Quiet, is a default setting. It tends to be who I am. A silent shadow ;the dismissive friend.Overstimulation to all senses is greeted with silence. I  have never been able to talk out problems, I try to figure out  the maze that encompasses my  thoughts in a seemingly never ending  infinity loop, and eventually give in and  just let it go. My voice has never spoken out of passion, but my mind, has passionately contemplated every piece of my existence, and begs me to speak.Only to provoke a response that feels like a burning throat and a tug at my heartstrings. I cry when I’m frustrated, when I can’t properly express myself, when solace in  another human being can’t be found. T he sting of salt on my cheeks mirrors the sting in my heart. I learned how to write at an early age, to spit pure emotion and raw thoughts in black ink on a stark white page. As a child, I wrote to people more than I talked to them. My voice always failed me, written words never did. I learned about colors and lines, simple ideas  that made me feel as though the complexities of life made sense. I learned about how movement of the human body can move an  outlook on life; a movement that occasionally seems equal  to moving mountains. I learned how manipulation of light could restore my faith in beauty.                                                                                                                         I am an oxymoron, an empathetic human being that cannot properly express their own emotional tendencies ,let alone the weight of humanity’s .At least not in the traditionally acceptable ways.  Spoken words are few, but can be more  impactful when rare. Color can psychologically manipulative, and written words can be beautiful and artistic if given a proper chance.Storytelling doesn’t  have to rely on the wavering of a tongue, but rather the beating of a drum.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            I still wish my voice was strong, that my ideas and thoughts could be fully communicated  by volume and tone. I wish that my articulation moved people to activism. However, there is no strength in wishing away what I have in exchange for something that will never be. It is what it is, and I am who I have always been, and that is okay.  

    Life Goal

 "What do you want to be when you are older?" and "What are your life goals?" These are questions every teenager is asked millions of times over.  This is my response:

I aspire to be warmth. To be kindness, to give joy to the people around me. To be happy. I aspire to be the embodiment of  of a sunbathed day that smells of sunscreen and sticky cherry Popsicle.

I aspire to be the color yellow; reminiscent of sunflowers, stars, and the little, half-goofy smiley face stickers we would get as little kids when we shared with a friend, or got an A on a spelling test.

 I want to remind people of those days when noses would be pink and numb from playing in the snow, then become warm and tingly  through laughter, and  a mug of hot cocoa in a heavily mitten-ed hand.

I want to be complete understanding and empathy to everyone I meet. The person to go to when you just want to be listened to, or to be accepted without question.

I want to learn for the sake of learning; new languages, new instruments, new philosophical viewpoints, and new skills for life. I want to be well-rounded and well-minded.

I want to be a wildflower. Wild, unapologetic and  authentic, yet  the source of the sweetest honey. Surrounded by a hundred bees, hard working and resilient.

 I aspire to be a muse, for myself and my ideas, or to help  other's artistic endeavors. A character in a novel, an idea for a poem, a personality for a painting; The reason for paint splattered clothing, a smile, and  creative growth.


I aspire to be starlight on a frigid winter night. The calm warmth that can be spotted through a million icy miles.

 I aspire to be an old photograph; Faded blurred lines, but crystal clear recognizable personality, humanity, and morality.

This is my Life goal; To be warmth, to be happy, and to be kind.  









 

     "If you want to learn what someone fears losing, watch what they photograph." This quote's author is unknown, yet hundreds of people have found truth in this singular statement. I am one of those people.

    The thing is however, that I photograph every bit of my world. 
My little broken down car, the moon, flowers,leaves, snow, raindrops; busy little bumblebees, shadows and landscapes. Worn out shoes, cozy places, and  handwritten notes on little bits of torn paper. The seemingly insignificant (but significant) parts of my world. 

  
   I've noticed   that the one subject  that I take pictures of most frequently, is people. I don't mean the photos where the shot is  perfectly composed, and the people are  positioned "just right".  I'm not the proudest  of my  posed pictures, They always seem too in-genuine . I like imperfect, messy, pictures. Sometimes they are a little blurry, sometimes they are a lot blurry; Usually they don't turn out how I wanted to capture them. That doesn't matter to me. Though I am a perfectionist in almost everything in my life, I know that life isn't perfect. I like the imperfect photos the best.

