Yet another ramble about reading and writing stories about the more difficult things in life.

For those of you who know me, really know me, or at least, about me, you may have noticed my frequent selection of sad books to read. Or surprising knowledge of a few serious subjects. Or that I happen to write about people who happen to feel quite bad about themselves who have self-destructive tendencies. You might notice that the majority of the little sketches of people I draw aren't usually smiling, or that their eyes are unhappy. Perhaps you noticed this a lot when I was younger.

Ha, I'm quite narcissistic today; there's a high likelihood you never noticed these things. Why should I expect you to pay that much attention to me? I'm not the important one in your life, really. I wish I had been pointing to God more during the time such things consumed my life.

But in all honesty, those things sort of do still consume my life. I once read those sad fiction novels in order to understand peers and future peers who do and would deal with similar things. Never really for myself. I shunned "escapism" that I judged to be found in fantasy novels, embraced the darkness of young adult realistic fiction, embraced the terrible fear and possible reality of YA science fiction. I was wrong about fantasy, I'm sure. Yet when I ran into YA realistic fiction that I felt I could relate to, I put it away. I had always been afraid of facing myself, I suppose. I wanted to help others; I didn't read the books like they would be relevant to my life, only lives that I was  hoping to be a part of.

And now I still read sad books, but some of them feature real people. I follow the lives of people in real life who face real tragedy as they go through it, even (well, more like especially) when I don't personally know them, which could be/likely is somewhat unethical and probably unsettling and the slightest bit wrong. I don't do read real life to gawk. I read real-life stories of life's many difficulties in order to understand people more, as I have using fiction for the longest time. But I like to hear people's voices as they actually are, also. There is credibility in their voices, there is honesty I don't find in the people that I see everyday. I read to learn, to understand. And I suppose, to face my own frailty and mortality before it becomes necessary.

I write, hoping I convey life as it is, even though fiction can never be fully "realistic". And yet, more often than not, my stories are not. There may be something fundamentally wrong with me. I want to glorify God more than ever, and all truth is his truth, all light comes from him, even if the source doesn't seem quite so clear in fiction. So I try to tell the truth with my stories, but I find them riddled with lies. There is so much of me that still doesn't understand. I hope to, one day. 

I never finished that last post and I probably will not.

At the end of the night, essentially, I realized, as I always do now, at the end of a treacherous drive (which for me, is every single one), that God wants me to live right now. That He's holding onto me, and I'm not dead and my friends aren't dead from my driving because he wants us hear, in (relatively) good health, glorifying Him. Living for Him.

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And that was the end of that night. It was a terrifying night, it was. I learned of the awful, endless, pointless, "freedom" of having a driver's license as an adolescent with a single friend in the car, and how it feels to near-miss every near-critical point when a car or a pole or a curb or a ditch gets just a little too close for comfort.

You know, I could write about driving forever, and all of its "metaphorical resonance" (there is much of this in driving, for me at least), however, I believe I will just write this.

There is so much more to this life than the tiny things I'm doing with it. More than pondering what I should do and whether I should do this or that. I should keep wondering if I'm doing right, but only if it makes me do what is right. And it is about that continuous striving. That continual prayer.

I went to mass tonight with my friend and her boyfriend, and I realized jst how much dedication people have. To God. To each other. It wasn't a huge event or anything. But I just realized, how much authenticity there can be, in the reciting of words each week that never really lose their meaning when said anew every time. When one looks to God and prays silently and aloud and all sorts of ways.

And outside of this, I was with my friend at her boyfriend's house, and I think now, just how much of an impact we as human beings have on one another. No new insight, but, it's still something I think we should think about sometimes. I feel like I negatively impacted quite a few people tonight. And I think about the gratitude I feel after the terrifying experience of driving home everyday.

I'm here for a reason. You're here for a reason. God put us here for a reason.

Sunday school this morning. I just think about how, now, I can see these people in the Bible not just as figures, as images to be painted and gazed upon and analyzed for their immense beauty, but human beings who lived and once existed on this earth and now exist in the further realm, truly with God, and the things they did that were absolutely human and absolutely sinful and how God still forgave them and counted their faith as righteousness.

I cannot really collect my thoughts right now, but I think this sums it up. God bless, good friends. Much love to you all.

When I realized the infinity between 1 and 2. (God and best friendship and sisterhood and life and love and independence and dependence all such things.) part 1

Note-y note thing: (The long title is absolutely necessary. Also, the infinity thing doens't really work. I just made a reference to Hazel Grace Lancaster's misinterpretation of infinity and such things.)It is somewhat late, after today's events. But I feel that I must write my reflections tonight, though I could wait a while, but I want not to taint this memory with time, though memory will do what it pleases in the future. So this may be the first chapter in a memoir which does not yet exist, or simply just a recording of what occurred tonight. It'll be a lot of me remembering things and being emotional, but it'll also be my attempt to record the actual events of this night, because I can be reflective and be emotional whenever I want, and to be entirely honest, I definitely will be.

So here it goes. (With as few backspaces as I can possibly survive.)

