Regret

I'm in a pretty morose downward spiral, if you couldn't tell. So today I'm going to talk about the big "r" word. Regret.

Regret is a feeling. It's a verb used with an object, and it's also a noun. The verb "regret" means 1] to feel sorrow or remorse for (an act, fault, disappointment, etc.)and 2] to think of with a sense of loss. Noun "regret" means 1] a sense of loss, disappointment, dissatisfaction, 2] a feeling of sorrow or remorse for a fault, act, loss, disappointment, etc, 3] a note expressing regret at one's inability to accept an invitation.

Regret is a feeling you get when you've screwed something up. You regret not taking your childhood lightly. You regret not studying for that test last week, or paying attention in class while you were reviewing for said test. You regret eating that piece of cake because it was your resolution not to eat sweets. You can regret a lot of things, but my question stands to be judged: Can you really regret something, because at one time, it was exactly what you wanted, wasn't it?

That cake? You wanted to eat it. So you did. Is it a lack of self control that drove you to eat the cake? You regret it afterwords because you're disappointed in yourself. But was the cake so bad? Now, if you eat the cake, and then eat the cookies and the muffins too, I'd call that a serious problem with a lack of self control.

What about a relationship? Girl and boy break up. It's tragic, and hard to deal with. Girl may have messed up pretty badly, but she can't regret any of her actions because she was trying to fix it. Yes, in her attempt to fix things, she ended up creating a disaster that not only humiliated herself, but angered boy beyond all reason, but does she regret it? Considering this is me we're talking about, I'll take the liberty of answering this not so hypothetical question.

No. I don't regret it. The relationship with boy was wonderful, fantastic, and everything I could have ever asked for. I learned a lot from him, and a lot about myself. I may have destroyed everything in the end, with no possible hope of reviving... well hell, anything to do with him ever again, but I don't regret it. I regret some of the things I said in the heat of the moment, but from that I learned to think before I speak, something that I apparently failed miserably at learning in my younger years. I regret trying to make him jealous, which incidentally just backfired on me and made me realize what a freaking (and my apologies ladies) catty, backstabbing girl I can be. Which isn't who, or what, I ever wanted to portray myself as. So now that I know, I can change it. I regret taking boy for granted and thinking he would always be there for me, but I learned from it not to take anyone, not even someone who promises the world on a golden platter inlaid with marvelous jewels for granted.

Some of these realizations may be too late to fix anything with that boy. But it wasn't, isn't too late to fix myself, fix my life, and make a new start. Someone wise once told me that everyone gets a pair of training wings. I've used mine all up. Now it's time to strap on the big boys. So I'm hoping that all my readers will lean from my mistakes, and know that you don't have to make the same ones. I regret a lot, but truly? I needed to mess up that bad so I can fix it before it really is too late. So even though I feel terrible about what happened? I don't really regret anything at all. I loved. I lost. But at least I got the chance to love with all my heart. Some people don't even get that chance, and I was truly lucky to have experienced what I would sincerly consider "true love". Even if it did end.

Boy: If you ever read this, I am truly sorry. And I wont forget. I'll still make you proud of me. I wont be another mistake. So if you can, smile at me one day, just to let me know that maybe? One day? It'll be okay again.

Continue

Begin. Continue. End. You do it every day. You start something. You endure it. You end it. How do you decide what to continue though? How do you know what's best for you? Or do you ignore what's best for you and do what's best for other people?

Continue is defined in the dictionary as a verb meaning 1] to go on after suspension or interruption, 2] to go on or keep on, as in some course or action, 3] to last or endure, and 4]to remain in a place; abide; stay.

Continue. It sounds so easy. You start something. For example, a sport. You've played your entire life, and you go to college, on a grant for this particular sport. You're on the team, but you've been benched. You sit on the bench for a whole season. You understand, you were a freshman. You continue to go to practice. You continue to show up, and be a reliable teammate in the hopes that you'll play soon. Season two. Benched. You know you're better than some of the people in the game, but you're still benched. What to do? Quit because things aren't going well for you? You're not playing, but maybe deserve to. Do you continue to endure the shame of being benched game after game? You've put your whole life into this, and now it's judgement day. You have two choices. End or continue. How do you decide?

