Dear You, The Hopeless Who,
You've been through enough. You've been around the block. You've had far too many strike outs in life. When will you be done? When will life begin?
More than anything, when will you find someone who understands you?
I can't answer most of that. But I will tell you that I understand. I've been there. I've had enough, seen that block, striked out more than it takes to lose two games of life. I get it.
I understand pain and hurt, more than I ever wished I had to.
I understand the pain of an athlete that will never have what it takes to be good.
I understand the pain a student's brain goes through that just doesn't have what it takes.
I understand the pain of embarrassment for doing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing.
I understand the pain of love, of love lost, of unconditional and unreturned love.
I understand what it's like to feel like no one understands at all.
I'm here to take your hand, to be your guiding force, to tell you that you're not alone.
You'll never be alone.
Sincerely,
Broken and Repaired Me
Monday, October 6, 2014
Thursday, October 2, 2014
Time at a Park
Go
to a park. Sit on a swing.
Take
a deep, relaxing breath.
Lean
back. Lean forward.
Build
momentum.
Feel
the breeze as it caresses your face.
Close
your eyes.
Tilt
your head back.
Memories
of your childhood rush through your head.
Suddenly,
you are ten again
Whether
you are twenty or sixty years old.
Remember
what it was like to fear, to stress, to worry, to ponder
Absolutely
nothing.
Stop
the swing. Leave the park.
Nothing
important matters anymore. You feel young, happy and alive.
Which
is exactly what you are.
Monday, September 29, 2014
At a Loss for Words
Staring at this blank page in front of me
My words try to escape onto the paper
But they are trapped in my head
Sitting in a crowd full of people chatting
My words try to escape into the loud noise
But they are trapped in my head
Caged, lonely soul
No way to unlock the chains that bind my words
Help me escape. Help me escape.
So much to say
But the puzzle can never be solved
Too far behind to ever connect with these fluent people
So many ideas spewing out of my brains
But where do they go?
They are lost forever
In this caged puzzle in my head
Friday, September 26, 2014
Bad Writing
She had prepared for hours, laboring in her room, stretching her mind to unimaginable places. And the only thing she had to show for it was this piece of paper. She didn't believe that such thought, such pains, could go into something so small. Is this really what her work amounted to? She had worked as if she was Ernest Hemingway or Charles Dickens. But the truth is, she was no Ernest Hemingway nor Charles Dickens. And as far as she was concerned she would never be anywhere near that level of fame, intelligence, or creativity. It's not that she didn't love this hobby. Why else would a high school student spend days on a stupid simple paper that her teacher had assigned her?
Her biggest problem was that she acted like she was good at it. It was hard not to when all she heard about was how excellent her writing was and how good at reading she was. What could they see that she could not? she always wondered. It was so plain and simple to her. Almost too plain and simple. She hated the way she wrote. She hated the way the words sounded together, hated the way that she couldn't say what she meant, never in speech nor in writing. And worse yet, her reading abilities were just as bad. Sure she would spend hours and hours with her nose stuffed into a book. But this reading endeavor was not so easy as it seemed on the outside. In her brain, she struggled over simple vocabulary words that everyone knew. No matter how many times she looked that word up in the dictionary, it never stuck. So much for learning through reading. She also zoned out in her reading all the time. Most people never noticed that she would spend three times as long on one page as normal kids would. But even if they did notice, they didn't seem to care. All they saw was her love, her love for words and stories and language, and they praised her too much for it.
Now they expected a page. A short, simple page. She was the best in class and as so was expected to write the best paper. But she knew she had failed. The order of the words did not make sense to her but she could not fix it, no matter how hard she tried. Each revision to the paper made an even more enormous mess. Did she have fun with this process? Of course. But one can only have so much fun failing constantly. How can a musician enjoy music when all they do is fail to produce good sound? But this was all she could do, all she could live with. Who would help correct an incompetent, unoriginal writer?
It was the day to turn in the paper. Her final document laid in her hand as a cold, unfeeling, unrewarding trophy. She laid it on her desk in front of her, wishing more than anything that the words there would shift around and morph into something they were not. She hated herself for what she had created.
