savior-generation:

“Right now, this town is for the taking
We’ll bring neon to its knees
Our time to shine beyond the pavement
We got everything we need”

- This City Is Contagious (The Cab)

(via freakbast)

1 month ago

106 notes

I started running again on Monday. After the first mile I thought my heart was going to jump out of my chest and beat itself to death on the concrete. I rain about 3.5 miles all together. I took lots of breaks, I sprinted right after them like the genius I am. I ran again yesterday, doing about 4.5 miles. I made it to a bridge in a nearby town. I got all excited thinking there was going to be some pretty little stream or river or anything with water in it. The bridge was an overpass, but it was pretty nonetheless. I forgot how amazing I feel after I run. My knees have been giving me problems lately, or else I would have started as soon as the weather got nice in late March. So I compromised with myself to at least do crunches once a day in my room, and dance off at least a few servings of the nutella I eat a day. My knees got better, but I guess I stayed lazy so I started doing ab work twice a day, rewarding myself with an X on my calender whenever I did them. Today I woke up at 1:45, which is actually quite early compared to the time I’ve normally been getting up. I’ve turned nocturnal and can no longer sleep. I’ve watched the sunrise more times in London this months alone than I have seen in my entire life. Waking up seems impossible every day. I make myself get up before 2:30, because I hate the idea of sleeping away my day, but I’m just so tired from being up until 6 am. After getting random things on my to-do list done, I prepared for my run, which I like doing from 6-7 p.m., I seem to have the most energy then, and there is still some daylight. I did my ab workout, got dressed and right when I went to leave for my lovely little jog, rain. I shouldn’t say rain, it’s more like a downpour. It has come almost every day for the past week and a half, for about 20 minutes a day. It usually happens in the morning or early afternoon, but today it decided to come late. I sat on my bed contemplating if I wanted to wait it off. Part of me was saying “YESSSS an excuse not to kill myself running WOOOO!”, the other half was saying “You really need to continue running and get yourself in shape and healthy, you want to wear a two piece this summer don’t you?”. Ironically what really motivated me was I needed milk and I had just run out of nutella this morning and still almost have an entire loaf of bread. I decided to go outside and walk to the store if it was raining and if it wasn’t, I’d run. To my delight (and/or disappointment) the rain had completely stopped by the time I got downstairs (4th floor walkup, woo). I put on a playlist called “Songs I can jam out to by myself”, which mostly consists mostly of embarrassing songs nobody besides me would probably enjoy. My playlist was on shuffle so the first song that came on was Miley Cyrus’s Party In the U.S.A. This song instantly lifted my spirits. The more time I spend away from the states, the more American I feel like I’m becoming. The more appreciative I become of what it means to be American, and for all the things at our disposal. I decided today I didn’t care, and I would openly mouth all of the lyrics whenever I felt like it (I always cringe when I see people doing this.. and here I am.. pretending to be on stage performing for thousands as I run around Harrow). When I first left, the sky looked pretty clear and blue, and the dark clouds were in a distance and heading away from me. I had in my mind where I wanted to turn, and practically sprinted the last half way there. After I crossed the street it started to sprinkle rain, and the sky had almost gone completely dark and scary looking (like when you’re watching a scary movie and the fun stops and it instantly starts raining so getting away from the murderer is now impossible. Completely like that.) As I started to make my way back, my legs started to feel the pain of the past two yesterday’s doings. The song “Come Clean” by Hilary Duff came on, just as the rain started to pick up. I couldn’t help but smile when she sang “Let the rain wash down and wake my dreams, let it wash away my sanity”. So now I dubbed myself “the crazy american on the corner” (next to a major highway) who was now spinning in circles with my arms stretched out wide starring at the sky laughing. Now, I’ve danced in the rain before, but it was always when I’ve gone into the storm with the intention of busting a move. And I’ve also been caught in the rain while running (last time was 2008 with my dog Tony, and it turned into a hail storm where I then accepted a ride from a complete stranger. Stupid or desperate? I was probably both.) Knowing no complete stranger in their right mind would ever pick me up, I knew the only way to get back was to run. Or walk. But walking would make me entirely soaked, and if I”m getting wet, I might as well get the job done, right? As I made my way back into Harrow the songs on this playlist were just getting better and better, CCR’s Have You Ever Seen The Rain? Came on. Unwritten by Natasha