I Hate it When My Friends Are Hurting

Ugh...to get a text from a friend who is upset: not fun.

I'm the only one I want to see with something screwy and not fun going on in their life. I'm the only one I want to see wondering about different aspects of life and how it ended up this way. I'm the only one I want to see depressed because of different situations.

It isn't that I wish horrible situations on myself. It's just that if it has to happen I would rather be the one experiencing it so my friends don't have to.

It makes me cry to know a friend is hurting. It makes me want to take the weight of the world on myself so no one else has to experience it and they can breeze through life.

But then what is life without trial? And can we really experience life without the pain to help us appreciate the joy that much more?

At least I can be there for my friends as they deal with the painful parts of life. At least I have been there so I can be there for them that much more. At least they know I'm here to lend a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, someone to share laughter with, a helping hand. At least they know that I empathize with them and wish the best for them.

At least they know I care.

Random Poem

I had to sit through a meeting at school today. I guess it went well and I could say I learned some stuff....but I got distracted by this random thought of how hollow most people are and with the thought "hollow man", in terms of our culture and how fake most people are, ringing through my head for no apparent reason (I guess it was my abstract mind taking me there in my boredom)...I wrote this:

hollow man
mask held high
facade works only
on those passing by

nothing to see
the eye is the window
leading to soul
but it is empty

acts hold for crowds alone
fewer still care to see past
those who love you, even unsaid
know the abyss inside

put down your guard
take a chance, be real
life takes turns
when light is let in

pain will occur
the path is unworn
no map to guide you
confusion is likely

family will raise the brow
resistance will ensue
emptiness feels comfortable
when opposition arises

that lonely home of
hiding deep inside
of maintaining hollowness
is easiest of all

but meaning cannot
be found inside an abyss
let light shine in
let the few see

embrace the pain
take hold the opposition
find life in hardship
for after the rain comes the bow

Mangled Web

Okay so you know how you find old cob webs that have all these massive lumps of string or whatever it is that comes out a spiders backside...that's the state my mind is in: million different places with each one being trapped inside this tight wad of chaos. I guess you could say. I need some machine that extracts my thoughts, organizes them for me, and then helps me to make sense of them all.

Does anyone know of such a thing? If they do, I would appreciate they inform me of where I can obtain said machine.

Boy Do I Need Help... And This Made Me Laugh

Okay, so earlier today, my true mental handicap began to show itself. Apparently, I do not know how to turn the faucet off without squirting myself with the little handy-dandy water squirter (I forgot what it was called...it's 2 in the morning :D). I was cleaning my dish before I left to go take the PRAXIS and because food was left in the sink I started spraying it with the hose. When I was finished, I put the hose back as I was turning off the water, which is seemingly too complicated a task for me. Right as I had the hose in its place and I had just shut the water off, there must have still been water left in the hose because I managed to hit the trigger just enough that it squirted what was left out. Of course, that wasn't a cool enough trick for me; I had to get my entire side wet. Yay for me! Why I can't gear all that talent into something useful behooves me, but ya know, so goes life.

Oh...and Emily's friend had this up and I thought it was quite the laugh...so I thought I would post it. Before you read, sorry for the language.
9 THINGS I HATE ABOUT EVERYONE!!!

1. People who point at their wrist while asking for the time.... I know where my watch is pal, where the hell is yours? Do I point at my crotch when I ask where the toilet is?

2. People who are willing to get off their ass to search the entire room for the T.V. remote because they refuse to walk to the T.V. and change the channel manually.

3. When people say "Oh you just want to have your cake and eat it too". Damn right! What good is cake if you can't eat it?

4. When people say "it's always the last place you look". Of course it is. Why the hell would you keep looking after you've found it? Do people do this? Who and where are they? Gonna Kick their asses!

5. When people say while watching a film "did you see that?". No Loser, I paid $12 to come to the cinema and stare at the damn floor.

