Cook, Alexis_Journal Writing : simplebooklet.com

Introduction:Writing is an art form that takes in the complex shapes of words and forms them into adigestible canvas with vibrant scenes. Without writing, many tales of history and emotions would beforgotten. We would only have word of mouth, and information would be altered into misguidinghideous monsters. We have seen it multiple times in our society, where data has been changed to beused for oppression and control. We build upon writing because we live in a world full of stories thatconnect us and tell us how we should live our lives. Writing is significant to communication; we cantell elaborate stories about ourselves and situations that we otherwise would keep to ourselves. Thisskill is a human skill that no other species has achieved. It proves that humans are deep thinkers withdeeper complex meanings to our interactions. Writing comes from language, and language comesfrom our want for connection and understanding. Without that, we would not be human.Since middle school, I have written stories never about myself but about fantasy worldswhere ordinary-looking humans have powers and where the fault of humanity goes to die. A world inwhich my mind stays safe and familiar. Those places I have constructed over the years are myfavorite to write about. As I have gotten older, my knowledge of other forms of writing, such aspoetry and journal writing, has expanded to a different approach to my writing. Now as a youngadult, I find myself writing about my fictional worlds less and instead thinking of them more. I stillwrite, but now it is strictly song lyrics. The lyrics I write are more about experiences withrelationships with people that I can't get closure on, and through songwriting, I can get rid of some ofthat. Music sets the tone of what the words say, and in some cases, the instrumentals can be happyand the lyrics sad. It depends on the message being presented. I'm currently invested in portrayingmy experiences in a musical format.I have written a fair amount and have had some poems published in high school. I like to lookback at my work, but I have little to show for my progress because I have stopped writing as much.As I have changed, so has my writing. I have always loved using detailed descriptions of the sceneryin my fictional works and vague metaphors in my poems.Regarding the journals written for Writing and Storytelling, I enjoyed writing about myexperiences. At first, my enthusiasm came through but slowly dwindled after a while. Some of thequestions were hard to answer because even though I'm exposing myself to more things, I still needmore exposure to experiences. Also, writing based on a prompt can be limiting, but I enjoy sittingand thinking about things I have yet to consider.I chose the work for this project based on what I believe to be closer to me as an individualthan most works I've done and put the effort in. For the theme, I wanted to go down the birth-to-deathroute because I write about human tragedy all the time, and the obsession with death comes throughmy writing more than I would like to admit. I have feared death, which is most likely why I writeabout immortal beings and tragic deaths because it helps me come to terms with my mortality. MyDevelopmental psychology course has also influenced the theme of life and death. This semester hasbeen a significant milestone in understanding myself as a developing individual, and I hope theseworks help you better grasp a little more of who I am.Pg. 3

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Birth:I was born June 16, 2002, it was fathers Day of that year, and so my birthday iscelebrated on fathers Day every four years. My mother, Stacey, and father, Travis, were workingon the brakes of an old dark Green 1967 Ford F-100 Stepside Pickup Truck. Travis was workingon the brakes, and Stacey was pumping them when her water broke, and from there, they rushedto the hospital, where I was evicted through cesarean, bringing joy and light to the world. I havea baby book full of things surrounding my infancy and toddlerhood. In the book, my mother hadput cards from the baby shower and well wishes while in the hospital. She had saved ourwristbands from the hospital and dates with little stories about me and my milestones, like myfirst words and when I learned to walk. There's a short list of names who visited me and mymom in the hospital.My baby book has all the essential information I need, like birth weight, height, and timeof birth. Pictures from my mom's ultra ultrasound and loads of pictures of me are toward the endof the book. I'm glad that my mom made an effort to document the first few years of my life likethat so I can look back at how I was as a child and save the memories. My mother took lots ofpictures of me as a toddler but stopped taking so many after the divorce. The hospital I was bornin was behind Brahms, now an empty plot of land because they moved it closer to Winfield.Before deconstructing the hospital, they used it to train firefighters. I've heard stories that thehospital was haunted, but I don't know how much of that is true.PS. While rewriting and adding the details, I found the actual truck; while looking forreference photos, my dad responds to the image: "It still has the dent in it where I punched itwhen I was mad at your grandma."Pg. 4

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Purpose:My life's purpose has been to help people. I started as a toddler. wanting to be aprincess, but that's unattainable and unrealistic. Realistically, I wanted to be a veterinarianbecause I love animals. After finding out I'm not too fond of blood or surgery, I decidedagainst it. The thought of that animal's life being in my hands is scary. I wanted tobecome a comedian or singer for a while. Keep in mind I was seven or eight around thetime. It was more fantasy than anything because I don't believe I am funny enough tokeep the jokes rolling if I didn't have someone else to go off of. Singing is still a passion;I want to do something with it Eventually, I got to the point where I wanted to be a comicbook artist in early High school, and I decided not to follow that but make it a hobby andwent with Phycology.Through all the swapping career paths, I wanted a voice and felt a pull towardswriting and music. I have wanted to be an entertainer since I was younger, and it'sembarrassing to tell people because I don't want to be all talk and no action. I will have tosacrifice a lot and take a giant leap to make that dream happen, and it relies on me. I wantto help as many people as I can before I die. I want to do what Smiling Friends do andmake others happy. Community is significant to me, and I want to make things that bringpeople together and make them feel like they aren't alone when everything feels like it'sfalling apart. I want to understand others to the best of my abilities. That's my purpose.Pg. 5