Beddingfeld came on. How perfect is that? When Freddy Fender’s “Knock Three Times” came on I switched over to my “rainy day” playlist. I made it to the corner store and picked up 7 pounds worth of food that shall last me the next week. The rain started to come down harder, but I only had a 5 minute walk left, so I thought I’d be fine, and it started to get sunny out. Sun showers are so much fun. But what I forgot about them is they make rainbows. I couldn’t tell you the last time I saw a rainbow, and for some reason it literally brightened my day. I felt like a little kid seeing one for the first time. I thought about stopping complete strangers to point it out to them so they could agree with me that it was beautiful. I decided to keep to myself and walked down the block, not taking my eyes off of it. I couldn’t wait to get home (no, it wasn’t that I was sopping wet and my shoes were squishy), I wanted to take a picture of the rainbow , so I could share it with everyone and maybe make it my picture of the day? The closer I got to the rainbow, the sunnier it got and the rain started to slowly stop. When I turned around the sky was black as night. As I reached the end of the street the rainbow had almost completely disappeared. Poof. Gone. It wasn’t even there for all of 3 minutes. I almost started to get sad when I began to think about the bigger picture. I know almost all of this will sound so cliche and “I’ve heard that before” but just because I was the only person I knew to see it’s beauty, doesn’t mean I was the only one who enjoyed it. Just because I couldn’t share it was someone I loved or cared about doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t enjoy it. I think of myself as being pretty independent. I’ve lived in various places (New York City, Orlando & London), and I can do many things completely by myself and be perfectly fine with it. As I’ve been traveling the world I realize that life is better when you get to share it with someone, but before you do that you have to enjoy things with yourself. As corny as experiencing a rainbow, which is obviously not something that only people in London get to see, I started to see all these events in my life that I have done alone that if I just let myself, I easily could have enjoyed them by myself. So I started to picture things I never thought about regretting, and I started regretting the way I handled things or felt about them. And then (yes this happened, this isn’t a cheesy symbolic story although it may clearly sound like one, stuff did happen, I did think this. And yes, it was probably the “deepest run” I’ve ever done. haha,) I turned around and saw all the darkness, and turned back around and saw the bright sunny sky, without the rainbow. It made me realize the past is in the dark because it’s over, thats not where my life is heading anymore, I’m choosing to look for the rainbows in life and enjoy them, and to not only dance in the rain or smile even when it seems impossible but to look for a brighter and more happier tomorrow, and most importantly today. It’s never to late to change your ways of thinking. I know that studying abroad inspires many self revelations and such, and I personally thought one of them would happen when I’m traveling through Paris or Spain or something, not in the backyard of the University Campus in which I’m studying at. I know it’s costing my family a lot of money for me to be here. Can I express in words how appreciative I am? Probably not. Getting to see things you grew up dreaming about is something I can’t put into words. Has the entire experience been a fairy tale? No, not at all. Every situation has it’s ups and downs, even if I were studying in Fiji I’m sure I’d get sick of the sun and sand. As I sit here in my warm comfortable bed (almost) all dried up, I can easily say that today I have no regrets, I may have disappointments (not finishing my paper) but no regrets. I’m making new playlists for my next week of running now, but I happily know that my sneakers won’t be dry enough for a run tomorrow, and I am more than okay with that. My cousin Melissa just messaged me on facebook and told me that in exactly one month from today she’ll be here. It got me so excited to know that I’ll be seeing her so soon and that we’ll be venturing off to Barcelona and Madrid together but also sad because it means this journey in my life is coming to an end. I don’t necessarily miss “home”, just the people that are there. I’ve been getting really excited for the summer ahead, knowing in the back of my mind it will be my last summer as a “kid”, and to soak up every moment of the life I live without overwhelming responsibilities, debt, and taxes. Being here in London, I’m trying to make myself more at ease and relaxed and to go with the flow more often, take WAY more chances and stop being so careful. I’m too young to have such a long list of regrets. I realize now that I’d rather regret doing something, than not doing it. I brought a framed quote with me that I feel is important to try to live by, and now I finally appreciate it, “Happiness is a journey, not a destination.”

1 month ago

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