Fate and Circumstance

While their minds are abuzz with freedom and anxiousness, my own is bogged down with things left unsaid, things I never could say, and things fate and circumstance never let me say.

“Please,” I whisper, earnestly yet with a certain finality, my hands gripping your shoulders with an unfitting strength. I stand back and look at you, search you, the creases in your forehead and curves of your lips. You rear back and there is a sudden moment of ecstasy in realization before I’m blinded.

I don’t see it happening until I’ve fallen. I touch my cheek and mouth and feel the burning, so hot that it freezes and then burns again and I look up and continue to search your face, my vision hampered. You come into focus and catch the light. I look down at my hand bemusedly and see red. Your foot meets my stomach before I see it coming and blood splatters as my lungs hitch.

I look up again. Your eyes hold a long-coveted and indelible passion and fire. My bloodied lips break into a smile and your foot comes up to meet it.

His hands clasp clumsily in his lap, twisting like mating serpents as he tries to warm them. The heat in the car is blasting but not quickly enough, and he glances at the driver as the latter puts the car into drive. The driver says something and looks over, as if for approval. The radio belts a melodious blend of white noise and country. He turns to the window. It starts in the corner and he doesn’t notice it until the inevitable condensation has all but completely blocked his vision, leaving him not to watch the passing scenery, but the blurring lights and colors that pass behind the fog, and then the window itself, inches from his face.

The difference is astounding.

Outside, serene and utterly reserved. Dreamlike and slow. Within, immediate and crass. Loud and demanding. All that is beyond the window, the world passing by, never converses, it just is. It never feels like extended silences need to be filled, it embraces them. The outside is not badgering, nor is it prevalent. The outside is not getting him where he is going. The outside is not changing him nor molding him. As it all stands, outside is nothing.

Nevertheless, he wipes down the window.

I don’t know where you are but the water is rising and you swam away and I stayed where I was, thinking you might come back for me and all you said was not to follow you and so I listened without question and now I’m kicking my feet and only my head is showing now and I’m scared I’m so scared because you haven’t come back yet like you never promised you would but I believed you would and I can only breathe through my nose now unless I tilt my head up but it hurts and I don’t know where to go and I’m tired and I’m sick of fighting the currents and I just want to be free of it all and as the water inches up closer past my eyes I realize that you weren’t coming back.
That you had no intention of coming back for me at all.
I gasp and cold water fills my lungs like fire.

I loved it when we fought. That doesn’t sound right and of course I didn’t love it while it was happening, but I really, truly loved it when I stood back. I loved the imperfection of it. The phenomena of two personalities clashing and making fire. The silence. The return to normalcy that did not necessitate apology, because the things that were being thrown back and forth were either too petty or too justified.

Everything felt so perfect, despite that imperfection. All of the imperfections. I don’t know what I was seeing, but it all looked so blended and wonderful and ideal and

that was happiness for me. All of it, around the clock. I was happy laughing, talking, thinking. Fighting. All of it.

I just hope you were happy too, despite it being different. I hope you were happy in your way. I hope you continue to be happy. I do beyond everything else.

I simultaneously love and despise late night, long distance drives. Where everything’s silent except the rhythm-less, hypnotic bumps of the road and the sound of cars passing you on the highway while you suck in air from the vents that burns as it enters. You become aware of your knees pressing into the dashboard and the seat pushing unnaturally against the back of your head. And you look up at the sky, tinted a gray-ish purple from some modest city over a mountain and you begin to wonder if the world will ever find itself in such a place where future generations will never know what it’s like to look up into the sky and see the stars, and that worries you a little. You wonder if they’ll ever even know what they’re missing, or more importantly if they’ll even care. And then you’re left alone with your thoughts (and maybe this would be amended if you were driving, but I wouldn’t know), helped along by a seemingly endless playlist of melancholy songs that you stretch to fit your current predicament all provided by some four-by-two-and-a-half inch chunk of modernity. And you wonder if maybe for a while the world could take pause and focus on these worries, because as it goes the drive seems to show that maybe the world isn’t quite so small as we think, but also not so vast as we try to imagine. And maybe the world could, during that pause, unite to try and help you along because you need something like that, some universal understanding and guidance to make you realize if what you’re doing is right or what you need to be doing is staring you in the face. And you watch the cars pass to your right or to your left or both and wonder whether each individual person can either relate to or one-up your own troubles. You wonder if they’re also consumed at this very moment by whatever afflicts them and you wonder if maybe they’re hoping for that dramatic moment of pause where the entire world unites to help too, because that’s really what everyone needs. But that doesn’t happen and it won’t and the road stretches on before you.

