A Solution

"There's a reason God gave us two ears and one mouth, so we can listen twice as much as we speak."
I've learned sometimes it's not about knowing what to say, but when to listen. Having the wisdom, all the solutions to their problems is impossible. But allowing them to open up to someone is what matters, not to mention quite possibly a solution to a huge problem. The reason being, people are no good at staying quiet, parents, teachers, friends. Everyone has to have an opinion, everyone has to have a "solution". Truth is, the greatest triumph is getting that person to find their own solution. The greatest challenge for us guiding them without steering them. The greatest challenge for them is wanting to reach that solution.

This too, shall pass. The quote I've been thinking about a lot lately. These past four months I've gotten to experience what it's like not having student services in my life. While yes, I do indeed missing having someone to talk to at any point in the day, I've also come to realize how strong I've become as a person.
Knowing you weren't quite good enough, and someone else was is quite possibly the absolute worst feeling in the world. Especially when the other person meant everything to you. Looking back I understand why it stung so badly. It seems like in some way, shape, or form I've been "not quite good enough" for every guy I've cared about. I'm tired of feeling that I need to change to please others. Lately, I've been good enough for myself, and that's all that has mattered. I like that feeling a lot. I've learned to be extremely selective, because you see, I have this problem where I care about others A LOT. And once I start caring about them it's very hard to stop. And well, the more selective you are the less memories you have to force yourself to forget, and the less feelings you have to ignore if it doesn't end happily ever after.
I get by with my best friends, some laughter, and a little bit of chocolate. And for now I'm perfectly content ;)

Purpose

A good friend once told me that each person that enters your life serves a specific purpose, whether you notice it or not. No matter how long they're there, or whether the purpose is large or small, doesn't matter.. people enter for a reason.

We connect with others everyday. It's those connections that last more then a couple of minutes that truly matter. The ones that leave you thinking. The ones that deepen relationships. Those connections, they serve major purposes. They transform you. For me, they turned me into a listener. I owe as much credit to the people on the other side of these conversations then I do to those who shaped me. I wish I could thank each and every person I've met since I got here three months ago, my incredibly strong roommate who can get through anything, my teammate and new best friend, even the boy I fell hard for. Their purposes will never gone unnoticed.

Regrets

We were on top of the world. We were perfect, not to the world- certainly not, but to one another. We never tried, we just were.

We lived at a different pace then everyone else. Fast and then very very slow. We would freeze in moments for long hours, and suddenly the day was over. Then in the blink of an eye, we were over. You can argue it was only two months and what we had wasn't quite love yet. It's the days we took for granted that I regret. Not knowing how great we had it, free and careless. The times before life got in the way. No matter what we were doing, it was special. And we were perfect.

Sometimes, when you're stressed or upset, the best way to cope is to completely allow yourself to feel those emotions. Having a bad day is nothing to be ashamed of.

What My Heart Says, Goes.

I ask myself every day: Is it worth it? Every time, the answer is yes. The doubts flutter out of my mind with little hesitation, because it's worth more then anything when I really think about it. My friends hardly understand, and sometimes I struggle to see it myself. But it's there, whether I like it or not and there's very little I can do to change that.

My Puppy

His name was going to be Jack or Pete or my favorite, Boots. Who knows how we landed on Max, my sister's idea possibly; it was indeed her dog. At the time he was "The cute puppy from the pet shop." He was brought into our home to help my sister deal with her torturous seventh grade school year. From the start he was more then just a new addition to our family. Max grew as I grew. He was at the bus stop for my first day of first grade. He was there lovably kissing all the kids at my graduation party. He saw it all. From start to finish, good days and bad, never failing to generate a smile on any face that walked into our house. There are very few moments I can remember Max not wagging his tail, very few entrances I can remember his not greeting me excitedly, and very few mornings I can remember him not waiting by the steps anxiously for us to wake up. He was, despite all of his accidents in the laundry room and table begging, the perfect dog. And more then I could have ever wished for.

