All that Glitters is Not Gold

 I’m beginning to realize that Kenny Chesney as a wiser man than any of us could have ever known. I say this because I find myself singing his lyrics repeatedly in my mind- “The more things change, the more they stay the same, don’t matter how old you are…” I always thought that college was just this drastic break from your life where everything in the past became entirely irrelevant. I don’t think it’s so much like that now. I think that like Kenny sings, you can’t just drop the people in the past. You can wish that it no longer mattered, and you can try your hardest to pretend this is your new beginning, but no matter how many thousands miles separate you from high school, you can never get far enough away. Maybe reality isn’t even the right word. You can never get far enough to escape the truth. You can lie every day for ten years, but finally one day, the inconceivable truth reveals itself like an underground blackhead breaking free to the surface. Then the ugly is exposed to us all.

            My point is that perception is deceptive in nature. You can think something for years, and then with one single sentence there is that paradigm shift that shows you that everything was a lie. So don’t base your life values on what you believe to be true, base your values on what you know to be certain. Often enough we judge because we feel we know the whole story. As someone told me last night, the more we find out, the less we really know.   J.R.R Tolkien was able to put what I’m saying more eloquently in words.

“All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.”

When's the Day You Start Again?

I always aspired to be one of those mystery girls. The ones you see in the school hallways and as they pass by you that little annoying internal voice of yourself goes, Damn, there struts a girl who doesn’t cry into her bowl of Fruit Loops in the morning.  I am a hot mess by nature, as I have no patience and a tendency to lose it at the slightest disarray.  I have long draping hair that will absolutely never blow out the direction I want it to go, and these two little sticks of side bangs that cling flat to my forehead when I don’t fix my hair properly. To top it all off, my skin is composed of over active sweat glands, my face gets lobster colored when I get flustered, and whenever I try to speak up in class I get this hoarse man voice that often cracks like a prepubescent teenage boy. In summation, I live my life in a perpetual state of calamity.

            I used to really love myself too much. Narcissism was my downfall; I was prideful to the point of looking in the trophy cabinet at school and casually shaking out my curls and knowing that I thought I was perfect. I see pictures of myself from that time, and I was so fearless. No abash for the opinions of others, no concern over what I was or was not doing with my weekends. I felt pretty and because of that I was. I dared other people to doubt who I was and stared them down when they did. I enjoyed the control I realized I could empower over those around me, and I began to realize the potential that simmered through my bones. I knew I was flawed, but I didn’t notice and I just pretended no one else did either.

            Then slowly there was a gradual but noticeable shift, as I began to age and started to truly open my eyes to those around me. With enough time there will be fall out, and there certainly was for me. All of my so-called glorious perfection began to dissolve around me, dissipating into the air and taking with it all of my spunky confidence and joy. It was a sluggish leak, but once the knob was twisted I would never feel the same way about myself again. There was once a light in my eyes, a glossy shine exuded into the atmosphere, but with each tear down and disappointment, the light dimmed.

            I grew up in Louisiana, and spent my summers frolicking up and down the white coasts of the Florida beaches. I had never seen a mountain until I was around the age of seven. I asked my dad as we drove up to Tennessee what a mountain looked like, as I mistook the rolling hills of Georgia for true summits. My dad had laughed and smiled at me. These aren’t the real mountains. The further we drove the more substantial the peaks became, until I truly understood what he meant.  His words launched back into my life as the infinitesimal dilemmas of my teenage life began to evolve. Each new hurdle was a little bit steeper, the rocks fell upon me a little bit more painfully, and the slow leak morphed into a consistent seeping. At first it was just school related, learning to manage high school classes and accept my educational imperfections. Then it was about my friends and feeling lonely, and I’d lose my footing as I climbed the slope, having to regroup on a new ledge. Then I learned what it truly means to lose, and I began to accept a torrential downpour of boulders upon my head. I even learned to open the umbrella to this and shield myself from the bitter stabs. At some point I finally will reach the pinnacle, but I ask myself at what cost? I will reach the top as everyone eventually does, but what will I have lost and suffered along the way? 

Now is the Start

The path through the pain is forward, to a future filled with corcuscating sunsets

As much as we all like to think we control our own destinies and actions, I feel like a part of us all knows we have limited control over everything. When you do the same things for four years with slight variation as you grow and mature, it becomes hard to imagine the life we don’t know that awaits us behind the veil of misty smoke and clouds. Maybe the truth is it was never so much about the rejection letters from schools as it was that we aren't prepared to go off to college. I think we’ve always known that fact and we just do our very best to deny it. Everyone wants to go to college right? Maybe I don’t. Maybe I don’t belong in a state five hours by plane away from the warmth of family and the soothing knowledge that my mother who loves me so so much will always be there to love me a little more. That Friday when I didn’t get in to what we shall refer to as *dream school*, when I held that rejection letter in my cold shaking hands and when I sobbed so hard that all the mascara just streamed down my face in a very Taylor Momson when Chuck takes her virginity way, my mom held me and it made it okay. I still cry when I think about that day, because it honestly sucked. Maybe when there is more certainty in the solution of the matterr it will stop making me cry. Or maybe it never will. 

It will always serve as a defining day in my life in which that which I had dreamed for myself came crashing down upon my shoulders. In a way, I feel like it was the nudging hand of God shaking his head at me and pointing out that all of the objects of my desires are painfully misguided. I feel like I know what I want, but at the same time sometimes I find myself realizing I’m not who I always imagined myself to be. Today in the the lululemon dressing room, there was one of those three way mirrors that allows you to see yourself from all different views, and I looked at the girl and judged her and then took a long moment to realize that girl was me. Then I just stared at her side profile and tried to imagine other people loving that shell of a body as my soul. All I really feel in touch with is my own mind, and the wavering thoughts that flicker through my brain, and I don’t really know that body. It is mine but at the same time it just allows me to function. I’ve been wrong so much this past year that I honestly believe I’m in a sort of redefinition of all the boundaries and lines I’ve drawn. 

 On a slightly different note, I've begun to consider why it is we always return to the subjects and people who cause us the most suffering. Why is there love lost between some people even when those very people are the reason for pain in our lives? Can we not let go because there is unfinished business, or is it that when you love unconditionally you don’t give up even when the object of your affections is begging you to. There is a legitimate point when someone I know pondered to me why we always return to the people who hurt us most. I thought it over and think it makes logical sense. We return to that which makes us feel alive. Maybe life with those things that hurt us is more painful, or dangerous, but no one would keep going back if they didn’t like the way that thing made them feel. 

The Girl behind the Bow (and what coruscation means)

Coruscation: a verb meaning the brillant reflection of life, or the sparkle and shine of a light. The minute I discovered the word I knew it would become one of the those words that never really left me. What it truly means I have yet to really figure out, all I know is that I like the hope it inspires within me when it runs through my head. I hope that the life becomes a brillant reflection of light for me, and I hope that I can find myself through this shimmering light.