This is what my heart looks like

I just got back to the States from South Africa. It was holding me hostage for a month. Not literally, just in case someone reading things I was being held down by rebels and not being fed. Why would I post such a lovely photo for such horrid memories if that were true?

I think this photo says everything about what I learned while I was there. Immediately when I arrived I hated everything about the place. It was desolate, dry, and nothing of what I expected. (Which is usually what happens to me whenever I go anywhere - I create such a fantasy land of what I think it will be and when it turns up nothing like my fairytale, I get upset.) (Which is not to say that this place is actually stunningly beautiful.) Of course, after a couple weeks I became accustomed to the different stlye of life shared by all the locals, and I actually grew fairly fond of the place I had originally loathed. When I came back to TN, I told one of my best friends Taylor that I had gone to Africa semi looking for a life-changing revelation (as many do, but not in the corny way) and I was bummed when I realized it was just another place on Earth - not a fantasy land.

After poking and prodding some, he finally got the real story out of me - everything that I had thought and journaled about while I was there. I had so much free time to myself, and that never happens here at home. I was somewhere far enough away where I could actually hear myself think instead of bribing my brain to work properly. This picture means a lot to me because while I was shooting this sunset scene with my photography team there, I realized everything I had been thinking about myself was wrong. For a very long time, I have been termed a “runner”. Not in the sense of getting up early in the morning to run (which I do actually do) but more in the sense of whenever I get scared or unsure, I “run”…I abandon the cause of those unwanted feelings immediately, which usually entails abandoning the person or place that was connected with them. Yes, I know this is unhealthy, and yes I know I’m not the only one like this so I’m not asking for some mysterious, independent kind of appreciation. Looking back now on myself, I actually feel sorry for that girl who couldn’t look at herself in the mirror without thinking I wasn’t worth the life I was in. I know the biggest problem was that I wasn’t facing myself and I wasn’t trying to mend the problem instead of covering it up. Africa pulled it out of me. The space, the time, the atmosphere, and the responsibility made me sit down with my head and give it a lecture about listening to itself.

I could go on and on for pages about everything I learned, but one excerpt from my journal I think sums it up pretty darn well. I was writing one night (while geckos were scurrying above my head on the thatched roof) and it felt like my hand was going faster than my thoughts were and when I re-read what I had written I was half astonished, half proud of myself. The last lines of my entry for that day said something to the effect of I know that I do not have to run anymore; the life I’m called for doesn’t involve running. And the next line was really what made it all sink in for me: I don’t even want to run anymore. The sunset is something I always connected with running, but while I was shooting this I was experiencing more like the feeling of going home. That warm feeling that covers you up whenever you know you’re where you’re supposed to be. So this photo was the end and the beginning for me. The sunset of my running. And while the sun was setting there in Africa, it would soon be rising at my home across the world. The begining of my life.

You can call this rambling or nonsense or stupid or whatever name suits your fancy. But what this means to me is that I’ve found the path-head to the rest-of-my-life-road. I know that sounds cheesy, but in all honesty I’m excited. I don’t have to put all my energy into scouting the next place to hide from, well, myself. After telling Taylor this, he said he found it kind of ironic because it sounds like I actually did find a life-altering experience..
I will always love to travel, yes, and will probably never stop traveling and learning. But in that desolate, dry, and unexpected place that I thought I hated, I found my heart. Kind of like being reunited with a loved one after years without seeing them. Everything just goes back to normal. Happy normal. Love never dies. No matter how many times you try to kill it.

Little Sweet Reminder

The world is so cold

But I will not go

I will not go

Without you

…

Don’t be afraid…

Wondering wondering wondering thinking wondering It’s all a cycle

Sometimes I wonder if wondering is worth it.  In the end, after all the confusion, after all the struggle to find what’s “right” and what’s “wrong,” after years of wondering for wondering’s sake, we all come to the answer: that everything ends.

You know what? I had this all planned out, this post. It was gonna be good, too. But screw it. Screw life. Whatever.

alsdkfj;alskdfj

I don’t like the feeling of being gone…and it’s not even me being gone.

I don’t want to suck all the life out of this post to whine about not knowing how I feel…but that’s what I’m going to do.

I feel like this is the theme of the past few days, because a lot of the people around me are struggling with some sort of lapse, hole, loss….being gone. I’ve always felt like there’s a hole in me that nothing could quite fill-it’s quite lonely sometimes. It’s quite lonely most of the time. I think I do a decent job of hiding it…everyone takes me as the peppy girl that’s always smiling, laughing, dancing, singing - which I am - but underneath that plethora of funville I’m tearing my head apart trying to figure out why no one could crack my shell. Until him. In one sentence, it was the most amazing time of my life - my chest just flittered…it’s an anxiety thing, but it always happens when I think of him. He’s gone now. And I’m still here. Still stuck behind this wall, gaping with the hole that he left when my world of us two became just me again. Now everything filters through the wall I worked so long to build…people can see in. It’s under reconstruction, but the progress is slow. For a split second in the expanse of eternity, my true heart was shown to everyone - something I never wanted. And I don’t know why I never wanted it. It just felt like it should always be stowed away…until him. It’s a different colour than it used to be. A different kind of closed. It’s the feeling of being gone.

Where do things go when they’re gone?

hahahahahahahahaha

I really should be working on homework.

One of my best friend’s grandfather has lung cancer.  One of my very good mentor’s mom has breast cancer. I had a close scare with cancer this summer.

Why do we have things in life like cancer? Something we can’t figure out? Something that eats us alive and we don’t even know where to turn to stop it? It’s like a bad horror movie that has no ending…it’s just continuous and relentless…merciless. Is it fair? Who knows. I don’t even know if we have the ability to judge what’s fair or not.

Is death fair? I feel it’s ironic that topics like these are what I think about all the time, but I always thought they weren’t supposed to be talked about. Probably because I was raised in conservative Baptist southern comfort…very few places to step outside your comfort zone. I also think it’s odd that I strive to step out of my comfort zone, and the rest of the world hates it. Like outside their little circle is something that will get them - like the Boogie Man. Like cancer.

But I still don’t understand being scared of these things…..ultimately, death. It doesn’t make any sense to be frigtened of it. If the exact moment, right now, is the only moment you can be completely alive for, why should the end be frightening? Every moment before this exact one is your past…every moment to come (if it does) still remains your future. The past, the present, and the future. All three changing, constantly. So it’s not really a matter of time, if you look at it in the aspect of moments. The measurement of time is an invention for the attempt to design order in a world most would fear to grow chaotic without some sort of structure. And in a way, it would grow chaotic. I wonder what it would be like in a world with no structured time…it’s difficult to imagine.

But back to the death thought, (this all seems so depressing, but it’s not, really) I cannot find the right words to express my view on not fearing death.  I just don’t.  I’m content…if I were to die now, it would be fine. Granted, I wouldn’t have any control of it regardless, I would still be fine with it. I’ve always been this way…I guess growing up on a farm quickly shows you how fragile life really is. When you work all night long to help a cow that’s having troubles birth a calf…just to have the calf die in your arms, wathcing the light in it’s eyes just die out. It puts things in perspective at a pretty young age. I realized nothing is certain, in the aspect of longevity. Nothing is forever. It’s so fleeting…life. It comes so quickly, and goes even quicker. Which is a quick recipe for an aching heart. I think that is why the innocence of children is valued so dearly - why parents try to protect their young. Because after time and time again of the hardships of this world slapping you in the face…your surface becomes a little tougher, a little more impenatrable. But it takes time….which, doesn’t really exist.

I confuse myself sometimes, and this is one of those times.

(via thedailywhat)