When the teacher asked her to read her paper aloud as an example, her heart dropped. They were expecting better than what she was about to give. They were expecting Poe to fly out of her mouth, but all she could deliver was awkward sentences and stupid ideas.
When she was finished reading, the class stood still. She hadn't realized as she was talking that the whole room turned silent. All she had focused on was how much worse the words sounded when read aloud. She was embarrassed. She wanted to stop. She wanted to take back everything she had written and said. She wanted another day to work. When she put her paper down, the students started clapping, the teacher stared at her in awe, all this an effect of her grotesque work.
Were these people serious? she asked herself, refraining herself from tearing out her own hair. Will they ever understand how awful she is?
Her biggest problem was that she acted like she was good at it. It was hard not to when all she heard about was how excellent her writing was and how good at reading she was. What could they see that she could not? she always wondered. It was so plain and simple to her. Almost too plain and simple. She hated the way she wrote. She hated the way the words sounded together, hated the way that she couldn't say what she meant, never in speech nor in writing. And worse yet, her reading abilities were just as bad. Sure she would spend hours and hours with her nose stuffed into a book. But this reading endeavor was not so easy as it seemed on the outside. In her brain, she struggled over simple vocabulary words that everyone knew. No matter how many times she looked that word up in the dictionary, it never stuck. So much for learning through reading. She also zoned out in her reading all the time. Most people never noticed that she would spend three times as long on one page as normal kids would. But even if they did notice, they didn't seem to care. All they saw was her love, her love for words and stories and language, and they praised her too much for it.
Now they expected a page. A short, simple page. She was the best in class and as so was expected to write the best paper. But she knew she had failed. The order of the words did not make sense to her but she could not fix it, no matter how hard she tried. Each revision to the paper made an even more enormous mess. Did she have fun with this process? Of course. But one can only have so much fun failing constantly. How can a musician enjoy music when all they do is fail to produce good sound? But this was all she could do, all she could live with. Who would help correct an incompetent, unoriginal writer?
It was the day to turn in the paper. Her final document laid in her hand as a cold, unfeeling, unrewarding trophy. She laid it on her desk in front of her, wishing more than anything that the words there would shift around and morph into something they were not. She hated herself for what she had created.
When the teacher asked her to read her paper aloud as an example, her heart dropped. They were expecting better than what she was about to give. They were expecting Poe to fly out of her mouth, but all she could deliver was awkward sentences and stupid ideas.
When she was finished reading, the class stood still. She hadn't realized as she was talking that the whole room turned silent. All she had focused on was how much worse the words sounded when read aloud. She was embarrassed. She wanted to stop. She wanted to take back everything she had written and said. She wanted another day to work. When she put her paper down, the students started clapping, the teacher stared at her in awe, all this an effect of her grotesque work.
Were these people serious? she asked herself, refraining herself from tearing out her own hair. Will they ever understand how awful she is?
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Restorative Justice
How can forgiveness and justice play an equal role in the same situation, especially in the case of a murder? There is one such article from The New York Times titled "Can Forgiveness Play a Role in Criminal Justice?", by Paul Tullis, that describes a case where both forgiveness and justice worked together to help prosecutors decide how to punish a murderer. In this case, a young man named Conor McBride shot and killed Ann Grosmaire, his girlfriend of three years after several days of fighting and tension between the two. The Grosmaire family and the McBride family were very close to each other. It has hard for all of them to deal with Ann's death so they would all meet with each other occasionally in order to be there for each other. The Grosmaire family would even visit Conor in jail.
The Grosmaire family believed strongly in forgiveness and did not want Conor to face the death penalty or life in prison. Before the trials had started on Conor's case, the family stumbled upon a term called restorative justice. This is the process of having all members of a crime come together to discuss what had happened, how it affected each person, and what should be done about it. Restorative justice is used to help the criminal come back from what he/she had done after serving punishment that is necessary to grow, and the punishment must be agreed on by everyone involved. Usually, restorative justice is used in less serious cases such as burglary or vandalism. Before this case, restorative justice had never been used to deal with murder. However, the Grosmaire's insisted that this be done to decide what Conor's punishment would be.
