Real

Once upon a time I fell in love with a girl.

(I promise this isn't a love story)

But I did. I fell in love with a girl. LOVE PEOPLE. I FELT LOVE. I know I'm only 17 and I know I'm young but I LOVED this girl so much. I felt like I was going insane and thought the butterflies in my stomach would one day just fly out because there were too many of them! I began to start thinking "I need to get this girl to like me back!"

My mom always told me I could talk to her about anything and that she would always be there for me. So I decided to talk to her about my new-found love. I'll cut all the fluff and cut to the chase. My mother told me that I wasn't in love. Just shot me down and said that I couldn't be in love. I was way too young to comprehend that. "Love is blind honey. Your love isn't real." 

I'm sorry, let me say that again. My mother had just told me that my love wasn't REAL. As if I was incapable to feel such feelings because of course, I couldn't. I was just too young. 

Then I proceeded to have a SERIES of adults tell me that I was incapable of love because love didn't exist in teenagers. Every counselor, teacher, parent, aunt, uncle, adult friend, and even people I didn't know told me that there was no way I was in love.

Once upon a time I was depressed. 

(I promise that this isn't a depression story)

But I was. I was clinically depressed. I know. Mainstream. But I FELT DEPRESSION. What else was I supposed to do? 

Now, I'm not saying I'm so popular, but I had a very considerable amount of friends who I cared about dearly and who I considered to be my "Best Friends." Once I had started to feel this depression, what did I do? I naturally turned to friends because I didn't want to be depressed, if that seemed to be the case. 

Unfortunately, I had two people; Not one, not three, but TWO people tell me that one of my "Best Friends" had said that my depression wasn't REAL. They said that I was pretending to be depressed because I wanted to fit in, because being depressed was "Cool" 

I'm sorry, I'll just say it one more time. One of my BEST FRIENDS who I had held so near and dear to my heart and who I cared for more than most other people on this earth had said that my depression was fake. Not REAL. Of course it wasn't depression. I can't think for myself. 

I remember when I told my parents I might be depressed. They simply said "No you're not. You're not depressed." They basically told me that my feelings weren't REAL. My parents and best friend didn't believe me. 

Look, I don't want to write a post where you say "Wow you have a bad mom." or "Wow your 'best friend' sucks." NO. I don't want that. I want to bring to your attention something that is sweeping the nation, and has swept my life. 

ALL TEENAGERS ARE THE SAME. 

I think it's amazing how all the adults and public figures tell us to break social norms and you don't have to "fit in"! Just be yourself! Yet, when teenagers do these things, they're viewed as abnormal or "deranged". 

All teenagers are the same, so apparently we all can't feel real things. 

I don't know what's more real, a teenager who "thinks" they're in love, or a teenager who feels compelled to take his own life. When someone is holding a razor to their arms and all they can say "Just do it!" 

That's real.

It's just amazing how nothing is real until something like this happens. And then people say "Why didn't we see it sooner? What could we have done?"

Listen.

Be there.

Be real.

Does It Matter?

I hear from my friends all the time that they're afraid of the future. They're afraid of what college they're going to go to, they're afraid of moving out, they're afraid of ending up like their parents, they're afraid of getting marred, and blah blah blah all that stuff.

Don't get me wrong, I'm terrified of that too. But rather than the near future, I'm more afraid of the far away future. Which when you think of the grand scheme of things, is the near future.

I'm most afraid of that one day, I'm going to be sitting at Einstein's Bagels, chowing down on my favorite original bagel with regular cream cheese spread and thinking "What did I do with my life?" 

When my gray hairs start to wither and my skin loses it's youth, what will I be doing? Will I have a wife? Kids? Grand kids? Will I have a disease I can't help? Cancer? Will all my loved ones around me start to die? My best friends? My parents? 

I'm in high school, and all that people seem to say is "In ten years, this won't matter." Well what about 20, 30, 40 years? If none of this matters, does ANYTHING matter anymore? I'm not so sure.

I just don't want my life to waste away. I want it to matter.

This is my best friend

"The sky is full of the sorrow of living. A blanket of the meaninglessness of existence." - Atreyu Brooks

Ah.

She claims she is a poet of the sky.

Again, Ah.

But you know what, I love her anyway :)

<3

Hi

Hi, I don't think we've ever met. My name is Ardon Smith. I've done a lot of things in my life. One of the things I did was start a blog. This is my blog. Not many people read it. That's okay though. I never really kept myself a secret as the author of this blog, but if by any chance you had NO CLUE WHO I WAS, here I am.

 I am an actor. Hence why I am blue in that picture. Without acting I would legitimately be dead. So, there. Also, I'm not the best singer, dancer, writer, actor, friend, etc, yadda, yadda, yadda. But I've learned to try and be happy with myself. Nothing in this world matters more to me than my friends and my craft. I hope that you can say the same for you. I love almost everyone and if you want to be my friend, I can happily oblige. This will not go down in history as a huge reveal or the best blog post ever written, but this is who I am.

Moments

I loved you once.

I still really do.

I didn't want it to end, because I knew that we would have been so FREAKING AWESOME TOGETHER. 

I know that a lot of people thought otherwise.

Apparently you did too.

Don't get me wrong, I don't blame you for anything, it just wasn't meant to be I guess. One of those "fate" things, you know?

Just allow me to tell you some things that I've wanted to say since that cold winter day when I knew I wouldn't ever really see you again...

The moment you told me that you loved me, I instantly loved you back. 

The moment that we kissed, I knew that you meant what you had said.

The moment you said that we were done, I knew that I never wanted to let you go.

