Unspoken Narrative

First of all, I apologize for my absence. End of school means everything gets crazy. 1 exam left and I’ll be done high school (eep!). I don’t have a full blog post today, just an unspoken narrative from a (non)date I went on this week.

 

My Unspoken Narrative From Our First Encounter

His eye contact is so genuine –
Or is that just me staring into his eyes?

Why is he apologizing? His outfit? How did I not pay attention to that?

Why am I agreeing to play frisbee? I’m scared of anything that flies at me.
But then, I’m scared of opening up. Yet here I am. Sort of. Baby steps…

Oh shit. It’s raining and he’s supposed to be home already… The bus won’t be here for a while though.

Please don’t be my bus

Defining Love

Of course everyone has their own opinions and ideas of love and I’m sure they change over time. This is mine, in the present moment.

At 17 you are surrounded by relationships beginning, continuing, and almost always ending. And somewhere in all of that 3 words are often said. The three words that cause so much confusion, bitterness and doubt at the end of a relationship – I love you. What is it about love that makes us think so much? Why does love have to seem so infinite? It seems as if falling out of love means it wasn’t true. If you break up with someone, you couldn’t have possibly loved them. But why is this? I believe love is not such a fixed thing. It is rather an umbrella of things that the english language has summed up into 1 simple, 4 letter word. You can love someone simply, enjoying their company, admiring their perfectly imperfect selves, being engrossed in their hopes, fears, dreams and ambitions. Being captivated by the little things, like how the freckle above their lip moves as they speak or how their eyes go dull when something is wrong. You can love someone and have absolutely no idea why or how, be completely unable to explain anything about it. Or you could be so deeply in love that you feel as if the other person’s heart beats with yours, that no force in the world is stronger. However, just because your love doesn’t grow into the deepest forms of the word, do not doubt that it was real. Do not walk away from a relationship thinking it was all a lie. Understand that for what ever reason, the love stopped growing. Because love grows. And sometimes it grows on forever and sometimes it stops. There isn’t always a reason. So look back on it fondly, thankful to experience such a magical feeling that is as selfish as it is selfless – you would do so much for the person, yet they make you feel happier, more whole, more complete.

21 Questions: 5 That Got Me Thinking

Recently I decided to look up some thought provoking questions to form a sort of list to draw from when I end up in a round of 5 questions. I always try to go for questions that can tell me something about the person (If you have 3 wishes, are they all selfish? Selfless? A mixture?). But this always seems to happen around midnight when I’m too tired to think about anything interesting. On my quest for questions I stumbled across 5 that I found myself starting to answer. So I thought I’d share.

 

1. If you were to die at midnight, what would you be doing?

This one grabbed my attention because I didn’t even have to think. My automatic response was to call people I cared about and let them know that 1. I love them and 2. why I love them. Tell them what they’ve done for me. I feel like more often than not people focus on all the mistakes they’ve made, and it’s because whenever it happens people seem to point out what you’ve done. I feel it’s really important that if someone has positively impacted your life, you tell them. I try to do this as much as I can, but I would definitely spend the last few minutes making sure certain people are called. I know it’s not a super crazy fun way to spend my final moments, but it is what would make me happiest.

2. What can you do today that you were not capable of a year ago?

This one really got me, because recently (and I mean within the past month or so) I realized I finally love myself. And that took a long time. So that is my answer. This means I can now accept mistakes when I make them, and not constantly brood over them and remain angry with myself. (Instead it’s now more, well, I fucked up. It happens, I’ll accept the consequence and move on). I can accept who I am, the good and the bad. A year ago I couldn’t move on from mistakes, I’d hate myself for everything I did wrong. I’ve finally learned to let go.

3. Who do you trust and why?

I don’t really feel like posting the who. But there is one person I trust more than anyone else. And it’s because they’ve proven themselves trustworthy during times I couldn’t have expected it. We’ve had our differences, but this person could pretty well write my biography with everything they know about me. Despite this, even when we weren’t on good terms, they’ve never revealed what I’ve trusted them with. It’s not the person I’m closest to. I trust this person because I know I can. And it goes beyond trusting them not to tell other people. I think a huge part of trust is being able to somewhat guess how someone will react to what you tell them. Will they judge you? How will they react? And for the most part they understand, and I know things aren’t judged and I can always expect a calm, supportive reaction. People seem to think your best friend should be the person you trust most. For me it’s the person who has proven themselves trustworthy time after time.

4. WHen does silence convey more meaning than words?

I found this interesting. Immediately Taylor Swift’s lyric “I’ve never heard silence quite this loud” comes to mind (I used to be a huge Taylor fan, don’t judge). There are a few times when silence is more powerful than words. I think one of the most powerful times is when the silence is in someone’s absence. If someone is no longer part of your life, I believe silence is the strongest way for them to prove they truly no longer care. In fact no matter how many times the person says they don’t care, I believe it can only truthfully be conveyed in silence. Because realistically if you still have something to say, part of you still cares. Even if that part of you is an angry part. It is also one of the best ways to convey emotion. Silent anger tends to be more powerful than anything you can yell. It’s also what worries me most if someone is upset. I’m sure most people are used to how much their closest friends reveal about their problems. I have friends that share their woes with half the world, and friends that won’t say anything until you’ve pushed for a little while; to be sure you aren’t just asking if they’re okay out of obligation. Regardless, I know how much they’ll open up. And when someone is obviously upset and doesn’t say a thing, I know it’s bad. Finally I think silence reveals a certain understanding. There are times when we are at a loss for words. At those times, the correct facial expressions are perhaps all that is needed. If you can’t find the correct words, perhaps none are needed.

