Raving: Let's Go

[gildedmuse]

I love reading. I'll read almost anything, it's true, but I have this passion for books and the written word. I love learning new ideas, having them wild all over the page or neatly organized in a clip list. I love that, in reading, someone can make whole arguments to you and no one is there to counter them or shut them up. You just read and listen

Comments

Re: admiration

[gildedmuse]

Thank you. I have to admit that I haven't exactly taken off to explore America's wide open heart but I find myself too attached to school at the moment (I don't feel bad about this - my teachers are brilliant and I feel so well equipped with the words of some of these writers connecting me to new ideas and sparking my own original thoughts from sudden jolt of life they give me). Still, after years of awkward shyness I spent last year pushing myself, making a conscious attempt to ignore that built in voice that tell us "no, good girls don't say those sort of things - good girls don't make such stands" and found that what I thought was simply my personality, a quark that kept my quiet, was not my voice at all. I still hear it whispering sometimes and now it sounds so strange and foreign and not at all part of me, something else telling me what to do and I let it control me for so long. I still let it sometimes, and maybe the damage is done, maybe it'll always be there, but after so long I've finally learned. It's a sneaky little thing, but I can catch it when I listen, when I pay attention.

There's learning - there's always learning! - but you have to be willing to learn. It felt at first like being wrong, but it's not about being wrong - that's a simplified and defensive way to look at it. It's about being open to change, to knowing that what you learn will make you better in the future, not worrying because it means your wrong in the past.

Sorry I'm rambling, but I've just had the most amazing day. I sat with strangers - just some kids that happen to be next to me in the library - and for four hours we talked about life and change and that rush you get when you read something and it clicks and those moments when you know something and it feels so powerful that you shake and have to start talking or at least smiling or something because it has such a power that no human body can contain the whole of it. I could have never done that a year ago, just open myself up and if they think I'm mad than I'm mad but at least it's just me, and we disagreed about things, sure, but we kept talking and I am so in love with the moment that it doesn't even matter what they think when it ends.

I want to make this the first step. Like I said, it has taken some effort, but I find the results so amazing! So beautiful! Me! Who knew I was so powerful and opinionated and brilliant and beautiful! Has this been in me the whole time? It feels fresh but familiar and raw and holy and visceral. I have moments where I let my thoughts just run and then suddenly they crash into this moment and I can't stop smiling.

Yes, there is still depression.

Yes, there is still doubt.

I'm human and things are hard sometimes and I cry - but I think that's good. I never cried before really, not until recently. I think I've tapped into something. You open yourself up, you have to be willing to open to everything and that means more bruises and things cut close and it self doubt stings so sharp that it's overwhelming, but like I said it's a first step. If I want to stand up in front of the whole country, first I have to learn how to stand. I'm finding my footing, I'm speaking my minds.

I think it's important to remember, you can only building something whole if you have the parts. I need to be shaken from complacency. I need to feel shattered. I don't think being broken is as bad as they have lead us to believe. I think maybe it's a wonderful thing, to see what parts make up you, to see that you are not a oneness you are a whole that only works because you're made up of different parts, little things, at once many and whole. Why do we have to be one or the other?