Life, Death & Other Feelings

Sometimes (most of the time) I think I have issues. I have what many might call an overactive mind. In other cultures, this may be referred to as insanity, but I prefer overactive mind. I have phases where I obsess over different things &let them run rampant in my mind for a while. Eventually, I forget about it & move on to another irrational fear. Lately, my irrational fear is death. Hey.

Sometimes I feel like I'm going to die prematurely. Other times I feel like I am going to lose a very close family member. Mostly, I feel like I am going to lose someone my own age. Maybe someone I am friends with. Or maybe someone I was once friends with.  No matter what situation I imagine, I always find myself asking the same thing: what could I have done differently?


This sounds cliche. Like if you were to die tomorrow, how would you live your remaining hours on this planet? But that isn't what I'm thinking about. I don't believe you should do out of control & risky things & shout YOLO afterward. But I think, more often than not, I find myself feeling like I waste my words. I waste my time. & I don't love people the way that I should.


Life is so fragile. We are not guaranteed anything but we feel as though we deserve it. We feel like we deserve answers. We deserve love. We deserve comfort. & when we don't get these things we feel life owes us, we get angry. We question God's plan because we think our own is better. We waste our lives dwelling on unanswered questions. We wish for love, forgetting to love ourselves in the process.  We become one with the world, failing to realize that we are but a vapor. Our life could be taken in an instant. And if we leave those we love behind, they will likely be wondering what they could have done differently. 


Whenever I find myself leading down the dark road to melodrama & despair, I always wonder what I would have said. All the words I kept to myself. All the times I wanted to tell someone I loved them & I didn't. All the times I found myself getting angry over petty things. All the grudges I kept. All the friends I lost. All the times I let my pride keep me from giving someone everything I had to offer.


So, I guess the moral to this bleak tale is that life is short. We are not guaranteed a long, happy life. We can wish for it & we can feel we deserve it, but the truth is: we do not. We are put on this Earth so that God's love may shine through us. & through that, we will love people like he loved us. But I don't always offer this kind of unconditional love. I keep myself guarded, trying to make sure I won't get hurt. But in the grand scheme of things, the love we didn't give & the words we didn't speak could be the ones that haunt us the most. Living a full life does not necessarily mean taking risks. It means giving life all you have to offer. We feel like the world owes us something. But the truth is, we owe the world something greater. 


Hopefully, this looming fear of death will pass. My next obsession shall be something lighter & less dreary. Until then, I will do my very best to do as Tim McGraw says & *~LiVe LiKe I'm DyInG~* 


If any of you see me on a bull named Foo Man Choo, I beg you to alert the mental ward. 


Until next time, peeps. 

friends, lovers or nothing

A guy and a girl can be just friends, but at one point or another, they will fall for each other...Maybe temporarily, maybe at the wrong time, maybe too late, or maybe forever.

-Dave Matthews 

and you're tied together with a smile but you're coming undone.

"We live, I regret to say, in an age of surfaces."

                                          -Oscar Wilde

   i live in suburban USA. the idea is that we're all wealthy, happy, stable people, right? we live in nice houses, go to good schools, never go without a meal. we have families who love and support us, parents who are happy and in love. we don't know what it means to "struggle" or "do without." we were fed with a silver spoon, raised with the idea that the world was ours. there was nothing we couldn't do, nothing we couldn't have. when we think suburbia, this is what we think. we look at our peers, but do we truly ever see them?

    it's hard to come to terms with the fact that everyone has a story. a moment that created them or a moment that destroyed them. a defining factor that somehow shaped who they became or who they will become. we don't see that. we only see what people choose to show us, and it most cases what people show is a very limited view of who they are.

   so i guess the question is: what lies behind the curtain? what goes on that we don't know about? and if we knew, would that change our perception of someone? would we somehow view them in a different light, understanding that they do know what it means to struggle?

    no one wants to think that the charming, attractive boy has an abusive, overbearing father. no one believes that the girl who somehow became a lost face among the crowd was once a 12 year old girl wondering when her mother would come home, realizing she never would. no one realizes that the girl who has everything is missing something most girls take for granted: a mother.  no one sees a house for sale in germantown and thinks bankruptcy.  we see couples and believe that marriage should be a perfect matrimony, but i've learned to believe otherwise. i've learned that there is always a story.

   i want to see behind the surface. i want to see the struggle, not the facade of happiness we believe people want to see. i want to know what people have gone through, know what they try to hide. i hate this superficial world we live in full of shallow relationships. i'm sick of hiding.

