Outside In

"When the sun comes up about ten in the mornin'
And the sun goes down about three in the day
And you'll fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you're drinkin'
And you spend your life just thinkin' of how to get away."

Hasn't everyone felt like that before? Like a fly in a spider's web; you get caught, you struggle and struggle and struggle and the web only gets tighter and you just end up in an even bigger mess than what you were in to start with.

Time passes in leaps and bounds, then slows to a crawl and you're left thinking about what it is you wanna do with your life. You start panicking, thinking about all the endless possibilities of the future, about leaving your friends and family.

The thing is, I've spent my whole life thinking about my escape from this town and everything in it. The stereotypes, the judgment, the gossiping old ladies. All the while people are pushing me to do this, do that, go here, wait, come all the way back over here. Well what if I don't want to? Who says I have to conform to life's rules?

Who says I have to be the same?

Who says I can't be different?

Who says I can't be the president, a writer, a doctor, a mum? Who says I can't fall in love with whoever I want to? Who says anybody can't do any of these things?

When life gives you the lemons... squeeze them in people's eyes and run.

Granted, not everything has happened the way I had it planned out. Josh died from cancer (he's been gone a year now; time is relative to suffering) and my other friend killed themselves. I don't know why they did it and I don't think I ever will. I can't imagine not seeing beauty in the world. I am afraid to die. But I'm not afraid to admit it.

But... despite it all, everything has come together. I'm taking it one day at a time. The future isn't so scary if you look at it in increments.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that YOU have to be enough for YOU. Nobody can tell you what you're worth, where you're going or why, except God. So why are you worrying? Who cares what everyone else says? They don't know you. They can't see you. The only people who can see you are God... and you.

How is it that we spend our entire lives worrying about what people think of us? As a race, aren't we past exterior and more interested in interior? Apparently not.

Because the two boys that were taken from me were my best friends. And I tried so hard to hold on to them. It was like holding smoke. it stays in your hands for a while, looks substantial, and once you open your fingers, it's gone.

Don't take anything for granted. Travel, see the world, love with a heart that's full an unbroken because you've only got 100 years to live.

Feels like everyone else's got the answers
You got shadows, they got light
You just got a heap of questions
While they got everything right

Feels like someone made your body
Somebody else your mind
A mismatch in so many ways
You were always one step behind

While the other found each other
You were left alone
A magic ring around their world
That kept you from their zone

You try to settle in your shadow life
Don't know where you end, or begin
But you wonder, sometimes, if they feel it too
Inside out and outside in.

-A Solitary Blue

In Loving Memory...

This is definitely not what I wanted to post about. But I have to do it.

So everyone knows that teen suicide is a huge problem. Although, it's a problem I find a lot of people ignore. Like if they pretend it's not real then maybe it'll go away. Like maybe it WON'T be real if they just close their eyes and think of unicorns.

Maybe I'm being a bit unfair. Of course people don't want to think morbid thoughts like that. If everyone else is anything like me, they want to live and love with a heart that's full and unbroken, untarnished by the world's discrepancies. So they pretend that things they don't like aren't there in the hopes they'll go away.

Well it didn't.

One of my close friends attempted suicide on Tuesday night by overdosing on pills. He died Wednesday night in intensive care. I knew he had depression, and I knew he was suicidal, but all I could think was "why him? Why didn't I see this coming?" And in a way I had. But he lives an hour away.

I would have sat with him and held his hand every night if it had kept him tethered to me just a little while longer. He was a beautiful person. Of all the people in this town that didn't deserve to die, he was the top of the list. Because he was better than everyone else. He looked after his disabled sister and helped his brother with his homework and loved his girlfriend with everything he had.

Everyone loved him. And I mean that. And yet somehow he fell in between the cracks. Somewhere along the way, he decided I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE, WHAT'S THE POINT IN LIVING, EVERYONE WOULD BE BETTER OFF WITHOUT ME. At some point, he decided that it wasn't worth thinking about anymore, and at that point, he died. His soul fled this planet long before his physical body did.

But that's my point. How many people are we going to lose to mental illness and suicide before something's done? How many people are going to take their lives because of bullying before someone mans up to the situation? How many people do we have to lose for someone to stand up and say "this is our problem?"

He has over THREE THOUSAND messages on his Facebook wall. So much love. And somehow he never saw it. It was too little too late. If he were alive, he would be crowing about how he had more page views than me. But he's not. He's been dead for three days now.

So yeah. He wasn't the thousands of people who died in Japan. He wasn't all the victims of Hurricane Katrina... he wasn't all the dead from the Queensland floods or the Christchurch earthquakes. He wasn't Justin Bieber, he wasn't Pete Wentz, he wasn't Robert Pattinson.

But to some people that's what he meant. He meant the world to us. And now he's gone. Forever. I keep thinking every time my phone goes off that it's going to be him, teasing me about something, asking to swap shifts with me at work. And every time I go to pick up my phone, it isn't him. It's someone else.

This post will be swept under the rug. These kinds of posts always are. They force people to face facts. Force them to confront the question every person must ask themselves as they leave childhood. The question that everyone dreads because they don't always know the answer.

Who am I? What do I mean to the world? What do I want my life to be about?

He was my confidant. My rock. And now he's gone. Not so rock-like. Tomorrow is the Relay for Life, which he was supposed to be participating in. It's traditionally for all cancer survivors across the world. Running through the night, the darkest point in any person's life when they're afraid.

But I'll be running for him. He was in pain. His whole life in those last two weeks was a nightmare, one he didn't see a way out of. But I know that tomorrow night, as I run, the There's always light at the end of the tunnel. We just go a little blind sometimes. In the morning, when the sun rises and I've been awake all night, sun will be rising somewhere.I'll have done it for him.

He's dead. He's not ever coming back. But we all carry a little piece of him, all his friends and family. We'll all remember. And he'll be waiting for us. But I don't think he'll mind if we're a little bit late getting to him.

If anything, I know this: the world didn't stop turning over night. The sun continues to rise and fall, the birds will always sing and the seasons will change. The world is the same as it always was, just missing one of its vital pieces. And in the end, aren't we all vital pieces? All God's children, all chosen to live, all with destinies and hands and hearts.

Like with Josh, I will NEVER understand why he died. More than that, I will never understand why he chose to take his own life. He had so much to give to the world. There was so much I never got to say to him.

