Stronger Now

My anxiety is getting worse again.
That panicky, nagging, feeling at the back of my mind is back.
It's been getting worse for a while, but I've been pushing it away and pushing it away.
But eventually, the dam that I built in my mind to hold everything back, is going to break.
Here's to hoping that I'll be strong enough to build it right back again if it does.

I can't quite think of a way to sum up the feelings that I have, and I don't want to write them all out.
Basically, I do a lot of crying. And not the kind that is usually associated with my "Sara-ness" (crying over books, movies, shows...specifically the Doomsday episode of Doctor Who), but the kind that I hate the most. The kind of crying that I do whenever my anxiety gets really bad makes me feel weak and even more stupid than I probably already feel at the time.

I get so frustrated at myself for worrying over things that I know I have no control over.
With the new school year, it has gotten even worse.
But I have a secret weapon; something that I didn't have years ago, when I was at the lowest time in my life.
I have friends.

Real friends, too. Not the flaky ones I had back then.
Nope, I've got real ones.

To all of you who are the friends I'm speaking to: If this next week, this next month, or this entire school year is hard for me, please don't leave me by myself. I've been there before, and I don't want to ever go back to that awful place. If I turn into some sort of horribly reserved, cold person, know that I'm still in there somewhere. But that's worst case scenario, of course. I plan on pulling myself out of this, even if I have to go back to a psychologist. I'm stubborn enough to think that I can do all of this on my own, and that's probably ignorant of me, but I'm going to try it anyway. I've fought this battle before, I can do it again.
I'm stronger now than I was then.

So, if I fall off into a long silence or I start crying, please yell at me to get my crap together.

Peace, love, and novel writing,
Sara

This Kind of Day

There are good days, and there are bad days, and there are I-Don't-Even-Know-Why-I'm-Sad days.
For me, today has been an IDEKWIS day.

And I hate it.

Sure, I could blame it on hormones, my lacking in optimism, or my recently terrible anxiety, but I choose to blame it on all three.
Which is why, I happen to be holed up in my room eating a Kashi granola bar and a Popsicle, being sad for a lot of different reasons. And most of them are very stupid reasons to be sad.
And so, to express my stupid emotions, I'll write a stupid poem.

Today I'm the broken package, 

That gets stuck at the back of the shelf, 

And no one wants to take it home, 

So I mostly blame myself.

Today a lot of people annoyed me,

To a very great extent, 

To the point where I wanted to run away, 

And live all alone in a tent. 

In this tent I'd have an Xbox,

So whenever I got bored I could play, 

And if that doesn't work, why I'll play in the dirt! 

Like a little kindergartner might say. 

I'd also have some pets, 

To make my hobo career more legit, 

And when it gets cold, and I start to get old, 

Many warm sweaters I'll knit. 

So you see, I might be broken in some places, 

Like an old music box, 

I falter and miss notes here and there, 

But never have I lost the keys to the locks. 

I'm tired now, and have tent pitching to do, 

And so with these few words I'll leave you, 

Never, never, let them push you down, 

In this way they'll deceive you. 

Peace, love, and Talking to British Buddy, 

Sara 

Letter number one: A Goodbye

I've decided to start writing letters sometimes to people that won't ever read them. Some of you will know exactly who I'm talking about, and others won't. But that's the point. It's letters that won't ever be read by the person they are written for.
Here is my first letter. I'll try to make it easy to understand what happened to those of you who don't know me personally. It's going to be a lot harder to write this than I thought.

