Pain.

I’ve heard so many people say that one day, there will be no pain, or fear, or tears. Honestly, I don’t believe this for a second. People like to be optimistic and believe that at some point humans won’t be tortured by struggle or pain, but it’s not going to happen. People naturally feel pain when they’re distressed; it lets them know when to slow down, and in a way, pain is a good thing. Without it, people would be going at topspeed all the time and whizzing through life without slowing down to appreciate the things that can’t be noticed easily.

For example, today, at the last swim meet of the season, I slipped going down a ramp and my shoulder started hurting. I didn’t think much of it. I knew I had to swim another event – the 100 yard breast stroke – either way. I got in the water and my shoulder was searing, to say the least. When I got out of that water, I knew I needed to take it easy and not go into the rest of my events for the day because I felt pain. That pain told me to relax and stop trying to push myself so much. And, without it, I could have ended up with a lot more than a pulled muscle, I’m sure. The pain let me know that something was wrong – that’s a good thing.

I’m amazed at how everyone thinks pain is such a bad thing. Yes, it hurts, but does it not make us stronger in the end? Just because I asked that question, I know there’s going to be someone who will think, “Well what about broken bones? Those don’t get stronger after pain is inflicted because of them.” The only response I have to that is, who said I was talking about physical strength? Any pain will strengthen us in some way – usually mentally. People who have felt more pain tend to be wiser about life. Pain is part of life experience, and without it there wouldn’t be many sensible people in this world, because they wouldn’t know how to handle difficult situations.

Pain not only strengthens people, but it teaches them. It teaches them to deal with things that they may not want to, and rest when rest is necessary. Thinking about slowing down in life always reminds me of big cities, like New York or Chicago – they’re always going at 100 miles an hour. How many businessmen and women in big cities do you think stop to smell the roses every once and a while? How many of them do you think tear themselves away from work to take a walk in the park once a week? Slim to none is the answer I would come up with.

And that’s why we need pain. That’s why we need stress, and tears, and fear. Because they allow us to get a better understanding of the world around us, even if they do have a strange way of doing so. Hurting people will make them stronger and better in the end, no matter when that end may be. And that’s the most important thing, isn’t it? Everyone strives to be the best they can be in life. Without pain, “the best” would be a lot less than it is right now. That’s all there is to it.

Long Distance Relationships.

People ask me all the time, “How can you handle being with someone who lives so far away from you?” The answer, I guess, is simple: I love him. There’s no better explanation, and that’s what I tell everyone. People that I tell about my relationship with a boy in California seem to think that it’s the hardest thing in the world for me to deal with. It’s almost the complete opposite.

I don’t find the relationship hard at all, because I love him. He’s the best thing that has ever happened to me, whether he’s in California or not. And when I do get to see him, it’s just going to make it that much better. I can easily stay with him because of the fact that every day I’m without him, I can look forward to the day that I’ll be with him. Nobody understands how that’s enough.

Maybe I don’t understand how that can be enough, either. I went into a relationship knowing that it would be difficult at times, but with a hope that we could work through whatever fate decided to throw at us. So far, this has been more than true. Anytime we’ve fought, we’ve gotten through it with barely any trouble, compared to some long-distance couples I’ve seen. That in itself is enough to amaze me.

I laugh at people who complain about having not seen their boyfriends in a few days, or even a few weeks. I don’t laugh to be offensive. I just find it funny. I think about what those people would do if they couldn’t see their boyfriends for several months, maybe even years at a time. I wonder whether they’d be able to handle it, and then I value myself for being so strong about it. I do realize, though, that it’s not all me – the fact that I love him probably makes it easy for me to go through anything in the world for him, no matter what the cost.

So I guess that’s pretty much all I have to say. Why’d I write this? Good question. I get bored. I think about things. I type them out in an attempt to give people a little insight into my head. This blog had three or four drafts that had nothing to do with what it actually turned out to be. My thought process is a little crazy sometimes, which is why it can lead itself around in circles before it ever finds a stable topic. And yeah. That’s it. Thanks for reading? :\

Popularity/High School.

Upon entering high school this year, I’ve noticed several things that are extremely different from the little private school I used to attend, with just thirteen kids in my class. I went from a small world where everyone was friends with everyone, to a bigger world where it was pretty much the complete opposite.

