this makes no sense

April 28, 2006

The silence is deafening as I sit alone, watching credits of yet another late night movie rolling by. I flip on a few lights and migrate to change into a sweatshirt, when my reflection catches my eye. I spend a few moments pouring over my exhausted blue eyes, my faded brown hair... "You look sad," I whisper to the stranger I see. "Keep your chin up. There's tomorrow." A melody sings from my stereo as I steal a quick glance around my room. A picture from tour catches my eye, and I rest for a moment in the smiles and the laughter I remember so clearly.

Flashes of time are spinning before me, and I see Brenton singing to Miranda, and Becca wiping away my tears one lonely night, and Seth whipping out his guitar, and Faith kneeling beside me to hold me. I remember lives changed, and every night a new stage. I remember what it felt like to change the world and to feel the world changing. It all seems so distant now, so many months later. I wonder how things have fared for them. Were they really 'committed' like we all claimed? Or did they slip at the first opportunity to fail miserably. Like me.

Late nights have a tendancy to get me down. And I don't really have nights that aren't late.

Definitely not by my own choosing. The hours dwindle away and I try to avoid watching the clock, but when it reaches midnight and I have no physical desire to sleep yet, there just isn't any place I can go.
It's empty here, at this hour. And it's dark. But it's a waste of money to just turn on lots of lights for my own self satisfaction (there's always the Oreck I suppose). It's too early to go out to Denny's. It's too late to make phone calls that wouldn't freak people out. I spend countless hours watching movies by myself just passing time hoping that my eyes will get tired. All the while I assure myself that, no, I am not without many friends that care about me. No. I have many friends. The problem doesn't lie there.

Is it in my dreams? I feel like it is sometimes. Does the issue lie in the places I long to visit and to see. Is it wrong or weird to want to just skip out on all the tourist attractions and GPA's and transcripts, and just go feed someone who's hungry? Or play the guitar with a homeless person? Or hug the little girl whose school and food I have the honor of paying for? It's a small price to pay for a life. A small thing to sacrifice so that a little girl can know she is loved.

I sit here useless. I dream of change, and of living in Buenos Aires and studying to become a teacher so I can teach people how to read and write in countries less fortunate than ours... yet here I stand. On the western coast of one of the biggest empires this world has ever known, more blessed than 97 percent of the rest of humankind. And my hands sit idle. I dream of visiting the families I met in Spain, and getting to know their culture and their lives and their hopes and dreams... the things they wake up every day for... I want to know all of that.

Maybe late nights just make me frusterated. But it's me! It's Dayna! My life is supposed to change lives. I'm supposed to actually do something with my guitar instead of just sit on it. I'm supposed to make a difference instead of just talking about making a difference. These eyes were meant to see the world... to walk the sands of Egypt and to see the mountains of Peru. To teach little kids that they're loved, and that they have potential, and that they can read and write.

I want to make a difference. And on nights like these it eats away at me like some disease. DO something... anything!... GO somewhere... anywhere!

There is so much of me that is kicking and screaming to just live. To really live. Not just exist somewhere, on one planet out of trillions in a universe of endless proportions. No. Not for me.

I will not go down without a fight. Apathy won't get me.