I have met many good people, along with a few bad. That’s just it. I find it impossible to meet just good, or just bad. Also, I have learned that you cannot see the light, without first being in the dark. It is inevitable, unfortunately. We all are consumed with darkness at one point in our lives I believe, and once you have found that light, it shines so much brighter than ever before. As we go through the hard times in our life, we sit back and wonder why we are still in the dark. Some have the strength to pull themselves up, some do not. In a way, it seems like we are meant to go through the dark times that we do. That’s one crazy thing about life, is that there are good and bad for a reason- to maintain a balance in this world of ours. We do good and bad, as well as see the good and bad in others. It’s one of life’s blessings, yet curses.

             These three best friends, they loved each other infinitely, but their friendship ended in a deadly trick. These girls were obsessed with twitter, it was their life-along with Instagram. They posted their thoughts and feelings almost daily, it seemed to be an alternative diary; a digital diary, but one for the world to see. Skylar posted many, and one saying, “Snow makes everything more quiet…” How does such hate develop towards someone you love? To plot murder. For what reason? A friend, not even being out of high school, not knowing what true struggles are, or even what true betrayal entails? Rachel and Sheila, Skylar’s “best friends”, apparently planned to kill Skylar while in Science class one day- Turns out, Sheila and Skylar were always fighting. So, from that day in Science class, Rachel and Sheila planned the murder over the next month. The truth escaped from Rachel, that “We stabbed her”. The officials were shocked, and began to ask, “why did you stab her? Rachel responded, “Well, we didn’t like her.”

             My heart broke as I read this article, my mind along with. These three beautiful girls, so in love with each other, but torn apart by such pity, and in a fatal disaster. 16- year old Skylar’s life ended, all because her two “best friends” didn’t like her. They decided to stab her in the back, stab her from behind. They expressed a sick way of stabbing someone in the back, which is supposed to be just a metaphor. Skylar seemed to be a quiet, yet wild soul. Who loved and hated a lot of things, for really no reason? She was young, that is what kids do, that’s what we all go through to figure out our mind and our souls. As months went on, Rachel showed the investigator where her and Shelia had left Skylar’s body, which was in knee deep snow. Skylar was left in the cold, the freezing cold snow, and yes, it made everything more quiet as Skylar tweeted months back. Her body may be cold, dead, and with nature, but her soul is quiet and rested. There will be no more hate towards her, as her “friends” will dwell on that one decision of killing her, possibly realizing that they love her more than anything now, they will take on the hurt that Skylar must have felt in those last moments of her life, but those two girls will live with that pain for the rest of their lives.

Ashley C. Ford, “THE YEAR I GREW WILDLY WHILE MEN LOOKED ON”

As I read this title, I could not help but relate to this memoir. There is nothing like being able to relate to something you read; it allows you to feel better about the feeling, or the situation you were in, or better yet, that time of your life. Being hungry for love is a very common struggle, but some do not fully understand the feeling or concept of it. In this case, she needs love, not intimate love, she needs pure love, and she didn’t get any.

Kyoko Mori, “A Difficult Balance: Am I a Writer or a Teacher?

I had some understanding about some things in my life after reading this memoir. The dreams, the god awful, confusing dreams I have, I can see now that they can come from anxiety, etc. This memoir is very eye opening for me. It definitely opens your mind up to the world and people’s careers, or what some call their career. They are just a job if you don’t love it. A career to me should be something you love waking up to everyday, and that’s the feeling I got from this author; she put her heart into her writing, and her career. She expressed eventually, that in the classroom, the private and the public can come together, and she can be both a writer and a teacher. Even though she is had to put aside her own writing in order to prepare for the class and to conduct it, she’s bringing her writer’s mind to the discussion at hand. I took a lot away from this memoir, which is encouraging.

