Empty Inside

Empty Inside

He sits in the back of the class, headphones covering his ears and face looking straight down. I have watched him for a few weeks now, being well aware that he has not made progress in our art class. For the room being so small, he always seems so far away.

The first time we got our journals to draw in, he didn't touch it. But every day, he warmed up just a bit, first starting with just touching the cover, then flipping through the blank white pages.

He makes everything look so simple, peaceful.

At the end of the year when we turned our books in, his was still blank. Mine on the other hand had doodles of things I noticed over the year. I got a solid B.

But he got an A.

I was confused. He had done nothing and received a better grade than anyone else. How?

My teacher cleared his throat, catching the attention of all the students. "I would like to show you all a book that really made me think." He reached for the boy’s book and held it in his hands. His eyes scanned over it, browsing the cover before plunging into the pages.

He showed us page after page of nothing but white. Empty space.

"When I was first going through the journals, I got to this one and I was instantly disappointed."

The boy slowly looked up, pushing his headphones back to hear.

"I failed a student, not being able to reach him with my teaching abilities. I was going to give you a F." He cast his eyes towards the boy. "But something changed that."

He pressed his lips in a tight line. "I told you guys to fill what made you peaceful, what made you happy." There was a pause, and then he continued. “It took me a bit to realize, what if nothing made him happy? What if this paper was a perfect representation of the world, so full of potential, yet not living up to it?"

I froze. This whole time he had been doing, what I thought was nothing, was actually the best. He spent his class period looking for something to make him feel. He spent this whole time and found nothing. He was empty of feeling, just like the book was empty of markings.

(** I originally posted this on Feb 25, 2013**)

High School Killer

High School Killer

I am currently on 'Watch'.
'Watch' is what happens when a school thinks you’re suicidal. So that must mean I’m suicidal right?
Sure, I thought about killing myself, but be honest; who hasn’t?
It’s true, I am sad. Extremely sad. The kind of sad that has your heart aching, stomach whirling, gasping for breath as tears pour down from my dull and lifeless blue eyes.
But killing myself? I could never.
What would that prove?
That I was weak? That my peers finally got me down?
Everyone would feel sorry for the small town girl who killed herself, but all for the wrong reason.
The school ‘Watch’ program checks for scars, talks about how you feel, and is basically a joke.
My ‘Watch’ representative told me that if I keep this depressive attitude, they will kick me out. I laughed and said, “Won’t that make me want to kill myself more?”
To them, my joke wasn’t funny. Apparently, they have never seen a sarcastic suicidal girl.
I’m trying to find the source of my unhappiness so I can eliminate it from my life, but what if everything makes me unhappy. My family, school, the annoying hard-headed people who live in my town, or even me.
But the thing the schools are worried about are the people who try to keep themselves happy by staying to themselves. They don’t worry about the peers that surround them who made them this way.
The average time a murderer spends in prison is 25 years to life. But you never hear of the murderers who killed suicidal teens. Nothing happens to them.
I won’t kill myself.
In fact, in a few years I may look back and see how terrible high school really is. But for now, I’m trying to coup the best way I can.
Any way I can.
Unfortunately, many teens won’t see how high school is just so trivial. Unnecessary. And they will die from the pressure of society.

(** I originally posted this on Feb 27, 2013 as a work of non-fiction**)

My 22nd Bucketlist

As I enter my 22nd year of life, I realized several things. 

If you know me personally, you know that I always go above and beyond for others around me. It is so important to me that the people that I call my friends can rely on me to be there for them. But I have been realizing that you often get the same treatment back from them.

That's why this year is about me. 

Bettering myself to become the best version of myself.

So I have created a list of 22 things that I want to accomplish before I turn 23.

1. graduate from college
2. go backstage at a concert
3. swim in the ocean (again)
4. roadtrip
5. skydive
6. eat dinner with a celebrity
7. hike a mountain
8. be charitable; one BIG thing
9. sleep on a beach
10. be on the news (something good)
11. visit a museum 
12. see a show on broadway
13. try snowboarding
14. get a trust tattoo
15. paddle boarding
16. go on a float trip
17. see the northern lights
18. write and record a song/rap
19. see a drive in movie in the bed of a truck
20. visit a spa
21. lose 50 pounds
22. be in a wedding

Here it goes; "new year new me".

My Favorite Word: BLESSED

Follow me on any one of my social media accounts (cause lawd knows I have a lot) and you will see one word tossed around. I feel like I use it almost as much as the words "and" or "the". 

B L E S S E D .

To me, it is so very important to let the world know the ways in which I have been blessed. 

I've been blessed by:
- Friends
- Family
- Opportunities
- Good Health
- An Open-Mind (most of the time)
- And SOOOO much more.

But, behind the use of the word "blessed", is someone who has had tons of hardships in her life. 

Instead of focusing on the negatives around me, I try to think of all the things that I have to be grateful for. It's important to me to not only let the world know how I am blessed, but to also acknowledge the people in my life who have blessed me.

I post on my friends walls probably more than anyone in the world but that's because I truly feel like they have helped me in ways they will never understand. Their impact on my life has made me a completely different person than I was just a few short years ago. 

Some people would say I use "blessed" to much. Kinda like Oprah giving out cars. "You get a "blessed" and you get a "blessed". Everybody gets a "blessed"!"

To them I say:
You should feel blessed I don't use it even more.

-Faceltonisthetruth

#HeterosexualPrideDay is #Bullshit

I don't ever recall a time in my life where I put a label on my sexuality for anyone else but myself.  