Okay, lets get a little deeper. Relationship. Love. Been dating for a while now. You love each other, but it's hard (aren't all relationships?) and you don't know if you're happy anymore. Or worse, you don't know if your significant other is happy anymore. You've got memories, you've got mutual friends, family, etc. Ending this relationship will be devastating to you, to your significant other. But there's a chance that if you stuck together, continue your relationship, that things can get better. Hold on or let go? Do you give up on each other, call it quits and work on being alone? Do you stick together and have faith, have trust that you can fix it, work through the problems? Let's escalate it a little bit. Now this isn't just a relationship, this is a marriage. This is house, kids, pets, the whole deal. This is more than just a few months of being with someone. This is years. This is life. It gets more complicated, eh?

How do you make choices like that? Do you do what's best for you? What's best for them? How do you decide? Lists of pros and cons? Talking? Being alone and just making a sole decision. Me? Believing in the best is something I struggle with. Right now? I can't decide what to continue, what to end. I'm scared that if I let go, I'm letting go forever, and I will never be able to get back what I have. If it were up to me, I would suffer through the misery of fighting and work on being together. I feel like giving up all the memories, the company, the love... none of it is worth it. None of those wonderful things are worth giving up for some hard times.

Back to the sports team. I have a friend. Okay, I have two friends. And both of them are in that situation. One of the friends quit the team. The other one hasn't. The one who hasn't says, "I've put too much into this to give up now." The one that did said that he loved it, but it just didn't matter as much to him. I doubt it was an easy decision for him to make, but in the end he did, and I would believe that he's happier now than he was when he was benched on the sidelines.

How do you decide to continue? Continue ever single day? What if you're at the very bottom, looking up, wondering how you'll ever get up there again? What if it looks so hopeless, that you don't know what to do? You don't know whether or not to keep breathing let alone keep doing the things you've been doing all along... Every thing's gone wrong, and when you look at it from a different perspective? You did it to yourself. How do you live with yourself? Here, 'Continuing' gets pretty tricky. If you stop 'continuing', you've decided to stop living. This decision doesn't affect just you now. Now this affects your parents, sister, brother, friends. It gets to people who see you on the bus everyday. That lady at the bookstore who smiles at you when you come in every week. It's the friend that you sit next to in class. How do you decide to take yourself away from them? And if you do decide to do so... how do you know that things weren't going to get better? What if you kill yourself, and the next day you were going to sit in class and something would happen that would have changed everything?

Start. Continue.

[end]

Love/Lust

These two go hand in hand, and back to back. Good or bad, Love and lust are two things that mirror eachother. Hell they're practically identical twins, save the severe personality difference. They look like one another, they act like one another, but when they open they're mouths, they're completely different. But totally inseperable.

And as a side note, I think it's funny that I'm about to define love by the dictionary.

Well. Between noun form, verb form and idioms, "love" has nearly thirty possible definitions. "Lust" on the other hand, has just seven, which I find mildly appropriate as lust is one of the seven deadly sins. Some of the definitions of "love" are 1] a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person; 2] a feeling of warm personal attatchment or deep affection as for a parent, child, or friend; 3] a person toward whom love is felt; beloved person, sweetheart; 4] strong predilection, enthusiasm, or liking for anything; 5] sexual passion or desire.

As for "lust", the definitions are all very much the same. 1] intense sexual desire or appetite; 2] a passionate or overmastering desire or craving; 3] uncontrolled or illicit sexual desire or appetite; lecherousness.

To be honest, there is a thin line between love and lust. Sometimes they go hand in hand. More often than not, these two like to masquerade as one another. A relationship, at least the ideal ones, are the ones that have both. You have that tender, passionate "love" for someone, while you still feel that intense sexual desire that is "lust." You love the person's smile, and the way they get dressed in the morning. You love the way their forehead wrinkles when they think too hard, and the way their hand feels in yours. You love the memories and the plans. You can't wait to see them again, to see them well, and happy everyday. You love what makes them happy because it makes them happy. And underneath, you find them undeniably attractive, body and soul. You want their hands on you, their lips on yours and the feel of their body next to you.

But what happens when lust impersonates love? With lust, there is an intense attraction and sexual desire. Sounds a lot like love, doesn't it? Looks like it, feels like it, but isn't really it. How do you tell the difference? The answer? You don't. You fall deeper and deeper into this lustful state and continue to delude yourself into thinking that the shallow impersonation of love is actually the real thing. Only until you experience real love do you realise the difference between the two. Love is unconditional. Lust? You'll fight over something that you didn't even know what bothering you before you realise it's just not right. By the end of the conversation, the realization has hit you in the face like a ton of bricks. This isn't what love is like. And then you end it. Or you don't and you suffer through more fights like the first until you finally do.

