Worlds Apart

posted a poem on my other blog tonight. It is called Worlds Apart and you can find the whole thing here.  The first bit is as follows:

She sat on a chair in

The hospital waiting room

Hoping for good news,

Two seats away from where he’d been

Only an hour before

And he stepped into her favorite

Coffee shop to get out of the rain

Buying the drink she always bought

On Thursday afternoons

Hope that intrigues you enough to go check it out!! :) 

Dual Blogship.

I have another blog. A darker, slightly more depressing blog. I don't know if I will eventually pick one of the two or not, but for now there are two.

anyway.

I posted a strange, ramble-y, nonsensical post tonight.

Do with it what you will.

Don't feel obligated to read.

Morning thoughts.

( http://whitepaperquotes.tumblr.com/post/25900799294 )

I found this on tumblr this morning, and felt very connected to the person that posted it. THis is the life of an introvert, right here. Yes. We like being alone sometimes. More often than not, I find myself wishing for the comfort of my bed and my headphones and a book and peace and no one else. Even if I am having fun with my friends. Even if I am enjoying and evening out or an afternoon talking with someone, more often than not I need time to myself to counterbalance the time spent with them. It's hard to explain to most people. Being alone in natural and healthy for me. For my mental and emotional health.

But I don't want to always be alone. I want to spend time talking with friends over burritos or coffee. I want to hang out and play card games or go on a walk. I want to chill with you in my room and talk about boys. I don't want to be alone forever. I don't want to be lonely.

It's a constant struggle in my life, managing alone time and time spent with people, getting others to understand that if I excuse myself from joining you, it doesn't mean I'm sad or don't like you. It doesn't mean I won't ever come back and join you again. It just means that I need some time to myself to process my day, my interactions, my thoughts. I cannot say this enough, because still there are people who don't get it. There are still people that say, "oh, I understand", but when the time comes are hurt or confused as to why I'm leaving. Why i don't want to watch that movie with you tonight, sorry. Why I would rather sit on my bed by myself than join you for a game.

I want to tell you that it is OK. It is ok, if you are the introvert, to leave when you are feeling overwhelmed, over stimulated, etc. And it is OK, if you are the extrovert, when the introvert leaves. They don't hate you. They still want to hang out with you sometimes. But they need time alone.

Just never leave them alone forever. Keep asking if they want to join. Respect them if they say no. Try to understand their needs. And never let them feel lonely.

Because for an introvert, loneliness can be catastrophic. It is harder for us to go out and make friends (or at least harder for me). Loneliness is difficult to combat without good friends. Introverts like small groups of friends, but if they can't find those friends, there is nothing to do but sit and wait for one to show up. The pressure of hanging out with larger groups of people who don't understand, just to not feel lonely is great sometimes. And if i do hang out with them once or twice because we are acquaintances and I don't want to be lonely, I feel bad later when I don't hang out with those people much any other time. It's a vicious cycle that cannot be fully explained unless you live it.

I guess I'm rambling. I don't have any facts, all of this is from my own personal experience. I just cannot try to explain the life of an introvert enough, because many people still don't understand. I know some never will, but if even only a few can, that would be wonderful.

This Strange, Invisible Stratosphere

The internet is a crazy thing. You can spend hours and hours, all day, every day scouring it and still not scratch the surface of all the information it holds. True some of that information is false, as anyone with internet access can post something, but it is information nonetheless.

However, the internet has a bad stigma attached to it. Especially for teenagers. You think that because I am a teenager and I am spending time on the internet, I am wasting my time. I'm doing things that don't matter. I killing my brain cells. Or something. And it sucks.

I will admit, i do "waste time" on the internet every day. But really, is it wasted? "Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time". I do think that it is ok to spend time doing something that makes you happy every day, on the internet or off, whether it is important and helpful to the "bettering of your mind" (or some crap like that) or not. That is not the pint of this post, however.

I spend time on the internet learning. Not necessarily in the dweeby "I only play math games and read 100 page professional articles and learn useless facts" sort of way. (If you do that, Go You! If that's what you love, keep it up and have fun. It's just not my cup of tea). No, I spend time learning about culture. I spend time watching funny yet (somewhat) education videos on youtube (think vlogbrothers, mental floss, how to adult, crashcourse, thebrainscoop, etc.) that teach me a variety of things from current events to chemistry and psychology, to discussions of classical books, to how to be an adult. I watch spoken word poetry and learn how about other people's lives and experiences. I learn empathy for other cultures. I follow humansofnewyork on tumblr and learn about the dreams of people of all ages across the country from me. I watch TED talks about depression and psychology and art and now ideas and theories. I talk to friends. I create. I think. I look up how to draw foxes and human hands and Elsa and Anna. I follow blogs that give me tips on writing creatively, for my audience, or how make a character relatable in a specific situation.

And I know, that you may not think that these things, or all of these things, are important, but they are. At least to me they are. And while I could possibly spend some of that time doing other things, it is not all wasted time, and what I am doing is not all bad.



Ok, rant over. :P

Personals

written as an assignment for my creative writing class. This poem is a persona poem, it had to be clearly about someone that was not me, the voice of someone else. The perspective is of a 16 year old boy.



I haven’t slept in on Sunday mornings for the
Last five years in a row, getting
Up before the sun when the cars are finally
Quiet and the college kids have gone to bed.
I put on my converse tennis shoes
Size eleven, rubber falling off like ribbon
Discarded from a birthday box and
Ride my rusting green bike up and down quiet streets,
Throwing papers onto doorsteps.
I haven’t missed a target in 2 years.
(But I’m bad a sports.)
And the sun comes up as I’m working
Shooting lines of gold and orange between
The houses and the trees and the
World feels good and kind, so when
I get home I don’t go back to bed.
Instead I sit on the porch and draw pictures
And eat cereal from the box until my
Hands are cold and the neighbors
With the blue pickup truck leave
For work. I want to go away from here,
Far away where the night is never quiet
And the girl across the street isn’t sad
When she picks up the paper from beside
The red rubber boots and disappears back inside
Never smiling. I’ve drawn the braid that hangs
Down her back a hundred times, but never
Her face. She retreats too quickly and I
Wish that I could tell her she is beautiful
And that someday we will fly away from this
Empty little town and show the world
Even we misfits
Know how to spread our wings.

~C.R. Sutton