She had never seen the city, she told him, and so he promised her that he would take her one day, and that she wasn’t allowed to go without him because he wanted to be there when she finally saw it. And so she waited, and so he kept his promise. And so, as she lay sleeping in the passenger seat, he shook her awake when the view was perfect. And so she awoke and realized she was in love. [source]

She had never seen the city, she told him, and so he promised her that he would take her one day, and that she wasn’t allowed to go without him because he wanted to be there when she finally saw it. And so she waited, and so he kept his promise. And so, as she lay sleeping in the passenger seat, he shook her awake when the view was perfect. And so she awoke and realized she was in love.

[source]

Eleven years. Eleven. 11. I’m seventeen now. I’ve given much more than half my life to this series. I’ll stop there because there are others who have stuck with Harry for a shorter amount of time and have proven themselves to be greater fans than myself by leaps and bounds but that’s not the point of any of this because there are no great fans or greater fans or better fans because they own more merchandise or did more because opportunity or creative genius allowed them to. We’re all fantastic. Those who open their eyes and a book to Harry in the future will be fantastic and will be worth no less than any of us because at the end of the day we share nothing but a wonderful, magical series and wonderful, magical connections with those that feel the same way.

When I was thirteen or so and feeling far too introspective and self-aware for my own good I would panic. Harry Potter would reach its ultimate conclusion when I was seventeen, an age that felt lifetimes away and, more importantly, an age that seemed characterized by apathy and scorn. I worried that Harry, at that time, would have long become a topic of indifference for me and that terrified my thirteen-year-old self. Much more than it should have. Looking back it almost feels foolish or at the very least entirely unnecessary worrying. There’s something about Harry Potter. Rather than outgrowing it as you age it evolves with you and follows you. It doesn’t lose its simple magical qualities and it shouldn’t because that in itself is something to wonder at, but it metamorphoses with you, giving you newer insights into life itself and a different perspective every time you approach it.

It feels like every life lesson you should ever need can be found within in the pages of this series. It’s like looking for the perfect song to describe how you’re feeling at a particular moment. You settle for a favorite and forgive a few places but the essence is there and it’s a comfort because there’s understanding on some level, but most of all there is familiarity. Love, loss, acts of bravery, and so much more can be found within the bindings of Harry Potter. The complications of the human psyche and the enormous struggles that even one person can be forced to deal with. I learned how to cope with my problems and I learned to hope and imagine a future that was better when things looked dim.

I learned from Harry Potter, before anyone else, that the circumstances under which a person is born has absolutely no bearing on the decisions they make and their overall character. That it is okay to be afraid sometimes, but that that fear may have no hold on you. That love is truly the most powerful form of magic in our world (wizarding or otherwise) and that when all else fails, love would prevail and save. That even the strongest among us can carry more on their shoulders and have more regrets than the weakest. That the most unlikely among us can turn out to show the greatest acts of bravery and heroism, and that those that seem the most evil among us have only been misguided.

I genuinely feel sorry for anyone who hasn’t or wasn’t allowed to read Harry Potter, because it is truly a story for the ages. I have learned so much from it, and if everyone had a chance to take something away from this series I truly do think the world would be a better place. It’s plain to see just how much light this story makes in the world, not only from my own experiences, but from those of others. I’ve made more friends because of Harry Potter than I can count and I know the same can be said for all of those people and many, many more.

So thank you, Harry Potter. For creating something that a generation and so many more will cherish for centuries to come. Thank you for being there for us when things seemed darkest, allowing us to escape our world for your own. Thank you for being our best friend and for letting us share yours. Thank you for the memories. Thank you for the magic.

