It is sometimes very hard to figure out the real happiness that one is missing in their lives, all the while thinking that what they have is sufficient. I was in content with the life I was living, with the fixed routine I had, with following my schedule and not ever willing to commit the sin of thinking out of the box, with criticizing anyone/everyone who tend to not follow the life I had, but at the same time it all seemed as if I was the only one doing such a thing. When we first made the plan of going to Poconos during the summer of last year, to sit in a car for three hours just to enjoy the serene and beautiful scenery and to breathe in the fresh air of the mountains. I had packed myself every essential that I deemed necessary to save me from boredom, I had learned and researched everything I could to make myself well equipped for the trip and to be well aware of what we had to do when we get there in order to save time, I had read books and articles about the local vicinity to know about the atmosphere of what it felt like to live there, all of these were nothing but signs that I wasn’t well occupied with the idea of being spontaneous.I guess I really wasn’t. Sometime during the trip, I forgot about everything I had planned for the trip, all the effort I put in to make this trip more comfortable for me now seemed nothing but a waste of my own time, maybe because I was so mesmerized by being and living in the moment that everything else seemed irrelevant. I know now that no matter how well he or she tries to plan everything out, the best feeling in the world is to go unplanned and live the moment, when one realizes that this feeling would have never ever been felt if it was already known them.

 

Jeff Kinney, author of Diary of the Wimpy Kid.

In the summer of last year, we planned to visit and discover Poconos was made with my friends. This plan was made literally a few days before we went. I am a very organized person and I like to do my work before the deadlines. Planning something last minute is not my quality. So this was something we would have most definitely never done if it wasn’t for my friends. They are all very well aware of how I am and they did their level best to convince me to come. Nevertheless, I went with the plan, all the while having extreme anxiety and stress. It was a three-hour drive and since we were like ten people, we had to get two cars. Initially, it was very boring because everyone was very sleepy and tired but as the day progressed, the mood in the car got better and more lively. As we got there, the serene and beautiful scenery left me in a state of amazement. This wasn’t the only thing that awed me, but hiking around the mountains and breathing the fresh air made me feel as if there was no tomorrow. One thing I did realize from this experience was that I try to follow my schedule and plan everything ahead of me when sometimes it’s good to just live in the moment.   

Every two weeks, on the third floor of a certain high school in Queens, a small group of people meet in the school’s cave (before becoming what it is today, it used to be a janitor’s closet), and they are simply known as the S.M.I.L.E. (Something More in Life’s Experiences) Monday group. Upon entering the dimly lit cave for the first time, I met Mr. Dougherty (Doc), and I found myself staring at Star Wars figurines of different sizes (Doc is a huge Star Wars fan and now has a considerable large Darth Vader statue at the corner of the cave) before finding a seat next to a fellow student, wondering if we really were just going to “talk about our feelings”. After spending several Mondays there, I realized that with the group’s mix of highly quirky students, such as the boy who wouldn’t stop talking, the girl who always said yes to people’s requests, and another boy who was a huge fan of Taylor Swift, we were all able to get along pretty well, and despite our differences in personality and age, we formed strong connections with one another.

 

Excerpt from Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See + Style Imitation

“Deep love — true-heart love — must grow. Back then I didn’t yet understand the burning kind of love, so instead I thought about the rice paddies I used to see on my daily walks down to the rive with my brother when I still had all my milk teeth. Maybe I could make our love grow like a farmer made his crop to grow — through hard work, unwavering will, and the blessings of nature. How funny that I can remember that even now! Waaa! I knew so little about life, but I know enough to think like a farmer.”

Thanks to watching numerous horror movies at quite a young age, I’ve always disliked the color red — the color of blood. Some people say that the color is lucky and wards off bad spirits, but I never believed them and often chose to avoid the color as much as possible. I stayed away from it for years, but my hatred for it dissipated after having an unusual occurrence. I was walking past the park on one chilly morning, and I couldn’t help but stop and stare at something magnificent. Amongst the small array of dreary trees within the park, there was one tree — a red tree — that stood out. I was captivated by its pure beauty, and I now have a slight admiration for the color.