Anyway, I’m one to notice things about people that maybe others won’t. I guess you could say that’s helped me in the new school, but maybe not. I can usually tell someone’s overall intent when being friends with someone, or talking to someone, or even dating someone. I guess that brings up the word popularity. I’m amazed at what people will do for it. There’s a couple of main ways people become “popular…”

One: they flaunt their money around to try to get people to like them. That doesn’t always work, of course, but some shallow-minded people will go for being “friends” with someone just because they have a glamorous house to hang out with, or the perfectly stylish clothes. Maybe the person hopes to get something out of the person who flaunts their money – a good Christmas present, perhaps? This leads to both sides of the friendship using the other for something. The person with money is using the person without to climb the “social ladder” and reach the top, though that doesn’t happen for most people. The person with less money is using the person with for what they have to offer them materially. I guess you could say this is a lose-lose situation, but I’ve seen people do it.

Two: being completely fake – acting, dressing, etc. like the “popular” people. People that do this absolutely amaze me. I don’t understand how the simple want of friends that probably won’t really be your friends anyway can make people want to act like something they’re not. It completely baffles me in just about every way. One of my good friends of last year has started acting like all the girls who are “popular,” simply to get in their crowd. She’s failing, of course, because they, like myself, look at her as nothing more than a pathetic wannabe. The people who do this think that they are doing themselves good, but in reality they’re simply driving themselves further away from being popular, and degrading themselves in the process.

Three: chasing after and possibly dating “popular” people, even if either or neither parties are attracted to the other. This one baffles me, as well. I’ve always been someone that wouldn’t fake an emotion if my life depended on it, so the fact that people can pretend to like someone just to use them to get more popular makes me sick.

Four: the person actually has a decent personality, and does nothing but be themselves. This may be the only instance I’ve mentioned that I actually approve of. I know several people like this. They’ll be friends with anyone, and they aren’t just chasing after the popular kids in the school, or just in their class. They’re nice to everyone, friendly with everyone, and because of that, they make friends at any “step on the social ladder.” I happen to really like people like this, because I think they’re a model to the other instances of people I’ve mentioned. If everyone followed people that were just themselves, there would be so much less drama and problems in high school.

So, overall, I guess I’m just saying that being anything other than yourself or using people to get popular is positively ridiculous. There’s no reason to do it. If you’re not friends with eveyrone in the school, who cares? If you act like yourself, you’ll probably make friends – and if you don’t, that might lead you to change for the better. In my opinion, being yourself is always the best way to go. It doesn’t degrade you in any way, and even if you are an awkward kid or have a semi-bad personality, I guarantee that you’ll make more real friends by being your own person than you ever will by copying someone else.

Swimming.

I guess this is just a blog to rant. Heeeere goes nothing.

I joined my school’s swim team at the beginning of the year, thinking it was going to be fun and help me meet people in the whole middle-to-high-school transition. Well, at least my latter belief was true. As for the former… not exactly.

I got through conditioning, and that was alright. I was a little sore for the first few days because I hadn’t done much in the way of exercising all summer, lol. I didn’t really mind it, though, and I was meeting people. I liked that, because I was really afraid of the whole, getting rejected in a new school thing. That obviously wasn’t going to happen, but I worried about it anyway, being my stupid self.

Conditioning ended, and practice started. At first, I had no problem with the really annoying stuff we had to do – I’d been on a swim team before(one I was sure had much more experienced coaches than this one), but I didn’t really mention it. I was set on having fun on the team, and I guess I was, besides the practices being not at all what I was used to for swim team practice. I tried pretty hard to disregard it.

After a few more weeks, we got into our first meet. The practices started to get harder. People were getting injured now, to the point where they had to get doctor’s notes to make the coaches let them stop swimming. I got injured and was out of practice and meets for three weeks. That’s when I started to realize that my coaches have no idea what they’re doing, nor should they be coaching a high school swim team, nor do they want to.

Now that I’ve been with it for a while, I don’t want to swim anymore. It hurts me physically and dealing with the coaches is ridiculous as well. Haha, I guess I might as well go into a rant about the coaches specifically, too. Why not, right? (:

Coach numero uno: Mrs. West. The sophomore and junior science teacher. She has this funny way of hiding all of her emotions. When she’s pissed, she’ll force a smile and say, “Okay. That’s fine.” I know this because when I gave her the doctor’s note to get me out of practice for three weeks, she did that. When I didn’t swim this week because I had killer cramps and didn’t want to move, nonetheless practice, she did that. West is just one of those people who don’t understand that showing emotions is actually good, and it usually helps out a lot when people know what the fuck you’re feeling. Riiight?

