we call this place home.

a year ago you met a girl full of spite in a classroom dedicated to everything she had rejected for years. today you held her while she wrote lines dedicated to all the stories discarded in fury. fairy lights twinkled in the background while laughter over chess games erupted in the living room. she vows that fear won't take her anymore; at least it won't hold her back in the same way.

the same mantra that growth is never linear still holds true and though you told yourself that you finally are growing now, you've been growing all along and now it's beginning to show.

"you're beginning to blossom and i am very proud of you, you know that?"

"thank goodness my house here got sick of me and made me leave."

"yeah, thank goodness."

"Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!"

_     _     _

You can pinpoint the very day you first picked up that tale; and that’s all it ever was to you, a tale. And you slandered it mercilessly, as if it was yours to pour over with calumny, the sour words trickling off your tongue.

“There is no life in me,” he cried, shaking his fist in the candlelit room. “And I am exhausted. Exhausted and tired of returning to a place every single week where everyone is dead.” You nod ferociously in assent, poised as one of the living, but they all knew that you laid in darkness along with every other corpse.

He told the tale of the brittle bones that were once again granted, by the grace of a wild flame, feeble steps outside from their graves if they were to serve for this army, and he then told us we should not be intimidated by death. He told you that in this tale, there was no one left to bring the bodies home, because everyone was left for dead, and if we were to continue this way, there would be no one left to find what was once in our bones. We should not be intimidated by death. 

“Your cynicism is merely a pose,” he shouted again. “This is not who we were meant to be, this is not who you’re supposed to be. I can’t change this for you, and you can save everyone on your own. But you know who to go to when the bones are left on their own.”

The fire in him is evident, and you will envy it for the rest of your days. It pours out over everyone he’s ever loved, and he has more life in him than the rest of you could ever aspire to. You know this is more than a tale.

There is no life in me.

There is no life in you.

But surely, 

He will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. 

And Now Today's Episode of "Lost"

you know when you don't mean to write a novel and you write a novel? well.

There's this page called "Humans of New York" on tumblr and facebook (and possibly other places, i dunno, but these two are definitely a work of art, 20/10) and there's this particular post where this one lady on the streets of New York talks about passion and how she has done well, but has never found her passion. Now in the comments, there's this one particular person who speaks their piece on this case of feeling lost and not knowing where or how to find a path in life in general.

The future is terrifying. The unknown is terrifying. Not knowing where you want to go while you step onto this roller coaster that, from your perspective, is headed straight into a cloud of fog with millions of different paths with potential other cars that could collide straight into you just turns this whole unknown thing into a whole new bag of nope. Feelings of being lost and not knowing which path to head towards in the first place always has the potential of sending you either a.) on the wrong path or worse, b.) keep you from going anywhere at all.

People often tell you to "just follow your passions and dreams" and to "just go with your gut" when it comes to your future while simultaneously subtly telling you that you can only ever have one passion to chase and that if your passion doesn't make an impact on the world on a substantial scale or isn't practical, your passions aren't worth chasing and there's always those feelings of "if I don't make my dream job, I've failed".

Armand Michael says about passion in the sea of comments,

 "Everyone talks about their “passion” as if it’s some pre-determined thing that’s somewhere out there waiting for you.

I don’t believe there are careers or hobbies you were meant to have any more than there are people you were “destined” to be with. I’ve been in enough relationships to understand that, yes, you can fit really well with someone, that fate can appear to have aligned perfectly for your getting together, but the success of the relationship is still dependent on your own decisions and how hard you’re willing to work for it. The same is true about your “passion”.

 I study neuroscience; I want to go into research. I could have just as easily (if not more easily) become a writer, simply because I absolutely love writing. In college, I often enjoyed my writing classes more than my science classes. In fact, if money wasn’t an issue, I might have chosen to become a writer instead

Does that mean I’m not following my passion by choosing a career in science over writing? No. Because I could never give up science. I could never give up my curiosity and desire to learn about the world, and the opportunity to actually be on the forefront of that discovery.

Your passion is what you put your energy into. It’s what you decide, consciously or not (but sometimes it has to be consciously!), to care about, to strive towards, to give your life to. It is a reflection of you and not of whatever the actual subject of your interest is. It can change.

