Down the Rabbit Hole.

On December 16 2013 it will be two years since I graduated college, and I’m still astounded by how much I changed in such a short period of time.

I graduated a semester early so at the end of winter break when all my friends were going back I felt incredibly lost. The experience always reminded me that scene in “Alice in Wonderland” when she falls through the rabbit hole, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, with no concept of what is up or down. She can’t see the bottom, she can’t see the top, and has nothing to hold on to. That’s what graduating felt like for me. I couldn’t go back, I couldn’t stop myself from falling and I sure as hell couldn’t see what was waiting for me.

After the initial anxiety passed and I made some tough but much needed decisions I reminded myself of what happens next in the movie, she gets to Wonderland. And it’s crazy and nonsensical but it also, for lack of a better term, wonderful. Filled with fantastic things that are new and curious. For somebody who was so keen on living adventures and seeing the world the prospect of Wonderland is like waiting for Christmas morning.

I can’t say I’ve figured out this new land and I’m confortable with it and the new rules, but I’m having a great time finding out, meeting people (some mad, some madder) and finding out about myself.

So maybe I found it accidentally, maybe it was where I was headed all along, but finding Wonderland is so worth throwing yourself down the rabbit hole.

M.

Writing

   It is no secret that I love to read. I'm a chain-reader. I read to live. And I've recently stated  I will run out of air before I run out of books. I love it too much to put it in words, and maybe I'll write another post about it, but for now I'll just leave it nicely resumed by one of the best Twitter accounts I follow.

   What I love just as much, but don't partake in with nearly as much frequency as I should/like is writing. I've been keeping journals since I was in 5th grade. I don't write anything important of even coherent in them. I also don't read them back. I write short-stories, and have begun several novels, none of which I've been able to bring to a conclusion, I don't mean to share or publish them, for now. 

    I just write for the sake of writing.

    I write because I have control of the story. I write fiction because I can take something that happened to me that day, and transform into the situation I wish had happened. I can write about situations that didn't happen anywhere else other than my head. I write non-fiction because I believe I'm truly special, a singular snow-flake type deal, and that what happens to me need to be remembered, and told.

   I write characters that I can identify with and are natural to me, and I write characters I puzze over for months. I write people I wish were my best friends and people I've wanted to kill in the page just for the satisfaction of making them not exist anymore. 

   I write so I don't become a consumer only. Somebody who just takes and take without ever giving back. I write so when I criticize a book or a story I'm not just finding flaws in the world, but so I can learn the process and know what and how to criticize. I'm doing it because if you think you can do it better, you should. Even if it's not really.

   I write so there are always things to read.

M.

Stories that need to be told.

While its no secret that I love to whine about my job, this isn't one of the times where I talk about how about what other people are doing things much cooler than what I do. Ok, maybe it is.

   One of my best friends is getting her master's in social work and working at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, I'll admit, my first reaction was less than stellar, along the lines of "oh... so you're working in jail? that's... interesting...or something?" but on further thought I realised that being the sucker for stories the way I am, I was missing out on this endless pool of tales that have just been waiting to be told.

   So I'm really happy that she started a blog about the inmates stories, as well as some of her own, and knowing her like I do I know her passion will fizzle out quickly, so I just want to do a bit of promotion here, and wherever possible to positively reinforce her into keep writing these stories, sharing what needs to be shared and showing the world that these women are in fact survivors, and not the monsters we all assume.

Give it a go.

M.