Daily Prompt: I’d Like to Thank My Cats

The weight of this cheap plastic trophy, likely ordered from a place where thousands of identical cheap plastic trophies are created and distributed, weighs in my hands as though it was not truly there at all.  As though it’s only really exists if you look at it and acknowledge it.  This trophy holds no weight.  My award holds no weight.  

Don’t get me wrong, guys, I appreciate being awarded “World’s Most Average Person,”  I think I had it coming…but I’ll admit it’s a depressing, empty title to accept.  

As a child, I was the smartest.  I read the most books.  I was the asshole other kids kind of couldn’t stand, and the angel teachers loved to slap stickers on.  I was motivated to help out in the Library, create my own drawing lessons business, and read every book I could get my grubby little fingers on.  I was the smart kid.

I was also the fat kid.  I played Gameboy instead of kicking a ball around at recess.  I had a couple friends, but they were kind of like me.  They validated my personality, and I didn’t know this wasn’t the way I should be.  My parents never encouraged me to do much beyond get straight A’s and behave.  I never learned to play the piano.  I never joined any clubs.  I was the smartest, but I see now how relatively useless this was.

Well, years go by.  I’m still smart in middle school, high school…I still retain my hard wit and dark humor.  But my motivation evaporates.  I no longer care about reading.  I couldn’t care less about what my teachers thought of me.  I didn’t have any interests, any hobbies.  I had my best friend, and that’s all I wanted.  I wanted to live my life.  I didn’t get a job, or an internship.  I went to the movies, and slid by in class.  Homework was a joke.  Apart from the evils of mathematics, I could hardly pay attention and ace most of my tests.  School has never been hard.  Then again, everything is standardized these days.  If you’re a good test taker, like me, then you’re golden.  But as I graduate from college, I’m realizing that the way I’ve skated by, acing everything, was the worst thing I could possibly do for myself.

I don’t remember shit.  I have so skills, I have no talents, I have no drive.  The one thing I feel relatively good at is written and verbal communication.  Great skills to have, but not without motivation.  I almost never write unless I’ve been assigned something.  Some of the most beautiful things I’ve ever written were college essays for classes that had nothing to do with writing.  I bottle up my talent for lack of creativity and lack of motivation to plug said talent into an outlet, and coming out of school, I long once more for the graded essay.  I feel as though I’ll never write again if I don’t get a grade.  

I am average.  I am the most average person in the world.  Thank you for this award.  I truly deserve it.  I will sit at this desk, under these fluorescent lights, working in a field I could not give less of a fuck about, licking envelopes and getting migraines.  I feel stupid.  I feel like I can’t learn anymore.  

Maybe I need someone to physically threaten me in order to light a fire under my ass.  Is that really what it takes these days?  Is it just me, or is this my generation?  I see people my age, with college degrees, not even trying to find work in the field they want to work in.  They’re resigned to dish washing and clerical work.  8 bucks an hour.  Forever.

Average is no way to live.  It’s no way to breathe.  But thanks for the award anyway…I’ll mount it right next to my diploma.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/daily-prompt-victory/

Come on, bitch, you can do this.

I’ve never had the urge to start a blog.  I’ve never even had the urge to read a blog.  While attempting to move past the compulsion to have a solid piece of paper in my hand, and accepting this forum as a true step away from my stubborn habits, I am going to start writing in this blog.  I hope to make a daily effort, but at the very least, weekly.  

A little about myself…I can be cold.  I can be sarcastic, vulgar, and blunt.  It’s odd, because the way I write and the way I think are two very different things.  I’m actually a very warm and open person.  I like to smile at people on the elevator.  Sometimes I’ll ask a stranger about their day.  But the way I write is something in and of itself.  I’m a little stiff.  A little short.  A little stunted in the way I transfer my emotions and perceptions onto a visible screen, viewable by whomever so pleases.  

I don’t express myself.  I often don’t understand my emotions or the emotions of others.  Sometimes I make decisions that I know are morally reprehensible, but not by my standards…by the way I know others will react.  It’s difficult to take this as a guideline when I want to do something that doesn’t feel wrong.

I rarely write for fun, even though writing is what I feel I could be great at.  It’s the one thing I’ve excelled in over the years, from essays to poems to short stories.  The thing is, I work well under assignment.  I admit that writing daily or weekly without prompt or assignment, willy nilly on the internet, is going to be quite a challenge for me.  I plan on ranging my blog from everyday occurrences (only if they are interesting, of course), to social blunders that seem to be on the rise for myself in my particular group of friends, to pieces of prose, whether they be short or long. 

I hope to not write a lot like I’m writing right now.  If there’s no structure to the format I’m writing in, like in this instance, then I will be likely to prattle on about this and that.  I really could talk forever about things.  It’s not a great quality to have.  I need to know how to create a proper beginning, middle, and end in everyday conversation, but then again, I’ve never been a good story teller.  I’m descriptive, objective, and thorough.  It’s great for certain things, but it can be a real bitch for a reader who just wants me to get to the point.  I know this.  I’m working on this.

This blog is an exercise for me.  I would truly love for it to turn into something closer to my heart.  Something I very much care about.  If that happens, I can guarantee something beautiful will happen.  I can only hope that this blog becomes an outlet like I’ve never experienced before.  I’ve never had a diary, or a sole confidante.  I’ve never been an open book.  But that’s what I want.  I want to be an open book.  Maybe if I can achieve that emotionally, I’ll be able to write a book one day.  A novel, a short story, a poem…something that says more about me to the world than I could ever be brave enough to let slip through my lips.

Come on, bitch, you can do this.