Shall this, too, pass?

One scary thing about being happy is that I can’t help but feel like something terrible is going to happen afterwards. The universe goes out of its way to give you a slice of heaven for a price you're not sure you can afford to pay.

I'm rarely happy these days, even though I have so little to complain about. Some things just get to me all the time, crawling under my skin, and I never seem to get over them however hard I try.  

Is it always going to be like this? Days spent trying to organize myself so the world will see that I'm fine, and then crying myself to sleep at night?

I don't think I can hold on much longer. The fragments I'm holding on to are starting to break. My will is no longer as strong as it used to be, and I'm tired.

Life's like a repetitive cycle now. Nothing new ever happens. Getting up and getting by seem less and less appealing with time. I'm tired.

All is well. All is more than well.

This cold morning breeze greets my face with a light kiss, its lips brushing softly against my cheek. I raise my head up to the sky, eyes closed, smiling, filling my lungs with delicious, fresh air.

I feel like I could burst out of my skin right now.

One by one, the raindrops fall. I open my eyes and watch as the clouds weep under pressure, and I dance. And I marvel at the realization that there's nothing wrong with not being okay sometimes. There's nothing wrong in speaking your mind. There's nothing wrong in dancing, not when you can, not when it's raining.

I am finally starting to believe, little by little, that I can truly be happy. That happiness is a state of mind, and that once you intend to be happy and follow the trail that leads to it, then you can, and you will be happy. I see now the things I used to refuse to see because I was overcome by guilt, so wrapped up in my pain that anything outside it, I considered unreachable.

I am starting to see, and I am starting to feel. I want to be happy.

I take a step forward, walking in tiptoes so as not to disturb the weeds as they whisper to each other their deepest, most intimate secrets, or maybe the gossip of the day. I am standing at the edge of a cliff, and I can see endless rolls of greens, hills after hills of memories, wildflowers blooming with delight. Below, the ocean awaits. The waves crash against the rocks, each sound an invitation for me to let go and be free.

I nod yes. They crash louder now into the boulders, cheering for me. Without fear, I take one step and feel no ground. Everything slows down as I jump into the unknown. There is an inexplicable feeling in my stomach, one I know so well from falling too many times before. Only this time, I am not falling. I am flying.

I feel like I could burst out of my skin right now.

Here, now.

It's 2:22, and I'm up, and I don't think I'm ever going to fall asleep again tonight. My mind is everywhere. I keep thinking about people who are probably in deep slumbers at this moment, hardly aware that somewhere in the world, someone cares.

I'm listening to a really good playlist, or maybe I'm just in a really good mood these days, and that makes everything I listen to a little bit better than they actually are. School started last Monday, and I'm glad to say my fears and worries have been put to rest the moment I stepped into my first class.

I have no idea why I'm blogging right now. I don't even know what to blog about, but I have this inkling in me, making the tips of my fingers itch to type away, so that's what I'm doing right now. Maybe I'll just say there's no point in hiding from your fears. They either find you, anyway, or you're going to have to keep running from them forever. I chose the first one because I wanted it to be over, once and for all, and running would not have helped me accomplish anything.

I feel so much more responsible now than I was a year ago. I'm starting to see how a few drops of rain can drown you if you don't at least try to beat it or learn to dance in it. I've got a long way to go, but this is a start, and a good one at that. Yes, I'm late, but I wouldn't say I'm too late. I'm starting to believe that the idea of being "too late" may be a little bit absurd now. I think as long as you put yourself out there and tell the world what you want from it, then seize it, then you're never too late. It's never too late to fight for something when you know it can change your life forever.

If only I realized this sooner, then I'd be so different now. But I guess that's how things work. This was not where I wanted to be, but I'm here now, and I can happily say that I'm alright with it. I'm right where I should be. Here, now.

It's summer, and my heart is a carnival.

It's summer, and my heart is a carnival.

There are fireworks going in my veins, sending sparks where my blood should be flowing. I feel like I'm on top of a ferris wheel, so high that I can see the city lights twinkling from a far distance. So high that I'm wishing you'd hold my hand, an assurance that if I ever fall, I will never fall alone.

The inch of space between us feels like a huge boulder, a rock hard mountain I have to climb to see you smile again. To feel the thrill of a roller coaster ride, where excitement and fear fight to dominate my emotions. I will not close my eyes; I don't want to miss a second of being with you.

I feel like someone is making spun sugar in my stomach. My breaths are shallow, calculated, as if I'm a kid again, walking on eggshells to catch a dragonfly. I keep my eyes away from yours because I'll blush if I don't, and then you'll know.

You make me smile, and you shook the ground beneath my feet when I saw you. Now, I feel the stones slowly fall into a cliff below, where I see nothing but uncertainty. I'm scared of falling, because this time, it might just actually hurt more than it did the first time.

