Rest In Peace, My Little Man

Why do people have pets? They’re full of excitement at the beginning, they’re a fun hassle through their good years, and then they get weak and die after only a fraction of a typical human life.

Maybe it’s because they really are our best friends. All that my little bunny Snow needed to be happy on his birthday was a new wooden carrot. Ten years later, even if I came home from a long, stupid night with some unreasonable kids, my gerbil never knew the difference between my bad and glorious nights. All he wanted was for me to come home and feed his hungry little tummy his favorite sunflower seeds.

He knew who I was, and he knew he depended on me. He was less than 4 inches long and his tail was longer than him, but he was a little ball of friendly energy. Everyone in the world could be mad at me, and the little runt would still play with my hand. Our relationship never changed. Nothing ever made him stop being my friend, except the day nature took his life.

Biology is like math; life is systematic. You’re born, you live, and you die. One day, even the Sun will die, and unless we’ve migrated elsewhere, life in our solar system is done. Physics will take its course. Chemistry will take on new roles. Biology is the finite science. This will be the destruction of our local biology.

We are the finite science. Our tears over the lost will one day be lost themselves. But the opportunity to breathe the air on a planet brimming with life is an incredibly complicated, rare chance. The tears are worth it because the life that just came and went was an absolutely beautiful happening of chance.

Henry, you died today. I’m gonna miss you, little buddy.

Why Is Tragedy The Best Inspiration?

How do you know you're a terrible excuse for a human being?

It's easy. It's something that happens to you when you witness a head on collision in the lane you just switched out of. You're not a terrible human being until you realize you switched into the lane that might have saved your life, but also completely prevented you from saving the lives of others.

You're now in the middle lane, surrounded by an abandoned idle car of a sprinting hero on one side, and the damaged metal on the other. You have a choice: get out and help and leave zero lanes for traffic flow in rush hour, or avoid causing massive gridlock and drive on, leaving a path for emergency vehicles to get through. Be a burdening savior or be an awful but useful person. Take your pick.

Which one makes you feel worse?

I felt useless by being useful. I drove on. I wonder if they were okay.

Just when you think you're the one having a bad day.

Maybe it's sentimental, but I appreciated the few good things that happened that day a little bit more. I may have shed a tear or two of thankfulness for still being able to appreciate.

Thirty minutes later, I finally got to class, unaware that it was spring break for the college my class is at. But I got there in an unharmed car. For some reason, that was okay.

I now had an extra two hours to spare. I had a choice: go home, or spend some time living a little.

Which one makes life worth it?

Only 300 Miles To Go

It's a rainy day on the rural highways of nowhere, Arkansas, and the biggest thing I can see in the distance is a water tower, smaller than a thimble at arm's length.

In reality, one bad tornado has the capability of destroying everything and everyone that water tower tends to. If there were no paved roadways around here, that kind of tragedy could go unnoticed for awhile. Mother Nature wouldn't phone the families; she never really intended to be a mother in the first place. Her children were the ones that called themselves children and put a meaning to the concept of love and family. Grandmother Earth cares even less; she'll be here no matter what her daughter destroys or what her descendants pollute the air with. If anything, she's given up on them for being suicidal. They're just killing themselves at this point. Let them.

So maybe there's no meaning to life. Maybe whatever we do only works toward creating something we can be proud of, to impress ourselves with what we've managed to make out of nothing. The universe didn't start with biology, and biology won't be its end.

The world didn't start with you in it, and you won't be its demise.

Make your uselessness worth it.

Grow on, grow up, grow out. Move mountains.

It's 1:23 AM, and I am terrified to go to sleep.


Maybe this has something to do with the sensations of my face mimicking a mudslide into my brain after 10 seconds of shuteye. It might have something to do with my lungs vanishing after 15 seconds. It could even have something to do with my knowledge of my existence slipping away after 20 seconds, when I flinch back into reality and, more importantly, into my very real bed, with my very real comforter, which happens to not be doing a very good job of comforting me right now.


How I got to this inconvenient mental state is not important. All you need to know is large amounts of caffeinated drinks after 9 PM and Sudafed tablets should never, ever mix.


Ever.


Unless of course you want to be awake T-minus 6 hours until your next test, first thing in the normal waking morning, thinking about everything but communication in the business world.


Maybe, for some reason, you enjoy thinking about what your life is going to be like 13 weeks from now when you won't have to set foot back into your dreaded high school ever again. Will you succeed? Will you even try? What are you doing with your life, sweetheart?


Eight straight hours of school will become a foreign concept, as it has in summers past. If you want to see somebody, you can plan on seeing them for more than the 3 minutes between the 30 seconds you need to bolt to and from your tardy-policy-enforcing classrooms. Those confined dictatorships will no longer call mommy after the third time your in-depth conversation about the applications of modern religion and battle of the bands runs over in the hallway.


Life will be kind of nice. You'll actually have to try to maintain your friendships that you want to last. There will be no more passing-period rekindling of friendly flames. You're on your own now. You're free. Fly with it. Embrace the wind. Hug it a little bit.


Maybe after another 13 weeks, you'll start to think about everything you never thought about during your four years of deans' offices and dress codes. Maybe there will be somebody you shoved aside in pursuit of a better standing with your friends and yourself. Maybe this person had the potential to change your life. This person could have been that one person you've always dreamed you'd meet one day, and you would have no idea what you passed up. The only idea you'd have is the one telling you that you probably failed yourself in this aspect.


