"You weren’t supposed to have your past be so close to your present." -Ryan O'Connell

Thought Catalog

12 Of The Most Insightful Things My 3-Year-Old Brother Has Said To Me

Aug. 22, 2013

By Brianna Wiest 

“People are not for sale.”

“I love you because I think you’re the best girl in the world. And I love you a hundred.”

“I love you means I like you a lot, and I want you to be happy.”

“Life is about home. And ice cream.”

“You can’t fight with people because it’s mean, and it’s not nice. And their feelings will have to go to the hospital and get a bandaid.”

“The best thing about life is that you love people.”

“Sometimes you just need a nap and a hug. Or chocolate milk.”

“Animals are like people with fur, they just talk to us in meows.”

“The world goes round and round and doesn’t stop so we get dizzy from spinning. It gets dark, but then the sun comes up. Into the moon.”

“Mommys are for protecting you. So I’m going to be sweet to her, and protect her too.”

“I cry when you’re gone because I miss you, because I love you more than dump trucks.”

“Okay, I’m going to be the daddy and you can be the other daddy, and she will be the baby, and we’ll be a family.”

Life Is A Verb: Update

So a lot of the entries started becoming more personal, so I ended up finishing this in a journal that I have, plus it is the way she recommends doing this activity.  I really enjoyed it overall, although some were more challenging-espeically stuff I wouldn't put up here.  Anyways, I recommend this book to anyone looking for some kind of daily reflection.  I'm thankful for this book, because it gave me a regular reflection schedule that I now use with my bible.

The Start of Something New

Maybe it's because it's 2am on a Friday, and I'm curled up in my bed reading books and the Bible and playing music from my past on repeat with a dash of my newfound music, but I feel like I'm on the precipice of change.  My last semester in college is weeks away from starting, and the countdown until graduation is racing forward, whether I want it to or not.  I don't feel like I'm done here.  I haven't done enough, haven't loved enough, haven't lived enough.  But I type those words, and it feels like a lie.  I've done plenty.  I've had moments that I wouldn't trade for anything, and made friends who have truly shaped me into a stronger and better individual.  I've learned things about myself that I didn't realize, and been humbled in ways I didn't think possible.  It's been an amazing 3 years thus far, and the thought of it being over in 117 days is utterly terrifying.  Also, I'm 22 in less than a month.  For some reason this feels almost more adult than my impending December graduation.  I'm excited for the future...I guess, isn't that what I'm supposed to say? Yeah, I am excited but also scared totally shitless.  That too.  

Oh well, it's time to sleep.  My room is all hot and sticky.  The downside of Texas weather.  The AC can never get cool enough

Gray

So I've just recently finished Gray by Pete Wentz.
And because I love quotes, and because Pete is a wonderful lyricist.
I'm just going to use this entry to mark all of the quotes that really stick with me, for some reason or another.

