– Michael Fernald
I’m tired of running from myself. I’ve become so accustomed to being mindful of what I should do, how I should act, and the type of person I should be, that I fear I haven’t been my true self. I don’t want to die some day without ever having lived, where instead of being me, I lived some life measured with deviations towards something I’m chasing, or maybe something I’m running from. I want to be real. I want to be me. I want to watch movies and cry during the sad parts. I want to help old ladies across the street before I think to do it. I want to devote myself to people. I want to concentrate so hard on making somebody else happy that I completely forget about myself. I want to feel. I want to feel so hard that I have no chance of controlling my emotions. I want to become so invested in a moment that it becomes infinite. I want to laugh and smile as a result of making somebody else so happy that to be anything but happy myself would be impossible. I want to lose myself in my life. I want to become so deeply entrenched in a situation that I can’t think, only feel. I want to experience love. I want to love so hard that it hurts. I want to love so much that I’m obliged to say “love” when somebody asks me what I do. I want to love sunsets, and rainstorms, and darkness, and bright lights that shine so frequently, so magically, so specially, that one knows the world will be luminous long after the sun sets its final time. I want to look up at the moon, and at mountains, and at oceans, and at fields of flowers and have no interest in their explanation. I want to be so captivated by an environment that I can’t remember how to think about the past or the future. I want to be moved staying in the same place. I want my soul to override my brain. I want to be strong. I want to be so strong that I can fully embrace being weak. I want things to make sense by understanding that they never will. I want to think of this great, big, beautiful world without needing to remind myself that I am a part of it. I want to do more good and less bad every day. I don’t want to try to be like my wonderful grandparents and try to be a creature of God, for I know I already am these things. I just want to be me.