Here

So here I am again. Caught in the same spot, on the same bed with the same blasting music as all the other times. Why do I let myself do this every single time? Why do I put myself through it when I know every time I'll end up right here?

Time

Wow this is the first summer I hadn't written here at all. School is good. Things are changing. Not just the leaves and the air, but things all around me- they're changing everyday without me realizing it. Not at least until now I guess. Everything seems to be an evolving work of progress in the grand scheme of things. We're working up and up and up to something completely unknown. It makes me wonder when exactly I stopped automatically thinking I'd be home for dinner that night. Or when I stopped having to think to not resting my arm on that one sharp stick out on my wooden desk. It's all just a process.

Change. It's everywhere. I see it in your eyes, hear it in your voice. But mostly I feel it from the deep dark depths of reality. I feel the the sugar coating of summer air wear away.. finer and finer. I allow it to approach as we knew it would, because there's just no stopping it. It's hard and it's dangerous, life changing, but inevitable. A certain freedom that has been forbidden, under wraps, and for some time unwanted. It was more then we knew.back in the lost time.. bare feet honey suckle lazy days of summer. An untouched thought, unspoken plan. We would wonder where the wishys went after blowing them from their stems. Wonder why the crickets only chirped at dusk. And then there were things we never questioned- like why the sun stayed out a little longer just enough for one more game of hide and seek. And what really was beyond our childhood worlds. Those questions never were asked. Yet their answers were forced upon us. And no matter how tightly we shut our eyes or clamped our tiny palms against our ears, those answers flooded through. Prying out our innocence, destroying all in its path. Knowing was believing. It was change. And it crept and crept and crept. Farther and farther in little bits at a time. We were the victims.

the end

For every try and fail, for the people who have come and gone, for change, for loss, and for gain. It's hard to think it's ending. That this sheltered renowned fortress some call highschool is no longer ours. That those lives we lived behind that protective barrier have been relinquished. They're all ours to live now, every second.
There have been the bystanders; those who have seen us everyday and just watched as we left and entered new phases of our journey. And then there's the others; you know who I'm talking about. Maybe it's that one teacher that threw you on the right path, that person that really changed you. Maybe it's the coach that believed in you so much you finally started believing yourself. Or the simple daily good morning from that one special role model. I have had so many amazing people come into my life and help shape my journey these past four years. Whether it be in the classroom relearning something for the tenth or eleventh time or out on the track in the dead of winter till the sun went down, these are the types of people that have touched my life.
But after four years here there are a handful of people that have done even more. They have taught me lessons I will absolutely never forget. Knowledge that could never be learned from a text book. Things not taught by eduacators at Great Valley High School, but by people just like you and I. I will truley forever cherish these lessons, and the experiences behind them. And the people who showed me the strength within myself, the strength I never knew I had. These few people will never ever become memories because I know they will always hold a place inside my heart.

the word.

I wish I could look you in the eyes and say something, anything. Hi, how are you, maybe even sorry? Better yet I wish I could explain from beginning to end. I know you'd never judge. Even if I broke down, even if I didn't make sense, even if I showed you this, I know you wouldn't judge. I know because we think the same, we always have. And because everytime you open up to me something inside of me yells in enjoyment. And I love it. And because well, who doesn't like hearing that they're someone's role model.
Maybe it was fate meeting you. I guess anyone could argue that. But for me, I think maybe I just found what I had been searching for. Both in a person and in life. Mainly you helped me find what I had been searching for in myself. Without even trying. You sewed me back together string by string. Without even knowing. But I want you to know. I want you to know so badly so if I ever get the guts to say thank you, you'll understand exactly why. I owe you something huge. Before I leave here, I want to be able to tell you thank you.

5 minutes

Five minutes is enough time to run around the track three times. Its enough to count 30 lighthouse rotations... to walk from one end of great valley high school to the other. And lately five precious minutes every saturday night has been enough to slowly tare me up inside. You see, these five tiny minutes are ones that this time last year we would have NEVER wasted, and that this time next year we will rarely have. Its these five minutes that absolutely terrify me.. that push me away.. that make it okay for me to publish this post. Because I know he doesn't take five minutes to read my blog anymore. Then I started thinking.. and calculating.. and adding up all the five less minutes in his life that don't involve me in any way, directly or indirectly. And now I'm beginning to think he's smart. I feel as though I'm losing him, and it's the worst feeling in the world. But soon he will be out of my life almost completely.. so I guess I too should be cutting out five minutes here and there. 10:55 "I'm home."

