why all hands should be written on (a prose piece)

***
YOU ARE OKAY.

I wrote that on my left hand this morning, in thick black sharpie, running from my wrist to the middle of my thumb.

In these crowded streets no one notices, no one stops and asks why it's necessary, no one even sees. And that's the way I want it to be.I want them to know I'm okay without having written evidence, just look in my eyes, look at my face, tell me it's the face of someone who is okay, truly okay, someone who will stay okay for a long time. Tell me it's not the face of someone who is beaten and broken and somehow still breaking.

At school I get some curious glances from teachers when I'm handing in papers. I remind myself to use my right hand instead, but it's not something I'm used to. Obviously, I keep forgetting, and teachers keep looking at my hand, looking at my eyes, shaking their heads but saying nothing. I don't know what they think, and part of me wants to know. Sure, I didn't want it to be seen, but now that it is, I need a response, I need some sort of reassuring or demeaning word, something to give this ink on my hand meaning beyond just me.

What kind of a person would write that on their hands?

Someone hurting, they'd say, or recovering. Or maybe they would say: someone strange, someone who needs to get their head adjusted. Someone like me.

***
HOPE

I wrote that yesterday, and it didn't reach my thumb, didn't bend to reach papers or crack with my knuckles. It simply stayed.

I met with my counselor that day, and she told me to stop reading so many books about teenage suicide. She said: that's never a good option, sweetie; before adjusting her glasses and scribbling something down on the stack of papers she'd placed in my file. I told her they were about more than that. I told her they were about life more than death. She nodded, but I don't think she believed me. She stared at my hand and told me: maybe don't write on your hand any more, darling, try something else, a sticky note, or a keychain.

I don't want to buy a new keychain every day, I tell her, and I haven't taken notes in weeks. Why not? There is really no point in it. Don't I want to remember these subjects, math or history or science? All I need to know I've written on my hands. She dismissed me from her office then, mumbling something about a lost cause.

I wonder, if I'd written something different on my hand that day, would she have said that under her breath? Would she have said it at all?

If everyone wrote like I write on my hand, would we act differently around them? Would we choose our words more carefully or avoid certain subjects? Would there be more hugging and laughing or tears and silence? I like to think both. Sometimes silence is necessary. Maybe everyone needs to write on their hands as much as I do. Maybe my counselor should change her recommendations.

I can't bear to think about it too much, though, so I write a final reminder, one more thing before going out into the crowded world where hands don't speak and no one bothers to check anyway. I open my palm and place the cold tip of the thick sharpie on it.

**
FIND YOURSELF.

A Cheesy Prose Piece a Day

So.. most of what I've been writing are what is mentioned in the title. They're fictional stream-of-consciousness prose pieces. I take on a (usually anonymous) character and write as them. Nothing else. I write one a day, so I believe I will start posting them here, as they're not TWiG material.

It only took me five years to forget his name, surprisingly enough. I thought it would be longer. That boy was crazy, with the motley colors he insisted on wearing, the way he spoke his mind without thinking, the way he could convince anyone to do anything, no matter how insane it sounded. I participated in his schemes for ten years of my life, ten long, troublesome years that always left someone disappointed in me.

That one boy. Everyone knew him, everyone loved him, nobody understood why. We mentioned ‘that kid’ and everyone knew who we were talking about. Everyone knew we were talking about the guy frozen at sixteen, the age we all said goodbye, the age he went far away and went for good.

But what was his name? I remember his eyes, as multicolored as his clothes, his laugh, contagious even to strangers, his smile, suspicious but endearing, his hands, rough and calloused and always caked with dirt. He had a name, I used to tell myself, but I’m becoming less and less sure. Maybe he didn’t have one; maybe he didn’t need one.

In any case. I remember his voice, how it rang across the room, travelled through my ears and left little room for anything else. I remember how some mocked him and I stood by, flushed but silent, not daring to oppose them. I remember how we all would’ve died for him, he was a leader, he was ours, no one else’s, no one else’s until he turned sixteen and disappeared forever.