At the end of the day, when the lights are out, and there are no more darts, pellet guns, and toy prizes, and we're back on the ground where everything is a lot bigger than they seem, I need to know that magic can still happen. I need to know that someone like you can fall for someone like me.

It's always darkest before the dawn.

Today, I've learned about a baby named Avery, who was diagnosed with a fatal disease. That's not the sad part. The sad part is, I've learned about her after her disease took her away.

I can't, for the life of me, I can't read one post of that blog without crying my heart out. Here was a 5 month old baby who faced death before anyone could have ever said she was alive, and she faced it with a smile. Most of us, we go through the motions complaining about minor inconveniences, thoroughly taking for granted the fact that we're all perfectly healthy, while she woke up each morning knowing, feeling that it might be her last day on Earth, but she never let that tale away her smile. She was even thankful for bad hair days.

Avery's story breaks my heart. I don't have a child, and I'm not a parent, but it hurts me so much to think of all the surgeries her fragile little body had to go through just so she could live. Just so she could do those small things on her bucket list that I do everyday, and I never even notice. It breaks my heart that I've never had a chance to know her before she had to go. I've only seen her pictures, read her story, and still, I feel like I've known her all my life.



To you, little angel Avery, wherever you are right now, I just want you to know that you have touched my life, and that I think I will always be thinking of you, of the way you made me smile. You're one of the strongest people I've ever seen. I wish I had the pleasure of meeting you personally, but it doesn't matter so much now. Your life, although cut short, has altered mine in a way I can't begin to explain. You're beautiful, Avery, and I'm going to name my daughter after you as soon as I have one.

Rest in peace, sunshine.

Silence....it's underrated.

I love mornings like this when I wake up and realize that the air still smells like last night's rain. It's one of the things that calm me; one of the few things that say sit back, things are under control.

I'd like to think that I know what I'm doing, but really, I don't. One moment, I hate a certain person, and the next, I feel like I'm crazy for even thinking I could hate them. My aunt is in the kitchen, telling us to cook our food, which is not a bad thing, never, except she doesn't seem to know the difference between speaking and yelling. She always does that, and I hate it. She washes the dishes and puts them on the rack, and every single time, it's a noisy affair. It's not a big deal, but when it's something you hear everyday, you either stop caring or you start caring too much. Sometimes, I just don't care. I let her be however noisy she wants to be. Most times, I take a deep breath and ask myself, what the eff is her problem now? Cause it never seems to stop. It's like she hates the world, and I don't know why. It makes me hate the world, too.

I like staying in my head. It's easier to deal with myself than face the truth, but it's scary. Sometimes, I build up so many fantasies in my mind that they start being my reality, and the real reality starts being too hard for me to take. I don't even know what I'm talking about. Maybe I'm just a dreamer, trying to create a new world because I can't fix the one I'm in.

I'm falling too deep into this pit of unexplainable sadness, and I'm falling fast. I'm scared that one day, I'd lose myself and I wouldn't care at all.

I came here because I love a boy who will never love me.

 I.

Who would have thought we’d end up like this? It’s strange how small things tend to cause the biggest differences. How one falling stone can turn into one huge boulder blocking one’s path, making it impossible to cross from one side to another. I never thought this would happen, but today you’re there on the sunny side of life, and I can’t even say for sure if I cross your mind every once in a while. And I am here, in a place where I can still hear your promises echo through the walls. Suffocated with memories of us. Trapped. 

II.

“Whatever happens,” you said, “you’ll have this to remember me by.”

Slowly, I felt the pen’s round tip dance along the inside of my palm, each graceful curve and sharp turn blooming into something more –  little snippets of scenes that strongly define our story, like the way your eyes crinkled when I first saw you smile, or how you held my hand gently and spun me around. It’s ironic how it did not last a whole day, but I can still feel the word carved in the palm of my hand, and hear your voice reading it out loud: REMEMBER.

III.

I don’t know why I’m so hung up on you. I never liked you that much, to begin with. So what has losing you done to me? Why do I care so much now that I’m even putting myself through a lot of unnecessary pain just for the sake of getting you to look at me and see someone you can’t take your eyes off of? Do you even see me now? Sometimes, I can feel you staring, but I’m so scared of breaking the connection that I force myself not to turn around and smile. It really hurts, though.

There comes a time in life when you just let go of everything that weighs you down...

...And you finally feel your feet getting lifted off the ground.

People always say don't mind the haters and that you can't please everybody, but I know for a fact how difficult that can be. To just decide to be the bigger person and turn the other cheek and go, especially when you've been expecting so much more from the other person involved.

