New Year's Day

Happy New Year!

I'm not crazy, nor have I forgotten when exactly the new calendar year begins. Every day can be a new year, a time to make changes and to act on them. Today is a new year from 365.242199 days ago.

To me, it doesn't matter if I make stark changes to my life now or on January 1st, but if your life is abysmal at best, if people are putting you down and you're tired of it, why wait? Today is a new day, this year is a new year, and it's the time to take charge of your life the way you want it to be.

Without adding the random New Year's Days I've mentioned above, I celebrate 3 day of the year that are commonly classified as New Year's markers. January 1st, the Julian calendar marker, is the simplest one. It's the common one that people make resolution for and celebrate globally. Lunar New Year is another one, and that can range anywhere from January to March. And then the least common of them all: October 31st.

I started the October 31st celebration when I began doing NaNoWriMo, and I subsequently made it a time of year to try new things (safe, legal, etc.) that I would usually veer away from out of fear. I had a lot of fears, many of them irrational, due to my days being bullied, but now I have friends and I've set a time to face those fears. I aspire to be as fearless as possible, and to let my life be as joyous as I let it.

So I make changes whenever I feel the time is right, be it on a day that others set as a changing marker, or it on a day that I just look up to the sky and realize it's time for something to move. It works better for me, because then I don't have to wait to tell a person I don't need them talking to me poorly anymore. I don't want to wait, because life is short, and we are meant to enjoy as much of it as we can get.

Make every day a new day, one possible of changes. And happy new year, to a year where things change so that you get to smile in the sunshine too.

Contingency (Rant/Advise)

You can plan every second of your life, pencil in every detail that you want to make certain happen. Your entire life can be laid out such that nothing is a surprise. Only… it won't happen. You can aspire towards that big church wedding when you're five, imagine getting ready with five blonde best friends giggling about the cute groomsmen. But… what about the words "life happens" – do they hold no substance to these plans? And there's the equally important "shit happens", describing a lot

Yep. Believe it.

more of the life that I've experienced than I'd care to have ongoing. But it's true, shit happens, and you have to deal with it.

You basically have only a select few options. Option one: wallow in sadness that your perfectly designed future is in shambles, let the world win while you're at it. Option two: keep going at a dream that won't come true, hold on to a dream that barely exists by the last threads on this planet, and then head to option one after you realize it's fruitless to keep going. Or option three: have a contingency plan, and if you don't already have one that can work around or through whatever shit life gave you, make one up.

Option three, is, in my opinion, is the only feasible option for survival. And it's the best one to tell the world to stop screwing with your life. The world won't stop messing around with life as a general thing, but at least you won't let it win over yours. If the world consists of bullying people, then you basically are telling those people "up yours, I don't need or want this, and I can do better". If life is an accident that renders you unable to use your right hand and you're an artist, you figure out how to paint with your left, or you learn how to express yourself another way.

If you desperately love something, I'm not saying to forget about it if you've for some reason lost your talent for it because of an unexpected event. There are choices we can make, but not all of those options are presented pointblank. Many of them, more than are presented, are things you have to find out for yourself. And before you say you can't, try it. Try it for long enough that you know with 100% certainty that it will not work.

Or run and hide.

I don't really care what you do, because ultimately this is your life, not mine. Take my words for what they are, advice from a stranger. I am trying to help, but if I'm pushing you, you don't have to keep reading or do what I say.

But remember: it is your life. Crap may be piled a mile high on it, but as that old saying goes, when life gives you lemons, find something to do with them. Make lemonade if you have sugar. Or use them to clean up the rest of the mess that's already in your wake. Or just eat them whole. It is your life, take control of it. Own up to your short comings and to your mistakes. Be happy with what you've got, because no matter who you are, there are many small miracles that require nothing but a positive attitude to change your outlook around. Don't hide under boastings and trimmings, things that don't really matter in the end.

The real question is, in the end, what matters?

If you think sticking to a ruined plan will make you happy, good luck. I'm not saying that it won't work, but sometimes the planned ending is not the optimal. Sometimes it's the unexpected journey, the unexpected end that makes it the mile.

So dance in the rain, walk until you're lost and then stop and smell the salty air, experience the world for what it is. It's a mess. And despite how you may not want to admit it, you're probably not far off of that either. So embrace it.

Be a mess and wear a smile.


Reposted from here, my Fictionpress account. 

"Happy"?

We all strive for this thing called happiness that seems, at times, nearly impossible to obtain and at others unimaginable to live without. Happiness is elusive to the downtrodden. But that's only because we're the ones preventing it from visiting.

Why would we prevent ourselves from being happy?