I could absolutely never say it never made me happy. In fact for a time, it was the only thing. Sometimes I think I owe it more. Like if it were a human being with feelings it would tell me I'm ungreatful. It would tell me I had a gift. And probably that right about now, I'm violently drowning it beneath the water surface. But there is a little bit of that gift I carry with me every single day, and I know I will never ever let it go.
I do realize it- that I'm looked up to and all. People are starting to see ME. And I like that. I've learned the one thing that carries the majority of the weight in your presence and in your being, in your thoughts and feelings; its the type of person you truley are. And I don't mean the person you're trying to be or want to be, I mean the person you are when you first wake up in the morning, before the first text message or the makeup mirror. Before you have the thought to judge yourself, or dwell on your imperfections, compare yourself to others. Everyday I try to stretch my morning just a little longer, and love myself a little more. Now you might be thinking SHES INSANE, and hell maybe I am. But sometimes I just wish I could challenge everyone to love themselves, I mean open their hearts and truley love themselves.. for exactly who they are.

Loves

Special thanks to the poet who inspired me to write this poem for rekindling my love for writing :)

I love frozen air
and the way it pierces my lungs
as I blaze down the straight away
I’m first.
I love being first.
With clear skies up ahead
and a swirl of dark dust spiraling
for miles and miles behind me.
I love the stone cold ground
and the patter of my rubber soles against it
and how it listens to my silent singing thoughts

I mostly love that it’s there,
in the rain and the snow
on Thanksgiving and Christmas
And I love that I love it
And that it loves me back.

You know what I really love?
I love sparkly nail polish and French vanilla tea
and the smell of freshly peeled Clementines.

I love the language of a poem,
heart language I call it
I love sailing away in its current
humming to it’s perfect pitch

Or something as simple as the passenger’s seat-
I love the passenger’s seat with the window down
and the sunroof open
with my hair twisting and tangling and dancing
on my freckled face

I love how he paces
back and forth and back again
while he waits for me
I absolutely love that he waits for me,
just for me,
and no one else

To be honest, I’ve never really loved black and white:
exponential functions or lines of longitude.
or twelve point Times New Roman font,
though I know some who do.
But for me, I love the bristles of my paint bush
I love gracing the page, investing complete assurance
in my hand,
and my heart.

I love Shakespeare;
when the struggle is over and the king is dead
And my teachers says “Read me your book number
then put it in the box.”

I laugh about meaningless things,
like when people walk by wearing matching rain coats
or when eggs splatter on my black tile kitchen floor
simply because I love to laugh
I laugh at my mommom because she laughs at me,
because she thinks my chaotic stressful world is just as crazy
as her demented one
And the funny thing is, I think she’s right
so we laugh
and laugh
and laugh
And I love it.

I love my future
because it’s boundless and
because it’s perfect right now,
in my mind
with flower boxes and a tomato garden
and Christmas tree ornaments from years past

I love that my loves are limitless,
open, silent, simple, tied into bunny ears
like the purple shoe laces on my converse sneakers
I love that they’re mine to feel,
that they’re tiny shards of who I am
that they create me.

I just love it, I really do.

We would meet every single Thursday, just like clockwork, in the tiny dark office in the corner of the school. It was safe; just far enough away from period bells and the clamor of the busy hallways. The tiny corner room never to be found or disturbed by the outside world.
We all came from different backgrounds, different social networks, different family situations, yet we all met on common ground here. We would nod our heads, listening attentively to the girl across the circle thinking back to that time we felt the same exact way. Nodding and nodding with soft fragile smiles. For most of us it was the only place to talk about our deep dark secret, to never be judged or critisized