You are Ninteen going on Eternity.

***Disclaimer: I wrote this when I felt in a bad way about my life and my place in the world, I may not feel as self-depreciating now, but I still think that there is a lot of truth here, not just for me but for anyone in a similar situation.***

You know after a while even the most heart-felt, earnest advice becomes a lecture. After about five times of hearing how bad you've messed up, how you're throwing your life away, how your family only wants you to have a better life, you stop listening. Past a certain point you just give up on trying to explain or stand up for yourself and you put up a shield to keep the waves of negativity off your increasingly fragile psyche. Not all the feedback is negative, no, but every single bit of it tinged with the bitter taste of disappointment. No matter how hard you try to find the silver linings or how grown up you try to rally yourself into being everyone keeps giving you the "I wish you'd done it better" look.

Now is a sensitive time in your life. You're trying to find yourself, trying to make your way, trying to become a full-fledged adult. But at 19 you're in the teen-adult limbo where you're only considered an adult when it's convenient or you've done something childish. If you don't have a job everything you're told ends in "get a job;" if you're not in school everything is"go back to school." God forbid you're neither in school nor have a job, at that point everyone sees you as a waste of flesh and form. Everything you're met with has the crush of finality to it and you can't see through the haze of disappointment to find the silver linings. Sometimes it all seems too much and you need the absolute finality of death staring you in the face before you can really get yourself back together and try to press on. You're only a loser when you let yourself be; cowardice is never the answer. They say it's always darkest before the dawn and you're standing in the twilight.

Regression from Progress.

Sometimes I like to write out letters long-handed just to remember the feel of it. So much has changed even in my short lifetime that as a society we've forgotten what it feels like to open a letter and read the words of another person painstakingly written out in ink. In a time where the most trivial matters can be made known to the world in an instant it can be hard to see why anyone would go to the trouble of writing out a letter and sending it via snail-mail to someone in the hope that by the time they receive it the information will still be relevant or they will have not known it already. Technology has made us lazy and narcissistic, giving us the power to put whatever we like into the world's view in a matter of seconds just at the click of a button or flick of the wrist. We think we are so important now. The internet can make anyone a celebrity. It can  ruin lives, friendships, businesses, dreams, bring down whole nations or build them up. With so much power in our hands shouldn't we be more responsible with it? Has that power corrupted us? Are we any less human because of our reliance on machines? Wold we be able to cope without them ever again? Have convience and speed whittled away at our resolve? If I sent you a book would you read it or wait for the movie? If I sent you flowers would you smell and admire them or put pictures of them on instagram? 

Open your eyes, throw off the rose-colored glasses and take a stand.Regain that lost part of yourself. Write a letter.Draw a picture. Read a book. Go outside. Live a life. Live in the moment. In reality, not virtual reality. Remember yourself. Be unique and individual. Then when all is said and done go back and bring others out into the sunlight.

self

every day I'm someone else

every day I'm me

every day I find myself

but I'm never free

I'm never sure who I am

I'm never sure what I know

I'm never sure where I'm at

or where I'm going to go

I'm going places that's for sure

I'm going straight to hell

I'm going crazy sure enough

and that's not hard to tell

hard to tell what's going on

hard to tell whats right

hard to tell myself the truth

I keep losing sight

losing sight of my dreams
losing sight of the plan
losing sight of myself
I don't know who I am