Rain, Beauty and Other Random Late Night Thoughts

It's 10:30 PM on a Sunday night. In actuality I should be sleeping right now, since I'm freaking exhausted and haven't gotten much sleep lately (my sleep schedule? Nonexistent, at this point.) But, I can't help but want to write something. Anything. I have so much inspirations holed up inside of me; I can feel it, wanting to work its way out through my fingers and create something, anything. The house is quiet. My parents and grandma are sound asleep as they too are exhausted, and I have my cat sleeping peacefully at the foot of my bed. I have just finished a lovely phone conversation with one of my best friends, Khrys, and also got to talk to my other best friend Brittney (she was having some guy problems, but with the help of our dear friend, Nick, we were able to sort out the problem and all is now right with the world.) And now I am thinking to myself, "No, Erin, all is not right with the world. In fact, it is far from it."

It's been raining all day today, and even now as I type this, it's still drizzling outside and I can hear the rain splattering against the ground outside my window (along with the sound of dogs barking at God knows what.) The rain has a very calming effect on me, and I sometimes like to sit out on my front porch and watch the rain during a thunderstorm. I find rain to be very beautiful, and as strange as it may seem, I also find things such as dead trees, leafless trees, cloudy skies, starry skies and cool, windy nights to be very beautiful too. Most people would look at a forest of dead or leafless trees and only see that: dead or leafless trees, and maybe the think about cutting down the dead tree and simply just not caring about the leafless one. But, to me, I can see such beauty in those things. Maybe I'm just twisted and morbid like that, but that is where I find the most beauty in nature.

There's been a lot going on in my life recently, and most of it I have already told you, so there is no need for me to go over it all again and bore you to tears. What's really going on in my life is something I can't explain really. I have these feelings; jumbled feelings that don't make any sense, and I can't even identify most of them they are so mixed up and tangled together. But I do recognize some of them: change is coming, I can feel it. Good change or bad change, that  has yet to be determined. But I can feel it; change will be happening soon, and lots of it. Some change is obvious; new school semester, new show, lots of new things, but a lot of the change is unknown to me. All I know is that change is coming soon.

And while we're on the subject of "change", I now find myself contemplating on a rather unusual subject for me (especially this late at night.) The concept of marriage. Yep, that's right, marriage. A couple people that I know are getting married soon, like in just a couple months, and it has me thinking about why people get married in the first place. I know that God talks a lot about marriage in the Bible, and I know that it is often a big topic at church. I can't exactly place how, when, where or why I suddenly became so against getting married. Oh, I have an idea as to why, how and when, but I'd rather not talk about that right now. For now, it is enough for you to know that I have been against getting married, having kids and having any sort of lifelong relationship with anyone for quite some time now, and now the fact that I'm sitting here, contemplating marriage scares me a little bit. Not going to lie, when the break up with Travis happened, I decided that I was going to take a break for a while and play the "Independent Woman" card; take time to focus on school and doing what I love to do, which is be in shows. But, now I wonder...

It's strange, isn't it? You would think that someone at my age would be totally ready to find the love of their life, get married, have a couple kids and live the so called "perfect life", but I can't help but feel scared and sometimes downright terrified when I think of marriage and love. To me, those are the hardest things to talk about with basically anyone (I can talk to people like Hannah, Yamma, Khrys and Brittney about it, and sometimes Robert, but that's about it. Anyone else, I feel REALLY uncomfortable talking to about these topics.) My thought on marriage has changed over the course of my short time here on this earth, ever since I had any idea of what marriage was about, or what I thought it was about. When I was younger, I knew marriage and love as what they show in all the Disney princess movies: true love, princesses, princes, knights in shining armor, dragons, magic castle, spells, curses, fairy godmothers, and of course, Happily Ever After. Oh, how I dreamed of the day when my Prince Charming would come and sweep me off my feet and we'd live happily ever after. I wanted to be a princess, just like the ones in the Disney movies I loved so much.

Then I got older, and my idea of marriage rose and fall with each year. Some years I would do nothing but dream of the day I would walk down the aisle, and some years I wanted absolutely nothing to do with guys, dating or marriage. As the years have gone by, this vicious cycle has continued, and the older I get, and the more experience I get with relationships, the more I have come to the conclusion that marriage just isn't meant for me. It's meant for other people; it's meant for everyone else, except me. But, now... now, something has changed within me. I can't say what it is, but somewhere, at some point during these last few weeks, something has shifted. Maybe it's my mindset. Maybe it's hormones. Maybe it's God. Or... maybe it's just a bizarre combination of all three, hahaha. Still, I do wonder...

It is quite possible, however, that the lack of sleep is now starting to deeply affect my thought pattern and so all of this could simply be the result of not enough sleep. Part of me would like to think this is true, because I want to find some kind of logical explanation for all of this. But, something tells me logic isn't going to give me an answer. Anyway, it's late now (it's now 12:15 AM) and even though I don't have school tomorrow, I do have a few important things to get done and I need to be conscious and awake to do those things. Besides, I think I've spilled my guts enough for one night, hahaha. Good night, dear readers.