So much that I never will.

[Somewhere between the end
And the point where we begin
There's a fire burning brightly
That's found its way to dim

When the feeling's gone
Shine on, shine on,
On to something new
It's long and overdue
I will remember you

Shine on, shine on,
And let the others see
You've got your victory
Will you remember me?]

-A Solitary Blue.

Something I Need To Say

I had a really patriotic post planned for today, I was going to write all about Australia and how much I love this country with everything I have.

But something else needs addressing.

When people go onto Formspring, they don't want to see "LIKE OHMYGAWSH YOU ARE SO UGLY! >:(" or "WHY CAN'T YOU JUST GO DIE OR SOMETHING?!". They've made a Formspring to answer QUESTIONS. Real, valid questions. Okay, so this is where my point begins. I don't have Formspring because, to be honest, I find it to be one of the most destructive, confidence-shattering places on the Internet. Anonymous posters can leave you hate mail telling you to kill yourself all the time. Even if you choose not to publish it and nobody else knows, you do, and that hurts.

But what hurts worse... is that this hate has moved to Blogger. And that this hate isn't coming from low-life spammers anymore. This is coming from people we used to be friends with.

I'm going to come out with it: WHERE IS THE LOVE? What happened to when we could all log on to Blogger and say what we wanted without people trying to shove their own beliefs down our throats? What happened to being able to stand up for our rights without being accused of, among many other things, a "satanist" "disgusting" "fat" "ugly" "putrid", or, my personal favourite (read: sarcasm) "A piece of trash".

I used to come on here because I felt like I'm making a difference. Like everyone here could tolerate one another even if they weren't friends. I feel like when I talk about life, maybe one person will read it and hear me. I felt like I was helping the world.

Now, because of all this stupid hate, I feel like nobody hears me because they're more interested about who's dramatising what on Formspring! If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all!

We all used to be friends. I mean, isn't it bad enough that we get hated on by the rest of the world, you have to go pick on one another as well? You honestly can't just let one another live in peace? When it comes down to it, we're all we have. All those cryptic, snarky comments like "you know what you did :(" or "I can't believe you're not apologising" - it's not cute. It's just sad.

You wouldn't treat one another this way in real life! You wouldn't walk up to someone and say any of the above stuff! So why do it on the internet? It's because, if you're the one doing it... you're a coward. You have no ability to stand up for yourself and so you go on Internet forums where you can hide behind a login password and comment moderation, where you can make anyone believe anything about you.

Newsflash: THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS. In real life, you can't just staple someone's mouth shut because you don't agree with them. You can't just insult them because you don't like their haircut. These are punishable sins.

I'm not accusing ANYBODY who I follow, have followed or who I've emailed. This is about a problem Blogger is experiencing IN GENERAL. I understand standing up for your beliefs. But does that mean you have to tear someone else's down? Aren't some of the things God teaches are patience, love, and tolerance?

Jealously, hatred, fighting - they don't impress anybody.

Especially God.

-A Solitary Blue

Hero

People always ask me why I wanna be a psychologist when I'm older, why I try so hard to help others fit in while not really caring if I do.

It's because Josh died. I watched him linger in pain for months before he passed away, and I was helpless to do anything except pray and hope God was hearing every word I was saying. I wasn't a doctor. I couldn't give him transfusions, medicines, couldn't dull the pain of countless surgeries, couldn't advise him on his choices.

But I could pray. I could ask God to help him through the pain if not save him. I guess God had other plans, because on the 29th of May 2010, he left this world and joined God in another. Or I hope he did.

So this is my answer - I want to be a psychologist because I want to save lives instead of watching them pass. I'm not smart enough to be a doctor. But I know how to help people. I put all my heart and soul into helping people. I can't bear to see people in pain. It infuriates me, because I know someone is the cause of it... and every human on this planet has rights, and one of those rights is to be happy.

Think about it. When you bully someone, you're taking away their right to feel safe and happy. Josh was bullied every year of his life before his cancer for being overweight. And suddenly, he got cancer, and suddenly, everyone was his best friend. Looking for some attention. Seeking some glory. Or maybe just wracked with guilt.

Don't do anything you're not going to be able to live with when you wake up the next day. And don't say something cruel and brush it off as a joke. Because that "joke"? To someone out there, it's an insult, and it hurts. Nobody in my school can honestly say they've never called another student fat, whether they weighed a hundred pounds or three hundred.

So when someone insults you, don't insult them back. It makes you just as low as they are. Just keep your head up. My friends place too much weight on what the so-called "populars" think (you know the clique - the girls that are always stoned, drunk or otherwise intoxicated) that they don't actually bother asking the opinions of their FRIENDS. Too busy trying to impress people who don't actually have the brain cells left to notice anything outside their next drug binge.

Why are these kids seen as "cool"? It's not cool. In a few years when I've graduated university and I'm saving lives and doing something constructive with my time, they'll still be here, in this judgmental hole of a town and still getting drunk and cursing the world and anyone who'll listen for letting them down.

THOSE PEOPLE LET THEMSELVES DOWN.

But if they came to me asking for help, would I do it? Yeah, I would. Because people who can recognise the fact they need it generally are the ones who want to get better. And the right to seek help at any point in life is another basic human right that so many are denied.

Bullying can drive people to suicide. Lives taken far too soon. Can you imagine what it would be like, being so scared, depressed, and alone all the time that you would literally rather die than go on, face your tormentors another five seconds? The pain, the guilt, you experience, knowing what you're doing to your family, helpless to stop feeling what you are?

What if it were you? Wouldn't you want someone to step in and save you? Doesn't anybody want to save a life?

[No one talks to him about how he lives
He thinks that the choices he makes are just his
Doesn't know he's a leader with the way he behaves
And others will follow the choices he's made
He lives on the edge, he's old enough to decide
His brother who wants to be him is just nine
He can do what he wants, because it's his right
But choices he makes change a nine year old's life
Heroes are made when you make a choice

You could be a hero
Heroes do what's right
You could be a hero
You might save a life
You could be a hero
You could join the fight
For what's right, for what's right, for what's right

Little Mikey D was the one in class
Who every day got brutally harassed
This went on for years
Until he decided that never again would he shed another tear
So he walked through the door
Grabbed the 44 off his father's dresser drawer
And said "I can't take life no more"
And like that, a life can be lost.
But this ain't even about that!
All of us just sat back and watched it happen!
Thinking it's not my responsibility to solve a problem that isn't about me
THIS IS OUR PROBLEM!
This is just one of the daily scenarios
In which we choose to close our eyes
Instead of doing the right thing
If we make a choice we can be the voice
For those who won't stick up for themselves!
How many lives could be saved, changed, and rearranged?
Now it's our time to pick a side!
So don't just keep walking by
Don't wanna intervene
Cause you just wanna exist and never be seen
So let's wake up
Change the world
OUR TIME IS NOW!]

