Immaturely Mature

  There was a definite part in my life where I transitioned into adulthood in my family.  In reality, I didn't exactly become adult because even now I don't exactly consider myself as an adulthood, however I can recall a time in which I became more mature as a person, perhaps even too mature for myself. 
 
  If you have read my first and second blog, you already know that when I was four, my older brother, William, passed away.  After the death of brother, I was forced into a sense of maturity that, respectively, no child should go through.  When he died, my entire family went into a state of depression and I, as a child, had to make dramatic changes in order to adapt.  For example, I became extremely morbid.  My mother still tells me of the times in which I would draw pictures of dead or dying people.  I started off just drawing my brother in the clouds, but then as my imagination started to fuel my observations of death, things started to get carried away.  Eventually my mother even had to bring me to a psychologist. 

  My thought processes also changed after the death of my brother.  I stopped seeing the world as a constant joy to be in.  Instead, I started to take a lot of things more seriously, especially when it came to death.  Firstly, I wanted to be a vegetarian for the longest time because I couldn't stand the idea of eating animals that had been murdered.  Which of course, my family wouldn't allow.  Secondly, I started to be able to empathize a lot easier and more extremely than others around me.  I can slightly remember crying multiple times simply because someone had either started to cry or even just became frustrated, just because I felt as though I exactly understood the emotions they were feeling.

  Because I knew how pain felt, and I knew what it meant to lose someone you loved and looked up to, I was then able to transition from immature to a little bit too mature for my own good.  Which is ironic because since I became so mature, I started to act more immature (what with the constant crying).

Failure

I love singing.  There's no surprise there, I do musical things all the time.  But that does mean I'm completely confident in it or my voice.  In fact, I'm very very self-conscious about my singing.
I show my self-consciousness through my legs when I'm on stage.  There's a constant shake that happens in my calves, and I can never stop it.  Unfortunately this has a major effect on my performances.
Specifically, one time in 8th grade I was auditioning for a solo in chorus.  The song was Adele's "Rolling In The Deep" and I was so excited to be doing it.  And I stayed confident until the very moment I got up to audition.  The main reason for this I think (Besides of course my normal every day self-consciousness) was that one of my friends auditioned before me, and he was soooo good.  I could tell from the moment he started singing that he was gonna get the part.  I could see it on the directors face, and that's what hurt me the most; knowing that I didn't even have a real chance to prove myself.  So when I got up there my legs immediately started shaking and I could barely hit any of the notes.  I was so off key that it felt like someone had actually taken the key and shoved it down my throat.  I felt so defeated and low that I started to cry.  Not a lot, just the type of crying where your face gets all red and you can feel your eyes puffing up. 
Anyways, I didn't get the solo.  But the sad part is that it didn't even matter to me that I didn't get the part, the real failure for me, as an 8th grader, was that I even got up there.


http://musicians.about.com/od/LifeasaMusician/ht/How-To-Deal-With-Stage-Fright.htm

My Favourite Music

I'm not a picky person.  I'll listen to anything as long as it isn't incredibly annoying to my ears.  For instance, I've been recently hooked on a Nicki Minaj song called "Feelin' Myself", and I don't normally listen to rap.  But wow that song is on point.  However, there are certain songs I just can't stand. Exhibit A: most Country music.  Nothing against those who do enjoy country, I just can't stand the simplistic lyrics and the uncomfortable feeling that some misogynist is breathing on my neck while singing about how sexy his tractor is. 
Anyways, I'm not writing here to tell you which music I don't like, I'm here to tell you which music really moves me.  And that, specifically the ability to make me move, is what I look for in music.  I just live for that moment when your sitting down and all of the sudden some jammin song comes on, and you can't but tap your feet, snap your fingers and wiggle in your seat with joy.  The type of music that can make me do this no matter who it's by, or even what it's about, is swing music.  Just thinking about it makes me smile and start dancing in my head.
Songs like "Valerie" by Amy Winehouse and "I Want You Back" by the Jackson 5 are what I sing to myself in the shower or dance to at Midnight in my living room when no one else is awake.  Don't act like you've never done that, maybe with a different song but it's a solid fact that we've all danced to some song in are living room.  I might do it a little bit more regularly (literally every night) but that's neither here nor there.
I can always rely on these songs and others, even non-swing songs (anything by Robyn), to put me in a good mood, and without them life would be a poop-ton lot more boring for me.