Scaachi Koul, “There’s No Recipe for Growing Up”

I have never been to India, but it sounds very intriguing after reading her memoir. The food sounds to die for, considering how she talked about it. The time she moved out, it took her a few years before she craved her mom’s Kashmiri food. She also said, she misses the things that hardly matter, like how her potatoes always ended up crescent-moon shaped, or the way her parathas were always triangular and puckered. I do miss family; it makes me feel like I should be closer to mine. So, in other words, this memoir gave a deeper meaning. I am sure that was one of her intentions.

Annie shed a lot of light about the little things in life, simple pleasures. Poetry is about more than just words and feelings; they have deeper meanings.                                                                                                                                                

This was a very interesting read; enlightening to say the least. To read about someone’s personal thoughts, feelings, that is a privilege to be able to experience. Not many people have that courage, letting everyone in on their lived. With poetry, I have learned that people will use the certain structures when writing as a outlet for therapy, to have some way to release the negative or positive energy.

If I were to ask you to think of five things that you take for granted right now, could you? If I asked you to count on one hand the things you couldn’t live without, would one of them be as simple as feeling sand in between your toes? I probably couldn’t have thought of any either. When I was on the giving an answer side of that statement, I had no answer to that question. As that truck flipped, my whole entire world flipped as well. I was a girl that didn’t see something as simple as hopping out of a car and going into the store as a privilege, I just thought it was a typical thing that people do- they do it every day and I never saw what was so special about that. We see past situations in hindsight, in which I believe is one of the beauties in life that not everyone gets to experience. Some people take a mistake, or situation, and they only see the wrong that was done. They don’t learn anything from it. That situation of mine was a very hurtful lesson, and the hindsight hurt so deeply. I still cannot understand some parts. The question why is always going through my brain, but I have gained the strength to move on but still have the knowledge to hold on to the precious parts of that event to help me take advantage of the now. I don’t want to take advantage of the simple things I’m able to do now, since I did that before the wreck.

In 2009, that wreck changed everything for me, and it has changed many things about me as well. As that truck flipped me, my life has never been the same. I received a spinal cord injury, and many more injuries including due to hitting the pavement after being ejected. It was the night of January 23rd, 2009, and just minutes before I was walking, fully functional. But after that flip, after that hit to the pavement, my life’s journey switched paths. I remember earlier that day walking around, being goofy, feeling the pavement under my sneakers, feeling all my muscles flex and contract as I walked. I also remember coloring my twin sisters hair that morning; we spent the day together. Those memories are precious, but at the time, it was just my muscles flexing as I walked, standing while doing my sisters hair. No biggie. Nothing special then. The sound and the feel of the leaves in the yard as they crunched and smashed under my feet as I walked. The smell of the winter air, thinking of how great a day it is. I remember the cold on my feet as I was walking out of the house that afternoon, and as I was playing catch with friends later. The string on my little jacket with a ball on the end, how I was walking down the street twisting it and untwisting it repeatedly. Not a care in the world that day, it was a laid-back kind. I loved running too. That day, at one point, I ran. The feeling of the cold air filling my lungs was exhilarating. I liked how when I was finished running, I could barely breath, I had this rewarding pain in my chest that told me, “well done.”

But, why did that wreck happen? Why would God let that happen? What did I do to deserve that? I felt like I died, I didn’t know what was happening after the impact. Was I dead? Was this heaven, because all I saw was someone and a bright white light? Why is there blood everywhere, all in my hair? I’m in the middle of the road. Why are there flashing lights everywhere? My back and head ached like no other, I wasn’t understanding why I couldn’t get up and run to help, I didn’t know that I was paralyzed on impact. I just couldn’t stand the pain, but all that aside, I remember trying to yell for help; all that came out was a faint “help”, since it felt like I was hit by a truck, that’s why no one could hear me. As I kept going in and out of consciousness, I remember the paramedics talking some to me, cutting my clothes off, shaving part of my head; I wanted to slap whoever was doing that, but was so weak and fuzzy. They were asking what I had that night, if I did any drugs or alcohol. “Did you have alcohol tonight”? I said, yes. They then asked, “Did you smoke marijuana”? I said, “no”. Then they asked if I could feel where they were touching me on my legs. I remember looking down at my legs, because I couldn’t feel anything and didn’t know why in that moment. I had never felt so scared, so heart-broken in my life. I was there enough to think and know what not feeling my legs meant. I then ask, “am I ever going to walk again?” The paramedic said, “I don’t know, sweetheart”. I still remember how she said it too- she was saddened by what I asked, and I knew she didn’t want to break that news to me. As I heard her say in what seemed like the background at that point to the other paramedic, “possible paralysis”, and other stuff in which I didn’t gather because I was coming in and out of consciousness. They were communicating with each other in the emergency trauma situation.