-a solitary blue

I'm Still Here

WARNING.

This will be one of those deep and meaningful posts.

So the other day, a friend who shall remain nameless was staying over at my house. We were just hanging, eating chocolate and watching movies (as you do at sleepovers) and she just suddenly stopped talking and stopped doing anything. I asked her what was wrong.

She told me, "I'm sick of being like this" and gestured to her whole body. She said, "I'm sick of not being what everybody wants. I'm sick of being me. I'm not thin enough, I'm not nice enough, I'm not pretty enough."

What sort of a world do we come from, that we beat ourselves up because we don't look like the toothpicks (commonly called 'models') magazines use to model their clothes? How is it that 2 percent of the world's population has an "acceptable" body to use as a model, and yet the majority of us, who don't starve ourselves (for the most part) strive to fit the minority of people?

When did ribs, hips and collar bones start becoming sexy? Since when has it been an achievement to not eat for however many days or cut however many calories from your diet and know it's stupid but feel proud of it?

There are so many fakes in the world, and so many losers. There are so many people who are selfish, and cruel, and incompetent, and live to make other people's lives hard. They're life's little hurdles, someone's sick idea of a joke when you're having a bad day. If you can't overcome some idiot who's stoned, drunk or otherwise ninety percent of the time, how are you supposed to make it in the world? They're tests. Of your kindness, patience, a test of the sturdiness of your faith. Among other things.

Everyone tries so hard to fit in, to conform to society's ideas of what is and isn't acceptable. What's wrong with stepping out of the circle, finding your voice, and being yourself? What's so wrong with wanting to live truthfully?

Everyone has a place in the world - all you have to do is look. Sometimes things don't turn out the way you think they will. Things get messed up, turned around, shoved into a blender and put on "fruit salad" and come out so messed up you don't think you'll ever sort it out again.

Here's some food for thought: even when you lie there at night and you shut your eyes and you wish you just wouldn't wake up, or that the kid teasing you would just die or get hit by a bus or whatever, or you're resenting someone or something and just want to give up... God keeps you breathing through the night. He could easily let you go without a fight, easily let your breath stop.

You might wish that you'd die. But you don't. You might wish you were thinner, but you aren't. You might wish you were nicer, but you aren't. You might wish that you're prettier, but you aren't. You might wish you're more talented, but you're not.

God loves you for who you are. Not who everyone else perceives you to be. Forget them.

You wish you'd die in your sleep. God could easily let you go.

But He doesn't. More than that, He WOULDN'T. God is strength when you have none. Just think that, for whatever reason... you're here.

[I am a question to the world
Not an answer to be heard
Not a moment to be held in your arms

And what do you think you'd even say
I won't listen anyway
You don't know me
And I'll never be what you want me to be

And how can the world want me to change
They're the ones that stay the same
They can't see me
But I'm still here
They can't break me
As long as I know who I am]

-a solitary blue

Carpe Diem. (:

CARPE DIEM.

Translated into English...

SEIZE THE DAY!

When I was a kid I was so terrified of death and everything that came with it. Now I know, however, that it wasn't really death that scared me - I was scared that, in my short life, I wouldn't have enough time to get everything done that I wanted to do, see everything I wanted to see and be everything I wanted to be.

I was frightened because we all have expiration dates of a sort - or at least, our bodies do. Our minds go on. I was scared because there was no such thing as forever - but now, I've come to a very abrupt, sudden realization.

If everything was forever, it would becoming boring, and we would take it for granted. Would we truly appreciate the feel of the sun on our faces if we knew that it was never going to end? Wouldn't it just become another thing that we came to expect from life? Every morning, I wake up and I'm excited, so terribly excited at what I'm going to be doing that day - whether it be school, homework, seeing friends or shopping, or even going to work in this hot weather.

Carpe diem. Seize the day. Live in the moment.

"I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck all the marrow out of life. To put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived." - Neil, Dead Poets Society.

Seize the day. Be who you want to be, anything you want to be. Live life like the next sixty seconds will be your last. Love like you're never going to get hurt. Breathe every breath and savor the taste of life, because every time you open your mouth that's what you're breathing - you're breathing air that has seen the rise and fall of many a great man and woman, breathing air that's circulated the entire globe and united people all over the world.

Life isn't about staggering around blind to the world's beauties. It's about staggering around blinded BECAUSE you saw them, because you looked upon them and realised how lucky you were to be alive. Life is about taking every day as a precious gift. Life, as it is, isn't about mourning what you don't have.

It's about celebrating what you're given.

"Emmett... my sweet, dear Emmett... mourn the losses, because they're many. But celebrate the victories... because they're few." - Debbie Novotny.

Carpe diem. (:

-a solitary blue

Eight Months

It's been eight months since Joshua Paul Herrick lost his life to osteosarcoma (bone cancer). He battled it for four years. He barely reached eighteen. This time last year, Josh was told by doctors that he should start organising his things, and that he probably wouldn't be here halfway through next year.

I still don't really understand it. I don't understand why he had to die and why I got to live. I don't understand why a teenager, a kid, was taken from us when there are people who rape and murder and steal and yet nothing bad ever happens to them.

For a really long time I searched for a reason behind his death. Then my nan said something that made me realise a lot of things. She told me that while the Devil made Josh sick, it was God who made him an angel.

After that I found peace with myself, with everyone. I don't know everything. I don't know a lot of things, I can't control everything and I certainly can't explain everything. Thinking you know everything is, to be honest, kind of stupid. Think about the world, how big it is, how much our creator put into it. Consider all the millenia of history. Consider God and His handiwork. There is no possible way to know everything.

"Consider God's handiwork; who can straighten what He hath made crooked?" - Ecclesiastes 7:13.