I've had my fair share of small, and some bigger ridicules. We can't avoid this because 1.- As cliche as it may sound, nobody's perfect, and 2.- Even if a perfect person exists, there's always that one jealous human being that will try and step on her just because. So basically, the moment you are conceived, you have signed up on a contract that says the world would surely try to fuck you up and bury you alive - it's up to you to stand your ground or claw your way out.

You wouldn't believe how low I've been feeling today. Sometimes, some people I love just don't get it. They don't understand that words can hurt more than physical blows do. They'll call me names and make fun of me and laugh, and I laugh with them as if I find the joke funny, but deep inside, I'm bleeding raw, especially when it's the same "joke" over and over again. It gets old and tiring. So I'm pretty much in a position to say I know how it feels to be bullied. I face it everyday with the people I think so highly of.

There's this little girl, she's my neighbor's daughter but grew up in my family's care. Yesterday, I brought her swimming with us. She's on the heavy side cause she likes to eat, so they started calling her fat, a pig, and God forbid, a whale. I kept telling them to stop, because it hurts me more than anyone could ever see. I love that girl and I wasn't just going to sit there and watch them tear her apart. But they didn't listen cause they thought they were being funny. People just don't realize the effects of bullying especially on kids. This girl, she refused to eat the whole day yesterday. And until now, writing about it, I can't help but feel the now familiar streak of hate that I feel for them. It took all of me not to lose myself and blurt out all their imperfections one by one.

I guess it's human nature. We don't ever realize how badly our actions affect someone until we see any physical evidence. Sometimes, I feel like they'd be happier with me dead, but I refuse to give them that satisfaction. The scary part, though, is that sometimes, I do feel like maybe I'll be better off dead. Imagine a place where you could just be yourself and not be judged for it. Imagine being able to make mistakes and not having people holding a grudge against you because of them. Sometimes, I plan my own funeral in my head just so I could picture all their guilty faces and read all their curious thoughts, wondering if they were one of the reasons why.

But I know that life doesn't work that way. It happens to me a lot of times, but it isn't always dark and gloomy. There are good times, too, and although they may be outnumbered by the bad, I just try to visualize myself being successful in the future, and just thinking about them finally looking at me as a person instead of a laughing matter is enough to get me by. It still hurts me, of course, but I've come to accept the fact that no matter what I do, I can't hold in my palm other people's words and actions and I can't bend them to my will, but I can turn the negative thoughts into something brighter, just enough to get me through one day.

A teacher once told me that I had excellent goals in life, but I didn't have to feel like I need to reach those goals to prove something to anyone, and now I realize how right she was. This is my life, and I'll live it the way I want to. I'll comb my hair when I feel like it, and I'd rather be fat than starve myself thin. Those who matter don't mind, and those who mind, they don't matter. It's as simple as that.

Here's to us.

Once again, today, the universe has found a way to show me how important every second is. I'm so thankful to be alive, to have a roof above my head and clean air to breathe. I'm so thankful.

To all my friends, I just want each and every one of you to know that your presence is valued and your absence never goes unnoticed. Each one of you has contributed something that became a part of me, so whether we've said goodbye or not, whether we're still friends or almost strangers, never forget that a part of me is carrying some other part of you. We are atoms that make up a matter, something indestructible. Something even death can't touch.

Because of this, I'm telling you now, yes, you, the one who reads this, that you have no right to ever feel alone for as long as I'm here. Maybe I don't know you yet, but a lot of good things can begin with a simple hello. I would like to be your friend. I would like to listen to you, to talk to you if you want me to. I would like to help you, please, whatever you're going through. Let me help you. Give me a chance to get to know you.

I feel like my heart is going to burst with so much love today. Usually, we let things pass and go unnoticed, but I'm not letting that happen today. I'm telling you, yes, you, the one who's reading this right now, that I love you. I love you, and I always will. It matters not if I know you or not. It matters not your religion, your skin color, your sexual orientation, your financial and social status. Those are just numbers, and I never really liked Math very much. I love you. Tell me your name and I'll love you more.

Please, people. If you need anything that I am capable of giving, please don't hesitate to ask. Nothing makes me feel better than helping a friend in need. I want to know all about you and I won't judge you for the choices you make, cause I make mistakes too. I just want you not to feel alone, to stay with us here.

Because the world is such a beautiful place with you in it.

You can be addicted to a certain kind of sadness.

I guess I'm just another sentimental fool, you know, letting small things bring me down, when they don't even weigh anything.

I keep saying I don't like feeling like this but in fact, I keep coming back for more. I don't know what's wrong with me. I think I like being sad and lonely and I don't think that's a bad thing. 

I don't really know what to say anymore. There are just no words to describe how I feel. It would sound crazy if I said I'm happy that I'm lonely, wouldn't it?

Sometimes I wish I could just sit on my window and sing Moon River.

I don't even have a window.