My name is Casey Lee Preuett, 18 years old. I live in a nice house in a nice neighborhood. I went to a good high school, one of the top 500 in the country. I am going to a good college. I have a loving family who supports me. I have a job. I have a car. I have friends. I am happy, but I know what it means to struggle.

My name is Casey Lee Preuett, but my father once told me to change my last name because I didn't deserve to wear it. I live in a rental house. My house in Germantown is still for sale. I am taking out loans to pay for college because my dad has not paid child support since I was 14 years old. I live in a single parent home. My mother sacrifices everything to provide what she can for our family. My brother just fought in a war. My 21 year old brother became my stand- in father. He is the one who bought me the car I mentioned earlier. I have a lot of friends, but few know any of the things I am typing. I am happy, and while I do know what it means to struggle, I also know what it means to live. I don't think my story makes me unique, but I think it is worth telling. I am in line for a blessing. And the world is at my finger tips.

so, i guess what i want to know is

just remember: no story is not worth hearing. you matter. 

  

this ain't goodbye, this is just where love goes

Time is such a funny concept; always dragging by when you want it to speed up, always passing too quickly when all you really want is to put your life on hold.



   But what’s even funnier than that is that high school was sort of a mixture of both desires. On the long nights of booknoting or research papering I remember telling myself that this would be over soon enough. I remember dreaming about the day I would turn in my last textbook and walk out of Houston, leaving all the drama of high school behind me.
    But now as the day where I’m actually supposed to turn in that final textbook and walk away from Houston is drawing near, I can’t help but wish I could push pause, enjoy it just a little while longer. Stay young for as long as I possibly can.  
   But it’s not always the time that gets you. It’s the expectations. You live for those big moments. Last homecoming football game. Finding a date for the dance. Deciding on a college. Worrying about who will ask you to the prom. Searching for the perfect dress. Your Last Day Of High School. Graduation. You spend so much time and effort waiting for the big moments. And then when they happen, they pass and then it’s over. The buildup was more substantial than the event. You expect more than you enjoy. Or maybe that’s just me.
   When I think about what I’m truly going to miss or what I’ll really remember when I look back on high school, it’s really not these big milestone moments. It’s the little things. It’s the walks into school with Maggie. It’s sitting in the yearbook closet with my best friends. It’s driving away from school knowing I always have a place to go. It’s Starbucks runs on Friday mornings with Madison. It’s sitting in the car with Hannah letting the music do the talking. It’s the married couple fights with Holden. The joyrides with Savannah. Spencer’s hugs when my mornings suck. The things you don’t have to think about. The things that don’t require expectations. The things that just happen.
   We’ve spent so much time thinking about how people perceive us, worrying about how we fit into the social hierarchy of Houston High School. But pretty soon, social statuses will be a thing of the past, and all the people we’ve tried to impress will become faded memories of classmates we once knew. Or maybe people we never really knew at all. The secrets we’ve kept and the decisions we’ve made will no longer define us. In a few months, we’ll all step onto a campus in a place full of new people. Full of people who don’t know who you were. Mr. HHS will be just another face among the crowd, no more special than the quiet girl whose name you never took the time to learn. The time we’ve spent trying to prove ourselves better than someone else becomes insignificant. When we walk out of Bellevue on May 20, if only for a moment, we are all equal.
   So I guess what I’m trying to say is, don’t wish it away but don’t hold on forever. Don’t expect too much but always cherish the moments you might think are insignificant. When the nostalgia hits (and believe me it will), they won’t be. Be yourself and talk to the people who you find above or beneath you. Because eventually, you’ll never see any of them again, and you don’t walk away with the regret of knowing that you didn’t take the chance to get to know half your class. Tell someone how you feel even if it scares you. What have you got to lose? Be faithful to the people who really matter. Ignore those who only bring you down. Walk away from tragedy into the arms of the people who care about you. Let someone mend your broken heart. Cry tears of happiness and cry tears of genuine sadness. Don’t shut yourself off from love because you fear the ending. Everything has an ending right? What matters in a story is not the beginning, nor the ending, but the middle. What roads you choose to take and who you choose to take with you. Those moments that you will look back on and think how happy you were. The moments that remind you why people call high school the best four years of your life.
   In the grand scheme of things, it’s really just a matter of perspective. How you see people and how you see yourself. How you see not only your world but also the world around you. What you choose to remember and what you try to forget. Honestly, just what you make the most of.
   High school flew by faster than I ever thought it would, and the only word to describe its ending is bittersweet. It’s the safest haven we as young people have. The place where we feel the most comfort and sense of stability. And that ground we stand on is about to shake, possibly throwing us off balance, making us worry about the future. But let’s try not to think of it like that. Think of it as not only an ending but also a beginning. The beginning of your life outside of the walls of high school. The beginning of your life with the people who really matter.
   I will close this chapter that I thought would last forever, but truly passed before I even realized it was happening, and move on to the next phase. I will leave people behind in the process. Others will leave me. But to those who knew and loved me, you will always be in my heart. Time can change your course. And time can change your perspective. And time can change your attitude. But there’s one thing unalterable, even to time: and that thing is love.

