Gratitude

Sometimes I just have to shake my head at myself when I realize how hard I make life on myself. It's so silly that it takes a label on one day of the year like "Thanksgiving" to get me to realize how incredibly blessed I am. How much of a happier person would I be and how much of a happier outlook on life would I have if instead of starting everyday with "what do I have to do" I got out of bed and asked myself "what do I get to do today"? What I realized today, as I was missing loved ones far away and growing closer to the ones I have here and eating delicious food and taking my turn listing all of the things I'm thankful for, is that life is more than our endless "to do" lists. My life is more than the tests I have to take and the papers I have to write and hoops I have to jump through to "get somewhere" in life. I already am somewhere in life. I'm happy and healthy with goals and dreams and the ability to laugh and cry and wonder at the little mystery and miracle that my life is. I feel as though if people didn't wait until Thanksgiving to appreciate their lives then we would have a lot more happy people in the world rather than haggard, busy and depressed people. So take this Thanksgiving Day and make it a habit in your life. All of those bright and wonderful things in your life are more than capable of out shining the darkness as long as you know they are there. So to be trite, carry an attitude of gratitude within your heart, it will amaze how light and happy it feels.

Purposes

Sometimes I feel as though I'm surrounded by thousands of people unaware of the bigger and beautiful thing around them going on called life. People are so consumed with their meaningless conversations and agendas that they let the chatter and noise fill up their souls and they become separated from what the purpose of their existence is. It's not about what your friends are doing this weekend, or the next test you have in class, or that date you so desperately want on Friday. Our purpose is to move with the rhythm of our every day tasks without forgetting our own beat, and the beauty of noticing another's unique beat. It's taking a moment to notice the peace and quiet that is present in the world, but we're just too busy listening to our i-pods or playing our games to notice it. We say we're busy but we always find time to do such purposeless things. I miss the days that when a song came on or someone picked up a guitar we stopped and listened to the transcending power of communication music possesses rather than using it as an excuse to talk louder and longer about the pointless details of our busy lives that we purposely make busy to feel complete. We don't have to be busy and consumed with tasks and to-do lists to find our purpose. We simply need quiet and peace and a mind to contemplate ourselves and our potential and than, our purpose just lines up in our hearts and minds, right alongside our inner peace. 

Underlying Emotions and Adulthood

As teenagers in Junior High and High School we live in a world where the vulnerable emotions of others must be assumed and where nothing is a "given". We all play the guessing game of "who likes who" and tip toe around each other's emotions because there is no way to tell where other's feelings lie. We function like this because we are not yet "adult" enough to present and calmly discuss our emotions no matter how vulnerable those emotions may make us. When we reach adulthood it is assumed that everyone's emotions are taken care of because we are mature enough to take care of them ourselves; leaving no excuse for drama or conflict because you are expected to "speak up" if you had a problem in the first place. So based on this adult-like assumption we must go through our adulthood thinking that no one has any emotion except for the ones they convey through their adult words because that is the adult thing to do. But I feel, in my life and the people in my life, that being "adult" has become an excuse to leave things unspoken and let the more "adult-like" people be vulnerable and grown up and just leave our emotions where they are; on our heart and on our mind where no one else is privy to them because adults shouldn't have to deal with such juvenile things. But for me, I'd rather have the people in my life come clean about their emotions and not judge me for assuming their emotions existed because it was true. Emotions exist at all points in our lives, adult or not. We must learn to acknowledge those emotions and realize people are going to assume and omit and lie and be hurt, even if we're not teenagers. It's called being human. We feel. So go tell someone how you feel.

If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda

I chanced upon this poem tonight. I love the feeling while you are reading a piece of poetry and each word strums across your heart strings, bringing you into better harmony with yourself, making you grateful those words were written and expressing what you didn't know you were feeling. That's what I felt when I read this poem. Thank you Pablo Neruda, for writing poetry, and bringing people to acknowledge what is in their heart.

If You Forget Me

I want you to know

one thing.

You know how this is:

if I look

at the crystal moon, at the red branch

of the slow autumn at my window,

if I touch

near the fire

the impalpable ash

or the wrinkled body of the log,

everything carries me to you,

as if everything that exists,

aromas, light, metals,

were little boats

that sail

toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,

if little by little you stop loving me

I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly

you forget me

do not look for me,

for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,

the wind of banners

that passes through my life,

and you decide

to leave me at the shore

of the heart where I have roots,

remember

that on that day,

at that hour,

I shall lift my arms

and my roots will set off

to seek another land.