5. What kind of people do you hate the most?

Ignorant people. Ignorance is probably the quality I despise most. I’m talking about the people who picket against causes that support human rights (same sex marriage, for example). Or people who make comments like “why can’t you just get over it?” when it comes to mental illness, or believe one truly CHOOSES their sexuality. Also people who choose to turn a blind eye to problems because it’s easier not to deal with them. Yes, ignorance is bliss and the world seems great when you avoid eye contact with the homeless and turn off the tv every time Sarah McLachlan starts asking you to support the WSPCA. Some of these examples are a little extreme though. I think a more general summary would be that if you can’t even ATTEMPT to see someone else’s perspective on things, and the only world that exists to you is the one you see through your own eyes, we won’t get along.

Apologies To Any English Teacher I’ve Ever Doubted: Lessons from my Short Story

Recently I took on the task of writing my first story. I mean it was no novel, but a 30 page short story is a huge step up from my usual short pieces that generally spin some emotion into 300 words or less. (Wait, you mean, I can’t complete this by sitting down for an hour while I’m inspired? And writer’s block can stop me for days?)

But through this process, I’ve learned a lot. Here are my lessons:

For starters, creating a full character sketch, backstory, setting and plot are every bit as important as your seemingly over enthusiastic English teachers make them sound. Who knew people that had studied something for 4 years in university would actually know what they’re talking about? Luckily I was smart enough to create the character sketches and a timeline that served as a plot before hand (It helped that the characters were real people and the timeline was a series of events pertaining to them). But who cares where and when the story takes place when the setting is entirely fictional, right? Uh, wrong. Lesson number one: CREATE A SETTING. This will help you avoid such issues as “Wait, does the term “sweatpants” make sense in this story? I feel like the setting is currently at least a century back in time. Can this girl even wear pants?” and “Oh wait… I guess movie theatres don’t exist yet either… Hmm. What about phones?”. I will never again question why a teacher cares to talk about elements of fiction again. Explain on, wise teachers!

While we’re on the topic of teachers, I’ll introduce lesson two: YES, SYMBOLS ARE IN FACT RELEVANT. If you’ve spent more time on the internet than you’d like to admit (signs of this may include having friends in some random part of the world that you talk to exclusively through a social media site. You probably like them more than your real friends), you’ve probably come across something like this:

It is also likely you agree that “The curtains were fucking blue”. I used to as well. I actually hated one of my English classes because all we really did was talk about symbolism. I now wish I could re-take that class (except that I really don’t want to go back to grade 10). As I mentioned earlier, the story I wrote was based on two real people. And if you’re one of them, or me, the story you are reading is entirely different from the story anyone else is reading. Why? Because almost every line has a double meaning. With 2 exceptions, each name means something. Every event in the story symbolizes a real event. I could go on listing things but it’s much faster to say that nearly everything is a symbol.

And finally lesson three: BEWARE OF REAL PEOPLE. I thought creating a story based on real people would be great. It felt like a puzzle turning real events into something that fit my story. Plus the essential story line was original, and half-made already. (Two things I’m bad at – names, and original ideas). I wouldn’t say I’d never write something real again. But we all know that for a story to be good, a character needs flaws (or “foibles” as I learned doing a crossword this week). There also has to be some sort of thing that happens to the the character, nobody wants a story that’s sunshine and rainbows from beginning to end. As it turns out, writing someone’s flaws and exposing their lowest points and times of weakness in a story can be very awkward. I definitely held back a little at times, and was very apprehensive to include any of these. While sharing the progress with the real life main character, there was a lot of “Let me know if you want me to change anything.” and other similar comments. What makes pieces of writing the best is often what makes it terrifying to share. The struggle. The second thing to bear in mind while writing real events, is how well you know the person. Are you able to capture their emotions accurately? Are they willing to see these emotions in words? How much creative license do you have? Luckily I had been given full creative license and was allowed to express emotion freely. It was more myself that became an issue, constantly worrying that I’d gone too far, or that I would misrepresent things. Although there were no issues with this story, I will most definitely consider these factors for the future.

I’ve had a lot of fun with this new adventure all in all. I learned stuff. And I broke away from my comfort zone of safe pieces that were short and representations of only my own thoughts. This story became a powerful escape from my most stressful times. I had somewhere fictional to live when I didn’t want to think about Plato and Aristotle, or how Pride and Prejudice and Something Borrowed could relate or contrast in a thesis. At times it would even become a way to bribe myself (“One more hour at work, and you can go home and write your story!” or “Finish this assignment by 9:30 so you can add another chapter to the story tonight!”).