Who Revolves Around Who?

The Sun, something so vital to our existence, to the way we live out our life. We have been taught about it ever since we were young, the blindingly bright sphere of fire that floated above us in the sky. The main source of energy on this Earth, the reason we are alive. Yet it isn’t grammatically correct to capitalize it. It is said to be spelled “the sun” but I am here to tell you differently.

We are to capitalize the first letter of our names because we are proper nouns. But in reality our significance is incomparable to the Sun’s. We are small individuals thriving off of the Sun and the Earth. We did not work for these things, they are our guardians, our care takers, what we actually need for survival. Yet us insignificant little destroyers of nature can’t even let the fucking Sun have a capital letter? We are so selfish, ignorant, self indulgent to the point we give our underserving selves capitalization yet the Sun and the Moon are to be uncapitalized.

Let’s play a little trivia: what would happen to the world if we suddenly disappeared? Whether you like it or not, this wouldn’t be a tragedy but rather a regular loss, in the Earth’s point of view anyways. Elimination of a species from Earth, it’s got it’s own word, extinction. That’s all it would be, another case of mass extinction. Next question: what would happen to the world if the Sun lost flame and flickered it’s last beam of light? This would change everything. Not only would we die, but the Earth would be on its way to losing every last species that inhabits it. Earth would be just another empty, cold, planet. So may I ask you now, which of us is more important? The Sun, or us as individuals?

Businesses, cars, magazines, books, countries, people, clothes lines, street signs, the list goes on and on. We throw capitalization at just about everything and anything in this world, significant or not. Except for the Sun. The one thing that deserves to be spelled as if it were the king of the world, because it was, because it is, because it always will be. Is it so hard for us humans to give the damn thing that keeps us alive a capital letter? So I realize my one blog post most likely won’t change the rule but if you read this all I’m asking you to do it take just a moment longer to when writing “the sun” and make it “the Sun.” And remember, the Sun doesn't revolve around us, we revolve around it. Therefore, do it for the thing that our life literally revolves around (Sun puns ?)

Photo courtesy: Houghton

Drawing the Line Between Childhood and Adulthood

If you are a teenager I’m sure you’ve heard an adult telling you that you need to handle things like an adult would or assuring you that you are an adult now and you need to act like it. It’s irritating to hear this. I’m not an adult, I’m already mature beyond my age, and now you’re asking me to be an adult.

No.

I am not an adult, I am not even close, I have so much more to learn and to experience in life before I even want to think about classifying myself as an adult. And in the meantime I’m going to live out this limited time I have to be a child. To make dumb decisions and be recklessly stupid. These are my trial years to life and I’m going to take them to the limit.

Technically, by doing so I am preparing my self for adulthood. If I only experience being a good kid all throughout childhood then there’s a higher probability that it will be during adulthood that I begin to make illogical decisions. The problem is that my life won’t be as forgiving when I don’t have parents paying for my care. If I make a shitload of shit decisions when I’m an adult and having to handle my own well being, it’s not going to end well.

Now I’m not encouraging for you to go out and do things that will most likely impact your future life badly. Don’t go get addicted to drugs and literally make every bad decision possible, but don’t feel too guilty over every single bad one you make.You need these less than great choices to learn what it feels like to mess up. No one can expect you to make all good choices. No one can expect you to be an adult at fifteen. Even so, adults don’t make all good decision either. So really, adults aren’t much to strive towards being. No offense.

So the next time an adult tell you to be more adult like in your decisions, the way you act, or anything similar to so, please remind them you are not an adult. Look them in their eyes and say “I am not an adult, you can not expect me to be one.” It’s time to draw the line between childhood and adulthood. Who really wants to be an adult anyways?

Stay young my friends, stay young.

Photo courtesy: Children's Ministry

168 Hours in a Week

“You’re lazy.”
“You don’t work hard.”
“You think the world revolves around you.”
“You get all of what you have handed to you.”
“You get good grades because of the school that you go to.”
“You ride horses? You must be rich.”
“You’re a selfish little bitch.”
This pretty much sums up what people think of me. This sums up what I hear every week, or even every day. It makes me sick to my stomach. It makes me cry. It makes me feel unappreciated. It has caused me to have depression, at the youngest of ages.

