Nothing, Round Two..?.. . Actually, Three.

Once, I wrote a brilliant article about nothing. Unbeknownst to me, someone posted a clever essay in reply to my essay on a website I'd never heard of, all about nothing! It was surprisingly deep. As I read it, some thoughts came to mind. I jotted them down here.

As a full time student for the last two years, I have discovered that there is something I love more than everything! And that is, in fact, nothing. Nothing is everywhere I go. I have nothing, I do nothing, nothing is bothering me...
There is really so much to know about nothing. It's mind boggling. How can there be so much to nothing? What a conundrum. The idea of nothing as something strips the word nothing of its very meaning. And the idea of nothing means so much to so many people which makes it, in fact, something.
Juggling the idea of 'nothing' is a puzzle, a paradox if you will. How can something that doesn't exist be so multifaceted? And yet, there are people who spend much time pondering the pieces of that which does not and yet somehow still does exist, and that is, Nothing. Nothing at all.  
Please, just for a moment, imagine the darkest, emptiest space you can. What exists there?
Nothing.
But at the very  moment upon which you label it as 'Nothing,' are you not in fact turning it into something? Therefore that nothing becomes something and that something, in being nothing, is actually something which therefore makes it not nothing.
Can that purest form of nothing truly exist in our conscious state of mind?

Springtime

I realize that a good percentage of what I post on this blog is dramatic and depressing most days. I'm sorry, my emotions dictate the tone of my writing a lot more than I ever realized, and I've been working through some really hard stuff since.. pretty much forever I guess. Especially the last couple years. Life is never easy, especially when you're alone, or far away from people that you wish you could be closer to. The problem with wishing you were somewhere else, is missing out on what happens where you ARE. And that makes you more alone.
And when you're alone, it feels like winter all the time.
This poem is dedicated to a person who has helped me (perhaps without knowing)time and again, find springtime inside myself when I thought only frozen winter existed. Though you may not know it now, you have made a difference in my life too. Some day I will give you a proper thank you, but until then this will have to do.



Though my thoughts are like stormy black weather,
And my temper runs hot or stands chill
When, my friend, you and I are together
I can feel my heart quicken, then still.

When you're with me my heart bleeds out sunshine
When you're gone clouds come back here to stay.
Please don't leave me, dear friend, if you don't mind
Please come back, I've got something to say.

It was dark. In my heart was December,
All the colors had faded away .
It was then that I found you. Remember?
Then we danced all the darkness away.

Then alone. Tears had come but long since dried.
I was frozen, limbs heavy as lead
And within me a voice lashing out cried
"You've got nothing upstairs in your head!"

Then you came and sat down right beside me
And with you came a change in the weather.
It is springtime again, deep inside me
When, my friend, we are walking together.

Regrets.

Regrets.
Don't have them.
You know what they do?
They eat you alive.
Regret.

Sometimes I get to thinking about life and people and things like that..
And as I think, I realize that there are a million things I did that I would change if I could.
And there are a million sorrys I wish I could say. (What is the plural for sorry? In English, there isn't one.)
But sorry is just a word, and there's no way that it could ever fully encompass the feeling I'm feeling.
When someone hears sorry too many times it loses its meaning.
But the reason I say it so often is because it's the only way I know how to express this... this...
Regret.
I wish I could take it all back.
I'm sorry.

How do you deal with regret?

My Grand Adventure

You may notice that my blog looks a little different.
Or maybe a lot different.
Depending on whether or not you're looking at the mobile version.
What? You didn't know I had a mobile version?
SURPRISE! I do.
You need to know that I am obsessed with notebooks and journals of every kind. It was only a matter of time before I figured out how to make it happen. An online notebook has been my dream for an entire year. It almost happened in November, but then...
My computer died. I was very sad, as I had spent many hours detailing my laptop case. It being one of the only things I have left from home, I was reluctant to replace it. Finally after weeks of frustrating computer usage (It automatically shut down programs while I was trying to do homework at least three times per assignment. I had to manually save my documents every 5 minutes to prevent copious amounts of REWRITING) I decided I had had enough. And I bought a new computer.
I love it almost more than I loved the old one!
Finally after several months of figuring out my new computer, I decided to try something.
I wanted to update my blog design.
And I tried my hand at HTML.
It only took 6 hours to edit the template I wanted...
Computer language is a lot more complicated than it looks..
But then I realized that it wasn't as scary as it looked at first glance. It actually kind of made sense. Every element starts with a certain code, and it ends with a repeat of the same code. To remove an element in the template you had to figure out where in the HTML it lay (This is the most tedious part) and then delete everything. The beginning code, the end code, and everything in between.
Once I had it all figured out, the editing took about 20 minutes.
Adding things to a template though... that is a whole different story.
Maybe next time I'll just get someone to do it for me.

