According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 18 million people suffer from depression in our nation. Two-thirds of them will never seek treatment. Untreated depression will often lead to addiction, eating disorders, self injury, or suicide. It is estimated that 4% of our population struggles with self-injury…

Today is To Write Love on Her Arms day. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of TWLOHA, but in a nutshell, they’re non-profit movement that brings encouragement, information, inspiration, healing and recovery to people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. And trust me, there are a lot of people out there who struggle with it. TWLOHA has helped so many people break free from the bonds of addiction and depression. They’re really doing awesome things.

The movement began as a story. Here’s a bit from the story that started it all:

Renee is 19. When I meet her, cocaine is fresh in her system. She hasn’t slept in 36 hours and she won’t for another 24. It is a familiar blur of coke, pot, pills and alcohol. She has agreed to meet us, to listen and to let us pray. We ask Renee to come with us, to leave this broken night. She says she’ll go to rehab tomorrow, but she isn’t ready now. It is too great a change. We pray and say goodbye and it is hard to leave without her.

She has known such great pain; haunted dreams as a child, the near-constant presence of evil ever since. She has felt the touch of awful naked men, battled depression and addiction, and attempted suicide. Her arms remember razor blades, fifty scars that speak of self-inflicted wounds. Six hours after I meet her, she is feeling trapped, two groups of “friends” offering opposite ideas. Everyone is asleep. The sun is rising. She drinks long from a bottle of liquor, takes a razor blade from the table and locks herself in the bathroom. She cuts herself, using the blade to write “FUCK UP” large across her left forearm.

TWLOHA seeks out people like Renee and tells them that there is hope and that they can break free.  They also work to make people aware of the issues. They encourage us to reach out to those struggling and to inform those who don’t even know. This spreading of the message is what today is about. I guess part of why this movement is so important to me is that I have a lot of people around me that have either been touched by it or who need to hear it’s message.

Today, I am joining thousands of people in writing the word “love” on our arms. We are doing this to call attention to the movement and to reach out to those who need to know what love is about. Many people struggle with the issues addressed by TWLOHA. Today, our message is “you are not alone, there is hope, and we care.”

Just one final note: The folks at TWLOHA had nothing to do with creating TWLOHA day, but they did write about it on their myspace – mostly to remind people of what this day is all about. Writing love on your arms isn’t a fashion statement, it’s a life statement.

To learn more about To Write Love on Her Arms and to become part of the movement, go to their website: www.twloha.com.

This post is from a draft I had sitting around and was originally written in September of 2007. It’s really short, but gives a bit of glimpse into what was going through my head back then. It’s kinda crazy to re-read this now; lots of stuff has happened since way back then.

Wow, what a way to start this blog off

I guess I should start by saying that I don’t believe in dating. Some of my friends do…

And some of them don’t…

Like my best friend. She, who happens to be a girl, does not believe in dating.

I’ve got to say, I really like her, and I’d love if God told me that she was the one for me… but I’ll wait for God to say “go ahead.” And I’m pretty sure He’s not going to say that right now. But you never know  : )

I feel that if you get close to someone (like through dating) you give a part of yourself to them. I would really like to save it all for whoever God has for me. I really pray that she and I stay pure in our relationship. And I really pray that we’ll both trust that God knows what He’s doing.

Ok, so today, I was reading through my drafts, and I found this one from over two years ago. It brought back some memories.

triangle 11/15/07

why do girls have to be such a pain?

i feel like i’ve turned into a competition or something and it’s totally stressing me out!

i wish everyone would just get over it! no, we’re not dating, but that doesn’t mean we’re in denial. and it definitely doesn’t mean that i’m up for grabs.

LEAVE JUSTIN ALONE

Yeah. That was a long time ago.

I need a camera. My amazing little samsung point and shoot got it’s screen cracked. I had it in my back pocket (yes, I know) at the county fair. While we were there, a friend and I went on this ride that  spun you around and around and probably generated about 2Gs of force. Well, other then making our feet hurt, it also broke my camera (I kinda forget to take it out…). So now my camera has a huge crack in the screen and only shows white with black splotches. I miss that camera so much that it’s pretty much ridiculous. I need a new camera before I go crazy.

Apparently, my previous post has caused some problems. Apparently, some people have missed the point. If I may, I would like to clear up the confusion.

First, let’s give some background: a lot happened between “Summer!” and “Goodbye, My Love” (the post this is all about), and one of the things that happened can really only be described as that my girlfriend broke up with me (“A Glimpse” kinda hints at what was going on here). That’s not entirely accurate, and there’s a lost more to it, but you get the idea. Anyway, it’s been a rather rough thing to go through. It was a pretty serious relationship that I was 100% committed to. But that’s not what this post is about.

