love.

Four letters. So much meaning. The three most beautiful, most terrifying, and most fascinating words in existence- I love you.

What's the obsession with love? Why do we feel such a need for love and acceptance? I can't answer that for everyone. Love has never been and never will be suitably generalized. "To each his own," right?

Love. I sometimes think that I've never been in love, never been loved, and that it's hopeless for me; that love will never happen, will never come in all its glory with bells chiming and birds singing and a love song playing somewhere in the distance. Generally I feel this way after watching a particularly sappy movie about love. They're all the same- woman finds man in unexpected way, woman falls in love, man is stupid, woman convinces herself she is over man, man comes back twice as charming and appears vulnerably in love, woman forgives man and they kiss. Please. Spare me the sap. It's a classic romance novel. It's money. If life was portrayed realistically in these films, no one would watch them. Who wants to pay $12 to watch two people fall out of love? No one. It's too depressing. And yet.. we face trials like this every day. Love isn't alone in causing people pain.

But it's the people we love who cause us the most pain. If we didn't love them, it wouldn't hurt so much when they leave.

Tears. Joy and sorrow have a fine line between them. People cry with happiness, and people cry with pure, unadultered pain. Each situation we're faced with every single day can have so many outcomes. We learn early on that some choices will always be wrong. But some choices are borderline, are on the fence.

Delusions. Why do we fall for people we know are wrong for us?

Temptation. We want what we want when we want it.

Impatience. Selfishness. Torturous desire. Longing. Sorrow. Pain. Hope.

Hope?

Hope. Strength. Compassion. Acceptance. Friends. Family. Love.

Which brings me back to my original thoughts. Love.
Have I ever been loved? Yes. Undoubtedly. I am loved by so many people in life.
My friends, for one, have been there for me through every crush, every heartbreak, every soppy love story, every fall, bump, and bruise, every complaint. They have sat through my tales of woe and my songs of rejoice. They've patiently waded through every dark detail of my life, waiting for a redemption, waiting for me to realize that they've been right all along, and once again I've buried myself in that grave that I had been digging from the very beginning.
My family has been through the roughest times and back with me. I owe my life to my family. It's been hard, of course, to live with the pain of knowing the past will take forever to overcome, and trying to just get through the day is a big enough goal. Pushing ourselves to scale walls and climb mountains (figuratively, of course!) hasn't been easy. Some days I think it would be better for them if I hadn't been born. My family has been through hell because of me. I'll be the first to admit it. They have made sacrifices that no other person could make for me. And that's only the surface of it all.
My schools have been, in their own way (and forgive the pun), educational. And while the schools themselves don't really fall into the "love" category, there are a few people who, especially these past two years, have gotten me through. With their care and understanding, I've made it through so many trials and heartaches. They've heard it all- my past, my present, and my fears for the future- and yet.. they still show care and concern that far surpasses what I could have even imagined.
Have I ever been loved? It would be selfish of me to say that I have not been.

Do I love? Yes. I love everyone, everything, all the time. Deep down in that black hole I call a heart, I'm a romantic. I am! I romanticize everything from love at first sight to how a story will end. People can never be evil. That's what gets me hurt, but I do it anyway. I put myself out there time after time after time, knowing I'll be hurt, but doing it anyway because I don't know how else to live. I've bared my soul more times than I can count, and still... it never feels like I've tried enough. I feel like I've given up.

Discouragement. We were never meant to feel like this. A long time ago, someone had his heart broken. And we're forevermore cursed to feel the same longing for something more pure. And to avoid that heartbreak, we settle for less. We either convince ourselves that nothing is good enough for us, or we convince ourselves that we're not good enough for anything.

Remption. We're beautiful. Think about it- we walk, we talk, we think. We can make choices. We can change our minds. We can change the world. We are contradictions. We control everything and yet nothing. Life goes on with or without us. We're not indisposable to anyone but ourselves. And someday, sometime, somewhere, it's going to hit each and every one of us that life may not be what we make it, but we make what life is to us.

Decisions. Will I ever find love? That depends on how I define it. Love has already found me- through my friends, my family, and my supports. Romantic love? I already romanticize about everything. Maybe it's time to stop thinking of romance as that person who comes and sweeps us off our feet. Maybe true romance can be found in the beauty around us. Because even a breath of fresh air that can keep us alive for one more second is more beautiful than anything in the world. Raindrops are like a thousand kisses pouring down on us from the heavens. Roses smell so sweet so that we stop to smell them and enjoy the beauty of a splash of color in a world that's blurred at the edges and fading to gray.

Love. It's everything and it's nothing. It's beautiful and it's ugly. And yet.. through it all, through every heartbreak, every stroke of bad luck, every tear shed, let it be said that we never gave up loving.

fly the flag of recognition

I am not a great painter. I can’t look at an object and reconstruct it in a painting with a perspective that redefines objectivity and perspective or gives anyone a stunning new outlook on life. At most, I can look at an orange and put a blob of orange paint on a piece of construction paper. What was “art” and “genius” when I was little is now nothing better than kindle for fire.

