All these ups and downs trip up our good intentions...

I've never been so in awe of nature's verticality as I was today after I treked up to Miller Hall for my class today. It crossed my mind that I should start thinking about savoring these last few months of my collegiate journey and I looked at my current horizon line and saw the barren trees stretching up towards the day's gray sky. And it became clear to me, verticality and nature's way of destroying horizontally. I'm not sure if I'm articulating it enough to express my thoughts at the time, but it was this clear, concise realization that I am not in control of everything and I'd be nothing short of a fool if I thought I was.

It's been a strange time for me recently because I'm adjusting to my individuality and my own reality that no one else ever has a claim to. I'm slowly learning that even though I am an individual, I am responsible for the way my unique brushstrokes effect the whole composition. I know, too many art similes lately, but it's what I relate to right now.

You know the feeling of falling asleep when it's daylight and waking up to darkness? How everything feels off kilter and that something may have happened while you were adrift in dreams. That guilt that creeps in because there was more you should have been doing to increase your productivity? Maybe I'm the only one that understands that feeling, I don't know.. but, that's what it's been like lately, just less of the guilt. I feel like I've woken up finally and shaken off the sheet wrinkles from my skin, stretched my limbs, and said "Here, I'm ready for the world."

At the end of the day, you have to live in your comfort and you shouldn't let anybody rob that of you or convince you of anything else. You don't have to be apologetic for your character or for the choices you made that you feel are completely the right decision. What you do have to do.. what you MUST do is keep your soul open. Not to opportunities, not necessarily for love, not for spirituality... but you have to keep your soul open to something new, something pure, something that will keep that spark inside you there. You don't have to be on fire for anything, but you have to keep that spark. You have to stop every now and then and just breathe, because breathing in itself is perfect and as long as you're alive, you have that. What you have to keep your eyes open to is the goodness in everything, even if it's subconscious, because if you close your eyes, even for a second, you may miss what this "life" is all about. No, you'll never fully figure out why you're here, why WE'RE here. But, you will have a sense of what it is to be connected to something on a much larger scale than you are. You are a drop in an ocean of understanding. You must place yourself outside of your own reality now and again and let go of the ropes you've clung to always in order to clear your conscience. You may make mistakes, but they are never on your own accord. You are never to blame fully and that is what you have to grasp at. You have to see your beauty, no... you have to understand what beauty is first, aside from a word. You have to connect somehow to every single ghost that exists in other parallels.