Seven And A Half Years Lay Broken On The Floor.

This blog post has been a long time coming. I've had so many ideas in my head, so many thoughts in my brain, yet I have not taken the time to stop and type them for you. Well, to be realistic, for me. I'm stopping myself to take the time to write for myself in this moment. I need for this to be said.

A couple weeks ago, I went to a school spirit competition ("Rubber Chicken") between my school, Lewis and Clark High School, and our rival high school, Ferris High School. It is a basketball game where students from both sides cheer on their team, and the school with the most spirit wins the ultimate prize: Chuck. Chuck is a rubber chicken honored by both schools. Sure, it may sound silly, but it's exciting as hell.

When I got home from the Rubber Chicken, I went upstairs and removed my competition t-shirts. I went downstairs and washed a butt-load of dishes, then went back up to my room, and saw something on my floor. I looked down, and felt my jaw drop.

On my mint green carpeting lay a sprawled out seven and a half years of my life.

On my seventh birthday, I made an exchange with another girl who was in my summer activity kid group at a preschool. I traded her a stuffed snake for a clear choker necklace with black beads on it. The part I didn't tell anyone until many years later was that I had stolen the snake from my stepbrother's room.

Teeheehee.

I donned that choker June 27, 1999, not having the slightest idea of what it would become over the years.

I never took it off.

It was with me for everything. Through the stage in my life when I did not want to turn eight, my obsession with cows, the beginning of my teenage life, and all the daily struggles I faced over years and years of life. Of MY life. After a short time, I no longer felt it on my neck, and it became a "given" that I would wear my black choker necklace. I defended it through everything. And it stayed with me. That is, until a few weeks ago.

Honestly, I'm surprised it lasted that long. It really wasn't supposed to. Especially with what I put it through through; my younger days were spent gaining bruises and scratches to show off to my father and to my friends.

And there it finally lay, seven and a half years of my life, its clear, interweaving strands barely showing on my carpet, its black beads sticking out as if floating, and the spot where it had broken looking almost burned, though in actuality a spot that got irritated, and eventually gave up and split apart.

I am thankful that it waited for a good time to break. It didn't snap at Rubber Chicken, where I surely would have lost it; it didn't snap during school, where someone else may have found it and thrown like it was nothing, because it looks like nothing. It didn't fall in a gutter or bury itself in the bark on a playground.

I'm thankful that it was there for me so many years; even though I didn't think about it often, it was a taken-for-granted comfort. It represented my past and secured my future.

But most of all, I am thankful that it never changed. Its beads have been worn, dulled, and beaten, and its size has stretched to fit my slowly growing neck; but it was a sturdy rock in my life, a security blanket of sorts, though not nearly as hindering as a physical blanket. It never stopped me from doing the things I loved. Never.

In trying to decipher any message I can take from this, I have become utterly and honestly confused. I DON'T know what this represents. I'd like to think that it represents a new beginning, and new age, a new me.

But it's probably just an old, broken necklace.

So, no, I don't know what it means. I don't know how I'm supposed to react, I'm not sure what to do with the remains. I can't decide who to tell, when enough is enough and it's time to move on; how to explain what the choker means to me.

What I know for sure is that I was absolutely devastaded when I walked into my room and found that seven and a half years of my life lay broken on the floor.

Flawless In Their Own Flawed Way

To anyone else, my desk would look fairly plain. Its forest-green surface is scratched and marred from years of loving abuse. I used to think it was ugly. Old, battered, and ugly. But now I see that it is something else entirely. It is beautiful. Utterly, purely, unrelentingly beautiful. Its shining, golden knobs stand out from their dark surroundings like bright, white stars in an otherwise clear night sky; both things awesome in their own way.

To anyone else, my desk would look like a simple area for schoolwork or for a laptop to safely rest in lieu of being swallowed by the bed across from it (which is much too likely for my mother's peace of mind). It holds a pencil sharpener, translucent and red, pleading to be used, begging to be filled; a large scarlet lamp with pointed beads, red mixed with a clear nothingness that together make a pretty light red - a color you might see on the horizon during a beautiful dawn. They are used as tassels, some of them melted from who-knows-what, but most of them simple plastic icicles, flawless in their own flawed way. They remind me of tiny, reddish people: pointed to ward off intruders; multifaceted, but plastic nonetheless; each one similar, and yet each one unique. The select few that stand out look different, and the eye is easily drawn to them. But who is to say that they are better or worse than their plain-looking comrades? Who is to say that they are more beautiful or more marred than most? Who is to say that they are more special than the others, or just the same with altered packaging?

Not me, that's for sure.

The lamp's base, I suppose, was meant to be black. Or is it dark brown? Its curves, its cuts, its layers are marked with dust as old as the last deep clean this lamp lived to see, and a multitude of scratches as old as the lamp itself. Appearing from the dusty base is a thin, brown cord running in confusing patterns to an old, cream-colored power cord too jumbled to describe. A cord is a truly under-appreciated piece of hardware. It provides the necessary power to the objects on which we most often depend.

