A Collection of Ideas

Part Two - Melisa Chapring

         Is it okay to feel this way? 

What way? 

          The one where nothing seems alright.  Nothing is simple anymore.  The true meaning behind each conversation must be decoded. People we thought were our kin have become our foe,  and for reasons unknown,  the love we thought flowed through the veins of the earth has ceased to exist. 

        This part will be about a girl named Melisa Chapring.  The following words are a vague expression of what went through her head every waking moment.

           The torrent of tears shed at the expense of ideals was too high.  The hurricanes of emotion swirling in her mind felt too destructive for even her headstrong conscious to ever hope to contain. The values and standards of her peers and family were so vastly different from her own,  and she felt like she was never able to live up to the expectations of society. 

          Melisa always did what she thought was right.  She cared for others more than herself.  She figured that because there are seven billion,  eight hundred million  people on the green planet earth,  it would be foolish to have the audacity to think she mattered. Melisa used to be happy. Life used to be indescribably beautiful and perfect.  Now,  there were still fleeting moments when Melisa felt this way,  but as more time passed,  those sweet, fleeting moments came ever fewer.

          More and more often,  Melisa felt overwhelmed.A monstrous stack of all the obligations,  papers,  and responsibilities she had kept piling up, up, and up,  while the hours left in the days steadily shrank down, down, and down.  She spent countless days worrying for others while trying to cram every woe of her own deeper inside.  Obviously, her own problems were not as important as everyone else's.  All she had to deal with was finding the time that she never seemed to have enough of. 

          Melisa spent a lot of her little spare time trying to convince herself that she was okay.  She knew that the way she felt was not okay,  and she did her best to act like the glass was half full,  and that everything would be better tomorow than it was today.  Little Melisa had so much hope.

          The sad part was that every time she miraculously managed convince herself that she was beautiful the way she was,  that she worked hard enough,  that she cared about people enough, and that tomorow could be better, the hopes she had instilled in her soul would be crushed.  She would walk though her door only to be told that she was not doing all she could,  and that she needed to be better, otherwise she would be a failure.  And foolish Melisa would believe them. 

          She believed them because Melisa had two things she feared more than anything else.  She was terrified of failure. Many failures she could accept and learn from.  Those were not the failures she hid from.  Melisa hid from the horrible idea that everything she worked hard for, cared about, everything she strove so hard to be, would be a failure.