An Anthology of Moments: A Final Reflection

     

Moments: On the Road

    Ahh, quotes! My one true love! I love quotes because they express beautifully exactly what I feel. In fact, I have a quote journal that compiles all my favorite quotes. 

      As you may have noticed through my profound love for quotes, I’m an avid reader, not writer. However, my favorite kind of writing is free writing—a blank paper, my thoughts, and I. Why? I’m also an avid over-thinker. Therefore, I love the idea of expressing myself in a beautiful and profound way; this is how I’m influenced by my love for quotes. I aspire to be featured in someone’s quote journal.

Moments: Family

            The creation of this blog has been an amazing ride. This blog, An Anthology of Moments, has been my way to express myself in a beautiful and organized way. It has allowed me to branch-out in terms of my writing by allowing it to be exposed to a large number of people. It is liberating to write something you believe is important and deep. It is also extremely fulfilling to feel like what you write—my thoughts and ideas—actually matter, even if to a few people. Just the mere possibility of being someone else’s quote in a quote journal is priceless because, if that’s the case, it means someone has related with me somehow. Hopefully, I’ve helped or changed their life like many quotes have done for me.

Moments: The Girls (minus Sabrina)

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Moments: Missing Girl (Sabrina)

This will be my final post for this blog as part of a literature course. Hopefully, I’ll have time to write some entries in the future since this has been an incredibly rewarding opportunity that I wouldn’t trade for anything. By far it had been the best course work I have come across in years. This writing experience has made me grow. Through this blog, I’ve been able to discover many things about life, love, happiness, and my journey through life. Thank you for being a faithful audience up to this point, and I encourage you to tune in periodically to see if I’ve uploaded anything.

In the sprit of quotes and the end of one journey (this course), a few words to reflect on from Nicholas Spark’s novel The Rescue that will, hopefully, shed more light on the meaning of this blog’s title. Here’s to individual moments that, when compiled, make up the person and their journey.

“People come, people go – they’ll drift in and out of your life, almost like characters in a favorite book. When you finally close the cover, the characters have told their story and you start up again with another book, complete with new characters and adventures. Then you find yourself focusing on the new ones, not the ones from the past.”

Moments: Learning Something New

― NicholasSparks, The Rescue

About Journal Writing: Finding Perfection in Imperfection

          Often do you see in movies the use of journals; the mother dies and leaves her children her journal as a piece of her essence so she may always remain alive. Many may roll their eyes at such movie clichés, but I’ve always found it mesmerizing. I’ve always possessed the desire to leave something behind—leave a part of my essence to remain in this world long after I’ve parted it. Journal’s carry this promise; they carry the certainty that you’re life left something—even if they were just words on paper.  Journals vow that you will be remembered in a forgetful and passing world.

I confess; I do not keep a journal. Many times I have tried to pick up the habit, but, ironically, life always seems to get in the way. Something’s always has got to give. Responsibilities steal great amounts of time from our lives and often seem more important than writing a couple of thoughts on a piece of paper. This semester, however, one of my classes (the very one this blog is dedicated to), incorporated journal writing into my responsibilities. It turns out that a push was all I needed to jump-start my journal writing.

However, this journal was not the traditional sort often depicted in films. It contained a specific set of rules (more accurately: “anti-rules”) specifically designed to improve the creative writing process. Taken from Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones, the anti-rules were the following:

1.     Don’t cross out.

2.     Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation or grammar.

3.     Don’t think. Don’t get logical.

4.     Go for the jugular.

5.     Keep your hand moving.

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Following the rules seemed fairly straightforward and easy at first and, for the most part, they were, with the exception of two rules. During most of my journal writing, I had a particularly hard time minding the anti-rules of not worrying about grammar and punctuation as well as not thinking or getting logical. These rules were the ones that most challenged my disposition towards perfection. Some days they were easier to follow, but other days they presented themselves as obstacles I needed to overcome.  This made me realize that my internal journey was greatly influenced by my logical and organized side. Our writing is the reflection of our internal and external journeys. Writing forty-six journal entries under rules that challenge the very nature of perfection helped me learn that my journey, and therefore my writing, is defined by my search for perfection.

Every single entry written challenged me in more than the intended way of helping my creative writing. Of course this part benefited from my journal writing since now I’m able to write more creatively, but the bigger feat of my semester’s companion consisted of schooling me in the art of acceptance. I write more freely now. My vocabulary and style are more relaxed, but they still maintain the order and structure needed; I have started on the path of acquiring the best of both worlds. Thanks to my journal, I can now look past writing perfectly, and towards writing something meaningful; that is, in itself, perfection.