But

if each day,

each hour,

you feel that you are destined for me

with implacable sweetness,

if each day a flower

climbs up to your lips to seek me,

ah my love, ah my own,

in me all that fire is repeated,

in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,

my love feeds on your love, beloved,

and as long as you live it will be in your arms

without leaving mine 

Words

“Words, so innocent and powerless…when standing in a dictionary, how potent for good or evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) American Novelist
Words hold incredible sway over the human soul and heart. Some say actions speak louder than words, but there are words that make the heart soar, or break it into a million unidentifiable pieces. They can help us convey the ideas and thoughts of our minds, or lead us to experience great humiliation from misuse. A few precious and simple words whispered at the right moment can be the foundation of some our most deep and defining relationships, while they can also push away and trap those who use to mean so much to us. The absence of words can also have an incredible impact. When you just know the world will be ok once again if you simply hear those few words, but if they are omitted or simply forgotten, you become filled with a disappointment that reaches your core and you begin to lose hope of ever hearing those words again. Sometimes it doesn't even matter what the words say, as long as they exist. You can spend weeks fretting and being anxious, but the moment you hold a piece of paper with his words scribbled all over it, your heart suddenly feels ok again. It's kind of silly when you think about it. They're just words. So much of our happiness shouldn't be contingent on whether they are present or absent. But realizing this, I hope I can say the words that need to be heard, and keep back the ones that should remain unspoken, and thank those precious few in my life that know the power of words and how to speak to my heart to keep it pumping and loving and producing angsty but meaningful (to me) blog posts.

What if...

What if I don't make it? What if I sound stupid? What if he's lying? What if he marries me? What if I can't pay for school? What if she doesn't like me? What if what if what if? That phrase gets me all the time. It feeds my fears and insecurities and my tendency to be slightly irrational. It makes me falsely hopeful and unnecessarily heartbroken. It ruins my present because I am too worried about making sure I'm spending  time worrying about the future. I make sure I hash out all the "what ifs" before I even let myself become comfortable in any situation. That phrase seems to control my life and cloud my judgement when it comes to using my agency. I need to stop. So I decided to take the advice of an old friend of mine, Albus Dumbledore. He said "It does not due to dwell on dreams and forget to live". It's not that I'm going to stop planning for my future, but I'm also going to remember to live my life as it is happening. Life is right now. Stop missing out. What if I miss out on life? Go live, and you'll have nothing to fret about.

Having A Coke With You by Frank O'hara

I read this poem years ago as a freshman in high school, but it has recently come into my life again and I find myself enjoying it with a new passion that I never posessed before. Maybe it's because I have a year under my belt as an English major and therefore a greater understanding of what good poetry is. Or maybe before I was too young and inexperienced to understand the love O'hara so aptly describes with nickle words and concise similes. Or what the true explanation of why I appreciate this poem now more than I did before, is because now I understand and know all of the allusions and references within the poem and it's meaning is clear and more beautiful than I ever fathomed. Therefore, in order to share my passion and the understanding of this poem, I am going to post the poem and then pictures of the places and information on the people he uses to establish the meaning of the poem. I hope someday you experience the feeling of reading a poem so perfectly in tune with your life that it is as if your own soul penned the words on the page in front of you.

Having A Coke With You

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I'm with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o'clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them

I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it's in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven't gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn't pick the rider as carefully
as the horse

it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it








San Sebastian: 

Irun:

Hendaye:

Biarritz:

Bayonne:
















Travesera de Garcia:
               A famous, curvy road in Italy.      

St. Sebastian:
              He was a Christian saint and martyr, and was one of the 14 Holy Helpers. There is a church built in his honor in Italy.


Polish Rider:

Nude Descending a Staircase:

Leonardo and Michelangelo: Referring to the art work of the two famous artists Leonardo DaVinci and Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni.

Impressionists: Characteristics of Impressionist paintings include relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes; open compostion; emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time); common, ordinary subject matter; the inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience; and unusual visual angles.
                
Marino Marini: 
              An Italian sculptor who sculpted many horse statues, like the one below. 

Poem Again

Here's a poem I wrote about two weeks ago. A friend asked me to post another poem so here's one that doesn't suck too terribly. Sorry if I come across more angsty in my poetry than in my prose. I think poetry is supposed to work like that.

