Goodbyes and Endings

Why is it that endings always make me cry? Even if I didn’t see the beginning, I just get very emotional when I even think about something never coming back. I just started a book series yesterday. Before I even started the book, I stared at it for 10 minutes just thinking, “I really shouldn’t start this. I know that once I start it, I am going to have to finish it. I am going to get attached to the characters and not want it to end. I am going to cry at the end.” I hate it, but I had to start it anyway. I realized I was already attached to the characters, whether I met them or not. If I don’t start the books, then I am going to be thinking about what is still there sitting on my bookshelf waiting for me. It will take over my mind until I finally put it all to rest and start the book. It’s like a Catch-22. It keeps going back and forth until I just give up and begin. Why has God cursed us with endings? Probably to make heaven look even more perfect in our eyes. Not only are we free from pain and sadness, but it lasts forever. No endings. No goodbyes. On the other end, I kind of enjoy the bittersweet feeling of an ending. It is almost relieving to have that feeling of, “On to another adventure.” Endings and goodbyes mean you have another memory to hold on too. If it keeps going, the memories fade and have no significance. There is no real reason to keep going. I look forward to saying goodbye, knowing I have a reason to come back. I feel like this is an outlook everyone should have in life and everything it holds for us. Don’t regret the goodbyes and dread the endings. Look forward to having the memories and reasons to come back. Look forward to the next adventure.

I miss writing…

It’s funny. My goal for this summer was to write a book. Or at least get halfway done with one. But I have wasted away all this time with stupid TV and whatever. I hate it. It annoys me. I just wish I had this moment months ago. In May I was just so anxious to write. I had the whole story planned out in my head. I was ready to burst with all the words running through my mind. Enough is enough. This is what is becoming of the world, isn’t it? TV will take over and fry all of our brains. Even with “ebooks” becoming popular, the heat from the screens will burn us through. Books are dying and it’s breaking my heart. With Border’s closing, that may be just what is needed to spark a new interest in books for this generation. It’s reestablishing the idea of “hey! there’s a bookstore in your neighborhood! come before we’re gone, which won’t be long.” It’s driving me nuts. Yes, I have frequent obsessions with various TV shows, but who doesn’t? There are so many people who completely live for these shows, even though they will not last longer than a decade. Less than that, more than likely. And then once it is gone, they have a meltdown about how little they are going to have in their lives now! I am making a mid-year resolution. No more TV obsessions. No more than 3 hours of TV a day. It’s making me stupid, which I hate. It has been my ultimate lifelong goal to not be stupid, yet here I am, completely abusing myself from ever reaching it. Ever since I first met the author June Rae Wood, I have never wanted anything more of my life than to write. That is all that I want. No longer will I support the media that is destroying what I love most. Because of TV and computers, the writing industry has plummeted. I am not about to try to restore it, but I am not planning on falling down with it. Now that I have recovered from my depressing writing hiatus as well as improved my daily confrontation/rant, I can go sleep so I can go to Border’s tomorrow morning for the last time.

I want a life.

“I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love. I felt in myself a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life.”

Leo Tolstoy’s “Family Happiness”

Need for a Purpose

“Everything had changed suddenly—the tone, the moral climate; you didn’t know what to think, whom to listen to. As if all your life you had been led by the hand like a small child and suddenly you were on your own, you had to learn to walk by yourself. There was no one around, neither family nor people whose judgment you respected. At such a time you felt the need of committing yourself to something absolute—life or truth or beauty—of being ruled by it in place of the man-made rules that had been discarded. You needed to surrender to some such ultimate purpose more fully, more unreservedly than you had ever done in the old familiar, peaceful days, in the old life that was now abolished and gone for good.”

Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago

Was Chris “Alexander Supertramp” McCandless Crazy?

I am at a point in my life right now where I feel trapped in a dark, empty abyss. I feel like I have no prospects and nowhere to go. This scares the crap out of me. But at the same time, I feel lucky because I have opportunities and options. I may not see them now, but I know they are there. I have the chance to do something amazing, even if I have yet to begin that endeavor. Alexander Supertramp, I think, was a lot like me. He was that round peg being forced into that square hole. He was bound to explode sometime. I don’t think he knew what he was doing, exactly. But he knew where he could find freedom, and he went for it.
Maybe, instead of looking at my future as a dark abyss, I should see it as freedom. I have the freedom to do whatever I want to do, more or less. I have these options, I just have to pick one. Yes, I’m still scared I’m going to pick the wrong one, but I know it will all be OK in the end. If it’s not OK, then it’s not the end yet.

Frena pro feris teneo

• To argue over what music is best
• To watch nature around me
• To watch old movies
• To read and discuss books
• To bike and swim—but like a kid, not an adult
• To have fun

Why can’t I find anyone to share these things with?

Profound Thought #1

So, I’m reading this book that I don’t remember putting a hold on at the library. I’m reading it, and it’s seriously like reading the daily log of random thoughts that go through my mind. I read this chapter, “On Grammar”, and it made me very excited because this was basically everything that I have ever thought, but have never been able to put into words as poetically as Muriel Barbery has here in the persona of a 12 year old. I absolutely love it.
I have always been so drawn to trees, but I have never really realized why. I just love how small they make me feel. I like the feeling of insignificance. I like to be “in awe” of something. It’s our purpose in life, I believe, that we have to be the ones to recognize other people’s glory. We have to be reflecting everyone else, not ourselves.
This is why I love this book.

“There’s so much humanity in a love of trees, so much nostalgia for our first sense of wonder, so much power in just feeling our own insignificance when we are surrounded by nature…yes, that’s it: just thinking about trees and their indifferent majesty and our love for them teaches us how ridiculous we are—vile parasites squirming on the surface of the earth—and at the same time how deserving of life we can be, when we can honor this beauty that owes us nothing.”

—	Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of the Hedgehog

Vah! Denuone Latine loquebar?

Go do. Don’t just sit there. Don’t just run around the block. Run a marathon. Don’t just go swimming. Sail the seven seas. Don’t just open your closet. Go to Narnia. Don’t just sit and watch the clouds. Fly with them. Don’t just read. Don’t just say. Don’t just live day to day. Go live a life.

Don’t be a walking hypocrite. A walking contradiction. Live a real life and enjoy it.

Love is a Verb

Love is a verb. To love is a choice. It is a human’s given goal in life, like how a bird must sing. No one told them to, they just do because they can and they need to to survive. Love is a necessity in life. It is a nourishment to the soul. To not love or not to have been loved can ruin a person and can push them off the face of the Earth.
Hate pulls at one to ignore responsibilities; an excuse to be selfish. It is a wave that gently takes one out to sea, and then drowning them before they’ve realized what has happened. Love is the ship that can stay afloat. Love is the lighthouse that leads one back. Love can save, even when it’s too late.

My favorite photos (that are on my computer).

Miss Selanious’ photostream on Flickr.