An Offering of Ashes

     It wasn't today; March 9th holds no special meaning for me.  It was this weekend however, this weekend three years ago.  It works out perfectly because Ash Wednesday happened to fall on the week before the anniversary, just like it did that year.   March 2011.  The weekend after Ash Wednesday on March 2011.
     I was always a big fan of Ash Wednesday, when I was little it was all about who got the darkest ashes on their foreheads and who had the best sacrifice for Lent.  The thing I love most, though, was the song.  Not all the Ash Wednesday songs are great, in fact I think most of them are on the more dull side of things, but I was blessed enough to have the one song I love be played almost every year I was in school.  It's the song that goes
          We rise again from ashes, from the good we've failed to do.
          We rise again from ashes to create ourselves anew,
           If all our world is ashes, then must our lives be true
          From an offering of ashes, an offering to you
     Now, I'm not delusional, I know I could never sing any other place other than my shower, but that never stopped me from singing that song.  I would always sing it for weeks after Ash Wednesday because I absolutely adored it.  That's what I was singing when I checked my phone on Saturday morning three years ago, March 11, 2011.
     I see a couple of missed calls and a text message from my friend.  The message read "Camila I'm so sorry I really didn't want to tell you this over text but Mrs. Mansilla died last night." I stopped singing.  I stopped thinking.  I stopped breathing.  No part of me was working.  I walked into my kitchen and did the only thing I could do, call my other friend to let her know.  That's when I started crying; luckily I was alone in my house.  What else could I do now?  Everyone I knew was probably flooding the family with messages and condolences, but I was stuck at home with no way to get to them yet, so I sang.  Thankfully no one was around to hear me, singing and crying don't mix very well, but that is all I could do to keep from completely breaking down.  I had to be strong for my friend, for all of my friends.  So until I could do something else, something more, something helpful, I sang.

Faith, Trust, and a little bit of Pixie Dust

     There's this scene in Peter Pan where Wendy is about to leave Neverland and Peter is pleading with her to stay.  Upon realizing that his efforts are futile, he does what everyone does in a situation like this, he gets angry and starts yelling.  He screams at her something along the lines of "Fine, go, but once you grow up you can't come back!", and this, my friends, is the most profound thing he said throughout the entire movie.
     The deal with Neverland is that it is the ultimate place for children.  There are no parents to tell you what to do, so you basically get to run young and wild and free for the rest of eternity if you so wish.  But once you leave and grow up you can never go back.  You can never be a child again.  Once we grow up, there is no going back.  You cannot just make yourself believe in Santa Claus again or justify trying to fly by running really fast and jumping of a tall fixture.  You can be a kid and shirk your responsibilities as long as you want; you don't have to get a job, you don't have to keep going to school, and you don't have to listen to everybody else when they tell you magic isn't real, but when you do it's over.  There is no specific age that constitutes a grown up, there can be 25 year old children and there can be 12 year old adults, it depends completely on every individual's circumstances.  Because of this, sometimes I'm scared that I am already passed that threshold, that I have grown up and cannot go back to my own personal Neverland.  Sometimes.
     And then, other times, I moments like this one.  My excitement over this realization, my need to tell everyone so they can revel in how completely awesome that is, my euphoria for pinpointing the message of the entire movie into one single line, these are the moments that make me realize I have not passed the line of no return; I am no where near that line.  The fact that others I've told this to have not reacted in the same way I have, while it hurts that I obviously cannot convey its greatness, only solidifies my belief that I still am a child, and even though I am growing up, I have not yet grown up.  If this was the move The Polar Express I would be the character that can still hear the bells.  This is my own personal way of still believing in magic.  This is still my Neverland.

♫ Let's Watch A Disney Channel Movie ♫

     If you were an avid Disney Original Movies watcher like I was, you probably sang the title of this post just like they used to sing it right before any original movie on Disney Channel.  First thing is first: I have to define what I mean by an original movie on Disney.  I'm talking about anything before (and including) the first High School Musical.  With that said, I was watching one of the classics today (Right on Track) when I realized just how different the newer movies on this channel are; and by different I mean worse.  Way, way worse.  Each of the old movies had some sort of message while also having a very original plot.  Some of them were also even based on real people and their inspirational stories.  To prove my point let's take a quick stroll down memory lane.
     Right on Track- A movie about one of the first junior female drag-racers.  Not only a really cool idea for a movie, you don't really hear about drag racing much anymore, but also a really good message that girls can do anything boys can do (and they can even beat them).
     Smart House- Two kids and their single father win a competition and move into this crazy-cool house that's beyond high-tech.  The computerized house manifests itself into a mother figure and basically goes insane.  In the end the kids realize there's no rush to get a new mother; their dad is doing pretty good on his own.  Not only that but the movie throws in ANOTHER lesson in it; nothing can take the place of a parent, no matter how cool.
     Alright I don't wanna bore you with the plots of every movie so I'm gonna try and keep the rest of these short.
     Luck of the Irish- It's important to know where you come from and to be proud of your heritage.
     Double Team- Identical twins are two different people and should not be constantly compared to eachother.
     The Color of Friendship- Kind of self explanatory; the color of someone's skin does not define them.
     Motocrossed-  Girls can do anything boys can do.
     And for my final example, although I only scratched the surface, I'm gonna use a controversial one: High School Musical.  It's controversial simply because some of the radical Disney Original Movie fanatics do not consider this as part of the list of the quality movies.  For a good part of people, this was the first of the many bad movies that have been made since.  I disagree because the trilogy didn't mean to start off as a trilogy and certainly didn't mean to be the blockbuster hit that it became.  It started out as a single movie with a plot that had not been done before on Disney Channel (even though now it seems to be the only concept they do).  The lesson that comes from this movie is none other than labels do not define someone.  It teaches people to not (and excuse my cheesy reference) "stick to the status quo" if they do not want to. 
     Now a days all the movies that Disney produces are all about singing and a boy and a girl that by the end of the movie finally hold hands or, if it's a particularly racey movie, hug!  It might just be me, and I might be completely biased because obviously I'm not the audience that the channel is appealing to, but I accredit those old movies for a bit of why I am the way I am.  Especially thanks to those movies where the girls are better than the boys because, well, that's basically my life ;)

Raindrops on Roses and Whiskers on Kittens.

