Dumb Girls and Stick Shifts

I dated a boy. He was broken up with his girlfriend. When we were done with our thing, they ended up getting back together. She doesn't like me. They both work at the pool now. I rotated next to her at work and was a little bit less than pleasant because I don't particularly like the way she treats him, and I also hate it when girls say to their boyfriends, "well you can't be friends with this girl anymore because I don't like her." Today she decides to send me a text to make sure we're "cool" and that what's happened in the past won't "interfere with work or anything." I simply said back "No, nothing will interfere with work," because that's true, at least on my part. I usually try not to let anything from my personal life work it's way into my employment if I can help it. Anyway, she says "Alright, thanks. You're not mad or anything right?" and I just didn't respond. What reason do I have to be mad? I don't think I'm entitled to be mad about anything in this situation.

But I also don't believe I owe her any type of communication. I come to work, I do my job, I pay as little attention as possible to my coworkers while I'm there. I'm not there to make friends or be friends with the people I work with. I don't need to be on great terms with everyone, I'm fine just where I am. And I'm a little bit ticked that she used our work-based website to get my phone number to text me about something like this. Really? Stop being insecure, don't be a bitch to your boyfriend, and maybe you wouldn't feel like you had to get fake-close to someone you don't even like so that you can try and have more of an "in" to check up on him. Reality check - I don't do the whole "fake person" thing. Leave me alone and I'll leave you alone. But don't kid yourself and expect me to stop being friends with him. I'm not a pushover and I'm most definitely not afraid of you.

Also today I got my beautiful car. It's a stick shift. Needless to say, I can't drive it yet. But people kept telling me, "Oh it's not that hard, you'll get the hang of it real fast." I know it's only been one day, but I can tell you already those people obviously don't remember the first day of driving a stick or are super-human. I was absolutely mortified, my expectations were too high, I was frustrated, embarrassed, anxious, and all around just pissed. And driving with my mother obviously just enhanced all of that. But now that I know what to expect, maybe I can go into it with a different set of expectations tomorrow - and by a different set of expectations, I mean no expectations whatsoever. I love that car, and I will learn to drive it.

But, I ran away from all that poop and had a good night with a good friend, for the second night in a row. I might be treading on some dangerous waters...but I think that's a risk I'm just going to have to take. Plus, I could be misinterpreting the vibes I'm getting anyway, I'm real bad at that.

Hopeless

Every once in a while, I just get completely overwhelmed with the state of the world and I realize how hopeless it can seem. With all these people going hungry every night, all these natural disasters robbing people of everything that means anything to them, all these criminals, all this pain and hurt and misfortune in the world...it really hits me that it would take some sort of crazy, huge miracle for all of that to just go away. It really does seem hopeless. It's very discouraging. All I can ask is why? Why do these natural disasters have to rip through countries, destroying homes, communities, families, lives? Why do people have to cheat, steal, lie, murder? That part mostly just disgusts me. It makes me ashamed to be a human.

And I can't make that all go away. Sure, I can change a couple lives, and I hope that I do. But in the grand scheme of things...? I can't change the world. As much as I try, I can't. Sometimes I even feel like changing the life of one person is so far out of my reach.

I never used to see the world's problems as my own, or even really acknowledge that they were there. I never used to feel like this. It feels real heavy.

human = bush...?

Flying over Arizona in one of the many flights and means of travel I've taken part in over the last week, I was struck by how small I am compared to the rest of the world. I mean, I've never been one of those people who thinks the world consists of just their city (well at least not for the past few years), but wow. We flew over all of this completely uninhabited land where I realized I was about the same size of that one little teeny dry bush I could see down in the sand. In the grand scheme of the whole WORLD, that's my size. That expanse of land, without housing, visible animals, people, or structures of any sort, was bigger and seemed to stretch farther than anything I could mentally wrap my brain around. And that was just a few miles of Arizona; just a few miles of natural desert.

Isn't that a little bit discouraging? Not necessarily that I'm so small. But that there is so much of the world that I'm probably never going to get to see. I want to see so much, I want to do so many things, I want to read so many books...but all of those possibilities are endless. There's no way I'm going to accomplish all of that in just one lifetime. That's the discouraging part. Sure I do feel small, but I don't feel insignificant.

I think I'm just itching to do something different. Something interesting, something new. It's sad to me when I travel to another state, or even just another city in California, and I'm amazed at how much that thrills me, how new it all seems. I've never even left the country. And that is becoming increasingly irritating for me. It's like I have this unquenchable thirst to learn more, about everything in the whole world, by traveling, reading, writing, listening...and traveling to a big city or another state only satiates that thirst temporarily. But each time that thirst returns with a vengeance, stronger and more demanding than before. I just feel stuck.