Dear 3rd grade,

I don't know what happened to us, I really and truly don't. I know that we've both had hard times. I know that you weren't there when I needed you. Scratch that. You're never there period. You never stand up for me, ever. In fact, half the time, you're one of the ones that knocks me down.
When we were in third grade, I had the biggest crush on you. I still had a crush on you in the fourth grade, part of fifth, and at some point during sixth. I never wanted to give up on you.
An a part of me still doesn't want to give up. But I don't like you in the same way anymore. Actually, for a while last year I thought I liked you until I realized that I can't depend on you. The friends that I surround myself with are stable. They're the rocks that I can hold onto when things get tough for me. And, I'm sure you don't know this because you don't care, but things get tough for me a lot. I make things tough for myself.
For all of last semester, I wanted you to just accept me. Just accept me as a friend. That's all I wanted from you. And you couldn't even do that much. One day you told me, "I'm so awful to people, I don't know how I have friends." And I laughed, and said that you have friends because you're a good person. I still stand by that. I think you're a great person. You just probably aren't the type of person that can handle all of my craziness, and at the end of the day still be my friend. All you ever do is make fun of me. My laugh, how silly I am, etc. I don't need that. I don't need someone like that in my life.  You don't even know the first thing about me. You don't know how hard it is for me to even be myself around people. You take me for granted, and I don't deserve that.
My best friend told me in the car today, "I tried hard to like him because you clearly still hang out with him, but the way he treats you makes me mad." Or something along those lines, I don't remember word for word.
And you know what? She's exactly right. When it comes to trusting people, sure it takes me a while, but once I trust someone it's hard for me to back away from them.
I have told you so much. I used to come home and look forward to getting on facebook just to vent about something to you. And now we hardly speak.
It's amazing to me, how we were so close years ago, and now you just don't care.
All I wanted, was for us to be back to the way we used to be. It used to be so easy to talk to you, and now it's like talking to a wall. I never know which side of you I might be talking to. I never know where I stand.
Now I know that, as much as I hate it, I have to give up on you.
When I started trying to be your friend again in the sixth grade, you pushed me away. I had no friends, no one to talk to, I was miserable. And you pushed me away.
You were so wrapped up in your music. And you're great, don't get me wrong. It's everything to you. It takes up so much of your  life, that you don't even see the people around you. I love music, I love so many things, but my friends and family? They always come first. I love them more than anything. They've made me who I am today. Someone that isn't afraid to stand up for herself when no one else will.
You say things sometimes so sarcastic and hateful, that it's hard to tell if you're kidding. You told me that you didn't know who would marry someone like me. Thanks for that by the way. It really boosted my self esteem.
Practically right up through the roof.
And when I was sad about that, when I let that get to me, I didn't show it. It was Kimberlee that said something. And you acted as if we should have known you were kidding. You told me, "You can't act like a sensitive girl when you hang around this many guys."
Thanks a lot dear sir, but I think I can handle myself just fine around guys. They do make up most of my friends. Never once, have any of my other guy friends hurt my feelings the way that you hurt my feelings every single day.
And I won't let it happen anymore. Because I'm done with you. I'm done with wanting you to accept me.
You've had a billion chances to just treat me like a friend, and you've failed every single time.
You let me down.
The funny thing is, I can't bring myself to hate you. I can't even dislike you. I can't bring myself to hate something I used to love, more as a friend than anything else.
If you ever read this, I think you might laugh at me. Go ahead and laugh, I'm done with you.
I'm done with you not accepting me. I'm done with you not appreciating me.
If you can find it in yourself to be a man and say you're sorry for all of this, go for it. But you should know that even if you did, it would be a very long time until I trusted you again.


                         I tried,
                              Someone that used to think the world of you

Love and Loss

Last night I spent the night at Paige's house. This morning, Elizabeth got a message from her sister saying that someone had been run over by the train. It isn't uncommon around here for people to be hit by that train. In fact, the Chapel Hill Ghost Light, a popular urban legend here, is about a man who had his head sliced off by the train and now spends every night looking for it with his lantern. When I was about seven or eight, we lived in a house very close to the tracks. One day when we went out walking, we saw police cars and an ambulance, the train was stopped next to the place where cars could drive over the tracks. On the tracks, there was a dark black tarp. Now I'm sure that it was a body bag, but then I don't think I really understood. The man that died that day was walking on the tracks when he was hit. He'd been listening to his Walkman. 

Sometime early this morning, a car was crossing over the tracks. They didn't see the train coming and it smashed into them, throwing the car completely off the tracks. When the police got there, they had to cut the bodies out of the car. The bodies belonged to a grandmother and her eight year old grandson. The grandmother and youngest brother of a boy that is in my grade. 