That Sunday when I finally woke up, a day and a half later, that was a day I’ll never forget. I was in the ICU in the St. John’s Hospital in Springfield, Missouri. My mom told me the news, in which I didn’t quite understand. It may have been because of the anesthesia, being asleep for so long, or the trauma to my head. I was swollen and puffy feeling, turns out that was from the road rash, internal injuries, and the impact. I felt so hazy, confused, I could smell the awful smell of the hospital just creeping into my nostrils. I immediately wished I was back asleep. My mother told me that I had a spinal cord injury, she had tears in her eyes, then I said “no, everything will be ok, mom”. Like this was just a minor accident, and I’ll be walking out of here in no time. She knew I wasn’t comprehending everything like I should have been. I still wasn’t able to wrap everything around my head, due to being confused as to why I was even in an ICU room, why I felt like I couldn’t get up to go to the bathroom, why I couldn’t feel that urge to even go to the bathroom, why I felt so numb, so heavy. I felt as if I were 300 pounds, it was a weird feeling of being weighed down and feeling as if I were trapped. Little did I know. When I was transferred to a normal room from ICU, I experienced my first hallucinations from being put on morphine and oxycodone for the pain. Never in my life had I ever taken narcotics, so me being newly paralyzed, bedbound, not being able to get away from those visions, being stuck in a bed, that was scary. I was trapped.

As I transferred from my normal room to the Physical Rehabilitation floor in the hospital, I was on less medicine, so in turn that made realization kick in. It didn’t only kick in, it hit me like a freight train, immediately sending me into depression. I didn’t want to get out of bed for days, but some of the nurses wouldn’t let that happen. The smell of the food, the facility, the realization that I really can’t move my legs, I couldn’t fathom it. I thought to myself, “this is real.” “I can’t do this.” Little did I know, that was just the beginning, and that things got harder as I went. I felt like I was in the dark, like I wasn’t able to see the light of day for a long time. With the wreck being over eleven years ago now, I have been through so much. Spiritually, emotionally, physically, financially, and just about every other “ally” you can think of. The emotion aspect of this journey has been the absolute hardest, as the physical part of it does have its deep seeded struggles and concerns, it’s the emotional part that has the deeper affect. When someone’s emotions are on point, it seems that the physical portion of someone feeds off that. If your soul is good, then your body is great, because as your spirit flies, your body glides.

When I came home from the hospital two months later, seeing the place that I was able to navigate so effortlessly before in, and now being in a wheelchair. Seeing the things I took for granted were far too many to count. Seeing everything in hindsight hurt tremendously. But more importantly, seeing the hurt in my family’s eyes hurt far more. I thought to myself, “I have put my family though a lot of hurt the past two months.” They have been to the hospital constantly, they have seen my hurt, my struggles, my depression, and all of that before I was even released from the hospital. Now, I get to see them in our comfort zone. Them seeing me struggle with “normal things”, I feel made them see the simple things that they took advantage of. I experience this daily out in the community. Things as simple as going to the grocery store. You can only imagine what I struggle with while I’m there. Some people on occasion have thought I’m mentally retarded, that I’m possibly deaf, all because they see that I’m in a wheelchair and totally disregarding the fact that I’m alone and not with a “caregiver”. If I had one wish, it would be that closed minds should come with closed mouths. Some people are very uneducated on how to approach a person with a disability, or what I refer to as a, “differentlyabled” person. I’m an independent woman, who has a spinal cord injury, who shops on her own, upon many other things. I have experienced so many people making fun of me, talking loud to me because they think I’m deaf, kneeling down to me to be at my height and talking to me like I am a mentally challenged person, when the problem is that I am vertically challenged. I don’t want pity, that’s the last thing someone wants. I want to encourage people to treat others as they are the same, with no judgement, because no one should be there to judge, but there to love.

