"I believe life is made up of moments...

Don't know much about your life

Don't know much about your world but

Don't wanna be alone tonight

On this planet they call Earth

You don't know about my past and

I don't have a future figured out

And maybe this is goin' too fast

And maybe it's not meant to last

"We are like clay molded by moments. And that whole process of molding is called life."

She smiled and shot into a run. In her sun dress and fine silver slippers, she ran across the wide field, leaving me behind, in awe of her innocent beauty. She turned around, her hair twirling as she moved.

"Who said it's going to be an easy journey? Not even the most philosophical person! Who said it'll easy for clay to be molded? Haven't you asked yourself if the clay ever felt pain when the potter molds it?" She shouted across the field.

But what do you say to takin' chances?

What do you say to jumpin' off the edge?

Never knowin' if there's solid ground below

Or a hand to hold or hell to pay

What do you say? What do you say?

I stood there. Taking the entire view in. She, her dress, her hair, the sunlight, the greenery... "If only it was easy!" I shouted back. "If only life was easy!"

"Questions that begin with 'if only' won't bring you anywhere, Jon! It's questions that begin with 'what if' -- those are the questions that will cause you to soar!"

I just wanna start again

And maybe you could show me how to try

Maybe you could take me in

Somewhere underneath your skin

"I want to relive my life, you see! I want to rid myself of all those regrets! I hate where I am right now, I hate being so crippled by my past!"

"Everyone has a past! The only difference is that they make a conscious choice to accept their past, be okay with making mistakes and move on!"

She turned around and continued running.

"Where are you going?" I hollered. "You're going too far!"

She paused, turned around, "I'm living this moment. Won't you drop your yesterdays and live now?" She continued running.

What was I thinking? What am I going to do? Why am I alone standing here, thinking to myself about my yesterdays? Does my past matter? Does it matter more than my present which will shape my future? How long more do I want to be stuck justifying my past, condemning myself, telling myself that I am not good enough, that I could have done better? How long more do I want to choose to beat myself up when I can spend the time working on bettering myself right now?

No more. I will choose to treasure the now. I will choose to make good use of the time I have with me right now, lest I end up regretting and beating myself up about today in the near future.

I will choose to defy gravity now.

I ran after her.

What do you say to takin' chances?

What do you say to jumpin' off the edge?

Never knowin' if there's solid ground below

Or a hand to hold or hell to pay

What do you say? What do you say?

"Where are you!" I hollered as I run.

"Don't look for me by shouting! You'll cloud your judgments." Her voice shouted back but I see her not. "Feel me. Believe that you'll find me, set your intentions to find me, and you will."

I ran and ran and ran. It was no more a wide field; I was now running through the forest. Soon I realized I knew not where I was headed to. It felt like when I was a teenager. So lost, so uncertain about myself and my future. What was I looking for again? Why did it matter?

Finding my answer, I looked around and for the first time, I listened to my gut. There, it said and I sprung off.

Hey now, hey, my heart is beatin' down

But I'm always comin' back for more, yeah

There's nothin' like love to pull you up

When you're lyin' down on the floor, babe

So talk to me, talk to me like lovers do

Yeah, walk with me, walk with me like lovers do

Like lovers do

Running with refreshed purpose, I headed towards the darker side of the forest where tall trees blocked the sunlight. What do I do? Do I plunge into the unknown? I shouldn't have listened to my gut. I should've just ran towards where I thought would be right. But I've already made it this far, why do I want to back track?

Tentatively, I took a few more steps.

"What's holding you back?" I heard her voice. "What's telling you to worry and recalculate your bearings? Has life ever been mathematics with formulas and right solutions? Has living ever been that? What's stopping you from going a hundred percent?"

Me. My need to be right. Because when I am right, people will look up to me and praise me. If I screw things up like the past...

"Who's talking about your past? Move on. Who cares about your past? Who remembers it?"

I...

"Only you remember about your mistakes! Everyone else is too busy worrying about his or her mistakes; they don't have time to laugh at yours!"

I stood there, baffled. What do I say? What is the right thing to say?

"Again, you're thinking about what is right. If you're always worried about being right, you'll never succeed because people who do the right things are boring. Look at the leaders of the century. Have they done anything right?


I had enough. Enough of all these confrontations. Enough of honesty. I can't stand them.

"What are you waiting for, Jon? What's stopping you from taking that plunge?"

I burst into a run. And suddenly found myself running out of the dark forest. Light shone onto my face, and there I saw the end of the road. I forced myself to stop running.

Then appearing out of nowhere, she held my hand and smiled. "Nice to see you again. I see that you've taken a chance and found yourself here."

She took a step forward.

"Wait, where are you going?" I asked her. My heart beating fast, worries exploding throughout my mind. "What are you doing? It's a cliff. You're going to fall --"

"I know. But

"What to you say to takin' chances?
"What do you say to jumpin' off the edge?
"Never knowin' if there's solid ground below
"Or a hand to hold or hell to pay
"What do you say? What do you say?"

