i am giving up on taking chances, greener grasses, half-empty glasses.

sometimes, we are so dead-set on the need to move forward, move up, or move out, that we never consider the possibility of going back to where we started to ask for directions. there are all of these defining numbers: 6 years of elementary school, 2 years of middle school, 4 years of high school. at 18 you count in America, at 21 you're a real person, 4 years of college. the truth, though, is that so few people ACTUALLY follow these patterns, and even though some of them will happen inevitably, making it to these "milestones" doesn't guarantee some specific amount of knowledge or enlightenment. learning to understand who we are is something we will spend our entire adult life doing. when we search within us to find our happy place, we have to look beyond the automatic "pina colada on the beach" scene. there is something deeper there, and if you listen, you are your own guide to you.

leaving only changes your place on the map- a new mindset can be gained only when you are willing to free yourself and give yourself completely to a new idea; to alter your old beliefs by squeezing in new ways, or pieces of information. sometimes, a search is necessary. we are on the hunt for the missing piece, the answer, or the solution. in my experience, however, we've only ever been searching for ourselves. on the journey to everywhere, you could be sitting quite still if you don't know who you are, and going through the motions is to not truly experience the thrill. if we open ourselves up, we experience new connections, we take more risks...we are given the opportunity to feel awake; alive. but just because you decide to begin, does not mean you are ready to finish. life is not a race.


sometimes, we DO need to move forward, move up, or move out. but sometimes, what we NEED is to go home. this doesn't mean starting over, it means taking the numbers, throwing them the fuck out the window, and allowing yourself to remember that happiness exists at your own pace. and when you're ready, the world will be ready, too. in order to build a new home inside ourselves, we need to remember where we started, and we have to know what we want, what we need. the road to the home within you has no speed limit, and as many stops as you need.

it's the good advice, that you just didn't take.

there has to be an i before an us, before a team, before "best friends". we can get lost in anything...and that potential makes it a necessity to have ourselves. when things are one particular way for so long that you don't even remember a time before that, it's time to stop and recollect. you can make that mistake two, even three times, but if you're headed for a fourth, you should realize something: the only time you are capable of doing anything alone is when you're about to fall. success, happiness, growth- all of these things have to be achieved by us each as individuals before they can be significant or valid in a pair or in a group. it's hard to be let down, to have a falling-out, to breakup. there IS room for sadness and repair...but there is not room to put some infinite amount of space between you and your life.

when something ends, there are few things that we should all keep in mind.

one of them is closure. it RARELY happens. people talk about it all of the time; how they need it, how they'll be fine after they have it, what it would take to have some. but the reality is that closure is a seven letter word for "i am not willing to accept that this is over and so i am going to keep making excuses to hang around in case everything fixes itself." yeah. keep on waiting.

the second thing to keep in mind are cliches. everyone is knocking them. the reason there is such a stigma attached to a cliche is because it is a small rhyme or piece of advice that people keep repeating. over. and over. and over. and you are sick of it, because YOU are the exception, there's going to be some huge epiphany, and it's not REALLY over. now, imagine this: the reason you keep hearing it? BECAUSE IT'S TRUE. yeah, we know- it hurts. but there ARE other fish in the sea, time DOES heal all wounds, and it WAS a learning experience.

the third thing is pretty simple- you. an end to an era is the best possible time to rediscover, reinvent, and take notice of yourself. when you go full-circle, you end up here: it is NECESSARY for things to end to remain connected to You; this is when you feel your heart in its truest form- the beginning and the end. and that brings me to number four:
the end is the beginning.

sometimes it seems that i don't have the skills to recollect-

it's too much to breathe every breath for someone else. every breath should be for you.

that said, music is an extension of ourselves that allows us to feed into the depths of connection- the most euphoric moments paired with the song that gets us high; the most anguish-laced song paired to the saddest of romances.


as i laid in my bed falling asleep, i realized half-consciously that i was singing- only to find that the lyric i'd chimed in during was more significant to me than even i had realized. instead of worrying about the things that we say- "too overwhelming, too deep; careless, brazen"...instead of worrying about these things that i might say, i'm going to stop. i've realized that i have been singing them all along. and so many of these lyrics are mine for someone.
and they are yours for someone. we are bound by these words- someone else's words- and we express ourselves through someone ELSE'S expression of self.
the smarter part of us probably knows that the person that we are singing for hasn't heard us. hasn't realized that each lyric, though repossessed, has put words to a want- to an expression too complex to conjure words for, felt for Them; and i wonder why we keep singing.
we take those words, and we sing them again. we beg melodically for someone to hear them. to feel them. to love them.

