what to do when you don't know what to do

It's late, but don't look at the time. It doesn't matter.

Take a breath and find the keys to your car. Your car, a friend's car...just get the keys in your hand.

Most likely it will be dark, but don't turn on any lights. Move through the dark like you can see perfectly, and know exactly where you're going.

When you reach the door, turn the knob slowly, but surely. Don't look back. Do move forward.

Outside, breathe in the night and let it surround you. Morning is hours away, the dark will be here for a while. Stop and watch the sky, spin until you make a kaleidoscope out of the stars. Let the lights blur together.

Once in the car, drive until you reach a long road. Highways are the best, long highways with no detours. The destination isn't important, not yet.

In the car, there will be music. A radio, Cd's, tapes. Pick something you know or something you don't. Whatever it is, it has to be loud. Once you've picked your soundtrack, find a song and turn up the volume until you can feel the vibrations coursing through your ears, your head, your ribs, your lungs.

Listen to the drum beat, the strumming of the guitar. Your heart will race, but let it. Try to match the rhythm of your heart with the melody filling the car. It's telling your story, it wants to help.

Then, you sing.

Even if you don't know the words, sing all that you can. But if the song is familiar, scream out the lyrics. Roll down the windows and let the cool air rush in on you, meeting the warmth of your face. Call out to the night and challenge the morning, it's coming too soon.

Breathe

Cry

Pulse

and Breathe again.

Eyes on the road. Hands on the wheel. Mind on the music.

You're almost there now, reaching the lights in the distance. Here is where you stop.
You have a choice to make, a divergence in the road. Think.
Do you return? Do you retrace your steps to your bed and lie awake until morning. Do you forget this night and wander back to the lfe that led you here in the first place?
Or do you continue on? Do you race towards the sunrise with nothing to fear?
You have come this far, but now you must decide. Any further steps must be taken alone, through your own will. The last direction, one last guidance and farewell:
Choose wisely.

stand resolute

It's January already. My calendar has run out and I have to rely on others ( and my phone) to tell me the day. What's funny is that I really don't care about what day it is. I can just feel the present, and that's all. I spent all of last year anticipating the future, and simultaneously sweating the past. I think I'm done with all that. I've finally started to follow through on that illuminating resolution I made to myself on the first day of school, that promise I made while still flushed with the excitement of Warped Tour. I thought my resolve had dissipated, vanished with the influx of a heavy workload and the pressure of college looming in the future. But finally, at long last, those nuisances are beginning to recede. Guess what? Senior Year is slowly becoming what I always imagined it would be, perhaps not the exact sequence of events, but the emotional and mental growth and changes...most definitely.

mute me

I don't really know what to write about today. All I know is that I have the empty feeling in the pit of my stomach, I feel that something is missing. When that feeling hits, I know I should be writing. Yes, for some reason, this feels right.
Yet, I don't know what to tell you. The year is the same as it was a week ago. The only difference is that kairos begins on Tuesday...and I am left with this uncomfortable feeling. For some reason, I can't bring myself to blame this feeling on the fast-approaching retreat. I can't see how anticipation of the event would make me feel empty. Perhaps because it is the signal of the end, a milestone that acknowledges moving on? No, of that I am unafraid. Something else is keeping me up at night.
Have you ever felt that there was something you needed to do, to say, or to obtain, yet you couldn't imagine what it was? It's a nagging feeling, this urge to do some abstract action.
And this is where I stop making sense. I have to say this is happening more and more in my life. I'm losing the ability to communicate how I feel to others altogether. I never excelled at expression by word of mouth, but usually I could find my voice through the written word.
Now, both are lost. I don't even know what I am feeling, other than confusion.
I keep thinking that tomorrow will be the day that I figure out all of this. Tomorrow I will make sense of this tangled mess.
But then again, what is today but yesterday's tomorrow?
Senseless and dramatic, I know. But for now, It's all I've got,

