As for the rest of it, I feel like you and me are totally in sync with our moods right now.. which is kind of sucky cuz neither of us have been that great but ‘hope can always cope’ and sometimes there’s nothing better than a good cry. and this is YOUR space, so vent as much as you want!

I miss you so much! and I miss the feeling that Disney brings to me… and I almost want to just move back there. And I think if things don’t work out here in a year or so, I might just try to move back. And take part-time or full time anywhere.

Also, I am weird and start a lot of sentences with And. And I read this book where it’s set up like a journal, and he writes like you do sometimes! With the words kind of backwards but it still makes sense.

Oh yeah, I miss you again!

I so agree with you about people in their 20′s! Ah. When I was in my teens I got so frustrated about how immature everyone was, how all they wanted to do was drink ( it’s legal here at 18, or any age on private property) and hook up. I remember complaining to my Mum and she was like ‘it’s just the stage you’re stuck in at the moment. Wait a few years until they all grow up and you’ll find friends your own age again’ only I swear most people my age are still stuck in that mentality. NIightclubs, smoking, drinking, party bus tours of Europe, they all just seem so tacky. I’ve got a few friends in their late 20′s and they seem more on my level.. which gives me hope that by the time I’m 27 maybe most people ‘my age’ will have grown up. Then I see cool people like you on blogs and stuff and wish they all lived closer so we could be real life friends!

I love those ‘Beauty is’ entries.. I’ve read them on here before but they are all so beautiful.

To me, beauty is love, true unconditional love. And when I think of unconditional love, I don’t think romance. I actually think first and foremost of my Grandfather and the way my family nursed him through the last 2 years of his life. I watched my then teenage brothers feed him with a spoon, I watched my Mum hold his hand and talk to him with the same respect she always had, even though he was sitting there in an adult diaper. I see all of us sitting at his side the moment he passed away. To me, that kind of love is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen and I’m so proud that I got to witness that within my own family.

I’ve watched your selfless deliberation of want and need; how, in a battle of wills, you would give yourself to your faith, to the sacrifice of lesser concerns. Maybe I am stepping well beyond the boundaries of what I know or could ever understand, but I would implore you not to feel any guilt for any want or need you find. There are plains of life at which I am so inexperienced, but I believe in ‘need’ ahead of ‘want’. I think that divinity can embellish lives and imbue humans with wonderful qualities, but I would never trust that it owed us anything to provide; and so, to me, we have to want *enough* to ensure that we go and get – and that is to admit to ‘need’. I wonder if the Two Circles section here makes any sense.

I understand the pragmatic theory: to need is generally selfish. But we can need for good things: happiness for ourselves; making others happy; creating a family; enjoying the greatest ineffable bliss of humanity and the unexplored corners of life, living, love, and inner-peace. Though I smiled at the clip you shared elsewhere, life’s more complicated than that. We cannot always compare our want and need with the person next to us. Everyone’s expectations of life are different; everyone’s levels of accomplishment are different; the demands that make us happy and that let us make the very best of ourselves are bound to be different too. You admit here that you are a driven person, and that’s fantastic. Your metabolism for living will invariably make you want and need for more, and that cannot be compared against those who are genuinely content to passively let life drift by.

I’m not sure I’m responding to just your post any more :) Perhaps your overall narrative of the time instead. What may feel like snippets of weakness are in fact your greatest strength! Your emotion. Your humanity. They rouse your will to improve. They fire the part of you that refuses to accept misery, yet refuses to let you reject thoughts of what will make your life better.

I remember saying something once upon a time about feeling being divine. “To want, and to need; to hope for pipe-dreams and to be sad if they fail.” The thought was based on perhaps the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard. Sometimes, it’s blessed to be human, and to understand our every piece of vulnerability to grace what builds our uniquity. I don’t have the answers, Miss Samantha, for myself, let alone anyone else. But I would see you trust yourself without reproach, for to be You is a truly wonderful thing. X

[I hope it still makes you smile]