Can't fight the feeling

A few of my friends have mentioned seeing beautiful rainbows today. I've looked, but haven't seen one -- kind of disappointing since rainbows are one of my favorite things, ever. But maybe that's the point, just to know that something beautiful exists, even when you can't see it.

Contemplative

Not sure what it is, but these past few days I've felt very "contemplative." I put that in quotations because I feel like it used to be a "mood" option on Myspace so it doesn't seem like a real mood to me anymore. I don't know what it is...maybe it's that SPOP apps came out yesterday and the thought of soon meeting hundreds of amazing people and choosing a staff of less than 150 has me nervous, questioning how intuitive my judgment really is. Or maybe it's the MLK Jr. symposium that's been going on this week -- reminding me that my peers and I have so much work to do in our world and for each other and forcing me to re-evaluate my whiteness and what that means to me and the people around me. And if it's not those, maybe it's my constant inner battle with being in the greek community, knowing that I have strong morals and values, but typically being too afraid to wear anything greek affiliated for fear of being instantly labeled and shoved into a mess of crappy stereotypes. If not those, maybe it's the fact that I'm applying to be an RA and I want the position so so badly, but realize how competitive it is and can only hope I can convey my passion for mentoring freshmen through an application/potential interview. Not that? Maybe it's how god damn much I think about things. Like when I see someone open a door for them-self but not look behind them to see if anyone is soon to follow so that they can hold the door open a little longer for the person right behind them instead of slamming the door in their face. I notice little things that people do, good and bad, every day, and it swells my brain thinking about why they do certain things, and if they care.

Some things on my mind right now that are bugging me out of the blue that I need to write down:

1. I heard someone refer to their friend as their "gay best friend" recently. The person that said it was one of my closest friends and it irked me so much but I didn't know what to say. I'm annoyed by that phrase because it makes them seem like less of a friend and more of a commodity, and mad at myself for not saying anything.

2. I HATE when women in sororities use the saying "panhellenic love" to describe being friends with women in other sororities. First of all, it's sad and pathetic that such a phrase has to exist. If we all loved each other in the first place, it'd just be real love. It's like "gay best friend," it turns a real world like love or best friend into something materialistic and stupid. Love should be love, there aren't variations of it.

3. The fact that I don't really know where I stand with race. Not that I don't know how I feel about people of other races -- I love them, that's not my point. I mean that I don't know my purpose with it. I've been taking a lot more classes and going to a lot more things as of late that have to do with race and the subjugation of certain races...pretty much everyone except white people. And I keep hearing that the worst thing white people can do is sit back and do nothing and I don't know where I stand. I'm trying to educate myself about everything, but do people think that I'm just sitting back? Maybe they do. That scares me.

It is at this point in my post that I would normally re-read everything I just wrote and then promptly erase it all, like I never said it. I'm not going to re-read it this time.

A Very Small View On Religion

I have a lot of different ways that I view religion. This is one of them.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people say things along the lines of "hoping that God has something good in store for me" or that they are thankful for all that God has given them. Personally, I do not really believe that there is a God, which is maybe why this statement perturbs me, but I don't think that's why. If people want to believe in God then that's fine. I like that God can give people hope sometimes. But the aspect that I mentioned above leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I feel that sometimes people attribute their success to God, or if they are failing, they hope that God has something good coming up for them. I don't agree with that. To me, God has nothing to do with what happens in your life. If YOU want to succeed, then fight for what you care about, constantly strive to be better, put yourself out there, DO IT. And if you fail, don't expect that God is going to turn things around for you. It's all in YOUR mindset. Don't leave it up to someone else. If things in your life are not ideal, then make them ideal.

I think this is really frustrating to me because I strongly believe that your happiness and success is reliant on how happy and successful you CHOOSE to be. Nearly everyone is a bottomless pit of potential, but most people choose to waste it or to be unhappy about things when instead they could focus on the bright parts of life. The problem I mentioned earlier aligns with the fact that I feel like people sometimes put too much faith in God, hoping that God will bring them success and happiness, rather than bringing it upon themselves.

And a small disclaimer: While I have many qualms with religion, I do appreciate some of the morals it teaches and the hope it can give to people. If you disagree with me, I hope you can see from my perspective.

Innocence

Tonight, I was babysitting my five-year-old sister and we were playing with this cupcake set she got for Christmas where you can decorate fake cupcakes with dry-erase markers and fake candles that stick on top with velcro. When we were done decorating, I pretended to blow out my candle and she told me to make a wish, so I did. She stared at me for a second and asked me what my wish was. I told her with a smile that I couldn't say because then it wouldn't come true but she kept prodding so I told her that I had wished that she always be happy, even when life makes her sad. She smiled and said, "I AM always happy, so your wish came true!"

For a second, it made my eyes water a little. And thinking about it now, they do again. And still, I can't quite tell why that is. Is it because I'm glad she's happy and that I want to believe that she always will be? Or is it because I know that sometimes she will be sad, and I won't be able to help her...and that she's too young and innocent to realize that. Definitely the latter.

I have definitely grown to love my sister, and I don't feel bad saying it like that, that it took time. It was a shock at first to have this new thing that was 15 years younger than me floating around, asking questions, crawling, walking, living. But now that she's a little older, I can't help but love and appreciate her purity, innocence, and love of life. It makes me sad to look at her sometimes. Now, she's so full of happiness and curiosity, and I fear that over time she'll decay and wither like almost everyone else. And maybe what I fear most is that if she does reach that stage at some point, I won't even know the difference. By then, I'll have forgotten how she was as a child that enjoyed decorating fake cupcakes and talking about words she couldn't spell. Maybe I'll have decayed, too.

Before I tucked her in, we read some books in her bed. One was about a girl that was teased because her favorite color was pink, but black was "in" (these books are written for five-year-olds so the symbolism is not what you would call "vivid"). Basically, the pink-loving-girl went through a depressed outcast stage and then found a girl that liked the color purple and they became friends and realized she doesn't have to like the color black to be happy. I tried to describe the moral to my sister, London, telling her to remember this story if she gets teased at school or ever feels alone. She responded by saying, "I don't get teased at school" and I responded back with, "well, maybe in the future you will." And she said, "no I won't." And that was that.

Sometimes her innocence is frustrating, most of the time, it's eye-opening. I hope she remembers these moments one day. I hope she's always happy. Even when she's not.