Some of us, myself once included, might think we're not deserving of being happy. We believe that we're making the world worse off with us being around, and as such deserve to be depressed whilst we bring gloom to others. The only thing that kept this sort of thought from taking my presence from this planet was knowing that my death would bring more sorrow, more anger and pity to the few people that believed in me.

In a sense, I've tried to be the least consequential to the world as I possibly can. Oozing depression wasn't something I ever wanted to do, to see the disdain on their faces was something I could hardly stand. But it works both ways, I've come to realize. If, instead of with sorrow, I can see the world and smile. My smiles can bring others smiles of happiness, not out of triumph over some lowly soul, which was how the smiles I used to bring were like.

So perhaps I'm not as inconsequential as I'd wished, but at least what I bring now is more happiness most days. I still have days of calamity, but they are fewer than used to be.

But what of other people, ones that don't think they deserve their torment? What keeps them from happiness?

Thinking that what they've done or where they are now is too far lost, to where the warmth of the sunlight and the magical beauty of the world cannot reach is more so their dilemma. I don't know how to help you as much as the latter group, and I'm sorry that it's such. But I will say that talking it out, writing or venting your emotions in some way is one of the best things you can do. No matter what you've done, save for being someone that has killed a thousand people for no apparent reason, you deserve goodness in your life too.

Some things, no matter how you find yourself, to keep spirits up, is to listen to music. I won't say necessarily that it must be cheery music, because at times that can make us angrier or more upset. But music in general has a way of altering how we see the world, even if it's in the minutest of ways. Find ways to make yourself feel better about who you are. I'll list below some of the things I do in order to face the world.

• Smile even when there's nothing particular to smile at - you'll just naturally start to smile if you do this. Just don't do it when you're not in a situation where smiling is a bad idea (e.g. being questioned by the police for suspected murder)
• Stop looking in mirrors every two minutes - if you have body image issues, this will really help. It's fine if you look before you leave the restroom to make sure everything's tucked away where it should be, but don't go to extremes. If you look in the mirror too much, you'll see what no one else will ever even notice about you unless they're trying intentionally to find something wrong with you. 
• Even if it's "weird", dance in the rain - I mean to say, do whatever you feel like doing (legally/ethically good, I mean) even if no one is planning on joining in on your adventure. It's your life that you're living. You're not living theirs. What you do is for YOU to make YOU happy. And FYI, weird is just another way of saying "not been done before, or done often". Weird isn't bad.
• Believe in what you think is right. Find your own morals to live by, and they may be the same as someone else's morals, but they may also differ. Someone may say that sex before marriage is sinful and you may think "as long as there's no risk of communicable disease, what's the big deal". To each their own, but live by what morals you set for yourself - it'll really help in the long run.

• Fun Fact: My immediate family is Christian Nominally Agnostic. We celebrate Christmas and Easter and such, but don't go to church or read/quote the bible. We've been called Heathens before, so spare that, please. My beliefs are slightly different - I'm Pagan of the unknown variety based partially off of Wicca. My moral codes are much the same, but the one big difference I have from my family is that even if someone doesn't ask for help directly, I will still offer it. But only if they seem like they really need the help and are willing to help themselves change the situation they've found themselves in.

I hope you find your happiness. Share below what are some things that make you feel better. :)

Window

Don't let the stormy darkness pull you down - Pete's Dragon

When I started grade 7, I felt as though I was a stranger crashing a party in mid run.

The school I'd left in grade 5 was the one I was returning to, so I wasn't completely the new kid. I still knew a couple of people from my first sentence at the school, and so I thought it wouldn't be too awkward. I tried to keep my reasons for the departure and return quiet; it wasn't something anyone wanted advertised.

I didn't want to be the girl that was too weak to last through a bad teacher's class. I didn't want to be the psychotic classmate or the one that no one could tolerate. I was embarrassed that I wasn't strong enough, smart enough. Wicked enough.

I kept on a mask, pretended that the witch walking those ten year old children down the hall wasn't there. But that pretense also kept me from being a normal kid, from being an interesting one that people were drawn to positively. It was my fear; the bane of my existence was a manifestation of my past catching up with me. And I couldn't help it. Not because I didn't want to, but rather because I was afraid of what would happen if I let my mask fall away.

We, my schoolmates and the teachers and I, became coinciding entities that never knew each another, never got to experience another, though knew of the other's existence.

My fear was a glass ceiling, and one I formed. People always said that victims of bullying and abuse are faultless, that there is nothing they're doing to deserve it. I don't believe that. Not that the victims are bad people, but it might be the way they talk, the sound of their voice, the things they find interesting; it could be anything. We are not faultless as victims, but that doesn't mean we should change what our fault is or be anything but who we are. It takes two for a fight, for a conflict. The victim, possibly unbeknownst why, is one of those two.