I’m so speechlessly grateful for validation. I run around pretending to be strong, pretending to be fearless because I’ve always thought that if I live the way I want to be, I’ll be those things someday.

I tell myself everyday that I deserve to be wherever I am. That I can do anything I want because I’m resourceful, smart, and persistent.

So when people see something in me, something special about me, something enough to want to help me or give me a shot, it’s relieving to know that I’m not just making all this stuff up in my head. That I’m actually doing something right.

Something that I always think about is what freedom really is.

I always think that I’m getting so close and then all of a sudden something snaps me back and I realize how far away it really is. That’s probably my least favorite feeling. It hurts worse than what I imagine heartbreak feels like, because to have something dangled in front of you, something you want more than anything, to have it taken away from you like you were never going to get it in the first place, that is gut wrenching.

I just stare at the ceiling or the sky sometimes and wonder what it feels like to be so high and limitless. It’s a kind of boundless sensation I associate with freedom when I feel hopeless and barred in and it makes me think that maybe achieving such a light feeling of freeness is possible — if only I could get up there somehow?

I wonder if freedom is not an achievable if you’re trying to get it. I wonder if it’s some kind of zen thing. I wonder if it’s similar to achieving happiness.

Freedom, I’ve always thought, is a right. But really, I wonder if it’s selfish. 

I always think about how much fun it would be to run and never stop and never be tired. To just keep going, and going until you get to where ever you were trying to go.

But the thing about running is that the best feeling is always stopping. The best part is always feeling your empty lungs fill with air, the best part is remembering how good it feels to be full, and to fall down and realize how truly human you are.

It really is true, isn’t it? The thing about one part of your life working out while another part struggles for your attention. 

The horrible thing is that you could care less about the other part. Because the part that’s working out is too much fun.

Sometimes I think about the term “dead weight” and I never know how badly I should feel if I were to cut it out of my life. There was a point where that dead weight was alive and it was getting me through, but now it just seems heavy. Boring. Maybe even a little tedious.

More often than not I’ve always felt bored, limited, restrained by age or experience and everything has always been so constricting. Life has so many unspoken rules in the beginning and I’ve spent so much of my time and energy trying to unlearn them because who says I have to abide by them.

Lately I’ve finally been feeling like the sky has opened up or something. Like finally the saying “you can do anything,” is finally applicable because I’ve put my time in and now it’s just a matter of further execution.

After high school time stopped moving for me and I got lost. I was afraid I peaked. I was afraid that was it. I pretended to believe in the cliche everyone else kept quoting from Almost Famous, that things were happening,

Now I finally feel like that’s a real feeling. Because things are finally happening. It’s all finally happening.

Crap you guys, life is moving along absolutely swimmingly right now. Everything is kind of just working out. Or at least it seems to be.

All of the tears, all of the anguish and over thinking that I’ve gone through up to this point has somehow been worth it. It’s starting to pay off, and I’ve got a feeling it’s all gonna pay off big time.

My friend is selling her car because she’s moving after graduation and both of these things are making me sad right now.

As much as I’m going to miss her, I’m going to miss that car equally because we did a lot of dumb fun things in that car. Like the time I was drinking in the passenger seat and spilled it all over the place. It smelled like alcohol for weeks. Or the time we drove down a bunch of roads just to prove they weren’t haunted. We sang and screamed so loudly to keep the spirits away.

I’m going to miss those stupid car door locks even if they weren’t manual. I have been forever trained to check them. 

It’s weird when friends move. Weird and sad.

Do you ever catch a glimpse of yourself in a mirror and find yourself surprised that there’s not a chubby 12-year-old staring back at you? That instead there’s someone you’re actually proud of? That you actually can’t even believe you’ve become?

It’s just this amazing feeling of acceptance. It’s hard to come by.

You know, I spend a lot of time wondering if others think I’m good enough, pretty enough, skinny or smart enough. The hardest person to convince has always been myself and I’m so ecstatic that I can actually look at myself and just be happy to be, well, me.

The other day this Christian girl asked me if I believe in god, and I paused, caught off guard, and said I didn’t know what to believe.

After thinking about that polite cop-out of an answer, I’ve realized that I don’t. I was afraid that saying that would make me sound like a soulless heathen. But the truth is my soul is so full it hurts a lot of the time. 

I think the chances that everyone and everything and the whole world in general were created by a single all-powerful being is slim. People always tell me you have to have faith in something, and I do, I have faith in myself because even though that’s a shaky concept sometimes, it’s something that I can control and I’m not willing to believe that I was ordained to do anything.

A friend of mine once said no one cares about us. She’s right. And it’s not a bad thing, and it’s not a sad thing. It just is. You have to make your own way and at the end of the day you have to be happy with who you are and what you’re doing — you put the value in your life and no one else, and I’m willing to accept that responsibility.

I know my blog has been kind of moody and contemplative lately, but that’s just how life’s been.

But I have a lot to look forward to. It’s not good to wish away the present obviously but it’s just nice to know that good things are definitely ahead. Life after graduation probably won’t be the easiest, but I’m hopeful I’ll do the best I can.

I feel more like creating than destroying lately and I think that’s the most positive kind of shift a person can make within themselves.