Living Sleep

      I am a daydreamer. I am a dreamer. I am a dream and a nightmare.

      I, like a lot of you, get excited when I have a really good dream in my sleep, one that becomes memorable and means something to me. Though I cannot remember most of my dream last night, I do recall having boxes upon boxes of things I bought from the Weasley Wizard Wheezes (and trust me, if that store did exist, I would buy it out! Haha). In this dream, I was packing for college; it was my plan to bring all of those cool things, although my mother didn’t like the idea of me bringing some of the ones that would explode if you handled them a certain way. Haha, it’s too bad I don’t have any of those cool things, or else they would be here with me at college!     

      

      I have dreamt many other things though; and some of them were extremely violent, with me fighting for my life. However, despite having some intense nightmares as well as good dreams, I find them satisfying and thrilling. Why? Well, let me give you some ideas.

      We all find it easier to dream or daydream. That’s not hard to figure out; but once again, I must ask why? I believe it to be because we can have everything we want in them. We can finally have that one kiss we’ve always wanted, or be in that country that we’d only be able to imagine getting to in real life. Then again, what about the harsh dreams, the ones where we are fighting or fleeing? Even in these worlds, there is a sort of satisfaction; and that’s because despite the fear pumping through our veins, we still carry out what needs to be done. If we’ve got to fight back, our minds instantly say, “Do it! It’ll be worth it in the end!” Or if we’re running or trying to protect another person, our minds whisper, “You’re brave! With courage, you can win!”

      I laugh and smirk as I write this. That’s because I see something extremely ironic in these observations. In our sleep (nay, even when we doze off into a daydream), we know that in the end we’ll win. We know that one day, we can have something great; but what happens when you wake up? All those positive words of encouragement that your mind created in your sleep suddenly seem far away. We get out of bed, get dressed, eat breakfast, and go on with our normal lives, lives which most of us I’m sure are not even close to being fully happy with. We’re discontent. How come our lives are so boring? How come it hurts so much? Why can’t we just live in the stories we read and imagine, in dreams we dream?

      Well, here is the irony: the positive that we live out in our dreams is exactly what we should be telling ourselves in our everyday lives. When we are able to say in our sleep, “Fight! It’s worth it!” when we wake up, it turns into, “I can’t do this anymore. I just give up.” I’m not saying that each and every one of our dreams are good. Some of the are just plain awful, if there is no other word to describe it. However, maybe our dreams are trying to tell us something: that we are capable of winning, and that we can fight and know it’s for the better. In this world, it may not feel like we’ve got anything good, but that’s because we’ve got to look for it, and believe it’s there. The courage we need everyday is in our head; we just refuse to hear it when we’re awake.

      Just something to chew on for the day…but now, I must go into the reality of homework that needs to be read before tomorrow. I will take my dreams advice, and look at those books and say, “In the end, I can win!”

     

Friends and Struggles

      Today, I received a lovely letter from a friend. Holding the piece of paper in my hands, seeing the gentle stroke of the pen across its service…I couldn’t help but smile. It was a special moment. Why? Because it shows that someone loves me, and are willing to take the time to make such a letter of friendship for me.

      I know I ask this question a lot, but why don’t we write letters anymore? Yes, it’s hard with all the technology we have in our hands now. If we really needed to tell someone something, we’d just get on facebook, or e-mail them. Could this be the reason that sometimes I feel like my friendships don’t matter?  Is it because we are only willing to give one-worded answers to each other, or a simple ‘like’ on a recent status? This shouldn’t be what friends are; friends have sssssooooo much more.

      Alright, be prepared for a major Nerd Grace moment; but it’s coming to you all the same if you keep reading this! Anyways, I am almost finished with the 4^th Harry Potter book; but a thought struck me today as I was reading a couple more chapters. There were a couple of times while I was reading those books that I would think, “Man, why do I love these stories so much? What makes them stand out to me, and so many other people out there in the world?” Well, I found one of the reasons for this today (and whether it relates to anyone else is up to them to decide). I believe that we see the friendships in those stories, and we secretly long for them. Even in the families, we see this too. We see how tight they are through thick and thin, how involved they are with each others lives. They share everything together; and even when they get mad, they find a way of getting around and coming back.

      I have a few friendships that can be somehow put into those categories; the unfortunate thing about it, though, is that those friends don’t live near me. Instead, we are all facing different adventures in different places. When that happens, you kind of lose that touch. You don’t ignore them. You still keep in contact, but it’s just not the same. They’re not there with you to be your buddy that sticks by your side through everything. That is what I wish I had right now. I read those stories and think, “How come I can’t have that at college?”

      Ah yes, college is just around the corner for me. In a manner of days, I’ll be heading back to that school again; and I wish I could be just as thrilled as everyone else. People keep telling me to be happy, but they’re not in my shoes. They don’t know what I feel, what I went through my freshman year. There is a part of me that is a bit excited about another new year; but what will that year bring? Will it be the same as before? In all honesty, I just want to get to do the things I love right NOW. I don’t want to take pointless classes just to get somewhere; and I most certainly don’t want to go through another year that has me bound in chains of solitude. I wish I had the close knit friends in school like so many others do; but I don’t. I have splendid people I know there, but not very many that I can just go and tell them anything, whatever is on my mind.

      Let’s put it this way: growing up is hard, and being an adult hurts. However, adults don’t try to soothe that hurt; instead, they fuel the fire, saying that’s just life, and you live through it. Even someone I know said, in so many words, that we shouldn’t be striving to be happy. What? What a worthless life that would be! Yes, we’ll struggle; but I don’t see that as a means to avoid ever being happy, ever putting a smile on your face. How will I ever get to where I want to be?

Sailing Where?

Ever heard the saying that time can heal? Well, what if there is a scar left on you, as though you never fully healed to begin with? Instead of disappearing, it still haunts you?

      I can’t say for sure what kind of boat or ship I’m sailing on right now. All I know is that I’m moving in a whirlpool, not in any specific direction. The hands of the water have taken hold of my ride, and are trying to make me dizzy, and incapable of making any true decision. Is this a good thing or bad?

      I have many fears, ones that will not leave me alone. Somehow, during this summer, I have managed to shove some of them away, in some secret corner. However, its eyes still glared at me while I was having a happy, content life. It was whispering to me: you know you have to go back, you know you’ve got to make a decision, you know people are watching your moves, you know you can’t be with them.

      Oh! How I wish I could silence that voice! Maybe blasting my music to its highest level would drown that snarling! But even that would not keep it quiet for long. I’ll bet it haunts everyone else too; it slithers into our rooms, into our minds, and makes our nightmares a reality. It did that to me two nights ago. I barely slept, rolling from side to side, and waking up tired every couple of hours. By the time my alarm went off, I had no energy, no yearning to do anything except lay there and wish I would slowly fade away.

      Even my phone played an evil trick on me today! I was trying to leave a friend an important message. Barely did I get through it when the machine woman says ‘If you are satisfied with your message, press 1.’ Even a fake person won’t let me get a word in about how I feel. What’s happening to me?

      There are so many dreams I dream, so many wishes I wish, and so many yearnings I yearn for. I don’t want to just be another busy person in the world, making their way to pay the bills and make ends meet. I want to live passionately, living each yearning, dream, and wish I’ve ever thought of! I want to be with my real friends all the time, and have adventures with them through anything and everything.

      The only downside of this is that somehow, by some unforeseen force, all of that is being pushed away from me. Am I to live on my own, in a dark hole, wishing I didn’t exist? Oh August, why did you have to show your face? Many are happy to see you, but the closer you come, the more my stomach turns. You’re going to take me away from everything I love…