I can't believe that God gave Josh cancer. We're His children and He loves us even when we're unable to love ourselves or each other. He shows us the way, lights up our world even when all hope seems lost and shows us that His power and His love is greater than any man, woman or child on this planet.

Everything we are and everything we will be is defined by this very moment in which we live and breathe and hope, and each moment is given to us by the grace of God. Each moment we spend laughing in the sun is because He wished it that way. God wants us to be happy, I think.

So even though this Christmas I had one less gift to buy for my friends... I know Josh is there, and waiting for me. I know that one day I'll see him again, even if it's only fleetingly, as if in the rear view mirror. It's alright to mourn. I mourned for Josh long before he died because I knew it was coming but at that point in time, God hadn't yet entered my life.

Or maybe I just never realised he was there.

So I've decided. I'm going to love life. I'm not going to say that it'll be easy, or that I'll always be happy, because we all have rough days and God knows that. But I'm going to try. So, in the words of our idol, Miss Gloria Gaynor, I will survive!

-a solitary blue.

Beauty

So when I was in Melbourne last week I saw the most amazing, coolest thing ever. Me, Enyar, Mum and Uncle Brian (who's not actually my uncle but my dad's best friend) were sitting in the lounge area. There was this huge grand piano there.

Anyway, this little old lady came hobbling up the stairs and she looked about 200. We thought she was homeless because she was soaked from the rain and had this long greasy grey hair and had a little bag on wheels with her.

Well, we kept talking and this little old lady sat down at the grand piano and I wondered whether she was allowed to do that (because it looked like the piano might have been there for decoration, not for play) and just as we were about to get the hotel staff she began to play.

[How the universe began
What the future holds
Why do fools fall in love?
What happens to our souls?]

She was the most amazing piano player I've ever heard in my entire life. It was like listening to a professional. Here was this little old lady who looked like she might have, with all due respect, died any second, who looked like she was homeless, who was playing the piano like she'd been doing it every night of her life since she could even open her eyes.

I've never heard such beautiful music in my life. And then one of the elderly hotel cleaners started singing and I've never heard a nicer voice.

There are people all over the planet who look like they couldn't possibly carry themselves a step and then they start to create all this beautiful stuff - their art, paintings, they start to sing or dance or write and you wonder how do they do that?

[Clues to life's mysteries
Are what we hope to find
Always reaching for a reason
Searching for a sign]

Nobody stopped that little old lady even though she wasn't supposed to be on the piano because the music was so powerful it had everyone completely gripped within it. And I don't think anybody wanted to get free. Everyone wanted to listen. In a way I think the music was the woman's soul coming out of her body; she looked frail but on the inside she was strong.

You never know what people are gonna do until they lay down the final card. Even then you don't know if they're secretly hiding another whole deck beneath their coat or up their sleeves. You never know how far a person can be pushed until they fall over the edge.

I used to have a great friend and she was the best. We were polar opposites in more ways than one - she came from a Turkish family and had an older brother who smoked pot and her parents separated before she turned double-digits. My family is completely stable.

[She saw the bright lights
She caught the fever
Now we're coming back to earth
Oh hey, hello, welcome to the world!]

She took so much crap from so many different people. When I weighed 55 kilos she weight 100. She could handle anything. Her brother beat her up and her dad yelled and told her she was fat and her mother didn't care but she could take anything. She was a beautiful person.

And then she started liking this guy. And this guy didn't like her back. She went out drinking with him and she smoked and did all sorts of drugs. And when she told him she liked him, he told her she was disgusting and that he would never date a girl that looked like her. And she broke. Just like that.

I don't even talk to her anymore. She'd had enough of being the good girl that everyone underestimated, so she turned into the bad girl who everyone was afraid of. And people were afraid of her. And her cousins. I tried to stick by her but then people wondered why. I was guilty by association.

[You sit there on the couch
Sipping your scotch and ice
You turn the TV on
And tune me out again]

So she told me to leave. When I didn't she did everything she could to make me hate her so I'd go of my own accord and never look back. She told me my family was a joke and that she'd only used me to get to the boy she'd liked and all this other horrible stuff.

I was fourteen and I believed her. We still don't talk that often but when I see her I try to smile at her. She could take all that crap from so many people who were supposed to care for her and then the one person who didn't was the one to break her. I always wonder how such pathetic people manage to worm their way into our hearts.

[So what would you say to me
If you could talk to me
You ask anything, I wouldn't lie
But you're okay with this damaging awkwardness
So I'll just play it safe, keep it inside]

It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks so long as God looks down upon you and smiles. If you know you're a good person, and God knows you're a good person, why should you listen to what anybody else has to say?

Because they're our friends and family and we want them to believe in us. It took a long time for me to start believing in myself. For some people I don't think it ever happens. But you have to believe in yourself to be able to believe in Him. He never gives up on us, even when we claim He's not there or whatever.

A lot of people I know ask for proof that He exists. I just tell them to look around. How could anything so beautiful have evolved from single-celled organisms? It didn't. He was there. He made us and loves us and believes in us even when we fail in every way possible. His love was so great He sent His son to die on the cross for us.

[I look beyond the empty cross
Forgetting what my life has cost
Can I be the one to sacrifice?
Or grip the spear and watch the blood and water flow?]

There are so many things in life we take for granted. There are so many things that every day we forget to thank Him for. We walk, and we breathe, and we can feel the sun on our face. We know of birds soaring hundreds of miles above our heads, and of creatures of the deep that swim below us, and creatures that live in the forests - forests we're cutting down. Destroying.

He must feel every death like a dagger to the heart and yet He still lives within us and breathes new life into us every day, and when all is said and done, He is the one who takes us with open arms and allows us to return home, because He loves us with all that He is.

[To love you, take my world apart
To need you, I am on my knees
To need you, broken on my knees]

Despite what we are, who we are, He is there for us every day, listens to our sorrows and triumphs, knows our pain and suffering and joy and euphoria, embraces us as all we are and all we ever will be and never lets us slip, not once. He does not let us slip. We let each other slip. We let ourselves slip.

But He's always there to pick us back up, set us back on the right path, showing us which way to go. He loves us because we are. Not because someday you might jump in front of a bullet to save a pregnant lady. Not because someday you yourself might carry the next president or messiah within you. But because we're there. Our existence is enough reason for Him to see fit to love us.