Early Morning Thoughts

You know what's scary? Letting people into your life. And I mean really letting them in, not just telling them that you do, or letting them into certain parts...I mean letting them in on the whole thing.

Number one, you're trusting them with so much information that they could easily turn around and back stab you and make your life a living hell with if they wanted too. That alone makes it so hard for me to do this with people. These are the people that you tell everything to. I have two people like this in my life. But even with them...as much trust and love I have invested in them, it's still a little bit terrifying to think about how much power they could have over me. It's hard to have that trust, when the first instinct is to push everyone away. Sometimes it feels like every day there's some sort of battle over trusting or mistrusting, even with those who have never done anything to be worthy of mistrust.

Number two, how frightening to have some people that mean that much to you in a world that is terribly unpredictable? I don't think like this all the time, I rarely do, which is why the idea always catches me off guard. But when you're so close with people...to the point that you feel as if they are an extension of yourself, you gotta know it's going to hurt if they were suddenly not there. I have a hard time feeling that dependent on someone else, or knowing that if they left or if they weren't there, that it would hurt me that bad. That's what I have a hard time with...worrying that somebody I've invested this much is is going to find me replaceable and then I'll just be shoved aside. But I guess even thinking someone would do that goes back to the mistrust I said in number one.

This is a little bit of a ramble. Forgive me, it is 1:30 in the morning. It's this new theory I have: if I don't want to have a dream, or I'm afraid one I had the night before will come back the following night, I keep myself up as late as I possibly can. So that way, I'm so exhausted when I go to sleep that I'm out like a light and I don't dream. Or at least I don't remember them, and I'm okay with not remembering some of them.

Broke My Heart

I love my kindergarten class internship. I absolutely adore every one of the kids in that class and they bring so much laughter and so many smiles to my day. But yesterday was one of those days where I was reminded of what I actually can and will encounter in my future in this career.

I was sitting at a table with a group during center rotations, like I do every Wednesday morning. The kids love to chat with me during that time and tell me stories about their weeks or what they're going to be doing in the near future, or sometimes just be silly. One little girl was telling me that this week she was going fishing with her dad on a camping trip. I responded appropriately, saying something about how I'd only been fishing once, and one little boy said, "I've never been fishing before." The other kids at the table reminisced on times that they had been fishing before, and then quietly, the same little boy said, "Well, when my mom and dad stop fighting, then maybe we'll go fishing."

The other kids got off on some other tangent about something appealing and interesting, but all I could do was sit there for a minute and reflect on the magnitude of what this child had just said. It was heart-wrenching, but a very real situation. It took me from laughter and joking to this terrible aching feeling in the blink of an eye.

I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since.

Now I have something to say

I just read this article titled, "The Psychology of Revenge: Why We Should Stop Celebrating Osama Bin Laden's Death," and I think the author is completely misunderstanding what the celebratory acts are standing for. Sure, for some people who are celebrating, they are shouting in the streets and what not because he is dead. The same as would family members who watch the man who murdered another family member get sentenced to death row. Nobody makes a big stink about that because it's small scale, they celebrate, but no one really hears about it. Think about the sense of relief that a family feels knowing that that murderer is sentenced to prison and then death, knowing that they no longer have to worry about them being out in the world and causing them or anyone else more pain...

Anyway, so yes, there are people that really are celebrating Bin Laden's death. Morally wrong? I'm not so sure.

But most of the celebrating? It's not so much that he's dead as that we can now understand that all this fighting and all these troops and all these struggles were not in vain. I'm relatively sure the same celebrations would have gone on had he been brought back alive. The celebration is for the boost in morale the troops are receiving, the resolution families of 9/11 victims can now grasp, and just our country. If you talk to anybody who really knows what they're talking about in terms of the war, no one expected the capture and/or death of Bin Laden to permanently solve any problems...so no duh the "world's not safer," "evil isn't removed," and "the War on Terror isn't over." That's not the point. The world will never be a safe place and the world will never be rid of evil and of course Bin Laden is not the only terrorist. But when so many shortcomings and failures and losses have come out of this war, I sincerely believe it is justified to celebrate one victory in support of our country and our troops.

Do you really think people are not mourning all who have been lost as Osama Bin Laden is killed? Do you really believe mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and husbands and wives and children are not sitting at home reflecting on how much sorrow and pain this man has caused? Of course they are going to mourn. But what a sense of relief! Now they may know that their soldier did not die in the pursuit of something unrealistic, that they're family member was not killed on 9/11 only to be forgotten about.