(Source: getyourassbeat)

Sometimes he would stop himself. And the moments where he stopped himself were fleeting but terrifying. And there was a beauty to those moments. Those moments where analysis of conscience and consciousness sent all his thoughts into override and everything would shut down. You can’t think those things you can’t let yourself think those things because they aren’t real and they will never be real and you won’t stop and then they will become you because they’re better than this - than knowing. And as he tells himself no he pinches and scratches and bites and punches until everything hurts too much because he hopes this will train him but it doesn’t seem to work but training himself isn’t the only reason. Because sometimes the anguish goes beyond the mind and needs to be released or he’ll explode or he’ll fucking explode and that’s scary that’s not something he can think about. And he doesn’t even have the benefit of being blind to it all. He knows he’s going mad.

There’s a stereotypical pull towards destruction and mayhem when it comes to teenagers and maybe they were ignoring it or just didn’t hold with it but in any case it was avoided, at least that day. They recognized their ability to be wise and self-aware. They realized their timing was perfect, caught between adolescence and adulthood, and bringing with it a mixture of innocence and knowledge of the world and maturity and a will to be carefree. The ability to be realistic but the willpower to dream. Quick to scorn or parody but the capacity to appreciate and be reverent of something that transcends itself.And they encapsulated these divine contradictions and found others that recognized it and wished to do the same. And they wanted to do simple things with that knowledge. They watched a sunset and said nothing because there was an understanding. And maybe they weren’t all thinking the same thing but as they watched they understood. And then they drove and drove and then the driver stopped and pulled off the road at the perfect moment, wordlessly, when a field with golden grass growing above their knees looked too good to pass up. And then they drove and drove and drove and stopped again and talked. Just talked. Eventually they sank into themselves, listening to the thoughts of others as they talked and talked and wondered how they jumped from this thought to that and why don’t they think like him or her? But they shake it off because that’s the fear of individualism and that wasn’t the point anymore. Of any of this. That was never the point. And they might have found love that day but most importantly of all they found themselves. And that was the point. That is the point. [source]

There’s a stereotypical pull towards destruction and mayhem when it comes to teenagers and maybe they were ignoring it or just didn’t hold with it but in any case it was avoided, at least that day. They recognized their ability to be wise and self-aware. They realized their timing was perfect, caught between adolescence and adulthood, and bringing with it a mixture of innocence and knowledge of the world and maturity and a will to be carefree. The ability to be realistic but the willpower to dream. Quick to scorn or parody but the capacity to appreciate and be reverent of something that transcends itself.

And they encapsulated these divine contradictions and found others that recognized it and wished to do the same. And they wanted to do simple things with that knowledge. They watched a sunset and said nothing because there was an understanding. And maybe they weren’t all thinking the same thing but as they watched they understood. And then they drove and drove and then the driver stopped and pulled off the road at the perfect moment, wordlessly, when a field with golden grass growing above their knees looked too good to pass up.

And then they drove and drove and drove and stopped again and talked. Just talked. Eventually they sank into themselves, listening to the thoughts of others as they talked and talked and wondered how they jumped from this thought to that and why don’t they think like him or her? But they shake it off because that’s the fear of individualism and that wasn’t the point anymore. Of any of this. That was never the point. And they might have found love that day but most importantly of all they found themselves. And that was the point. That is the point.

[source]

wheretheducksgo:

It’s 11:11 and I can’t think of a wish. I can think of wishes and wishes, but I can’t just think of one and oh no the seconds are ticking by and oh no I’m running out of time quick just make a wish but- what? Do I wish for last April when everything seemed perfect because it was new, because I was wanted by someone I wanted back more than anything or- or do I wish for you, your hair longer and your eyes softer and your lips more relaxed? Do I wish for my friend to be happy because that’s all I want I want him to be happy because the words he says the words he writes are something that he wants to cover someone else with that someone doesn’t like his words, never seemed to like reading and always said writing was stupid. But what do I wish for because the seconds keep flying by and there are so many things to wish for and nothing to wish for at the same time and- I made a wish. 

It turns out my clock is a minute fast. 

(via wheretheducksgo-deactivated2011)