[All said and done I stand alone
Amongst remains of a life I should not own
It takes all I am to believe
In the mercy that covers me]

So why isn't that reason enough for ourselves to love each other? Every day we lie to our friends and family, people steal and cheat and lie and they never own up to it and they certainly never take the punishment. Every day some poor girl is raped or some boy murdered and thrown in a ditch and their attackers are only sentenced to a few months in jail and then a good behaviour bond.

What? Good behaviour bond? I thought the general idea of being a murderer means you aren't well behaved at all! But apparently courts don't know that. We're letting it happen. We're letting all this suffering spread. Kids in Africa would have more than enough food if we stopped eating our weight in McDonald's every year.

Kids in India might actually have enough space to move - if first-world countries weren't so selfish with their immigration processes. Racial purity is a load of bull. We're all people so what's it matter?

[To rid myself of all but love, to give and die
To turn away and not become
Another nail to pierce the skin of one that loves
More deeply than the oceans
More abundant than the tears
Of a world embracing every heartache]

If it doesn't matter to God why should it matter to us? God doesn't care who you are or where you come from. If you love Him and Jesus with a heart wide open it guarantees you sanctuary. He loves us so much he sent his son to die for us, to linger on the cross for three days.

That's what love really is.

-a solitary blue.

Looky!

New template! Much easier to use hahaha. I was getting pretty tired of the old one. I messed around trying to get it right in the CSS encoding and then realised it was much easier just to pick a template and customise it. So yeah. Problem solved ^^

BTW, MY VISITOR MAP CANNOT BE RIGHT. It's showing 27 hits from all over the world! What's going on?!

Going to Melbourne tomorrow with Enyar and Mum XD it's gonna be heaps fun, we're going to the Victoria shopping center and that has like EVERYTHING in it. I'm gonna get everyone their Christmas presents too ^^

[Love, love is a verb
Love is a doing word
Feels like something
Unexplainable]

I don't really know what I want for Christmas, I guess. I'm just happy that it IS Christmas. It's by far the best holiday of the year (although despite the fact that I don't live in America and therefore don't celebrate the fourth of July, I watch Independence Day religiously every year on that date). We don't have Thanksgiving in Australia and we don't really have Halloween either.

I've put the Christmas tree up but it doesn't have decorations yet. I have to do that tomorrow before flying down to Melbourne. I hope it's not hot... it was 40 degrees celsius out there today. I almost died :S

Christmas is the one time of year when everyone comes together to celebrate. Sometimes I feel like there's so much hate and hurt in the world that I could probably drown in it, but on Christmas everyone seems to forget that. I know that the other day I took all of my old toys and clothes down to the Salvation army bin and I actually filled it (I had 17 bags of stuff).

[Take a breath
I pull myself together
Just another step
Until I reach the door
You'll never know the way
It tears me up inside to see you]

And there are so many people out there who suffer all the time because everyone is just so selfish. A third of the world's children won't get food on Christmas day, let alone toys or clothes or money like the rest of us. We take it for granted. There are so many kids living in our own towns who are disadvantaged or, dare I even go here, their parents won't even attempt to make Christmas happy because their parents are the kind to beat them up.

There are a lot of elderly people who spend Christmas alone in aged care facilities because their families are too busy or too lazy to go and see them. There are plenty of spare seats around tables at Christmas, so why aren't they being filled with these poor people?

[It is too late to remind you how we were?
And not our last days of silence, screaming, blur?
Most of what I remember makes me sure
I should have stopped you from walking out that door]

I know plenty of families who spend their Christmases apart because they're fighting over stupid petty things. I know plenty of adults and parents who fight and fight and fight and plenty of little kids who just watch and don't learn the power of love but how to hate instead.

I've seen my own cousin throw a tantrum because he got a blue GameBoy, not a red one. People have forgotten what Christmas is about. It's not about the presents (although that's nice) and it's not about a nice dinner either. It's about being together and remembering the day our Saviour was born into the world, only to die for our uncountable sins. It's about not forgetting that He CHOSE to do that.

[Belief
Makes things real
Makes thing feel, feel alright]

And yet I'm sure that there are probably kids out there who, on Christmas day, rather than thanking their parents and grandparents for all they've sacrificed, will complain that they didn't get the gifts they wanted. I'm sure there will be that one kid at school, the one who doesn't fit in, who gets bullied because he or she didn't get the latest stupid electronic car or Bratz doll.

So on Christmas Day, maybe talk to someone you wouldn't normally. Maybe be nice to someone who nobody really likes or dislikes. Maybe just stop and talk to the old widow on the way back from the supermarket. Maybe offer to help your mother cook the roast this year, rather than scavenging stocking fillers. Maybe put more effort than usual into buying someone's present. Do something unexpected. Show you care.

[Who I am
From the start
Take me home to my heart
Let me go
I will run
I will not be silenced]

One of my friends never smiles. She says there's nothing to smile about. Well, maybe there's not anything to smile about. But when you're alive, and breathing, and loved, there's nothing to frown about either.

-a solitary blue.

For Christmas

So there's this little girl.



Her name is Mikayla Francis.

She was diagnosed with a rare liver cancer back in August. There was a ten centimeter tumor growing on her liver. Treatment started immediately.

Treatment didn't work.

The tumors grew in her lungs as well, despite rigorous chemotherapy and radiation. Mikayla's six. She celebrated both her seventh birthday and Christmas early, two days ago, when doctors advised her parents to move both dates forward.

They don't think she'll be here by Christmas.

Her one fear isn't of dying - her one fear is that people are going to forget her. She begs her parents not to, ask if they'll tell future children about her. She isn't afraid to die, she says, because she reckons "Heaven will be awesome". Her biggest fear is that her friends, family and loved ones will be here on earth.

And she won't.

So to anyone reading this - don't forget Mikayla Francis.

"Life is a journey. Not so much to a destination, but a transformation. You know, looking back, doesn't it sometimes feel like our richest times come right in the midst of our hardest? God made us to live in community, to laugh and cry, to hurt and celebrate with each other no matter what we're going through, and transformation is tough, and we don't always end up where we think we will - but we have to remember, that even when we struggle to believe in Him, He always believes in us. He fills our life with passion and purpose if we just let Him. And you know the best part of the journey is that sometimes the God of the universe sometimes allows us to play a part in changing the world. Isn't that a trip?"