     If you do not understand the reference in the title you are not human, but I'll be the bigger person and explain it to you anyways.  It is a line from one of the most iconic songs in "The Sound of Music", A Few Of My Favorite Things.  In it, Maria is trying to diffuse the fear in the room (caused by a thunderstorm) by telling the children to think of their favorite things.  Apart from my title, she mentions girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes, snowflakes that stay on [her] nose and eyelashes as well as many other things.  My list might not be as creative as hers, but there's one thing that's always near the top: October.
     October is just the easiest way to encompass most of my favorite things into one word.  I could go on for pages and pages about why it's my favorite holiday, but I'll just stick to the essentials.  I love October first and foremost because it really signifies fall.  The weather is the epitome of perfect with its sun and slight breeze.  It's the perfect mix of comfy and cute weather.  You know, the kind of weather that requires nothing more than leggings and a baggy long-sleeve shirt?  The leaves are changed colors to the most beautiful yellows, oranges, and reds that I ever see, and just enough of them are starting to fall of said trees to be able to make huge leaf piles (which one is never too old for may I add).  It's the month known for pumpkin everything.  Kids going to pumpkin patches on school field trips and teenagers going to be cute and retain their youth.  teenagers can overlap with kids when it comes to the enjoyment of pumpkin patches but they also have a chance to overlap with adults when it comes to pumpkin spice lattes and pumpkin pastries.  That being said, it's the best time to be a teenager.  I won't go into all the details of why Halloween is amazing, that could be its very own post, but just know that the magic and enjoyment that everyone gets out of that holiday is also a reason to love this month.  It's also that time of the school year that everyone is finally completely settled and comfortable in a routine.  Some might have gotten there in September, but now everyone is typically on the same page. All in all, it's pretty hard to have a negative thought in October, which I guess would be the reason I love it most.
    Well, I may not have put it as eloquently as Maria and my sentences didn't rhyme, but there you have it, these are a few of my absolutely favorite things.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Who's the Girliest of Them All?

     Some of my friends have recently started to make fun of me because of how girly my relationship has proven me to be.  Now, if you've read any of my other posts about relationships they don't exactly have the most girly outlook on the subject.  I'll be the first to admit that yes, I have let a more girly side me out, but I don't exactly think I've made a total 180 change.  The funny thing is though, that if i saw myself like this a year ago I would never believe it.  I used to make fun of the girls that were always so happy and so public about their relationships, but now I think I understand them a bit more.  It's the strangest thing, always being happy when you think of that one other person, always wanting to be around them, and wanting everyone else to know exactly how happy this person makes you.  The easiest way to describe it would be to say that this is a total out-of-body experience for me.  Now, don't get me wrong, I still think those girls that say they're going to marry their significant other are silly and ridiculous (we are still only teenagers after all).  I will still chuckle at all the excessive tweets and statuses about how in love someone is and how amazing the other person is, that's still a little too public for me to take seriously.  I'm also definitely absolutely not about to start making every single post about him.  So yeah, I guess I have become more girly and I am completely okay with that.  I am completely okay with being such a relationshippy person that I can't imagine what I'd be doing right now if I weren't in one.  I am completely okay wanting to have a thousand pictures of us two together.  I am completely okay being such a girl, because somehow I still seem to think the same way I did before and I didn't think that would be possible.

el oh el

     You know what's an interesting thing to think about?  The correlation between the people you don't text around and the people you text.  Confusing?  Let me explain.
    As you get older your common sense starts to kick in and you realize that texting while with other people can sometimes be considered rude.  It gets misconstrued as you not wanting to be with the person you are currently around, or that you'd  rather be with the person you're texting.  Either way it's a bit of a blow to your self esteem if you're not the one texting.  So, being the nice, polite, and respectful people we all strive to be, it's a general rule to not be glued to your phone while you're with someone.
     That being said, if you're still a teenager it's not the easiest thing to just ignore your phone and all the people connected through it whenever you're in the company of other people. Here's the correlation:  The people that you'll always reply to, no matter who you're actually with are usually the people you have the easiest time dropping off the face of the cellular world for a while with.   Think about it for a bit.  I'm so right. 
      If you think about, whether you like to admit it to yourself or not, that's a good way to tell how you subconsciously rank your friends. 

Creative Writing Shouldn't Have So Many Rules.

     You know what's interesting?  Creative writing can mean a plethora of different things, all with different sets of guidelines, rules, and conventions, so you can't really say you're good at creative writing.   In poems, you're supposed to have a clear cut title so that the actual content of the poem can be ambiguous and it'll still make sense.  With stories it's the complete opposite; the title can be as ambiguous as you want it to be because the content of the story will eventually delve into its ambiguity and clarify it.
     Creative writing isn't always what you expect it to be, but it's always an adventure.