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010
Disillusionment

The pure of heart often have to come back to face a cruel reality. Those who feel deep love are disheartened when they interact with those who do not love so strongly. Those who do not feel hatred cannot understand those who act out of hatred.

The first time when a pure hearted child experiences the uncleanness of many humans' souls, they experience a horrible revelation of the truth that is humanity. The first time they realize this is a sinking feeling, and a feeling that they are alone in the world.

But those who love deeply are never truly alone, for they are loved in return by many.



Note: I have no idea what this means or where it came from, but I kind of like it in a way.

012
Different Ways of Thinking

"You're crazy," they told her. "You'll never make it out there."

How many times had she been told things like this in her life? That she dreamed to big or hoped too high. That she would be crushed by reality sooner or later.

And yet, here she was. Not everything was perfect; she wasn't living in an illusion. She knew that there would always be problems and trials facing her. She was realistic, but she knew that negativity would get her nowhere.

She just liked to look forward, while everyone else looked backward. Nothing wrong with that.

014
Gratitude

OMG WEEK 2 IS DONE! I FEEL LIKE A CHAMPION! CAPSLOCKEVERYWHERE! And on to the story.

Emily was just grateful to be alive at that point. She was a perfectly normal seventeen-year-old. At least, that's what she would have told anyone just weeks before. Now, she might still claim to most people to be a perfectly normal girl, but she admit to herself and to a few others that she was far from "normal".
Her life had been turned upside-down by the kidnapping. She had been taken after school and thrown into the back of the van with three others from her high school. She knew all three of the others from school, and if she had had her choice of companions, it would not have been these three.
Chris was alright; they talked once in a long while when their paths crossed, and they were on fairly good terms. One of the two other girls, Anna, was a nice enough girl, although she was in a very different crowd than Emily herself was. Anna was president of the life sciences club and spent more time in the library than in the hallways or the cafeteria, so their paths did not cross too often. Rose, the third companion, on the other hand, was someone who Emily knew all too well. The slight blonde girl was the infuriating type (in Emily's opinion) who tried to defy the high school social ladder. She walked where she wanted, with whom she wanted, and generally did her own thing. She generally avoided confrontation, but she flitted from group to group in the school, quietly subverting the typical structure of cliques, much to the frustration of those who wished to pin her down in a stereotypical opinion.
And as much as she had wished for her friends at that moment, she soon learned to rely on these three for her very survival. By a few days later, any animosity toward any of them was gone. Once the group was finally in safety, weeks later, the group (plus the two who had joined them later on in their journey) had become incredibly close-knit.
Now that she was safe, Emily found that she actually missed them. She had thought for a while that she could just go back to her everyday life, but she realized that she couldn't. The other three knew who she really was and why she had been targeted with them, and they knew her better than any of her old friends could have.
She had grown to a place where changes had to be made. There were still obstacles to overcome. It was going to be a long time before Emily felt safe anywhere again, even with the three friends she had become close to over the past few weeks. It was going to be a long journey before she felt normal again, if she ever did.
So much had changed in her life, and she still had just as few answers as before.
But regardless of anything else, she was just grateful to be alive.

Congrats on making it to week 2!

I really like how humorous Explosion is.
The kind of clipped sentences in the beginning, work nicely to really capture the feeling of a morning class.

I like how the voices change throughout the prompts.

016
Money

Staring at the coins and weighing them between his fingers, he began to cry. Had he really sold out his best friend just for this? This bag of coins--sure, it was a large sum of money, but his best friend. What had he done?

He had thought he was doing the right thing for so long, and now he regretted what he had done. But there was no going back on what he did, and no way that he could change its results.

Dropping the coins back into the pouch, he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and tossed the bag to the ground. It landed with a metallic clink some distance away from him.

He began walking the opposite direction. Where to? He didn't know himself, but maybe if he walked far enough, he could walk away from his past.

This post doesn't go for a prompt, but I'm writing it anyway. Some of it is from my blog posts of the past couple of months, but a lot of it is new. I think it's important that anyone reading pieces from my journal read this post.

I'm sure that if anyone's been reading these that they've noticed a thread connecting at least two or three of these pieces already. That thread is my friend Matt.

I met Matt freshman year, when a friend introduced us. He was a computer science major at the time, and I an environmental science major. He later changed major to his true calling: elementary education. Matt and I both sang, so we were part of a small group who sang every week for the 9:30 PM mass in the student chapel.

Matt and I grew close, and almost dated. We had just gotten to the holding hands stage when our roommates met and started sleeping together. Being locked out of one of our rooms together while our roommates were acting like bunnies made things a little bit awkward for the two of us, innocent as we were.

Matt wanted to ask me to our school's formal dance, but he kept getting too nervous, so eventually, he made me a Cinderella themed invitation and got my roommate to distract me while he slipped it into my Gen. Chem notebook. I was thrilled. I had never been asked to a dance like this before. Hell, I'd only been asked to a dance once, and that was from a long-time friend who just needed a date out of desperation. That night was sweet, but what stands out in my mind was our first and only kiss, weeks later in my dorm.

Anyway, I'm going to interrupt my own reminiscences here to get to the point. On Wednesday, December 7, 2011, tragedy struck, and Matt was senselessly murdered. My school was devastated. We're cliquey at times, but with less than 1500 students, we're a close-knit community.

The day after his death, after a brief prayer service, hundreds of students processed with candles from the campus center, through the dark, cold night to the building housing the education department. The crowd began to disperse from the education department, but there was a large group that stayed, huddled in close little groups, just holding each other, whispering, and crying. The following Monday, there had to be a few buses driving to the funeral in addition to the many students who chose to drive themselves.

During these days, I was in shock. I broke down and cried at times, but I really tried to stay strong for my friends the rest of the time. I took some of my final exams (needless to say, I didn't do very well on any of them), and left campus for the semester. Soon after, though, the shock wore off. I was hurting so badly, and I couldn't stand it.

Once I returned to school, things hit me even harder. I had memories of Matt everywhere on my campus. This semester ended up being so difficult. Personally, it’s been my worst, both academically and emotionally. I was in a really bad place for a while. I was too depressed to even get up some days, but somehow I fought through it. I went through my bad days, but I also had my good days. And finally, the good started to outnumber the bad.

On Thursday, I drove by the site where he was killed. I’ve driven by it probably a dozen times this semester, since I drove home almost every weekend for the first half of the term. Every time, it’s felt like someone’s twisting the knife in the wound that is my grief, but this time, it was different. It hurt, and I was sad, but I didn’t cry. It didn’t hurt the way it did before.

I still miss him. I miss him like crazy, but now there are days when I don't think about him. I don't think about him every waking moment and spend my time in the chapel, angry with God. I still miss him, but I'm going to be okay. I’m not healed yet, not by a long shot. It’s going to be a long time before I’m completely healed from this. It’ll be a while yet before I can hold hands or kiss someone without remembering my brief relationship with Matt, but I know that someday I’ll be there. And I know that when I do manage to get there, Matt will be smiling along with me.


I swear, I didn't intend to depress anyone with this. I just thought that the other writers with whom I chat here ought to know why some of my pieces seem to have a thread of mortality/life'stooshort/Imissmyfriendsomuch to them.

Thanks. I hope the writing helps. I just figured that since I consider you guys friends, you deserved to know something kind of major that's been going on in my life. smile And I figured it would do my writing more justice to have an explanation of why so much of it is going to come back to the same theme.