The First Spark

My creative side works in an interesting way.  I go through phases where I completely ignore my creative side and focus on more 'important' things - work, school, family, relationships, etc.  I go through happy times, rough times, times where I feel like I'm on top of the world, and times where I just want the world to stop.  You would think these things would spark some creativity in me - write a song about how happy you are, write a story about a hard time you went through, look to music as an escape from all the stress.  But no, I spend all my time dwelling on the moments of my life, trying to sink it all in, whether they are good or bad.

But every now and then, I get an opportunity to express myself creatively.  I find some time to work on a story, I get an opportunity to perform in a show, or something so troubling happens to me that I just HAVE to write it down and it ends up becoming a song or a short story.  I might just write a sentence or two, which turns into a paragraph, which turns into a full-blown venting session for me.  It releases all my negative emotions better than all that dwelling ever did.  I just wish I had more time to do things like this, let that one little creative spark turn into a beautiful fire.  I let myself become too distracted with everything else going on in my life.  I focus so much on my faults and waste so much time finding something I am good at that I forget the thing I'm best at - being creative.  It's nice to let ourselves go loose every once in a while, let go of all our baggage any way we can.  That's the thing about fires - they release energy and destroy everything in their path, but they sure are beautiful.

My Story

You hear a lot about scars these days.  Some call them sexy, others call them imperfections.  They are a representation of who we are, what we've been through.  Some try to hide them, feeling ashamed for they've experienced.  Others tend to flaunt them, showing pride in who they are.  I've tried to cover my own, but to no avail.  When you see me in a dress, you'll see the scar on my back, no matter how hard I try to hide my body.  The scars on my hands cannot be covered.  The scar on my wrist cannot be covered either, not even with long sleeves.  Even when they take my wedding photos some day, the scars will appear - the one on my back, the one on my wrist, the ones on my hands, and any other scars I may get.  It's hard for me to live with them.  They are friendly little reminders of all the pain I went through, whether I want to remember or not.  Every scar has a story, and everyone who sees that scar wants to know the story.  We're proud to share some of our stories, but not necessarily all of them.  We ourselves don't want to be reminded of the pain we went through, but every time we look in the mirror, there it is!  They're right in our faces, forcing us to remember.  Sometimes, they are the first thing we see.  The scars stay tattooed in our brains, our memories, until they are all we can think about.  Sometimes the scars can play tricks on us; they'll begin to fade away one day, and soon enough come right back, as if they never wanted to leave.  Sometimes they can itch, burn, or even make the skin around it feel either numb or painful.  Just another reminder that hey, something painful happened to you, and now you're stuck with the proof.  But why should we be ashamed of it?  I wear mine proudly.  They tell my story better than I ever could.  They are a story of who I was and the mistakes I hope to never make again.  They let me know that I've come a long way to get to where I am today.  My scars are not imperfections.  They are who I am.  They are who I've been.  They are who I plan to overcome.  This is my scar.  This is my story.

A Little Friendly Competition

Let me tell you a little something about girls: We're competitive.  All we do with each other is compete.  Who's prettier, who has nicer things, who has the better boyfriend, who's smarter, etc.  Most of this competition takes place in our minds.  The first thing we do when we notice another girl is point out what is good and bad about her.  If we feel their looks threaten ours, we instantly try to find something wrong with them.  "Hmm...Too many piercings, has a bigger ass than me but her chest is flat so that's good, looks a little chubby, wears a lot of makeup."  Immediately we compare ourselves to these girls.  We're very quick to point out the flaws in other people.
Example: I was talking to my boyfriend about some guy actor I thought was very hot but he didn't agree with me.  So I told him, "Alright, let's be fair.  Show me a girl you think is hot, and I'll see if I agree."  So he shows me a hot blonde chick that I guess was in Playboy.  The first thing I said was, "Eh, she's okay, but her boobs are fake."  Unbeknownst to me, he was testing me, and he was right: When a girl feels threatened by another girl, she will instantly point out what is wrong with her.  This is a common thing we girls do, and we do this almost everyday.  If we think she is prettier than us, smarter than us, etc., we will instantly hate her.  Suddenly, everything she does is offensive.  "Look at that bitch, sitting down at a table, reading, like she fucking owns the place."  "Ugh, she thinks she's so smart, walking across the street."  "Oh, my God, that chick is walking toward her car like she's all that."  See?  We're horrible to each other!
The reason I bring this up is because Valentine's Day is less than a month away.  The gift my boyfriend is making me (I have no idea what it is yet) involves some pictures a mutual friend of ours has, and she's very slow when it comes to sending pictures (like if she took a picture in April, it won't be on Facebook until September).  So we've both been harassing her about her sending those pictures.  I even told her (as a joke, sort of) that, "My happiness depends on it!"
This isn't because I'm materialistic or anything.  It's because come Valentine's Day, all us girls will get together and discuss what we did with our boyfriends for Valentine's Day - what they gave us, what we did, where we went, all that jazz.  In our minds, we'll be deciding who had the best Valentine's Day, and we want that girl to be us.  I realize this is a conceited thing to say, but this is how girls think.  We think we need to have the best things, look the best, be the smartest, and all-in-all just be the best...I take it back.  We don't want to be the best, we just want to be better than all the other girls.