6. People who ask "Can I ask you a question?".... Didn't really give me a choice there, did ya sunshine?

7. When something is 'new and improved!' Which is it? If it's new, then there has never been anything before it. If it's an improvement, then there must have been something before it, couldn't be new.

8 When people say "life is short". What the hell?? Life is the longest damn thing anyone ever does!! What can you do that's longer?

9 When you are waiting for the bus and someone asks "Has the bus come yet?"

Tears

tears
stain the heart
leaving a mess of colored residue
it seems like you are left with nothing

tears
they fall from cracks that
burn from moist sorrow
hoping to make anew what has been lost

tears
remind of times gone
amazing memories
and times to come

tears
write stories on your face
leave traces of all that was
and shine in hope of brighter tomorrows

tears
speak of all that is held within
when words leave us
when silence holds us captive

tears
stain the heart
leaving a mess of colored residue
becoming the magnificent stained windows of the soul

It All Leads to Questions...and More Questions...and...

"Doubt is not a pleasant mental state, but certainty is absurd." Voltaire

I am stuck in this place of constant questioning. Unfortunately, the more I question, the more questions present themselves and they seem to lead to an endless abyss of questioning. So many things seem to have been invented by the human mind because we have to feel some sense of belonging. We have to feel that we can know everything. We have to have some sense of certainty: "I can definitely claim this 100% and say that no one else is right." But seriously, does anybody know that for a fact?

I'm not raising all of this because I feel I have to know. I will admit it is very uncomfortable and not very reassuring to say the least. But I think if we, as a society, were okay with not having the answers and not try to claim something as 100%-know-it-for-a-fact-will-happen-truth when you can't things might look a little different. But therein lies the problem. There are so many different ways of being raised to think and every one of them claims "I AM THE RIGHT WAY TO LIVE". What if I was raised in a Hindu family? Or Islamic? Or Buddhist? Would I not be just as prone to say that is the right way, just as people in the U.S. are more apt to believe that Christianity is the way? But how do we know? We can trust in that way and claim it for ourselves, but you can't actually say you know for a fact that it is the absolute right way. You have to embrace what can't be known. You have to understand that you could be wrong and if you were can you live with that? Can you live with knowing you might have believed in something that didn't really exist?

I still believe in prayer. I still believe in God; I don't believe you can live in this world and explain most things without Him because it started somewhere and it had to have a higher, unbound by time being or power to sustain it. I believe the bible does have a lot to guide life with but I don't believe it as the only form that truth comes from. I don't see the role that church plays in this belief at all. And even with all of this, I have to accept that I might be wrong.

I can't say for a fact there is a God: I've never physically seen Him. I have to trust that what was created was created by some higher power even though I can't see Him. I have to trust that there is something holding this universe together. There is no way to know 100% and I'm okay with that. It really sucks and it makes me see life a little differently, but I don't know how else to see it.

I guess I'm just coming to grips with the fact that I will search and look into the questions I have, but of this I am certain: I will only come up against more questions, more mystery, more doubt, more swimming in the ocean of uncertainty.

"As we acquire more knowledge, things do not become more comprehensible, but more mysterious." Albert Schweitzer

Breaking the Chains

growing up seemed so easy, not so long ago
but then they formed a bubble and chained me in it

they said i had decisions, i could make a choice
but somehow only their way was right and punishment embraced my choice

i know i'm old enough to make choices, i make them every day
but they don't see it that way, or at least they don't act like it

somehow i don't know myself well enough to know when i'm ready and what i want
but they do even though they are hardly ever around me?!

somehow if my choice disagrees with them then i'm turning my back on them
but isn't part of growing up embracing the differences

i didn't know it meant you had to agree with everyone

it feels like they want to yank happiness out from under me
but i will fight this

i am stronger than they think

questioning is a fact of life and in the end it makes you stronger
but apparently it means i'm on a slippery slope

where do they get these ideas?
where does it say truth comes from one book in one building?