Can love masquerade as lust? Really? I'm not sure. I can imagine someone being oblivious of the fact that they're in love, but really thinking about it, I can't picture someone feeling such a strong emotion as love and thinking it nothing more than hardened lust. It doesn't make sense to me. Has anyone out there experienced this? Know someone who has?

In the end, love is to lust as heads is to tails. Two sides of the same coin, but both sides of the coin are neccessary to make a purchase.

Reality

Today's word is based on a whim I had when I awoke in tears from a horrifying dream. I thought to myself, "it was just a dream- a nightmare more like, but still just a dream. This is reality and things are different here."

"Reality" is defined on Dictionary.com as being 1] the state or quality of being real. 2] a real thing or fact. 3] Philosophy a. something that exists independently of ideas concerning it. b. something that exists independently of all other things and from which all other things derive. 4] something that constitutes a real or actual thing, as distinguished from something that is merely apparent.

While reading these definitions I was struck with an idea. I live in "reality". I dreamed my dream inside of this "reality". Doesn't that make my dream part of the reality? I mean, really, it did happen. But it was inside my head, and no one else saw it. Does that mean that it didn't really happen? (The dream itself, not what happened in the dream) According to the third definition of "reality", starting with philosophy, yes. My dream did not exist independently of all other things. My dream only occurred because I dreamed it in the first place.

But what happens when dreams come true? How does that fit into the definition of reality? It's rare, but it's happened before. I've had a dream about something and then it actually happened. For example, this one time, I was probably seven or eight... maybe nine years old. My whole street was planning this giant yard sale. In the dream I had, I was with a friend of mine, a girl who lived down the road from me, and we were watching the yard sale from inside her house. It was kinda foggy feeling, and I felt like I couldn't really see what was going on, but I could see enough to know that two boys from a few streets up the hill had come down to check things out. They had ridden down on their bikes. They stopped at the driveway that lead to the house that we were inside, and they made a purchase from my friend's older brother. Two basketball jerseys. They pulled them on over their heads and t-shirts and rode away. Now a week later, the tag sale happened. I wasn't surprised. We'd all known about it for months. And then the strangest thing happened. I was sitting in the living room of my friends house, it was really hot outside and we had gone in to get a drink. And I looked out her window through lace curtains. And I watched as my dream played out in front of me. I must have looked strange because the girl asked me what was wrong. I pointed to what was happening and she just looked at me. When I explained what I had dreamed about, she called me psychic.

Now, I don't know if I'm a psychic. But I do know that I dreamed about something and then it happened, breaking the third definition of "reality". My dream existed because I dreamed it, and then in reality, it happened anyways. Does that mean that I willed it to happen? Or that I really was predicting a small portion of the future? How does that fit into the definition of reality? It doesn't. The Laws of reality say that it shouldn't have happened. But it did...

What about incidents where some little girl is kidnapped and they bring in a psychic to help find her? What about that fortune teller at the fair who knew that your significant other had blue eyes? Honestly, I'm not sure that reality is as definitive as we want it to be.

Now, I'm not saying that the dream I had today is going to come true. Technically, it can't. Things that existed in my dream just aren't that way in reality. But what if the things that couldn't be were a symbol of what is going to happen anyways? I dreamed that someone that I trust with something very precious was related to-- directly related to-- someone who I had dated a long time ago. The individual whom I had dated-- well he didn't word out. He was under the impression that while I wasn't around he could do whatever he wanted with other girls without consequences. He thought he could keep it hidden from me. Now, the individual who was related to him in the dream-- that's not possible. The two are not related. They're not even remotely alike in any way, shape or form. But what if?

I suppose that's how reality is. It's a thing that exists with ideas of what could happen. Lot's of "what if's" are floating around until one of those "what if's" becomes a reality. Someone once thought "I will make something that will connect everyone who has one in the world together in minutes." That "what-if" became a reality with computers and the Internet. Same goes for cars, trains, guns-- anything really. Flying cars are a "what-if". Twenty, thirty years from now, will they still be a "what if" or will the be part of our constantly evolving reality?

Forgiveness

Today's word is something that I feel is very hard to do. Very hard to ask for. And even once all has been said and done . . . have you really been "forgiven"?

Dictionary.com defines "Forgiveness" as a noun with two possible meanings. 1] The act of forgiving; the state of being forgiven and 2] disposition or willingness to forgive.

