An Introduction

I am not sure how to start a blog, but here goes...

Part One: The Outer Shell

It will occur again…and numerous times after that. I will lose my identity. The days will get thicker and slower. I will retreat to that placating spot in my head. This place disconnects me from everyone, and so my outer manner will become harsh when people try to infringe upon my spot. You can blame this breakdown on stress, lack of space, or insomnia, but the veracity of the situation is…I have lost myself once more.

So my wandering soul leads me to the distinct smell of a library, rich with age and continuity. I will pick up a book, and fill myself with the pages, until I am part of its course. My own thoughts will be that of the story’s, and my short breaks, whether to consume a bowl of cereal absentmindedly or to grab a glass of water in my slippers, will be lived by a different me. I will be inhaled by the words, by their flow and by the figures that etch themselves into my memory.

Recently I was shown how severe this book affinity is:

Novel world: A character is found dead in the woods, right after teatime.

Real world: Engrossed in the story, I suddenly clasp my hands over the page in horror. My friend, observing me doing this, gets confused and taps me until I surface. Surface. Surface from those letters weaved into sentiments.

“What are you doing?” She squints at me strangely, worrying. I look up quickly.

“Dead body!! It’s Charlie!” My voice tells her, as my eyes itch to return to the page.

“Well it’s not like you can see it there. You are acting like you are covering your eyes in a gory movie scene.”

And it is probably better that she doesn’t comprehend. Because I know. Every fiber in my body knows, every miniscule part of me crunches and cringes at the terrible scenes, and relaxes and extends at the content ones. Though I am leaving my own reality, I am connecting my body to my disarray of thoughts. I can feel the trembling of their joining together. I continue to feel it…as the book is gripped in my hands, so tight, my nails make marks on the fragile paper shell of the story.

I can sense myself loosening as I reach the last few pages and my eyes race over the words. Though the adventure is over, I am excited to be done and return to an identity I now feel so instinctively: my own. As I place the worn book down, I feel exhausted and accomplished and full.

Words are bodies, tiny life-forms, craving identity just as badly as our centers crave identity. But sometimes an author, a significant genius, can string those beings together and give them more vivacity than truth itself. Only certain individuals will be able to revive the story. But those readers who can…it will save them. When they are clasping for definitions or anything steady at all, the book will draw them in and piece them together before they know they are taken by it. In this way, I am in my element when I am reading. I stream through words as though they are aqueous; they generate in me a power to trace the ink-scrawls back to myself. Again.

Part Two: The Middle Layer

I am sure many people see the inner workings of my moods, since I often speak my mind. I am aware of my greatest insecurities. Many people are not, I have gathered. I used to ask people I was close to what theirs were, and most of them said they couldn’t think of any, even if they had previously answered the “Are you insecure?” question with a “Yes”. Either these people are not in tune with themselves enough to admit the insecurities, or they are just afraid of what telling someone else will do to them. It sometimes feels that if I just say them aloud they will seem callow, and evaporate in the mist. When I was younger I would imagine them just disappearing one day. But they don’t. One’s largest insecurities…the ones that tug at the pit of our stomachs as we try to ignore them…are terrible.

I know that I am very fortunate with the life I have been given. Handed to me, since I was young, was everything I needed to survive very comfortably. Plus more. My family cares about me more than I could ever explain, and I know for this I am genuinely luckier than many people. And yet…there is a very large part of me that is not content. One day, I finally confessed this to someone, and they did not look at me in horror, but they replied, with a rather simple expression:

“Maybe what you have in your life…all the things that you think make you so lucky…are not what makes a person happy.”

I had someone whose opinion I respect greatly read this for me. But he took a long time, then made a slightly pained face.

“I don’t know,” he said. “You have to work on its readability.”

I like honesty and reality. But what I need is a trait that I can identify with. It may never be the amazing writer, but I just want to find it. I do not want reassurance. I don’t feel that I fit into the masses of kids that surround me. I do not mind this usually, but if I had a concrete identity, it would be easier.

Part Three: The Stable Core

I am Tara Elizabeth.

My life has not been unordinary, but I value it greatly.

I have been in love. I believe in it strongly.

I have been broken, but it seems foolish now.

I make wishes: on stars, on birthday candles, at 11:11, while tossing coins into fountains. It is always, without fail, the same wish…

I wish to be happy for the majority of my existence.

I am ever-changing, and that is what makes me who I am.