MINE

Hiding under the covers and crying is an acceptable response to 8 hours at a Job Search Boot Camp, right?

Give me a chance to be interesting again

If someone handed me an ax
And told me to cut down the most beautiful thing
I’d cut down everything around me
But I wouldn’t so much as touch myself with the blade

Enjoy the scraps cause they’re all that’s left

His only fault was
Loving her and expecting
Nothing in return

Today, I pissed off a local radio DJ because when he tried to hand me a (free) blue plastic wristband while yelling “You’re preventing child abuse!” I said, “No… That’s just wearing a wristband.”

I then tried to tell him that preventing child abuse would be more along the lines of volunteering with children or donating money to a cause but he already hated me and my “negative attitude.”

I just wonder how much child abuse they could have prevented had they donated the money that went into making the crappy plastic bracelets to children. In fact, a child probably made those bracelets so, actually, they’re causing child abuse.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (via blondepilot)

(Source: likeafieldmouse, via samiforeveram)

Reinhold Niebuhr

It was a hot, sunny, almost summer day and I was wearing black shorts and a black t-shirt just like every other day.

 

I sat crisscross in the big kid’s field ‘cause I was a big kid now.

 

Blades of grass tickled my ankles and the sweat stains under my arms grew bigger and bigger as I fumbled with the combination lock in my hands.

How could I survive Junior High if I couldn’t even open my locker?

 

I was in sixth grade and it was right around the corner.

 

I’d grown up hearing the junior high bell from my elementary school playground and sometimes I’d line up at the door early, adhering to the junior high bell schedule like I was all grown up.

 

Now, back in my day, kids didn’t ‘graduate’ from elementary school or kindergarten or potty training or whatever kids are graduating from now. The bell just chimed on the last day of school and you ran out the door to wait for the last bus home.

 

That summer between sixth and seventh grade, I was 11. And 12. I was one of those kids who was only one age the entire school year. I remember one day sitting in my mom’s black neon at the corner of State and Glenwood thinking that I was going to die. The music was loud, the windows were rolled down, and I was in the back seat.

 

My new school was right up the street and I thought I was going to die because I couldn’t see myself going to junior high.

I’d never done it before.

 

A few days later I wrote my schedule out on a note card.

Despite my mom’s best efforts explaining to me that if your room number starts with a 1 it’s on the first floor and if it starts with a 2 it’s on the second floor, I threw a fit until she drew arrows on my note card.

 

When we went school supply shopping, I made her buy me about a thousand pens in case the first one… and the second one… and the third one… ran out of ink. I had to have reinforced paper so my notes wouldn’t fall out of my binder.Well, binders, I should say. I needed one for every class because if all the classes were in the same binder I’d be handing my math problems into the history teacher and my spelling words to the gym teacher.

 

Seventh and eighth grade flew by and by ninth grade I was an office aide with access to the teacher’s mailboxes, break room, and anywhere else I wanted to go.

 

Junior high graduation went off without a hitch since there wasn’t one and after surviving the summer between ninth and tenth grade I started high school.

 

High school started off terribly—I had a half locker.

 

But three years, two basketball seasons, one volleyball season, and one graduation later, it was all over. My straight A’s and family legacy name weren’t enough to get me into Notre Dame and since The University of San Diego thought I was richer than chocolate mousse, I enrolled at Boise State.

 

After another summer of not dying, I began working toward my degree in Political Science (That’s what you take when you don’t know what you like but know you hate math, science, writing, public speaking, get grossed out by blood and have no musical talents or artistic abilities).

 

The first three years of college were filled with ups and downs, crying and smiling and a whole lot of studying. But by senior year I’d figured it out. I studied abroad and ended my semester in London with the boy I’d met before I left and with whom I skyped every day. I came home with a new wardrobe, an internship at the statehouse, and an application for graduation waiting to be evaluated. 

 

I came home knowing that the sky was not falling and that sometimes it’s okay to skip class to go to Amsterdam or visit Abbey Road or to watch videos of people getting hit by animals.

 

I came home knowing that sometimes it’s okay not to be perfect.

 

Actually, it’s perfect.

The world revolves around you.

 

Every storm cloud seeks you out

And to every raindrop,

You’re just a walking, talking Target advertisement.

You got X’s where your eyes should be

And a “kick me” sign taped to your back.

And front.

 

There are no parking spots

Because God hates you

And when you’re waiting at one of the many crosswalks

As you venture home from your shitty new parking spot,

The cars never stop

Because the Devil hates you, too.

 

Every person at every bar

Is drinking because you wronged them in some way,

And everyone at the gym is working off the stress

That you caused.

 

There’s a power outage because you turned on your hairdryer

And you failed that test because your teacher hates you.

 

Your phone broke because you enjoy it too much

And the mailman lost your letter on purpose

Because you didn’t put the flag up at the right angle.

 

The weather is cold because you love it hot.

The car in front of you is driving slow

Because you looked at them wrong,

Not because it’s a kid who just got her license.

 

Your friend didn’t respond to your email

Because she hates you,

Not because her emails weren’t getting through.

 

That asshole outside singing right now

Is only there to piss you off.

He knows you’re inside.

He knows you like it quiet.

He knows what makes you tick.

 

The clock.

The clock is off to make you late.

The line is long to make you wait.

Your parking expired before eight

And of course you got ticketed a really high rate.

The parking cop waits for you every day.

Don’t you see…?

No matter what you do,

You’ll always lose

Because the world has it out for you.

 

You were born with a target on your back,

A raincloud overhead,

And one muscle shy of the number needed to make you smile.

 

It’s not your fault.

It’s everyone else’s.

Make sure you tell yourself that every day.

It’s important.

Almost as important as this Kleenex.

Here, take it.

Keep it in your pocket

Your shirt pocket.

Next to your heart.

And when you’re ready,

I want you to take it out.

I want you to hold it up to your nose.

And I want you to blow all that shit out of your head.

 

But not until you’re ready.