"Never look back unless you are planning to go that way."

"Renew thyself completely each day." 

Henry David Thoreau 

"There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind." 

CS Lewis

Dear 2011,


I'd like to say it was nice knowing you, but that would be a lie. You were horrible to me. 
But hey, I'm not angry. Maybe you were so awful to me out of love. Maybe you knew that by giving me the worst year of my life, I would learn more than I've ever learned from it, and grow in ways I've never grown before. So, I guess I'll say thank you. And that's all I have to say.


Sincerely,
Morgan






Surprisingly enough, life keeps going. There are no batteries to run down. There's no off switch, or a pause button, or rewind, fast-forward, etc. 


But, even though we all know this, we still try to use those features that are nonexistent. In our little minds, we over use the rewind button, and wish so much that it was real.


But it's not. Unfortunately.
So we all have to learn to let go and move on. 
Take the knowledge from the past, and learn from it. But don't look back. What's the point?
Dwelling on the past prevents you from moving on to the future and reaping it for all it's worth.
Dwelling on the pain prevents you from healing.
Dwelling on the mistakes you made prevents you from learning from them.
Dwelling on the people you lost prevents you from welcoming new relationships that may change your life in a new way.
Dwelling on the anger prevents you from loving, and learning to trust again.


Just don't look back. 
What's done is done and there are no re-dos. Keep moving forward. Because life moves on whether you're with it or not. Even though we think the world revolves around ourselves, it still doesn't stop revolving no matter how hard we try to make it. And fighting the natural flow of life only makes the current stronger. 


Of course, this is obvious. And of course, it's so much easier said than done.


And this has been a hard lesson for me to learn, and I'll probably never completely learn it. 


But here's to the future, the new year, and the many surprises to come.
And here's to 2011, I'm a different person because of you, but you're gone and I'm moving on. 


Moving on doesn't mean forgetting, it simply means letting go.
It means forgiving. It means being stronger than the regret. It means willfully believing that better things are to come. 


That's the truth. 


And thank God time keeps moving. Thank God we have a chance to redeem ourselves, and thank God we have the ability to move on. 




Don't forget; move on. 

Sayonara

I'm a sentimental person. I hold onto memories. And objects that hold memories. And people that hold memories. 


So, naturally, I hate good byes. 


And today I'm saying good bye to a couple things. 
1. One of my very best friends going on to live his dreams.
2. The worst semester of my life. 


People come into our lives for a reason. And people leave them for a reason. I'm not saying that he's leaving my life, but he definitely won't be involved in it like he has been for the past 3 years. 
Our paths intersect and then proceed to go separate ways. 
It's crazy. And I hate it. 
And for some reason you never feel like you made the most out of the time together. There are always words you wish you would've said, fights you wish you wouldn't have had, more hugs, more laughs, more heart-to-hearts, etc. 
You never really feel closure. Sure, to some degree, but not completely. How could you? People impact us whether we like it or not. We'll never feel like it was enough. At least I won't. So I have to accept it for what it is.
And that is: People come and go. People will always leave their mark on me. Sometimes you have to be selfish and leave the ones that need you, because there's something you need elsewhere. Sometimes what those people need most is not to need you anymore, because you've done all your teaching, and they've learned all they can from you. If your paths are meant to cross again, they will. If they're not, they won't. And that's the hardest thing to accept. That you did all you possibly could, there's no going back, and you have to move on. 
Because life moves on whether you're moving with it, or not. And you can either takes the things you did learn and apply them to your future, or walk backwards and focus on the things you didn't learn. But that's definitely not living. 

I've got a pocket, got a pocket full of emotions...

I'm sitting on the counter in my apartment complex's community laundry room, not even doing laundry, because, for some reason, the sound of the roaring washers and dryers soothes me. 
Probably because when I was a baby I had colic, and my mom would put me on top of the washing machine to make me stop crying. 
I guess it worked back then, and to this day it helps me to sort through the crying thoughts and emotions inside me. I can think in here. I can focus. I can feel one emotion at a time, rather than a wave of so many that I don't know what to do with. 


My roommate and I were talking the other day about how emotionally overwhelming being busy is. Not just draining because you're constantly going, but because on your downtime, every single emotion that you didn't have time to feel and deal with at the time it came, hits you all at once like a hurricane. And there are so many! And each one feels different so you don't know what to feel and you have no idea where to even start in dealing with them. It's like this one HUGE crazy emotion that you've never felt before. 


It feels like when you're a little kid, (or older, I may or may not still do this) and you're at a restaurant, and you're done eating, so you and your siblings or cousins or friends are bored and you decide to make a "masterpiece" of all the leftover food on your plates and beverages in your cups. If this emotion were to be compared to something, it would be that finished product of ketchup, ice cream, french fries, pasta, root beer, salt and pepper, and whatever else was left over from the meal. 


And every time that emotion is different, because it's a different recipe of different emotions in each situation. A.K.A., a recipe for disaster. 


This is how it works:
Imagine you're having a busy day. 
Each task you put yourself to requires your full concentration. 
So as you're focusing on each of these tasks, something may remind you of something else and your mind may wander for a moment, causing you to briefly feel something. 
You notice that you're feeling and no longer concentrating so you disregard that emotion completely before you have the chance to even identify what it was or where it came from.
 This happens throughout the day as you invest yourself into each different task. 
And in each task you place the one or many emotions in your pocket because you just can't deal with it right then.
So by the end of the day, your pockets are full of all the different emotions that didn't have time to be felt. 
Therefore, when it comes time to finally relax and reflect on the day, you empty your pockets, involuntarily, and are completely overwhelmed with all the junk that piled up in there. 
By that time they've all melted together from the friction of the fast moving day, into one, big, gooey, and poop-colored emotion. 
And how can you possibly deal with that?  


Busy and emotional are not a good combination.
Man, it's tough being a girl.