Recycle & reuse: don’t waste the one life you’ve got.

Let’s face it: saving the planet is the hottest new thing these days. Green is the new black. (Unless you’re going to a Dior fashion show in NYC’s Meat-Packing District.) (Or a funeral.) (Plus, it doesn’t flatter my heart as well as black does.)

Anyhoodle.

In all seriousness (yes it’sa new word in my vocabulary), I’ve been in this deep, reflective mood lately (weird, I KNOW, tell me about it) and what inspired it? Nothing other than looking through pictures of the past three years of my life (complimented with tons of “omg, look at me!”s and “Omg, do you remember…”s and “Why in the hell did I post that on face book? My hair looks like Katrina’s sister just swept through it”s.) If The Courtney Show were a published chapter book out on the market, you’d most likely find them under The Best/Hardest/Most Emotional Years of my life. Don’t get me wrong, being a teenager has its advantages. You don’t have to worry about remembering to pick up anti-wrinkle cream on your to-do list while you’re running errands, for starters. Besides the couple [hundred] (give or take a few) boyfriends and boy friends you go through (speaking of recycle...), you don’t have any real commitment to anyone. That might’ve come out wrong, because when I find myself in a relationship, whether we’ve been together for three weeks or three months or three years, I don’t go out and kiss all the other fish in the sea. Ever. Commitment’s a big word in my vocabulary, and I’m beyond the world’s best girlfriend loyal and dedicated to my man, no exceptions. But there is no commitment up on the marriage level in high school, or at least not in my life.

(Seriously, don’t even get me started on those been-together-since-elementary-school-and-WILL-NOT-EXPERIMENT-WITH-OTHER-PEOPLE couples.)
(Don’t mind the capslock, I’m probably just secretly jealous.)

If love gets messy, you can run away. If doubt or confusion or hot tempers or “I want out”s sneak up on you, you can walk out. Just like that. I kinda like to think of it as a 24/7 personal-use escape route that’s not ever discussed but resorted to when worse comes to worse. When you’re married, you can’t really do that. You’re stuck for life (or so the contract says), and it’s not weddings are exactly free these days. If things get rough, it’s expected of you to actually work and work, and work and WORK at it to get through it and come out with a smile on (or at least civil behavior towards your spouse.)

Anyway. Getting to the point (or trying to)...

High school’s really not that tough. So why are hormones at their peak when it’s supposed to be the best years of our lives? It’s not fair if you ask me.

It’s so easy to waste your life, especially without realizing it. I mean a busy couple of months hit you and it’s school school school or work work work, and the play aspect of life kind of gets thrown on the back shelf where it gets dusty and forgotten about. You slowly start to lose sight of what life’s really about, and forget to make time for the good stuff in your day. Laughs are slowly died out, your favorite TV shows and quality time with your honey is pushed into first gear and becomes second priority, when, really, that’s what makes our lives so worthwhile.

(Even if it’s the simple stuff. It matters, too.)

It’s become one of my biggest fears to fall in the trap of wasting my life, of making it all work and no play, mostly because I AM a workaholic by nature. (Shopoholic once had a better ring to it, but that got pricey and apparently my parents and debt aren’t too good of friends.) I dedicate myself to something - enroll my ass in school, peptalk myself that I WILL get better grades than last year or “WSU will NOT accept you if you suck so much, Court” - and I run with it. Which, according to some people/studies, is a great trait to have. But when you forget to play and actually let loose and enjoy life, what’s great about that?

Don’t waste your life. Lucky for me, I learned this early on and at least see where I don’t wanna end up and that I DON’T wanna get stuck at the office opposed to out on the town with girlfriends/snuggled up on the couch with my favorite boy in the world, the dog The Boyfriend. Value your resources. Live a little. Laugh, get out, stop working so hard and live. Go green, just do it. You know you wanna.

why is it easier said than done? 010209.

"Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swaps of the not quite, the not yet, and the not at all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists. It is real. It is possible. It is yours."
Ayn Rand


It seems like life has been throwing me more trials than ever before. God's looking down at me goin, "Alright Court, this is my way of making you stronger and into who I'm creating you to become, and I just want you to accept it, get over it and toughen up." Thing is, my life has always been one big trial. Any step I take seems to be quick sand, my balance and control slipping every time I think I've stepped on solid concrete. The second I discover happiness it flashes before my eyes and disappears, making me wonder if it was really present in the first place, or if it was simply my imagination at work again. Life is based upon perspective: I don't know if I should look at my life and whine and bitch about all the downfalls, all the flaws in it, my constant lonliness and neverending trials, or feel grateful I'm thrown so many tests from the man upstairs, take it as learning experience after learning experience and take advantage of the opportunity to grow from them. Perhaps there's only one reason behind it and one reason only: to make me into the person I am supposed to become, help me grow and just to permit me to take all the life lessons I'm experiencing right now into my future, down the road I'm traveling.

It's not fair, but then again, life never really is fair. It'sa challenge we never asked for, given to us and giving us the choice to accept it as endless opportunity or one big struggle we will never overcome, but attempt to for years and years. I believe each and every experience thrown at us in life is simply a test, demanding us to make a choice, and our character is defined on how we survive it in the end, what we do and how we accept it. It's hard for me to sit down and write this, because I've experienced so much shit lately, and I haven't really sat down and reflected upon my life for months and months, and let me tell you... it's hard. It's hard as hell, because I'm to the point in life where I honestly don't know where to turn anymore. I was travelling down the road and I've come to the intersection, facing different street signs, unsure of which pathway to follow and lead myself down. I'ma lost soul, seeking satisfaction just like every other victim of life. I'm craving comfort and joy and assurance and just all around happiness, but so is everyone else. I feel run down by life anymore, defeated by the trials thrown at me, failing each test over and over and over again.