And the moment I saw you smiling with another guy, I knew that all that I cared about was you being happy.

And in that moment, I knew that even if I had loved you with all my heart and with all the world, it still wasn't enough.

But that was okay.

Love,

- Bennett

Love is Not A Race

One of the most mind boggling things that I can think of is marriage. Like, marriage is so far beyond what I can really comprehend. We all seem to look at it too lightly, and that's not necessarily anybody's fault, that's just the way marriage is portrayed. You can watch a two hour movie and at the end a couple gets married.

THAT'S SO FAST.

Getting married is a huge milestone for anyone. It's something that people look forward to their whole lives. 

"I'm going to find my Prince Charming and we shall be wed."

I feel like a lot of people, especially where I live, just say "Oh I'm going to come back from my mission and I'm going to get married." 

This isn't against religion or anything, but WHAT? 

Just like that, you're going to come back from your mission and just get married? It sounds a little arranged.

I thought we didn't do that kind of thing anymore.

According to basically everyone I know, my view of marriage is very different than that of my peers and my community.

I don't think you should plan when you'll get married. Yes, you will find the one and you will PLAN WHEN YOU GET MARRIED.

Not my point. <=== (Get it? The period is a point? Anyways...)

The way I view relationships and love is in this simple phrase, and if you know me, you've heard it. "You should find someone that loves spending time with you as much as you love spending time with them. But in a romantic way."

Love can appear out of nowhere, but that doesn't mean love WILL pop out of nowhere. Nothing that is even remotely affiliated with love is planned or forced. Every single married couple I've talked to has told me that they never expected to fall in love with their spouse. They didn't plan love.

And if you try to force love, I guarantee you it WILL come back and bite you in the ass. The world just doesn't work that way.

I do believe everybody can fall in love. I believe everyone will fall in love. Maybe even more than once or twice. 

I'm going to leave you to think about it this way. Love is kind of like running around a track in P.E. 

You can run really REALLY fast. And you'll finish first. And then you're done. (You're married, you'll have kids, anniversaries, yadda yadda yadda.)

But you know those kids in P.E. who just walk? And they take their time? They still finish just like everyone else. (Longer time, same ending)

Love is not a race.

Love,

-Bennett

The Inner Thoughts - Outside

As I sat outside today, I realized something... I haven't been outside in a long time!

Well, I mean, I HAVE been outside, but I haven't really been outside in a while.

Let's lift our drinks to contradicting sentences. *clink*

But you all know what I mean. To just sit outside and to be released from the confines of what awaits us inside our own homes. Chores, parents, brothers, sisters, video games, computers, ovens, doors, chairs, and even our own beds.

Everything that bothers us doesn't matter anymore because it's all away from us. Because we are outside. Where the grass is green, the children play, and the sky is blue. Or gray, if it's raining.

Have you ever thought of the theory that nothing exists unless you're there? Like, when you're in your room and the door is shut, nothing outside your room exists... That everything OUTSIDE isn't real?

Isn't that mind boggling?

It kind of makes you the center of the universe. Nothing is real until you see it... Touch it... Believe it.

So is anything really real?

Love,

-Bennett

My Star

You know, there arE a million bajillion trillion stars in the sky. There are too many stars in the sky to even begin to count. There's one that I started to notice some time ago... About three and a half years ago, one star in particular came into my view. I got out my telescope and I decided to say "That is a star worth looking at." Little did I know that this star... This one little star had aN amazing story to tell. This one little star had managed to change my life for the better. Yeah, I know, a star changed my life. But I know that if you know this particular star, it has changed your life too. It never directly told me it's history, I mean, it's a star. But as the days turned into weeks, and weeks into months, and the months into years, I finally got the story out of this one star.

I used to spend endless summer Days waiting for night time, so I could go outside, feel the cool summer night breeze, lay down in my driveway, and look at that star. I'd talk to it for hours on end. I'd sing to it, I'd crack stupid jokes to try to get a reaction, and when I saw that the star was dim, I tried to cheer it up. It didn't always work, but every now and then, I saw a twinkle. 

You know how theY say most of the stars that we see are long dead, and their light is just still traveling to us? Well, in case you're wondering, this star is still alive. At least, I hope so. But this star seems to be fading into the distance. I don't know if it is dying or if it is just physically Moving away from me, but all I know is... I don't want it to go. 

This star has made me feel hurt and love and joy and sorrow and so many more emotions. It's not fair that it gets to move away. What does it matter to the star? It's just a star, it can't feel anythIng! 

Or can it? 

I believe it can. I believe that when this star looks at the moOn, it feels so much. I mean, why would it want to stop looking at the moon?

We all kNow that story. 

I love you,

-Bennett

Digging

You wanna know what sucks about the world?

The world.

Let's get real, the world kind of sucks a lot. There's starvation in third world countries, starvation, death, pollution, homicides, serial killers, fast food (even though I buy it. Shh.), bullies in high schools, terrorists, etcetera etcetera etcetera.

SO MANY THINGS.

And there's probably more than just those things I listed, sadly. 

But take it from someone who almost killed themselves last week, there is that light at the end of the tunnel. I got to the place where I never thought I would reach. I danced on the edge of destruction, so to speak. (If you get that reference, I love you.) 

There are all these things that will try so hard to bury you underneath the ground you stand on, but you know... I had people dig me out right before I wasn't able to breathe anymore. 

And if you ever feel alone, remember this, I love you. Even if I have never met you, or I've only met you once, or I see you every day, I love you.

Cliche, I know, but get off of me.

Love,

-Bennett