It isn’t everyday that the darkest part of the room looks the most inviting. The shadows that stretch across the floor whisper sanguine soliloquy’s about who they are, who they were, and will be. Or maybe it’s who they won’t be, were not, and are not.

It’s easy to surrender to the entrancing pattern of mandates that swirl sonorous from the melodies residing in the corners. It’s easy to wail back and get lost in the deafening noise of lament as the argument gets both more aggressive and less dissentient.

The scantiling perspective insists that it's still presence is the epitome of movement. Embrace the caress of fanatical device and raving obsession, it sings. This is how you find tranquility in yourself.

The darkest part of the room is where screams resonate, wails tumble out of tear choked mouths, and feet run to catch up with life before death can catch them. All the while dark holds firmly in its unyeailding comfort. The shadows are ties with soft murmurs and gentle kisses. It's warmer here, quieter here. Easier to talk here, and just be. The trap is in the reality.

So don't cry, keep quiet, and don't move. Serenity is in the stillness. Not the darkest part of the room.

Day One:

Ship. High. In. Transit.

Or in other words, this sucks. I worked at a preschool up until today. I wasn't payed much, but eight an hour as a teacher is better than nothing. Now I've got no job, and no income. And I actually miss my kids. At least I get some time off, that hasn't happened since my wisdom teeth were pulled.

Day 2:

I bought a mandolin. It arrived today. I've spent the whole day learning chords and playing with it. My fingers are sore, but now I can sing hymns with the thing! Successful day.

Day 5:

My sister and I decided to learn to make Cambodian styled wrap pants. We pulled some fabric and began making them. They're comfortable and look good. At least this quarantine isn't going to waste.

Day 9:

So today I made cake. A lot of cake. A three teired wedding cake to be exact. Why? Because why not?! Maybe someone will actually get married and they'll need me to make a cake for them. At least I'll have more practice. The last wedding cake I made for someone wasn't as perfect as I'd like.

Day 14:

Slept all day. Now I feel like I failed at something. Had zero desire to go outside or see people. The longer I isolate the more introverted I seem to become.

Day 18:

I knocked a wall in my house down today and connected two closets. Lowes is still open in my town, so I risked infection to buy materials. Had to learn to wire the two lights together and put up shelves. No need for electricians or construction people here! And I started helicopter ground school cause like, why not?

Day 26-27:

Not doing that again. I decided I needed a garden, so I made one. it involved approximately five hours of shoveling and hand tilling, three hours of planting, and lots of worms. Eew.

Day 30:

My mother wants another garden.

QUARANTINE IS OVER.

I wish I could stay home and chill some more. No need for anyone but me and YouTube. Work sucks. Other people also are effort, and they suck. Too bad we can't always be in quarantine, it's so efficient for living life!

It smells musty. Or sometimes like gun powder and metal. Sometimes it smells earthy. Often it smells fresh. Mostly when I see it I think of gasoline or of war. Or Georgia actually. You see, the shade of a color really does seem to affect how it feels. Often it’s stiff, or it’s wet. A lot of times it’s dirty. But in a purposeful way. It’s also quite complementary to my other favorite color, which is bright and in-the-way. Its sweet and tasty, and almost more appealing in flavour than color. It makes me think of work, or sometimes of exotic things, and often gobstoppers for some reason. Colors, I guess, can make one think of lots of things.

Acoasting to the second law of thermodynamic, youre supposed to share your hotness with me.

Are you an alien? Cause you look out of this world.

(someone actually used this next one on my sister. Still laughing)

If you were a booger, I'd pick you.