My Big Journey

        We all have little journey's within our one big journey, our life. Me? I'm just trying to figure out what that big journey is and will be about in the end. However, we come to this earth for a purpose, and, once it's complete, we reach the end of the journey and pass on to a better life.

        I was born in Puerto Rico to a Cuban mother and Puerto Rican father. I have lived my nineteen years of existence right here on this island. I have only one living grandmother. Her husband, my grandfather, died of cancer in 2009. I had a boyfriend who I loved very much, but we both hurt each other. I'm a good student and daughter. A year ago, I was diagnosed with two conditions in my brain. In one of these, a section of my brain works more than it should and, in the other, another part of my brain works less than it should. You probably know these conditions as anxiety and depression, respectively.

January 2015: The Grand Canyon North

            I could go on and keep on giving you facts about me and my life, but more important to my identity and journey is that I've spent little time with my dad's family and all my time with my mom's. Although I was born and raised in Puerto Rico to a Puerto Rican father, I consider myself more Cuban than Puerto Rican. One of my greatest desires is to live in the United States. I love my island, but I just feel that I could love it more from a distance. I want adventure. I've visited the states (California, Florida, Nevada, Arizona, and New York), and I love the feel of the people: nice, but proper; amicable, but not invading. Moreover, my grandfather's death and my anxiety and depression diagnostics are two of the hardest moments I've had to face in my life. I was incredibly close to my grandfather, and when he died, I also lost a friend. Very recently, I was hurt very badly, and, in turn, I hurt someone as well so I'm guarded, and no one will ever touch my heart again.Coping with my depression and anxiety was and isn't an easy feat. Daily, I calm myself down and tell myself to be happy; “today is going to be good day”, but it usually isn't. 

            More importantly, I'm defined by my sense of ambition and perseverance. This is ultimately what has gotten me through the difficult moments. For me there's no failure. You can fail on occasions, but complete failure doesn’t exist because we can always try again. Ambition, contrary to popular belief, is not bad because it means dreaming and working for what you wish for. In this sense, I am ambitious. I'm a dreamer, and I have goals which I work hard to reach.

 My 19th birthday at Pirulos, Old San Juan, PR.
My ex-boyfriend (left) and I (right).

            Nevertheless, despite these self-evident truths about myself and my life, I'm still working on figuring out my big journey—what it’ll be and its meaning. The little journeys in my life which you, in the course of these words, have witnessed are the ones that will shape that big journey called life. Meanwhile, I work hard to be the best version of myself I can possibly be. That, with the help of the experiences and people I come across, will ultimately define my journey.

To Belong

       Belonging: that's what most of our life's journey is about. We all want to belong, but not many realize that, to fit into a group, you must first find your place (where you belong) within yourself. In other words, belonging depends on acceptance; therefore, to be able to be accepted by another group, we must discover and, subsequently, accept ourselves first. Discovering who we are is the first and most important stage of learning where to belong. Who do I want to be? What kind of person do I want to be. Once that is figured out (not without many needed hardships along the way), we belong, not only in light of ourselves, but also in light of others. Running Brave, the 1983 film based on the true story of Billy Mills a North American Indian who grew up in a reservation and after plenty of soul searching went on to be one of the greatest runners in the world, is a film that deals with the search for both social and personal belonging throughout life's journey.        

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        Throughout the film we see how the main character, Billy Mills shifts from one cultural background to the other, identifying himself with each one while trying to find in which he belongs. For example, Mills is of half-White, half-Indian origin which denotes the character's identity struggle. Billy grew up in the reservation with Indian customs, but when he became a college-bound man, his situation shifted him to the "White" (as referred to in the film) community. Accordingly, said group has different customs in which Billy (later at his dismay or ease) finds himself immersed. Furthermore, he then, having quit running, finds himself back on the reservation promoted by the disappointment he felt towards the people in his surrounding and their actions as well as his unhappiness. Nevertheless, not being able to disappoint his people and face a traumatic experience upon his return to the reservation, he enlists in the army where he starts arduously training to achieve his dream: participating in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.       

       That being the case, the moment of Billy's change back to hope and spirit is the decisive moment where he finds where he belongs personally and socially. In that precise moment when Billy regains his dream of running in the Olympics as a part of Team USA, he finds and accepts where he belongs. He realizes he isn't Indian or White. He's both; half and half (just like his origin denotes), and that's what makes him special. This is evident when he recognizes that he's running for his people. Although interpreted as the people in the reservation, by "his people" he means both Indians and White. He's running for his country (the United States of America; his people).         

      Finding who we are and where we belong is a rite of passage that does not discriminate in this journey we call life. The road may certainly be rocky sometimes, but the good thing is that nobody has the answer but each individual. Like Billy, you'll also find your way. 

Check out IMDb's (Internet Movie Database) page for Running Brave here.