I still don't recommend mixing caffeine and sinus medicine. It's a terrible idea, unless you enjoy setting your brain on fire in your spare time. It's 1:44 AM, and this is not a good feeling.


Nonetheless: what are you doing with your life, sweetheart?


Are you sure?


Well, that's a nice idea.


But did you miss anything?

Tollways Give You Wings?

It's a monument. It's a statue of remembrance. It's a visual representation of one of the most random nights of my entire life. It's a little bit ridiculous; it's a can of Red Bull energy drink.

Sixteen hours late of my rude awakening for my AM job, I found myself driving out to Nickel City Arcade with a few awesome people from Elmhurst. We weren't strangers to this journey, but we were strangers to Jeremy printing out directions involving the tollway.

When I drove up to the booth, I handed the guy a dollar, and rather than reaching to make that little flimsy stick change direction, he reaches over and out and hands me three fresh cans of Red Bull. He says, “You guys like these, right?” Hell yeah, we like those. Thanks, man.

So we drive off, drink the GloryJuice, have an awesome time at the arcade with parachute men and nunchucks, and wake up completely unpoisoned the next morning. It was, indeed, glorious.

I think I'll question to the day I die just why this guy chose us to give those drinks to. In the meantime, all I can think about is how humanity isn't all bad, no matter what high school has so desperately tried to teach me all these years. Lesson learned: not all people suck. Sometimes.

I just felt like this sort of event couldn't go untold.

If I Knew What Any Of The Sigur Ros Song Titles Meant, I'd Incorporate Them Into This Headline

My winter break has been over. I've disregarded this fact for a couple weeks now, but the time has finally come for the last night of the longest college break I know of, which, sadly, is now over. I realize I've probably spent way too much money on gas and inconvenient meals driving out to a town I've never once lived in to see people I didn't even grow up with. The thing is, I don't regret any of that time spent driving 30-minute straight shots and ensuring my early-on, greasy heart attacks. According to the last conversation I had in the last car ride I had tonight, the last month has been nothing but enlightening, in so many unprecedented ways.

Sometimes, everything matters. The people you find around the abstract corners of your life can become the driving force of any hope you have in anything. When you can look past your dashboard at the sign pointing towards your exit and feel the same fuzzy feeling you get when you come home from vacation, especially in a place you've never held residence, you know you've found some kind of treasure. Who knows how long you've known these people. Regardless, you know they've changed your life.

Other times, nothing matters. When high school is over, walk around a college campus and see how many people care what happened at that dance Senior year. One day, take a break from your school day or your work day, drive a few towns over, and see how many of those people judge you by who your friends were last month. If you get in a relationship, see how much longer it lasts if it's never about who pays, where you go, or what you do. Find a few interesting people and see if you can't have one of the best nights of your life in a basement with no alcohol and no drugs. See what happens when you round up everything and everyone that makes your life miserable in any way and get rid of 'em. See if you aren't happier.

I know this isn't some kind of crazy end. In fact, some of these people are still around, not away at college. This isn't any kind of epic goodbye, because reality is there is still Spring break, there is still Summer, and there is still a thing called visiting. This is a crazy moment though, because I never once thought I could let go of years of social stigma in just one month of great people and great times. This has been transcendental. This has been love. I think I may have cried a little tonight.

So Take a Breath and Try to Keep it Down 'Cause I Love These Girls, But I HATE THIS TOWN!

Winter break. It's not usually supposed to be life-changing. But we're talking about my life here, so what are the chances of anything unfolding in a normal manner?

I've spent more time about five towns away from here than I've spent doing all of my other planned activities combined. I know some phenomenal people out there, and I wish I would have met all of them sooner, as to have hungout with them all through high school. It would have been worth it, because in two weeks, they've made me realize a few incredible things.

This town means nothing. There are a few select people who have treated me like garbage. There is one person in particular who has treated me as a subhuman character, way more than I ever thought imaginable. There have been times where I've wanted to somehow become friends with so many people who refuse to get to know me. I've been misinterpreted, judged terribly, and moreover, never given chances. People here have hurt me a thousand times more than everything in middle school that made me excited to move to a new district in the first place, and I have no idea how any of that happened. Maybe it was the fact that I tried to do everything in my power to prevent it from happening; maybe that was just me ignorantly setting up a time bomb. Who knows.

All I know now, is that there are better people out there. There are people who, despite having a group of friends they've known for a long while, are warm and welcoming to an interesting new person that comes around. There are people who, despite already having a great amount of good friends, take their own time trying to get to know a new person. Maybe it's because these people are out of high school and gotten over their pretentious cliquey ways; maybe it's because these people were never pretentious in the first place. (It's the latter; I met these people while they were still in high school.)

So to every kid around here still stuck in your twelve year journey, still thinking your little group of friends is all high and mighty and complete, to all of you who only let people in who meet your predetermined standards, and for all of you who really are pretentious about the people you hangout with, well, you're stupid. There's no better way to say it, really.

Sure, I can make the best of what I have. But you know, I've tried, and I have a few great friends locally. I appreciate you guys. Otherwise, I have one regret in my life: not pushing to be home-schooled. Fuck this town, man. And all those surrounding it.

Disconnection never felt so grand. <3