Penny For Your Thoughts

 Once upon today, I am in love. I have loved him for a while. He knows this. I know this. But when did I realize it? I would like to tell you a story friend. When we were 14 years old, we spent a summer becoming friends. We listened to Kanye and laughed about stupid little things. We ended up in Florida at the same time, but we never crossed paths. He went to Universal and said hello to Spider-Man for me.  But it was not then that I realized that I loved him. When we were 16 years old, I was sitting on the floor. Completely out of tears, I texted this boy who had been a good friend since we were only 14. He said, "You deserve to be happy." But it was not then that I realized I loved him.  Just a few weeks later, I was wearing his sweatshirt and smiling more than I ever had when I turned to go inside after he had stopped by. He stopped me and told me that he loved me. I told him that I loved him too.  It was then that I realized I loved him. -Emma Lancaster

 Whoever said teleportation hasn't been invented yet is a dumb butt. It absolutely has. Whenever the first chords of the song begin, that moment begins. You're transported to a different time, in a different place, with different people. You remember the clothes you wore that day, the feeling, the sunlight on your face, the warm summer evening.  You're moved.  Teleported somewhere else. It is not necessarily an escape, but maybe more like a sigh of remembrance. Breathe in that moment. Remember it. Be in it.

 Hey crazy. There are a lot of songs about being under pressure. I like them. They're relatable, especially the part about cracking. The pressure can be too much.  Is it my own fault for taking on so many things? Absolutely, but that doesn't mean that it's easy for me to balance all of these so many things. A crack.  A leak.  A burst.  A gush. Empty. -Emma Lancaster

 I think it's time to talk about love. I understand that you might be quite sick of love by this point. After all, it is about 11:45pm on Valentine's Day. I don't want to talk about romantic love, though. I want to talk about what love is, at its very core. Love is a feeling, yes.  Love is also action. Showing love comes by action, whether that action is a gesture or verbal.  We cannot love unconditionally as humans. Although many say that we can, especially in the instance of mothers to their children, I don't think any being that is undivine can love unconditionally. You see, dear friend, love is a choice. You must wake up every day and choose to talk to your family. You must choose to hold your screaming baby, as much as you don't want to. You must choose to love yourself. It's not an easy choice by any means.  I choose to love you today because you are choosing to love yourself and others. Love is a good choice. Keep choosing. -Emma Lancaster

 Who are those girls that want to be prom queen, but know that they never will? They're everywhere, but I'm talking about one specific kind of girl. The girl that wants to be prom queen more than anything but knows she never will has friends. She is not alone, nor is she unpopular. She talks to people every day, and she is so funny. That girl has such a goofy grin and knows how to use it to make others smile too.  She works so hard for what she wants, it's very admirable. She lives by a schedule, planning out her days to reach her goals with grace. She takes on every bit of work that she can to push herself to be better. She writes and writes and writes, working on her senior year college applications. She stays up late to study, but always quits at midnight. If she doesn't understand it by midnight, she just doesn't understand it.  She has gone through so much. She knows what it is like to be bullied. She knows what it is like to feel that someone else's mental

 Paralyzing fear. It just takes over. It's hard to breathe, it's hard to think, it's hard to focus. Your mind cannot be tricked into thinking about anything else.  Your world falls apart until the problem is resolved. How inconsiderate of other people to act like everything else is fine!  Won't leave the room. Won't leave the house. Afraid other people can see straight through your "I'm good!" Present, yet absent.  Distant.  -Emma Lancaster

 As human beings, we like structure. We have an internal system, a circadian rhythm that when thrown off feels disgusting and tiring.  Not having some kind of structure in my day-to-day life stresses me out. I like being productive instead of laying on the couch.  I have no problem with laying on the couch all day. It feels quite nice, actually. I'm a super busy person, so having a day off is a nice refresher. It just isn't productive.  I wake up at 11:30am and then scroll all day. What kind of day is that? There is no structure to it.  The anxiety that comes with a day of doing nothing is not worth the lack of structure for me. You don't have to feel the same way. In fact, you probably don't feel the same way. But, you came here for my thoughts. -Emma Lancaster

It was a Tuesday night.  Flashlight tag had just ended, and although it was only 9:30pm, I was dead tired. My 13-year-old legs could only take so much walking in a day.  We walked from the grotto, this beautiful overhanging rock that could sit 300 summer campers underneath it, back to our cabins. I got lucky that my flashlight hadn't run out of battery yet, it was the same flashlight I had been using at camp for three years and I had never changed the battery.  Our cabins had a lot of stairs, wildly inconvenient for a tired camper, but every climb was worth the struggle. When we got up the stairs, we threw our poison ivy clothes into garbage bags and put on our swimsuits that were cold and damp from earlier in the day. "Two Shower Tuesday" was a well-known convention in camp history.  The walk to the shower house was a bit long. Down the trail, across the bridge, and up the road. We always joked that nature was going to eat us alive. The number of mosquitos was truly horr