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Usus Tempus ad Plenissimam:Father time, where are we going?The clock ticks and never stops.Was our time used wisely?The clock ticks and never stops.Will I have a future beyond this hour?The clock ticks and never stops.Am I spending my time wisely?The clock ticks and never stops.Why must I fear you Father time?A voice from the deepChild of time has the hours made you wery?Has the overthinking left you frightened and dreary?The answers are in the questions you speak.The truth of existence is what you seek.I can not give you those answers for you must find the meaning.Look at yourself and ask the same questions as you did me.I’ll leave with parting wordsWhat you have is what you haveWhat is lost is lostWhat you make will be your fate.“Was your time here worth it?”Pg. 6

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Doomsday:This isn't a world event but an experience I believe everyone went through around2012. I was still in grade school, and a rumor spread that the world would end on NewYear's. I think this kickstarted my fear of death. I remember lying awake at night,dreading the days leading up to New Year's. I never told my mother about this fear; I keptit to myself because I don't have that type of relationship with my mother to be open withher, but this was before I lost all safety in her presence.I was terrified, death came to all, but I was always told I was too young to die. Iknew that wasn't true. The world takes even the ones who will never experience howtiring breathing is. I remember thinking about how I would never get to become an adultand experience what life had to offer, that the world would disappear. Would it be painful,or would it be so fast that the pain went unregistered? I never once thought I was going toheaven. I don't think it came to mind, even with a mother from the Christian faith whotalked about how mighty God was and the occasional bible talk.What I thought of death was like a tv screen being turned off, nothing. It's likegoing to sleep seeing black, then suddenly, you open your eyes and have time traveled,but in death, that blackness is where you stay. I struggled to wrap my head around this,but it made the most sense. When New Year's Day arrived, I asked my mom to sleep inmy bed with me because I didn't want to be alone when I died. I went to sleep that night,upset that I was being robbed of a future because I believed I wouldn't wake up. SpoilersI did wake up, and I was not a happy camper because I was supposed to be dead.Pg. 7

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Nuke:We're going to endThe retrospect buzzing in my headI don't want to go down like thisNow thinking of meeting you at your doorLike It will be beforeThinking back, was the feeling mutualOr was I just delusionalYou told meIf nukes go off today, will you lay in the field with meIn my arms feel you incinerateLove me from ash to ash and dust to dustCause I don't want to survive thisIf it means living without youI would go through the fallout if it meant building a utopiacould have been a sanctuaryWhy ask foreverWhen you're so bitterwill I at least be a passing thought when flesh melts from bonesIt was a lie when you told meIf nukes go off today, I will you lay in the field with youBe by my side forever never leave meBurn from ash to ash and dust to dustjust to have ended up like thisCause I don't want to survive thisI never haveAnd I never will*Unfinished*Pg. 8

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Candy Cigarettes:My earliest memories are with my grandma, but if I were to go back, one of mymemories I think about sometimes as a 20-year-old show-up. It was around spring, and I was inthe backseat of my grandmother Rosemary's car. I knew it was spring because I was sitting nextto a box of bunnies. I was about one or two because Rosemary left this world when I was three. Iam trying to remember what we were doing on that trip, but we went to a coop somewhere inSadan, where most of my dad's family lives. We were going to drop off the bunnies there. Shefound the litter in her backyard. I may remember this wrong, but I think the mother bunny wasattacked by dogs or abandoned her babies. My dad told me later that the bunny population wasan issue there.I was sitting in the car, and I believe I only remember this trip because mygrandmother at a gas station got me candy cigarettes. They looked like chalk, and I rememberthem tasting and smelling like the stix in Fun Dip. Some researchers and advertisements mayhave you believe I started smoking by being exposed to these candy cigarettes, but they werewrong. I will never pick up a cigarette as long as I live, but I would like to get my hands on thosecandy cigarettes again to see if they are the same as I remember them. It was a fond memory,even though I don't know most of it. I am trying to remember My grandmother. I know her face,but her voice and scent are in the unretrievable part of my brain, and I would need somethingparticular to unlock it.Pg. 9

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Grief:I’m willing to explore any grief. I want to go into clinical psychology, and with that,I want to help people feel better. There is so much that I'm willing to explore regardinggrief because I believe we should not shy away from talking about it and try to learn how tocope with it.Opening up to people we trust and speaking about things that harm us is a goodway of releasing it. If we keep it in, it can make us feel worse and irritable or causes moreproblems.The beauty of this world is the different lives that live in it. We are all so different.We have similar experiences, but they are always from different perspectives. We all havedifferent understandings of the world. Sometimes experiences are outside our power, bethey environmental or situational. We all deserve to be heard and helped if we can.Completely healing the heart is tricky because grief affects us differently, and time is theonly thing that can heal, if it helps at all. So I suggest not bottling up things that bother usand discussing them to see if it helps. It's okay to feel emotions. You are human. You aremeant to feel.Pg. 10

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Kool-Wolf:This will be a stupid entry, but as a kid, during Halloween, Animal Planet released adocumentary about werewolves that scared me so badly that I thought one was going to bustthrough my window into my house. I had a red riding hood book, and the wolf was awerewolf-like. I remember never being able to reread it after watching that documentary becausethe image of an automorphic wolf made me paranoid. Like, where was my mom? A kid shouldn'thave been watching something like that alone.I handled it well since no one knew about it till now. The fear faded as time passed, and awerewolf didn't come kool-aid man style through my window. As a child, I was a little moresusceptible than the next kid, so it was easy to scare me or tell me stories I would believe. I gotinterested in cryptids and monsters as a kid. You would catch me with a book about themwhenever it was time for the class to have downtime. I read Junie B Jones occasionally but wasmore invested in researching UFOs and whatnot. I was a little weirdo for getting so into it, butnowadays, people like those things I did when I was young. Being scared of something like thatand then getting hyper-fixated on it is how I have always been. I now enjoy horror movies andstories about the supernatural because Science hasn't proved everything to be a lie.Pg. 11

Cook, Alexis_Journal Writing

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