Your Plan to Help the World

So I am reading this book it is called Love. Man, you want a hippie book that makes you think and it is this book. It is funny how once when I read it when I was in high school I was turned off and amazed by the things this man said. It felt drowned and crazy. Now I realize how true it is and how much of myself either was directly reflected in this piece of writing or how much I have learned that just happens to relate.

I wish I could change the world. It is one of those silly little dreams of mine and if you talk to me for long enough, you know I have plenty. But what I really want today is to change the world. How could you do that, Ashley? Oh probably a million different ways. I could write a book that changes a reader's life and if I am really good a couple million lives. I could change the education system and give it a chance to learn more and challenge everyone a bit more. I would add social emotional learning, I would add LOVE as a topic. I would give the world what it needs. Nice people, happy people, people that know who they are and more importantly who they want to be.

Today, that's the challenge I want to overcome. I want to stop making robot children and start making children that love and KNOW themselves. I want children that think, I want children that understand, I want children that dream and I want them to know who they are is who they should be. So I could write a book and hope to change the world, I could do this for whatever kids end up in my class, or I could find a way to fix the whole system and get these subjects added to every day life.

Sounds hippie, if you ask me. I know the looks I would get. But our world is a horrible place, what's your plan to fix it? I know mine. 

As this wasn't even on the writing prompt I figured I would go back and relate a little better. These last 3 weeks I haven't done homework. I pounded through all my 5 week class in 2 weeks and it was beautiful. I had a wonderful 3 weeks homework free. Now... at the height of my stress, my job, and my tutoring (btw I started that the other day) I find that the last thing I want to do is take a class. I wish this class would open its doors so I could pound through it and get back to living. But life doesn't normally give you those options. So we will see how this class goes. But this feeling of unknowns and unwanting feels the same way that going to school in August felt all those years ago. I hated it, I resented it, I didn't want to start again because I had freedom and it was beautiful. 

I know how important education is, but so is experience and although I am all for year round schooling I think people forget to let their kids experience life outside of a classroom and challenge them in little ways all their own. 

(Sidenote: I find it interesting that most of my writing these days is geared towards the education of others. Maybe it always was and now that i have made that connection its hard to turn it off. It used to be more feeling based, i wanted to teach you through my feelings so maybe I didn't tap out of my writing but rather my feelings. Something to think about....)

Hah! I wish that was something I even had. Summer vacation. Funny how as we grow up we forget how to relax. We don't know what its like to take months off and get in touch with ourselves. Even I, going home, got a job, planned a wedding, met up with others. I have no "me time." As we grow, we think others make us better, sure they may challenge us, they may teach us something new but we make ourselves who we are. So who do you want to be? I want to be a writer. The more I read, the more I sigh to myself and mutter, "I used to do this so beautifully. What happened?" I grew up. I gave up that part of me. But it's there and maybe if I add some logs to the fire the spark will come back and the more logs I add the more potential I have. But I put like first, I put my job first. I don't even think of what I am missing out on. I look at the clock and speed around all day and the last thing I want to do when I go home is think. No, I want to sleep. I don't want a challenge, I want the opposite.

I think, we all think that we need to relax. But putting your feet up in front of the TV isn't relaxing. It's becoming brain-dead. Relaxing can be time spent alone, time given to your own mind. Time figuring yourself out. And that's what I need to focus on. Until those logs are on that fire and it stops being a chore and starts being a part of me. I need to make it a habit. Fueling the fire only works after your world has already been ignited.

Ideas

She plummeted to the floor,
desperate for something to hold onto 
as the world spun and her heart shattered.
She choked as her screams pierced the sky
Love isn't supposed to feel so chained.

I need ideas, metaphors before I write. I feel like I am a jumbled mess: so this is my notebook:
lack of air: lack of freedom
young love: beginning driving track
mature love: like a dance
traveling the world: opening your eyes
remind yourself to enjoy the little things: giving yourself too much, hurts you
There is more than one love, different colors of the same rainbow
Each day you must learn, strength comes with practice and persistence
a memory is like a picture it means different things to different people
confidence is as gentle as glass
fake it til you make it
open up the windows and cut the ivy down: let others in
beanstalks grow out of the ordinary

Throw up from the Brain

When I talk to my kids about quick writes. That's what I call it. It's a chance for them to put their brain gush on a page.

Well, here is mine.

People tell me all the time I am too cocky, too full of myself, too... me. I always give my 2 cents where it may or may not be needed. I fix things that others don't even view as broken and I solve problems others didn't know exist. Why do I do it? To control? To solve? To right the wrongs in the world? 

In ways, it reminds me of OCD. It's a habit that I can't break. When I see something broken, I fix it. Especially when its an easy fix. I think my lifestyle created this for me. I am in a job that consistently is broken and always could be improved. So I have learned to look at my surroundings find a solution and start working on it before it all blows up in my face.

But when you look out at my wanting to be a teacher, wanting to be loved, wanting to solve the world, wanting to fix whats broken. Maybe it is a type of God complex. Why do I do it? Do I want power, to rule, to feel important? 

Creating a world of my own in writing could definitely give me all those things. But I don't think thats why I write. I write to share my stories, to help people learn the lessons they forgot about or that they never learned somewhere else. I want light bulbs to click on even as students read. God, I am such a teacher. Maybe my "Why I write is to satisfy my teacher complex lol.

Freedom's cost

So, where do I start these days? I feel suffocated. I have this itch to figure out the secrets of the world, about myself, about those I know and I can’t even scratch the surface as of late. I need to find a way to ask the universe the questions I used to know all the answers to. But where do I start? How do I call up those skills that have all but faded from my mind?

I start. I write today. I dive in and break the ground I need to to give me air. I find the hiding place that all my creativity has been locked away and I set it free.

Because I won’t be free until it is.