Weird

What exactly is weird? It's a negative label stuck to those who act differently. But what is different? This concept is extremely frustrating to me. In society, we're expected to be sheep. This sheepish act is called "normal" behavior. This behavior is basically: don't say too much about what you're truly feeling, dial back your crazy side, have fun, but only to a degree where no one thinks you're "weird", but don't be too much of a prude. Talk about people behind their back, not to their face, etc... Just don't have an original thought, and if you do? Keep that shit to yourself.

There are many different terms of this for both genders. Girls have a particular image to keep up. Long, straight hair, skinny, don't leave the house without makeup, make fun of other girls who are "lower" than you, build up the male ego, follow your pack... The list goes on for miles.

Of course, by the time a girl hits a certain age, say around 21, this bends a little. They become more aware of themselves and begin to explore the parts of themselves they were never allowed to travel to. But there are still some things women are expected to stick by, and if you don't, you become a few various words: weird, freak, slut, prude, ugly, bitch... Yet another list that goes on and on.

Guys have less constraints, though they do have them. Boys are taught that they aren't allowed to cry, you are a coward unless you are capable of accomplishing certain, physically demanding tasks, and several others. I don't pretend I know too much about the unfairness society places on men, but I am aware of the pressure they have on them, I do. I was raised with boys. But I was always jealous of the way society uplifts them from a young age, despite the crap that is also expected of them.
Throughout my life, I believed my older brothers were superior to me. Not that my parents made me think this way, but because in my little mind, they were just better than me. And media didn't help. The hero, the savior was always the man.

Boys were stronger; they were fun. And so, I tried hard to be a boy, not in the sexual sense, but in the slight chance that if I acted like one, I too might have some liberation and respect. Boys were free to be themselves. I remember going to ball games as a kid and watching the boys run and play like deer in a field. They were untouchable, and they wouldn't let me play with them, so all I could do was envy that freedom from the sandpit in the playground where the other little girls ran in packs. And eventually, my brothers grew too old to play with their little sister, two years gapping each of us.

But I couldn't become a boy. I knew I would never have that same acceptance that was copiously pumped into the male psyche. Therefore, I spiraled into a depression at a very young age. I was home schooled, but we attended social meetings where we could meet other children our age. And the memories of that are too painful to give much detail, but I was labeled "weird" everywhere I went, ignored and shoved aside. I would run crying to my mother at the end of the day and beg to know why I wasn't normal, and her answer was always that everyone was weird and that it wasn't a bad thing.

I've grown to loath that word: weird, because it's always been used to negatively describe me and all the others who happen think differently, especially here in the south. But don't we all think a little differently? It's only some of us who are brave enough to display it. "Everyone is a little weird."

As I grew older, I had slowly begun to accept this part of me that dominated so much of me. I joined theater when I was 15. There, I was popular with the younger girls because I spoke my mind and made them laugh; they looked up to me and wanted to be like me; they were young enough and not yet scathed by cruel society. Girls my age and older avoided me like the plague. The boys didn't take too kindly to me once they got to know me, because boys are allowed to speak their minds and be themselves, while girls are not, and I broke this timeless rule. One nice boy even said that he was scared of me. I was a strange little girl, I still am. I admired the few other girls who were as well. I had a friend once who was the same as me. She was brash and opinionated, yet sensitive and full of thought. This was emotionally beaten out of her by her friends once she hit 16. Now she's quiet and fake like the rest of them.

Just as I reached 18, I started to get angry. I flipped the middle finger to society's ignorant laws, and the very moment I did, I felt this unforgettable thing. I was like my eyes had been opened and a bright light was pouring into me, making me shine. I felt stronger, my skin was thicker, and my core buzzed with excitement, like I had been set free from being chained down for so very, very long. I began to walk with a purpose. I chopped my hair off and held my head high. The male gender was no longer a trigger for self hate; I began to see them as just other people. Not a stereotype, but fellow humans, just as everyone should be. Just PEOPLE. No two sides inferior or superior, just equal in every way.
I'm beyond hope for being "normal".

Normal is for the weak and close minded. And I thank God every day for the lessons I've learned in my almost 19 years. Everything that happened to me was necessary for me to become who I am today and who I will be become.
And Vine has played an extremely important role in the journey to finding myself. There is something about this phone app that doesn't allow you to be "normal". The vine community welcomes art and creativity and comedy, something I've loved and explored since I was a small child.

Vine gave me/us the ability to finally let out all the years of built up thoughts and ideas. And the places it has taken me and the memories it's given me, I'll take to my grave.
It brings me to tears when a young girl comes to me and tells me that I've inspired her to finally be herself and not care what her friends and society have to say about it. I know how tiring it can be to try to silence yourself for the sake of the crowd. It takes a toll on you in every sense.
My advice to you, don't waste your life trying to be accepted by everyone around you. Love yourself and BE yourself. You will never be happy until you look around you and see everyone equally. No one is better, no one is worse, and you are beautiful and have such potential if you only look beyond the shallow, cultural screen in front of us. Get up and walk away, make your own way in this world. You are important.

It's your life: it's as simple as that.

