The Unbreakable Vow

We all know the main plot of Harry Potter, right? Voldemort kills Harry's parents, and Harry's left with a scar on his forehead. He goes to Hogwarts and meets his best friends, Ron and Hermione, and throughout his years, he comes into contact with Voldemort and his Death Eaters from time to time. Eventually, (spoiler alert!) Harry and Voldemort face off, and we all know how this ends. This fantasy world of Harry Potter seems like a simple, classic story of courage, bravery, and some pretty cool magic.

But if you're someone who thinks that's all there is to Harry Potter, you're someone who is wrong.

What makes this saga of Harry Potter so interesting, to me at least, is the fact that Harry and Voldemort are actually very similar-- a part of Voldemort even lived inside of Harry (another spoiler!)-- except for one thing. The thing that sets these two a part is that Voldemort cannot feel love. He cannot look at someone and feel warm inside and he cannot form true unbreakable vows of affection and devotion.

But, Harry can.

And that's what keeps him alive when he faces death time after time after time. That's what let's him live, and Voldemort die.

Love is what keeps us alive, too. We need love in our lives to be able to wake up every morning and to be able to make it through the day, no matter how badly school or work or life treated us that day. And sometimes, we start to lose faith because we cannot see this love.

We lose faith in ourselves because of one bad test score or one fight with a family member. But we can't let this happen. You and I both need to know that there are so many things in life to love. We have our family, our friends, our sports, our extracurricular activities. We can love the sunrise and the sunset, the stars in the sky and the birds in the trees. There is love all around us.

To survive, we need love in our lives. After we take away all of the things in life we don't need-- phones, computers, cameras, cars, airplanes-- what's left? The answer is simple.

Love is left.

***

"Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all those who live without love."
-Albus Dumbledore

Letting Go

I think too much about everything.

About my hair, my appearance, my grades, my future, my relationships, my health, my life; everything.

It just seems so normal to me to be worrying about something; stress is a usual occurrence inside my head. People always tell me that we have no control over what happens tomorrow, that we should just think in the now. But that doesn't make sense to me-- everything I do today has an effect on what happens tomorrow, what happens next week, and what happens next year.

So, naturally, I think too much about everything.

And because I think too much about everything, sometimes thoughts and desires that make so much sense in my head can get blown out of proportion very quickly.

That means I tend to fantasize. A lot.

I fantasize over college, over falling in love, over my wedding, over my future children, over my career. When you want something so badly, fantasizing over it just seems so natural, so routine.

But fantasizing over something too much can get out-of-hand fast. It makes so much sense in your head that you think it has become reality, if that makes sense. This is dangerous. Because dreams in our heads don't always translate into realities.

Everything is supposed to happen for a reason, really. So if we stop thinking so much about what we want in life, and instead, just live our lives, it might just turn out to be all right. Because maybe, once we let go of our fantasies and face realities, things might just fall into place when we least expect it. The universe likes to surprise us.

Perfection

Why do we always strive to be perfect? We want to be the best of the best, la crème de la crème. We want to be impeccable. We want to have perfect families, we want to go to perfect schools, we want to be perfect people.

When your shoes are perfect, they fit you just right and they feel so good. When your schoolwork is perfect, all the teachers smile at you and you know you are smart. When your friends are perfect, they support you when you need it and they make you laugh when you need it. When your life is perfect, you feel like you are on top of the world.

But life wasn't made to be perfect. We are supposed to make mistakes, and mistakes sure aren't perfect. Steps in the wrong direction should lead us to the right direction. Wrongdoings teach us important feelings like remorse and regret and sorrow and compunction and shame. Imperfections strengthen us. Because no one on this earth is perfect. No one.

And yet, the idea of perfection remains appealing. We think of an ideal life in our heads and these images of perfection can't seem to be shaken, no matter how many times we tell ourselves that nobody is flawless. And even though life isn't really meant to be perfect, we can't help but wish it was.

Why?

Because when the idea of something seems so perfect, it's hard to let it go.

Rain

The rain starts with
a drizzle.
And it drizzles,
and drizzles,
and drizzles.
A thunder crack here,
A thunder crack there.
And then the sky splits
and the rain comes pouring
down, down, down.

Tears are the same.
They start with
a drop.
Another drop here,
Another drop there.
And then your mind breaks
and the tears come pouring
down, down, down.

Raining, crying--
they're basically the
same.
During the storm,
during the tears,
it's ugly.

But after the storm
and after the crying,
you realize that
that the rain has made
the Earth stronger, and
you realize that the
tears have made
you stronger.

Rain and tears cleanse us of
all the ugly things
on Earth, and leave
us with beauty, like
flowers and rainbows
and smiles.

And that's why storms are
good.
That's why crying is
good.

Last Days

What would you do if you were told you only had a few months to live?

What would you do when you realized that you are going to die and it's going to be soon?

What would you do if, when you were told that you're going to die soon, you were only 17?

I mean, that only happens in John Green novels, right?

Wrong.

Enter Zach Sobiech. When Zach was 14, he was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer called osteosarcoma. After a couple of surgeries and chemotherapy treatments, Zach, at the age of 17, was told that he only had a few months to live.