Seeing those turquoise waters from the plane; I was in love with Hawaii already. As I was yawning, stretching, feeling the relief, and then thinking, “we actually made it- that 7-hour flight is over.” That flight was worth it though, since I made this trip to see my niece who lives in Waimea. And come on, it’s practically paradise. But seeing her for the first time in months, it was so surreal. And knowing that she is living her dream, living in Hawaii, and completely happy, that made me feel relief. This trip was my first time to Hawaii, I hadn’t been to a tropical place for three years, when my mom and I went to Nassau, Bahamas for a week. That trip was my first vacation in my life, and I was 26 years old; not really typical for someone’s first vacation to be when they’re close to 30 years old. That’s just what I think anyways. I had spent my whole entire life in Missouri, with an occasional, and I mean occasional trip to the east side of Oklahoma to the casino or to go to a concert, but other than that, I was in Missouri. So, for this trip to Hawaii, to this magical tropical paradise to happen to me, it was a godsend. I cannot tell you enough how bad I needed a release, to break up the monotony in my life, because I felt like I was going to burst.

The all-day traveling worn me out, but not enough to where I’ll miss the sunset at the beach, which was our first stop after leaving to get our car rental. As I was looking down on the beaches from the plane earlier, I started imagining laying on the beach, with the warmth of the sand on my skin, the sun soaking up my winter blues from my home in Missouri and smelling the salt in the air from the ocean that was now just feet away from me. In that moment, I knew the sun was one of my saviors. They do have a saying, “live by the sun, love by the moon.” So, I really started thinking of the purpose of the moon and sun after hearing about that. So, as I come out of my daydream, I notice the sun is starting to go down, how the sand starts to cool off, how everything seems to calm down; my thoughts including. I oh-so dramatically thought about moving here. And yes, that was too soon I thought to myself, but I couldn’t help myself.

My family and I have had our fill on the beach for the evening, so we decide to go to the store to get dinner, and then off to my nieces house to celebrate the rest of the evening. As we did, I was thinking of how positive everyone was, how smooth conversations were going, and simply how serene everything was; I even went away from everyone to go outside and look at the stars, and I noticed how much brighter they were here compared to Missouri. And of course how silent it was; no cicada insects and their loud sounds. Although, I still find something about that insect’s noise at night to be soothing, maybe because its all apart of nature, which is one of my personal joys in life. As I go back inside to join my family to celebrate the rest of the night, we start winding down, then we say our nights. I can’t go to sleep, nor can anyone else that came from Missouri with me, since it is 5 hours behind the current time in Missouri. So we lay awake talking about what we want to do on the island the next day; so many ideas, so little time. We all felt like we had the world in our hands, that this place was magical. Which is true if you want to be realistic. That week we were on vacation there, I felt some emotional healing, my mind had cleared up some, the weight I was carrying around, it didn’t seem as heavy at the end of that week. There is something about that place that soothes, that heals. Still to this day, I dream of Hawaii a few times a week, about being there, and a lot of times about living there. As I said earlier when I was at the beach, I said I wanted to live there. Well, it’s been a year later, and the dreams are still happening. That must mean something.