why?

because while we sing and ask for our hearts to be caught through sound waves precisely developed to be touched and to move, Someone hears us.
this isn't hopeless, and i will keep singing to you. because... even though you aren't the one to feel my song, someone else will hear it and know this heart and how it has been written; how it reads.



connecting to lyrics and saying them/singing them/writing them lets us breathe-
and directly from our hearts.

if you go when the snowflakes storm, when the rivers freeze and summer ends...

we realized: we're pretty boring.

and it's a happy realization- it's the one where you realize you have become close to someone. for me it happened when i realized how quickly i gave up looking for the other shoe, and just settled on some old slippers.
it just doesn't seem enough to let these things go without being said. the treasure in finding comfort in someone is real; to be at home with another person is finding another home somewhere in yourself.
there is a warmth in closeness- it shows itself as laughter, as a willingness to learn/to understand, and the ability to share silence.

sometimes the space is too small, and sometimes we need a break. but the person who drove you crazy yesterday just might be the same person who can bring you back home again.

and i'll never love again, oh friend, you've left me speechless.

"everything is about to change."


wrong.


everything is always changing. it's never going to be easier or any less exciting, either.


each time i know that a big change has to happen, i try to lose myself in a thousand other premeditated changes. now i think that's a mistake; the real courage in a change is making it, and continuing on with the same life you've been living...plus or minus whatever was keeping you from flourishing. the distractions are one way to cope, but they take away from how effective the reduction of that one item is on your life. if you want to notice a difference, you need to take notice, and you need to take charge.



there is so much talk to be heard from the people around you, so many ideas for how to get through the muck in this life...but there is only one moment where your ears will be open to listen. no one can hand you that moment; your heart and mind need to be in agreement, and that is a handshake that only your own hands can make.

love is not a victory march; it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah.

there is something to be said about this. whether i listen to leonard cohen, jeff buckley, rufus wainwright, or kate voegel's version of the song 'Hallelujah', i am spoken to in so many different ways.
this song is delicate but it tears through to the core, and there is one reason why: it paints love with all of the strife with which it is truly comprised. yes, there is so much beauty and so much happiness in love. but, this sings of the trials of humbling devotion that we risk for our hearts when we set them free.

"you saw her bathing on the roof; her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you. she tied you to her kitchen chair; she broke your throne, she cut your hair, and from your lips she drew the Hallelujah."
love can blind us into seeing something pure, and even after we learn that we stand fooled and bruised, sometimes it is impossible still to correct the feeling of fullness we think we are getting.
the worst part is actually beyond the hard part- the worst part is that we will then apply our assumptions and lack of trust onto new lovers who may never hurt us so deeply.

"it's not a cry you can hear at night; it's not somebody who has seen the light."
love can be lonely. it can be sleepless; it can mean sleeping through life. none of us have the answers, and there is no advice to be had. all that there can be for love is more of it, and more of it for each of us. until love is not a place where we are alone.

love is not Always lonely- this is not to say that love is only miserable and incomplete . but, for the longing and sadness that can result, this song has captured and has, with reason, given glory to the potentials that exist when love does.

Hallelujah says that love brings us to our knees and then drags us through the dirt.
our job is to survive through it. our job is to take what love gives us and understand that intention is never for pain. there is not room for regret, there is only room to accept the closeness that we do find, in its simplest and greatest of shapes. love can be in friendship, love can be in love. love can be in both. whichever you have; if you have both- you should be holding with silken chains. not too aggressively, and not too lightly- a reminder that you are there.



i know this room, and i've walked this floor.

so much for the streetlights; tell me that you'll dance til the end- just tell me that you'll dance til the end.

after all of the dressing up and money spent, drinks poured and nights out, one thing has become clear: the time spent IN is what has bound us most closely together.

i'm bouncing and restless, and wondering why. we want to stay in, we want to be out..so many times, our heart is in more than one place. balancing our lives between what we want and what is most practical seems to be a common reason for the trials that we put ourselves through. does it make the most sense to earn this degree for financial reasons? do we stay with a person because they make us feel whole? or do we stay with a person because they make the most sense?
i will never do the latter.
are we dismissing what we really love in order to put life on a track sooner rather than later?
i hope not. if we're settling in any area, we are not giving ourselves the chance to be whole. if we aren't whole, we don't contribute to the true potential of the world.