Heartache to End

You're my favorite song
A melody of sighs and passionate whispers
The void of which is making my heart begin to blister
But I'll never tell you
Even though you might miss me too

I feel alone and left
Empathizing with every tragic character who has wept
It's killing me and I want it done
But you've still been the only one
To love my heart and make it yours
Without leaving me feeling like I need to be more

This pain and heartache isn't your fault
I'm convincing myself it's my own personal emotional assault
I don't need you...
To change or bend
I just need this silent heartache to end.

There's Still a Sunset...

Today, for the first time in a long time, I watched a sunset that brought me to tears. The tears may have been in part caused by my weakened physical state from the run I was on while I watched it or by my equally weakened emotional state from lack of sleep and from several difficult adjustments/ transitions I'm in the midst of making, but no matter what state I was in, there is no person who could deny the heart-healing and breath-taking beauty of this particular sunset. I noticed it after tackling a rather difficult leg of my run. My mind was focused on my heavy breathing and my aching muscles and the want to just be at the top of the hill, when suddenly *woosh*, it all went quiet and I had to stop and appreciate what was in front of me. Just above a small, faded white house, above the green tree tops, burst pinks and oranges and warm golden yellows. The sun was just set enough that you could look at it without hurting your eyes, but not so gone that the intense and bright colors had disappeared below the horizon with it. It was all I could do to stay standing while feelings of awe, gratitude, joy, fulfillment and a sense of the bittersweet coursed through my body. Why must joyful and wonderful things always end so beautifully, like a lovely summer day? It is to make you forget it is ending? Or help you remember what was so beautiful about it in the first place? But this sunset helped me realize something. I realized that no matter how much your heart aches, or your mind spins, or the fact you seemed to be weighed down by things wherever you turn, there's still a sunset that can make you cry, there's going to be a friend who remembers how to make you laugh, there's going to be someone who never forgets how to love you, a favorite song will come on at the perfect moment, and there's still joy and beauty in the seemingly mediocre moments of everyday life.

Doubt

There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills. 
---Buddha

Sleep

I really don't want to sleep. I know I need to. Sleep helps me remember things, avoid headaches, and make my happy disposition authentic rather than posed. But tonight my soul feels restless, aching for me to ponder and think and reach some great epiphany, or to quit avoiding emotions I have locked away and let them permeate my being, bringing me to a point of inspiration, desperation, depression, closure, insanity, sanity, or any state other than fruitless restlessness. Or maybe I am falsely internalizing the restlessness and it is my body that feels out of step. I wouldn't blame it, I have stayed up all night the past two nights, catching random hours of sleep during the day and still trying to participate in life like a normal, well-rested human being. But I feel that this restlessness  is in my soul. It's not that anything is wrong, it's just that I feel as though I am stretching to feel and know something, but there's nothing there to grasp and fill the void or placate my heart and mind. I need something or someone. Maybe I should go write some powerful love poem, conjuring up feelings I felt more acutely and poignantly in the past and drift into a state of nostalgia and longing, eventually making my heart ache and lulling me to sleep. Or perhaps I should fill my night with completing projects I've assigned myself and greet the morning at a new level of sleep deprivation, but more importantly at a new level and sense of accomplishment. No, what I want and what I think I need tonight is another soul to keep mine company. Just someone to listen to the thoughts that jumble my brain upside-down and inside-out, and someone to understand the emotions of longing, loss, worry, hurt, anticipation, and intense that I would never dare admit feeling in the throes of bright daylight. Or maybe I have series of someones that would work, but I am longing for a specific someone. But alas, I am too frightened or simply too lazy to even wonder if there is a soul out there to keep mine company, and this blog post has accomplished my purpose in writing it as my drooping eyes are suddenly more important than my restless soul. All I know is it's frustrating and leads to a restless soul when you have an immeasurable amount of love for someone,but you're not even sure if that person desires your love anymore, so you don't give it to that person, but keep waiting for the moment you will finally be able to. Thank goodness the human body needs rest before the soul does, because if that were not the case, this blog post would be the length of a novel and I would not be contemplating who will be in my dreams tonight. And if you're up with a restless soul, go to bed. Life is always bright and beautiful in the morning.

Love

When you know and feel true love, you know and feel God. Whether it is the love that passes between the young lips of two lovers, or the love in the embrace of two friends saying goodbye, or the love in the eyes of a teacher who is unknowingly touching the heart of a student, or the love of a mother teaching her child to walk only to know it means he will one day walk away from her, or love in the smile of a stranger you pass on the street. If there is love, there is God. The two are inseparable. So if you want to know if you are in love, explore how well you know God. Knowing God is the only way you will ever be able to know true love. Love exists where heaven meets earth, soul meets body, and where heart meets heart.