all hallows

It's Halloween, all hallows eve. My costume needs attention and work, yet I find myself at the computer once again. Typical me.
Instead of reveling in the festivities of the day, I have spent the last few hours working away relentlessly on my college applications. It's an odd feeling, condensing the bulk of your high school career into a few pages, your dreams and aspirations into a few lines.
Then there's the personal statement, where you only have a few paragraphs to mystify your audience with some incredible happening. I've been told this should come eay for me...several times. But being a writer simply hasn't prepared me for this. Out of all the things that I could write down on that small, blank space...how am I to choose? Which moment is the right moment?
All of this uncertainty has left a strange, foreign feeling in the air. The house seems too quiet and the clatter of the keyboard, far too loud.
I'm clouded over and confused about so many things at present, yet these emotions meet in a head-on collision with calm and sponteneity.
If it seems like this entry is scattered and difficult, my apologies.
The truth is that the future is a daunting concept, even more so when you have no pretense as to where it is headed.
This is not my usual October.

I wish life has a pause button. It's only mid-october and I'm about to short circuit. So let's see, classes so far:

Religion: Stuff I learned years ago. But hey, nothing like a repeat.

AP Lit: The only class I love. We're just finishing poetry, which is unfortunate. I don't think I'll ever get over my inclination towards poetry, it's been a part of me for too long a time.

Pre-Cal: Oh boy. Don't even get me started on that one

Economics: A decent class. I'm currently reading up on the music business and how to manage a record label. But the assignments are piling up and the exams never end, and that's enough to darken my entire view of the class.

Health/Pe: A break in the day where I get to run around and play sports, no qualms there.

Photo: Another great class. It would be perfect if my old-fashoined 35mm would cooperate with me. It has temper tantrums whenever I try to load the film.


So yes, these are the reasons that I need a new backpack not even two months into the school year.
Ah well, it's days like these ( with their welcome weekend distractions) that make me forget about my dangerous workload and help me enjoy the world.
And for that I truly am grateful

hopes and leaves

October. My favorite out of every month of the year. This is so because the tenth month is not only my birth month, but also because it marks the arrival of Fall and the eerie festivities of Halloween. Only a few weeks in, October has begun on a rather strange note, the rush of cool air settling over us being the only positive occurrence that I have yet seen. But I have faith in the possibility of change. Though off to a rocky start, I have high hopes for the rest of the month and for the blissful transition from the hot and the bright into the cool and the overcast.
September has left me feeling uneasy. With my backpack already boasting a large rip at the seams and the ever-growing stack of college applications waiting on my shelf, I feel as though Senior Year is not going to be as I thought it was. In all honesty, I imagined a chance to step back and, God forbid, actually enjoy the social aspects of high school life. I have one word for my naive musings:
Ha.
School work never let up. On the contrary, it increased all the more, with heavier books and stricter grading policies. If it is indeed the wicked who never find a moment of rest, then by all means, find me a pointed hat and paint me green.
On the brighter side of things, my list of shows that I will be attending is growing by the minute, with October and November already peppered with set concert dates. Coming up next is AP Magazine’s Fall Ball, where The Academy Is..., Mayday Parade, Set Your Goals, and several other admirable groups will be taking the stage. Of coarse I will be covering that night in my adjoining blog , so be sure to read up!!
In the meantime, I will be hiding beneath the covers with my beloved coffee, enjoying the contrasts of the crisp temperature and the warm liquid. Bliss.

To Do List:
-get dress for Fall Ball
-search for my warm socks
-take up sewing and fix torn backpack
-decide on halloween costume
-actually organize concert calender....and my room

It's 3:20 exactly, and all I can hear is the clacking of computer keys. Up here on the second floor of the library, the endless rows of book-covered shelves give way to computers, for the more technologically inclined generation. Here, the simple silence is coated with the soft hum of typing, click click click clack clack clack.

It's an odd feeling, being here at the library once again. It's only been a few months since I have set foot in this very place surrounded by friends and snacks and homework. But it feels like much more time has passed. I used to feel like I knew this place, now it feels foreign.

It's been several weeks since the opening of Senior year, and I am beginning to understand why people tell me that the year will be at it's close before I know it. These last few weeks have flown by as if it were only one. September is near it's end and I wonder if the whole year will move at as quick a pace