  The too-dark photos, the taken too soon Polaroids,and the over exposed-over excited pictures of a moment that you "just wanted to capture".
  I like personality that shines through. I like sparkling eyes, sharp glares, and pools of gray,emerald, and amber sadness. I like the light catching someones face to form  bands of dark shadow across their face, yet catch and hold the sunlight  in their eyes in a way that turns each eye a different hue of color. I love to see a natural habitat, calm and comfort in ones surroundings.I try and understand each person's perspective on everything around them;their world.

     I treasure being able to hold a flimsy, unassuming,  version of a moment of existence. Something I can remember perfectly, Simply by seeing what used to be  a brief piece of my  world.  Because once it's in my hands, physically existing, It is then part of my life that I can keep close to me forever. Another thing I don't want to lose. Another thing to be photographed. It's a never-ending cycle.

   I guess what I am attempting to say, Is that I don't want to lose people; I don't want to lose the ability to see those things in people.

     I want to forever be able to see the love that I have lived, and the things that I have adored.
I wish that we will  all be able to say, at least someday, "Veni,Vidi, Amavi,"- "We came, we saw, we loved."

-Thoughts from a Teenage Girl
    

     When we were young, we were told not to do things by our parents. They were usually right. The desperate shouts of "don't touch that" or "wait for me to help you" were a constant (usually needed)  reminder to our little minds to be careful about what we were doing.
   We were learning how things worked. Absorbing the ins and outs, and  do's  and don'ts   of our busy young lives. We had a guide. most of us had multiple ones, in the form of adults that cared,( and still do care )about us.We lived in clear, Open Sans ,  black-n-white prints. With the occasional faded cartoon snoopy mixed in.  

   One thing that I see in our generation, is confusion. We are older now, and it has been hinted at us a thousand times, that maybe we are suddenly supposed to be our own guide; make our own,what seems like  uber-uninformed decisions.  Adults still care;  they give us advice, and all the information we need, but we still feel unprepared, and indecisive about life as a whole.
   There is no black-n-white anymore. No clear statements, and no bold fonts. Its all hues of purple, and yellow ; Blue, green, auburn, and orange. Its like taking off a pair of glasses, only seeing blurred lines. Now it's almost impossible to read the fine print.  We are beautiful, but confusing, and for some of us, we  never know how distinguish the warm to the cool; right to the wrong.

     Why? I honestly don't know.  We live in a crazy world. We are all intelligent. Everyone is individually talented and worthwhile.  Historically speaking we are  "the most educated and informed generation in society up to this point in time". However, I see people pretending to be dumb. Pretending that they have no potential. Thinking that they aren't worthwhile. It baffles me.
 
     What makes our generation so much more different than the rest? I don't think we are. We see the past as a time without problems.Yes, maybe social issues were less common seeing as there wasn't a constant platform and worldwide access to all sides of a story, but personal and emotional issues have always been around.  Like Stephen Chbosky wrote in The Perks Of Being A Wallflower -"Old pictures always seem so rugged, and young, and the people in the photographs always seem a lot happier than you are."  We see old society, as happy and young, because that's how its usually portrayed.We see activities and style, rather than people and emotion.

     To round this up.  We are all trying to figure things out. We get fed up with not knowing who we are and what we are doing with our lives. Sometimes it feels like life is rushing by, and we aren't doing anything. We are desperate to get out. To do things, before time catches up. However, we are too young to do a plethora of  things alone still. We have more freedom, but not enough to take on the world alone quite yet. Maybe that's why teenagers drive continuously,in circles, with no destination. It's an unspoken metaphor for their colorful,  messed up,"kinda-but-not-really independent", and still learning, psyche.


            -Thoughts From a Teenage girl
    

   I am indecisive about most things.  I "don't know" most of the time,but I do know that I am indecisive. You can ask me what I want to watch,or eat, and I will remind you that I never know, that I will continue to not know, and that you should choose for me.