Happy

Sometimes I feel as though I am forever just getting through life waiting and hoping for the next best thing, planning on being happy, that I don't realize that I already am. Life isn't perfect. I don't know why I keep waiting for it to be. Maybe it's just that eternal optimist (or pessimist, depending on how you look at it) I have within me. But what life does have, in all of it's imperfection: perfect moments, perfect moments that suddenly make all the crap that EVERY single person experiences unimportant and no longer noteworthy (even if it is what you complain and talk about MOST of the time). It's that moment that the two-year-old that you've put in time out four times that day and who is trying your patience and the kindness of your humanity to the brink suddenly tells you he needs a hug and whispers he loves you in your ear. Or that moment your friend makes you feel incredibly loved by planning a swimming day knowing you miss the sun and water and he doesn't even blame you that you can't come, he loves you anyway. Or that moment you realize you've been lost in conversation with a friend for so long that the waitress of the restaurant has cleaned off your table twice in hopes you will get the hint and leave. Or the moment that boy who knows how desperately you are in love with him even if you're too prideful to admit it says the perfect thing to make you smile and happy without even knowing it. Or the moment you realize that you are so perfectly happy, no matter may be going on, you might as well blog about it because the world shouldn't miss out on the happy moments swirling around in the atmosphere. A heart can only stay heavy for so long before it either weighs you down in depression or it inspires you to find something to make it light, because there has to be something happy out there. So this post is just to remind you that being happy should be the only goal you need to obtain to be successful. Stop looking for all the reasons why life can suck and can make you want to give up and realize being happy the is the best choice, the only choice, if you really want to fulfill your purpose of being here.

Be happy, I love you.

Things left unsaid

I have a question: is it better to tell the people you love and that love you everything you think and feel? Or does it mean that if you love someone you spare them from having to deal with all your emotional crap and burdens? Is it even important enough that someone knows it broke your heart he/she didn't even bat an eye that you were crying, or is such an emotion so immature that it's one you should just keep to yourself and get over eventually? When someone loves you, doesn't it mean they want to know every single part of you? Every thought and feeling, even the irrational and stupid ones? Or when someone loves you does that mean they give you "tough love" to purposely make you feel abandoned and alone so you realize you really can handle feeling certain emotions on your own? Is it even possible to define what actions someone takes when he/she is in love? Or is being in love so individual that it really depends on the people whether they say everything or not? I guess this is turning into more of a series of questions rather than just keeping it one simple question, but I just want to know. I mean, I understand that in all relationships somethings are left unsaid...but what exactly should be said or not? If I know my feelings are irrational and potentially hurtful to the other person, do they even matter enough for me to voice them or should I just deal and move on? Or are the irrational feelings the most important because they are the oppressed feelings of the unconscious seeping through that obviously need attention? I don't know. I'm just tried of trying to follow this imaginary protocol when it comes to addressing and voicing my emotions to those around me that I love and that love me. If I suddenly feel a pang of longing at a cheesy romantic song, I want to be able to tell someone he/she is missed without fear of appearing too needy. I want to be able to tell someone I love him/ her without fearing that person is judging me as too attached and desperate. If I feel alone and sad and tired and unloved I want to be able to say that without being painted as some colossal, irrational and emotional girl who obviously doesn't know what she's talking about because she is obviously slipping up and letting her heart solely lead her reason and has most definitely lost her mind. I don't want things to be left unsaid that are slowly creating a rift between two hearts that used to know of a surety nothing needed to be left unsaid because there's no need to not tell a heart something that understands yours. And yes, sometimes it is better that things are left unsaid by words; like a thank you that is said with a gentle squeeze of the hand, or an I love you said by a lingering kiss the night you say goodbye. Not everything has to be said flat out. Obviously not. Humans are adept at ambiguity. But the moment you feel as though your emotions and thoughts lack validity and importance and that becomes the reason why you keep them to yourself, that is when it is clear too many things are being left unsaid. Silent thoughts can lead to such secret and deep hurts that you may end up resenting the one you love before he/she even has a clue there was anything amiss. But even though I realize these truths, I know that the moment I post this too long of a blog rant, that I will continue to leave important things unsaid because of my fear and my lack of want of confrontation and doubting my own thoughts and emotions as even valid or important, ever. I know it's not right, but since when have human beings always done what they know to be right? One day I hope I learn not to leave things unsaid. And when they day comes, I hope it turns out that my thoughts and feelings are actually valuable, and that those people really weren't right wanting me to leave them unsaid, because that would really suck. There's not a more eloquent way to define that.