Alexander Pope said that "To err is human, to forgive, divine." I find truth in his words. For me being asked to be forgiven for something I've done has always been a bit of a struggle. I would fight with someone over something and then something would happen and I would realize I was wrong. I would admit that I was wrong, I had no problem doing so, but the part that followed was something I had to swallow my pride to do. And that was difficult.

To apologize and ask to be forgiven... I've always thought that you're never truly forgiven. That even after they say "It's okay" that the incident, the words, the-- whatever may have happened will get thrown back in your face to prove that you messed up-- like the person who "forgave" you never screwed up in their life. I only think so because it's happened. Intentionally, not intentionally, it makes no difference. I think that when you say you forgive someone, you have to let go what they did. Don't bring it up again, don't smack them in the face with it. Especially if it's a serious matter. I too, am guilty of "forgiving" and then bringing up the past. Out of spite, as a joke... I've done it. And sometime it went over well, other times the person in question was highly offended that I had brought it up.

And what about when to forgive? Do you forgive the drunk driver who killed your best friend? Do you forgive the man who ran over your cat? Do you forgive your mother when she's divorcing your father? Do you forgive the boyfriend who cheated on you? What about the friend who betrayed your trust, lied to you, and about you? Forgiveness is something that is hard to do, as well as to ask for. You can say that you "forgive", but do you really? If the wound is severe enough and every time you think of the person, your insides fill with hate; Have you really forgiven them? Or did you just say you did to look like the gracious person who has the ability to do so?

See, there's the problem right there. Someone hurt me very badly. It wasn't too recently, and because of what they did, my life actually ended up in a better place than I was before. It was a strange twist of fate. One of the girls recently tried to apologise to me. Not because she was really and truly sorry for what she'd done to me and put me through, but for the good of her own conscience. She admitted that what she'd done was wrong, and here, I actually did consider forgiving her. I would never let her back into my life again the way I had -- no, I'm too smart for that and she'd already shown me her true character.

But I wanted to know if she could admit to the actual deeds she'd committed, instead of just saying that she was wrong. I asked her what it was that she was sorry for. She turned the tables on me and tried to tell me that I was at fault too, and at least she could admit when she was wrong. Now, I'm a pretty honest person, and admitting I'm wrong isn't a problem with me. It happens to often for me to think that I'm always right. But unless there's something I did that I'm not aware of, I did nothing wrong to this girl. I was a friend and more, and she turned her back on me to gain popularity with a group of people that I had introduced her to. I told her in short, to shove her apology where the sun don't shine. Her apology wasn't sincere. She couldn't admit to lying about me to people who I'd thought were my friends, so I couldn't-- no, I wouldn't forgive her. She doesn't deserve to have a clean conscience, and thus, I will not forgive her. Am I wrong? I might be. But I am not divine. I am human. And forgiveness for that is not something in my power to give.

I do not look like a gracious person. In fact, I look like quite the opposite. I look like someone who can't get over the past. Truth is, I really don't care about what they did to me anymore. For a while, I did. I dwelt on it, and I hated them. Even though my life had taken a drastic turn for the better, I couldn't get over what they'd done to me. I didn't want them to think that they had actually bettered my life instead of hurting me like they had intended. They didn't deserve that sort of justice to their actions. I still think that they don't, but for other reasons. If they could admit to what they'd done, in specifics, I would forgive them. To me, that would mean that they had actually realized what it was that was wrong, instead of just trying to clean their plate.

To truly ask for forgiveness is to admit to your wrong doings. It's like that in confession. You sit and talk to a priest and you tell him everything you've done wrong. Then he tells you that God forgives you. End of story. God is gracious. All he asks is that you tell him what you did. At this point in time, I would be to. If only they would tell me what they did to me. Really realize the horrors of what they'd done.

To truly forgive is to accept that someone hurt you, and has realized what they'd done and asked to be pardoned. To forgive them is more than just a word that consoles the matter. To really forgive is an action that you have to decide you want to do. From the heart. You really do have to be okay with whatever has been done to you. You as the forgiver have to find it within yourself to put behind you what has/had been done. There is a reason they say "Forgive and Forget."

Worth

Today's word is an eager suggestion from a close friend of mine.

"Worth" is defined by Dictionary.com as a preposition and a noun. The preposition "worth" has three meanings, while the noun "worth" has eight. I've picked two of the three preposition meanings of "worth", and three of the eight definitions of the noun "worth." The definitions of preposition "worth" are 1] good or important enough to justify (what is specified), and 2] Having property to the value or amount of. The definitions for the noun "worth" are 1] excellence of character or quality commanding esteem, 2] Usefulness or importance, to the world, to a person, or for a purpose, and 3] a quantity of something as to a specified value.