My Writers Block

So today I'm going through all my drafts and posting the ones I finished but never published. This particular one I wrote several years back but never published due whatever reason. It's full of feels, and most of them aren't necessarily relevant to my life today beyond the fact that this experience made me part of who I am today.
So whoever's out there reading this, now you know a piece of what's inside my heart.


Without further ado, I give you:

My Writer's Block


There is something very important that I need to write about.

My writers block. 

All my life I have felt the need to express myself through words on a page. 

Whether it had anything to do with my current life struggle or not, as long as I held a pen in my hand and there was paper, I was alright. Being able to create a place where my problems did not exist... it fueled me. It gave me strength, and courage to go on even when I didn't think I could. When I felt alone all I had to do was close my eyes and imagine the characters I had invented into life, walking next to me. Their problems were worse than mine. I made them that way.

I had big plans. Write a novel, send it to a publisher, become a best seller overnight, and move to a place that would fuel my imagination so I could keep writing forever. Very few people knew of my love of writing. I shared it with few people because I was afraid of imperfection.

And then life happened. It hit me like a train, while I was standing still.

I moved to college. I was swept away, and very overwhelmed by the newness of it all. A new town, a new life, and not knowing anybody. 

All the people I cared about were so far away, and precious few of them talked to me at all once I was gone. Those who did meant the world to me, no matter the duration of our conversation. Being quite introverted and afraid of new people caused me a bit of trouble when it came to making new friends. I spent nearly every minute I wasn't in class laying in my bed. 

But despite the lack of activity on my part, I was exhausted. Mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted.

I forgot who I was.

But I still wanted to write. 

But I couldn't.

And it wasn't that I didn't have ideas. Ideas flew through my brain at a rate of roughly 600 miles per hour. Notebooks exist, just full of ideas. But when I held a pen in my hand, instead of seeing stories all I could see was darkness and a blank page. 

The page. It taunted me every day. I wanted more than anything to fill it. To keep a promise.

A few words would slip out every now and again, but it seemed as though I were rewriting myself instead of creating something. The person I was becoming was not at all the person I wanted myself to be.

And every day that I couldn't fill that page was another day I spent breaking a promise. Promises from me once meant something, but now I felt the guilt of each unfulfilled promise weighing down on my shoulders. 

I'll have it next week. Tomorrow for sure. I'm sorry, not today. 

My word meant precious little now.

Frustration ensued.

Nearly two years had passed. One day, a ray of sunshine broke through my writers block and I filled that page. And then another. My masterpiece was finished, my promise no longer broken.

But the dark fell again, and I couldn't write. 

Because a broken promise is so much more than just something you didn't do. 

When you break a promise, you hurt other people. Because that promise signifies trust, trust that you can and will do something to the best of your ability. And breaking that promise breaks that trust.

I have spent so many nights looking out at the stars and wondering if there is anyone in the world that I haven't let down. 

And the guilt and the tears overtake me sometimes because I don't know how I will ever fix the wrongs that I did, the trusts that I broke. 

I never intended this.

But each day my pen grows lighter in my hand. 

And each day, I fight to write a little more. 

This writer's block will not get the best of me again.

The Open Book

There lies an open book upon my table
And with one glance, to read it, I am able.
But with a single look, no book is truly comprehended.
To understand, a few more looks are highly recommended.
Now, some may say "You never really understand a book."
And so it is with people--You can read them if you look,
But with one look you cannot learn their secrets, held for ages.
Countless secrets, buried deep inside their many pages.