Breathe

It's been way too long.

I need to write. To just write. To breathe and to live. Through the words that make me.

Therefore, please forgive me if I don't seize your attention, if I don't leave you with your jaw on the ground, if I don't present anything revolutionary, insightful or uplifting. That's not my intent.

---

Last year in AP Lit, we had to do these terrible papers called logs. I actually only ended up writing two, but it was the third, the one that remains unwritten and resulted in my lowest grade in high school, that has had the greatest impact on me.

When I read Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, the few people that I were able to talk to about it had hated it. This was distressing seeing as I had absolutely loved the play; it left me bawling for hours. Then, a few weeks ago, when I decided to take a shortcut through the HFAC, I passed one of several posters advertising upcoming events in BYU Fine Arts. One such poster caught my attention and I was elated to find that the same play which I had so enjoyed last year was being put on by the department. In that very moment I determined that I would go, even if I had to live without bread for a few weeks.

It was phenomenal.

I won't go into the artsy details, even though the form was amazing. I won't go into the specific characters, even though they were portrayed outstandingly. I won't even go into the depth of the message shared, even though it would drive the coarsest person to tears. If any of these things are of interest to you, by all means, let's chat. I could talk for hours about these details.

What I will share is my heart.

Each one of God's children is of infinite worth. Each one of God's children deserves a life of love, deserves feelings of self-worth. Willy Loman is real. He is as real as each and every one of us. He breathes, he eats, he cries, he laughs, he feels. I don't want to lose that. I don't want to lose that sense of reality. I don't want to lose sight of who I am. I wander through life with my eyes closed and with my heart sealed shut. I block out pain and I run from sorrow. It's only in those moments of greatest torment that I allow my grief to spill into my pillow. No one else gets to know. No one.

But I am real. I do cry. I do doubt. And I'm also happy. Life isn't meant to be lived in tears. Sometimes hard rains will fall, but a rainbow will always follow. A rainbow, well, I'm not really a rainbow gal either. But go with me for a moment. Close your eyes. Open your mouth. And smell the rain. Life is renewed. You are refreshed.