#wildrmind

[wildrmind]

College

I've been at college for three weeks and four days. It's flown. It's been crazy mad and chaotic all the time and a giant tidal wave that crashed and shook everything I thought to be true. I'm going to be honest when I say that I overestimated college. I thought that when I'd get here, most of my internal problems would dissappear with my external. I didn't realize how closely the two were intertwined and now understand that letting that past go isn't done by leaving geographically, it's done by releasing the hold it has on you. And that's a really hard thing for me to do. I've had this crutch of a plethora of problems for so long that now that I've removed myself from them, I don't remember how to exist without these problems. I don't remember what depression - a disease that's infected me since age 10 - is like as a normal thing in a normal life that's consistently being regulated because I've never had a normal life before. I don't remember how to plunge myself into enjoying life and swimming deeply when I was required to trod through a bed of nails, light and hesitant as an ocean current's breeze, in order to survive. I don't know how to rid myself of my caution when that has been what has kept alive for so long. I don't understand how the thing that saved me 6 months ago is the same thing as what could potentially destroy me now. On a more grounded side, I thought college would be a lot more social than it has been. Instead I'm doing probably 70% homework and classes and the rest is social. There's also constant interaction, but so little of it means anything. I guess I just thought I would have met a lot more people like me - deep and inquisitive and questioning and whole - by now to have intensive talks about the universe with. That was probably way idealistic, but still. I also feel as if everyone else has cemented a strong friend group a lot faster than I have. My roommates and Cassie are the only people I feel really close to. I'm casual friends with more people, but we haven't really had the chance to hang out to become better friends. In a lot of ways, college has fallen short of my expectations, but I also know the past three weeks and four days have meant and done more to me than the past four years I spent in high school. In the course of these weeks, I've hooked up with a guy, which I've never done before. I've gotten drunk, which I've never done before. I've had more midnight adventures doing silly things (even if they are rare in comparison to homework nights) than I've ever had. KU feels like home. I'm laying on my bed right now, next to my Mumford & Sons poster, watching the city slow and lull in the night out of the window. And I feel at home. Because even with how much some of college has sucked, some of college has been amazing, too. And I feel at peace, at least, if not happy. Which is enough for right now.

[wildrmind]

Every crossroad in my life has been characterized by the antithesis in my options: moving forwards versus backwards. I spent the majority of my life waging war on myself in my perpetual decision to move backwards, and I had to lose everything in order for me lose my weakness. And now, seventeen years of ever-present turmoil later, I will not shatter. It isn’t easy, by any means. Recovery and relapse, an infinite number of times over, is maybe all my life is ever going to be. Nevertheless, every facet of myself I have uncovered in the midst of this endless cycle makes everything I had to experience in order to reach self-actualization undoubtedly worth it. Maybe I had to lose every identity I was ever branded with before I could take the driver’s seat in my own life. Maybe I had to self-harm to realize that I, a speck of dust in a cosmic galaxy, am significant. Maybe I have to endure these endless days of barely bearable high school before I realize something about myself I cannot begin to fathom. It is impossible to know what makes what happen and what leads to what. It is enough to know that, day by day, I am building the strength it takes to stand by who I am instead of digging a hole for myself in the shadows. I refuse to regress any longer; forward is the only direction I allow myself to know.

─ Excerpt #7 from a book I’ll never write

[wildrmind]

Frostbreath

A wintry breath of ivory indifference,

the hard frost nibbles on the trees.

It is the sound of a million seams all splitting infinitely  ─

frozen boughs sighing under frost’s weight, trunk veins of elder unperturbed,

the downfall of summer itself.

Branches bristle, ice cracks, the tree resigns itself to a harsh descent

of gunshots and frozen iron.

Winter, in the wake of summer’s leave,

begins its seasonal performance in a frozen storm

of frost fury and howling wreckage.

─  Excerpt #4 from a book I’ll never write

[wildrmind]

“In just a few minutes, an entire world can be shook: The sun can go out, a star can explode, a meteor can strike. In just a few minutes, the nucleus of one’s own life can cave in. Mine did, at least, in an experience I uselessly shackled myself to for the next ten years to come.”

─ Excerpt #2 from a book I’ll never write

[wildrmind]

“I spent so much time mindlessly pursuing who I thought I should be that I didn’t allow myself to just be me, unrefined.”

─ Excerpt #1 from a book I’ll never write

[wildrmind]

Mission Statement

Just A Hello

     I had the same blog, titled Don’t Tread On Me, for nearly four years. On it, I posted political happenings and my own personal interpretation thereof. When it first started, I posted quite frequently. As the years went by, my posts began to dwindle in amount, not because I became one of those “quality-only” bloggers, but because politics didn’t fit me anymore. I am a completely different person than I was four years ago, and yesterday I realized the inevitability of what had happened to me. I’m a teenager. My surroundings, experiences, and emotional states are constantly shifting, growing, and sometimes mutating. What was important to me four years ago isn’t important to me now.

     Maslow’s self-actualization is everybody’s goal, right? I think I’m coming closer to reaching it the farther I go through life. I’m closer to it now than I have ever been before, and I think this blog is another means for me to try to find it. Forgive my future angst, depression. and moodiness; I’m trying.

     Alright, so, down to business. I’m a writer. I’m going to start a “Excerpts from a book I’ll never write” thing. I’m going to post rambling, long personal realizations and pretty, aesthetic pictures. A lot of times I’m not going to make any sense. But I’m trying.

Ultimately? Welcome to my wilder mind.