I never had one of those coming out stories where I was scared to be accepted after revealing I had feelings on both sexes. I, unlike many, was lucky. To me, it was common sense to love for the feeling of love, and not for what lay between someone's legs. To me, it was common sense to love someone for who they were on the inside, not the outside. And it was no one else's business but my own so I never "announced" it. I just lived my life the same way as I had always lived. 

But as I got older, I learned that not everyone thought they same way. 

When I started high school, my little sister got more reclusive and was becoming extremely angsty (more than me, and I thought I was the queen of angst as a teen). After fighting for years and her becoming the shell of the girl that I once knew, she revealed to us what pain had been plaguing her heart: she was pan-sexual. 

To be honest, I was surprised. Not the fact that she was pan-sexual, but the fact that she even knew what that was. Being 3 years older, I thought I was so much older and wiser, but I didn't even know what this was. 

To my mom, dad, and I, it made no difference who my sister was or wasn't attracted to. If my parents were against it, they didn't say anything negative and allowed her to be her true self. 

Once she got that off her chest, she bounced back to her old self. Maybe not the exact same as before, but it was amazing to have my sister back. 

As I continued in high school, I was never in a relationship. I only had eyes for one person and that never panned out in my favor, but to me, I was in no rush. I had faith that things would work out in my favor eventually. 

But high school will be high school. I recall a boy who lived on my street asking me one day at the park during my senior year if I was a lesbian. This through me off. I wasn't a lesbian, I was bisexual. But why did it matter? Why did he have to put a label on my sexuality? He continued to say how that since I had never had a boyfriend in high school, that he just assumed that I was "one of those".

That was the last time I talked to that guy.

But I was still really angry. If I had said I was a lesbian that day, would that change me in his eyes? Would that extremely outgoing, involved, empowering female that he knew in high school some how become less based on who I liked? 

Within the next few years, I meet amazing people, straight, gay, bi, etc. etc. but that was never why I thought they were amazing. They were amazing people because of who they truly were, and not because they liked the same sex or not. 

I've gone to Pride Fest multiple times, which is one of the greatest places I have ever been in my life. I got the chance to take my little sister in 2016, and I thought my heart was going to burst in half. 

But only a few days after Pride, on June 29th 2016, I saw the hashtag #HeterosexualPrideDay surface and, god, I just don't understand. 

This is the first day that being straight is being recognized, you know, except every other day EVER since the beginning of time. 

The last time I saw a hashtag this stupid is when the hashtag #AllLivesMatter surfaced after the much needed hashtag #BlackLivesMatter popped up. 

What possible struggle could you have had being straight growing up? 

Was it:
How hard was it to tell your parents and family that you would be dating the opposite sex?
Did they disown you? 
How hard was it for you to be able to marry anyone of the opposite sex legally before the year 2015?
How hard was it for you to be able to donate blood while being classified as straight? 

Let me put your hashtag in perspective, shall I? 

Here is a chart of where it is illegal to be straight. 

.....Oh.... Yeah, I forgot, it's not.

Here is a chart of where it is still illegal to be gay/bi/etc. in the world. 

Big difference. 

Here is a photo of all the victims of Straight-Hate Violence. 

Shit, I couldn't find any..... That's because there wasn't any.

Here is a photo of all the victims of JUST ONE SINGLE LGBTQ Hate Crime.

Next time you want a stupid hashtag like #HeterosexualPrideDay, make sure to first #CheckYourPrivilege. 

-Facelton

Just because I'm not religious doesn't mean I don't have faith.

I bet you can't picture me in the pew of a Baptist Church in a long dress, my hair done, and praising the "holy spirit". Especially since most of my Sunday mornings now are spent hung over in my bed. eating a gallon of ice cream, and Netflixing. 

But not that long ago, that was me. I worshiped to a God that my family believed in, but even as a child, I had doubts about. I would say that's where I started my acting "career". Every Sunday, come rain or shine, I was stood in front of the entire congregation, singing my heart out about God and his son, and their love for us. Every note, every lyric for me meant nothing.

Within the next few years, I stopped going to church because I didn't like it. Of course, that's not why my family thought I stopped. I just became to busy and involved in other things that made going to church harder for me. 

In high school, I started going to a church on Wednesday nights but only because my friends went and this church played amazing games, such as "Water in the Face" (if you don't know this game, I'm so sorry). While I was there, I started to think a little more about my belief in something above. But ultimately, I wasn't sure if there was a "God".

But here is where it gets confusing. I have faith. While my faith may not be the faith of believing in God or Jesus, or a higher power, I still have such a strong feeling of faith in my life. 

The other definition of faith is "complete trust or confidence in someone or something" and by that definiation, I have faith in so much: 

1.) Faith in Myself:

I have faith in myself to take care of myself and to lead and follow things to help me become a better me. I have faith that I will accomplish things that I have my heart set on now, and I have faith in knowing that I will be able to tell if these things are achievable or not. 

2.) Faith in my Future:

For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted children and a spouse to come home to and I have faith that it is going to happen. I have faith that even though I am no where near this goal right now, that if I have my sights set on it, IT WILL HAPPEN. 

3.) Faith in my Friends:

My friends have gotten me through some of the worst times in my life and I don't know where I would be without them. I have faith in them accomplishing their own dreams. I have faith in knowing that they will become bigger and better people and that everything is possible for them.

4.) Faith in Faith

Even if I don't have faith in everything, I have faith in faith. I have always tried to be a positive person because there has always been just to much sadness to focus on the downsides in my life. I have faith in faith because without it, I'm not sure what else I would have.

Who knows, maybe one day I will have a "God-Sent" moment in which I realize that I am religious and find God's love was here this entire time. But I can't rely on him now. I have to rely on myself and my faith. 

-Facelton