Daydreaming...

I don't know about you, but I daydream way too much.

I daydream about the thing I should have said. I daydream about how things are going to be in five years. Ten years. Twenty years. Fifty years.

But I mostly daydream about one thing: getting out of here.

I'm not saying anything is wrong with Opelika; but I have been here my entire life. I've seen the same faces year after year, the same streets day after day. I want to get in my car and drive somewhere else. Somewhere totally new where I don't know any faces and I've never seen the streets.

One of my main goals in life is to get the Rhodes Scholarship during my senior year at Auburn and go to England where (hopefully) I will work towards my master's degree in English. I looked at the statistics online, and only four people have ever received the prestigious honor while attending Auburn. So, the odds are definitely not in my favor. But I am willing to work and work and work and work for it. I am willing to pull an all-nighter four nights a week (or more), not have a social life, whatever it takes to make the grades to go to Oxford University. I mean, have you ever seen the campus? It's utterly and completely breathtaking, and I would give anything to study there. Not to mention the academic aspect; it's one of the most respected universities in the world. My heart beats faster just thinking about maybe, possibly, having a smidge of a change of going there. This was probably a really boring post, but it's been burned in the back of my mind for a while now.

After all...it's just a dream.

Taking Chances.

I had a thought smack me in the face today. Do you ever have a day like that? It's like we put our philosophical hats on and start thinking about things and we realize a truth maybe we didn't realize before.

Anyway. I was thinking about how I have completely changed from two, three, five years ago. I have become extremely stand-offish and cold, and it's really, really, really bothering me. I always push people away. It doesn't matter who they are or what the circumstances are; if I feel I am getting too attached, I push them away for a while. And I know WHY I do this. I don't have to be Aristotle to figure that one out. I don't say the funny thing I'm thinking to say, because someone will just tell me it's stupid. What it boils down to is yes, I have had friends that have ditched me. Yes, I have had the people I trusted the most talk about me behind my back. Yes, I have had my heart broken. Everyone has. But this "disloyalty" that was perpetrated on me has cut me so unusually deep that the thought of ever getting extremely close to anyone is a scary and nightmarish for me to think about. I keep everyone at arm's length, because I don't want to get hurt.

No, this wasn't the thought that smacked me in the face. The thought that smacked me in the face was one sentence.

We are all running from something.

I don't care if you say otherwise; we are all running from a previous hurt that has damaged us. We are all trying to forget. But the thing is, I for some reason CAN'T forget. I can't let go of it and it drives me nuts, because I feel like if I let people get close to me, they are going to hurt me just as badly, if not worse.

There is a quote that Bob Marley said. He said, "Everyone is going to hurt you; you just have to decide who's worth it." I really hate this quote, but it's completely true. The reason I hate it is because in my perfect world where no one gets hurt, the people who are meant to be your friends or otherwise never hurt you. But that's not the case in reality.

So I guess the only thing we can do is move on. We have to let go of what has hurt us, brace ourselves for the pain might come, but hope that maybe it won't. I mean the freaking quote on my page right below the title is all about diving headfirst into life and throwing caution to the wind.

I just need to learn, accept, and apply this to my life: Life is all about taking chances; not just on situations, but on people too.

The Beginning.

Well. I hopped on the blog-wagon.

I have had one of these before. I usually start it extremely enthusiastic about my new project, faithful that I will write every week, no, every day...

This, in fact, never happens. I will forget about my blog, push it to the back of my mind with the other things on my low priority list and I will never post a thing. I will return to said blog weeks, maybe even months later to write a new post, and guess what? I forgot my password. Fabulous.

I digress. Lately, the whole "starting a blog" trend has taken my school by storm, and I figured it was time to fire up the ole blog again. I usually, when thinking about what I want to write about, think, "I have absolutely nothing to say." I mean, what am I supposed to say?

"Today was pretty good. I did okay on my Pre-Cal test and blah blah blah blah."

No. No. NO. If I ever start sounding like this, figure out my password and delete this thing. Break my computer. WHATEVER. Just as long you are not bored by my pointless rambling.

So I hope my posts are meaningful in some way. Or maybe they won't be meaningful at all, just because they were written by a teenage girl who has not experienced enough in life to be wise about anything. Who knows?

Lately I've been thinking a lot about time. It's sort of hard not to think about, with everything going on in my life. Half of the time I feel like there is way too much stretched out in front of me, a never ending stretch of road I won't reach the end of for a long, long time. Other times I feel like there is not enough, and I feel like I am literally clawing onto the passing seconds just to savor them as they speed by. I'm slowing reaching the conclusion of my junior year, and all of my friends are graduating. They will be gone, entering the real world. I will be stuck in first block at 8am, guessing the months, weeks, days, minutes, seconds, until I will join them in the daunting real world.

So maybe you can see why I am feeling sort of crazy about this whole time situation. There's not enough left with my friends, but there is way too much before I finally reach the end of my own high school career. Sometimes I feel as if I can't even imagine my senior year without them. I think, "Oh, I can't wait to do that with..." I trail off, a sickening disappointment filling me. They won't be there. Sure, they'll visit. But it won't be the same.

Maybe I'm being melodramatic. I probably am. I mean, most of them will be down the road. I can visit anytime. But the fact that I won't see them every single day like I do now is sort of depressing. But life does have its ends and its beginnings. Sure, a chapter of my life is ending in the next year, but then a new one will begin.

My life without blogging is ending, but my life with it is beginning.