People forget that “passion” doesn’t describe the object of your devotion; it describes the energy and emotion you invest in that object. People who jump from career to career, actively searching for something they can enjoy doing, can very well be exhibiting just as much passion as someone who’s stayed in the same career all their lives and loved every day of it."

Here's the deal about passions and goals: they are always evolving. There will be obstacles. You will have to work hard for it. You are going to feel some days that there are others better at your craft. You are going to be just fine.

As terrifying as it is to start out working in a local restaurant as a dish washer, chase a doctorate degree, study english, create, go into...I dunno, botany maybe, letting fear hold you back from that or letting fear hold you back from starting to find where you want to go in the first place will just keep you from experiencing so many incredible things, even if you do fail. And you will. Don't let it get to your head that you can only have one passion either; Mae Jemison was both a dancer and an astronaut and even has done acting as well as just being an incredible woman in general. As for not knowing where to go, thankfully the universe is generous with second chances when you start down paths that aren't the best for you.

The future is terrifying. and wonderful. and it's such an incredible privilege to have the opportunity to utilize that unknown into discovering and shaping a world you want to create for yourself.

you've got this.

_   _   _

mood: "be happy like dogs"

can you believe that these boys are real and travelling the world making incredible things and inspiring people everywhere? some days i'm really happy that stressed out got popular just so

the world can know my boys

the funny thing is about these kinds of disjointed posts is the older i get, the less purpose 

or value i see in them, and yet i want to do more because they've become one of the few things

 in my life that actually need any structure or a monumental amount of effort, y'know?

a.k.a. there's no such thing as wasted time as long as it makes you happy and builds you up

she says, wistfully staring at the pile of work shes supposed to be doing.

things that have happened + life lessons from the past couple months or so:

1. prom(ish) i guess was a thing?? except the theme was an anti-prom kind of thing, so that was a wild experience.

2. witnessing josh dun in a hamster ball was probably the greatest thing that has ever happened

3. speaking in front of groups larger than 40 people is spooky scary, but do it anyway. or just slap down a massive blank sheet of paper and markers and tell the group to say what they appreciate in life, because nobody has the time to put in the effort to be inspirational

4. walking through airports on your own is wild and actually incredible sometimes

5. getting slapped in the face with the realization that the people who get to see the people they love every day are so so incredibly lucky hurts but sometimes is necessary

6. basketball season was a thing that happened and is now over and im a lil bit sad about that

7. I SAW A MUSICAL. AND IT WAS INCREDIBLE. IF YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, IT IS BEAUTIFUL. 

8. drawing with ink pens is difficult and art classes often make me feel like crying, but i'm learning to be positive from my drawing partner and she's becoming the reason i look forward to art now

9. two hour phone calls back home to your parents can actually be fun. appreciate the people around you, kids

because i dont remember exactly what i used to put in these posts, have some things from my picture folders

in case you didnt know, this is my idol right here

and heres a few tweets from an archive of the most innocent corners of the internet years ago

appreciate the boiling parsnip owl with me

and one of my many favorite messages ever.

_    _    _

its strange when you go back to the place you call home and suddenly feel homesick for the

place you were dreading being sent off too. sometimes its difficult to pinpoint exactly what i

call home with memories pinned to all these distinct places on this earth.

anywho, i made this post a while ago and now i'm supposed to be doing homework again but

dorms are loud and eating spicy noodles while staring at the stars while talking with people you care about a whole lot is so much more important, so hello!!!

things are well.

the old stars are back.

and so are some old wonderful feelings

and these spicy noodles are making my eyes water.

i hope you are doing well.

appreciate the people around you, kids. no matter where you are in the world, with the way we live in this era, home is always closer than you think.

