the listener.

the sun is always going to rise up you need to get up, gotta keep your head up

so, you can really learn a lot by keeping your mouth shut. and keeping your ears open. but here's the thing. when do you know when it is your responsibility to let things be heard? i always wonder if things are always better left unsaid. especially when they can't change anything. when... there is nothing good that could come of it. besides uncontrollable feelings that are reactions to the new found knowledge you learn.

:: i interrupt this post with a random/important tangent...::i love music. have i mentioned that? yeah. pretty much. i would give anything to be able to come up with the brilliant lyrics and have a voice to accompany it. hrpmh. seriously. if i could ever have one talent... it would pretty much be that. honestly. why do i have to be so ordinary.

so, backtracking. i am going to take this moment to... :: gasp :: label myself. as a listener. throughout my life i ALWAYS have been this. though it may have been less obvious when i was in elementary school and my group of four friends, including myself, picked sides every week on who was the "cool" one and who wasn't. and i would be the floater, the one who skipped from one group of friends to the other, listening to what was being said about the odd one out that week, most times to repeat exactly what i heard from the "popular" group that week. basically, well, because i didn't know any better. and, because it gave me, the floater, the permanent odd one, a chance to feel important. rather than just an afterthought.

moving on to jr. high... i got a little smarter. but, still liked to, shall we say... stir the pot a little bit. i contribute this to the fact that i was never really valued much by my friends growing up? i never had a constant. never anyone who... was always by my side. who always chose me. who always thought about me first. who always called me first when something happy or sad happened. i was.... the afterthought. so, anytime i had this opportunity to stir things up... i pretty much took advantage of it.

hello high school. where it all went down from there. down down down.... so far down i didnt think anything could bring me back up again. once my final "best friend" decided to... literally throw our friendship in my face, by destroying me... in more ways than once... i didn't think it was worth it. no more afterthought.

well, obviously, im still here, writing this. so, i survived. and throughout it all... i learned. i learned how to be me. so, i guess, despite the shitty ass life i may have had growing up, it helped me to be who i am now. who i am glad to be. because, the people in my life now, i would give anything for. because i understand what it is like to not have those important people. now that i have them... im never letting go.

so. i will continue to move forward. with all the changes that i am going through, with everything... that goes along with them... tears, laughs, hugs, emotional breakdowns... i will always be me. and i will know that i don't have to feel alone. that i am in the forefront of many people in my life. that my afterthought days are over. that i am the first. the best. the only. to some special, amazing people. i will look back on everything and be satisfied that even through the worst of it all... then... and now... i somehow, someway, kept my head up. and made it through. each and every... tear i shed, relationship that hurt me. friendship loss... helped me to be me today. cherishing the real thing now. listening. supporting. being.

i just want to feel alive... today. and today, today i do.