I first experienced depression in sixth grade when people told me “You’re so skinny, you’re going to die.” Or they would ask me “Are you anorexic?” or “Do your parents feed you?” Nearly every day I would go home crying my eyes out because people would bully me about how much I weighed. I began to develop clinical migraines from the amount of stress that I was experiencing.

In seventh grade it only went downhill. First my grandpa died, he was the closest family member I had after my parents and his death rattled me. I never let myself grieve his death. I forced myself to forget that he even ever existed. This wasn’t by choice, it was because at the time I was already emotionally unstable, and I wasn’t about to let myself fall into the deep pit of grief that I knew was awaiting me. But this did not fix my depression, and next my very best friend left me the summer after seventh grade. She went from FaceTiming me for hours at a time each day to not ever texting me back. I didn’t know what I had done wrong, all I knew was that another huge people figure in my life was gone.

In eighth grade I developed what I called separation anxiety. When I felt alone, too alone, I would have an anxiety attack that would begin with me feeling nauseous, then shaking, then full out balling, rocking back and forth on my tailbone as my whole body shook like an earth quake. I got migraines every one to two weeks, and school didn’t help.

I forced myself to forget about all of this, just like I forced myself to forget my papa (grandpa). But it all came back the other day when I was with my friend. We were talking about the sadder aspects in our lives when it all came rolling back into my brain. How hurt I really am, how messed up I really am, how bad my depression actually was and still may be. But I got so goddamned good at hiding it from others that I could hide it from myself too. I had ignored it, shoved it into the very back of my thoughts, but it was still there. School gives me no time to handle my own personal needs. I have no time to have a mental health day. I have no time to waste crying over what my life actually is because I spend approximately 40 hours at school, 21 hours on homework, 12 hours at the barn, 10 hours eating, 56 hours sleeping, 2 hours showering, 5 hours getting ready for school, and 4 hours on the bus every single week. Do you know how many hours are in a week? 168 hours. Do you know how many hours those numbers add up to? 168. This is how I spend my weeks. Do I have enough time to be stressed? To take a minute to just focus on breathing? No. So am I lazy? Is using every single hour of your week that you can for productive purposes what you call lazy?

My cat being adorably lazy, as always.

Suicide is a Permanent Solution to Temporary Problem

Suicide. It’s a term that parents refrain their kids from knowing about. It is shamed upon. We run away from it; we don’t understand it. But it’s time to talk about it. I have a dear friend that has struggled with this. His brother attempted in sixth grade by overdosing on Ibuprofen, luckily he was found and saved. But, did he want to be saved? Was he okay with the thought of his slow and painful death when he was sitting on the cold bathroom floor, weak and unable to change his mind if he wanted to? Or had he accepted the fact that he was about to leave Earth, never to be seen alive again? My friend’s next two encounters were his own, he followed his little brother’s lead and swallowed a whole bottle of Advil. One-by-one they went down his throat.

Somewhere around this time, he ran away. I was worried sick, I didn’t know where he was, or if he was okay, or if I would ever see him again. First it was unreal to think that one of my very best friends had left me without saying goodbye. I was so stressed out that I failed a math quiz. That was my first reaction. Then a couple days later, I found myself teary-faced staring at my boat where most of our camping adventures took place, and then my jeep trailer where we would hide out from all of the Ashtyn-obsessed children that camped with us in Moab. He was a friend different from all others, he was the friend that I only ever saw in my happy places; Moab, Jordanelle Reservoir, and Flaming Gorge Reservoir. We were all happy there, no problems, only good times, boat rides, jeep trailing, and campfires. It was a surreal place with dreamy memories, no one was ever not happy there. And that’s how I remembered him, I never realized how serious his depression was until he was gone. But he wasn’t gone forever, he came back about 30 minutes after my breakdown.

A lot of people mistake my care for him as me “liking” him as more than a friend. But this isn’t the case. I care about him because he is my best camping buddy, he is my friend, he is my brother that I never had. And to hear that he hates life, that he doesn’t really want to be here, it kills me. But on January 1st, 2016 during our hour and a half long conversation at 6 in the morning he told me something about suicide that changed his mind. He said “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” That quote reversed his thinking. That quote save his life. And I will always respect those words for saving my camping buddy from choosing death over life.

