Journal #20 - It's the Circle of Life

One could say that the beginning of life is rather dark, for all light had to come out of somewhere. From the moment of our creation, we sit within the dark abyss of our mother's womb, waiting for the day of our birth. At that glorious moment, we are exposed to the fresh air and light of the world around us. We slowly grow up, our physical and mental bodies developing more and more as we experience the wonders of the world. We learn to breathe, eat, speak, walk, and create. Soon the time comes that we meet others around us. We make good friends who seem to complete us. Together, hand in hand, we grow. School provides a challenge that we hope to overcome, developing the skills that we need for the rest of our lives. As our schooling comes to an end, we seek not to better our intellectual knowledge, but our connections with those around it. Those friendships that we created in our childhood have grown. Bonds have been created that can not be broken. Soon, we find love. From that love, we decide to devote ourselves to one another in holy matrimony. As we grow older and wiser, we strengthen the bonds between us. Eventually, we feel that we are ready to bring more life and light out of the darkness. A child is born. We watch our children grow, just as we had. They develop the bonds and the memories that we formed in our youth. Seeing it happen before our eyes helps us understand life even more as we enter our elder years. As our life comes to an end, we reflect on those memories that we created, watching them pass by through our minds as our eyes slowly close. We contentedly fall asleep, the light of our lives fading into a soft... deep... darkness, waiting to start anew... perhaps in another life.

Journal #18 - MAGNIFICENT CREATURE

As I pondered the multitude of eyes beaming at me from the magnificent creature, I ducked back behind the massive boulder I was currently taking refuge behind. The creature let out a roar of dissent as I disappeared from its vision. Even with ten shining eyes, burning with hatred, the beast could not locate me. Angered, the beast pawed and scratched at the ground around me. The ground rumbled and cracked under the pressure. This beast was incredibly large, reaching almost ten stories into the sky. How I was going to capture it, I did not know.  "I have to bring this creature down, or it will strike the village again!" With a shout of rage, I dashed from my hiding place, earning a new, more frightening roar from the massive beast. The cry pierced the air and I drew my sword from its sheath. Standing my ground only a few hundred feet from the creature, I lifted my sword, prepared to strike. Only for a moment, I was distracted by its eyes. I could not seem to shake them from my vision. I felt as if they should be filled with more fire, but they were not. They held a softer gaze, almost sympathetic... no, sad. I continued to prepare to strike, the beast dashing towards me. However, the agonized look in its eyes forced my sword to lower... and lower. This creature was mourning. What about, I had not the faintest clue, but I knew I had to find out. I could not fight the beast, knowing it was in such a condition. With a loud, echoing clank, my sword dropped to the ground and I held my shaking hand out to the beast. Confused, the large creature skidded in front of me. It must have realized that my weapons were no longer a threat to it. Making eye contact with the creature, I tried to search its eyes for the reason for its sadness. All I could think of was how it reminded me of the agonized, mournful gaze of a mother who had lost its child. What would I do if this beast were a mother? A mother searching for her lost child? I could only imagine what would have happened if I had taken down the beast. "I know not if you can understand me, you magnificent creature, but I will help you! I mean you no harm! I only wish to help you and ease you from that which burdens you so!" I cried out to the the skies in which the beast's head hovered. With a howl of agreement, the beast seemed to understand me. I grinned and tried to remember if I had seen anything in the past that could help me help the creature before me. With a sudden realization, I remembered seeing a similar set of eyes on a much smaller beast a few days before. It must be the creature's child! Promising the great beast that I would return, I fled to the village of my residence and spoke with the elders. After explaining to them what I aimed to achieve, they convinced the guards of the young creature to release it. The great gates of the cage spread wide and the beast bounded out of its captivity. I laughed to the skies as it ran to its mother. I hopped upon my steed and galloped alongside it as it gleefully bounded against its mothers body. Seeing the mother and child reunited, I could only sadly think of what would have happened if I had captured or killed the magnificent beast. It is amazing the affect that the emotions of eyes can have on your judgement. I would never forget the pain and sadness that settled among that majestic creature's eyes, but thankfully, the memory would forever be intertwined with the happiness I saw that formed once it was reunited with its young.

Journal #17 - Blue fuzz...?