I am not a great proficient at music. Yes, I can sing. Yes, I can play about three different instruments. But I can’t compose great pieces (or any pieces for that matter). It’s been a life-long dream of mine. I can hear the piece I want to write, but I can’t play the piano, which has been a definite stumbling block.

I am not good at acting. Though every day, I hide who I truly am even from the people I love most, on stage I freeze up and break out sweating. I would love to be able to carry myself as confidently on stage as I do in my writing. I feel like if I could just get over my stage fright, I would be amazing at acting. The thing is, I spend so much of my time and energy not letting anyone get to know me that I fear putting all of who I really am into the character I would need to become. The best actors and actresses seem to really put themselves into the life of the characters they play. Sure, they bring a bit of themselves into the part, but for the most part, they truly *become* who their character is. I find this utterly amazing.

I am not strong. I am quite possibly the weakest person I know. At the slightest hint of trouble or pain, I hide behind my not-so-subtle defenses, my translucent walls. I wish with all of my heart that I could abandon my useless masks and open myself up to people. I feel like I would be a lot less alone then. But… I’ve never really been one for baring my soul to someone else. On the rare occasion, I will share a personal experience that goes deeper than the surface with someone in need, but otherwise, I try to keep most of my problems to myself. Not many people truly know most of what’s going on (only two that I can think of right now).

My two biggest fears are being alone and dying in my sleep. I am afraid of being alone because nothing good has ever come from me being by myself with nothing to do. I am afraid of dying in my sleep because it actually seems plausible. I am usually in the most pain at night, as I am lying in bed waiting for sleep to come, a sleep that evades me time and time again. I feel weak, helpless, as if the darkness of the night is somehow suffocating me into silence. Oppression. My too-silent soul begins to weep at night, as if somehow the serenity of the blackness releases my deepest fears. Too many times I wake up at night wondering if perhaps this is all one big dream, wondering if maybe someday I’ll wake up and the things I go through will be as a distant memory. A place where I’ve been before, but that I cannot fully grasp. And yet… no matter how hard I try, sleep will never fully come to me, and I will never truly be whole.

I am who I try to be. I am nothing more than what I make of myself, what I make myself become. I can be who I want to be and do what I want to do. Life is about the choices you make, how you view yourself, how you choose to hold yourself. A depressing life comes from believing that you cannot make a difference. Giving up on dreams and goals is like cutting out the soul of life itself. I think that I’m beginning to learn that there are three ways to look at life- pessimistically, hopefully, or apathetically. Up until this point, I’ve lived my life predominantly with enough apathy for a small crowd. However, given recent events, I think perhaps I’m going to start trying for hope. It seems kind of pathetic that *now* I would turn for help, but I think it’s in the darkest times that we need the light the most.

My very soul is expressed in my writing, if one looks hard enough. I’ll be very honest about what I’m going through and how I expect to get through it. Wedged deep inside my writing, I find that a bit of myself is lost in the words. I give a little bit of myself away in my writing, that maybe I shall find some semblance of self-recognition. Many times I fail when trying to comprehend just what I meant to say, what the deeper meaning was, but on those few, rare occasions when I do discover a bit more about myself, I redefine the way I think, the way I live. And I guess I’m just trying to live a bit better, trying to become a little bit more whole inside.

I am trying. I am trying not to forget, trying to remember that what once was must no longer be. Where we came from, we must never return to. Where we came from, we must always remember. Where we came from, a memory in the distance. And silence will never bring us peace. We must not lose our pasts, for they are what shape us. History and the development of culture define how we learn and grow. And to lose our understanding of the past would be to lose the very core of our being.

guess i've been here far too long

I was having a conversation with one of my friends the other day that kind of made me think more than I wanted to about the past in direct relation to the future. We were talking about the economy and budget cuts and stuff, and somehow we got on the topic of movies and TV shows (probably because I've been on a classic movie craze this past week, but more about that later). She turned to me, and she was like, "Beth, I feel old. I mean, look at all of these shows that are being finished up and taken off the air." I actually felt sad for a second before I burst out laughing: "How do you think our parents feel? You can't even find their shows!"