Imagine what that would be like. Imagine how it would feel to know that you're going to die soon. I mean, everyone dies. But Zach knew for sure that he wasn't going to have a future. He knew that he probably wasn't going to graduate high school and he knew for a fact that he wasn't going to go to college.

So naturally, he became depressed and sullen and scared, wondering when it was going to happen, right?

Wrong.

Zach decided to live his last days to the fullest. So what did he do? He turned to music- he turned to the only way he knew how to express his feelings about eventually leaving this earth and the only way he could get closure. This is his song.

Each one of his last days on Earth, Zach lived his life with utter happiness and utter bliss creating his music. His family grew closer. He had so much love. He was living the way he wanted.

Zach died yesterday on May 20th, just like the doctors said he would. But he was okay with it, he had closure. He had had everything he wanted in life. But he left an impact on us all.

We can't just keep sitting there with no purpose, with no drive. Zach has taught us that we have to live our lives now, because we never know when it's going to be too late. He has taught us that we need to show the people we love that we love them. He has taught us that "a day without laughter is a day wasted". He has taught us not to hesitate with happiness.

These are the last days of our lives. It's not morbid-- we all have a start and we all have an end. After we have our first day on Earth, the rest of our lives are filled with our last days. So make your last days full of life, full of vitality, full of laughter. That's the legacy that Zach left us.

We need to make sure that life doesn't get the best of us, and instead make sure to get the best out of life. It's what Zach would've wanted.





Please take the time to watch this. You won't regret it.
Zach's story.

Have you ever?

Have you ever wanted something so much that you wish you could scream it on the top of the mountain so the world could hear you but then when you think about it you don't want to embarrass yourself by telling people so you just stay quiet and don't tell anyone? And then you keep it inside your heart and your heart gets hungrier and hungrier and it wants more and more. But then you realize you can't do anything about it?

Have you ever wished for something so much that you constantly question why you don't have it already and why other people have it and you don't? And then you write about it in your journal all of the time and wish and wish that it comes true, but it never does? And you wish even more and it still doesn't come true and then you're sad and you ask why? But then you realize you can't do anything about it?

Have you ever thought about something so much that it's weird when you aren't thinking about it because it seems so normal to be thinking about life or dreams or happiness or the future all of the time? And then your brain gets so jumbled up when you think about life or dreams or happiness or the future that you can't think of anything else but that's okay because sometimes thinking about life or dreams or happiness or the future lets you escape from the present? But then you realize you can't do anything about it?

Have you ever prayed for something so much that when it isn't answered you wonder why or you wonder if God maybe forgot about you for a second, but then you remember that everything is supposed to happen for a reason even though sometimes that seems hard to believe? And then you pray some more because you really want God to notice you this time and answer your prayers? But then you realize you can't do anything about it?

Yeah, me too.

Stuffed Imagination

It is her everything. She sleeps with it in her arms, she dresses it up, she has tea parties with it, she takes it for walks in her play-stroller. When her mom helps her make her bed every morning, they place it right in the middle, so everyone can admire it. It is her best friend. She doesn't go anywhere without it.

It is soft, worn, gentile, comfortable. Its plastic eyes are cracked; its plastic nose feels like a soft pearl. It is loved beyond belief. 

It is her teddy bear--it is her lovey. With her teddy bear, she opens up a whole world of imagination-- a world known as childhood. 

But as she grows older, she starts to leave it at home sometimes, and doesn't dress it up anymore or take it for walks, and she has become 'too sophisticated' to sleep with it nestled in her arms. She is embarrassed at what other people might say if they see it sitting in the middle of her bed.

And as she grows even older, she shoves it in the back of her closet, covering it up with old sweatshirts and socks. And now it is unwanted, unloved, unappreciated. It is retired. It sits, neglected, and the girl doesn't even think about it anymore. She is too busy with life to care for it again like she once did.

And the teddy bear is forgotten.

And then we realize that childhood doesn't last forever.

At some point in time, you have to grow up. You have to go to school, you have to get good grades, and you have to get into a good college. And then you have to get a good job.

When we grow up, we become obsessed with perfection, obsessed with success, obsessed with the material world. We become obsessed numbers and letters, not vivid colors or stars or animals or flowers. Our imaginations are gone, away, missing.

But just because our imaginations are missing doesn't mean we can't find them.

In my French class, we're reading a book called Le Petit Prince (the Little Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. This book is about a little prince who leaves his planet in the solar system to visit other planets to find new friends after a bad experience with a flower. Throughout the book, he experiences frustration with adults (les grandes personnes) because all they care about are numbers and serious things. The little prince likes to imagine-- he likes to look at sunsets and stars, flowers and volcanoes.

Once he lands on Earth, he meets a fox who tells him something very important, a saying that I think is beautiful:
"On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux." 
(You can only see clearly with the heart. What is truly important is invisible to the eyes.)

So who cares if we're not 'children' anymore? Go wherever your heart takes you to find your missing imagination, and if that's to a dusty stuffed teddy bear that's quite possibly flattened under a pile of clothes, then so be it.