Bliss?

Nothing pisses me off more than the saying "ignorance is bliss."  It's just not true, and I'm sick of people thinking it's the smartest philosophy to live by.  Just hearing it or reading it sends a cold shiver slowly down my spine.
Ignorance, by definition, means "lacking in knowledge or training."  So for anyone thinking, "Oh, my daddy calls me ignorant, that's just him calling me stupid" - no it's not, you just have a lot to learn.
That being said, the saying "ignorance is bliss" means (to me, anyway) that life is a lot easier and happier when we don't know certain things.  However, there is a difference between wanting to know something and needing to know something.  Just as a few examples, I don't want to know that a close friend of mine is telling me I sleep around, but when it starts to ruin my reputation and my relationships with people, I think I need to know what's going on.  I don't want to know my grandmother's health is failing, but I'd rather know about it now than finding out at her funeral that poor Grandma was really sick and, since I didn't know about it, I didn't really have a chance to spend more time with her before she died.  I certainly don't want to know that my mother has cancer, but if she's going to more hospitals than I can count and has to shave her head for chemo, that's something I would like to know.
Obviously it sucks knowing my mom has cancer - the stress has put me through a lot of physical and mental pain as of late.  Stress can do a lot to people, including me.  Headaches that leave me bedridden, stomachaches that leave my head in the toilet, and nightmares that wake me up every hour or two.  But just because a lot of knowledge is hard to take, it doesn't mean we should never be deprived of it.  How else are we supposed to grow as individuals?
Enough of my whining, back to the whole "bliss" thing.  Bliss....Happiness...Not to sound cynical, but is happiness always genuine?  Ever think your friend is in the happiest, most perfect marriage in the world, and next thing you know she's getting divorced?  Ever thought you had the greatest friend in the world and you'd be best friends forever?  I've had at least 2 or 3 friends like that and, let me tell you, that's a long shot.  Did you ever know someone or hear of someone who seemed to have the perfect life or the happiest life with no problems, only to learn he attempted suicide?  Plenty of things look happy and perfect on the outside - doesn't mean it's not messed up on the inside.
To me, "bliss" does not mean true happiness.  I think it means what looks like happiness.  So going back to the "ignorance is bliss" saying, it reminds me of the people I hear a lot saying "I don't even want to know."  Like I said, just because you don't want to know something doesn't mean you don't need to know it.  There are certain things we need to know, that are important to know, in order to be truly happy.  Ignorance may be bliss, but knowledge is liberating.
John 8:32 - "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

Back for More 1 AM Blogging

You have no idea how hard it is to miss you.  Sitting here alone, in a place I no longer enjoy, knowing I could be somewhere else with you.  After a while I get fed up with getting my hopes up only to find out last-minute that you're not coming.  It's nice knowing you can provide for yourself, and for me, in the long run, but it's still so hard.  When I'm with you, I cry from laughing.  When I'm not, I cry because I miss laughing with you.  Being with you makes me see a future for myself.  A happy future.  One I look forward to.  One with you.  But it gets harder to see the future when you know it can never be in your present.  I know you have important things to worry about, some more important than me, but you're important to me, too.  Seeing you once or twice every two weeks is never easy for either of us.  I never wanted to be your top priority, but I would like to know that I'm a priority.  I know you're trying your hardest, but textual conversations aren't enough to make me happy.  I wish I could see your face.  I wish I could hold you.  I wish I could see you no matter how you're feeling - happy, sad, angry, sick, whatever.  Life is so much easier when you're around.  So where are you now...