Rear View Mirrior

Central is the kind of place that looks best in the rear view mirror. Not that Central is really all that horrible of a place, yet there is just something deep in my soul that feels an urge to get out. The urge to flea from this mundane town.
Don't get me wrong though I love Central, it has been a wonderful place to spend these teenagers years of mine, really I mean that. It is full of beautiful land and I have found my place here in a way that scares me to think of who I would be if I had grown up anywhere else.
I love the people here, some of the most genuine people I have ever met live here. But I need to see other things. I need to travel and see the small towns that other have been similarly affected by. I want to hear new stories and experience new things on unfamiliar soil. I want to do this not just because I need to for myself but also because it is the only thing that has the ability to really make me appreciate Central the way I should.


I have a friend who's grandma died in the same house she was born in. She grew up and lived and raised her children and grandchildren and died in the very same house on the very same street in the very same town. She was happy in it. But she knew no other place. She wasn't aware of the other options out there waiting for her. Waiting for her heart to fall in line with.
I cannot imagine that life. I cannot imagine being content in the one place I began with. I don't have to imagine that life and I won't.

The new school year and everything I despise about it...

We are not even through the first week of school and I am already fed up and done. What is wrong with that. Do I just  have a real low tolerance for shit? Am I just PMSing? Or what? 

All I know is I am pissed off!

I hate being back. 

I Absolutely hate it. 

Nothing about the new year got me excited. 

It's just another year of the same old same old. 

Another year of classes that give twice as much work as the amount of explaining that was done. 

Another year of hauling heavy textbooks up three flights of stairs because my high school doesn't believe in lockers. 

Another year of judgement. 

Another year of BSing papers and homework and projects. 

Another year of saggy pants. 

Another year of eating lunch in my car because I have no fucking friends. 

Another year of pretending I'm listening when in all honest I'm daydreaming about being anywhere but that desk.

Another year of being controlled. 

Another year of fake smiles. 

Another year of fake friends. 

Another year of having to park a half mile away from the school because by the time I get there all the spots are always taken. 

Another year of no cell phone service. 

Another year of struggling through math. 

Another year of rumors. 

Another year of being accused of things just for walking down the halls because faculty and staff assume all teenagers are up to no good.

Another year of ease dropping on preppy girl gossip.  

Another year of lost faith in my generation. 

Another year of no freedom.  

Another year of counting down the months and the days and the weeks and the hours and the minutes until graduation. 

And Another year of wishing I were done already! 

So happy new school year everybody. I hope you have a better attitude about it than me.  

Unique confidence

I'm tired of hearing it's a crummy world and that people are no damned good! 

What kind of talk is that!

I happen to know a bus driver who has one of the most unexciting jobs, yet goes about it with the most magnificent enthusiasm. 

I happen to know a teenage mom struggling through all the ridicule that comes with to make things work for her new child the best she can. 

I happen to know a place in little ole Central, South Carolina where there is a cook and a waitress and a manager who put all they got into laying a good juicy pork chop on you. 

I happen to know a little boy who still believes he can be superman when he gets older, and isn't afraid of growing up because he is determined to use his life to help others. 

Now how can you tell me that ain't no damned good.
There is nothing more impressive than a person who is confident in their unique role in this world.  Let me tell you that there are people in this world, people you and I pass on a daily bases who are living the way life should be lived. 

It's a good world filled with good people. 

Now lets appreciate it. 

A kick in the Shins

"We don't have to love something for it to become a god to us. All we have to do is devote our most valuable mental attentions to it."

I read that in Beth Moore's book "So Long Insecurity" today and it hit me like a kick in the shins.  It hurt so bad and I know it's because I have been stuck in a cycle revolving around that sentence right there for far too long. I have been devoting my focus and thoughts and energy on some of the most painful emotions resulting from straight up bitterness. I have let my emotions get so out of control that my negativity has morphed into complete instability. All because of the things I have let my soul stay bitter at.

I have been at a place of pain and hurt for months too long...when the funny part is that God has already expressly told me to cease trying to fix what insists on staying broken. If the God of the universe has told me as clear as day that I need to quit ruining myself with these things then I probably need to stop. He has given me the authority to set myself free and I bet it breaks His heart to see me allowing the injustice of other people to cause me to miss out on His great plans for my life. 

I can't handle what I'm doing to myself anymore. I am creating my own misery, I have let my tender and unhealthy heart turn reasonable things into full fledged disasters.
I have created situations with unreasonable expectations in which being disappointed and hurt is almost inevitable, and the thing is, I know better than this. I know this situation does not have the power to define and diminish me.
So why on Earth do I let it. I am sick to death of it.
I don't need something so unhealthy to have a hold on me any longer.

I am worth more. That's all there is to it.

Addicted

I have been hurt lately, and by lately I mean the past few months... and by the past few months I mean the past 12 months. I have been so hurt that I haven't even really been giving myself time to find out why I'm so hurt. I've been looking at the outside and the obvious reasons. But why am I REALLY so hurt?

The fact is I became addicted. I was despondent and dependent. Needing more and more care. And suddenly the attention began to waver. I began suffering the easily foreseeable consequences.
 
I think addiction is the hallmark of every infatuation based love story.
Elizabeth Glibert once described it by saying "It all begins when the object of your adoration bestows upon you a heady hallucinogenic does of something you never even dared to admit that you wanted". That's what happened to me, and suddenly I started craving it. With the hungry obsession of any junkie. And all of a sudden when the drug was withheld, I promptly turned sick, crazy, depleted. (Not to mention the resentment I felt toward the dealer who encouraged this addiction in the first place.)
I'm torn up.
While meanwhile the object of my "adoration" has become repulsed by me. They look at me like I'm someone they have never seen before. And the irony is that I can hardly blame them.
I mean really, check me out.
I'm a pathetic mess.
It's recognizable, even to my own eyes.

Heat swells behind my eyes as I think of it. But I clench my teeth, because I am fed up. Fed up with tears and weakness. I am sad and I am broken but I need to hurry up and heal. It has had a hold on me for too long. I have burnt up too much of my time and energy being upset about it.

Thanks but No Thanks

Here is something I have decided.

I feel like High School is one of those places I so desperately want to be done with and out of. Yet it is also something I hope I never lose sight of.
See some people (especially the older population) like to tell me how dumb high school problems are. They say how small and insignificant teenager issues are. They say how ignorant we are to the real stuff we will get to when we are older.
But let me ask you.... does knowing that make a teenagers problems any less significant?

Nope! 

I just hope I never forget how real my problems seem when I've been stuck in them.
Sure, my problems may not be huge or putting a lot on the line but is telling me that going to be making things better? 

When I am older and wiser and more experienced with these things I hope I never forget what its like to be my age.
I hope I never tell a high schooler how much they don't know or how much they haven't even scratched the surface of life's difficulties.
Because that Doesn't Matter.
That's NOT helping anything.
and its not the point. 

That doesn't lessen the issue they're having knowing their problems are tiny compared to what they will face in the future.
Its not helping anything because in the moment it is very real to them.
It will only make them feel worse about their issue.
I pray I never forget what its like to not know. 

I'm not saying adults don't have much more to handle or that all their problems are blown out of proportion.
I'm just saying that teenagers need your help. 

Instead of trying to scare them or brush them off, why don't you help them deal with their issues in a healthy way before they even get to the big stuff. Help them be equipped before its too late.
Remember what is was like.
Its real.



"Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size."- Mark Twain