so call me captain backfire.

my stupid mouth has got me in trouble.

   i've verbalized a lot of thoughts that would have been better left in my head. i've acted on one too many notions that should have remained reckless ideas. but that's typical right? because i'm young. maybe i'm young, but i'm not stupid.
   i would hate to be remembered as the girl who never has anything nice to say, but lately i'm starting to realize i probably am. i'm the first to find a flaw in something, be it person or situation, i point it out. i'm fiercely negative with a wit thats almost sometimes too biting, so much so that it straddles the line of funny and mean. i wasn't always like this. somewhere along the way i lost that person who tried to find the good in everyone, that person who was secure enough in herself she didn't constantly bring other people down. i'm looking for her. i'm hoping she finds her way back.
   just like every other high school girl, i've lost my fair share of friends. and in the process of doing so, i lost a little part of myself. i let myself grow more immature and lost the sincerity i once prided myself in. regardless of my insecurites, i could always say with confidence, that i was a good friend. lately i'm starting to doubt that.
   my prayer is that i've made a positive impact on someone's life. anyone. a friend. a stranger. maybe even someone i'm no longer friends with. i hope i changed someone for the better, and i hope when they remember me, they remember me for who i really am rather than the act i sometimes find myself putting on.
   beneath the surface, there's a broken girl desperately trying to make herself whole. and even if i can't fix myself, i hope i've fixed somebody else.

  

there's beauty in everyone. maybe i should start looking for it.

slow down you crazy child, you're so ambitious for a juvenille

   right now i should be doing the eight pages of spanish translation due tomorrow. or maybe even studying for my test complete with 329 vocabulary words. or maybe completing my packet of government worksheets that i have not even started. all of these things would be a better alternative to what i'm actually doing: sitting in bed, crying.
   i have two full weeks of high school left. one month until i walk across the stage and get my diploma. and while this should feel liberating or maybe even exciting, i feel sad. and empty. and more than that, i'm terrified. i've become a victim of my own mind, constantly reminding myself just how drastically my life is about to change. and it is about to change. but shouldn't that be a good thing?
   maybe i should just call it how it is: i'm not happy. i'm always on edge. i can't be around certain people for more than five minutes before the anxiety sets in. i have no desire or drive to do my school work. i sleep in class. my job consumes the life i used to have outside of school. i don't want to go out on the weekends. i want to get in bed and pretend that everything's the same as it's always been. but that's just not the case.
   i don't want to leave home for college, but i can't admit that to anyone. that makes me "weak" or a "momma's girl." i can't move six hours away. what am i going to do on sundays without mcalisters and my mom? who am i going to talk to when i need that much needed stable perspective on life? i've convinced myself that my life can't exist anywhere that my family doesn't. i mean, in a sense, they are my life. i used to feel secure in my decision to go to knoxville. i had my best friend. and i had the boy. but now i can't say either of these things with security. my best friend has become one of those people i can't be around for more than five minutes. and the boy has done what boys do best and disappeared. because God forbid i show any sort of attachment to someone who's been there for me for two years. i must be crazy right?
   or maybe i'm just young, stuck in that awkward in between phase of being expected to know who i am but actually having no idea who that really is. all i can say about who i am right now is that it's not who i want to be. this lesser version of myself. this sad, broken girl with no idea where to turn next.
   i would hate to look back on my life and think i wasted it being unhappy. but that's where i am right now. going through the motions but not enjoying them in the slightest. i'm in a haze that i desparately need to escape from and i have no idea how. and sometimes i feel like there's no one there to help me.

i can't do this anymore.

the night you danced like you knew our lives would never be the same

i'm wishing my life away, with these things i'll never say

          so get your knees flexin and your arms t-rexin

    i've been afraid of changing cause i built my life around you.

i don't think that passenger seat has ever looked this good to me. he tells me about his night and i count the colors in his eyes.

stop this train, i want to get off and go home again.

long live all the mountains we moved i had the time of my life with you.

on behalf of every man looking out for every girl, you are the God and the weight of her world.

                                  girls just wanna have fun.

it's one of those days, one of those moments, you just make me happy.

these are the moments i'll remember all my life.

                                   and they said speak now.