God?

(This is a little bit of my personal essay on religion I've been working on for this writing camp.)


I’m so confused.
It’s difficult to imagine that the earth and all her beauty weren’t crafted carefully by a divine being. Naturally it’s the easiest belief to live with. As an atheist, I don’t live easily under my system of non-beliefs. I’ve been told by a handful of spiritual and/or religious persons that I can--and should--choose to believe in something miraculous--something infinite--something all-knowing.

My first confession is that I did believe in a god for some time in the past. It was a humid night in June, and I was about seven. Mom had fallen asleep early, so I stayed up and watched the clock nervously, waiting for her to wake up and check on me. I sang to myself while I waited. I would sing three or four words one way, then I’d dress them in a new melody again and again. I loved my voice. Amber from school always thought she had the better voice, but I thought she just heard it all wrong. I figured that God must have chosen me--out of all of his little children--to be something quite remarkable. I knew he wanted me to write songs for him. I had been making up little songs since I was three or four, but I was now able to write them down, and I took advantage of that. I wrote in a sparkly blue journal with moons on it, and I locked it with a generic key that came with every journal like it. I made sure to write as neatly as possible, with my best vocabulary, so that one day when I’m famous and important it’ll be worth a million dollars. I wrote songs about nature that I pretended held a poetic meaning, and I would sing those songs all the time to my friends. As I was lying on my back in bed singing, I decided to talk to God. I closed my eyes and said a prayer with my hands at my sides. Then I’d say it with my hands clasped in front of my face. Then I’d say it with “Amen” pronounced differently. My logic was that prayer was like a magic spell, and God only heard it if you did everything right.




...... (a bunch of other stuff I don't want to post in a blog and that you wouldnt want to read) ......



I don’t want to be a rotting lump of chemicals when I die. I want this temporary body to contain a permanent soul. I want to know more than this life in this body in this family in this world. I want to be more than a face, more than innate behavior. I want to feel my heart stop, see a white light, walk through a tunnel, and have a cup of tea with lost loved ones. But I’m so afraid. I’m fearful that there’s a definite end, just the way there’s a definite beginning. Where did my soul exist before I was born? Are souls simply created on a random day, and then later released into eternal greatness? I don’t think so. But I hope so.

What does the man on the subway with nowhere to go have in common with the little girl who blows out her five candles? What are men fighting for, dying for, living for, even? What keeps one person from associating with another without having so much as exchanged names? Religion is an aspect unique to humans, but not every one of us has an appreciation for it. I won’t force myself to believe in something seemingly imaginary. More importantly, I won’t let something inevitable keep me fighting against this life--the only one I’ve got. Maybe.

I'm So Tired

My life has been interesting lately, to say the least. The sun is shining, I've got all the free time in the world, I'm free of heartbreak... But I'm so confused. I'm so blank. It's not a recent thing, this emptiness. Maybe it isn't just me, either. But when I was a wee little child I just lived and inquired. Here I am trying to remember what it was like, when I'm most likely just wasting my time. You know what? I'm probably just doing a horrible job adapting to my life. Our environment is constantly transforming, so maybe it's time I underwent a transformation of my own. The only enjoyable part of this tabula rasa feeling is that I'm freeing up my options for the future.

Think about this with me. Unless the world really does end in 2012, I can expect a long life ahead of me. I can hope to one day be in love, pursue my career as a musician and a writer, and eventually become someone to both a family of my own, and also to the world around me. Because if there really isn't anything waiting for me when I die, I want to be remembered here. In this life.

Too deep for a blog?
Possibly.
Too deep to consider?
Never.

Love always,
Carrie Anne.

YOU are special

Because hardly anyone reads my blogs anymore. But here you are, reading my blog. One in a million, truly.