I use to interpret things exclusively my way. From situations to emotions to reactions to interactions, my twelve-year-old understanding of things was steadfast and undisputable. In the moment that I decided what was right or wrong, worth it or not worth it, favorable or unpleasant, there wasn’t a thing in the world that could waive my resolve. Thing’s are only fully clear in hindsight, and I can only now see with crystal clear clarity that makes my current character wince the reality that my egotism projected unto others. Through my blinding self-regard, I would see my mothers contempt from my actions and behavior as that of a totalitarian authority, oblivious to her own interpretations and only concerned about my own. When I first got suspended from school, I was eleven, it was the sixth grade, and I followed the escort of my mother in both obstinate and aggrieved fashion, struggling to ignore the Knot ballooning from my forehead as my means of letting those telling me that I was wrong, that I was irrefutably right.

 

 

 

It was a normal morning, until it wasn’t anymore. I got a message from Carmen, she wanted me to tell our coach she wouldn’t be able to make practice today. I thought nothing of it until my coach asked, “is everything alright?” I didn’t know if everything was alright. I didn’t know what was happening, until I did. It was an indirect message verified by another friend. Carmen’s mom had passed away that morning. I was shocked. I was in disbelief. I was in tears. For the first time at an age where I was old enough to understand death, I had lost someone I cared about. I learned that when a death catches you by surprise, it makes all the difference. It makes the grief one hundred times worse.

 

Paulo Coelho Style Imitation:

“THE BOY’S NAME WAS SANTIAGO. DUSK was falling as the boy arrived with his hear at an abandoned hurch. The roof had fallen in long ago, and an enormous sycamore had grown on th espot where the sacristy had once stood. He decided to spend the night there. He saw to it that all the sheep entered through the runined gate, and then laid some planks across it to prevent the flock from wandering away during the night…He swept the floor with his jacket and lay down, using the book he had just finished reading as a pillow. He told himself that he would have to start reading thicker books: they lasted longer, and made more comfortable pillows.”

It was early evening and class had just ended. The students rush out of classrooms, piling into the elevator making their way down to the first floor and out the building. Everyone squeezes themselves into the 6 train, same as always during evening rush hour. Everyone is eager to go home, not just the students, the passengers leaving work, too. They all make their daily commute home just in time to join their family for dinner at seven o’clock.

 

Life is weird. Growing up in my neighborhood was a lot of fun, it was full of kids around my age so most of us grew up together. We all went to the same elementary school and took the school bus home. We played outside in our front yards after school and on the weekends. Our parents knew each other, they were the type of neighbors that we don’t see anymore. It was a simpler time. It amazes me how life plays out. I think the internet had a lot to do with killing my childhood friendships. We all still live on the same block but we don’t talk to each other. Middle school was the beginning of the end. We all went to different middle schools and made new friends. In middle school, I made friends that I would go on to keep for the past 7 years, who would’ve thought that my closest friends would be people that lived farther away than the friends I had on my block. (Joan Didion)

It was January 2018, a new year, a new me. I come home after school one afternoon, I see my mother and father in the living room. My mother tells me that my uncle died. It went in one ear and out the other, I was unphased, I snapped back into reality and consoled my mother as she began to cry. Family holds the number one spot on my priority list, I am extremely close to my immediate family. This year has taught me that life comes at you fast, I never believed it until it happened. When my uncle died, I felt nothing, not the heartless sort of nothing but the nothing where I couldn’t bring myself to cry or feel sadness. My uncle was a stranger to me, to my younger self he was someone I cared about. As the years went by so did my relationship with my uncle. The year before he died he reentered my life and I started talking to him again., but when he died, it was like a vaccination, it happened so suddenly that I guess I didn’t have time to react. After the death of my uncle, I started to see the effects it had on my family. My other uncle started visiting us more but that’s what amazed me the most, death brings about reflection in the living. My mother’s side of the family came to the realization that they weren’t as close as they used to be. (Lois Lowry)

“The adoption happened when I was so young…I feel so alone…”, I nodded mindlessly in sympathy as his words weaved in and out of my head, like someone was cupping my ears and then releasing them. I was in disbelief. His tousled hair and nearly sunk-in eye sockets contrasted with his attempt to mask his sleeplessness with a smile. I looked away, out of guilt, when the boy asked me what I would do if I had lost 2 of my fake parents to a car accident and I was the only one who had survived. It was wintertime and I could not bare to see the already bony-looking child leave without a coat,  since he was dressed in only a long-sleeve shirt and oversized jeans. However, when I searched the back closet, I could only scrape up a few raw carrots and a scarf. There were a million questions attacking my mind, like where was Social Services? Or how come no one was helping this poor child? Or where did he come from? Right then, uncontrollable tears formed and I settled on the floor and I realized with how grateful I was to even have a family. I collected my emotions and walked back to the boy, who was happily slurping Campbell’s chicken noodle soup, and whispered, “I’ll come back tomorrow, don’t worry”.