After convincing the state prosecutor to let them decide on a punishment together and then having the ultimate decision made by a judge, the group met and discussed. Although they could not come up with a clear decision, the general term they believed Conor should serve was 5 to 15 years. When the state prosecutor took this proposition to the judge, he upped the term to 20 years with 10 years of probation. Had this group not met beforehand, though, Conor's sentence most likely would have been life in prison or the death penalty.
Restorative justice takes into account both justice that needs to be served to the victim and to the criminal and the ability of the victim and everyone involved to forgive the criminal and gives the criminal the chance to be forgiven. Although restorative justice is not popular, it tends to be a successful method to help everyone that is involved.
The Grosmaire family believed strongly in forgiveness and did not want Conor to face the death penalty or life in prison. Before the trials had started on Conor's case, the family stumbled upon a term called restorative justice. This is the process of having all members of a crime come together to discuss what had happened, how it affected each person, and what should be done about it. Restorative justice is used to help the criminal come back from what he/she had done after serving punishment that is necessary to grow, and the punishment must be agreed on by everyone involved. Usually, restorative justice is used in less serious cases such as burglary or vandalism. Before this case, restorative justice had never been used to deal with murder. However, the Grosmaire's insisted that this be done to decide what Conor's punishment would be.
After convincing the state prosecutor to let them decide on a punishment together and then having the ultimate decision made by a judge, the group met and discussed. Although they could not come up with a clear decision, the general term they believed Conor should serve was 5 to 15 years. When the state prosecutor took this proposition to the judge, he upped the term to 20 years with 10 years of probation. Had this group not met beforehand, though, Conor's sentence most likely would have been life in prison or the death penalty.
Restorative justice takes into account both justice that needs to be served to the victim and to the criminal and the ability of the victim and everyone involved to forgive the criminal and gives the criminal the chance to be forgiven. Although restorative justice is not popular, it tends to be a successful method to help everyone that is involved.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Justice Across Nations
The definitions of justice is universal to everyone, no matter what part of the world you live in. However, connotations attached to justice could be different depending on where you live and what type of mindset you have. Therefore, a person's personal beliefs about justice could be very different from someone else's. Religion and the law are two things that have a major affect on what people feel that justice is and how justice should be practiced. For example, a Catholic living in America has to decide for themselves whether they believe the death penalty is truly practicing justice or not. Although it is lawful, it is against the Catholic religion to promote killing human beings.
Conflicts within and between people who live in the same area and practice the same or different religions are typical. It goes to show then that people who live in very different areas and have different laws have even greater conflicts in their views of justice. It is easy for an American police officer to associate justice with the law but what about the Nazis that followed Hitler's order? Did they believe they were serving justice? It is hard to say. Connotations of justice can also change throughout time. When the United States were putting to trial the Nazis after years had passed after the end of World War II, they were trying to bring justice to the Nazis and to the Jewish people they had killed. There are two problems with this, though. The first one is that justice had meant something different to the Nazis when they were fighting for Hitler. They believed that they were doing what was right by following orders, which meant true justice to them. That was what they considered the law. When other country's had stepped in and put an end to the genocide, the Nazis stopped following the previous law and started following the current law: that it was unlawful to kill Jews. Another reason this is a problem is that the United States has very different laws than Germany does, even now after World War II. If justice is the administration of the law and law are different everywhere, how is it fair to the Nazis to be tried under the United States laws when they were just following their orders or laws. This is just one example of how drastically different justice can be, not only across nations but across time periods as well.