Of course this time I've taken it a little bit further and cracked open my favored thick, red thesaurus [ Webster's New World Thesaurus, printed in 1985 from Prentice Hall Press] and turned to page eight hundred an thirty-six. Here, along side of "worth" is "worthless", "worthlessness", "worthwhile", and "worthy."

Who determines the worth of anything? An American dollar is worth four quarters. Twenty of those quarters equals the worth of a five dollar bill. Two five dollar bills are worth a ten dollar bill. But as i find myself going through my wallet, I snub the five ones and reach for the five. But they're worth the same, right? What about what I purchased? Is that large coffee and a bagel really worth five dollars? Is that pack of cigarettes worth it to the woman behind me in line? Is that pack of cigarettes worth the lung cancer she may or may not have to suffer through in the later years of her life?

What about your friends? My friends are people I value above all else. I do hope yours are the same. But would I pay my friend ten dollars to be my friend? Maybe once, yes, because I believe in quality over quantity, and having the experiences I've had with them, I know that they really are my friends. True-blue, right to the end friends. I'd loan them ten dollars if they asked, which I suppose says that they're worthy of receiving a loan from me. But would I pay them ten dollars every week to be my friend? What about every day? Ten dollars every day for the month of September [Thirty days] is equal to three hundred dollars! And since I'm doing math, ten dollars every day for a full six months, (and to be precise I've picked the months January, February [not in leap year], March, April, May and June. That's thirty-one days, twenty-eight days, thirty-one days, thirty days, thirty one days, and another thirty days.) is one thousand eight hundred dollars ($1800) to be my friend. And now think, what about a friend who has been your friend for many, many years? Quickly doing the math, a girl I've known for the majority of my life, I'll say eighteen years, for her to be my friend (again, I'm not including leap years), I would have paid her sixty-five thousand, eight hundred and eighty dollars ($65880). Now, I love my friend very, very much. But I'm not entirely sure I'd pay her nearly sixty-six thousand dollars to be my friend. That's nearly a year and a half's worth of tuition at my college!

Would you put ten dollars worth of value to your best friend? What about your significant other? Are they worth ten dollars? Ten dollars a week? Ten dollars a day? What if that was doubled? Quadrupled? How much are your friends worth? And remember, this is just one friend. This could easily be multiplied by five, ten, or even twenty. If friends were marketable products, costing ten dollars initially, and then ten dollars every week after that; How many friends would you buy?

What about a significant other? Supposedly people share with their significant others a special part of them that they don't exactly share with their other friends. Significant others would at least be twenty dollars "off the shelf." And once again, I love my boyfriend very much, but, sorry sweetie! I wouldn't pay for you. (That's because you're invaluable to me! Now all together everyone, "awwwwww!") But I suppose that's the beauty of friendship. Unless you're an incredibly horrible person, you don't really have to "buy your friends".

What about worth to yourself? How much is, say your computer, worth to you? I know people who would sell their souls to the devil himself (and I'm not exaggerating) to keep their computers. What about your cell phone? I'm a victim of it too. I hate not having my phone on me at all time. What about you? How much are YOU worth to yourself? Are you worth sitting with that horrible boyfriend/girlfriend who makes you feel like you're no more than dog poop on the bottom of their shoe? Are you worth that two-carat, potentially ten to fifteen thousand dollar ring sitting on an eighteen carat gold setting on your ring finger? Are you worth the cheap imitation handbag meant to mimic a Chanel, or Gucci? Do you think you're worth the real thing? Is that Chanel purse really worth the eight-hundred dollars that you or someone you love paid for it? Is a painful divorce worth the twenty years of marriage, kids and home?

The friend who suggested this word to me later used it in a conversation we were having. They said they felt "worthy". Out of context it could mean anything, and I'm not the type to divulge personal conversations to the world, but the way "worthy" was used. . . all I could really think of was that the "worth" that was felt was "worthless". And only they will know why.

What worth do you put on the things around you? Maybe you wouldn't pay for a friend. In this society, we don't have to (thank goodness, or else I'd be in a world of debt!), but perhaps, what about life worth? Would you jump in front of a bus and push your best friend out of the way, thus ending your own life and saving theirs? What if it was your spouse? Mother? Father? Brother? Sister? Are their lives, their existences worth ending your own life? And would you do it for the sheer thought that you love them and care about them? Or would it be done so you could be proclaimed a hero? Or would you not do it at all? Would that mean that they are "worthless" to you? What if it was your child, and if you did so, you'd be leaving them an orphan?