-Chris, "To Save A Life"

So instead of wallowing in my own misery, I'm going to celebrate Mikayla's birthday. I'm going to put her in my little book of inspiration. And I won't forget her. I won't ignore the pain. Instead, I'll pray that God will welcome her with open arms into Heaven and she will be loved.

-a solitary blue.

As it is :)

So life is really good at the moment! I'm feeling really upbeat at the moment, and I finally have some deb pictures to post! Reminder - a deb is like a prom but much more formal and a much bigger deal out here than anything. We spend literally months preparing for this, and only twelve girls per year get to do the deb. It's seen as the night where a girl makes the transition from teenager to woman.

I only have 2 weeks of school left and then 3 months of holidays! WOOT WOOT!

Summer is here! Reorganising the wardrobe! Goodbye winter coat, hello sweet summer dress!

[We're halfway there, we're looking good now
And nothing's gonna get in the way
We're halfway there
And looking back now I never thought that I'd ever say
We're halfway there!]

Summer always cheers me up. It's literally a breath of fresh air. I don't think anybody understands how truly happy it makes me to be able to shoot people with a water pistol and swing off the metal railing of our bungalow and into the pool and send water everywhere. I think they underestimate how healing it is.

Autumn is for shedding old skins. Winter is for rest. Spring is for growth. Summer is for renewal. Summer for me has always been the best time of the year, because while I appreciate being able to curl up under a million blankets with hot chocolate and read I LOVE the sun and I love the wind and I love how it feels like everything is so alive!

Sixteen to seventeen has been the best year of my life so far. I feel like somewhere along the way I stopped being a girl and started being a woman and I like the change. Maybe that change came when Brendan spun me in circles in my white dress all over a dance floor in front of hundreds of people.

[Wait a minute, before you tell me anything
How was your day?
Cause I've been missing you by my side
Did I awake you out of your dream?
I'm sorry but I couldn't sleep
Coming down there's something about the sound of your voice]

I thought that to be happy I didn't need a man to save me, and I don't think I need a man to save me now. But I would like one. I really would. And I think when I did my deb this year, he was the one there when I became that woman.





I felt like the most beautiful girl alive the night of my deb even though the other girls were just as pretty or prettier. I was impervious to all the whispers and I didn't care that everyone was watching - I wanted them to watch. I wanted them to see what I could do. That I'd learned to dance with someone just as hopeless as me.

This, undoubtedly, was the most beautiful night of my life, and the night that I changed completely. I grew and realised that inside and out I was a good, beautiful person, that I didn't have to worry about what other people thought.

Bleah Briann's right - there's nothing wrong with wanting to be a princess.

-a solitary blue

Seventeen Years

So I've been alive for 17 years now, and I think I spent at least 15 of those living in blissful ignorance of the world around me. It's only been recently that I've looked around and just had an "oh my... wow" reaction to things.

I've also learned a lot of things that I wish I hadn't, and most of them have been over the past year. I grew so much since February this year it seems insane that I could possibly handle it all, but I did. And I know I had help.

I learned that everything dies. Josh died and even though I knew it was coming, knew it was coming for months before it did, I spent a lot of time angry about it. He was only 18 when he died, only a year older than me, and he's spent so much time in hospital I wondered how he could possibly have learned all the things I had? I didn't see why he had to die. Now I know there is no reason.

Death is death. It doesn't discriminate. And I wish that I was that little girl who believed that the bad guys got what was coming to them and that the good guys got their happily-ever-after.

[Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky
Are like shooting stars
I could really use a wish right now]

I learned that the one person who isn't supposed to hurt you probably will. I've learned it's often the person you least expect. I've learned that most people have two sides - who they are, and what you see. I've learned that the effort it takes into carefully cultivating these two faces is effort better spent doing something else.

So I've cut those people out of my life. I don't like fakes. And even more than that, I don't like people who seem like they're fake but they're not, they're just shallow, and those people make me depressed. I hang out with 12 different people and of those 12 I trust 3 - Enyar, Riz, and Jayne. The rest of them? I don't even know them. I've known Elenn since we were in diapers and I don't know who she is anymore.

[I saw a picture of you hanging in an empty hallway
I heard a voice that I knew but I couldn't turn away
It sent me back to the end of everything
I taste it all, I tasted all the tears again]

I've learned that sometimes honesty is not the best policy. Especially not for me. If half the people in my school asked me if I liked them (not that my opinion matters to anybody) I would honestly have to say no. And it's a total drag when people tell you they don't like you. Also, if your friend asks you if you think that boy's hot, how are you supposed to tell her you're taken and just keeping it quiet?

In 17 years I've also had the fortune to meet lots of decent people and learn a lot of things. I've learned that everyone has their demons and that everyone has the ability to beat their demons. My P.E teacher, Mr. Thomas, has worshipped God since he was 13 and suffered from depression for 10 years. I believe that he was saved by God.

That's another thing. I found God. It was a long time coming but I eventually realised that none of this could exist without His intervention. Scientists say humans are just complicated machines. I say to that - machines are all the same and work in the same way. Humans are all different and work in different ways. We can't be machines.

[Take a step before you leap
Into the colours that you seek
Give back what you get anyway
Go all the way back to yesterday]

I've learned that I'm better off alone. I'm not saying it for attention. I just am. Apart for a few special people, generally speaking, I don't like where the species is heading and I'd rather bail than go down with the ship. (Please don't misunderstand. I like people. But I don't like what they represent). I'm sick of seeing ridiculous news paper articles. I'm tired of seeing footballers paid their weight in hundred-dollar bills while kids in third-world countries are suffering.

And yet I love this planet. And I love with everything I have. I don't think I've ever felt before that maybe I'm making a difference. But to two or three people, I am, and I know I am, and it makes me feel like I have a place in this world, like I'm not just wandering around meaninglessly, waiting for destiny to trip me over.

[Before you break you have to shed your own mind
Tell a stranger that they're beautiful
So that all you feel is love]

Signing out. :)

-a solitary blue.

Yesterday I died

[What do you think of me
Are you quite proud of this make believe
Curtain that hangs around
Everything
Caught admiring that girl
She's so damn beautiful]

What's wrong with a parent that they'd call their own kid a fat piece of crap? What's wrong with the world and all its people that we blow each other up - over a tiny scrap of land nobody wants anyway?

