Knowledge

The mental universe is a dark labyrinth.
Every field of study is a new corridor of the labyrinth.
When you learn, you light the way through these corridors with candles.
Most of the candles stay lit, and you can revisit the lit caves that you have illuminated before.
Sometimes, a candle will burn out, and you will have to restudy it -- relight the candle.

As with any adventure, the first candles you are given excite you, and you begin to look into many different corridors, back away, choose another, until you run out of candles and have to take a break.
But there will come a time when you know you have gone deeply enough into the labyrinth that you will have to decide once and for all which corridor to travel down.

Well, that was my analogy for the insurmountable obstacle that is choosing a major and a particular field of study in a time when you feel so curious about every area of knowledge that making a choice seems absurd.

Valentine's Tower

'we were a little puddle of vitality and young love in a big empty place. i dont know, it was an odd feeling'


Boyfriend and I were having an odd day. I was sad for no reason, crying my eyes out for some subconscious BLUGH that I was feeling. Boyfriend came over late, but he got there. He took me away, through an eerie black sunset, under a sliver of moon and one bright star, to a cozy cafe in the mountains.
He coaxed out my smile, and we decided that we were in for quite a lovey, romantic evening. The thin lady of a youngish, indeterminable age and tattoos let us stay past closing time.
We were called by his acquaintance, an older woman, telling us that she needed a ride to the hospital. We ditched our plans of watching Black Stallion and trying champagne (Just to make sure we still don't like the taste). He drove like a mad man through the dark and the fog, down out of the mountains.
We waited in the ER lobby, the ER room, the hallway, the OR waiting room. When we got there, the place was bustling with headachey, feverish people and children with confused, tired expressions at having been woken in the night. I felt confused and small. We waited in the ER room as the woman became unconscious, and we shared the tiny brown chair in the corner by the sink.
People came and went, patients checked in and were then checked up on, and checked out. People watched us watching them as they passed by, first worried, then relieved. An old couple was taking a disoriented old man home when the husband walked towards us. He had a little plastic tub with a sandwich in it that reminded me of how starving we were. His plaid scarf delightfully mismatched his plaid jockey cap and slippers. Poking his head in a bit through the curtains, he said that he thought it was really good that we were comforting mom, and comforting each other.
That was really nice of him, I told Boyfriend.
The moral of today's story, he said, is that the system is stupid and slow, and people are too busy to listen.
I thought about that for a bit. Then i responded, I think the moral of today is that even though life can throw some nasty turns at you, you can still find compassion and humanity in people. Like the lady who owned the cafe and that old man. And all the people on staff here are stretched thin, but they are trying their best to make a difference.
We were questioned over and over, we were ushered from chair to chair, we were left in a big room full of single seat chairs that gave our spines a strict talking to. The only other man, an old man named Henry, was staring with a loose jaw at a television, seeming not to comprehend anything that was on the screen.
The hospital was deserted now. We were the only two people waiting, and we hardly saw any of the staff walking around. Once Henry had been called away, we turned off the horridly loud TV and tried to turn some chairs to make an odd, gap-ridden bench bed. We talked the entire time. Boyfriend and I have never been bored by each other. I think that's amazing. We talked about the cafe we want to own, and how I want to have a house with a Tardis mailbox, a horse named Beans, and an outhouse made of one-way mirrors in the middle of a garden.
The halls were far from silent, because the elevator would ding and open, without anyone getting in or getting out, and then close and move on. The little intercoms would buzz. There was a constant buzzing in the air. Boyfriend and I talked about how we are going to have to decide whether to stay together when I go to college or not. It was bittersweet: we love each other so much that we are okay with either of us doing whatever we really need to do in life. That just makes it harder; it makes me want to stay with him forever. If we have to split up, we know that we will horribly, selfishly wish that the other person misses us to death. But all the feelings are mutual. I don't know what will happen.

I felt young, I felt powerless, I felt oddly free.

Tired of Hypocrites. Frustrated by People.

