confused.

I guess I'm back at it again. This whole writing thing. Goodness knows that, when armed with flavoured water, no sleep, and strong convictions, I simply will not shut up.

I don't even know how to start this piece. How to go about it.

I could tell you a story, I suppose. Or begin with a quote. Or even write up a thesis statement. But I just don't feel like those would do the trick. I just want to rattle off my thoughts and feelings.

It looks like I'll start from my truest beginning: the heart.

This one is particularly aimed at those in a similar situation as myself, though the overall message is applicable to most everyone. I hope that, no matter who you are, where you are in life, you can take value from between these lines. (and it isn't often that I encourage people to read between the lines)

To put it most bluntly, I move to college in a mere sixteen days. August 18th. 10 o'clock AM.

This in itself is not a serious concern of mine. I have laid out the things I am certainly taking, and have left the remaining items to be sorted at a later date, namely clothing and snack foods.

Possessions aside, there is one thing left to pack, something horribly important that I have yet to figure out how to transport:

Myself.

Have you ever wished that your personality could be boxed? that you could be summed up easily and accurately with a few basic words? that your life's purpose was written clearly, for you to see and know and strive toward? that you could bullet-point or number off your list of priorities and thereby spare yourself the difficulties that come with decision-making?

I find myself in this place...wishing I could be compacted. Made to fit in with little resistance. No awkward angles, no wiggle room, no potential for error.

I don't know who I'm taking to college on August 18th. She has a name, some government-issued numbers, and a lot of potential. She has a few loyal friends, an affinity for success, and a profoundly strong ability to forgive.

But beyond that, I don't know who she is. She's been eighteen years in the making, climbing every ladder she could, making as many friends as enemies, and learning all the material her brain could handle. She's seen and done so much, and yet she lacks clarity and accomplishment.

I wish I were definite. That I could say to someone "I am [positive adjective]" and would never stray from that definition. I wish that I were true, through and through, and that my character could never be called into question by the things I say or do.

And yet, that's all I've done: called myself into question. Repeatedly. Especially this past year, when most of the decisions I made revolved solely around my own selfish quests for gratification and ownership. The couple times when reconciliation became a surprising option, I lied to make someone else feel satisfied...at the expense of my true heart. When I'm selfish, I lose. When I'm selfless, it's in all the wrong ways, and I lose. I just can't seem to win.

I've never hurt more people in my life than I did this year. I've made people my conquests. What do I have to do to win this person or this group over? What do I have to do to alienate myself from him, her, or them? How can I get what I want?

More than I've hurt others (though they might disagree), I have hurt myself. I have taken the very traits and virtues by which I aspire to live...and have used them as firepower. Call it manipulation, call it revenge, call it malice, I don't care. It is what it is. And I invited it, this ugliness, to live in me. I fostered its growth.

This girl that's currently having her life as she knows it bubble-wrapped, boxed, and taped up...she has the potential to be so great. To love fiercely and freely, to heal her heart, and to encourage others to do the same.

But she also has the potential to be cruel. She's proven herself to be a lot of things, most of which are far from noble and pure. She has wide open weaknesses that have destroyed her confidence, self-worth, and belief in grace. She coats her honesty with venom, and seeks to burn bridges once she's crossed them and gotten what she had crossed for.

I'm not the pity-partying type, but I feel sorry for her. And more than I feel sorry for her, I am angry with her.

Because there were times when people told her she couldn't do it...and she listened.
And there were times when people told her she wasn't worth it...and she believed them.

I can easily forgive those who have found themselves in the same places. I can forgive their faults, because I don't see them as weaknesses at all. I know humans are capable of trusting others too much, and that we are all capable of inflicting pain willingly and accidentally.

But I can't seem to forgive myself. I can't reconcile with these thoughts and memories. For others, it's okay. But for me...it's not an excuse; it's a vulnerability. And I never knew how to deal with it properly.

I don't want to pack up my insecurities and fears with me when I leave. Luckily, I am not attending a college where I know people who have watched me struggle. I have the benefit of anonymity, no visible past attached to my present.

My own private blank slate.

Naturally, that scares me. More than I've cared to admit to anyone, really. And loads more than I can convey through my words here. It's like having a small plot of land on which to custom-build your own home. You will either design something strong and magnificent and beautiful, or you will make a mess of things and construct something unsafe and ugly, upon an unstable foundation.

