you may take me as crazy for trying to write a poem all about life.
such a broad, complicated subject.
every poem, really, is about one of two things.
life, and death.
and under each of those consists of millions of subjects and stories and messages.
and under each of those consists of more.
you can write a poem about love and still not hit every part of it.
or about death and still not find what your true feelings are.
it's a dangerous road to try and write a poem about something so broad.
i can't expect to fit the whole story in, and neither can you. and that's okay.
my take on life is that all that matters, all that effects who we are, is experience.
life is nothing without experiences.
experiences shape me and everything i do.
friends and family and love and hatred and failures and mistakes and redemption and lessons and music and books and movies and poetry so much more.
nothing exists in you without your experiences.
memories come from experiences and how they ended up and how they've now shaped you.
i am a person shaped by experience.
and without many people in my life, those experiences would never have occurred.
without my mother, i wouldn't have learned all i know now about how to handle things.
without my Madison, my wonderful friend Mads, i wouldn't have learned from many of my mistakes or experienced the concerts and shows that have changed me as a person.
without certain men in my life, i wouldn't have learned how to handle anger or pain.
without my current best friends, i wouldn't have learned how to set boundaries and still help people.
and yet i am still my own person.
i take bits from people that i love and set them inside myself. but i am not them.
i have parts to me that no one else does, and so does everybody else.
you are you. i am me. we are both here and alive and human so, so valid.
being a friend, someone's child, a lover, an enemy, and more are each experiences in their own. if you've never experienced any more than those or less, you've still experienced.
and that is wonderful!
experiences don't have to be extravagant, and the same goes for life.
to live my best life, i don't have to be the most amazing, interesting, well known person in the world. i just have to be me.
i learned that from the many influential people in my life a million times. i learn it from them daily without their intention.
but it's taken me years to learn it for myself.
i haven't even really believed it yet.
unfortunately, things take time.
time that doesn't seem to exist
but it does.
you're allowed to not know things.
i'm a child.
i don't know myself yet, and that's alright.
i know the parts of myself i want to keep now,
but i may not want them later. that's also okay.
even as an adult, i might not entirely know myself.
but i do know who i want to be. and that's what matters.
what matters is that i want to make a change in the world, even if it's only in myself.
i want to live and experience as much as possible, depression, suicidal thoughts, and anxiety be damned.
it won't be easy. it never is, for anyone.
and maybe you aren't happy.
i know i'm not.
but you can be.
life isn't about perfection.
life is about love.
life is about learning from your mistakes and rejections.
life is about living in the present, but acknowledging your past and looking forward to the future. it's about feeling your feelings and then moving on.
life is about speaking up; about being honest.
life is about experiences, and living in them like you never will again.
