dream dream dream

I saw his hands shaking from where I was standing, across the street.

I looked at the old man for a minute or two, and then he looked up at me.

In his eyes, I saw pain and despair, I could feel him desperately willing me to care.

And I did, Lord, how could I not?

I wanted to hear his story, maybe over a drink with him.

I wanted him to share his glory, and tell me the places he’s been.

I want to just sit down and talk, with that man across the street.

I smiled and he returned it, then he beckoned to me.

In a coffee shop down the road, that old man changed my life.

By telling me about himself, and about his late wife.

He says she was a great woman, she was his inspiration.

He says “I’ll let you get going, wouldn’t want to waste your day, son.”

I said “Don’t you worry now, this is where I want to be.”

And I did, Lord, I didn’t want to leave.

I wanted to hear the rest of his story, maybe over a beer or two.

I wanted to know about the glory, that it seems he once knew.

I wanted to talk forever, with this man I had just met.

But after just an hour, it seemed we were the best of friends.

I went home that night, and thought about everything he’d said.

His words were all that was on my mind as I laid there in bed.

He must have been about eighty five, and I’m only thirty two now.

But that old man taught me a great deal, about what life’s really about.

Early the next morning, I got up to go to work.

I smiled as I remembered that wise old man’s words.

I turned on the T.V., and put it on the news.

There was a picture of him on his porch, not wearing any shoes.

The headline read “Old Man Found Dead in Rocking Chair,”

As I felt a tear roll down my cheek, all I could do was stare.

It was almost like God gave him one more day to change a life,

And I couldn’t be any more grateful, that the one he changed was mine.

I’m so glad I got to hear his story, I got to buy a beer for him.

I got to feel all his glory, that he’d been holding in.

I only talked to him for two hours, but he bettered my whole life.

I thanked him and then smiled, and imagined him with his wife.

I only hope that when I’m that old, I can be.

A man that can change another man’s life, just like he did for me.

“At the end of the day, when you go to bed, you’re alone. People may care about you, yeah, but no matter what, they care about themselves more.”

What is life? The answer to that question may be different for everyone. While one person could be happy and content with themselves and everything around them, someone else, either far far away or maybe even right down the road, could be drowning on the inside. Miserable, unhappy, empty. It’s odd how you can’t tell the difference just by looking at someone. I mean, sure, sometimes we look into a person’s eyes and feel like we can see something, like their sorrows, or sometimes we can see the glimmer that shows us they’re excited and blissful. Sometimes it’s different though. Sometimes people hide it better. They put on a show so nobody can see their true feelings. That’s the scary part. You never know who’s barely holding on or who’s perfectly fine. 

Sometimes I just wanna get on a plane and go someplace where nobody knows my name, my history, or the mistakes I’ve made. And once I get there, I wanna get up and go again, off to see some other part of the world and meet more new people.

So today, I found myself thinking about how much happier I would be if I wasn’t always staring at my phone, waiting for a text that won’t come, a notification that won’t pop up, or looking at pointless statuses made by people I could care less about. So I got online and went to The Quiet Place. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a program to help you relax, and it really does work for most people, including me. After watching it a couple times, I found myself realizing that I don’t want my happiness to revolve around how many likes I get on a picture, or a post, or how many followers I have on Twitter, Instagram or even Tumblr. I’ve let myself get too wrapped up in things that REALLY DON’T MATTER. That’s right, none of it matters. After thinking about it, I got up, grabbed my phone, laptop, iPad, everything, and handed it all to my mom. I told her to hide them. Starting today, I’m not worrying about texts, notifications, likes, status updates, followers, anything. The only site I am allowing myself to get on for the next week or so is Tumblr. More and more teenagers, including me, are letting themselves get too wrapped up in social networking sites, phones, everything. And in most cases, it doesn’t lead to anything good. We should all start giving ourselves a time limit. Because with the time you spend on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, you could be reading a lovely book, listening to great music, writing a song, drawing, thinking, spending time with people you love. And those things are what makes us who we are and define us as a person. Not how many likes or reblogs we get. Not how many followers we have. In the end, none of that matters. NONE OF IT. I’m going to assume this post will only be seen by a few people, and you’ll probably just disregard it. But I’m just asking you, if you’re reading this, please, shut all your electronics off for tonight. Find a good book, a pencil to write or draw with, anything, just relax. Shut the online world out, for just one night. And tomorrow, encourage others to do the same. Good night everyone. 

The Quiet Place- http://thequietplaceproject.com/

The only person you can truly trust is yourself. But of course, most of us need someone to spill our secrets to and vent to about everything, so we find someone almost identical to us, and we call them our best friend. You do everything with them. You trust them with your life. You never even think that they would ever do something to hurt you. But then it happens. They do the worst thing they possibly could, and the worst part is that they do it knowing it’ll hurt you. And right then, in that moment, you realize that no matter how much you think you can trust someone, or how much you think they care, when it comes down to it, everyone will put themselves before anyone else. And that trust is gone, never to be earned back, because now you’re too damn scared to give it out.

There’s times when I feel like life is so simple and easy and there’s times when I’m just so overwhelmed with stress and sadness and mixed emotions that I feel like living is the most complicated thing to do. It’s like I have a million emotions in my body and then I have two sides to every emotion and my insecurities just add onto that. I want to go somewhere in life but I don’t know where to go, let alone how to get there. I want to make everyone proud but how does one make anyone proud when they aren’t even proud of them self? I want to make a change but how can I be so sure that, even if I could make any sort of change, that it would stay that way and not change back? And most of all I want to be happy but I don’t want that fake happiness, ya know? I don’t want a couple hours of a good mood or even one day, because in the end even that goes away and I’m left feeling how I originally felt. No, I don’t want that, and forgive me if it seems like I’m asking for too much but I want real happiness, not because of a guy or a girl, not because of a friend or because I heard good news I just want my overall mood to be HAPPY. I want to be the kind of happy that even when I’m sad or upset, I’m still happy. If I just knew how to be genuinely happy, I’d never ask for anything ever again.