelling on the past. And honestly? I don't even want to.
I want to go forward. I can't erase my mistakes, so it's pointless crying over spilled milk.
All you can do is clean up the mess and move on. What's done is done.
Pray.
Pray that today will be better than yesterday, and tomorrow will be better than today.

Remember Me

My potential scares me.

I have never realized, never been made aware of how powerful I am.

In my own two hands is the ability to do anything.

The ability to touch lives, to heal, to destroy. The ability to make and to break.

If I choose to do so, I can make the world a better place. I can also make it a little worse off. It's my choice.

I feel like a prophet of God after being handed the fate of humanity.

Exaggeration? Maybe, maybe. But this is more important than my sixteen year old self has ever felt. So maybe the fate of the world isn't in my hands, but its nice to know that my choices will effect people. Weather they are good or bad, they matter.

And I think about the ignorant teenagers I go to school with, and I can't help but wonder: why hasn't anyone ever told any of them? They don't know how important they are! And then I wonder, how many of them will never find out?
For the billionth time, as I hear about how faded someone got this weekend, and how they made out with someone they didn't even like, and how they're grounded because their mother found their shot glasses under the bed, I want to reach out and shake them. Shake some sense into them.
Wake up! Get over yourself! You may not realize it but you've been telling that same story, albeit slightly different, for years now! Does it never grow old? Do you never open your eyes?

You matter, I want to tell them. You are important. You can make a difference. Good or bad, its up to you, but you can still have an impact. You can save baby seals, you can stop global warming, you can feed the homeless, you can donate to charity, you can tell your mom how much you love her, but to do nothing? Wake up, I want to yell. Do something, anything. Just don't do nothing. Don't go your entire life unnoticed. Because honestly? I've heard your story from my next-door neighbor. From the girl with the blue hair that sits beside me in American Studies. From the clerk at Walgreens.

Like the countless general fiction novels at the library about the girl whose parents get divorced and her best friend moves away and her boyfriend breaks up with her and then her dog dies.
It's all the same. Sure, the characters have different names, and they live in different cities, but its just another carbon copy.

Be different, I want to whisper. You are the future. You cannot erase what is already written, but you can always turn the page. Begin again, I say. And this time, make sure the world will remember it.