Reasons, Timing and Original Poetry

                   So...of course, the one time my only desire was to blog and assault your eyes and mind with an epically long rant on my blog...blogspot was down. However, I realize that there was a reason for that. If I had had the opportunity to blog endlessly last night in the throws of my angsty mindset,  I wouldn't have talked and analyzed my misplaced emotions with probably the closest friend I currently have, and I wouldn't have been able to make amends with a friend who has been absent from my life for quite a while by assaulting his oddly eager ears with my emotional rant that all of you with now be spared from feeling obligated to read (though who really reads this? lol). Also, I wouldn't have taken the time to write a poem which stems from the emotional attack my mind was suffering from my heart, and my night just wouldn't have been as successful and mending to my heart as it was. So, though I was annoyed with blogspot.com, I realized that there truly is a reason and perfect timing for everything in our lives, even something as small as a blog website being down, or a welcome though unusual phone call from a friend. Anyway, I've wasted enough space with my glib sentences and thoughts and it's time to get to the heart of this post: I'm going to post my poem!

Now I'm not going to claim to have any great command of the English language that enables me to be eloquent or show any deep insight into what it means to experience this human life, though one of my favorite poets, Dickenson, seemed to be able to convey those very things in a few words, and Tennyson in a few more. But, I will say that this poem is just an insight into Brianne, and my mind. Take it as it is and I hope that it proves to provide at least a moment of entertainment for you, even if it is just to pause and laugh at my very obvious melodrama. Here we go....

When I Forget You Love Me by Brianne Ramsay

When I forget you love me
I analyze and deflect
Thinking that it's my heart
I need to protect.

When I forget you love me
All of our sweet moments cease to exist
I can't even recall
The pull of your kiss.

When I forget you love me
I strike and I bite
Forcing myself to blame you
With all of my might.

When I forget you love me
I cry in secret and hold things in
Painting you as the culprit
Of some great sin

But wait
I think I missed the point.
It's not your love I forget
But my own

When I forget I love you
It becomes only about me
Wanting to force you to change
To finally see

How I feel and suffer
What a burden you are to me
That you're supposed to by my buffer
Against all the tragedies that  be

But if I simply remember what I know
I would see I'd been incredibly low
For it shouldn't matter; whatever you do
The simple truth is:
I love you

Nothing transcends that

Paintings by Leonid Afremov

I found these awesome paintings today. I love how he's using impressionism but the texture and depth of these paintings are different than a lot things I've seen. But that might not be saying much since I'm not an expert on art, but I really love these paintings. Check them out.

Here's the link to these paintings if you want more information:

Afremov Paintings

Poem

I found this poem the other day. It's not a Shakespearian Sonnet or anything by Tennyson, but I love it's simplicity in explaining how truly distance can suck when you're not in the same place as the person you love and miss more than you'll ever let yourself admit.

Why I Hate Reading Maps By Gabriel Gadfly


I have unrolled a map
onto my kitchen table
and put one finger
where you are and
another where I am.

The space between
is only inches. That close,
I could feel you breathing.
I could reach out and
run my fingers through
every strand of your hair,
touch your lips and
barely need to move.

In the corner of the map
there is a guide for judging scale:
every inch a hundred miles
full of roads and rivers and trees,
the guide a sharp reminder
that you are where you are
and I am where I am,
inches apart.

Conversations

I talk. A lot. Ask anyone who knows me and he or she will tell you that I have the either annoying or amazing ability to keep any conversation going almost under any circumstances. I have countless conversations a day, via text messages, facebook, telephones and face to face contact. But lately I've been questioning, with my command of the English language and of conversations am I really saying anything? Do I know when to stop small talk and actually say something with meaning and importance? Is there really any way I would be able to articulate my thoughts to those around me and  have them actually hold purpose and meaning in their minds? Do my thoughts have purpose and meaning? Do people even want my thoughts bouncing around in their heads? Are my thoughts even elastic and bounce at all? Or are they more box-y and stacked nicely in neat, organized rows? Or are my thoughts like a jigsaw puzzle and a jumbled mess?
Anyway, thoughts aside, even with my talent in the conversation department, I've found in recent situations in my life that I don't even know what to say. I mean, what do you say to someone you haven't seen in two years that has hurt you beyond even what you understand? And how do you fully tell someone in every little way how much they mean to you and have completely and wholly changed you? How can you say something that lets someone know to the endless degree you love him? Are some things impossible to put into words? I mean, I love language and saying what I feel and think. But sometimes, words just aren't enough..... no matter how good you are at saying them.

