The Funny Thing Is

The funny thing about love is that once it is bestowed upon someone, once one has offered the flower to someone, it is very hard to revoke. Sometimes, it is impossible. The funny thing about parents is that we the desire to love them is inherent, and the passion of which we do is derived from our births. Even people that ardently hate their parents feel an emptiness, a bitterness, and a imcompleteness in their lives. No matter how much parents screw up or kick us around, we love them. Not only that, but we also will go to the bloody battlefields for them. We're willing to get our hands dirty and protect them, defend them. The funny thing about friends is, they're hard to make, but easy to lose. Some friends, however, are hard to lose... Those are our best friends. The ones the ones who dont care if you forget to text them back. The ones who dont cry if you dont want to see a movie. The ones you dont have to lie to about having something to do. Those friends are the best. Those friends are the ones who actually matter. The funny thing about life is that this, teenagedom, doesnt ever make sense. Just as you begin to understand it, a new section of life arrives, and your thrown to your feet again.

Short and Sweet

Today was nuts... I went on a four mile bike ride! It was SO hard. My bike was WAY too small... And, considering I haven't been on a bike since about the 5th grade, I was so rusty and wobblly. In light of this story, I bring to you my daily blurb:

DO HARD THINGS. There are always challenging things out there to do. Like going on an extra long bike ride, trying out for a play, participating in a missions week. The things that create the most challenge, the things that test your limits, the things that stretch you, those are the things that make the most difference in your life. Push yourself. Test yourself. Make yourself better. Believe it or not there ARE rewards in it.

A Brand New Outlook

Seventeen. You know what the worse part of it is? Looking at the rest of your life and trying to decide what your priorities are going to be. My whole life, I looked forward to one thing: finding the Perfect Man. While my sisters have chased after Black men (we're all half black) I have always leaned the other way. Why? I'm not so sure.

My older sister chose the "way of the world". Her psyche chose to fill what I call the Daddy Void (Dad has always been present, a provider, and a lover, but never the consistent wholesome Father we needed) with dysfunctional relationship after dysfunctional relationship. She used Dad's lack of surveillance (which allowed too much freedom) to get "busy" at an early age. Needless to say I was an aunt by the agre of six.

In the other extreme, is my younger sister. She was never into boys. From an early age she "staged" her crushes so she'd have something to talk about with the other kids. By middle school she stopped caring what the other kids thought and jumped into her true interests. It wasn't until late eighth grade that she found herself a boyfriend. This boyfriend was more of a "pity relationship". He liked her and she didn't think he was terrible to be around. She, however, never liked him. Her Freshman year she had a coed best friend. Today they are a cute "semi-couple". They're on the edge of dating, but on the edge of friends. They'll get married some day.

With my two sisters in the extreme ends of the spectrum, where do I fit in? I am in the middle. I have never "consummated" a relationship with anyone. I have had exactly two boyfriends, four if you count my kindergarten and second grade boyfriends. The first Real one was Josh, a short "smart kid" with an honesty problem. We went out for exactly five days before he ditched me at homecoming (using the excuse of attending a Boy Scouts meeting) to make out with a psychotic junior. I spent part of the time in the bathroom crying and the rest of the time trying to blend into the crowd. My second boyfriend was a better experience. He was romantic and sweet. A poet, an author, and an artist. We were great together... on paper. He turned out to be A. too girly B. too clingy C. too possessive and D. too worldly, so I ended it. After that sobering experience, I swore off love. I decided that I'd find the right person one day. I began to pray that God would set apart someone extra special (let's call him Guy) for me. This leads me to my point.

I realized that if I wanted that relationship, God would give it to me. I only had to do one thing in order to get it: I had to want Him [God] more than I wanted Guy, love, or even life. Let me tell you, it is NOT an easy endeavor. But somehow, I know that I'll reach my goal. Lately its like God is this whole new thing. This whole new idea. This whole new person. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that He is there. I'll grope, feel, search, and call out until I find Him, although He is not far from me. How do I know this? The Bible tells me so. Sometimes, it's just about letting go and having a little bit of faith. Sometimes it's about trust.

Love is not love...

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

O bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wondering bark,

Whose Worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom:

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

William Shakespeare

If I could be but a poet in the years of old William. To posses the talent of words and their uses. To be able to make love more passionately than any painter e'er did on a canvass. To set life on its axis and send the universe to oblivion wtih the stroke of my pen! To be but a writer, I would never be so happy. To see people swoon at my words as if it were a set of beautiful blue eyes. What would I write? Oh I know just the thing.

Sonnet I

Oh save me not from thy eye's hopeful glance!

That thou might look upon my face once more.

Oh Spare me not one last word from thy lips!

Even the moon gives clues to her exit.

The light of thy face outshines the sun.

As the stars are thine shimmering blue eyes:

Eyes bluer than the deepest sea or sky,

Eyes that contain all of this world's wisdom.

My soul to yours will forever be tied.

Death could never divide a love like mine,

Time could never dissolve a love like mine,

Space could not dare to touch a love like mine.

Thy voice like the morning birds becons me.

I will reply like the sun's morning rays.

Brook D'lin

A Little Crazy...

Life has been a big fat crazy mess lately. It's as if you turn seventeen and all of a sudden the weight of the world is on you. You have to make intense decisions including (but not limited to) college, majors, and goals. It's as if all at once you have to think about the future and not just have fun. You begin to miss the days when "just chilling" was the days objective and regret the times when you pressured your parents into treating you like the "young adult you are". You meander down Memory Lane and it seems like just yesterday you thought boys had cooties and now you are gearing up to leave your parents and venture into a "world of your own". You think about all the things you've learned: walking, reading, riding a bike, multiplying, driving, trigonometry and the more important honesty, respect, balancing a check book. You attempt to apply these Vital Life Lessons to your life, and then it hits you: You're growing up! No wait! You're grown. Some how, in the last seventeen years, you have managed to become an adult. Gone are the days where its okay to squeeze Teddy, close your eyes, and cry. You need to make decisions, and QUICK.

This leads me to the more important question: Which path is the RIGHT path? Everybody, including yourself, has an opinion about your life. Your Mom thinks you should be a nurse, your Dad thinks you should be a lawyer, your Best Friend thinks you should be a writer, you want to be a anthropologist. It all boils down to one question: Does God actually have a plan, opinion, or will for your life? This is a question I myself have began to question. Does God exist? Absolutely. However, does He actually have an ultimate Plan for your life, or are you supposed to pick a path that allows you to live a godly life? Many people have told me that He does indeed have this awesome Plan. That if you follow the Plan, great things will happen. I kind of believe them, or at least I want to. Now my only question is: How do you know what God wants? This is a question I have no answer to. I believe you have to earnestly seek Him and beg Him to tell you. I think you have to set your face to seeking Him, and make a continuous decision to follow His Plan no matter what it is. But what do I know? After all, I am only seventeen.