LIFE IS TOO SHORT

((I should apologize, firstly, because I've already posted today. This idea of this post had been bugging me all day and I couldn't leave it unwritten. Maybe it will sit in my drafts for a while, who knows.))

You know when your in 5th grade and your teacher starts to talk about puberty and how your body won't look like yours in a couple years? Or in 8th grade, when your teacher starts warning you that, yes, high school will be 10 times harder than this? Or maybe Junior year, when everyone seems to feel like it's their occupation to tell you that in two years your world will be flipped upside down?

Change is, unfortunately and maybe even enjoyably, inevitable.

We all experience it at one point or another. Maybe more accurately we experience is at a million points or another (see what I did there?).

For me, the change hits me hardest when I go to visit Roseburg, or I drive through the town where I spent most of my childhood, or when I visit my dad. Now, it will surely hit me again when I start packing my bags for college.

I've realized, without realizing it during the process, that I don't look like what I looked like at 5, or 8, or even 14. I realized that now, opposed to when I was a freshman (and devastated when a boy, whom I thought I was in love with, dropped me like a hat), small things don't hit me as hard as they used to. I don't feel that ache in my stomach like I did when that boy started ignoring me. I'm no longer stressed like I was when my Algebra 1 teacher changed her whole ciriculum half way through the year.

I am no longer feeling bothered, like I was feeling sophomore year, that I wasn't the best in my acting class. I am no longer upset that I didn't get a speaking part in the school musical (that was probably a smart choice). I no longer dread my teacher doing "sit anywhere you want" days in German, because I didn't know anyone in that class.

I no longer sit in the halls by myself at lunch, reading, because I'm that new girl that's too awkward to talk to anyone.

(Sorry, those all sounded like I hated life. I swear I didn't!! I was just making a point... wait for it... I promise it's coming soon...)

Life is too short to worry about silly things like that boy you think you're in love with (as a freshman, geez 14 year old Ella!!), or that teacher you stress about failing, being the best in a class, or having loads of friends in a class. Most of all, there is no time to worry about what people think of you if you sit and read at lunch instead of making friends.

Life is too short to keep a friend around, one who is not really a friend to you at all. Life is too short to beg for a guys attention. Life is too short to take crap from people. Life is too short to worry about being the best at everything. Life is too short to worry about that extra pound you gained because you've been eating ice cream for breakfast all week (just me? oh).

But, the real point of this post?? Life is also too long.

Life is too long to drop people right when they wrong you the first time. Life is too long to decide that your feelings for that boy weren't real at all (because if your freshman self heard you denying your feelings for him, she would laugh, cause she knows its a lie). Life is too long to not mend relationships, to not try your hardest at your new job, even if you hate it. Life is too long to not be considerate about other peoples feelings.

It may not feel like it, but we're on this earth for a good chunk of time. And yes, life is too short to dwell on things that don't matter much, but life is also too long to not dwell on anything at all.

This was random, but this topic of living life, and balancing it in the areas of "life is too short" and "life is too long" has been hitting home lately. Especially with all the change happening or that is going to happen.

Thanks for listening to this rant, ramble, thingy. It means a lot, and of course, your feedback is always much appreciated.

Signing off until next time, 
Ella Frances Waite