Conflicts within and between people who live in the same area and practice the same or different religions are typical. It goes to show then that people who live in very different areas and have different laws have even greater conflicts in their views of justice. It is easy for an American police officer to associate justice with the law but what about the Nazis that followed Hitler's order? Did they believe they were serving justice? It is hard to say. Connotations of justice can also change throughout time. When the United States were putting to trial the Nazis after years had passed after the end of World War II, they were trying to bring justice to the Nazis and to the Jewish people they had killed. There are two problems with this, though. The first one is that justice had meant something different to the Nazis when they were fighting for Hitler. They believed that they were doing what was right by following orders, which meant true justice to them. That was what they considered the law. When other country's had stepped in and put an end to the genocide, the Nazis stopped following the previous law and started following the current law: that it was unlawful to kill Jews. Another reason this is a problem is that the United States has very different laws than Germany does, even now after World War II. If justice is the administration of the law and law are different everywhere, how is it fair to the Nazis to be tried under the United States laws when they were just following their orders or laws. This is just one example of how drastically different justice can be, not only across nations but across time periods as well.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
The Final Round
This past weekend, I have been honored to be a part of the first group to perform a play titled The Final Round, which was written by Kara Quillard and directed by Danae Jimenez. The play is about the experiences of college roommates who test each other's trust and friendship, especially between the characters of Harley and Bianca. After a major falling out between the two, the girls reunite for a short time many years later to discuss what had happened between them. Although one wants to reconnect and regain their friendship, the other one is resistant and unforgiving.
The Final Round is a relatable show to most college students and centers around the theme of forgiveness. Had Bianca and Harley forgiven each other for what had happened between them, the story would've taken a much different path and they probably would've ended up friends. Bianca, at the end, did try to make up for not trusting Harley earlier in the show which caused a fight between the two. However, Harley could not forgive Bianca for the way she, her best friend, treated her. For this reason, Bianca has a hard time forgiving herself, just like she did for the past couple years after she found out that she had lost Harley as a friend for something that Harley had never done. This can be interpreted in the very last sentences between the two girls in the show. Bianca asks Harley "Are you happy?" and she responds with "Yes. Are you?". From there, Bianca never responds and the show comes to a close. This could mean that she is not happy with her life, which could have been a result of the guilt that was weighing her down from what she had done to Harley. Bianca has not learned to forgive herself and feels that she needs to be forgiven by Harley to release the guilt she feels. Harley's response could mean that, despite losing her best friend, she has moved on with her life and forgiving Bianca will not change whether she is happy or not. She feels that she doesn't need Bianca as a friend to make her happy anymore.
Forgiveness plays a huge role the development of the characters Harley and Bianca and thus creates a theme of forgiveness. Although there isn't a solid moral to this story, there are multiple lessons that can be learned. The moral of this particular aspect of the story and that surrounds the theme of forgiveness is that forgiving yourself for messing up in life can be just as important, if not more important, than being forgiven for something that you have done to someone else. Sometimes, people will not forgive you for mistakes you have made but you can still move on and be happy if you forgive yourself for making that mistake.
The Final Round is a relatable show to most college students and centers around the theme of forgiveness. Had Bianca and Harley forgiven each other for what had happened between them, the story would've taken a much different path and they probably would've ended up friends. Bianca, at the end, did try to make up for not trusting Harley earlier in the show which caused a fight between the two. However, Harley could not forgive Bianca for the way she, her best friend, treated her. For this reason, Bianca has a hard time forgiving herself, just like she did for the past couple years after she found out that she had lost Harley as a friend for something that Harley had never done. This can be interpreted in the very last sentences between the two girls in the show. Bianca asks Harley "Are you happy?" and she responds with "Yes. Are you?". From there, Bianca never responds and the show comes to a close. This could mean that she is not happy with her life, which could have been a result of the guilt that was weighing her down from what she had done to Harley. Bianca has not learned to forgive herself and feels that she needs to be forgiven by Harley to release the guilt she feels. Harley's response could mean that, despite losing her best friend, she has moved on with her life and forgiving Bianca will not change whether she is happy or not. She feels that she doesn't need Bianca as a friend to make her happy anymore.
Forgiveness plays a huge role the development of the characters Harley and Bianca and thus creates a theme of forgiveness. Although there isn't a solid moral to this story, there are multiple lessons that can be learned. The moral of this particular aspect of the story and that surrounds the theme of forgiveness is that forgiving yourself for messing up in life can be just as important, if not more important, than being forgiven for something that you have done to someone else. Sometimes, people will not forgive you for mistakes you have made but you can still move on and be happy if you forgive yourself for making that mistake.
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