I feel like there are only two ways out:

The first, and the hardest, to be passionately in love with humanity, for all its strengths and weaknesses. To do what I believe the Good Lord put me here to do. To love others more than I love myself (that would be A LOT), and to love Him even above that. To go confidently and faithfully into the darkest places, to lean not on my own understanding and risk failure, to give up everything I ever thought I had to give what I never dreamed I could have, to suffer for the "higher purpose" that transcends the world we've made. And to do it namelessly.

The other, easier thing to do would be to quit. Lay down and let life happen, with or without me actively involved. To sit back and watch, to resign myself to the way things are, to trust that someone else will do it if I won't. This way, I would never expose myself for who I think I really am. I would never have to make that decision. I would never hand anyone a stone to cast at me. Can they really judge you by the things you DON'T do?

So I've got a choice. Just can't get a break.

Congratulations to the strong few that have decided their purpose. Good for you. Glad you figured it out. I think I'll eventually be who I want to be, but for now, I'm not so sure I even know what that looks like.

It feels like everything I thought I chose for myself...I didn't.
Whatever it is I think I am...I'm not.
Anything I thought I was made of...I eventually discovered I wasn't.
Not really.
Not opaquely.
Not solidly.

The weight of the bad choices I made this year is heavy and unyielding. To illustrate it: I sometimes feel like I'm flat on the ground, face-down, with all the weight pressing me into the dirt. I can hardly breathe, let alone get up and move forward. I feel the pebbles just as much as I feel the boulders.

It's choking me. I am suffocating.

I'm leaving in sixteen days, and I don't have space for all of these rocks. It's time to pick and choose what goes with me...and what dies when I leave it behind.

Where am I supposed to keep the darkest parts of myself? When can I start over?

Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I'm the only person who feels this way. Maybe I'm the only person idiot enough to say it out loud. As much as I mask my vulnerability and cover myself up to look certain and strong, I sure am doing a great job of exposing my fears in public forum. Ruddy inconsistency.

I wrote and delivered a speech, not too terribly long ago, in which I used the quote, "the beginning is always today."

I don't think the full meaning of those words ever truly sank in. It seems impossible, to leave who I've been behind, and walk in with no preconceived notions of self, no airs of certainty, and no cumbersome weight cracking my spine.

What will these people think of me?
What if I say something stupid?
What if I hurt someone's feelings?
What if I make a bad decision that turns people away?
What if they take me for a liar or a hypocrite, when I'm really just confused?

If there is one thing I have decided quite recently (and I mean today...which started yesterday morning, really...), it is to accept love as a part of who I am meant to be. It's the same concept of surrendering to surrender that I keep coming back to in all my writings, all my private journal entries, all my letters that I will leave behind when I die.

Sometimes, it takes more strength to say yes, than it does to say no.

For all the insults and accusations I've hurled, I never once thought it was anyone's fault but my own that I evolved into someone so cold and unsympathetic and wholly unpleasant to be around. Sometimes, I feel like I've deceived those who enjoy my company...because why would anyone want to be around me, especially when they know who I really am and what I am really capable of thinking?

Well, love is a verb. An action. A condition. A process. An evolution. And I've decided to stop sitting by, twiddling my thumbs as the world around me spins recklessly. The fact that there are multiple people that these apologies apply to is a pity, but a reality all the same:

If I hurt you, I'm sorry.
If I used you, I'm sorry.
If I judged you, I'm sorry.

But I never hated you. I hated what you did and said to me, but I never hated you.

I just don't have it in me to hate. To curse, to deconstruct, to insult, to demoralise, to discourage, to lay waste to, to destroy confidence in, to induce panic in, to break the heart of...I can and have done all these things.

But I have never ever hated. And if I truly seek to improve myself, then I never will.

Love is so much easier to pack than hatred, because it exists outside of the body. Where there is suffering, there is grace. Where there is chaos, there is peace. And where there is justice, there is love.

I believe that love transcends humanity. I'd probably chalk this up to my faith in the Creator, and my belief in His love for the Creation, but that's all very complicated and I lack a complete understanding. What I DO know is this:

God is love. And love is an action. Plain and simple. Just the way I like it. It should never be harder than this.

That being said...I have sixteen days to get a decent head start on the woman I want to be. I've put it off long enough, and I've let enough people make decisions for me, dictate what I am made of. Where there is light, there is also a little bit of darkness. My only hope for humanity is that we learn to run in the light, and never pause long enough for the darkness to catch up.

I am the responsible owner of a destructive past, and the proud owner of a constructive future. I commit to developing myself into a fierce lover, and I resolve myself to be strong enough to say no...but also to say yes. I promise myself that I will only take steps forward, and will stop dwelling so ashamedly in the past.

I believe in love.
And I think I finally believe in myself.

"The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change." -Carl Rogers