One thing you can never leave behind

Home is a very vague concept. What is home? Home is where the heart is. Home is not a city nor a country nor a place nor even a person. Home is a feeling. You can feel home at the touch of a cashmere shirt. A smell can make you feel like home. The sight of a brick wall that you encounter for the first time can bring you home. Home is in our heads, in our hearts, in our aspirations, in our dreams, in our desires. Whatever we do, we always tend to converge towards places that we call home. We are always looking for a home. What we don't realize is that home is always with us. So Michael Buble can stop complaining that he wants to go home and just close his eyes and go take a walk.

And now someone can create a drinking game with the number of times I said home in the last paragraph haha!

Summer dreams

So here it is. Summer vacation. Or so I thought. It was amazing for about one evening. Then it all came down. Reality. Decisions. This should be the best time of my life. But it doesn't feel like that. I just feel the contrast between the carefree summer inviting me to waste the day outside and the dark confines of my room telling me I have some thinking to do. There was this quote saying that all college seniors should be given one week during the year to just break down and cry because you're scared and afraid and you don't know what to do. Well I think the week is now. Sometime between the last exam and convocation and grad ball. To be honest I know what I need to do (or at least I have the illusion of control that makes me believe that by following a few easy steps I'll be able to make a good decision). But just starting is quite frankly terrifying. Why? Beats me! This is only the rest of my life that we're talking about.... Someone once told me that I need to grow a backbone so that I can stick to my choices and decisions. They were probably right. However, before I can get there, I have to convince myself that this is the best path for me without the shadow of a doubt. Listen to me.... as though certainty really was an integral part of reality! The only truly certain things in this life are death and taxes and all else is stamp collecting (accounting majors might tell you that even the last one can be debatable). That is why it's so terrifying I guess. You need to close your eyes and take a leap of faith. Damn. I always did have trouble with faith.

Romante si nostalgie

It was a chance encounter. I like to tell myself that I stumbled upon him, but the fact of the matter is that he was there waiting for me. Waiting for my eager fingers and eyes. Waiting for my shallow cover to crack. Waiting for my curiosity to peek under his own cover. I fell in love years ago with a simple string of words. With the nostalgia. With the biting replies. With the sarcasm. And then I forgot. I came back to him on lonely Friday nights. Like the ungrateful lovers he often talks about. Only there to satisfy a moment's itch. Only remembering because of a chance encounter of the eyes. He probably deserves more. More than a dusty shelf in a forgotten library. I probably deserve more than this person I'm becoming. I should probably dig deeper than the same two pages that I almost know by heart by now. The books you read are a reflection of who you are. But who am I if I barely ever read anymore? Maybe it's time I give Minulescu a thorough read. He deserves it. And so do I.

Is this it?

Life is a continual flux. Change. Transformation. A recipe that constantly recreates itself with new components. New atoms, new molecules, new chemicals, new cells, new hair, new clothes, new songs, new places, new people. The only constant is the pattern. And to be part of the mechanism means to accept the rules of the game of transformations. To accept that some things have to be left behind. Why is it that such an integral part of nature is so difficult for us puny humans? Sure, we don't care if we lose an atom or two along the way. We never knew them on a personal level anyway. But when it comes to people and places, the story is entirely different. Saying goodbye never feels quite right. Some don't say it at all. Sometimes, it is simply implied in the structure of the relationship. People grow apart. Letters become brief. Words grow cold. It is the simple natural progression of two lives moving in opposite directions. And as we gain years, we accumulate more and more of these letters written in a hurry before getting back to our everyday life. Letters that feel like a pause in time. And we feel guilty. For not taking the time. For not writing more often. For not putting in more effort to keep this alive. It becomes a chain that we carry around our heart. As we gain years, the chain becomes longer as we leave more and more people behind. Is this what life is about? A growing progression of relationships plugged in to machinery that keeps them artificially alive? Guilt and regrets that weigh heavier by the years? Or maybe I'm holding on when I should just let go?

When life gives you lemons, be sappy!

Here's a round of sappiness. But it's the good type of sappy. It's the hopeful type of sappy. It's the happy type of sappy. So for a small moment in time, let's just be sappy!

 

Decisions, decisions

School and procrastination have been keeping me quite busy these past few weeks, but last night I got inspired and started watching some TED videos. This is an old one by Dan Gilbert (I really love this guy! Funny AND smart! Now if only he was younger and had some hair... oh well!)

The future need not be bleak

We need inspiration more often than we think. So what if it is an emotional response? So what if it is artificially created through images and sounds and specific words that are designed to make us react? If it can push us to greatness, then I am all for it!



Small note: greatness is good, but Nazi camps were not. In hindsight we see that, but in the moment, the line between the two can be blurred. So here's to being responsibly great!