i find truth in the most unlikely of places many times
truth will always be right where it began and it is not taken by man and placed into one solitary book or given only in one building or given only to one person

i don't know if they will ever realize i don't let others make decisions for me
i don't know if they will ever realize that i listen to many different people's advice but in the end i make my own choice based on what i feel guided to

i don't know if they realize the choices they are giving me
and i don't know if they see that they are asking me to be a mindless robot

i don't know if they understand they are treating me as a child
i don't know if they realize that independence is independence; there are not multiple definitions: it means you are responsible for yourself

i don't know if they understand that respecting someone does not mean that you do what they say
but it means that you regard their opinion, you listen to it, and then you have to make your own choice whether or not you agree with that respected person

i don't know if they realize they have been losing my respect with the way they have handled this and other things over the years
i don't know if they realize how hard i am trying to make everything work

i don't know that they will be pleased with the way it will come out
but i know that in the end i will have done what i can and maintained what i believe

Becoming an Adult is Harder Than it Should Be in My Home

Okay...so my parents asked me how I define independence, which I don't think is a bad thing; I just find it extremely odd that they are giving off the air that independence is different for everyone. I thought that independence meant the same thing for everyone: you are no longer dependent on someone else, you take care of yourself and you make decisions for yourself. Here, webster defines it pretty close to what I think it is:

1: not dependent: as a (1): not subject to control by others : self-governing (2): not affiliated with a larger controlling unit b (1): not requiring or relying on something else : not contingent (2): not looking to others for one's opinions or for guidance in conduct c (1): not requiring or relying on others (as for care or livelihood) (2): being enough to free one from the necessity of working for a living d: showing a desire for freedom

Now, I am currently not completely independent of my parents in terms of livlihood because there are still some things that they pay for. And that is what makes this situation sticky.

They want me to become my own person, to become an adult, which on my terms I already am an adult (I guess they just don't see it that way...why I don't think I will ever understand). However, they hold the things that they do control (food, gas, my car belongs to them, etc.) over my head to get me to make the decisions that they want me to. They tell me that I am free to make my own decision, even if they don't agree with it, but then I'm pretty much "punished" if I don't do what they want.

So I'm stuck in this limbo where I don't agree, know that I make my own decisions, but at the same time almost have to play by their rules to get by without looking at them and telling them that I don't want anything to do with them. I don't want to push my family out of my life, I love my family very much, but somehow my parents are pretty much telling me that if I make my own decisions and they don't agree that I have to turn my back on my family.

I really don't think that is right. Period.

So when I define indedence to them telling them that I no longer look to them for answers to my questions, what are they going to say?

I do believe that at the point I am at parents become friends and no longer play the parental role. So, yes, they will still be giving me advice, but I have to make decisions based on what I feel guided to do knowing that I take full responsibility for my decision. Being a friend with someone, you do give them advice based on how you might handle the situation, BUT in the end you have to make the decision for yourself and not based on what someone else would do. So when I disagree with my parents and don't do what they would want me to, I still respect them but I have disagreed with how they might handle the situation and they can't tell me to do otherwise.

Why this is so hard for them I really can't say. Why it is so hard for me to communicate I don't know either. Maybe because I'm afraid of how I'm going to keep living this semester if they pull all my resources out from under me. Maybe they are bluffing, like many of my friends believe. But after talking with my Brother-in-law and hearing him say he would do the same thing, I don't think it's a ploy. My parents will really pull the plug. At that point, I'm stuck because I can see them taking away my car, which is really the biggest problem I have. I can find a job that will support me and if need be apply for a small student loan, but I don't know how transportation would work out...becasue it's not like I have enough to go buy a car and start making payments on it.

Becoming an adult in my household is far more complicated than it should be. I think half the problem is they are not ready to let go. They are afraid of what it means to let a daughter go and not have some person over her that she has to go to before she makes a decision.