love is... beauty is...

this is from what i wrote in my notebook/journal yesterday... just a part of it, not all.

friendships have become so flimsy. maybe they always were. it just seems like such a common thing to gain and lose a few friends in the span of several months. i think i find it hard to trust my friends a lot of the time. i practically expect them to say bad things about me when im not around. a disservice to my honest friends, im sure, but i grew up with friends who did, and i knew it, and i had to fake it and act like i didnt know when really it was slowly breaking my heart. maybe i should live not expecting people to backstab me all the time. maybe ill be more confident. im rarely confident in relationships in general. i feel like i should always be making the other person happy so they'll appreciate me. if ive ever learned anything, its that you dont have to earn real love. if someone really loves you, its not because of your actions, its because theres something captivating inside of you that they find really beautiful. something in who you are that would not disappear if you stopped buying them flowers or kissing their forehead or telling them you love them. love is not something you force - it's something you stumble upon, it's finding yourself in a beautiful story, it's whatever it is that makes people write poems or look at the stars or want to die. who, really, understands what IT is? i sure dont, but i feel it when i think of my family or our mysterious God. its something much bigger than anything else that could ever come out of me.

man, it's crazy how relevant the bible is. Jesus spoke and lived by love. love is the most powerful tool we have, and all of us are equipped enough to use it. love could really change everything, i think. nirvana certainly couldnt. suck it buddha.

my head is really everywhere tonight. i have so many thoughts throughout the day, and i get here and i dont even know where to begin.

today i was thinking about beauty as i was sitting on my back porch and i looked up to the top of this big tree in the back yard and saw a swarm of some type of bug and i thought, "now how are these beautiful?" and i started thinking about how complex they must be, that they have some sort of life cycle they go through, and all this crud, and i just got irritated. i just didnt care about those stupid bugs flying in circles in a tree. then i thought, i wonder what they think of me. i mean, surely bugs notice us. they are recognized as coherant creatures who bleed [sort of] and feel [somehow] and react to life. then i thought, animals must think we are a bunch of holy creatures walking around since we are so much more advanced and hard to understand. what if animals, if creation, thought we were as beautiful and mysterious as we think creation is. then i felt like the bugs and i were somehow like family. okay i know that sounds weird and hippie-ish, but i felt more like i was just as much a part of creation as they were. that we were both thrown into this crazy world together, just trying to get by long enough to do our part, hopefully find some beauty, and die. i mean, i dont really know where im going with this, but somehow i get the feeling that the world is more of a friend than an enemy, that we're all doing what we can to survive, to understand, to get on with it. we were created for one another, really, rather than against, and im talking about the whole ecosystem. the rivers, the rain, the mountains, the stars, the sunsets, the animals, the humans. these things are there so they will be enjoyed, as a woman enjoys a flower, as a human enjoys another human. every aspect of life is beautiful, and beauty exists solely so it will be enjoyed, no other reason.

i think i fall more in love with it every day.