So I mentioned that I've been on a classic movie craze. I recommend it, though perhaps not with the same vigor that I've been exhibiting. It's kind of funny how this started really. First, I found someone who loves old movies as well, and as we were discussing them, I kind of felt empty without them. I grew up on old TV shows and movies with my mom. Second, I was called "learned" by one of my profs, and I felt like I needed to go back to the past to figure out what that really meant (what is a learned woman really like?). Finally, and perhaps the most important reason of all, Turner Classic Movies was having their Oscar marathon until March 3rd, and I'm a sucker for the classics. Midsemester vacation (because I can't call it spring break when there's snow on the ground) provided the perfect opportunity for my viewing pleasure. Anyway, I started watching some of my favorite classics; The Manchurian Candidate, Tom Sawyer, "Matlock", "Hawaii Five-O", "Cadfael" ... Added to that were the Oscar nominated or winning movies like Dick Tracy, North by Northwest, and so on. Then I moved on to some recommendations.. The 39 Steps, Vertigo... And I realized that movies just aren't made like they used to be. Alright, special effects and the advancement of lighting techniques have somewhat improved the quality of presentation, but what happened to the quality of plot? I'll track the progress of Pride and Prejudice, for example. In the 1940's the first rendition of Pride and Prejudice came out. It didn't follow the book too well, but all the same, it was the first. Next came the 5 1/2 hour BBC version, starring Colin Firth, that was actually a TV mini-series aired and then transferred to VHS and later to DVD. While long, this was perhaps the most accurate a movie could get to the book. Finally, Keira Knightley starred in a more recent release in 2005. While most of the plot was still there, Mr. Darcy was portrayed a little softer, perhaps a romantic deep down underneath. However, with only around 2 hours to show the budding relationship and societal influences around Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth, the "journey", the fight between money and love, the sheer revolutionary ideas that were present in the book and the BBC mini-series were lost on the big screen. Sure, it made a nice profit in the box office, but the layers of drama and heart-breaking battles of desire for different things weren't shown. The very soul of the book was fragmented, and only tiny pieces were shown. The classic movies, the movies that our parents or grandparents or even great-grandparents watched, vividly captured the life and death and beauty and soul of life and theater in the 1920's-1970's. Starting near the early- to mid- 1970's, with the technological advances of the theater, the hammer smashed down on our looking glass to the past. What was once held dear- morals, standards, and all-around compassion- was lost to the bigger picture and motivation of advancement, advancement, advancement. Why do we, as humans and as a nation, feel the need to be bigger and better than those around us? Why is our past such a burden? The latter may seem a silly question, but I would say that none of us (at least in my generation) can particularly boast to trying to get to know our parents and grandparents. Perhaps what made society cleaner and more enjoyable was the ever-present need or demand of familial bonding and personal integrity.

Integrity. Noun. According to Webster's Dictionary; a firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values; without division; unified. In today's world, a word lost in the depths of history, buried, lest someone figure out that we have hearts. I don't believe that people are inherently good, but I don't believe that we are inherently evil. Call me a heretic, but I believe there is a reason that God saved His people- they are inherently His, and there is a possibility of redemption. Somewhere along the way though, I think that someone's heart was broken, and everyone after him or her took a step toward being a hard-hearted nation. We are divided. We are separated in so many ways- class, gender, race, religion, honor. Our very identities seem to be tied to what we do and who we are and what we make of ourselves. What happened to our unified moral standards? What happened to a less-than-perfect-but-still-pretty-just Judicial system? What happened to family being the most important thing? I'll venture a guess that it has something to do with two things; greed and freedom. People chose money, chose to "make a name" for themselves. But freedom... Freedom is perhaps the most dangerous, loosely-used word today. Despite what people say, we are not free. Sure, we're free from some things- absolute human dictatorship, to name one. But think about this: what is freedom? Is freedom the ability to do what we want when we want to do it? Or is freedom the recognition that while we have a choice of whether or not to do something, we also have an obligation to choose who to be loyal to (thus shaping our future decisions)? Is there such thing as absolute freedom? (- I don't think that there is. As Jesus says in Matthew 6:24, "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money." I've been told that this passage shows that God is our master and thus, we cannot have the absolute freedom to rule our own lives. But that is another discussion for another day. -)

I don't expect to make a difference in anyone's life other than my own. I've learned that the hard way. I cannot change anyone else. But perhaps in a story, in a lesson, in a smile, a heart is softened, an ear open to hear what I have to say. Or maybe my words are better taken as advice to myself. It's never good to be a hypocrite when you try to change someone's life. Better to change yourself with active passion than try to change someone else with idle words and the bitter taste of lies in your mouth. Better to believe what you are teaching..

I'm not saying we should go back to the past. By all means, let us advance. But in our hearts, maybe we should be questioning what our true intentions really are.

it's an intro!

I've never really tried blogging before, mostly because I don't really think people care. But based on some reactions I've gotten in the past few weeks, I just decided to go for it. So if you're reading.. power to you.

This whole thing started because I realized that I'm not really sure of who I am anymore. I was watching the movie Speak (book by Laurie Halse Anderson.. and you need to read it) and there's this one line where the main character in the movie says something about how you should know what you're *for* not just what you're against. That got me thinking- how many times a day do I say, "I don't really like that" or "that's totally not cool" or "that's awful"? So yeah. I want to try to be a bit more positive *gasp* which is actually kind of funny because I'm usually the first person to be like "oh, that sucks, this won't work out, FAIL." Meh. We'll see what happens.