Blood Relations

Imagine the most crazy family reunion you've ever been to. You know, with the drunk aunts, naked uncles, punk cousins, rich grandparents, etc. You look around and think, "are these people really related to me?" You can't believe that the eighty-year-old dancing on the table is really a blood relation. Or maybe you see the resemblance all too well. And yet, these are the people that you are connected to. For life.

These people haunt your every waking hour, from the moment your mom calls to see if you're alive to the time when your older sibling outshines you in an activity, to the day when your dad decides to teach you how to fix a car. They seem like the most annoying people you know, the most obnoxious, nagging, persistent family ever, and you wish they would just leave you alone. But they can't.

You are tied to them and they are tied to you in a way that can never be broken. You may not believe me, but there will come a time when you will appreciate this bond. There are moments in life when all our friends abandon us, everything we held dear is ripped from our grasp, and the priorities we once had are switched around entirely. The moment that happens to you, you will realize that the one stable thing in your life that can never change is who you're related to. In that moment, the best thing you can do is call up a family member and tell them all their woes. Because even if you despise them, they will understand the gravity of the situation simply by the fact that you're calling them.

So, if you're looking for a best friend, turn to your sister, if you need advice, ask your father, if you need a guy to spend your Saturday evenings with, invite your brother to a movie. Trust me, it'll be worth it.

I Miss You

This post is a shout-out to all those people I miss right now. You may not even know who you are. Some of you are family, some are friends, some are a mixture of both.

Some of the people I miss are down the hall from me right now. But I miss talking with them. I miss spending time with them. I miss hanging out with them, laughing, playing, joking around, and having fun with them. I miss spending time with the people I love because work, school, family, relationships, personal issues, and more have kept us apart.

A lot of the people I miss are thousands of miles away. They live across the country and I only see them a few times a year. Perhaps it's not the distance that makes me miss them so much as the lack of communication and emotional space between us. I don't write them enough and they don't write me. I miss them so much my heart aches, but I don't pick up the phone and call, go on the computer and write, or send a quick text because I'm focused on where I am physically and how much of a distance there is between us. It's stupid, really. My sister lives the same distance away and I chat with her every single day. I miss her too, by the way.

I miss the people that I talk to every day because they're thousands of miles away and I can't see their faces. I miss them because I know so much about them, I care about their lives, I love them so much, but I can't be with them. Even on the occasion that I can see their faces via video chat, it's not enough. Then I want to hold them, to hug them, to sit them down next to me and make them tell me everything.

There's more to it, though. I don't just miss people. I miss my life from the past. I miss being little and pretending our mailbox was an oven and cooking soup beneath it. I miss the days when I would walk over to my friend's house every day at 3:20 PM to greet her when she came home from school. I miss the days when I could go visit the chapel every time I had a spare moment. I miss the times when I lived with forty of the most awesome teenage girls I've ever met. I miss staying up late at night talking with my sister about the most random and stupid things. I miss going to Starbucks with my small group of friends and talking about our "intellectual superiority" after riding around in shopping carts.

Life just keeps going and it doesn't stop. Ever. It twists and changes and bends into things we never expected it to be. One day you wake up and realize that you haven't talked to your "best friend" in months. You'll understand that your baby sister is all grown up. You finally admit that those jeans just don't fit you anymore. Sometimes you just need to accept these changes of life and keep going. Other times, you need to pick up your cell phone and call your friend. You need to go on your computer and e-mail that person you miss. You need to eat healthier to be the happy person that used to be you. Maybe the reason we miss people and things is so that we can appreciate them more when we meet them again.

The Power of a Word

So many people today will say things without really thinking about their meaning. They'll say, "how are you?" without really caring how a person is doing, or "what's up" without actually wanting a response. Likewise, someone will yell swear words in a church without thinking about how blasphemous it is. They will take God's name in vain like it's the most normal thing in the world. The power of words has been lost. Perhaps not forever, but it's very sadly absent.

