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.

obscure post

What should I write about?

The lights are reflecting off the screen in a way that makes my whole life look surreal. A white screen with blurry yellow lights greets me. It's blank. No matter how hard I try I cannot think of words to fill it with. My view of the world is a conglomerate of verbs and adjectives and nouns, but none of them seem to fit. There's something in my mind that demands perfection, but I can't provide it. In the living room there's another world-—of football and television and getting excited about men in tights running an oddly shaped brown ball across a field of unnatural grass. Somehow I've managed to escape that. Now I'm trapped in a different sort of prison—one of words, all longing to escape, to find their place on this impossibly blank white and yellow-lit screen. I find myself chained with the knowledge that I simply cannot do them justice, no matter how hard I try. Instead, they will be forced to join the infinite expanse of Lost Words, words that I was too weak to make a place for. They deserve better than me.

Estación Inmóvil -- Pablo Neruda

Quiero no saber ni soñar.
Quién puede enseñarme a no ser,
a vivir sin seguir viviendo?

Cómo continúa el agua?
Cuál es el cielo de las piedras?

Inmóvil, hasta que detengan
las migraciones su apogeo
y luego vuelen con sus flechas
hacia el archipiélago frío.

Inmóvil, con secreta vida
como una ciudad subterránea
para que resbalen los días
como gotas inabarcables:
nada se gasta ni se muere
hasta nuestra resurrección,
hasta regresar con los pasos
de la primavera enterrada,
de lo que yacía perdido,
inacabablemente inmóvil
y que ahora sube desde no ser
a ser una rama florida.