Words

I think now is a good time to start thinking about words again, seeing as how I leave for my writing workshop at the end of the week. I was in a store the other week standing in line. I think it was Bath and Body Works. I remember thinking about how I might write about my life one day. Well, to clear that up, I WILL write about my life one day. The question is how I will do it. I realized the seemingly obvious: great writing isn't done by using vast amounts of detail, or carefully chosen words. Non-fiction isn't more fantastic if you can remember more. You can NEVER describe everything, anyway. A great writer will describe the small details that most can associate with a very particular emotion. Are you following me? It's not about how specific you can be, or how much you can think to write. A great writer will exclude the obvious, and only fill in between the lines. This is what it means to show, rather than tell. If you ask me, it's a trick of the mind. A great writer isn't just good at telling a story, he or she will need to be good at manipulating the reader--anticipating the reader's prediction, and making assumptions about the reader's intelligence or experience.

Maybe that's all obvious. It's interesting to me, nonetheless.

So much love,
Carrie Anne.

Today I took my driver's ed exam. Easy. I was the third one to finish. But that also meant that I was sitting at my desk staring at my watch for more than an hour afterward. I got to help grade everyone's exams, so I knew when someone failed. Two people failed. It was more like an IQ test than anything, I think. All common sense.

I went to starbucks with my mom after that; i ordered for the both of us as usual.

I've been starting to eat and live a little teeny bit healthier.

Tinsley comes home in two days. And apparently she's going to attempt to bring a baby kitten with her. I hope it works, but it will be amusing nonetheless. One week with her, and then I'm gone for the rest of the summer. It's been determined that I will ride by plane, alone, to Massachusetts. Sure it's going to be scary since I don't know the first thing about traveling by plane... But I have to learn sometime. sigh.

I've been very happy. VERY happy.

Love,
Carrie Anne

I'm so thoroughly happy right now. And I can't wait until I get to visit my grandparents, dig my feet in the sand, and kick back with my little sister and dad. They'll get to see my new face! Which probably doesn't look drastically different from before the surgery, but the actual fit of the lower and upper jaw is very much improved. 8mm it was moved. Wow! Besides the killer pain I'm feeling below my left temple, I'm fine. Well, and there's the fact that my diet is stil bland and limited. Oh well. Worth it!

Love,
Carrie Anne

Well I can see that no one really cares about blogging in the summer time. It's only when you've got a million things to do for school that you actually set aside time for blogging I suppose. I've got literally nothing useful to do with my time for now, as I'm still recovering from surgery. I'm glad the bleeding has decreased drastically in the past few days. It was really worrisome to bleed every time i pulled my cheek back to put rubber bands in.

Anyway. Tomorrow, if it isnt storming around the middle of the day, I'm going to try and get some sun. I literally look halfway dead with how pale I am. Gross.

Love,
Carrie Anne

Happy fourth of July!

My mom and I spent a lot of time together yesterday. Between getting up and going to Northlake, seeing "Year One", talking for an hour outside on the porch, and playing a game of Scrabble, I feel like this whole recovery ordeal has brought us closer.

Love,
Carrie Anne

As an atheist, I don't expect to gain any feeling of accomplishment following a debate with a Christian about religion. And yet, here I am feeling enlightened and still just as atheist as ever. What a great debate.

Love,
Carrie Anne.

Today I look and feel a lot better than yesterday or the day before. I put some concealer over by bruises and actually got out of the house! Mom took me to get lunch at Max and Erma's, where I ordered a plate of mashed potatoes and a bowl of tortilla soup. My throat is still raw where they plugged it up and shoved tubes down in it during surgery, so the soup was a bit too spicy for me to handle. But the potatoes were satisfying enough! Afterward, we went to Victoria's Secret at Birkdale, where I had planned to use a coupon for a "pink" bra... apparently they've stopped making my size. So that was upsetting. Anyway, I bought sweatpants and a new eau de parfum. Smells FANTASTIC. Then Mom and I got frappaccinos... It was difficult to use the straw at first, but I got the hang of it. Mom found me a drug that will help my swelling, bruising, and aching, and it tastes awesome. I'm supposed to have 5 of the little pellets everyday. Anyway. My mouth still bleeds pretty much constantly. But I'm completely used to the taste of blood. (tmi? thought so.)

I'm excited for driver's ed next week!!!! Can't wait to boss the little teeny boppers around. Just kidding.

Love and happiness and whatnot,
Carrie Anne.