The point of this post is to explain the point of my previous post. Titled “Goodbye, My Love,” it was a love letter to Summer. Unfortunately, some people got the idea that, in Summer, I was talking about the girl I’d been in a relationship with, and in reading it that way, they were (I’d imagine – all I’ve heard is that people got the wrong idea.) quite surprised to read the bit that goes

“Memories of nights we spent together will stay with me forever. The feel of sweat of the sheets; the calming cool that a soft breath would bring.”

and were somewhat disturbed by it. I can understand that. I mean, that would be one heck of a steamy relationship. The only problem is… that’s not what I meant at all. It was a love letter to Summer, as in Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter. Sweaty sheets and hot nights have a much different meaning if you read it that way. That was how I intended it.

I imagine that there are two core issues that people are taking with this post. The first is probably people thinking that we had a relationship of that nature and her family worrying about how this could hurt her reputation. The second thing I can see is her and her family possibly thinking that I might have done this with the purpose to hurt her reputation in order to get back at her. Like I said, the breakup as been pretty hard on me. But nothing (and I mean it, nothing) could be further from the truth. First of all, we strove in every way to keep our relationship as pure as possible. We tried our hardest to never even be alone together unless it just couldn’t be avoided, which was very rare. Second, I still love her. We’re even (last time I checked, anyway) trying to maintain a friendship through this. I know that we can’t be together anymore. I don’t understand it, I don’t completely agree with it, and I definitely don’t like it, but I don’t have to. I just know that this is how things are, everything we had together is gone. But I still love her in ways other than the romantic “I love you” way. She is an amazing, Godly woman who I respect greatly (that’s why I’m trying to keep her as a friend). And for the the record, she is probably one of the most pure girls I know. I would never do anything to hurt her or to smear her reputation. In fact, if anyone else cares to try, I’ll be one of the first in line to do some rather unpleasant things to them. But no, “Goodbye, My Love” was not about anything other than the season we call Summer.

If you couldn’t tell, yes, some of the feeling in “Goodbye, My Love” is 100% real. That’s part of why I wrote it that way. It gave me somewhere to let those feeling out. But this post was really started just for fun. The weather here went from hot and sunny and very Summer-like to stormy and rainy in about two days. Things cleared up and the weather was fine for a day before we woke up to a chill. Fall has fallen quite quickly (overnight, in fact), and I do have a love affair with Summer, so I thought the analogy of  waking up to find my lover gone was appropriate. When I started writing, I had no thoughts of anything other than that. The feelings are real, but only because I know a little bit about what the pain of loss a like that feels like.

Writing generally reflects the experiences of the writer, whether intentionally or not. And I promise, any references to her are unintentional. I am truly sorry for any confusion “Goodbye, My Love” caused. Hopefully this post has cleared things up.

Justin

Note: This post seems to have caused some issues. Please read my explanation and see if it clears things up. Thank you and please enjoy – Justin.

I lost my love yesterday. It was surprising: when I woke up, she was just gone. My first crush, my one and only. She walked out and left this bitter cold in her place. The way she used to gently wake me up in the mornings, the way I would melt in her warm embrace, the times we spent together. Gone, just like that. She brought such joy to my life. What happened to those times when we would spend our days at the pool. Just her and I. Now it seems everything is dying. The trees, the grass. The birds have all left. The days even seem shorter, darker. Colder. Memories of nights we spent together will stay with me forever. The feel of sweat of the sheets; the calming cool that a soft breath would bring.

I should have seen it coming. The storm clouds over us did seem to threaten our relationship. But who would’ve thought it would have ended like this?

They say you’ll come back to me, that you always do. Perhaps. But what if you don’t? How could I ever love another the way I loved you? You will always be my first love. They say that you should hold things with an open hand, but I question that sometimes. God has taken you away from me, and I feel there is no reason. No purpose for this pain and loneliness.

There is no use in questioning it — you’re gone. Nothing I can do will bring you back. All I can do is say “Goodbye, my love.”

Yet, I still wonder:

Where have you gone? Why must you go? And I beg you to come back (As if it does any good). We’ve been through so much together. We’ve weathered every storm, made it through every long winter. But this seems different. You were the best thing that ever happened to me…

Oh Summer, where have you gone?

Have you you ever felt like someone took your life and turned upside down? Well, that happened to me recently. I still haven’t worked through what happened all the way, and I’m not ready to write about it yet I don’t think, but I needed to get some stuff out. This post might seem pretty pointless and incredibly disorganized. Just call it a glimpse into my heart.