What's wrong with the world that when one girl in a school says "I'm gonna starve myself so I'm thin and pretty!" all her dumb friends jump off the proverbial cliff after her like the lemmings they are? What's wrong with the world that boys expect girls to fit into a size zero because that's what they see on TV, when only two percent of the population is a guy's idea of beautiful? Why should the minority falsely represent the majority?

[Yesterday I died
Tomorrow's bleeding
I fall into your sunlight
Future's open wide
Beyond the leaving
There's no why, hope dies...]

Eighty percent of ten to fourteen year olds are unhappy with their bodies. Over twenty percent of those will try binging and purging at some point, and, scarily enough, ten percent will live with Anorexia Nervosa. So many people in so many different countries fall between the cracks. Why should any one person, beautiful in their own right, feel the need to deprive themselves of essential things just to fit in?

Why should teenagers commit suicide because that one boy or girl didn't like them? Why should they cut into their arms and drain the blood God gave them? Why should they have to feel as if they're so alone, nothing will save them?

I want to make a difference. But I'm one person. I'm one person in seven billion and I don't think I can do it alone. I don't think anybody I even know, here, in Victoria, is willing to stand up for what's right. They're not willing to stand up to a girl nobody likes anyway and say "why are you making that girl's life hell? Why are you doing this?" because then they'd stand out and being an outsider is bad. Right?

[All is lost
But hope remains
And this war's not over
Let me go
I will run
I will not be silenced]

Wrong.

God created us to be different. If He wanted us to be the same He would have created us that way, carbon copies of one another. But He didn't - he made us all, with love, individual, unique. Do I believe that some people are bad? Yes. But they weren't born bad. God entrusts us to look after one another.

And we're doing a pathetic job.

All you ever see in the papers is "diggers blown up in Iraqi terrorist storm!" over here. I don't know how to get it through people's thick skulls - WE'RE IN THEIR LAND. WE are invading THEM. Not the other way around. We've been fighting so long we've forgotten what we're fighting over!

[Don't wanna cry for you
But there's nothing left to do
So if it'll make me feel better
Then I'm gonna cry, cry for you]

When the Black Saturday fires blazed through Victoria last year, it was thought to be a natural disaster - until arson experts discovered that at least three people had been behind instigating the horrific fires. 173 people dead, burned in their homes. 414 injured. 2,030 houses were destroyed, and estimated 3,500 structures in total.

The fires affected 78 towns. It displaced 7,562 people. The fires burned at about 2,190 degrees fahrenheit. That's bloody hot.

I don't think a lot of people understand how DRY it is here, even other Australians who live up in Queensland or Ballarat where it's wet almost all year round, either due to humidity or rain and snow. I don't think they understand that wood here tends to combust if left outside too long.



This is Kinglake, a town 5 hours from Mildura. This is A YEAR after the fire.

How could anybody do something like that? Not only are they destroying towns and people, they're destroying God's plants and animals, destroying land that's been carefully cultivated for decades.

And they never caught the arsonists who did it either.

-a solitary blue.

One two three four, to the five

Hello everyone :)

[I'm trusting you with loving me
Very very carefully]

I'm officially obsessed with Big Time Rush. Completely and totally in love with them. More so with James Maslow!!! He is the love. <3

Well, I'm in love with him on a superficial level. I never thought I might start to really like (love maybe) one of my closest friends. But I can't help it. He did my deb with me - which in Australian tradition is the night a girl transforms into a woman.

He was there with me. He discovered a part of me neither of us knew existed. I should probably put some deb photos up, come to think of it. I might do it tomorrow. The point is, I feel like he understands me. Like I don't have to be anybody except myself around him. Around him I'm allowed to love orange tictacs and talk about resident evil and go completely geek on him. I'm allowed to tell him how I feel.

[Now I'm about to give you my heart
So remember this one thing
I've never been in love before
So you gotta go easy on me]

He's given me the courage to stand up. To tell people what I really think. To tell Terri that she needs to get over herself and accept that things don't always go the way you plan, in fact they never do. To tell my friends that I'm not gonna stand by and watch Giulianna drown in her own low self-esteem and Terri's insults.

To think that it would ever come to this - that it would come to the point at which I don't care what Erin, Elenn, Kelsey, Emily, Grace, and countless others think of me - is astounding. I never thought I would get here.

The nice thing is that I know who I am, finally. I'm my father's daughter. He taught me respect, to help people in need of help whether it inconvieniences you or not, who taught me that without fear there is no such thing as courage.

[He gave me a road to chose
He gave me freedom
And I hope that someday
I will walk in his shoes]

So here I am. My name is Ayla Shannon Gray, and my life's ambition is to help people who need it. I like to sing and my motto in life is "when in doubt, dance it out". I'm in love with the guy who took me to the deb and gave me away to my father for the Pride of Evon. I like everyone else breathes slowly in the dark when the sun goes down, and like everyone else it saps my strength to face my demons.

So, whoever's reading - I'm tired of trying to be someone I'm not. I'm tired of being a simpering hair-twirling bimbo to match Erin's bitchiness. I'm tired of trying to be deep and meaningful around Kelsey. I'm tired of being spastic and insane and uncontrollable around Elenn. I'm tired of being shallow and insecure around Nathan.

I want to be the person I like - I want to be able to geek out all the time with Enyar over Stargate and the X-Files. I want to be able to laugh and smile and flick rubber bands at Riz. I want to laugh and do things I'm not supposed to at work with Niknak. And for him I want to be myself, this over-excitable seventeen-year-old who loves Fallout 3 and Resident Evil 4 to death and spends a lot of her time smiling.

[Through the wind and the rain
She stands hard as a stone
In a world she can't rise above
But her dreams give her wings
And she flies to a place where she's loved]

I know I'm good. And I know that people who accept me are good. Erin's not going to like the change, she's not gonna like I can finally do my own thing. Kelsey probably won't like my new cross necklace. Elenn won't like the new me flat-out. Nathan won't like that I actually have a brain.

But Riz will like me. So will Enyar and Niknak. And I'm thinkin' Brendan's gonna like that now I'm a real person. A real girl with hopes and dreams. Not one who's annoying.

[You'll be the first to know
When I find what I'm lookin' for
I wanna love with the sun on my face
Ride a train to nowhere anyplace
Don't know where I'm going
Anywhere, I don't care]

That was tiring.