Until home again;

do you ever just lay in bed and think about how much you adore your friends

like even the ones you don't talk to anymore or you've drifted away from, do you ever just sit and think of how incredibly lucky you are to be existing right here, in this wide vast universe with all it's wild coincidences, at this very moment, and to be lucky enough to live with the memory locked in your head of the time you were sad all day but your friend came to sit with you during dinner and made paper airplanes out of napkins in the cafeteria and told you he loved you too while leaving.

or the time you spent watching basketball games and you spent the whole time laughing so hard with your group that you fell over and broke the auditorium stage somehow and yet still kept on laughing.

or the times you spent together in comfortable silence watching the rain together while leaning your head on each others shoulders, sharing each others' lunch in the dreary weather and keeping each other warm

or even just texting each other until 4am talking about all the secrets of the universe and do you think parallel worlds exist and what makes your heart beat with joy and why do you think we were all put here and whats your favorite memory with your parents when you were young

the people i have met over time, whether i still talk to them or not, have smiles who could make flowers grow, have the most beautiful sparkles in their eyes, have the most passionate, kindest hearts, and its because of these kinds of people i still have hope. i'm so very far from home. i'm so very lucky to have met people who truly feel like home.

i didn't mean to get so emotional tonight i guess, but hour long phone calls from home can fly by in an instant and can tug at your heart a whole lot sometimes. i got to make a lot of new memories with wonderful people this week and feel so much closer to them while also reminiscing with friends i haven't talked to in what feels like years

to each and every one of them; i miss you. i love you so much and you have no idea how lucky i am to have met such talented human beings all with the tendency to remind each other how much they love each of their friends constantly. until home again, we'll finish that list together one day.

to the ones i haven't talked to in ages; until home again, my heart aches for you.

_          ☁          _

fun fact: building tiny houses is actually a whole lot of fun and working in construction isn't actually terrible after all. try new things, kiddos. 

this week's playlist

the lonely mountains -  kim janssen // promise - ben howard // terrified - issac gracie // ride - twenty one pilots & mutemath // behind the sea (alt. version) - panic! at the disco // if you like it or not - the brobecks // 99 luftballoons - nena // someone to stay - vancouver sleep clinic // seventeen - alessia cara

week one: flaming cheetos and root beer cans are my only friend

homesickness is a funny thing i think. leaving home even if its only for a couple years feels strange.

because 1. there are so many things to explore. there's people to meet, all this new knowledge at your fingertips and there's nothing stopping you now from going out to grab it but yourself, and there's new sights to see, new feelings to feel. it's impossible to imagine colors you've never seen before, and now it feels like they're all here and you're chasing after them the best you can and everything's grown to become nothing but an overwhelming blur of colors you've never heard of before.

2. you never really realized before how little prepared you were to deal with everything. the feelings, your financial state, awful wifi (like seriously, why), working out shower routines with your roommate, taping up pictures in your bedroom in a weak attempt to make it yours, the conversations with the war veterans in the airports when your flights delayed, all the perspectives of everyone else and all their backgrounds being mushed together into this one place where you're meant to live together for a while.

3. finding out just how young you are and how little you actually know in the grand scheme of things is very grounding. maybe you got comments growing up, "you'll understand when you're older," but then you get older and you understand nothing.

and in the middle of all this newness there's always that invisible string that keeps you tied to your home and sometimes it accidentally pulls at your gut and drags you backwards a bit. sometimes it hurts.

when does this "older" thing happen even, when do you get to the point where you understand even a smidgen of the universe to the point where you can feel emotionally stable and not start panicking standing in the middle of a brand new town all by yourself with no one you know? has anyone made it to that point? where are they so they can give us all a visit and show us how to make it through the day without tripping and falling into a wall??

_ _ _

in other news, I've finally found a new job, classes are going well, no one's gotten murdered, I've got cheesy little planet + stars + spaceship stickers all over my room and a thriving cactus I dragged all the way to my new bedroom, and I even managed to make friends. i'd call this first week of all this a success so far

I guess a person is  t e c h n i c a l l y  supposed to introduce themselves at the beginning of something, but hello!!! to sum all that this is up; i'm kelsey, i'm like 4 years old at this point, and i recently took a plane to exchange schools in a new place to take classes and try to experience a little more of the world. am i actually going to survive until the end of this? will i ever get decent pictures of the campus to show?? will i ever get my sleeping schedule in order? ?   ?      ?

well kids, find out on the next installment of "Help, I Am A Child & Don't Understand How To Fill Out Tax Forms"