"No Violence Statue"

Photo Courtesy: Prospect

The Fault in Your Birthday Cake Candles

When I was little my dad used to say “you’re growing like a weed, goose” and “maybe if I stop feeding you, you’ll stop growing.” I would always react by angrily telling him that he was dumb because I would die if he stopped feeding me and at the time I didn't think that weeds were pretty so I’d tell him that I grew like a flower. But standing here as a freshman who spends most of her time with a junior and some fellow freshman students, I regret how I treated my childhood. All kids want to do is get older and older, they count each and every candle on their cake just to make sure it is just as many as their new age. Those very candles burned out my creativity. Now you can picture yourself, all dressed up perched on your chair, eyes focused and reflecting the small buds of fire melting undesired wax onto your frosting, eagerly waiting for the untuned singing voices to stop. All for what? To blow out those damn candles. To be able to say “I’m six” instead of “I’m almost six.”

Truth is, I would do a lot of things to be almost six again. I would do a lot to go back to the time that I didn’t know what dirty jokes were so I could speak freely without the worry that people would laugh because what ever I said relates to sex some how. But no, I’m stuck here for a little while. I’m stuck seeing people that I love want, and try, to commit suicide. I’m stuck seeing the people that I love cut. I’m stuck here seeing the people that I love drown in their own goddamn tears. I’m stuck here seeing people I love burn in the extra fire those new candles provide because they just can’t blow them out anymore. I’m stuck here. And I’m sick of it.

The ironic thing is, no matter how much I hate those candles, I still look forward to them. I still have hope that they’ll bring me to a better place. That it’ll be better when I’m fifteen. They are a drug. The glory of age is a drug. It makes it hard to stay centered in your life. Its magnetic force pulls me so hard that I have to remind myself that the things I am touching and the objects surrounding me are real. My mind is so busy I forget to “stay real.” I’m so content thriving in my thoughts that I can’t focus at what I’m doing at that actual moment. I work in auto pilot most of the time, so used to my life, so bored, that I keep myself entertained in a separate dimension while I nearly unconsciously do what ever it is that I am supposed to be doing. This is why if you were to ask me to describe what I did yesterday I wouldn’t be able to tell you without struggling to remember what I actually physically did yesterday. I’m constantly trying to escape the now by time traveling into the future. So theoretically, I’m constantly trying to escape my current age, by day dreaming about the next cake full of candles I get to see.

Photo Courtesy: my mom, Kristin (yes, that is me)

What's Wrong With The World?

Though Earth is only one in an infinite amount of planets out there, it’s the only one we know of that can host the survival of creatures like ourselves. But people seem to think that the world is the same thing as the Earth and that the world is what is wrong with us.

world |wərld|
1 (usu. the world) the earth, together with all of its countries, peoples, and natural features: he was doing his bit to save the world.
(the world) all of the people, societies, and institutions on the earth: [ as modifier ] : world affairs.

“All of the people, societies, and institutions on the earth” the world is not what’s wrong with us, we are what’s wrong with the world. We our very selves, are the world. We are the world as we know it, living our day-to-day lives on the Earth. We are not the Earth, we are the things ruining the Earth. And in doing this, we are ruining the homestead of our world. So when it comes down to it, we are ruining, destroying, ourselves.

Now, I am not proposing a solution. I do not believe that there is a solution. For every star that there is in space, there is a solution to this problem. The most simple one would be to kill off every single human being on this planet, but that’s not the most self-satisfying one. The problem is, every single human on this planet would have to contribute in their own ways, and that is just not going to happen. I have absolutely no faith that that many people would care. Hell, I don’t even care enough to do something. I have ideas of things I could do, but I have no time to do them. Even if I did have time, I’m too lazy. This is the problem for most others in this topic too. I know I’m not alone. No matter how many commercials, seminars, ads on billboards, and etc. I see, I will probably never decide to actually go and make a change. I hate myself for it, but it’s true.

That right there is the problem with the world. The fact that we are too caught up in our own lives to even think twice about going out and cleaning up our societies. We are the problem. We are the heart and soul of our own disastrous world. We are the reasoning for the tears we cry. We are the reasoning for depression. We are the reason for suicide. We are the reason for rape. And what are we going to do about it? We are going to put our heads down and act like nothing has ever been any better.

Photo courtesy to: Athenaeum