Because he is dead does not mean that we as American's do not honor life. Him being captured, dead or alive, is a big step in the direction of saving more lives from his terror. Lives of Americans and soldiers and lives of people in the Middle East. You tell a soldier he needs to "examine his own heart" after celebrating last night, and see how well that goes over. You go put yourself out there on the front lines for the last 10 years and see how that gives you a little change in perspective.

Not to mention the contradictory part of this article. First, "We are not a peaceful species." But then, "We will only have peace when we stop the cycle of jubilation over acts of violence." Even if that were to be the case, we would still be the same species, in which case we would still not be peaceful. Look, I'm one of the most optimistic people I've come across, but even I know that world peace is nothing more than an ideal. That's not pessimism, that's realism. Normally I hate that statement, but it rings so true in this case. As long as there is religion, as long as there are racial differences, as long as there are independent governments, as long as people have brains in their head with which to think for themselves, there will not be peace. YOU can do your best to treat people with dignity and respect regardless of who they are, YOU can make amends in your conflicts, and YOU can live your life the best way you think possible. But YOU are not everyone else, and other people's ideas of "living life the best way possible," are different than yours I guarantee it. And if you think that's not true, I challenge you to get outside of your box a little bit; you'll learn quickly.

No, it's not over. I will give you that. It's not even close to over. Threats are higher, backlash is a big and real possibility. But those citizens, those soldiers that chanted and sang and waved the American flag? They weren't merely celebrating the death of another human being. And I think to say so is looking at the situation from a very narrow and one-sided perspective.

What a Week!

Well. I've wanted to blog like 800 times in the past few days, but sometimes, life just gets in the way. I've also done a lot of thinking about not posting stuff about my life on here as often, like I said in a previous post, and I'm kind of back tracking on that idea. This is my blog. I can still journal and have a blog where I post some things. Plus...when I write what I think, it's automatically an insight to the person that I am. So. Well. Let's just keep it as it was. Deal? Deal.

Some blurbs on my life as of late:

I told Claire Thursday morning that it was strange in my over 4 years of being a certified lifeguard, I had never made a rescue besides an active drowning victim. Then, with a terrible headache, we went to the Centrum that night and a girl sitting at one of the tables had a full blown seizure...and I was the first responder. It ranks up there with one of the strangest and most mind-blowing experiences of my life. It's taken me days to be able to process all of what happened, because all my actions were just so in the moment; it was like automatic. I didn't think, I just did. Now I've heard about that phenomena multiple times in training before...but hearing it is one thing, experiencing it is completely different. The adrenaline rush was like nothing I could describe. And try as I might, I cannot get the image of that poor girl out of my head. I wish I knew her, or knew more about her, so I could at least figure out if she was okay. But mostly...the whole time I kept wishing that there was more I could do for her but honestly, for seizure victims there is so little that can be done. Just waiting there with her for the paramedics was the hardest part.

And how aggravating is it that people have to be so SELFISH when something like that is happening to somebody else? What compels people to just stop what they're doing, and come watch like it is an entertainment show?! I'm an introverted person, truly, I see a lot of things that I don't like, but I lack the courage and am far too shy to say things (so I usually write it down here), but call it the adrenaline or the automated mode that I was in, but I have never been as straight-forward with rude people as I was that night. Like really, is it that hard to put yourself in the victim's shoes and think, "Hm, if this was happening to me, would I want a bunch of people standing around staring at me?" I don't think so.

So that's that. Thursday, prior to all of that, I went to a small group discussion with a retired Navy veteran and a member of the reserves for the Marine Core. It was interesting to listen to them talk about their experiences in war and how coming back was for them...but I was a little disappointed because both of them admittedly had ideal military experiences. They spoke about what it was like for others who were not as fortunate as they were...others who struggled with PTSD, struggled to resume civilian life, struggled not to lose themselves. I'm not ignorant, I know the majority of military members don't have that ideal experience, so I felt like I was being a little bit protected from the truth. I don't like that, big pet peeve. But! I'm not saying it wasn't a valuable experience. I'm very glad I went.

Today Osama Bin Laden was finally killed. I'm currently texting poohad about that, but that's got my brain going a whole lot too. What I'm gathering in my head is that I believe this is great for the morale of Americans and soldiers both home and overseas, but the possibility of a backlash is still scary. I think the world is the only thing that has the power to make me even the littlest bit pessimistic. Either way, my prayers continue for the troops. I'll refrain on much else about that on here, mostly because my brain is still processing a lot.

Once I finish my book for English, I'll have another post that has been a long time coming.