I know that my last post was a sad one, and usually I try to have equal amounts of happy and sad posts, but sometimes life gets in the way of that. 

I talked about how empathetic I am in the last post and a good example of that happened today.
Because when I told Elizabeth how it happened and she said she was going to cry, I said I wasn't but that I was all very depressing. When she said that, I didn't feel like crying. 

I felt like throwing up. 

What must that have been like? Was the boy in my grade, we'll call him Jerry, awake when they crossed the tracks? Or was he still asleep like we were when Elizabeth got the message. 

It's so close to Christmas time. I can't even imagine how he must feel, knowing that there were so many things that could have been done differently to stop that awful thing from happening. 

His dad died just a few years ago. 

What were the last words he said to either of them? 

God, I can't imagine any of this without feeling sick. 

If my brother died, I would be so lost. If anyone in my family died, I would have such a hard time dealing with their loss. 

Because even though we fight all the time, I would feel so alone without them. 

My mom brought up a good point the other day.

We have been so incredibly lucky to not have lost anyone in our close family yet. 

I've got all of my grandparents. My aunts and uncles. My mom and dad. My brother. 

Thousands die every day, and not a single one of them has been a member of my family yet. 

That makes me feel like a weight is hanging over my head. Ready to drop at any moment, and crush some of the happiness that I've been so blessed to have. 

If my parents died, or my brother died, I don't think I would talk to anyone for a very long time. 

Not really talk anyway. I would be silent. 

I think it would be even longer until I laughed again. 

For someone to die so young, without ever truly living their life... It's just so impossible to comprehend for me. 

It just seems so wrong. 

It seems wrong for some people to have so much, and for others to lose everything. 

I know I'll never understand why things are the way they are, but I really think something is going to have to change in my life. 

Everyday, I am going to write something about my life. Maybe not on this blog, maybe just for my eyes to see. But I'm going to write one thing every day that I cherish in life. 

Moments like that happen every so often. Once, I spent a day down at the river by myself. Just lying on the dock and watching the river flow. 

That put things, if only for a few moments, into perspective for me. 

That river has been flowing for hundreds of years and when I'm dead and gone, it will probably still be flowing. 

I don't mater to that river. I'm as insignificant as the little minnows that swim along the banks where the water is shallow. It was just like today, when I heard about how it happened, we were shopping. I started thinking more and more about it. And I looked around. Everyone was going about with their lives. Totally oblivious to the fact that an eight year old boy and his grandmother will never get to see another Christmas. He'll never have another birthday. He'll never get to grow up. 

In the big picture, our lives are so seemingly insignificant. But to each other, we mean so much. 

No one knows the reason we're here, if they did I'm sure they'd speak up. But for whatever reason it is that we live such short lives, I hope I can make the most of it. 

Peace, love, and life, 

                                   Sara

Ponder

Sunset

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how short life is.
My mother's friend's wife just found out that the cancer she'd had years ago has come back. This time the doctors gave her no hope.
You know, we see so much in the media about cancer. We hear about it everyday. But it doesn't really doesn't impact any of us until we have to watch it tear right through some one's life.
It's like the monster we all had hiding under our beds as children. It was so real to us until our parents said it wasn't real at all.
Cancer isn't real to us until it happens to someone we care about.
My great aunt, cousin, and my great grandfather and grandmother all died of different types of cancer. You know, I don't have any real memories of my aunt that I can remember. Just this one when we were on a pontoon boat in Destin. But even that small little fragment is fuzzy. But I remember her funeral.
I barely remember cousin Billy because he lived far away. But I remember his memorial.
I never met my great grandparents on my mother's side, but I've heard stories. Mom says I would have loved them both so much. If there really is something after this life, and I make it to it, I hope I get to meet them.

