Futile

I hate feeling like I make no difference.  Feeling useless, stupid, and superflous.

I hate feeling like I can't do what I want to do.

I miss you.

I miss you all.  I miss feeling close to you, I miss thinking I could help you, I miss conversations and coaxing talks and hearts so full they could burst.

I miss you, and you have no idea.

Meh

I wish it was warmer outside.  This storm is pretty fantastic, and I'd love to play in it.  

Too cold.  Ugh....

Epiphany

Today's been one of those weird, whirlwindy days for me.  Maybe it's because it's a holiday of sorts and thus incapable of going smoothly.  I don't know.  

Silversteining (yeah...I made that a verb...) it up in the car earlier made me feel so mixed up and weird.  I found that band about five years ago, and there's a chance I wouldn't be here if it weren't for them.  And that kind of struck me earlier.  The idea that one band, one album, one song, could save a life.  And the idea that they have no clue that they had that sort of an impact on another human being.  

I've had people tell me that I saved them scars, cuts, and burns.  And it's horrible to admit, but I feel almost desensitized to this concept.  I've been working with the same people over and over again with TWLOHA.  It's always the same people.  Some of them genuinely need help, and I've come to love them as if I knew them face to face.  But some of them are on an ego trip, and so their gratitude and three page letters on Facebook about how me staying up til 3am talking to them kept them from cutting themselves feels a bit....falsified.  Like it doesn't compare to the people I feel like I'm really helping.

But I don't want to be desensitized.  I don't want to be the person on the phone listening to someone spill their life's story and their suicidal thoughts while I causally peruse Facebook, or nonchalantly go about some other mundane daily chore.  I want to feel.  I want to sympathize, empathize and care.  I want to be able to tell these people that I'm always here for them, and mean it.  

I hate that it can't be simple.

Why not?

Since this blog is already established because of my English 112 class, I figure I may as well keep it going.  I've always kinda liked blogging back in the prehistoric days of Xanga and all that.  

So, there you have it.  I doubt anyone reads this thing, honestly.  But I don't think I write for anyone by myself anyways, so what does it really matter?

Controversial Blog Post

            I think that the theme of travel in both “Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name” and “You Shall Know Our Velocity” are fairly similar.  In Northern Lights, Clarissa is running from her loveless relationship to the hope and possibility that she’ll find her family and her lineage.  In YSKOV, Will is running from the death of his friend and the subsequent beating he endured to the possibility that he can give away the money and his baggage at the same time. 

            In both books, the main character is running from something.  The reason they have left their home-countries (if that even works), is to ultimately get away.  Neither character left with a specific destination in mind, and neither one cared where they ended up in the long run.  All they cared about was getting out and away from where they were. 

            Aside from that similarity, I feel that the main characters in and of themselves are fairly similar.  Although the two authors have distinctly different writing styles overall, the two main characters almost seem as if they could have come from the same family, or were meant for one another romantically or something.  Clarissa is a confused, headstrong, impulsive character and Will is quiet, jumble-minded (not a word, true, but I feel it gets the idea across.), and has a bit of impulsiveness in him too despite his tendency to mentally overanalyze everything that happens.  Clarissa doesn’t want anyone to know about her past, and keeps everything related to it from the family she settles down with at the end of the novel.  Will is completely ashamed of his face and how battered it is, and doesn’t want anyone to really look at him because he fears their judgment. 

            Overall, it is human nature to try and avoid something that causes discomfort, pain, and stress.  Clarissa flies to Lapland to avoid the betrayal of her fiancée and her father, while Will plans an around-the-world jaunt to avoid the haunting dreams and thoughts about his friends death.