Think about how most of your conversations go, for example, and think of how they affect your life. Whenever I speak with a certain group of my friends, it's always about something negative, or gossip, or how bad life is for them. Another group of friends only talks about themselves. They'll sit together for hours and just tell stories about their lives, things that have happened to them, or why they're better than me. Some of my friends only talk about video games, comic books, movies, or TV shows. They'll criticize some movies, praise others, and generally affect my view of those particular pieces of media.
These conversations not only affect my view of those people and how I interact with them, but also how I respond to life. If I spent most of my time around those people who love to gossip and talk about depressing things, I would most likely become a girl who enjoys to gossip and brings others down through her words. If I hung around the people who always talk about themselves, I would probably become more self-absorbed and constantly try to prove myself to others. The words that are spoken and the way they're said can affect my life and who I am.

The words I say, as well, can affect how other people view me. Imagine for a moment that you meet someone for the first time. They introduce themselves calmly and casually. You respond with, "Hey! I'm Lola, totally &*%$ and I hate %$@&. " They would probably perceive you as a bad influence on their children and keep you at arms length. You would probably think they were a cool person, and regret having made such a horrible impression.
But it's not just introductions that can affect how people view you. I've known one man for a long time. I respect him and think he's an awesome business man and leader. However, just the other day I heard him cussing and belittling people I know really well, and my opinion of him dropped by several points. That's not to say he's any less of an awesome person, it's just how I view him that has changed.

Facebook and other social networks give us many more opportunities to forget the meaning of words. It's so easy to post something on facebook and ignore the consequences because you don't actually have to say anything to someone face to face. You could post something horrible on another person's wall, de-friend them, and never have to talk to them again. It's so easy to forget that there are consequences to what we say and write. Even chatting with people has to be thought of a little less casually, because it is so easy to misinterpret a message or a text.

I'd like to end by saying, I'm not trying to preach to you. I'm not trying to tell you what to do and not to. I'm just writing down what I've had to learn the hard way. There was one time when I was younger, I wanted to stay at a friend's house overnight instead of going to a church picnic with my family. I don't remember exactly what I said to my dad, all I know is that it got me grounded for the rest of the weekend, and I didn't get to go to the picnic or my friend's house. When my dad came to talk to me about it, he said, "It's not what you do or say that matters, it's how people perceive it."  And so, I always have to take a step back and think, "how is the person reading/hearing this going to understand it?" And sometimes they still misinterpret, but I try to be as clear and concise as possible... (Looks at everything she's written) ... Most of the time...

Hey There!

You have no idea of the power of these words. Reaching out to someone you don't know can be one of the most important things you ever do. Asking someone you know how they're doing can change the course of your life forever. Caring about anyone can make the world a different place.

Personally, I'm an introvert, and I hate being around people. One or two really close friends is fine, but when it comes to big groups or people I don't know, I feel like crawling into a corner and hiding until they go away. This not being an option in most social situations, so I choose instead to introduce myself.
"Hey! Are you new here? What's your name? Where are you from? Why are you here? What is the most important thing in the universe?" Questions like these follow, and I either end up in a very awkward situation, or with a new best friend. Usually, the former, but on the rare occasion that the latter happens, it's completely worth all the awkward situations in the world.

People are lonely. Everyone could use a friend. No man is an island. Perhaps the next time you see someone in need, you could reach out to them instead. This isn't just hard for introverts either, extroverts seem to have a hard time focusing on one person and helping them out in time of need. Sometimes that person just needs you to listen and be sympathetic, even if you'd rather go out and party with a million other people. Be a friend. You could probably use it too.

Help Me!

Do you ever reach a point in your life where everything and everyone is against you and all you can do is scream, "Help me!!" to the entire world hoping someone will hear and answer you? I have reached this point several times, and let me tell you, it's not fun. Especially if no one is there for you.

Have you ever had that experience of going about your normal, everyday business only to be interrupted by a text that simply says, "I'm having a horrible day. Can we hang out later?" You look at your watch and find that you have about negative five minutes in your day that you can set aside for this friend. Yeah, I've been there too.

The problem with the first scenario is that you never actually say, "help me" in those exact words because that would be too desperate, too depressing, and too forward. Therefore you settle with something like, "hey, wanna do something later?"
The problem with the second scenario is that you'll often get a text that just says, "Hey, wanna hang out later?" It will say nothing of how desperately in need of help the person is, and is therefore easy to ignore.