  However, I do know what I don't want. I don't want to let my grades drop further than I can raise them back up. I do know that I can be smart, that I need to keep learning in order  understand the life and inner workings of the undeniably interesting planet that we call "earth" or the little piece of moving space rock revolving  around the sun that we call "home".

    I do know   That perspective has multiple intertwined, interconnected,and overwhelming points of view.
 I know that humanoids can be  rude ego -ruled  people. Then, there are those of us who are  imperfect, those of us who are human, and those of us that " have our own stuff going on". If you look closely, you'll see that those two groups are usually the same people, just expressing different emotions towards different people at different times.


   I "don't know"  the simplistic, unnecessary, and unimportant decisions of everyday life. However,  I do know my personal and unique perspective of  my life. I know that I want to be an artist of life, and a lifelong learner.
  -Thoughts

   She wasn't boy crazy,  swoony,or downright the average teen.

   

      She was full of sarcasm,wit and spunk. Yet when her eyes shone with fire, and her cheeks flushed with joy. No one told her she was beautiful, no one smiled to themselves, thinking that "she was the most adorable creature to roam the earth".

  Her emotions were mixed just like the swirling thoughts throughout her mind everyday. She was ready to grow up, for that is when adventure begins, but she was also afraid to leave the comfort of her childish, innocent,nature. 

She constantly was told how " grown up she has gotten" by adults, and how she "needs to grow up" by the generation she was living in. She couldn't help but think to herself how ignorant the young human race was of the trouble they were launching themselves into.

   She's okay for now, she'll just figure it all out later...

 See the people around you and know their personalities.
See the girl over on the (hypothetical) park bench? She talks about the injustice of pluto's cosmic differentiation as if she is talking about herself, and maybe she is in a roud about way.
See the kid on the swings? He is nervous about something.His feet are bobbing up and down in a rythm of nervousness. It's like a song playing in his head with the beat of his heart.
There is a little girl by the slides. She's wandering around in awe that the world can be so beautiful, the joy she finds in gathering a boquet of dandelions is radiating into the chilly spring air around her.
  There is an old lady walking by, seemingly chattering on to herself. She has been around a lot longer than most people, and she wishes that everything could go back to the times people would visit her,not just call once a week.
     Even your bestfriend, who is sitting beside you has something on her mind. She is completely  silent, but every once in awhile she gets a confused look on her face. Its up to you to figure out why...
   People need to talk. Don't just sit there.

 I may never go on what you may say is an "adventure" I may never smell the air of a different country. I may never live a life of busy plans. Life Is an adventure in itself. I want to say im a solivagant adventurer, I wanna say I can learn new skills everyday, that I can read other people just as well as I can read myself. I wanna be able to tell you where all the constellations are. I wanna be able to know what I believe, yet also accept that you believe the opposite, and see why you do... I want to open my mind, not my passport, my heart, not my suitcase. I want to naturally be

a wildflower,delicately odd, unique, and memorable. Not by where I went but who I am.
-Thoughts from a teenage dreamer-

Humans are odd creatures liable to emotions that can either turn them into a diamond, or crush them to particles of dust that drift away. We are a colony of overthinkers, and un- adventurers, but we are also a group of empathetics, a sea of spunky personalities, and multiple generations making memories as one. We are a ripple of minds, thinking differently, but feeling the same. Lovers of beauty,and silence,and life. We may be ccomplicated but reality of the truth is simple... We all are humans.we all live lives. And we are more alike than our egos believe. -THOUGHTS-

Yes, I am exitable, extreamly positive, and can get as distracted as Doug from UP. My thought  Is however , what you are is what you attract. Be what you are with confidence, and dont back down because someone thinks your "weird." Honestly, I would take that as a tremendous complement!
There are things that each and everyone of us dont like about ourselves.And that is totally and utterly fine, as long as you dont let yourself bully that goofy, lovable, little two year old inside of you!
Your brain can be an enemy,but then again, anything can be an enemy! Just remember,

the enemy can become the friend!