"Worth" is a very funny word indeed. Not only does it look and sound funny (maybe that's because I've been saying it a lot and looking at it frequently), but it has a funny meaning. Who determines worth? Worth of money. Worth of friendship. Worth of loyalty. Worth of love. Love worth a fifteen thousand dollar ring, and a twenty-seven thousand dollar wedding plus a twelve thousand dollar honeymoon in the Florida Keys (and that's going small, mind you). Is that burger and fries you're eating really worth the advertised price of $2.99? Is it worth the ten miles or one hundred and fifty minutes you'd have to walk/jog to burn it off? Or is it worth the heart attack in five years while you're walking to the car to go and get your kids from soccer practice?

Do you determine "worth?" Do I? Does the government decide when it puts the equal weight of gold behind the paper that we use as currency everyday? What if there isn't enough gold? What if there is too much "paper?" (Yes, I'm aware this would equal a depression.) We take things for granted everyday. Job. Home. Friends. Love. Hate. But what if everything had a value to it? Would some people be "worth" more than others? What if you had to pay a small fee (not your time!) to keep your job and continue making money so you could spend it on wife, husband, children, home, etc?

To me? My friends and loved ones are worth everything. Without them, I feel like life would be quite "worthless". Maybe because I'm not a person built to be a solitary individual. I like people. I like the odd quirks and personalities. I like the variety of individuals, the dark and light within each person. My cat, Poe, is worth a lot to me. He's a darling little boy and a misbehaving little mischief maker, but I love him. School is worth a lot to me, as is my aspiration to become a novelist. Drama is "worthless" to me. Fighting over stupid issues is not "worth" my time, which I could be spending doing other things other than creating bad memories. Spiders are "worthless" to me. But that's only because the creepy critters scare the crud out of me! I consider star-gazing "worthwhile", much like I consider the time sitting on the couch and watching re-runs of Fantasy Factory with my boyfriend "worthwhile." I consider reading and writing "worthy" of my time and dedication.

Curiosity killed the cat, but the cat had nine lives, and I'm getting "curiouser and curiouser". What is "worth" a lot to you? What is "worthless?" What is "worthwhile"? Is it that hike up the mountain in the dark to see the sunrise? Is it that pack of cigarettes you've been trying to knock the habit of buying every day? Is it your best friend? Your mother? Your child? I'm curious. Please, tell me what's "worthy" to you.

Beginning

Beginning is defined on Dictionary.com as a noun which means [1] an act or circumstance of entering upon an action or state, or [2] the point of time or space at which anything begins.

This is most certainly a "beginning."

From this day forward, perhaps for a full year, I will pick words at random, whether I be walking down the street and hear it in passing, or if I have to grab a dictionary and flip to a random page and point at a random word, and I will define the word, and then add new connotations to it, my own ideas of how the word has evolved and whether or not it even means the same thing to me as it is defined in the dictionary.

I chose the word beginning today because this is the beginning of my first blog. Beginnings require things. Beginnings inspire things. Thus, I shall start with an introduction, because you are all my new friends, and this is our beginning together.

My name is Sara. I'm twenty years old, and a junior in college. I am majoring in Creative Writing, and hope to one day be a great novelist to be paired alongside J.K Rowling, C.S Lewis, Marianne Curley and other fantasy/sci-fi greats. I do many things in life, I read, and write, but those were obvious attributes of one such as I. I draw, and watch movies. I love music and color, and as a side notion of myself, my socks never match, and very rarely are they white. I facebook, and refuse to twitter, though friends of mine will continue to try and persuade me to do so. I like to ski in the winter, and I'm learning how to skateboard. It's a process, but I'm quite excited to do my first kickflip, and that excitement pushes me forward through the bumps and brusies and keeps me skating.

Now that you know a little bit about me, I'm curious, what have YOU begun lately? Is it your New Year's resolution? Is it a new job? A new relationship with someone who just sends shivers down your spine?

To me, a beginning is a second chance, a third, and maybe even a fourth if I screw up enough times. This is my new beginning, and I hope that with the steps I take, I will discover new things about the language that we utter every day, without full comprehension of the meanings of the things we say. Today is a beginning for everyone. Each morning we wake up, and we begin again what we'd put to rest the day before. Will you pick up something new today? Will you begin something exciting? I know I have.