Wishes

I love to wish. I wish on stars and wishbones and dandelions and when I tie my paper straw cover into a knot and pull. But several times I've been told wishing is silly and a waste of time and that goal setting is a much more productive use of one's time. Now I completely agree that goal setting is necessary and a wonderful way to accomplish things, but can it really replace wishing? I mean, I can't set a goal to fly, or be accepted into hogwarts or to meet Shakespeare and have afternoon tea with Dickens in the same day. Wishing lends to the imagination and gives the heart and mind a moment to entertain the impossible and remember what it feels like to be a child certain she is capable of anything and how free it feels to actually think that. And you can also wish for realistic things. Like, I wish to write a book, travel to Rome, fall in love for eternity, dance in the Hawaiin rain again, and speak one of the romance languages fluently. Wishing reminds you to dream and hope and think outside the boundaries the harsh reality the real world sets for you the moment you start to grow up. Now I understand the warning presented by those who do not believe in wishing. If you wish too much or if you constantly wish away your past and your mistakes, and can find yourself at the end of your life with empty memories and only unfulfilled wishes to fill your heart as it beats for the last time. Not to go all Harry Potter nerd on you, but Albus Dumbledore said it best: "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live". So yes, I must wish and hope and dream and feed my imagination, but I must not forget to live and accomplish things with my life as well. My wishing can inspire me to action and I can fulfill my goals AND my dreams. Wishes and goals don't have to be mutually exclusive. So this summer (I know it's spring but this is MY summer vacation) I wish to get a job, visit with those I love, stay up all night, go running every day I can, lift at least one person's heart, and develop better letter writing habits for my friends soon to leave on missions. I may not accomplish all of these things this summer (though I desperately hope I can get a job) but my wishes have given my vacation potential purpose and meaning. I may not need a shooting star or a straw wrapper that rips just right, but by wishing and dreaming I become a productive and fulfilled member of humanity, and I would never trade that for anything in the world.

             "Always leave something to wish for; otherwise you will be miserable from your very happiness"
                                    -Spanish Philosopher Baltasar Gracian

Simplicity

I feel as though in our modern world that it is almost impossible to be simple. Even while I was designing this blog I chose the "simple" template, but it was anything but. It seemed as though I had to pick a different color for every inch of screen and there were so many options for word fonts and page layouts that I felt overwhelmed and avoided working on my blog for days until I had a vague inclination I had a few ideas of what I wanted. I'm not saying that having a myriad of options is a bad thing. I'm happy I could make my blog (thoug I'm probably the only viewer of it) look how I wanted it to. But sometimes I feel as though many options can complicate things that were never meant to be complicated. What's wrong with just putting words on a page without a specific font, color or layout? It would accomplish the same thing I'm accomplishing right now; my thoughts are in written form and somewhere else besides my brain. We get so caught up in options and being "original" that we forget the simple purposes and motivations for our actions. At a wedding, everyone becomes so distracted by the wedding colors, the food, the cake, the dress, the decorations, the cost, who can bring the most expensive gift, we forget the most important thing is that two people have chosen to love someone else for as long as they exist. It's as simple as that. Wedding colors and decorations are nice and beautiful but not really of that much importance. In our studies we become consumed with getting the best grade and gaining status in academia that we fail to remember the whole point of gaining an education is to broaden our knowledge and improve ourselves. When choosing a cell phone the important thing becomes what color it's going to be or how many new gadgets and settings it has, and we forget what a miracle it is we can contact almost any loved one in any place in the world with the touch of a finger; people are no longer so far away. Words are simple. Writing is simple. Meaning is simple. Purpose is simple. Questions are simple. Answers are simple. Love is simple. People are simple. Life is simple. Don't be like the rest of the world, so consumed with options and over-complicating a world that was meant to be beautifully simple in its creation. Remember your purpose, remember the simplicity of life and I promise it'll be easier to simply be happy in all that you do. I've learned that simplicity is the key to happiness. It's as simple as that :)