I'm so tired. I have been drained lately- drained by stress and school, and drained by frustration caused by people. Nothing rubs me in the wrong direction like a hypocrite. If you complain to me about something you think I am doing wrong, you should correct that behavior in yourself too. If you then change your mind and decide to complain about the exact OPPOSITE of your first complaint, then I have nothing to say to you.
Yes, you. Stop it. Can nobody understand that I am human? I cannot stick to my standards that I set for people AND make everyone happy AND know exactly how to handle each situation so that it works out in their best interests.
Lately, I have been lowering my standards for people, and that does not bode well for me. It stems from me having my own shit to deal with, and then i let those standards slip a bit and I do not keep tabs on the status of the relationship like I should.
God forbid that I am human and that I make mistakes.
I'm tired of being let down. I am tired of people promising me things that I never see: it would have been better if you hadn't promised anything at all.
My mood has changed, I feel sad now. This blog is a ranting site for now, until I get inspired by something enough so that I can write about it.

Weary Hearts

I found myself talking to friends a lot tonight about the nature of love and our love in particular.

I came to the conclusion that when we are tired and our hearts are weary we stop, and we go to each other to recharge and get faith in love again.

There is a fine line between use and abuse. We use everyone; we would not be connected to people if we did not use them and have them use us for something like company or security or love.

Abuse would be when they don't attempt to repair the damage they cause to you. 

I think tonight I recognized that one relationship I have is a balanced equation of need and help, of give and take. The other is abuse, and though I cannot stop caring for this person, I need to break ties with them in order to stop this pain. (yes yes i KNOW I said "them" instead of a pronoun that is grammatically correct... shush!)

Sad Night

To say I am tearful at the moment is an understatement. The tears seem to be in a hurry to escape me: they are in such a hurry that they stream in unison from each eye, making butterfly symmetry on my cheeks.
I give people too many chances, I am told. I am really feeling that now. I have a research paper to do tonight, but I doubt that that will get done.
I am afraid to lose you, my darlings. Though you who are so close to my heart are so few in number. I would give you endless chances, if I could. I am afraid that one day I will not be able to support you or put on this mask any longer.
I love you, my darling.

Where I'm From

We had an assignment in English: to use the structure of a poem we were looking at to tell where we are from.

I'm from spiky oak leaves that stick in your heel.
From acorn and caterpillar season, from Robins in the redberry bush and daffodils we planted ourselves before we could spell, that bloom through earthquakes and bulldozers.
I'm from torn, springless, bucket-seat couches with tacky buttons and sinking orange foam.
I'm from Christmas trees reaching toward a twenty-five foot sloping ceiling, from mother's homemade centerpieces and cider, and  Grandma's sugar cookies.
My childhood hangs in the purple moon on the Christmas tree.
The rest of my childhood lurks under thin dusty films in prominent corners of my room and mind
    in the Tinker Toy orange stick that fell off of the back deck, in the soulless ceramic horses that wait in the shadows to be given life.
I am from abstract and impressionist paintings. The Monk Knocks Twice. From hand me down pianos, from the coffee table that holds pictures of faces lost to time and love letters in a feverish scrawl.
My heart lies in journals, sketchbooks, and Australian pop CDs,
   in doors of spiraling wood and Purple Passion comforters.
It is the reflection of a cat's eye in the dark and the patter of rain on a tent tarp. 
   the plaintive wail of a train and the setting of a vibrant sun.

i should i should i should

I should be doing homework. I should be doing homework. I should be doing homework. God, the echo is like the beating of drums in my head; like the Master in Doctor Who hears tap-tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap-tap, so I hear the cacophony of my conscience warning me not to log on to my blog, not to open my notebook, not to write anything but my essay for Comparative Government on global statistics (the most vague prompt ever).
Do you actually know what I should be doing? I should be utilizing the scant inspiration that I can oh-so-rarely scrape together these days and pouring it onto a page. I should let colors fill my mind, and music resonate in my ears. I can't, I can't, I can't. I must endure.