I remember his hand on my shoulder, his chapped lips on my cheek, his whispering somehow louder than the noisy crowd. I remember when I found out he was leaving, how I convinced myself everyone else was only pretending not to care, how I knew, just knew, that no one could possibly care the way I did. But there had to be some heartbreak that wasn’t mine. There had to be some other goodbye that wasn’t easy, some other person that felt the sting when he only smiled and waved them away before leaving.

It took me five years to forget his name, and I wonder how long it will take me to forget the rest.

Silence

cc

Lately, I've begun to appreciate the silence more. I know, it sounds like an unnecessary thing to say, but silence used to terrify me. Sometimes it still does. No sound from anywhere except your screaming thoughts... it has the potential to be awful.

But life is hectic. Life is hurried and breathless and dizzying. Life leaves little room for anything; my thoughts and I are strangers, my words can't slow anything down, my hands only aid in the acceleration.

The rare moment of silence, of being alone. I hate being alone, usually, but, this past month at least, the state hasn't bothered me as much as it usually does.

Don't get me wrong, my thoughts are screaming more than usual. I've reached a point in my life where there are so many people who will listen but so few I am actually willing to talk to*. So I hold all the words inside, hold them and let life's fury carry me away, silently, deliberately, to avoid facing everything I have to.

I speak fewer words than I used to. It's like the sound of my own voice surprises me, a new sensation entirely. I don't know why I'm writing this here, of all places, but I figured it's about time I admit it.

I'm using silence the same way I used to use busy-ness. As a way to run away. As a way to avoid facing what I need to.

Status: it's working.


*I'd like to clarify that the fault in this is mine, and mine alone. My friends are wonderful, incredibly so.

French class on Tuesday!

...does that mean I have to actually start updating this blog?
View blog

Someone sent me a message... and this was in it.

Well, someday it will happen. Every day comes. I believe that. Everything we have waited for we will someday enjoy having.

Thank you. Just thank you.

Mental Breakdowns

Because Wikipedia is apparently all-knowing, I will now proceed to quote from it. A mental breakdown "refers to a specific acute time-limited reactive disorder, involving symptoms such as anxiety or depression, usually precipitated by external stressors." [x] 

I also read that a lack of sleep can cause stressors to become even more... erm... stressful, for lack of a better term. For example, your friend snapping at you one day might be insignificant, but your friend snapping at you when you haven't slept well for over a month... well, that's a little different.

Self-diagnosing is dangerous, but the internet makes it even worse. Life was much better when everything was just "a little cold." Nowadays, you can go into Google with a headache and a minute later be convinced you have a fatal brain tumor.

It's the way life works in this modern day and age. We all live in a constant panic.

At any rate, I digress. Now, if you're like me and you've been to high school, you're offered multiple choices. You can either be qualified as a 'Regs' kid, an 'Honors' kid, or an 'AP' student. Usually, someone will recommend you take AP classes, because, they say, the work will pay off, colleges will like you, etc, etc. 

What they don't tell you is that the Regs kids are always happier. It's true--look around you. Those kids that are grinning like they just came back from the best day of their lives, those are the Regs kids, the ones that have the luxury of blow-off classes and--dare I say it?-- free time. 

You see, free time is a foreign concept to AP students. Why? Because AP students have the workload, the test difficulties, the endless essays, and on top of that they have everyone expecting infinitely more from them. No matter what, the AP students will be faced with the pressure of their best friends getting full rides to Harvard, the legacy of that one Glorious Student who walked around with a Halo over his/her head and got fought over by All The Ivy League Schools. 

All of them.

The goal of the AP student is to secure their future, not enjoy their nows. They live on the constant promise of sleeping in on Saturdays, they count the days down to vacations, they don't even bother thinking about plans because their only plan is sleep. 

We all find solace in something, us AP students. With some, it's the internet, that world that seems full of people who understand. For others, its worse things, substance abuse, self-harm, disorders, anxiety...

Then there's the mental breakdowns. They happen without warning, usually are irrational and inexplicable. Some end in tears, some end in laying quietly in our rooms unable to think lest we break down again, and still others end in stupid decisions. It's comforting to think we all have them, though probably not entirely accurate.

So, maybe the question we want to ask our students when they go into high school is: do you want to be successful, or do you want to be happy? Because apparently you can't be both, and maybe if I'd been asked I would have chosen differently.