-a solitary blue.

Broadway is dark tonight

I don't want to go down in history as that-girl-who-could-have-saved-that-person-from-their-own-internal-hell-and-chose-not-to. I don't want to see Gulianna hover near Terri anymore, just waiting for a sliver of attention. I don't want to be wondering in five years how Gulianna's doing. I want to be the person who in the here and now offered friendship where there was none.

[flashes of memory, i see the blue blue sky and i think that's the sun
i think maybe i might love him]

Because at some point in life I think everybody feels like an outsider. Been there, done that, in some ways I still feel like an outsider. I don't know if I'm the only person in my school to feel acutely every tear that Gulianna cries because her only friend has ditched her to hang out with us, the "populars." Oh gosh I don't want her to be alone.

I'm sick of standing by and doing nothing and thinking it'll fix itself. Doing nothing is as bad as doing the wrong thing sometimes. I threw a stone at a hawk today because it tried to kill one of Lenny's lambs. I didn't hit it but I saved the lamb.

[city lights begin to solidify from a messy blur
cars zoom past on the motorway
halfway from nowhere to anyplace]

I hate it when people shrug and refuse to help someone out and say "that's the way the cookie crumbles" or "that's just how it is." If people keep thinking like that then of course that's going to happen. But I'm tired of letting them tell me that I'm too young to understand and that there's nothing I can do. I can save the world - one person at a time.

I'm tired of people telling me that until I experience it I won't understand. Don't they understand I can't experience things unless they let me? A bird can't fly if you clip its wings and a horse can't run on a lame leg. A person can't learn without experience.

[music is too loud
volume's on 76
i can't hear my own voice
i guess i don't have any voice control]

I'm starting to care less and less about what people think of me. If it's not God's opinion why should it matter to me? Another year and I'm out of this town, out of this tiny little gossip highway. Everyone here knows everything about everyone or at least they think they do. The truth is repeated so many times it becomes lies.

So what if someone's new haircut looks terrible! The attitude some people have is terrible too but unfortunately there is no attitude-dye like there is hair-dye. If only. I don't even know if half the people I talk to are real, or whether they're buried so deep within themselves it's like there's another entirely separate person there, trapped.

[i hear a piano ballad in my head
see drops of water floating through the air
laughter bubbles up from all around me
this is happiness]

I know a few real people though. Riz, Enyar, Niknak. Those people are real to me. Everyone else, I don't know. I can see a cling-wrap layer of fake but it's not clear-cut. There are wrinkles so thick it's hard to look past the warped exterior and see the smooth, shiny new inside. Almost like a peanut in its shell.

I wonder how many years of their lives people waste trying to be something they're not?

[he's a shy kid with floppy dark hair
he's a thousand leagues away from the jocks
from the nerds
he's got this thousand-watt smile
he's a social outcast
he smells like summer and thunderstorms
a warm beach towel in the sand
i think that's why i love him]

-a solitary blue.

Halfway there

[When the chips are down, back against the wall
Got no more to give 'cause we gave it all
Seems like going the distance is unrealistic
But we're too far from the start]

So I'm halfway between being a kid and halfway between being an adult and I don't know what that makes me. This time last year I never thought I would have come this far, that I would have become such a different person, a happier person, someone who can help.

Watched a spectacular movie today, well, two. The first one was "To Save A Life." It really changed my perspective on things. Basically, this guy named Sam and his friend Roger are playing when they're in sixth grade. Sam runs in front of a car, and Roger pushes him out of the way - and has a permanent limp because of it.

Seven years later Roger and Sam have stopped talking because Sam chose popularity over the boy who saved his life. Roger commits suicide in the middle of the school hall, and Sam's left wondering if there's anything he could have done.

It really touched me. Everyone should watch it :)

[So we take what comes and we keep on going
Leaning on each others shoulders
Then we turn around and see we've come so far somehow]

So now it has me thinking - what do I want my life to be about? Not me that's for sure. Living for yourself is as pointless as not living at all really. I would like to help others. Maybe save a life someday. But it doesn't matter if I do or not; whether it's helping someone with their shopping or not, it's still helping.

I don't want my life to be a turned-around mess like some people I know. Jamie, one of my best friends, hooked on marijuana and cigarettes and whoever knows what else because he lost his way. I want to help him but I don't even know where to start.

I see people every day who seem to have the words HELP ME engraved on their foreheads. The pain is right there in their eyes, and it's bull that nobody sees it; people see it, they just don't want to admit they have. They don't want to look into another human's eyes and think oh geez that could happen to me.

[If we never flew we would never fall
If the world was ours we'd have it all
But the life we live isn't so simplistic
You don't just get what you want]

Do I want to look into Riz's eyes and realise she's crying out for help? No, it scares me. But I do it anyway because who else is gonna do it? The point of being a best friend is knowing the good the bad and the ugly, and the ugly truth is that while her dad doesn't hit her he doesn't have to. Shutting her out and then calling her worthless, fat, is taking more of a toll on her than anything is.

And it's taking a toll on me too. I don't like seeing my friends unhappy, people they're not. I don't like them snapping at each other and bickering and saying you don't understand because they haven't even realised they're all in the same boat.

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who's NOT unhappy, like I'm on a boat in the middle of the ocean with the storm above me and the sharks below. It makes me feel to be abnormal to be normal and that's sickening, just because my parents are happy together. Because they're happy together I stick out, I don't fit in.

Not that I'm complaining. I don't want to see them fight.

[How are you ever gonna reach the stars
If you never get off the ground
And you'll always be where you are
If you let life knock you down]

How do you stand up to someone who is supposed to look after you and isn't? How do you tell someone you're scared of your own father like Riz is? She says she's not but I've had seventeen years of looking into people's eyes and seeing the exact same thing I see in hers. How do you convince someone to trust you when the two people they're supposed to be able to rely on have let them down?

How do you convince them you're not gonna leave them? That it doesn't matter what time of the day or night it is, you'll catch a bus with all the creepy drunks and walk to their house in the dark if it means making it just a fraction easier, when nobody's ever done that before?

I hate her parents sometimes. I hate them for what they're doing and I hate them for what they're gonna do.

I hate them because they don't know.

Because they don't care.

[You call my name
I know I'm finally yours
I find everything I thought I lost before
You call my name
I come to you in pieces
So you can make me whole]

-a solitary blue