S'okay.

I always say that its okay and that everything is no big deal, whether its a D in APUSH or another B in calc, whether its the expected loss in badminton or some embarrassing moment when people drop food on themselves. Its okay to feel like crap every morning, almost, and sometimes, its even okay to feel like crap going to sleep. Its okay to have emotional misunderstandings and its okay if my parents anger for no good reason. What is anything in light of eternity? For if I could speak in tongues and have all the world's knowledge, but have not love, I am nothing, we are nothing. 1 Corinthians 13!  So, by default, basically, everything is okay.

Yet in my conviction that its okay, its not, supposedly, allegedly, and it matters very much. Its not okay because in my imperfect forgiveness, there is an underwhelming anger that rises on cue with every reminder, a barely restrained urge to reciprocate some tangible level of pain - a sadness, apparently, because even when I smile and cringe at the same time, repeating that its okay, there are uncontrollable tears swelling beneath my eyes. Every time, a gloomy dullness presses me, which, in some sadist, ironic way, breaks my closing heart, but not for myself, I guess, but for something sacred and, regardless of circumstances, singularly possessed.

Morality

Broken, finally, by my mom, actually, while discussing, of all things, not sex, but abortion.
I mean we talked about sex too but thinking of how much life was destroyed in even my own family sent shock through my stomach. I didn't think I would cry for someone I never knew if I barely shed a tear for my grandparents, yet, I guess, in this weekend of crazy, quite the trauma has been buildling pressure.

This fanatical week has turned my mind in circles, or ellipses, and if you find the area under the curve, just use 3i/n for the input of a function of a summation, assuming i = 0 and n is just n. But seriously, I'm forced to question my ready acceptance and my flickering priorities, to question my deepest motives, to analyze my nonsensical responses to worry and affection. How interesting, to live in the hypothetical, then to realize that it isn't hypothetical at all, but completely and nightmarishly real. Maybe only time will reveal whether two really work better when they are one.

There are so many expectations tagged onto a status and the shallowness of the title. Living under a formality takes away the best part, the real deets, the friendship. We will glorify God and be pure in all eyes, even though from an impersonal perspective, its all very strange, mostly because we (I) sweat too much. I feel as if all but the subjects of scrutiny see the relationship as, in the best sense, cute, as if two very confused people are experimenting, perhaps precariously, despite the logical fallacies of every aspect of it. I sense a general idea that there is a wavering awkwardness and a reserved fear of one another, when at least today, I have to say, it was a sadness, a diminishing anger, a careful peace, and five hours of sleep. In some ways, I wish I could make people understand, but most of the time, I can only pray and be grateful for yet another unexpected, explosive blessing.

Forgiveness.

Excuse my double post but for lack of conscious thoughts, FORGIVENESS IS REALLY HARD.

Trust is hard to earn.
Infatuation takes too long to pass.
I question my own motives.
I need to glorify God in these things. We have glorify God. There is, at the very least, a purpose beyond having fun.

From a psychological study perspective, the onslaughts of berating strings of swears is unnaturally out of line with so much smiling and hand-holding. I should probably look at the universe again, because once again, I'm struggling to finish my homework and to refrain from cutting a select many people.

I guess this is the time for moral questions. I wonder what God is setting up for us at this time of the year. Why did everything happen this weekend.

forgive.

Forgiveness, I guess, if it comes after 24 consecutive hours of swearing under my breath while taking the PSATs (aka money), and if it comes under a very dim Orion's belt and a very unapparent Big Dipper, and if its after a relieving playing of Gangnam Style, Your Love is My Drug, and Good Night (we don't even have to try. those are the lyrics.. right), and if its after the first time I actually enjoyed a dance, then I guess it could be biased.

Holy goodness I might not throw up.

Oh just kidding check this homework. 2 Bs and a C+.

Its been a very hot and cold day. The sky was beautiful from beginning to end, which I wish I could say for awkwardness, but that was amended quickly with a couple fists of anger and California Girls.
Tired but happy. Briefly.

Still

A white and orange light blossomed around the black roses of static beneath her eyelids. Her eyes flickered for a second and flashed wide open at the sight of the brilliant glimmers sliding off the panes of her windows. The wind barely kissed the glass and the trees loomed high and bright, stock still. Besides the distant trill of early birds, the world was at rest.

She passed her hand over her stomach, making sure she could still feel her hip bones under a small layer of what she preferred to think of as insulation for the freezing winters. Her heart jumped as the tips of her fingers signaled the ever-bearing presence of this lipid coat, and agitated, they quickly withdrew. She sat up and stared at her legs, arteries and veins kindling a slowly sweltering heat. To her, her legs looked like tree trunks, thick and thin with muscles built and torn in all the wrong places. Her black, drooping eyes stung in frustration when she squinted into the full-body mirror, urgent to find an unblemished feature. She stood still, searching.

In the unwavering reflection, she saw that her eyes were small and dusty, receded from months of looking but not seeing. Her ears, which heard but did not listen, hid behind her split hair, which flew in wisps across her face. She felt the raw cotton t-shirt gnawing roughly against her skin and crumbs grating down her throat, all the while trailing thick, tired saliva in the roof of her tongue. The skin peeled off her scratched cheeks and tickled the scars that never healed. Her legs were purple and pink and brown, bruised and cut from falling one less time than rising. To be technical, her poptilial fossa sported a tumor-like keloid and her second toe suffered permanently from an avulsion fracture. She knew these facts because she was brimming with knowledge, but empty of everything else. Her cuticles were too small, her nails were too dry, and she was altogether imperfect. She stood still, loathing herself.