I don’t even know how to start this. I have a lot of praying to do. I’ve been seeking God for the past week, it’s pretty intense. Sleep definitely isn’t what it used to be. I’ve been staying up later that I have in a while. I’ve reconnected with a lot of really good friends. I think the thing that would give the best glimpse into what’s going on would be the music that’s been resonating with me lately. Everyday Sunday’s Wake Up! Wake Up! basically tells the story of my life right now, and some other songs fit my various moods. Mostly stuff by Relient K and Mae and Anberlin. Let It All Out by Relient K is a good one for helping me remember that things work out for the best. A Day Late by Anberlin is kinda an echo. Mae’s Someone Else’s Arms kinda describes the last few months leading up to this. Almost anything by Ivory makes me cry right now, especially Love Finds Love. It probably will for a while…

Go look at my last.fm stream and you’ll see what I’m listening to, and if you head over to blip.fm, you’ll get a bit of the story behind the songs too. Maybe I’ll eventually be ready to write about what’s going on and what led up to it. It could be a while though. Well see…

I hope that, if thing else, someone will read this and know that they’re not the only one going through some confusing stuff right now. And if you have a song or a thought you want to share, post them in a comment. I’d like to see them.

Well, it looks like I’m finally getting into the swing of things. I got a job as a lifeguard at the city pools here in Murfreesboro and I’ve been working there for almost a week now. It’s such a fun job.  Yesterday, there was a swim meet going on, we had a tornado break, and one of the guards was having a potluck with his water aerobics class and we got to eat some of the food. That kind of stuff is exactly why I love guarding. The people are always fun too, and being near a pool to swim laps during my breaks isn’t too bad either.

I also finally bought myself a laptop. It’s a pretty slick machine with a dual core 64 bit proessor and a 15.6 inch 16:9 screen. It rocks at graphics work and movies. The keyboard is taking some getting used though – but that’s mostly because I’m a terrible typer. When I type the way I’m used to, it nds up loong like ths… yeah.

I’ve also started working on a web/marketing project and maybe found a swim team to spend some time with for the summer. I’m pretty excited. All I need now is to get some subs for the week of cornerstone. I half of the days taken care of already, but that isn’t going to help unless I get the rest of the week off too. I can’t just pull a sick day or use some vacation time.

Now it’s time to go start dinner and get ready to go see about coaching swim practice and hopefully not fall asleep in the process. Wish me luck!

I finally did it… I graduated! I’m done with school until college starts. It’s kinda different not having schoolwork to do all the time. I’ve always been homeschooled, and it seems like I’ve always been either trying to catch up on or get ahead in something. Most of my summers had at least a half load of schoolwork that I was supposed to be doing. It’s been a long few years, especially the last 4. High school has been pretty intense.

Being homeschooled through high school makes some people look at you kinda funny. It’s almost like they’re thinking “you can do that?” Other times they come right out and ask you some of the oddest questions: “what do you do for sports?” “where do you get your diploma?” “how do you make any friends?” and others like that. The answers are pretty easy, although most people look at me in disbelief when I say “friends? I’ve got the most amazing friends ever! Graduation? of course, and there’s going to be a hundred students there. And no, we didn’t have prom in my garage.” It’s been so much fun

Looking back on it though, I learned some very important lessons during the last 12 years. Here’s a list of some that come to mind as the most useful:

1. Don’t forget about biology
2. When you’re studying, classical music can be just as distracting as anything else
3. Mom’s rules always triumph
4. When in doubt, don’t cite wikipedia
5. For most people, geometry is nothing more than a method for proving the obvious
6. Don’t write papers on obscure subjects
7. Facebook is an amazing place
8. “Gmail ate my homework” doesn’t work
9. Last.fm will play the most random songs when you’re trying to study
10. Taking physics, chemistry, algebra, biology, and geometry is not the most brilliant way to spend your senior year
11. Your life explodes in the second semester of your senior year
12. Graduation is one of the oddest things you will ever go through
13. Learning almost never happens on schedule
14. Don’t bother putting your name in your graduation cap, it’ll get lost anyway
15. Going to the mall doesn’t usually count as a study session
16. Friends are an absolute must
17. You’ll never have the time, so you may as well do it now
18. Taking a break when you still have work to do (procrastinating) isn’t as fun as actually being done
19. You can’t sing along to a song and read at the same time
20. Colleges should give you a degree or a scholarship for just figuring out how to apply

Anyway, I’m pretty excited about this new chapter in my life that’s going to be starting. But that’s a subject for a whole other post.

It’s getting more real. Seriously, college is coming. Last week, I went to the college for what they call “customs.” It’s like a cross between orientation  and registration and some other stuff. We were divided into groups by our major and got to meet the deans and advisers of our departments some of the current students and on the second day we went and had our student IDs made up, met the student organizations, and registered for classes. I was also able to take care of some other stuff like dropping off my final transcript and looking at the dorms I’m going to be staying in. But now I’m all done with that stuff, I’m an official student of Middle Tennessee State University!

Unfortunately though, my camera died while I was there. I went to take a picture with it and noticed that the screen had a lovely line through it and it was all white with black splotches. Not good. Thankfully its still in warrenty though (barely – it expires on the 3rd of June),  so I’m sending back to get hopefully it fixed. I’m so bored without that thing. And graduation is in 2 days, so there won’t be many pictures. Maybe I’ll steal Rachel’s camera and use it during the grad party.