And I don't know why. I'm lacking the answers for everything in my life right now. Why does time move so fast? Why do we attempt to fight fate? Why do we fear change? Why are we so stubborn, and why is it so hard to just give it all over to Him and let Him control our lives? Instead we have to fight against the plans pre-determined for our us and our lives, pleading for hope the entire journey. We're given the option to lay it all on Him when we're specifically promised opportunity and satisfaction, a bright future, a good and wholesome life. Yet we reject the offer, determined to take advantage of our independence and prove ourselves by controlling our own lives, pretending we have all the answers and know what we're doing. Hell, I don't what my plans are for later tonight, much less do I lay out my future in fronta myself. No questions asked, I can admit to not having hardly any answers. I make mistakes, endlessly, but I'm assured these mistakes are helping me get to the place I'm going, shape me into the person I'm meant to be. I'm sick and tired of everything going on in my life at the moment, but perhaps that's my fault and I can do something about it. Accept the fact I will never have control of my life due to destiny, and simply roll with life, float among the tides and let em wash me up on any beach I belong at.

John Steinbeck once wrote, "It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live for our death brings no pleasure on the world." Despite the fact I don't know where my life is leading, where I'm going and who I am to become, there's one thing I do know, and that is that life is composed of two moments: birth and death. Most don't stop and realize it, but we are all somewhere in the middle right now. We have all been born, and we have assurance we're going to die. Whether it's in 57 years or tomorrow, death is one thing we are sure of. Now life is the challenge. We've committed to playing the game, and we can be delivered 'Game Over' at any given moment. It's not always our fault that we fall down, get hurt, scrape our knee, make mistakes. In fact, the majority of the time it's not. The guilt belongs to people who walk into our lives, and affect us - for the better or for the worse. Once they have affected us in some way, it is our choice to keep them around or take action and kick em out.

...That's what I've been struggling with for the past few days, weeks, months. August 14, 2008. I met someone who changed my life, and I'm currently still debating whether for the better or worse. The facts: I have never had so deep of chemistry with one human being before in my life. Our personalities meshed, and the passion between was disgustingly perfect, unexplainable to say the least. Naively, we were convinced we belonged together. And that was that, no ifs buts or ands, we had stumbled across what each of our hearts had been desperately seeking all our lives. It was a sense of fulfillment. One downfall: realistically, we could and never would work. Waiting two years for eachother was a sacrifice easier said than done. Life just wasn't on our side, and that was that. This little insignificant story helps define my story, the story of my life. It was one of the most painful struggles I've had to experience so far, and I still fight it every day of my life, because at that point of my life I was convinced I would never find someone comparable. I searched and I found, yet could not have. Life said no to me, and that's not the answer I wanted. The concept of fate is one I am constantly struggling with especially considering the fact I got stuck with overly rebellious genes. I'ma born rule-breaker and I'm possibly THE most stubborn person known to mankind. I don't do acceptance very easily. I fight and fight and fight, and the fact my heart overrules my head 99.1% of the time gets me in trouble. I don't do rules, reality or routine, and this is possibly why I have faced so many of the trials I have so far, I don't lead them on myself, but I unintentionally encourage them.

Nonetheless, there was one motivation behind this vent and it's simply because I don't understand life. I never have, I never will and you know, perhaps I'm not supposed to. Perhaps it's all in perspective and if we choose to see the glass half full or empty is up to us. Perhaps we don't need the answers, we should just try to overcome every trial and test thrown at us, despite how much pain and emotion they may bring to us, and move on and just live. Without trying to figure our lives out, ever, attempting to decode every message and analyze every moment and action and just live. Say screw it all and view each and every experience - good or bad - as a life lesson and new opportunity to grow and define our character.

I'm gonna end with the thought and truth that time changes everything. I've been reminded this over and over again in my short little 17yrold life, and I cannot agree with anything more. It really does. As much as we try to deny it and claim different, it's not possible. That crush on the schoolboy in which we revolve all our effort and attention on right now, is temporary, just like everything in life. As crazy and infatuated we may be about someone living 89201mi away from us, it's temporary. It may be the toughest thing in the world to simply forget about someone and move on, accept reality and give up, but it may be even more painful if we stay with it and give it our all and fight till the end... unless it's worth it. And that's what life's about it when it all comes down to it: the daily challenge and neverending struggle, there's our reason and rhyme and purpose. Without the game, we wouldn't put forth effort and further, wouldn't give a damn about fighting for what we want. It would come to us and it wouldn't be worthwhile because the only thing that gives something value is the fight and desire behind it.

I've recently stumbled across something in life that I've been looking for. Like always, there's that one factor that basically determines whether I can have it and call my mine or not. And it's up to me if I wanna use my head and be smart about the situation and accept reality, or overrule it all with my heart and choose to not give up on something I already know will be worthwhile. Regardless, I'm adopting a new perspective on life and from here on out I'm letting my life play out on its own, guiding me down the path with my name on it, and shaping me into the person I was originally meant to be. Perhaps we're supposed to take it day by day, and take advantage of every moment for the moment in itself and not the bigger picture. We are not supposed to analzyze everything that happens in our lives, yet appreciate the good things and fuck the bad. Am I going to run my life or let my life run me? To live or to be lived, that one's up to us.