Christmas and Standardized Testing

That elf is my favorite Christmas decoration.

As far as Christmases go, I've had better. We're in a really awkward stage with my family at the moment, with my sisters in college. We can't buy as many presents as we used to be able to, and we're never sure when to open them, or how to react.

Honestly, I'm just happy to have all of my family under the same roof again. I needed them. Alison and I hooked up our Nintendo 64 and have spent way too long playing games from earlier times. It's been a very therapeutic way to spend a break.

On a different note, I just registered for the ACT. The entire process took about a half an hour. The website demanded my college major, and then asked me to enter in my degree of sure, like am I sure, mostly sure, not sure. It seems ridiculous to me. I don't know my major yet, I don't even know how I'm going to spend tomorrow. When I get stressed, I can't even get my face to stop breaking out, much less plan my future. I just have to wonder if everyone feels this lost. It's not like future is ever a concrete plan. And I can't think of a single person who has ever said, "Yes, this is exactly where I planned I would be." And for that matter, what's the point of planning anyway? Set goals, yes. Hope, dream, check. But plan? Can you ever actually plan? And if you can, and do, what's the point?

On the Subject of Hope

I've been thinking a lot about hope lately. What hope demands from us, what it means to be hopeful. My mom got that little guy at the hospital around the time she was diagnosed; when she's in remission she is supposed to pass it on to another person she knows with cancer. I love that little boy; he's sanded down, beautifully sculptured. He's soft and comforting. Somehow, just that little guy is enough.

I'm not a religious person, but I think that's the nature of it, isn't it? Hope. You grow to believe something, because you want it to be true.

And hope is such a strange thing; you barely feel it, but you know it's there. It's not like you're really aware of hope; it's just part of you. It's what keeps your blood pumping, your joints moving, your heart beating. I think hope is really what makes us more than just the sum of our parts, more than just biology. It's the hope that keeps us alive, gives us a soul.

And hope is becoming more important than ever. With winter moving in, rain falling, constant chills. With the Christmas season bringing all it's terror, everything is becoming a struggle. Finals are almost over, probably with mixed results. I quit my job, a desperate attempt to pull my life back together.

But my sisters are now home.
At least I have my family. And my friends who ultimately put up with more crap from me than they should ever have to.
And hope. I have that.

"People were getting to me. Just, you know, how they are."

I saw a special on Frontline about the teen mind. And about how essentially, teenage minds are different than any other. Something about how the frontal vortex is growing too fast, and the brain on a whole isn't fully developed. Therefore impacting just about everything you do, the decisions you make, the friends you keep, the life you lead.

So basically, teenagers are fucked.
Maybe there should just be a dormant stage between twelve and twenty. Like a hibernation period. That sounds nice.

Because I'm definitely a creature of feeling. And you know that feeling, like you're being attacked from all sides? From school; seven periods, each fifty minutes. Fighting with friends, and homework due every hour, everyday. To work, working from four to midnight, before wanting to come home and collapse. And somehow it's never enough; I'm a bad person for wanting to get off at ten, I'm a bad person for not getting the homework done, for not getting enough sleep or doing enough laundry.

That feeling like you're being scraped from every corner, like life is just too painful, too stressful, too much. I hate the feeling like you can't round a corner without facing another danger, another weight.

My mom, bless her heart, told me it's just too stressful; I'm spinning out of control. I think her goal was to get me to see the next step. It's my job, as being alive and appreciating what that means, to pull it back in. And if that means cutting back on things, that's fine. But it's so hard for me to admit I need help.

But my voice is hoarse from yelling, my head is pounding from stress, my muscles are tired from working, and my eyes are burning from tears that aren't falling.

It's time to make some changes.

On the Nature of Being Terrible.

You know when you say to someone, "I'm such a terrible person?"

You don't say that without meaning, or merit. It's not an exaggeration, a hyperbole or anything. It's fact; cold, brutal, cutting fact.

Because I am a terrible person. I lie, I cheat, I tear people apart when they give me the chance. I'm so defined by paradoxes. I believe in love more than anything in the world because it is the only thing keeping my life together. And somehow I can love everyone and yet hate them, hate every bit of their personality. I can hate how they raise their eyebrows or the way the emphasize certain words.

And of course there are my loving friends, and their responses. "That doesn't make you a terrible person," or "You're not," or even just "Shut up."

Sometimes I just want them to say, "Yes. you are."

I want them to set me on fire, burn everything around me.
I want to stop being terrible, and I want them to see how terrible I am.