Viva la Lita

Well, you're gone. I knew it would come soon, and I was expecting it and I understood it. Thirteen years of your sweet snout and chocolate brown eyes and warm white fur with the orange spots. I have too many words and too many memories in my full heart at this moment to express them properly, but just know I loved you with all my heart, and that I take comfort in knowing that your life was full. You made me laugh and you made me cry, but mostly laugh and that's a good thought as I bury your little body by the irises. Goodnight and goodbye, my baby. May you forever bask in the warm sunshine and run about in the tall grasses.

I love you, love you, love you more than you'll ever know.

Think, think, think

You know that feeling when nothing is right, but nothing is wrong either? One day, you can think you have it all, but the next, you can feel like there is nothing left. Like you're an empty shell, getting older by the moon cycles.

One day, you can feel like everyone is on your side, and the next? Everyone is against you.

And then you're just sitting in your bedroom, typing by the light of your laptop, thinking, thinking, thinking until you start to wonder if you'll ever, ever stop thinking, even when you're dead.

You're tired of thinking about the world, and people, and love, and things that don't exist, but you're not so empty that you can't think of nothing either, so you resort to thinking about elephants playing sports.

And for some reason, this thought reminds you of how alone you feel at this moment, so you feel like crying. And soon, you will close your laptop and curl into bed and pray. You will plead to God to make his presence known to you, to fill you with peace, and after he has taken away all these negative emotions, you will fall asleep and wake up the next day, refreshed.

And you probably won't pray so desperately again until you're feeling low again, because you only come to God when you need some peace of mind; the rest of the time you just ask to keep your family and friends safe and to bless all of us, thanks, Amen.

And this makes you feel pathetic and stupid and revolting, but you won't change because you're nothing but a broken record, not the semi-good person you've always taken confident pride in being. You're not even that good of a writer, even though, the next short story you write will make you forget about all of that and you'll return to being the conceded bastard you were ten minutes ago.

And you want to think more about what else you can possibly get off your shoulders now on this word document, but honestly, you're just too tired to think anymore, so you just drift away, further and further from reality for now, only to be snapped back into it at the first bursting open of eyelids.

You have some more negative, self degrading thoughts before retiring: stupid, ignorant, ridiculous, goodnight.

Life in The Fishbowl

I am living.

That is all I know: that I exist. I merely drift along the days in this clear, cool substance that surrounds me, sustains me.

I do not know what I am, where I came from, or what shall become of me, if there is anything that does become of something like me; if I am a something at all.

I try and think back to where I might have come from, but I end up thinking back too hard with no avail and then completely forget what I was thinking about in the first place.

The other thing I know, is that I and the clear, penetrable substance that envelops me is contained in some kind of geometric shape made of an element as clear as the fluid.

I have no concept of time, rather I can't remember what happened before a single moment. Perhaps it's because my life consists so much of the same things, I wouldn't be able to tell anything apart anyway.

I merely go around and around in circles, confused and frustrated at why I am here and where I have come from and where I will go. Every graspable understanding of time, every possible minute causing fresh panic and fear.

And then I think, what if I was not meant to be the thing that I am? Because, I am sure that if I was meant to exist in this body, I would not feel this way. Maybe I was not meant for this life. This life of pure frustration that I cannot escape no matter how high or low I swim. I have no hope to get out, never. With the knowledge that I will probably always be here in this peculiar shape, surrounded by nothing and everything, forever trapped in my own head.

And perhaps, this is exactly what I was meant to be. Perhaps every other being like me, if there are any, all feel the exact same way. And with this, I gain peace in myself and I look out into the world and-

I am living.

That is all I know: that I exist. I merely drift along the days in this clear, cool substance that surrounds me, sustains me.

Rooky

One of my biggest dreams (besides becoming a successful novelist) is to be with and to converse with the people who share my same passion, who are struggling with and daydreaming about the very same things as I do, which is becoming a great writer.

All of the legendary writers, who are either dead or very old now, hang in the back of my every thought. It's like they're spirits are apart of this exclusive club, where they all drink coffee, laugh, and share their deepest thoughts on the subject of writing. And there I am, watching them through a foggy window, shivering in the blistering, cold night, wishing, hoping, praying that one day I'll be able to enter that literature heaven, learn from them, debate with them, and also be admired by all my struggles of this steep, up-hill journey they all faced with.

But I have not even really delved into the great world of historical literature yet, partly because I'm lazy and don't really understand a lot of the complicated language (and for that I am ashamed) but mostly it's because I'm terrified. I'm terrified of their perfection and I know that I could never even hope to be as successful and as talented as they were.

Then again, their combined entity keeps pushing me forward, constantly reminding me of my passion: their passion. To write. Not only for the entertainment of the people of the world, but also for ourselves as novelists and writers and philosophers and poets.

But I'm still only a rooky, only discovering my lifelong dream a year ago and being just seventeen.

The feeling of knowing that this is where you belong finally is indescribable. And even when you start to doubt yourself, you find yourself being pulled back in by some unseen force. And then you wrap yourself back into the romanticism of writing, finding yourself even more driven than before, not caring about anything else but getting out all your thoughts, creating worlds untouched in the hopes of someday, somehow, they will find you and accept you, and pat you on the shoulder because you've made it, you've finally made it.

So I continue on my way, my almost-free spirit flitting above me, pulling me forward.

Because as they all have said at one point or another, you don't need to be a genius or a perfect idealist to be a writer, you just have to want it bad enough.

And I do.