Innocence.

Hmmm. I remember standing in my old kitchen thinking "I'm glad I live in the time period I do. There aren't any wars or anything scary." Tnat was before 9/11, before I knew anything about current events...We've been locked into what seems like endless wars since I was in grade school. Most people just don't think about the wars on a daily basis though unless war touches your life- not like with WWII were propaganda and homefront efforts had to be everywhere.

Of course, I was a very young in this scene I remember. Clinton was definitely still president. It's crap that I had to grow up with the shitty president ever in office. I was in college by the time we were free from that shit.

According to the Mayan Calender, the world is going to end at the end of 2012. Looking around, I sort of believe it. It seems suddenly there are earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters occuring much more frequently. And people making bad decisions...yes, I'm looking at you, BP, with your ZERO dollars spent on oil clean-up research. Don't think I'm not scared of my own mortality, the fragility of all human life.

I know it's my natural inclination to believe people are good, that the world is a beautiful place, but through-out my life I've always been border-line paranoid- maybe because I lost all sense of security due to "family" issues as a child or maybe I'm just a very sensitive person.

There was a period during junior high when I was afraid to sleep at night because I was convinced there was going to a nuclear attack.

I remember visiting the memorial in OK City for the bombing of the Government Building. I was maybe ten. That was tramatizing. I couldn't comprehend such violence, such death and destruction. I couldn't get that image out of my head for a very long time.

My family also visited every nuclear war musuem we could...even visited an old missile silo. More trauma. I remember seeing a recreated bomb shelter with its rusted canned goods and scary equipment. Couldn't sleep for awhile after that trip either.

Moral of the story: Don't take small, overly sensitive children to traumatizing historical sites. No, I'm very glad I'm not ignorant. I don't always feel safe, and I do have my lingering paranoias (if anyone remembers how I wasn't going to fly). Considering all the places I've been, all I've been exposed to, I should be a lot more intelligent than I am. I should know more, but honestly, until very recently, I didn't really care. I was apathetic (okay, okay, I was a child).

Sometimes, I wish I could relive my life and make better choices. Start devoting all my efforts to being smart from a much earlier age, care more about school...Since those things were never what I was as a child. I was into fairy tales (think Final Fantasy). I sought comfort in fantasy. I've always fled into a fantasy world, whether it be an obsession such as television or video games or my own thoughts.
Let's quote my once favorite song. "I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge/ The nightmare I built my own world to escape." Now I have to pause Utopia to listen to Imaginary. As much as I want to deny it, this song still describes me. I avoid Evanescence like the plague...yet today at the gym, I paused my ipod when "My Immortal" came on the radio. Too many emotions. Imaginary. Hello. My Immortal. Four years ago. Sometimes, I forget that before WT empowered me, she saved my life. When I think about what Sin told my parents about me "Amy should have worked with others; she was holding her back." I want to tell Sin the truth...that I couldn't have survived alone at that point in my life. I can now. Incidentally, now I'm also an English major.

I avoid everything that I was in my past like video games because I need to think that stuff is all immature, and I am grown-up now, but honestly, my past is a part of me. The words I wanted to tell her that night were "I'll Reach You." Because the part of me you created will always be with me. I often wonder if you remember our inside jokes, what you tell people. I shouldn't still think of you, but I do. Because I'm an overly sensitive person. And you "saved" me. I will never forget even if the memory also remind me of my own failure and weaknesses.

69 strikes again! I'm a combination of reality and fantasy.