Saturday, November 19, 2011

It’s all my fault

What did I do to make you hate me?

What did I do to make you scathe me?

What did I do you wrong?

What did I do to make you ignore me?

What do I do to make to you abhor me?

What did I do wrong?

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Love Stories v. Reality

In fairytales, a woman is a helpless creature who must depend on a man for her happiness. The leading lady may be cursed, trapped in a tower or flat out desperate, but this is no excuse to give up hope. However, before the right guy comes into her life, she has no self-esteem or independence. She must wait idly until the perfect male just happens to stumble across her path.

I say this view is wrong. The situation that is portrayed here is not accurate. Why must a girl wait for her prince to come? Why is he the only one who can unlock her freedom? And in the end, is she actually free?

The stories portray love as something extraordinary, something that can unlock a damsel from her distress. But what is it in real life?

In the stories, love completes us. Love is all we need to be happy. Love perfects our lives, always leads to marriage and is always the last chapter in the book.

In real life, life goes on and feelings change. Sometimes "Mr. Right" turns to be "Mr. Right Now". Sometimes Prince Charming turns out to be Prince Degenerate. Sometimes the frog is someone else's prince.

    Now I have to admit that love stories' messages are not always false. Every once in a while, a guy can make a girl speechless, change for her, search for her or save her lives, and turn out to love her past the typical "ever after." I'm not saying these situations never occur, I'm just saying they're rare.

Monday, January 31, 2011

P.S.

P.S.
I've got a whole stack of things sitting in my room just waiting to be uploaded, :)
-Kelsey

Today


Today is January 2, 2011. A lot has happened since I last evaluated my life. I used to have a room all to myself, three relatively healthy grandparents and a pretty normal life. Then, everything changed.
    On the last day of school before Thanksgiving break, I cleaned out my entire room so that my dad's mom could move into it. My grandma suffered from an illness called Parkinson's, and all the signs were signs were showing.
    (Resting tremor; slow movement; rigidity, or stiffness or inflexibility of the muscles; impaired balance and coordination; stooped posture, a tendency to lean forward; fatigue; impaired fine motor dexterity and motor coordination; poverty of movement (decreased arm swing); speech problems, such as softness of voice or slurred speech caused by lack of muscle control; loss of facial expression; small, cramped handwriting and difficulty swallowing are the most common signs of Parkinson's disease, all of which she exhibited.)
    I cried, knowing that my whole life was about to change. I finished cleaning the next day (Saturday). Mom and Grandma came home on Sunday and I had never seen Grandma look worse. She was shaking, so confused and out of place. She kept apologizing for everything that she did and for "being a burden' on our family, especially me since I had given up my room for her. It was very hard to adjust to our new "temporary" way of life.
    Grandma would just sit on the couch all day, staring at the blank TV. Then, around eight, she would start telling my siblings and I to go to bed. Around twelve she would get up to use the bathroom and lecture us about how unhealthy it was to stay up so late.
    We could never leave Grandma alone by herself, so all schedules shifted. She always worried about where everyone was and why they weren't home yet. It was forbidden in her book to go out after dark.
    Close to Christmas, Grandma got a little worse and the most often used phrase in my house was "I'm just under a lot of stress right now." It was the truth.
On the 23rd, Grandma decided she could not make the trip back to Charleston, SC where my family is from. We had to convince her it would be all right; we would take care of her.
    On the 24th, we traveled for about four of the six hours it takes to get there (making regular stops along the way) before stopping at a McDonald's. Grandma was walking fine and insisted she was okay. My dad and I were walking her in, each of us thinking the other was watching her. She tripped, fell, and had to go to the hospital nearby. We stayed there for I don't even know how many hours until the doctors released her with only a few band-aids as treatment.
    At her home in SC, she fell again. She was fine though, just off balance. We celebrated Christmas while we were there and she was okay the whole time.
    My mom's dad went into the hospital at this time with bronchitis.
    On the first, we visited Granddaddy and traveled home.
    The second was a rough day. We couldn't get my grandma out of bed, so we tried to get her to eat something in her temporary room. She was in the worst condition I had ever seen her in, and I could see the fear in her eyes.
    Later that day, when I was expecting the ambulance to come, the coroner came instead.
    The next few moments are some I will never forget. I remember feeling like it was just a bad dream, like I had to wake myself up immediately. All I could think was she was fine yesterday. She was fine yesterday.
Then, it hit me: I only have two grandparents. I was hysterical for quite some time. My mom sent me to my neighbor's house, where I had to say for the first time something I would have to say for weeks to come: "my grandma just died."
    The next few days were surreal, but not in a good way. I felt my heart had ripped out and taken part of my brain with it. I didn't understand why this had to happen to me, why at this age. Finally, something one of my church members said something that broke through to me. He said to remember only the good times, only the good memories of my grandmother and to picture her when she was happy. "She's in heaven now. You'll see her again," he said.
    After the funeral and after my life became a little less hectic, I found out that my granddad didn't just have bronchitis. He also has cancer.
    Now, I just have to take my life one step at a time, knowing that my next step is not guaranteed.