Uhhuh. So one time I had this roommate in college who got back surgery, and it failed to close up after like two months so she just had this hole in her back, and I mean it was deep. Like you couldn’t see any healing it was just this hole and like, if you wanted you could probably have lost a dime in there. Though that would probably hurt. Anyway, so I took her to the Wound Clinic and they cauterized the edges of it and then they were all “hey, do you know if she’s living with anyone that can help with her medical care? Otherwise she’s gonna have to come back here every other day.” (in more or less words) and I was all, “I do I guess?” And so they gave me this huge kit with fake skin stuff that’s really cool and a syringe and fluid and a little forcept thing and all this other stuff and taught me how to flush her wound and regrow her skin. It was really cool, and now I feel medically capable. Plus it was a lot less gross than that time I had to pull out all the packing from someone’s infected incision and repack it. Probably could have lost an entire quarter in that hole!

So the fact is that I frequently end up doing weird medical things, and no I am not actually trained for any of it.

I think this will apply to your whole life, but it's never too early to have the right mindset. 14 is a big number and its a time where you get to learn to be an adult person. Right now you might feel like the difference between 13 and 14 is small, but I can promise it's huge. My advice is not to let yourself get caught going through the motions of life as if you're just floating down a river someone else dug.

I've been to islands in Vietnam where bees make honey with dragon fruit. I have hiked up waterfalls in Thailand, been ATV-ing across paddy fields in Cambodia, and eaten Subway in China. I have flown a helicopter. I've done impromptu skin-grafting for someone. I've ziplined into a lake of alligators (though that one was an accident). I've hiked parts of the Appalachian trail. I'm headed to Australia for 18 months on a mission trip.

I'm also only 19 years old. I'm not rich, in fact I work as a preschool teacher and make 8.00 an hour. I went to a small Highschool in Kentucky where people are just glad you can't see the cigarette smoking flowing out of the bathrooms anymore. I have 7 siblings, and I grew up in multiple houses where sometimes my sister had to live in my closet or one of us spent a couple months on the couch every once in a while.

The point I'm making is that if you want something you can have it. You don't have to read above and think "oh, they're so lucky. I'll never do that" and you certainly don't have to wait until your 40 to have those types of experiences. It costs 150 dollars to intro flight a helicopter. You can make that in a week. It costed 3,000 dollars to tour Asia. I made a goal and it took me 6 months to save that money. If you work hard you can make things that seem impossible entirely possible. It's something I didn't realize until I was 17, if I had known sooner I think I would have started making impossible goals sooner, so when I graduated I would have been prepared to do even more!

So you're going to be 14. My advice is make a crazy goal, one that seems like just a wish. Financially and logistically put the effort into how you would achieve it, whether thats starting to save money, or volunteeromg somewhere or looking up countries you might want to see or places where the train conductors work or whatever. Then you have to do it. I don't care if you do it this summer or if you have to wait till you graduate. Do it before you are in college and enjoy every second of it. I promise, if you can achieve that one crazy goal then you'll know for your whole life that you can actually do anything, and so you will.

Never again.

Two days ago a friend of mine, who is in the army, invited me to go to PT. For those who don’t know, that’s Physical Training. I said “Sure! Sounds like fun!”

I woke up the morning after and my WHOLE BODY felt like it had been run over by a drill sergeant on an ATV. I’m in college, so I have to go to my 9 a.m. class. Afterwards I stand up with some friends and start limp-walking, only for my arms to completely cramp up and stop working. My backpack falls to the ground while I let out an undignified yelp. My friend wouldn’t let me have my backpack back for the rest of the walk.

Later that night I start to feel slightly better. Then I remember I forgot to print out a paper for my 5 o’clock class. I rush to a printer, which happens to be up a small set of steps in the building I entered. On the way back down the steps my legs stopped working! I don’t know if I tripped or if they were just like “Nope! No more stairs for us!” I toppled down the stairs, and caught myself in the push up position...with my arms. Sufficeth to say, they were not happy. I don’t know what dislocation feels like, but I literally could not move them more than 30 degrees in either direction after that.

I’m proud to say that this morning I can move my arms again! Though I wince everytime I sneeze still cause my abs feel like a lost MMA match.

Never again will I work out with the army. Until next week cause it was actually really fun.