It’s Spring Break. I promise you I have negative ability to focus today (Friday), so this is going to be a rambling train of thought in my head as I drifted off in class.

My sister and I used to split up the food that we bought like troops during the war. Three chocolate flavored Rice Krispies for you, and three for me. Actually, I can trade you a chocolate flavored one for a marshmallow flavored one. We used to relish going grocery shopping with the grownups, because as pre-teens, what much else is there to do?

These days, it’s been a few months since I went shopping for groceries. In the midst of life, I have delegated that responsibility solely to my parents and I just walk in and out of the kitchen grabbing what I can find.

Our world, back then, was simple and confined; it stretched only as far as we could travel for two hours or so on the highway. That was the universe that we knew.

Maybe it was my upbringing, but I didn’t even know that gay people existed until I was a wee teenager. Raised in a very Christian household and relatively sheltered, I’d just never seen males express romantic feelings for other males, nor females with other females.

Reality seems to shatter around you when you realize that your parents aren’t magical grownups with super powers or the ability to mind read. They are just as flawed as you are, and they grow old.

Bodies change, and you never saw it coming until you looked down one day in the shower and discovered that you were turning into a…woman.

People in your life that you never thought would leave do leave, whether or not by choice.

You will be a spectator, victim, and instigator of awful injustices, and you won’t realize it until you think back to it.

The days will pass so slowly that you can barely believe that you’re only turning eleven; you’d expect yourself to be fifteen at the rate that time is passing.

But you’ll put your head down to write an English paper and you’ll look back up; it will be April of the next year and you’ll wonder how you made it so far, so quickly.

Before you know it, you’ve outgrown your trainer bras and granny panties and you’re moving onto prom dresses and high heels and of course, you start out with the training heel but the height instantly elevates you.

Your parents are handing you a set of keys and reminding you to “lock up” You’re being pushed out of the nest without wings fully developed and it feels like they’re telling you to jump out of a plane as if it were just any other day.

Blink, and you’re getting your permit. Blink, and you’re applying to colleges. Where has the time gone?

We pay less attention to details because the volume of relevant issues in our lives expands exponentially.

You can create a website? People will be interested in your opinion? Amazing.

We’re at war? I can hardly believe it.

I’m overwhelmed by the statistics.

7 billion chicken are killed every year in the US for their flesh.

27 million people are in the human trafficking trade right now.

Fossil fuels emit more than 33.4 billion metric tonnes of CO2 every year.

The notion that every person walking down the street has not had the same experiences as myself perplexes me.

Scientists have somehow found a way to keep track of time, keep fruit fresh, and keep species of frogs alive?

I’m not sure what my purpose in life is. Do I just carry the burden of living until someone else can take over?

Infinity is a tough concept to grasp, isn’t it?

How many people have lived before me and how many will come? If global warming is real and human-induced, will I feel it in my lifetime? If that’s not the case, ought I to do anything about it?

What happens if the world ends? Does the universe just stay silent as it was before we were here, or do aliens just whisper from their corner of the universe?

There’s a clock in my English classroom that’s messed up. It’s fallen out of order; the second hand pauses for a few seconds then races to catch up to its intended position before stalling yet again.

When I’m staring at the hour hand of a clock, I can’t believe that in the course of an hour, it moves so few inches.

Maybe if I sat down on the hour hand of the Big Ben I could feel its hands shifting at a constant pace as its cogs labored nonstop.

Jared showed me this!!