War

Inside my chest feels like a war.
My heart doesn’t pound against my ribs like it used to.
With excitement or joy, warmth or love.
I feel like I have a weight pushing down on me.
And even though my body becomes more and more uncomfortable to live in each week, it’s not the weight I keep stacking on that’s giving me this feeling of pressure.
I have a mix in my life, a balance of work and education. Something I’ve always hoped would bring me responsibility and stability in my life.
I have a social life with a few different small groups of friends. We smile. We laugh. We sing. We dance.
I’ve enjoyed the groups that I’ve been with. At times my heart is lifted, and the pressure seems to dissapear, just like it does when I’m unconsciously asleep.
But now, I can’t keep my brave façade visible, because the hurt that’s going on inside is pushing through. Hopefully trying to escape my body, to rid me of this horrible feeling.
I feel awful. I feel foul. My mood has become increasingly sombre yet ferocious.
I wonder at times, when I’m in my bath, when I’m driving my car, when I’m walking along a balcony of a 10 story building.
Should I drop in that hair dryer? Should I drive into that tree, oncoming traffic, off of that cliff? Should I just jump off?
These thoughts snap me into reality, and frighten me away from such things. But then the pain and pressure I feel comes back, as I realise I have to deal with these feelings before I act soo radically.
I’m afraid of how I feel and how it affects others. Or if those others can even notice it, let alone ask me what is wrong.
I’m becoming increasingly cynical and depressed, and I’m afraid of being swallowed whole.

"For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything else."

University is a place for learning, for excelled learning. In the course of 12 weeks you are assumed to be smarter in an area you subscribed to. But somewhere along the way you have to wonder, am I here to learn about Aboriginal injustice, the study of language or the theory of existentialism or am I so sick of learning about everything I have no interest in that I'm just aching for my degree? I'm certainly not saying that whole-heartedly, there is so much I love to learn and I find myself extremely engaged at times, but for the most part, university is a set of tests on things not many of us have interest in.

Today I sat in the library, completely thrown off learning I decided to entice myself with a book I brought from home. It was 'Like The Flowing River' a book that has taken me so long to read but has proven to be such an unbelievable, inspiring collection of thoughts and reflections. I'm glad I didn't read this in one sitting, I treated it like a journey, I went at a slow pace- giving the pages worth and letting their contents and meanings grow. I thoroughly enjoy this book.

The toughest issue I've had to face is the 'rest of my life'. What am I doing for the rest of my life? I struggled with this question a lot. Whenever I ask this question, a thousand others will follow. Where is home? What do you want to be remembered for? Where do you want to go? What do you want to do? What is important to you? And so on.

This is what I narrowed the rest of my life down to. I want to give my all to all of the world. I want to teach. More specifically I want to teach English to people who want to learning English. Not in primary or secondary schools. In centres and universities, and places across the world to help build bridges between communities.

I want to see the world. There is so much to see for just one person and I want to see as much as I possibly can. This endeavor was difficult to conceive at first. To see the world, as a pilgrim, as a traveler, as an adventurer, it had to be done alone. But that's wrong. Self discovery, to my surprise is a journey that cannot be completed within ourselves without others to guide us. I believe the world is designed not live on islands alone, but to build bridges between each island to meet each other. And so, this is why I travel. Not only to see the deserts, villages, cities, forests and valleys, but to meet the people who live off the desert, cities, forests and valleys. That is the culture of the world, "there are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign."
Sure history is flooded in every towns' museum, but I'm there to experience the town, not learn how others experienced it.

The concept of home to me holds a strange meaning. I want to keep moving. I don't ever want to establish myself in one place. Home is a state of mind, home is the people I'm with, the feeling I get where I think 'this is sanctuary, this is where I feel safe'. I treat the idea of 'home' more as a destination, a place I want to be after everything, rather than where I sleep each night.

Finally, in the chance that I may ever fall in love, compromises must be made. Some things may even be revoked and undoubtedly justified. I accept that 'my' life will become 'our' lives, and of course: one and one make one. I have confidence in fulfilling each others dreams, aspirations, goals, aims and hopes; if we dont- then we will die trying to do that.

"Tourists don't know where they've been, travelers don't know where they're going." - Paul Theroux

Amendment: A lot of people say I'm naive, so I retitled my blog to express how I feel about that opinion. Kudos to Sir Winston Churchill.

Apples

I have a bunch of apples in front of me.
gala, lady, delicious, smith.
They're all calling to me.
I want to sink my teeth into all of them.
They're so tempting to me.
And i can't stand it.
But i must be reserved.
Because these apples are out of reach.
And i'm already stuck with oranges!