If I were to find out that I have cancer, and they gave me no hope like my mom's friend, I don't know what I would do. But in a way, I guess I have an idea.
I know that for whatever it was worth, I would never let myself be weak. I would fight ever minute of everyday just to see the next sunrise. The next full moon. My brother's next smile.
I would learn how to truly live.
I would say I'm sorry to everyone I'd ever been angry at. Even if they were the ones at fault.
You know how people always say it's best to live like you're dying? Well, I've decided that anyone who actually achieved that, was really dying.
There must just be something about it; knowing that your days are numbered.
I'd say I'd want to experience that feeling, just to appreciate how truly precious life is, but I don't want to die anytime soon. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, right?
How could you even tell your best friend that you might not live too much longer?
I can't even imagine walking with Paige, and just saying, "I'm dying.". That would break my heart.
Seeing the looks on people's faces. That would be what hit me the hardest. Even if I had come to terms with it, knowing that they wouldn't be okay for a long time, that would get to me.
Just thinking about this sort of thing gets me so depressed. But hey, trying on someone else's shoes is a good thing.
Somewhere, I'm sure there's a girl my age that just found out she has no chance of seeing Christmas. And here I am, warm in my bed, blogging about being in a situation like that when I can't even imagine.
But we've all thought about what it would be like to know that without a doubt, we were going to die. Haven't we?
I think, that if I were dying, I would start giving out a whole lot of advice.
And I would have a few dying wishes too.
I'd tell my mother to finish the latest novel I started.
I'd tell my brother to always have the same laugh.
I'd tell my father where to scatter my ashes.
Aw man, this is making me cry. But what am I saying, I cry over everything. Guess I'm just empathetic like that.
I'd tell Paige to never stop being so kind and loyal.
I'd tell Elizabeth to never lose her goofy personality.
I'd tell Kimberlee go out and see the world for me.
I'd tell Dylan to never let the way people don't see things too clearly hurt him.
I guess I could keep going with this and make it really sappy, but since I'm not dying, I don't see the point.
I feel so sorry for anyone going through something so awful. I feel so sorry for the families affected.
This blog really just came out of nowhere. I Just started thinking about my mom's friend and how much he loves his wife. It really breaks my heart.

Peace, Love, and Deep Thoughts,
                                                     Sara

I've got lot's of friends. Yes, but then again, Nobody knows me at all. ~The Weepies

Roads

My brother is my favorite victim when it comes to taking pictures 

The other night, I wrote a song for my brother. It was nothing special, it probably took me about five minutes to write the whole thing. After I had finished playing it for him, he started bawling crying. "Why are you crying?" I'd said. He looked up at me with tears running off his cheeks and said, "Because you only have four years left."
It took me a minute to realize what he was talking about, but then I figured it out. He was talking about college.
I didn't want to tell him that I really only have two and a half years left. "Don't be sad. Sure, we'll get older, but we'll still be the same people." The song had been about growing up and still staying close to your families, even if you do live miles apart.
"But I don't want to ever get older." He said. And so I stuck out my pinky finger.
"Okay then. Pinky promise me that you'll never get old, and I'll pinky promise you that I'll never get old either."

We pinky swore, and then he said, "But we will get old. Everyone gets old."
And I said back to him, "Not everyone gets old. Being old is just a part of the way you think. If you still think like a kid, you still act like one. But you just have to be a more mature kid."
He said, "You really think so?"
and I said, "I really think so. When we're 80 years old, we'll be watching Phineas and Ferb in our wheel chairs."

That whole moment really struck a chord with me.
I've never been scared of dying, I've always been scared of getting old.
And aren't we all?
Aren't we all scared of waking up one day years from now and realizing that we've already lived the better half of our life?
I know I am.

