Highs & Lows

/ “Poetry is a way to help people understand how they feel, through the depicting and revealing of how you feel.” - the man that stood up on stage in front of me at a mandatory poetry reading in the 3rd grade. /

Dear beautiful people who read my blog,

Hi. It’s been a while since I have been able to really sit myself down and write about everything. If you look at all my drafts in my computer, you would see my draft box filled with run-on sentences, poems, and jumbled words that try its best to conquer everything that I am feeling; but, nothing ever feeling quite right. I keep feeling like all of it is just not good enough.
Sometimes, it’s hard for me to really understand what all my feelings even are and how do I get all it out on paper? How do I get it out in a way that people can comprehend and understand what I am feeling? How do I get out of my funk, out of this jumble of a mess? 

As it has been said to me, "Poetry is a way of helping others understand how they are feeling, by analyzing how you feel". 
Maybe, the way to help you is to help me too. I want to help you understand how you feel, by understanding how I feel. Sounds wack? I couldn't agree more.

So, if you sat me down and asked me genuinely how I feel, I think I would have to answer that question with the most basic, annoying answer a human could ever say.
And that is -
I don’t know.

And this answer scares me. 
Because maybe,
maybe my life isn't poetry.

I just have no fucking clue what I am doing. I have no idea what I am feeling! I mean, I would like to say it is because I am feeling a mess of everything, but maybe the terrifying conclusion is just an abscence of feelings within me.

At times, I feel so lucky and special and wonderful, but other times I can feel so sad, so angry and so confused, so hurt and so worthless. I feel everything, and I feel everything super hard. 

Sometimes, I can feel absolutely nothing. I feel like things not working out is just something that happens. I am so used to it. Sometimes, I feel as if at moments I really should feel something, I can't - and I don't. It's terrifying.

Most of the times though, I can care too much. Sometimes, I fall in love with getting to know people, I fall into an unhealthy obsession of trying and shaking them out of their funks. I fall in love with helping people and doing the right thing that sometimes it feels like I have to give some bits and pieces of myself up. 
I almost feel like an addict.

And I know what you must be thinking, okay Lauren, bragging about trying to be a saint.

Yet, I can tell you with every bone in my body, I don’t feel remotely like a saint. In fact, I probably feel more like a guilty, piece of selfish poop on the sidewalk. I don’t feel like a saint because there are so many times in the day that I choose myself over someone else, and I do it consciously - and that scares me. I am so micro-aware of my actions in every moment when I have to make these little decisions throughout the day and answer the question: do I help myself or do I help others? 
In most cases, I would like to say that my motive is to help someone else, but sometimes I think about it so much, that I come to the realisation that what I do may not just be benefiting others, they may be working to really benefit me.
and I feel so guilty.

And so I come to a moral crisis where I ponder the words of others: “Everything we do when we help others is a benefit for ourselves. It is to make ourselves feel better about being ourselves.”
And I can’t stop erasing this thought and concept from my mind. I mean is that really true? Are humans really that selfish? Do we truly only do things to self-benefit? Can we really not do anything without thinking about ourselves? Are we that repugnant?
How sad would it be if this is the honest truth?
That would suck.
Big time.
There are times that I do believe it though, and anger grows deep within my veins towards myself, wondering why can’t I be better? Why can't I be more selfless? Why do I keep putting myself first?
And then, I have to remind myself to take a step back, and look at my life through a crystal ball, with my teeny house in my teeny university in the floating snow, and the little people that define my life:

And I tell myself this:

Everyday, we encounters our highs and lows.
There are the small highs of the day - We smile and laugh when a joke is cracked, when people laugh at our jokes. When our friends text us to hang out. We cherish those memories and these are what makes us give love a chance, like magic just might be real.
And then there are the lows - When your friends are angry at you and won’t speak to you. When you feel like you are drowning in work and might not make it out. When you feel left out and like you just aren’t quite “cool” enough. When you look into the mirror and see someone ugly. Those are the dark thoughts, the entrapments.
The lows normally outweigh the highs.

Because ultimately, we choose to see the lows and the ugly in ourselves.
We choose to see our own pimples, I choose to see my abnormally round face, my dry hair, and my bitten cubicles instead of my dimples, my small ankles and smooth skin. 
Wow, I have not thought my dimples or my ankles and skin for a looooong while.
We choose to point out the ugly because it is easier. It’s so easy to find the flaws, to be sucked into the void that you just aren’t good enough, and just how much you want to push yourself to look better, to be better.
To me, I am never enough.
And to my friends and my family, to those who truly love me, I am more than enough.
So why can’t I look at myself in the lens of love? Especially at the times of my low?
Here comes the most annoying answer of all time,
I don’t know.

I just don’t know why we do these kinds of things to ourselves, why we torture ourselves and lie to ourselves under our breaths.
But -
I guess, if there is one thing I know with all my heart, it's this:
As we go through the highs and lows of the days, of the weeks, of the months, and of the years we have to ask ourselves this question again and again:
 Do we rise, or do we fall? 
Simple.
We are given a choice.
In our highs and lows, we can choose to rise or we can choose to fall.
We like to tell ourselves that we choose to rise.
However, I think the majority of the time, we choose to fall. We fall so deep down and pack ourselves into a bottomless well.
We fall for a day, for a week, for a month or even for a year.
And it sucks. It sucks so fucking bad when we fall.
But all of this? Being alone, being hurt, letting yourself be hurt and be alone?
I tell myself it will be worth it.
I tell myself that I will learn
that I will grow
that I will rise.
that I will rise so magnificently and beautifully, like a motherfucking, graceful phoenix.
We can only learn how to rise when we fall.
And when we are able to rise out of the worst falls, we learn how to defeat those falls, we learn how to appreciate those who helped us stand up so much more, and more importantly, we learn what we never knew about ourselves;
How we are made of titanium.
How are bodies are tougher than we could have ever imagined.
How maginficient our brains can be.
How amazing you really are.
We learn to rise out of small falls, and big falls.
And pretty soon, we rise out of it all.
We rise so far into the milky way that all they can see
is you, the bright star.
And soon, you realize that the highs and lows,
those are what makes your life
beautiful poetry.


-- Teeny, tiny, and terrified. Love you.