• "I am an anchor for an anchor" (1)
• "...and there's really nowhere else I can go, and even if there were, it wouldn't make a difference because I'd just be running from myself, and you can't do that no matter how hard you try, and trying hard is what got you in this predicament in the first place" (2)
• "I'm an insomniac, my mind works the night shift" (2)
• "..and this bed is barely big enough for my own baggage" (5)
• "We call him the Disaster for the all the reasons you'd expect.  He's always looking for something to ruin.  He is a man of few words...a man of action.  He has no feelings or remorse, no regrets.  He is everything I am not.  He's pretty much my hero" (9)
• "There is something intensely foreign about Texas, like secession is imminent.  Or death.  Both are definite possibilities" (13)
• "My intimacy problems are with the world" (16)
• "Every movement has a meaning, either yes or no.  It's getting later and later" (17)
• "She's changed, I think.  Or maybe I have.  There's too much distance between us now to tell.  Too much water under the bridge.  Too much mileage between the legs.  It's awful" (17)
• "I'm not just taking trips down memory lane; I am broken down on it" (18)
• "She looked like a fawn separated from Her mother, spindly and unsure, waiting to be hit in the dark by the car called me" (22)
• "I could throw modesty Her way, but modesty never looked too good on either of us" (30)
• "Those kinds of details seem trivial when your life is opening up, when the road is unfurling before you, when the future is yours for the taking." (33)
• "The air in Her bedroom is heavy with smoke, but the fireworks are over." (35)
• "The silence is the worst part of any fight, because it's made up of all the things we wish we could say, if we only had the guts." (36)
• "This is how your heart gets snagged, like a balloon on a barbed-wire fence, this is where pieces of you get torn away" (36)
• "I've got sunsets on the insides of my eyelids" (48)
• "Like I said, times are tough for dreamers." (50)
• "We head back to Madison just as the sun is turning the skyline red, and no one is the wiser.  The Mustang slides onto the interstate, the tires spinning through the melting ice.  The sun rises red over our shoulders.  It is quiet now, just the wind brushing by the windows and the hum of the engine.  Everyone is tired, staring out at the rapidly widening horizons, the cities and smokestacks and scrap heaps giving way to barren, windswept fields, bales of hay wrapped in tarps, distant farmhouses, roofs frosted with snow.  The sunlight is warm against our faces, our eyelids are heavy but happy.  Good songs are on the radio.  We sing along and pound the roof of the car with our fists.  It's like a movie scene." (64)
• "The years drip away with each tear, the letters and I love yous are shaken loose with each convulsion, and suddenly I can't summon the energy to do this, not now and not ever again.  We are a dying star in its last cosmic throes.  We are a ship with its hull pierced, the arctic water pouring in through the gash.  It's over." (69)
• "I look at it and laugh, even though I'm probably not supposed to.  The truth will do that to you" (81)
• "She is drinking whatever lowers her standards" (85)
• "I can feel my heart pounding, and I'm pretty sure I know why.  I should proabaly just delete it, go on with my life, but I don't.  The computer takes forever opening it, as if God or Steve Jobs were asking me, 'You sure you really wanna do this?" But then, there they are: Her words, filling my screen, and there's no turning back.  I make it as far as the first line before I feel my heart burst in my chest.  I miss you" (91)
• "Three little words; so much weight, so much desperations alive within them.  They're either the beginning, or the end, or both.  Probably both.  Rain pelts the window of the bus.  Big, angry drops.  Drops with a purpose" (94)
• "The past, the present, the future, it's all mine.  I can erase history.  I can eliminate what might be.  I can either write Her back, or not.  It's that simple.  Only it doesn't feel that way.  It feels profound, frighteningly, cripplingly so.  This is a fork in the road.  A Choose Your Own Adventure book.  A catastrophe waiting just around the corner.  For the first time, it's all up to me.  I realize in this instant that perhaps control isn't all it's cracked up to be.  There's a reason I've never been able to grab the reins: I'm not strong enough to do it. So now, not only am I paralyzed, but I'm furious at myself.  I am useless.  Weak.  A boy in over his head, hiding behind tattoos and one-night stands.  Trying hard to make sure nobody notices that he's drowning.  The rain really gets angry now, hammering the roof of the bus like machine-gun fire.  Heavy bullets from heaven.  heavy thoughts in my head.  Do I really miss Her? Did I ever love Her? Can I hurt Her again? I've been staring at Her e-mail for more than an hour, and my computer is running on fumes.  Just a tiny red sliver remains in the battery icon...I wish humans came with the same kind of indicator...it would make things so much easier.  You would know how to deal with every person on the planet, and I'd always be in the red." (94-95)
• "Call me a cliche.  I probably won't even notice." (150)
• "We are both too tired for grand gestures, both too weary to go on fighting" (161)

It really was a wonderful book that I found myself getting wrapped up in and forgetting to mark different quotes, especially as the novel progressed.  The perfect way to spend my Friday night.

S8 E16

"What's the plan...your plan which makes it our plan. Whatever it is I need to know. Are you planning a murder? A nuclear attack. It's fine. I'll get on board. I'm sure you have a good reason, but just let me know. You're starting to freak me out"

-Meredith Grey to Christina Yang

Renewal

So, this is something that I almost always struggle with: my faith.  It has been tested in a variety of ways, but I never truly doubt what I grew up learning about.  I know that some people do, and at times I've been guilty of the same thing.  But, at the end of the day, my faith and spirituality is something that means a lot to me.  It challenges me to do more, be a better person, and work harder.  It isn't something I talk about with people, even some of my closest friends.  What I believe is a personal thing, but lately I've been struggling because it's almost too private.  It's hard to hold myself accountable to what I believe and even harder to admit when I've done wrong.  It hasn't been sitting right with me the last few days, so I'm working on it.  I just found a couple of daily devotional emails that I'm now subscribed to.  I'm sitting in my bed about to open my bible, instead of watching Netflix, and I want to try going back to church.  Something I haven't done in 6 years.
Wish me luck.  Hopefully this isn't going to crash and burn like my constant attempts to "eat healthy" and "go to the gym" because those tend to work in my favor.
Here's to stepping forward into my future.


Also, I graduate from college in 127 days.  Deep breaths everyone.