As the light blue fuzz feathered through the warm current of air purring from the heating vent, my eyes squinted, trying to follow it. Along with the air was a scent of hot chocolate and cinnamon that brushed past my nostrils, flooding my senses with warmth and coziness. I turned my head towards the kitchen and spotted my cheerful mother, baking Christmas cookies of all sorts with the preciseness and speed that only her numerous years of experience could explain. My eyes trailed lazily back to the light blue fuzz, speeding across my vision as a little burst of color. It reminded me of a small sprite, frightened yet curious of our much larger world. I smiled warmly as it landed atop my old golden retriever's snout, causing his sleeping eyes to slowly open up and stare at the little speck. After opening his mouth widely, showing me his worn down teeth as he yawned, he clumsily tried to lick the fuzz away, leaving his nose glistening from his wet tongue. I chuckled merrily as he missed it time and time again, finally proceeding to brush it off of his nose for him. He followed it with his dull eyes until it hit the floor, making sure that it would not move anymore so that he could return to his blissful sleep. With that, the dog swiftly fell back to sleep, my hands brushing across the silky golden fur atop his head. I grazed my fingers across the carpeted green floor as I tried to flick the blue fuzz back into the air to be caught by the warm current. I grinned happily as my plan worked, the crisp air of the vent successfully grabbing a hold of the fuzz and sending back into the air. I could only watch in astonishment as the small speck floated back into the air, continuing its adventure through the air of my winer home. Even though I would most likely never see the speck again, I pondered as it disappeared from my vision, the journies it would go on in the future were sure to be very exciting.

Journal #16 - Weirdly Dressed People.

Today, for example! There is something that a lot of the seniors are doing today. I am not sure what they are doing or why they are doing it, but for many of them it involves dressing differently that the rest of the crowd. A few senior boys in specific have been running around the school all day in super short jean shorts - at least for guys - and spandex beneath them. They also are wearing sleeveless plaid shirts with brightly colored t-shirts beneath them. They look really strange. I think some of them are even wearing sweat bands. When the students in the school have seen them, they have laughed, snickered, and sometimes shunned the crazy seniors. Their strange choice of fashion came as a shock to us, and is still is. They are probably doing something weird right now in their funky outfits. The people of the school are reacting very much to their antics. For the most part, people are laughing at them - whether it be light hearted or not. They laugh because it is different from normal attire, and therefore, they find it weird. However, there have been many instances where such a "weird" thing has become the new fashion trend that everyone is doing. I highly doubt that people are going to start wearing jean shorts and spandex with sleeveless plaid shirts and t-shirts beneath. That is just kind of strange. But there have been many times where those weird trends have become the next big thing.

Journal #15 - Missing Someone

There are plenty of people in my life whom I miss dearly. I make constant attempts to connect with them, and for the most part, I am successful. I maintain friendships with these people despite their long distances. I once hosted a foreign exchange student from the Netherlands. She is rather far away. I also have internet friends who I only get to see once a year, if that. However, the person I find myself missing the most is my friend Missy. She did not move an extreme distance from me. If anything, she is closer. Unfortunately, with her moving, she was no longer a part of our school district. Great. I find my self overwhelming myself with extra-curricular activities such as marching band, drama club, art club, scholastic, etc. I am almost literally never home during the school year. The thing about Missy was that she would always do those things with me. I saw her every day from eight to whenever we had to leave school, which was often in the evenings. My life always involved her. The moment she moved, however, I had to rely on planning things with her outside of school. When do I have time for that? Close to never. Then, whenever I have a free day, she is usually doing something with one of her friends or something with her school. The sudden lack of Missy in my life was pretty upsetting. I am still not entirely over it. Nonetheless, I find ways to keep in contact with her by texting her in the mornings and evenings. Sometimes, I even find time to skype her! She and I have been getting a lot better at hanging out and being consistent about it, so I do not find myself missing her too much all the time, but there are still many times where I wish she still went to my school so I could see her every day in person.

Journal #14 - Scary Moment?

To tell the truth, I do not remember a time when I was actually truly scared. I have watched many horror movies and those never cease to scare me to death, but that is not very exciting. A lot of people watch horror movies, especially around Halloween like now, so talking about such a scary moment would not be entertaining at all. However, there was one time a few years ago when I was actually terrified. It was not so much that I was scared of something, but more that I was worried out of my mind. You see, my friend had to move away because her current house was literally falling apart and they could not afford to fix it. The only house that they wanted and could afford was one out of the Pleasant Plains school district. She was my best friend (still is), so you could imagine that I was pretty concerned. The fact that she was moving was not even the worse part of it. During that eighth grade year, I had not been a great friend to her, and so when she said she was moving, she was almost happy. I felt terrible. She actually wanted to be away from me, it seemed. I was so worried and scared that she would not be my friend anymore. Not only that, but she was also moving away as I stated earlier. I was never going to see her, and there was a chance that she did not like me. I was not a happy camper. It was one of the scariest times of my life. I love my friends and I would never want to lose any of them. Other than that time, the scariest experiences in my life have only consisted of small things such as horror movies, my friends trying to scare me, typical nightmares, the power going out unexpectedly while I'm downstairs in my house with no windows... But I digress. That moment was the scariest experience I have ever experienced, even though it was not actually "terrifying".