This night, February 3rd, 2012, I very nearly killed my best human friend who lives upon the earth with me. As we know, driving often turns out to be a rather fatal activity. Or an extremely efficient one. Or simply just transportation. Or a destroyer of the earth. Whichever (and actually, driving is all of those things, and more than that), and regardless, I did nearly kill my friend tonight. Many times. And myself as well. It seemed that every stoplight and intersection and exit and lane change was a disaster waiting, very patiently and very calculated-ly, to happen. To laugh evilly in the face of our good time gone awry.

Fortunately, we both made it home, safe and sound. Indeed, this dear friend of mine is likely reveling in her security, asleep right now. But I am not.

It began when I gazed this morning, upon the poster which advertised for the free showing of a locally-grown short film featuring Rochester youth, "The Perspective of Love", showing at 7 o'clock at my humble part-time college, at its lovely Hill Theatre. I saw that it was playing that night, the very night of the very day I was just beginning to take part in. I texted this friend (Leah, if you haven't figured it out, readers. Oh readers. How pretentious am I?! Sorry, guys. I love you all. Readers.) of mine, to find if she could attend. She has unfortunately necesitated surgery upon her wrist, as of a recent encounter with an awful man at a skating rink who left her ligament torn, and so was in a soft cast and just entering school again for the first time in a few days, and the first full day of her new semester, and so, to be entirely honest, I wasn't sure if she would feel up to what we were doing, as I hadn't seen her since I visited her the day of her surgery, which was... I believe, Tuesday? Regardless, she had been up to pranking me with her boyfriend, a rather obnoxious and quite entertaining (and far-too-frequent occurence for me, the ever-gullible) activity, the night before.

Her response was affirmative. I texted my mother, because apparently, I am incapable of actual speaking any longer due the long fingers of technology, creeping into our communication. (Not really. But I could've just called her, really. Class hadn't started yet. Granted, I did have a lovely and fascinating conversation with a fellow aspiring author [who is BEYOND aspiring, mind you; she sends her story to publishers. and knowsprettymuchexactlywhatshewantstodowithherlife. But I think I could make an entirely different post about that...) about life and Econ class and our brothers and such. Let us then skip to what is relevant.

So, at approximately 5:something PM, I walked out the door, keys in hand, ready to take Peter Van Houten (my vehicle's name as of... two weeks ago? I named him. He's a he. He's a very [SPOILERSFORTHEFAULTINOURSTARSWATCHOUTSKIPTHISPARTDIRECTLYAFTERTHISBRACKETYPART] drunken Dutch author with a penchant for the philosophical and eloquent.) on his first adventure with me that didn't involve driving directly to my school at approximately 7:30something AM. I picked up Leah. And thus began the insanity.

We had planned our adventure to take place at the mall as well, as Hunger Games merchandise has FINALLY been reinstated at the lovely Hot Topic, and I absolutely needed (yes, exaggeration. But it's close.) to get her a copy of The Fault in Our Stars, not that I didn't have enough people hooked, not that there wasn't a big enough internet fandom (AKA, the entirety of Nerdfighteria, I would assume), not that there were two people holding my two signed copies and reading them this very weekend already, no, I needed Leah to read the book. Yes, it's obsessive, it's obnoxious, and she's heard me speak of it so highly so very much, too awfully much, and I promised her a copy...

Regardless, we ate some delicious Arby's fries and decided to hold hands and test the mall's policy on same-gendered hand-holding, which I heard is an awful policy of potentially being kicked out of the mall, which is a horrible thing to do for simply holding another's hand. I realized later that I had her only free hand, really, which must have been somewhat frustrating, so, Leah, if you're reading, I apologize again for the many things I did this night that were obnoxious/extremely dangerous. Anyway, we went to Icing after our food consumption and we found the most incredible fake glasses and she found the most incredible sunglasses (involving a very large shape and the likeness of handcuffs. theyarereally,really,legitimate), and I finally bought the pair of floral fake glasses I'd been eyeing for a while (they were $5), and that was probably my fiftieth (in sequence) poor financial decision today, and I realize now that I probably seem like I quite enjoy frivolity and irresponsibility, and I will say that I enjoy the former, and don't exactly enjoy the latter, but I do often practice it, which is something I'm very much ashamed of. In spite of such, she and I did these things. I believe we went to Hot Topic first, however. Or perhaps next? I don't recall. Regardless, we went there, my favorite manager there and I squealed about the Hunger Games merch (it was a wonderful time! :D), and then observed all the t-shirts. I would assign some totally obnoxious and somewhat stereotypical English-teacher meaning to the t-shirt browsing, but I think we were just browsing t-shirts. There isn't much I could assign to that.

Afterwards, we went to Barnes and Noble, and purchased some unfortunately Barnes and Noble-Starbucks borrowed drinks (essentially, Leah's gift card could not be used there.). Which set us up for something incredibly ridiculous to come.

I just realized that very much happened tonight, and I think I should perhaps sleep like my much-wiser partner in crime. So tomorrow, friends, I will continue this ridiculous entry. Good night, much love, and God bless you all.