"I say you're crazy. You're --"

"I say you're scared." She looked me in the eye and spat it at my face in all honesty. "I say you'd rather be boring like everyone else. I say you'd rather dwell in pain than be awesome. I say you'd rather take the easier way out because you're scared of being great. You fantasize about how awesome you want to be, but when it comes to taking the plunge, you say 'Don't be stupid.' Again, you're stuck with doing the right things."

"This is not a joke, Denil. This is not a joke at all. You could die!"

"But I could live too. Who's to say what is and what is not? Sometimes the best moments in our lives are moments when we take the plunge without hesitating, without worrying about how others view us, without the need to be right. What is more important to you -- to be right or soar? You can only have one at a time."

I fell silent. I didn't know the answer. Why don't I know the answer? Was it because I was doing what she said -- looking for the right answer? Ah, screw it.

I looked up. "To soar. That's what I want." I said with certainty.

She smiled. "Great to have you on board." She grabbed my hand and together we ran. Off we jumped from the cliff, spread our hands as if we were flying. The cold air rushing against our face.

Free fall.

"When you take the leap, you'll fall. But you'll fall with pride. And who knows, you might just end up at a better place." She shouted.

Freedom.

Don't know much about your life

And I don't know much about your world

Dear you,

I don't know about you. I don't know anything about your life. I don't know anything about your world. But have you been finding right answers for too long?

Is it that bad to be wrong? So what if it's wrong? What's the worst that could happen?

It's not about the past. It's not about what have you done before. It's about what can you do now to make this moment worth remembering.

What do you say to takin' chances?
What do you say to jumpin' off the edge?
Never knowin' if there's solid ground below
Or a hand to hold or hell to pay
What do you say? What do you say?

Love,
Me.

Taking Chances

Lea Michelle

Glee

"Do you know why I'd rather be boring than create?" she asked me.

I looked away and stared hard into the sky. Why? I asked, half not wanting to hear her answer.

"Because creating takes a toll on me." She looked away and stared into the distance.

I didn't speak. In fact, none of us spoke. It was as if we both agreed to let that sentence sink deep down into our heads and hearts.

But the silence was deafening. Somehow she expected me to say something. Something, anything, so that the tension, the pressure that's beating against her chest could be tamed. But nothing was all I could do.

Taking a sip of coffee and mustering more courage, she looked down, as if ashamed by what she was about to say. Her heart was racing fast. She could hear her heartbeat as if she placed her ears on her racing heart.

"When I create, I take on all the experiences I've gone through, especially the painful ones. The ones that I hate, detest, loathe at whenever I think of them. And I hate the fact that I need to revisit all these haunting ghosts of yesterdays I wish every single day I didn't have. Then these stories, these characters, figments of my fragmented self don't need to exist.

"And it's as if I willingly willed them to live just to satisfy this need to create. If creating is so painful, if that's what it means to be creative, then I'd rather not create. I'd rather be boring. I'd rather not live."

I looked at her. A tear rolled down her left eye. What could I say to ease her pain? Nothing, because it's her experience. And no words can even soothe the scars on her heart. If I could...

"When I look at my hands after creating a short story, I see those red marks, those scars, those hurts that shouldn't have been there because I didn't deserve them." She said, her voice breaking. She could've stopped and finished her coffee. We could leave and go for a happy comedy movie, but no -- she continued. Somehow, it's as if she knew that she had to get the screaming words and emotions out of her system before they consumed her.

She continued, "I was only a child. Does a child deserve misery? Who wills that onto a child? Who wants to see a child with a broken smile? It's not fair. Not fair at all that people get to enjoy the result of a lonely person's pain. It's not fair that I have to be the one experiencing it every day, facing it alone every single day without anyone understanding the depth of pain it encompasses. How -- how can anyone understand me? How can anyone, even the most empathetic one, comprehend that sorrow I bear inside me? I'm like a well overflowing with sorrow and pain -- and people get to enjoy the product of a torturous activity -- creating."

---

An hour passed by. Just like that.

None of us spoke, leaving the words she said hanging in the air. But this time, the silence wasn't deafening at all. Funnily, it felt as if we wanted the silence to be the music of the hour, to fill our ears with it and nothing else as we stared into the distant and ponder on what she had so transparently said.

Does creating really bring that much pain? Only the ones truly creating will know. But it's known that the ones who suffer the most create the most beautiful things we now refer to as art. But really, is pain really necessary? Is ugliness really important in the process of creating something worth appreciating?

Then breaking the silence, she finished her cup of coffee and said, "Maybe that's how I know I'm alive. Being able to breathe, to feel, to touch, to see the beauty in ways people don't. Maybe that's why it's easier for me to create something beautiful, because I know what is ugly, what is loathsome. While I'd rather be boring and conventional, I can't bear the thought of not creating even though the pain of creating sometimes challenges my threshold of pain.

"Maybe I want to live more than to be boring. Maybe I want to live my life knowing that I have created some beautiful instead of just basking in my sorrows. Maybe I want to believe in colors instead of just black and white. Maybe that way, the world can be a better, more beautiful place.

"Maybe that's why we need the process of creating; we just can't stand being bland."