If Life's Not Rough, It Isn't Fun

During my Journalism class junior year, Mr Wall once spoke to us about comfort. He told us that "the worst lesson we are taught is that someone will always take care of us."

I understand the logic behind that. As individuals, it's imperative that we learn to take care of ourselves because we really can't be surrounded by help at all hours of the day. Or at least, it's not expected of us. Independent people are looked up to, regarded as people that are going to go somewhere in life.

But today, Mr Potter shared a thought with us: "I stand out in the hall, and when people say hi to each other, they hug. Not so long ago...people didn't do that. They didn't hug. It sometimes seems like we constantly need to be comforted."

That kind of got to me - not in a bad way, but in the way that makes me think. (Why does it always seem to be that I get writing ideas from the tiniest things my teachers say?)

I thought that Mr Potter had a good point, there. We are no longer a society in which we need to be so proper and polite that we have to have chaperones or never touch one another. But we really have become a society that is dependent on other people in our social lives.

It seems like we have to constantly be reassured of things. We have a "Like" option to reassure us that things we say are clever; we have Facebook to (supposedly) remind us that we have an identity and a constant source of communication.

Regarding relationships in high school today, a huge part of it is seemingly made up entirely of comfort. Young couples who believe they are head-over-heels in love because they found someone that they believe is "the one" are ever-hungry for the reassurance that they are "good enough" for the other person. They need to hear that they are "beautiful" and that they complete their partner.

How can you complete someone who isn't even whole?
Are we ever whole, no matter if we find love or not?

My rationale is that we never are - why would you want to live another day of your life knowing that you don't need to learn another lesson or grow through another experience?
Why would you want to wake up the next morning knowing that you have completed all that you need to complete, and that you don't need to do any more...and you still have to live?
I mean...what would you do? Wouldn't you think, "I can die right now"?
Isn't that part of the purpose of death, in the first place?

We can't live life predictably, always comforted.
We can't be in a relationship in which we constantly trade only happy words and moments.
We can't stay down after we fall because we are afraid of going back out there.

We have to wake up and not know how the day is going to be.
We have to let love be something organically grown, with a few knots as well as the lovely flower that never dies because it's constantly being renewed.
We have to let new things in because you never know if you'll end up with something you needed all along.

Not to say that comfort is totally vile. It's only human to be there for one another in times of need. When someone we love is going through a hard time, our first reaction is to want to be there by their side. We are not made to be solitary creatures - we are made to have contact.

We are all part of each other. When we wake up as 40-somethings, we remember someone we met back when we were 17 and we realize what they gave to our lives. Maybe they gave you only one good memory, but they were such a person that you remember them years later. You won't see them as you did when you were 17 (hopefully), but you'll remember how you saw them.

That's kind of a neat thing about people and growing up in life. Feelings change, but memories don't.

Maybe not everyone regards things like this. And that's okay. It kind of saddens me, though. There are very few of us left that appreciate the smell of a bookshelf, jumping barefoot in mud puddles, and for once not constantly worrying that tomorrow will not go our way. We are an endangered species, the outcasts, those that get a lot of raised eyebrows.

But where will the future be without a thirst for living life beyond total happiness, the comfort of not having to show your face to anybody because the "online you" is so much cooler?
The future will be desolate. The future will be lonely.

We can't be comfortable forever. We have to get dirty. We have to get out of our zone. We have to - no way! - go through pain.
On the same token, we have to realize that not everyone in the world is out to get us. People actually have the capacity to be faithful and love you for the person you are becoming in life. We have to learn how to reach a hand out to someone that needs it, and accept the hands that are outstretched to us. Humility is such a powerful thing...for something considered to most as "meek."

It's a balance. And a lesson that is constantly being taught and re-taught.

Oh, life. What a fantastic monster you are.

The First of Many

7 January, 2011

I hate this time of year.
It's cold, there's no color except for the rush of blood to your cheeks as the wind blows, and everyone (well, not all but some) walks like penguins in the hopes of not falling.

I need windows, though. Even though it's cold outside and I can't physically bring myself to be outdoors, I still hold out for that first day when it's too warm for my scarf and coat. When I peel them off and let that initial warmth of spring, slightly hesitant but eager all the same, tickle my skin.

As I walk out to my car, I let myself become aware of the way my skin is bitten by the temperature, the crispness of the air, the feel of snow under my feet. I let out a heavy breath and see the cloud I make.

For some reason, ever since the year's started, I've let myself become aware of the oddest things in my life. I guess you could say they were things I never noticed before, but to me it seems like they are things I've noticed but never really took in. Not feeling it from all-around, not noticing how they made me feel.

And remember, it's always the things that most would find ordinary. Things I would even find to be "normal."

The way the streetlamp glows exhaustedly on the corner of the street where my grandparents live.
The scent of my beagle's feet. They smell like he did when he was a puppy.
Seeing Mom cook dinner in her two-pieced, button-up pajamas.
My dad rubbing lottery tickets on my head, saying I'm good luck.
The way I tell people "this is my dad's/mom's night (or weekend)," knowing that I won't say that next year.
Curling up on the sofa in sweats and a blanket.
Playing a piece of music you haven't seen in years. It's like meeting an old friend again.
The sleepy noises Seth makes when he's asleep, his head on my chest.
Randomly remembering New Orleans, especially on Christmas Day.
Realizing that this is my last semester of high school, as of today having 15 Mondays left, and feeling memories of the last three and a half years coming back to me.

I'm going to be writing this semester. I want to write this semester, anyway. I feel like I have a voice that deserves to be heard, just like anybody else in this school or in this world.

Last year, I wrote a lot of stream-of-consciousness kind of stuff. I had a lot to get out, but it seemed like I was stewing over the same old thing every time I would sit down to write. And I was - I just didn't know it, then.

But this year, that issue is gone. I made it go away. I'm starting this year anew. At first, when I didn't write hardly at all, I was afraid that meant I wrote only to sort through things in my life and not because I loved writing.

I've recently realized that is not true. I mean, I sat down here and wrote all of this, right? So I must still have some substance in my passion for words.
Besides, this semester is going to be about making memories and making a name for myself to go out with.

I can't even imagine what April and May are going to be like. They are going to be two blinks of an eye. Two proms, my last contest for Chamber Orchestra, the IDEA reunion, Mini-O, the orchestra banquet, the musical, graduation and all that'll go on during that week.

On New Year's Day not ten minutes after the ball dropped, Seth looked back at me and gave me this funny sort of look. "We GRADUATE this year," he said, like it was hard to believe.
And it is.

This is the start of the end, which is the start of the beginning.
I'm feelin' those eighteen years of my life, man. Really and truly.