The only other object on my desk is a small stick of chap stick that provides me with my repetitive re-applications, which have become an oddly comforting habit.

(And besides, they make my lips soft and supple!)

Well, the only other object besides you. You, my unknowing but unrelentingly willing audience.

You, a once-empty piece of paper, now covered by my ever-changing cursive (if it could be classified as anything, it would probably be cursive).

You, the most perfect listener, the most accepting partner. You, who has always been there for me, through crushes and rants, doodles and daydreams. You, a gorgeous piece of college-ruled, spiral-bound notebook paper. You.

To anyone else, my desk would look like an old, dark green desk with a small red pencil sharpener; a large, scarlet lamp with dangling plastic beads, some melted from who-knows-what; a small stick of chap stick that boasts a creamy almost swirl flavor; and a notebook, open to a page filled to its brim with the mismatched words of a tired girl.

But to me, my desk is peace. To me, my desk is happiness; it is freedom and it is acceptance.

To me, my desk is home.

Understand.

So, instead of sleeping, I have ended up looking through my folders, finding old files. I just found one that contained a few computer-diary entries (crazy flashbacks, maaan!) and two documents, titled "Understand" and "Words". Pretty vague as far as titles go, but I like playing with titles. Guess I always have. These were written July 21st of 2008. I wanted to share them with you; whoever you are. There are a few minor wording edits in Understand, but Words and most of Understand remain unchanged.

Understand is just a general musing piece. I wanted to write something. Words is a poem (mind, you I am not a poet. If you're looking for a professional, well-crafted poem, sorry; look elsewhere). It was an interesting one to write, because it is, ironically enough, about itself.

Sucky part: since Word is an absolute poop-face, I had to screen-shot the files and record me saying them on my computer, then slowly but surely type them here.

What poop-facery.

Understand

Life is seeking to understand. Wanting, needing to be able to appreciate the good and abhor the bad, because one understands good and bad, and recognizes them when they exist in such a way as to be seen by one. There is an innate curiosity in each of us that feeds on information, that thrives on detail and knowledge. And when that hunger is satisfied, it is thirsty for understanding. And it is an amazing, almost indescribable, feeling, the moment something clicks; when suddenly, everything clouding your mind and your emotions clears. The fog in your head drifts, moved quickly away by the powerful essence of understanding.

The human race has put itself in the disgusting trouble it is in by rarely seeking to understand. It just wants to know things. Most humans do not conjure thoughts deeper than that basic knowledge often enough for them to need to have their fog cleared, or rather, to clear it themselves; to be mentally fulfilled. They are content simply with knowing what they must know to survive, or to improve their lives in nothing but a shallow manner.

But I am not content with only that. I seek to understand that which I currently do not, and to understand more deeply that which I think I do. I love, crave, need to understand.

I understand.

I am alive.

Words

Tumbling, falling, and hurried

Worried, alone, and afraid

They trip over my thoughts

And press through my brain

They race through my mind

To my heart, through my veins

They spread to my fingers

And flow quickly out

Relinquished at last

I am free

There's no doubt

What. The. *cough* Freak.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/01/02/family.grounded/index.html

!!!

???

WHAT?

Summary, in case you're lazy like me: a tax attorney and his brother, an anesthesiologist, were removed from a flight in Washington before it took off because a passenger reported overhearing a "suspicious conversation" that the two and their family had (which was about the safest place to sit on a plane in case of emergency). Um, so, that sounds kinda silly, right? Like, really, really, stupid-silly??

Yeah. It does.

But this might help to explain it: they're Muslim.

I am, understandably, pissed. If a caucasian man and his brother and family were talking about the safest place to sit on the plane, would they have been reported? Would they, then, have been interviewed by the FBI, cleared of any suspicion, and still be refused to get on a flight, even WITH the FBI vouching for them? (After the event was more publicized and had escalated to a greater media extent, AirTran, the airline, made an official apology. After.) 

I think not.

I wish racism and chivalry would switch friggin' places.

And I Have To, Like, Save Her.

I should probably introduce my self to your self.

My name is Laura Chamberlain, and I began this blog because of inspiration from my beautiful mother, Barb Chamberlain. Also for that reason, I have a Twitter now (ack. Ack. I'm sorry, self...), @LChamberlain.

(Can I have a cookie now, Mom?)

You probably want to know what the heck I'll be writing about. Well. Seeing as my brain is a confusing, whirling thingy, it's anyone's guess. But seeing as I "should" have some direction to this blog, I'll be writing about the world from my perspective as a teenager, girl, daughter, sister, student, friend, and human being (not a human doing. ;]). I'll be writing about things such as the educational system, parental system, peer pressure, news, politics; life in general, you might say.

I know, I know, that's a pretty wide range. But that range will give me the freedom to be imaginative. 

Not like I have any problems doing that.

I should also probably explain the title. I'm in my bedroom (it's clean, I swear! There are just a few skirts and pink princess balls and umbrellas on my floor!) with my younger step-sister, Cailey, and she was telling me about how she has to save Princess Peach as Mario. I just thought it was a cute quote.

But that's just my opinion. ;)