I don't believe in love

    Don't get me wrong--I believe in some forms of love. How can I not? I love my friends, I love GOD, I love my family, and sometimes I love people so much it physically hurts. I just don't believe in that kind of love. You know the deal-- love at first sight, I'll love you forever, etc.
    Romantic love bothers me. It seems like a very idealistic approach to life. It makes sense, after all, who wouldn't want to believe that there is someone out there for everyone, that there is a certain special someone whom you are destined to be with? The view, at first glance, offers hope. There's someone out there who will love you for who you are and your love will last forever and you'll be incomparably happy with each other. In the end, though, this view doesn't work for me.
    First of all, consider this: love at first sight. How is that even something people believe in? I'm sure you can't look at someone and immediately fall in love without being a little creepy. Anyone that's seen Enchanted knows how foolish and weak the idea of love after a few seconds of knowing someone can be. It simply doesn't hold ground. How can you love someone without knowing them?
    But I won't ride that tangent too far. Not many people buy the idea of love at first sight, anyway. What really bothers me is the unrealistic idea of that one person you're destined to be with, i.e. "The One." Just now on TV, a commercial played about this Christian dating web site, and the announcer stated that the website could help you find "GOD's match for you." This implies that there is a specific person out there, one specific person, whom fate has tied you to, and that regardless of your walks in life, one day you will meet and your lives will be irrevocably tied together. Forever. One person. Take a moment to drink that in.
    Now my questions. The other day I was considering the fact, and I was thinking of people who are depressed, people who kill themselves. And I thought--let's say I have this one person who I am supposed to be with, and I'm his 'the one.' What happens if one day I off myself? Is he doomed to loneliness? Did his loss of 'The One' ruin his chances forever? And what if my 'One' makes awful choices, messes up his life, am I still supposed to be with him? I asked a friend of mine this and he said: "he'd find someone else." Which is ridiculous. That would imply that you have two 'the One's and that's simply not possible under this framework. The same applies to widows and widowers.
    What about single people--are their lives somehow lacking, missing that one person? Or did fate simply not grace them with the privilege of having a predestined mate? I know people who stayed single their entire lives, know they're not supposed to marry someone, but they're not lacking. They're not missing their so-called 'other half.' They're very happy, well-rounded individuals, which just goes to show that you really don't need someone else's romantic love to be complete.
    People change. That's one thing my life has taught me. It's the simplest thing in the world to imagine yourself in love with someone, to let yourself dream. That doesn't mean it's true. I remember there used to be several people in my life that I couldn't imagine myself living without, and the truth is I don't even talk to these people anymore. That, however, is not the point. The point is that either my love wasn't strong enough to survive that long or it's simply gone. Now, I know for a fact that my love was real and it was intense, so that leaves only the latter option. My love for them is gone. I don't mean my generic "I love Humanity" love; I mean my specific, personal love for them, my friends. I accept it as a fact that it's just not there, but in a way it bothers me, that love, the most powerful force on earth, could change without my noticing.
    Well, that my specific love could change, and other people's specific love. Maybe that's why the idea of a forever, 'til death do us part love bothers me so much. Because in my experience, nothing stays the same. The way we see love leaves a lot of room for disappointment. It seems to me that we're left with the impression that if we just find that special someone, we'll be happy. Life isn't all hearts and flowers, though, and we can't just set aside our other 'less-important' goals in favor of the so-called ultimate happiness. The idea of true love leaves us expecting too much, setting our standards unrealistically high. Maybe that's why the divorce rates are so high--once one realizes that the original romantic love-delusion is wearing off and the person one loves isn't as perfect and forever as one thought, one is left with the idea that love, in general, has failed. So what other option does that leave one but divorce? There's nothing as disappointing as realizing that forever is just an illusion. The higher our hopes are, the harder the fall is.
    We shouldn't live our lives hanging on the promise of 'someday.' I've long believed that there are two different kinds of love: generic and specific. Specific love, however platonic, can still be strong and certainly beautiful, however long it lasts. I'm content with this, with going on loving people with all my heart, disregarding romance, at least until I can find someone that I'm willing to make the sacrifice for, to constantly change for the better of our relationship, in order that our love be constantly transformed.