Ice Cream Land

To start off, this might sound very immature/childish/etc., and it is, it totally is, but that's ok because it means so much.  And to me, childlike things are the most meaningful what with their innocence purity and whole-heartedness.
Relating to my last post, right after my brother died when I was four, my mother, as well as everyone else in my family, was intensely depressed.  And even though she was going through the hardest period of time in her life, she still tried so hard to make sure I wasn't as depressed as her.  She went about this in many different ways. Through daily talks and an amazing patience and understanding, she was able to make me feel that everything was going to be alright.  I remember her telling me to never be afraid to cry and that she would always be there for me when I wanted to vent.  And although in hindsight I can clearly see how messed up everything was for us, at the time her small everyday actions made me feel as if everything was fine and normal.
But the best thing she gave to me during this trying time was a coping mechanism for me to hold onto whenever she wasn't around and I felt sad. This coping mechanism was an imaginary land called Ice Cream Land made just for her and me where no one else could intrude.  I can still remember her saying to me one night, when I was so afraid to sleep because of a nightmare I had had the prior night, "It's ok A.J., we'll be together when you go to sleep, just think real real hard and you'll wake up in Ice Cream Land!  And I'll be there with you!"  And that helped me so much!  When she told me this, I was overcome with a sense of bliss and serenity in which I didn't have to worry about the problems and the fears that I had to face when I was awake.
Even now, whenever I'm afraid or depressed I just close my eyes and go to Ice Cream Land, and slide on the vanilla slides and bounce on the (for some reason) delightfully springy cherries.  And I can't thank my mother enough for what she did for me.  She gave me the power to cope with the difficult things and to simply just take a minute to breath.  So shout out to Catherine, solid momming!

It's pretty much this.

False Light in the Dark

I loved my Brother. I still do, I'm sure anyone who remembers him thinks of him with love. I might be biased seeing as how I only had four years to make this judgment. I only have two memories of him. One of which he was simply tying his shoes on a pedestal. The other one however, I will carry to my grave.
I remember sitting with my Billy on a big comfy blue couch made of velour sitting in front of a T.V. screen playing video games. We were playing a Spider-Man video game, and due to the fact that I was four at the time, I wasn't very good at it. I became frustrated at times, noting that no matter how hard I tried, I wouldn't be able to defeat the villains. Seeing me being overtaken by emotions, Billy took the controller from me and gave me another one that was unplugged. We played the game as if he were all the bad guys and I were the Spider-Man. In reality he was the only one playing, but to me I was finally able to beat the game and even do better than my big brother. Looking back at this, it just makes me so happy that he went out of his way to make me smile and laugh.
After his death however, there wasn't a lot of smiling going around in my house. Before his death, Billy, my other brother Matt, and I would be outside all the time or making small videos and always laughing. After he died, there was just no motivation to do anything. At first there was hysterical crying, which, believe it or not, was the easy part. Because after everyone was cried out, all that was left were these broken emotionless faces just barley making it through life. At least that's how it was in my family.
Seeing this, I knew I had to try to make them smile, I had to stop them from basically being dead inside. So I became a shit ton more happy. I always smiled and I always asked my mom for hugs; she was the worst off. But conflicting enough, I also became a lot more sensitive, always crying whenever something went wrong. Not even necessarily in my life, but also whenever someone else started to cry, I just couldn't help myself and I balled along side them.  And I feel like this was my way of dealing with having to be happy all the time. Instead of being real with every one and actually expressing what was going through my head, I cried out all my feelings in short bursts that meant nothing. And in the long run, this didn't help me in the slightest. 
Now, as teenager, I find myself unable to get rid of some of these behaviors. I'm still always putting on this fake ass visage of happiness in order to get rid of my actual thoughts. The only person who was able to get through my mask and tell me what I needed to hear was my boyfriend, and now that he left I find myself reverting back to those same old behaviors (But that's a different story).
The only thing I have left to hold on to now are the love and support of friends and the memory of the best place in the world. That comfy blue valor couch with my brother by my side playing Spider-Man.