Which is why I think it's important to have so many goals so that you'll always have something to strive for.
I want to see the world. I want to meet amazing people like Olle and Koas! Not saying that you guys aren't unique, (Du är fortfarande inbjuden till kvällsmat när som helst, Olle! Ochjag är fortfarande försöker att inte låta så dum när jag försökerprata på svenska) because you both are :) And you both also have really good taste in music!
Anyways, I want to meet so many new people from all walks of life. From different cultures, religions, etc. 
I really don't care who you are, as long as you have an interesting story to tell. If you've just recently started reading my blog, feel free to comment! I'd love to actually talk to the people that suffer through this. 
You can always contact me at knockedaskew@gmail.com


I have way more topics to cover, but I'll go ahead and post this one :) 

Peace, love, and cool accents, 
                                               Sara 

Time is flying by

Today in yearbook class, Elizabeth found this long paragraph about what it means to graduate from  high school and honestly, it made me want to cry. Because I don't want to miss all of these amazing people that I've grown up with. I don't want to miss having Paige right next door to talk to whenever. I don't want to miss any of this fun time in my life. And sure, we all have to grow up, but every time I think about what it will mean to be out of high school, I get a lump in my throat. So in the following paragraph, I'll underline all of the parts that hit me the hardest. :) We should all realize that time is flying and that pretty soon, we're going to have to grow up and make a real life for ourselves. Here it is :)

Senior year is unlike any other. Here are a few things you should know.. It won't hit you when you wake up for your last first day of school. It won't hit you as you walk into the Senior locker bay for the first time as an official senior. It won't hit you when you cheer at your last homecoming pep rally and attend your last football game. It won't hit you as you go to your last homecoming dance and realize Prom is way better without the lower classmen and the DJ. It won't hit you as you enter the floor to perform at state for the last time. It won't hit you as you fill out the countless college applications. It won't hit you as you write that generic essay letter that you try to use for all your applications. It won't hit you as your college friends return for Christmas break and give you all their advice. It won't hit you as you celebrate New Year's with the friends you have known since childhood. It won't hit you when you cheer at your last Senior night and cry your eyes out! You won't feel it when you are having the time of your life at your last spring break. You don't realize it during Senior skip day, when everyone, no matter what group you are in, has a picnic. When May finally comes around and you realize that it is your last Prom, but you don't really feel it when you are there having the time of your life. You begin to realize it at Graduation when you look around and realize that you will never see half of these people again. You will begin to see it more over the summer when everyone is getting their roommates, class schedules, and going to orientation. It still hasn't fully hit you when you are sitting in your room packing up the past 18 years of your life, laughing with your best friend about all the stupid stuff you've done. You might feel it the morning you leave for college as that it is the last time you will see your room, your parents, and your best friend for like 3 months. It will finally hit you when you are sitting in your dorm room with a perfect stranger, that you have to live with for the next year. Please, Please, PLEASE make every moment of your Senior year count, you only get to do it once. College will be a lot of fun, but in the meantime, jump at every opportunity you get to do anything that you have ever wanted to do. Spend as much time with friends as possible, for it will not be long until you meet new people and inevitably grow apart.

Well there it was :'( It just get's me all torn up! My friends mean the entire world to me, and I know I'm not coming back here after college. I just hope I can keep them around for as long as possible haha :)

Wolves in cages

The last thing I expected to see at the fair today were wolves in little cages.
I'm an animal lover right? Which is why it shocked me when I saw a little area marked "See the Wolves".
Initially, I'd said that I didn't want to go in and see them because of how sad it was. I changed my mind when I realized that it was a great opportunity to blog about.
I paid a dollar and walked inside and saw this wolf standing at the cage bars, looking out at the muddy fair grounds.

It broke my heart seeing her just looking out from the bars like that. On the wall, a sign assured everyone that these animals were part of the North Carolina animal sanctuary, but the carny outside didn't look like anyone that I would picture working at an animal sanctuary. I could smell the stench of his cigarette from inside the small trailer.

I'm not sure if they were actually treated well, but the wolf in the picture never stopped pacing around the cage.

This wolf's eyes were so pretty and yellow. 

How awful it must be, to go from being completely wild, to being trapped in a small cage surrounded by staring faces.

Here's something that was a little coincidental and somewhat funny due to the circumstances.

See that camper? It says "Beck's Bunkhouse". In the book Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater, one of the main characters is Beck and he's the pack leader of the wolves :) 
You can see how this is ironic if you've read the books. 


We should never take for granted any of the wonderful creatures living around us.

~Sara