Agatha Christie

Her icy blue eyes pierced through the small group of people, her voice, exquisitely toned, demanded, “Who killed my husband?” A 6 foot man with a distraught expression murmurs, “I have to go to the bathroom.” and noticeably slips from the huddle. “Well, someone look after him! HE seems suspicious.” Thoughts were all over the place, people were all over the place, as they were trying to figure who in the group was the murderer. “This is my family. How could one of them murder my husband? …It must be Wyatt, my older brother and war veteran suffering from PTSD who coincidentally left for the bathroom. My husband and Wyatt have never liked each other. This family gathering turned into a horror film in less than 3 hours,” She thought frantically to herself. Suddenly, the family’s waiter shuffled out of the huddle. “Put your hands up, otherwise the kid won’t make it until the end of the night.”

 

“What do you want to do as an adult?” They’ve always asked me this question, but I didn’t bother answering it anymore. My responses were always different and none of them were true. I said I wanted to be an analyst, and a programmer, and a manager. There were many options floating about and all were meaningless. The same question presented itself time and time again. Family, friends, and teachers alike wondered about my aspirations. I realized that I don’t need to figure out my fate yet. College began and my worries about my future disappeared .

 

Mark Twain (Huckleberry Finn)

Dan he sent me a message — a really funny one too — and we went rushing to the corner. When he was close he whispered to me, and wanted to pull a prank on Kev for the laughs. And I said yes; he’s had it too good for too long, and then he’d get what he’d deserved. Then Dan said he hadn’t thought it through. I didn’t want him to chicken out.

 

 

 

Cheating doesn’t seem like such a bad idea, until you get caught. I’m sure everyone has gone through the pressure of having studied all night for a test, having the test placed in front of you, palms sweaty, thoughts all over the place, and still not understand any word of it. Then you start looking around, everyone has their eyes on their paper, and in the corner of your eye you catch a glimpse of the classmate next to you, who seems to know what she’s doing. I couldn’t help it. It was torture, trying to remember what I studied, in the silent classroom where you could hear a pin drop. My eyes automatically started to wander, to the front of the classroom, to where the teacher was sitting, to the teacher herself, to a classmate writing vigorously, and onto the classmates paper. When she wrote down an answer, so did I. When she erased an answer, so did I. I was using my eyes to follow in her footsteps, without her being aware, but I, foolishly, forgot that the teacher had eyes too.

Dr Seuss Style Imitation:

From “I Love My Job!”

“I love my office and its location, I hate to have to go on vacation. I love my furniture, drab and grey, and piles of paper that grow each day!”

I want to go home and sleep all day, I would hate to ever go out of my way. I love my bed, big and wide, and all the stuffed animals that I collected with pride.”

People are always asking what the meaning of life is, pretty much what you spend a whole semester on in some philosophy class, a class I will never take, but are never satisfied with the answer they get. I personally never really cared about the answer, it was always some pessimistic shit or something positive, I always gave a pessimistic answer. But I think the answer that sticks with me the most to this day is “The meaning of life is to give your life meaning,” which is such a simple answer, and knowing this now I just finished a semester of philosophy so I’m going to request that I get the college credits for it, but … (NOT FINISHED)

You learn that not everyone wants to love you. After weeks spent talking for hours, there is no obligation to continue the conversation. Often, people are just bored, bored with their meaningless lives, and bored with their time. But they found you, a glimmer of light in their dark lives, and they thought this could be fun. So you spend all your time together, hoping it will never end. But then it ends, and you are left with a hole the size of them. Their words meant nothing, they were just bored. They’re gone, and you’re left alone to pick up the pieces. And this is how you learn, not everyone wants to love you, some people are just bored.

______________________________

Style Imitation: Rupi Kaur

you were a dragon long before

he came in and

said you could fly

 

you will continue to be

long after he is gone