In her fatigue, she felt a deep, unwavering churning of dissatisfaction. She was a sandbag, and the world was an ocean, and no matter how full of sand she was, she was, after all, made of sand. The ocean would overtake her motionless sack of a body, and she would drown and crumple until the tide fell back for the day. The violent storms would leave her soaking, burdened with everything with which she had filled herself. In desperation, she would hide her heaviness by decorating herself with frail seashells, and she would look in the mirror to extract the smallest broken shards. But her methods failed successfully time after time, because the tides always came back and washed away the feeble fragments, leaving her naked shell exposed, grossly visible in every reflective surface she passed. She stood all the more still now, because this way she could angle her body to find the perfect portrait of herself.

Some days, she would grace her mattress with futile punches and her pillow with trickling tears, but for the most part, she would slump against the dry walls or sprawl herself full length across the thick carpet and become motionless, mind racing uncontrollably, meticulously combing through the dissatisfactory qualities of her body. The insides of her tightened, curled fists quivered with anger and disappointment. She would hold her breath as long as she could, crushed by her own contracting chest, holding her bloating, shameful face in an expression of forced neutrality. She stood still, writhing inside.

One day, she could no longer hold her breath. Her face had become flushed from forgetting to breathe as she obsessed over her body composition.  Her entire body had become a plank, not just rigid with fear, but literally straight and inflexible from immobilizing herself in front of the mirror for so long. She thought about the different ways she could rid herself of the sharp shells that stuck to her sandbag.  She stood still, eyelids flickering slightly.

She walked to the bathroom and bound her weakened hair into a ponytail, biting her lip because this process unveiled her face even more. The white light hit the edges of her exposed face, revealing the softness of her cheeks and the fading of her eyes, but in place of her usual pallid, porcelain expression were pulsing capillaries, crazed with a fervent desire to break free. Even though she had barely moved more than a few yards, her heart thudded against her bare chest, crawling slowly up her throat.

Almost convulsing with the inability to contain herself, she plodded clumsily down the stairs and pulled on the shortest socks she could find. She dreaded to see the bones of her ankles covered by cloth, appearing thicker and straighter than she knew they actually were. Her running shoes engulfed her feet, and her large women’s t-shirt covered everything but her forearms. In a minute she was standing outside, quietly gathering the courage to unravel herself. She stood still, wondering.

She surveyed the outside world, which, if it were an ocean, would be completely peaceful. The sky was cloudless and the breeze maintained a constant gentleness, characterizing the typical, perfect day. The sidewalks were clean, the lawns were mowed, and the bushes were pruned. Birds flitted by her, leaves fell past her, and chipmunks darted behind her. The ecosystem was the definition of homeostatic. In the endless rotation of seasons and the unpredictable antics of creatures, nature was still.

The sound of creeping waves rushed into her ears. She broke into a slow jog, noting the tightening of her previously atrophying calves. Her arms pumped in an almost swaying fashion, awkward, unsure of how to propel her body forward. Her shoulders were slumped but began slowly arching backwards as she ran faster and faster as sand trickled furtively out of her flowing t-shirt. She felt a slight weight alleviated, but she could not check to make sure her carefully arranged display of shells was still in place. She slipped closer to the shoreline. The springs in her legs began to oscillate from the sudden, elastic release in tension. Waves of fresh air beat her face and dove into her lungs, cleaning more sand from the walls of the sandbag inside of her. She had been still for too long, and now she could not stop.

Her quadriceps burned and she gasped for breath, stomach heaving in and out, up and down. Her hips were sore from the endless, bouncing stress, and her eyes would sting from the falling sweat. She furiously leapt across a thousand sidewalk cracks and crushed the tousled grass, not once considering the notion of resting. Her body slowly exhausted itself as she ran, always pumping, always gliding.

When she neared the end of the run, she saw in front of the chuckling sprinkles a giant tidal wave. It reared beyond the rooftops, ready to mercilessly engulf every suspecting and unsuspecting victim, to carry away every worthless and worthy object in its way. Sporting but a few handfuls of scattered seashells in her sandbag, she ran straight toward the wave, and it collapsed on her.

She was still.

Some notes.

1. the propinquity effect
2. hypnic jerks (an the falling sensation)
3. heads
4. C+ in french no big deal
5. no big deals
6. college, math, nice forests, calculus
7! To maintain the best mobility, fat, weight, ans mass all need to be stored as close to our center of gravities as possible, which is basically around the belly button. For men then, weight gain is focused almost exclusively on the belly. Women, however, have uteri (is that plural) and so the next closest place to store fat is in the butt and thighs. Once again, math wins.
8. Parallel universes
9. The bridge experiment was called Thematic Apperception Test. nice.
10. quads

Prayer Meeting

Be still my heart.
Its been a while since I've prayed, we've prayed like that. The majority of us were sporting dried sweat all over, some hair matted with perspiration and none too few unchanged soaked through shirts. Half of us didn't even eat dinner, and the AC was slowly seeping in, yet among the distractions and even the friendships, we prayed, so hard, so genuinely, for so long. Its an honor to be able to pray through the Holy Spirit. Its an honor to be able to come before God like this.