Coach numero dos: Kathy. The school nurse. She teaches swimming to five year olds at the rec center, so it’s not surprising that she treats our varsity team like five year olds, also. Her voice sounds like an airhorn going off and it’s not exactly the best thing to hear while you’re trying to concentrate on a sprint, or your kick set, or your main set, or anything else. She’s not quite as emotionless as West is – in fact, she’s kind of the opposite. It almost seems like she enjoys yelling at the team for the slightest things. For example, one day Tabitha(senior) was talking to Jake(boyfriend) on the phone on the way back from a meet. Kathy flips out and tells her to get off immediately, and that bus rides at 11 freaking o’clock are supposed to be team bonding time. Nobody wants to bond that late! Seriously. All anyone wanted to do was lay down and sleep, and everyone was texting or talking on the phone with someone. So Kathy made everyone turn off their phones – of course I turned mine back on almost immediately – and sit there in silence for the rest of the bus ride. Oh yeah, that’s some serious team bonding right there.

And I guess that’s about it. Swimming sucks because the coaches don’t know what they’re doing. Coaches suck because they have some serious issues with their people skills.

I thought I’d really enjoy swimming, but honestly, if the same coaches are coaching next year, I won’t do it. I’d rather swim at the rec center, and that’s saying something, because the rec center’s pool is probably the most disgusting one I’ve ever seen… except, of course, the pool we practice in.

Our school doesn’t have a pool, so we use the middle school’s. There are hairballs at the bottom almost every day, and the pool is never cleaned properly. It’s really, really gross. Bleh.

Okay, now I’m done. I just needed to let some of that out, and now I’m good.

794 words of lovely teen angst? Yay. (:

Hi There, New Blog.

There’s not much to say, except that I think a lot and I get bored a lot. Therefore, writing my frequent thoughts down somewhere will probably help with that whole getting bored thing. And, that is why I’ve chosen to start a blog.

It’s not like I really even care who reads this, because to be frank, I don’t. If somebody wants to read and comment, why not? Go for it. I don’t require you to, though. Pretty much the only purpose this blog serves for me is a place to get out my thoughts and such so they’re not clouding up my mind and making it hard to concentrate on what’s really important.

And I guess, to start out, I might wanna put somethin’ about me. My name’s Makenzie. I’m not really your average teenager, but at the same time I definitely am, heh. I’m 14 and have been addicted to computers and everything about them for a good year now. I may not act like a geek if you meet me in real life, but trust me, I am. I’m a pretty smart and mature kid, at least according to most – some people that just hear me talking have thought I was 17 or so, lol. My thoughts tend to be in essay form. Anything I’m thinking about has an introduction formulated by my crazy head, a body, and a conclusion when I finally work out the problem or issue or whatever.

That’s all I can say, really. There’s nothing you can’t find out about me – if I trust you enough to tell you – as long as you talk to me. You’re not going to get to know me through some blog on wordpress, I can guarantee that. You might get to know some of the things I think about, but you won’t know me personally. The only way you can do that is by managing to be someone I enjoy talking to. (:

As a final word, I know this blog sucks, heh. I’m a blogging n00b, so bear with me. Byee! (:

Love and Stuff.

There comes a point in most things when you realize that you’re only setting yourself up to get hurt. Usually though, by this point, you’re already too far in to let go. that’s the horrible part.

People can’t tell what’s going on around them until they’re already fucked. When you find yourself falling in love, maybe a small part of you realizes that said love probably won’t last forever – the rest of you ignores that small part, of course. Then, months, maybe even years later, you realize what’s bound to happen. Love falls apart. Even when you’re still in the relationship, you know that it’s most likely going to end, and that you’re most likely going to get hurt.

Everyone says that love is the most amazing feeling. I don’t disagree with them in any way. The feeling you get when you think about losing your love, though… that isn’t anywhere near an amazing feeling. It makes you want to tear your heart out and just get it over with. You want to feel that pain. You want to feel it almost so much that you need it. You’re so close to needing it that your actions reflect it, and well… that’s where the problems come up.

Personally, I’m so in love right now. I haven’t lost my love, but the thought dawned on me earlier – how would I cope if I did? I find myself dreaming about marrying the boy I’m with, and I’m barely 14. I know it will probably fall apart – probably soon, too. I fear the day that I hear his voice say, ‘I don’t want to be with you anymore.’ I torture myself thinking about it. I can’t even put into words what I feel when I imagine losing the thing I’ve based my entire future around. In the blink of an eye, I could lose everything I’ve dreamed of. I could lose everything I hope for. I don’t even know why I’m writing this blog… I needed to get it out somewhere.

Right now, I am torturing myself with the thought of losing the most important person in my world. People will probably call me childish or stupid because I’m saying this. I don’t care. I’m scared to death of losing not only him, but myself. I wouldn’t be the same person without my wonderwall. I guess that’s what I’m getting at with this entire blog…

Love changes people. It changes everything about them, to the point where when that love is lost, the person everyone knew is almost nonexistent. That’s the power of it. It scares me to death, I’m not going to deny that. I’m so afraid of losing myself.