So, what are you supposed to do? How do you show people that you're in dire need of their help when you're too scared to admit it to yourself? How do you get the help you need without sounding too desperate? Well, it's rather simple really. Say, "I need to talk to you." Or "Can you please help me, I'm not doing so great." Be willing to show someone how much you really need their help in that moment instead of trying to play the tough guy and bear it all yourself.

What if you're on the other end? What if you get a text saying, "hey, let's hang out tonight"? It's very simple: respond. You never know if they're actually in need of help or if they just want to spend time with you. Either way, make it a priority in life to be a friend. A busy schedule means nothing when your friend is in need. Trust me, I know. I'm a full-time student with two part-time jobs. I've got an apartment to keep up, my own meals to cook, and I babysit regularly. I've also got friends, somehow. When they need a shoulder to cry on, a friend to talk to, or even a text of reassurance, I make time for them. I change my work schedule, work around classes, and cancel extra activities just to help them out.
Try it sometime. It'll make you a better person.

Time

 Time is a strange thing. Time is relative. Time is absolute. Time is aplenty. Time is scarce. Time is short. Time is forever. Time is weird.

Think about it. Time just goes on and on and on. Each and every day, there's time. There always has been time, for as long as anyone can remember. But there was a time when there was no time. Or does that even make sense? There will be a time when there is no time. Or will there?

Time is relative. On the East coast it's seven o'clock. On the West coast, it's four o'clock. In Australia, it's tomorrow.

When you're sitting in an airplane for hours, like I am right now, time goes by very slowly. When you're out with your friends having a great time, time flies.

A week for a five year old is a really long time. A week for an adult is a very short time indeed.

Time is absolute. Ten minutes from now, it will be ten minutes later than it is right now. No matter where you are in the world, that is true.
Being in time-out for five minutes is torture whether you're five years old or fifteen.

Watching a pot boil always takes forever, because it's such a boring activity.

Going on a roller coaster is always too short, and leaves you wanting more time.

Time is precious. We only have a certain amount of it in our lifetime. We have less and less time every moment of every day. Our time can run out at any moment. We can lose a moment so easily, and never get it back. If we don't value the time we have, we'll never appreciate life properly.

Time is annoying. There are only sixty seconds in a minute, sixty minutes in an hour, twenty-four hours in a day, seven days a week, and fifty-two weeks in a year. We never have enough time to do everything we want to do. If time were limitless, we'd get everything done, right?

Wrong. We have just the right amount of time to do everything we should do. If we learned to organize it better, not waste any, divide it proportionally, and use it well, there would be the perfect amount of time.

But, we're only human, and we mess up. A lot. And that's okay. We have time to learn from our mistakes. We have time to stop and think about life. We have time to work things out and make things better. We have time to learn how to use time.

Change

Change can be really annoying. At one moment you think the world is perfect, the next, everything changes.

Change can happen suddenly, where you're on the edge of a cliff one moment and the next you're dead, becuase your cat decided to scare you at that moment, which is a sudden change from her normal, purring, happy attitude.
Or, change can be gradual. Your cat has been growing more and more menacing toward you because you keep forgetting to take the bones out of her favorite salmon dish. You should have know better than to take her to the edge of a cliff with you, but you didn't see the change because it was so gradual, and the next thing you know, you're dead.

Okay, let's use a less drastic example. Friendships. Two girls can be friends for eighteen years, and then get into a fight one day (probably over a boy) and never talk again. Or, they can slowly grow apart, until they're thirty and think, "I wonder what happened to that girl that I used to hang out with when I was younger. She was so nice."

Change can happen in any area of life. It can be in friendships, as mentioned, in workplaces, social status, location, temperature, color, body weight, hair style, candy choices, and fashion preferences. Change can happen when we least expect it. Change can happen the moment we decide for it to happen.

Change can be for better or for worse. Take a change in social circles, for example. You will move away from some old friends, but meet new friends at the same time. Losing the old friends is an example of bad change, if those friends really meant something to you. Making new friends is a good change, especially if you can form wholesome relationships with them.

Change must be taken in stride, from one day to the next. Change cannot be helped, no matter how hard we try to stop it. Change will make us stronger, even if it hurts us in the process. Let us embrace it, and use it for good.