Marmalade Moon

The marmalade moon greeted me this evening as I drove at forty mph down the road returning home in my loyal eighteen year old camry. Life has passed by so fast just like the incoherant series of vigilant evergreen trees lining the road. I am merely a passenger on this earth, but I want to be an excellent tenant of this planet. As I sat next to the flame of the bonfire at a good friend's house, I realized that I would be growing tired of some old mates, replenish relationships, and discover new pals. I realized that while UW may not be the incredible college I dreamed of, I will find the magic in this progressive pocket of the Pacific Northwest. The clouds may be dreary, but the views are marvelous. The darkness of wintertime and the chill of the air in December windstorms may dampen my spirits, but I will find a way to fully thrive under these wet conditions. I will seek sunshine in the gum walls of post alley, the fishy scent of the sound, the bright lights of downtown, the artistic abstract of Fremont, the variety of vivid cuisines, and the gallant trees of the dozens of gorgeous parks. There is sunshine at the depths of every place, but you just have to seek it. With all this brilliant sunshine in the summer, it has to be stored somewhere.

Still it remains a struggle for me to constantly have this positive attitude about life. I have felt so lonely, so self-hateful recently and I do not want all these emotions to stop me from living the life I want to live. I have so much potential, but I think these teenage years of middle and high school have really stifled my growth. I have so much to offer back to this planet, to the amazing people who make this place real, but I feel caught like a bug in the web of a horrendous spider of emotional chaos.

Order and chaos. They are true opposites. Nevertheless we cannot live without both of them. We need order for efficiency. We need chaos to breathe. Too much order kills the soul. Too much chaos kills the mind. It is a constant fight. Often we choose a side. But I believe that every duality in life is necessary and without finding a balance between the two dualities and bringing them together, we cannot find peace within or outside.

I always like to think that maybe there really are 21 balloons that can guide me toward a sort of perfect harmony between my mind and soul, order and chaos, good and evil, joy and sadness, anger and kindness, humanity and the earth, but in the end, there are not 21 balloons out there to help save us. We don't have a magical wizard at the end of our tales. We cannot go back to Kansas. We have to find the magic of Oz and even if it is inherently wicked we must either adapt or change our setting. Allowing the unsettled disharmony to overtake us only makes us insular and hopeless. Rather we must find the harmony in every change in life and allow ourselves to create peace in every moment.

As I cleaned out my room and stalked people on facebook from my first grade class, I realized how much we change and how little we change after so many years. We are all really the same people as we were in kindergarten, yet we are incredibly different. It really obfuscates my sense of order all this change, but this chaotic pattern of growth makes us human. And humanity is lovely. I still have so many old papers that have such little usage in my present day, yet I hold so much nostalgia looking back on my childhood. I miss the simplicity of my life with no friends except my atlases and invented countries. Even today I have invented multiple nations with their own unique cultures and peoples. I live for hours in my imagined countries pretending to rest on white sandy beaches or eating delicious foods in the mountains high above rocky fjords. Imagination however can only entertain temporarily. Imagination cannot bring the magic of friendship, love, and family. While I do grow tired of my real relationships, I am much prouder of these human relationships because they have so much depth to them. No, they don't always fit into my box of sunny beaches and tropical rain forests, but they bring so much more to life than colors on paper. Humanity was God's worst and greatest invention, the ultimate duality. It is incredibly fascinating, and I am just so happy to live on this glorious planet.

"Moon" - Sia