As we wake, we just couldn’t wait to go out and adventure the island, so we get ready and go do just that. A beach is what we settled on, go figure. I was thinking to myself, “score”, the joys of going on vacation and laying on a beach, doing nothing. I’ll take it. So me and my crew all decided to soak up the sun; of course us girls wanted to be beach bums and just lay on our towels, but the boys went shell hunting. By the end of our sun therapy session, we have decided that people were right when they said the sun is closer to the equator in Hawaii. Hence, you will burn and end up like a lobster in a quarter of the time it takes you to in Missouri. That was an awful lesson, but you know that didn’t happen again. With me anyways. When the boys get back from shell hunting, I was in awe at how beautiful and perfect the shells were that they found. Some were even still alive, and that was so cool in the nature aspect. The sea urchins were odd looking, and I learned that they are toxic if you are bit or stung by them. The takeaway from that part was serious, since they reside on the rocks in the ocean where a lot of people linger by when they snorkel; it’s common for tourist to think to grab onto the rocks to stay close in so the tide doesn’t take them, but that’s where the sea urchins will attack. So, as we end our beach adventure, we go off to shops to see about buying souvenirs. It seemed to be a somewhat relaxed first day on the island. I savored that, compared to the reality in Missouri where I would want to pull my hair out at times. It was in February too, so Missouri was cold and dreary; depression runs thick during those months for me.

As the days went on, we were nearing our departure date, so that in turn made us anxious. Me, I knew I was going to cry when I had to leave this little chunk of heaven on Earth. I saw many places I wanted to go, to see, experience; then I knew that just a week on this island was nowhere near enough time to enjoy the pleasures it had to offer. The Mauna Kea Observatory on the island is a major one. Since I am very intrigued in astronomical things, that place was right up my alley. This place had independent astronomical research facilities, along with large telescope observatories. Now, if that doesn’t sound awesome, I don’t know what else to tell you. To be able to see the entire sky, since there’s a lack of light pollution, you could just imagine what all you could see there. One reason we were unable to go visit that place, was because they were closed due to icy road conditions. Since the elevation was so high, it affected the road conditions that much. I was thinking to myself, maybe soon we can do that. I also wanted to go to the Mauna Loa Volcano site, but those times can vary, since learning that is one of two of the most active volcanoes on Earth. So, one day soon I will visit there. It’s just mind-blowing to learn about this world, what it holds, what it’s capable of. And to think, that this piece of Earth brought me so much joy. I wasn’t doing anything outrageous, nothing expensive either. I was just simply enjoying and exploring one of life’s existences. I was starting to see a potential reality for myself. The break from reality was amazing. Or was it that? It may have just been a change in realities, because there were still financial struggles during the vacation, there were still confrontations, but I was happy. My reality of working full-time, going to school full-time, taking care of my baby bulldog, finances, household chores, and the list goes on, that will still be there. That is just my reality. For the longest time, I never knew what “normal” was. Was it having all of those stresses, the finances, work, school, kids, household chores? Or is “normal” living up to everyone else’s standards? Sure you can go to college after graduating high-school, find a career, marry your mate and have kids. Are you always going to be happy in that normal? That’s not always the case, since we as individuals have different mind sets, souls, and our own feelings. We go through life’s experiences, we grow, we learn, we cry, we laugh, and most importantly, we find who we are and who we want to be.

When one fails to see what they have, or whom, they then see it once it’s vanished. To love after it has gone, is no true love at all. This way of life, this way of seeing, is harsh on ones soul. We must appreciate love, capture it in the moment, seize it. To seize love is victory, to let it go is tragedy.

There are so many fires in the soul.

Some you put out, some you let grow.

Never have I been on a road trip before, but the trip out west was a great experience. We went to Arizona to see the Grand Canyon, Vegas to the strip, and a few other places. To feel the butterflies in my stomach as I sat on the edge of the canyon was food for the soul, and it was quite indescribable. The sight I first saw took my breath away. The Canyon being the biggest hole in the Earth that I had ever laid eyes on before, it really gave me some thought on the beauty of nature and what our world has to offer. As well as my experience so far in life, seeing how so many people do not savor what is in front of them. That the things already physically here on Earth, they are what’s important, or what should be. The simple fact that the beauty of this world can take your breath away, like seeing the love of your life, or witnessing the most beautiful sunset ever; it’s what we live for. The small things in life- ones that are in our lives and what are here on Earth, are just waiting to change our perspective on life, or to even better it.