darylkris

Hope

One of the criteria I use to determine whether not a movie will become a favorite of mine or not is it’s replayability (definitely not a real word), or replay value. How many times can I watch this movie without getting bored of it? Those close to my group of friends know that 80% of our conversations consist primarily of movie quotes. For some reason we all just have movies that we like to watch over and over again. This is especially true with Dexter and his Rush Hour 2 DVD, but I’ll save that for another post. One of my all-time favorite movies is “A Knight’s Tale” with Heath Ledger and Shannyn Sossamon. I really don’t want to get into the plot (mainly because you should go watch the movie), but I will share with you one of many important quotes I’ve found valuable.

Hope. Love should end with hope. Hope guides me, it is what gets me through the day and especially the night. The hope that after you’re gone from my sight , it will not be the last time I look upon you.

I don’t know if I can stress the importance of hope in our lives. It’s what keeps us going when all else fails. It gives us the energy to get out of bed in the morning. It gives us the motivation to get through school. It gives us the confidence to go up to someone and try to make a relationship out of a smile from across the room. It gives us a reason to keep trying when the whole world wants you to quit, because you know deep down it’s worth at least one last try. It gives us a reason to live. Really live.

Unstoppable

I was never one to give up on something I really believed in. 

Hey Mama

I know for sure that my mom doesn’t read this thing, otherwise I’d be having a lot of awkward conversations with her. But for now, I’d just like to take a moment and acknowledge the greatest woman I know. She raised me right. No matter how lost I feel, I know I’ll be okay because she raised me to be stronger than whatever problem hits me. This woman taught me how to swallow my pride and showed me that respect, above all else, is what is necessary to make a relationship work. She made me embrace the idea that it takes just as much strength to follow as it would to lead. She made me realize early on that every woman deserves respect. I was raised in the arms of a queen. A woman who could be independent if the need ever came up. A woman who would do fine all on her own. Although my dad is by her side, she doesn’t lean on him for support. Instead of trying to be the center of each other’s lives, they can just focus on enjoying life with each other.

This is a paragraph from my You have the rest of your life.. post I wrote last week. Just wanted to give a shout out to my mom and thank her for being the rock for my family. She works five 12 hour shifts a week needlessly, all while maintaining her household. I’ll never be able to pay her back for everything she does. I love you, mom. 

Happy Mother’s Day.

Time to Myself

I woke up a little over an hour ago because it was getting too hot in my room. This pretty much marks the official arrival of summer for me. Now I’m currently in my boxers, sitting on the couch inside of my room, eating a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. I haven’t had a night like this in a long while. I haven’t had time like this in a long while.

Time: one of the most inconsistent things in this world. Time doesn’t exist, clocks exist. Time is a theory that runs our lives. “Time is a monster that can’t be reasoned with. It responds like a snail to our impatience, then it races like a gazelle when you can’t catch a breath.” At any given moment there will be too much of it, while simultaneously just not enough. It dominates every aspect of our lives just so we could keep the world in order. But why? They’re just numbers. Why should they dictate what, where, and when we do things? We can never really escape time. We can never really, just be.

I think all this quiet time to myself made me realize why I’ve felt so awkward he past few weeks. My entire life I’ve always tried to hit a goal. Always tried to get to the next milestone. I settled. I became complacent. I lost motivation because there was nothing to get motivated for.

I remember a few summers ago I used to lie on my driveway at night and write whatever came to mind. I just remember seeing the stars in the sky and thought about how annoying they were. They were just there, taunting us. A countless number of people have hung a wish on each and every star pinned on the sky. Eventually I came to the realization that the stars aren’t there to taunt us. They’re there to give us hope. To give us dreams. To give us a reason to hold our heads up high.

You have the rest of your life

“You have the rest of your life to be in a relationship.” That’s something my mom has been telling me ever since she found out about the girl I had a crush on in the first grade. It’s been about 17 years since then and she continues to tell me the same thing. I’ve never really gotten around to asking her why she thinks that way. Perhaps she thinks no other woman would ever be able to take care of me as well as she did. Now that I think about it, that’s probably why she constantly refuses to give me her blessing to move out on my own.

I know for sure that my mom doesn’t read this thing, otherwise I’d be having a lot of awkward conversations with her. But for now, I’d just like to take a moment and acknowledge the greatest woman I know. She raised me right. No matter how lost I feel, I know I’ll be okay because she raised me to be stronger than whatever problem hits me. This woman taught me how to swallow my pride and showed me that respect, above all else, is what is necessary to make a relationship work. She made me embrace the idea that it takes just as much strength to follow as it would to lead. She made me realize early on that every woman deserves respect. I was raised in the arms of a queen. A woman who could be independent if the need ever came up. A woman who would do fine all on her own. Although my dad is by her side, she doesn’t lean on him for support. Instead of trying to be the center of each other’s lives, they can just sit back and enjoy life with each other.

“You have the rest of your life to be in a relationship.” Something I’ll take from my mother in stride. Earning a woman’s trust can be a difficult thing to do, if done the right way. Conventional thinking has always preached the idea that the man should take the lead in the relationship. While I don’t completely disagree with it, I don’t embrace it as my own either. It takes a lot for me to take a lead role, and probably takes even more out of me to take the backseat. So when a girl says I can decide what we can do or where we can go, I’ve learned to not only see that she’s trusting me, but she’s trusting herself as well.

I guess with all that said, there’s only one thing left to say. “You have the rest of your life to be single.” Guys, don’t be afraid to say “Hi” to the girl who leaves you speechless. Ladies, don’t be afraid to say “yes” to the guy who’s struggling to find the words to ask you out. Sure, there are plenty of fish in the sea, but there’s maybe only a handful of fish that would make you say the wait was worth it. So if and when you finally get a catch, don’t be so quick to throw it back in, you never know what it might become. If it works out, great. If it doesn’t? Then at least you gave it a shot, that’s all anyone could ever really ask for anyway.

(Yes, I did use a fish metaphor.)

Sh*t We Don’t Want Girls To Know. Part IV

Up until fairly recently I’ve always had a general idea of which direction I’d like my life to be headed towards. In the past week or so I’ve been plagued with an overwhelming sense of uncertainty that leaves me feeling stuck. Something just feels off, like something is missing. Maybe it’s just the fact that my schedule doesn’t really allow for a decent social life. Sure it’s only three 12 hour shifts per week, but my circadian rhythm is so fucked up that I don’t really get to see or talk to anyone other than the Obille brothers and the people at the gym. I don’t mean to complain, because there are a lot of things in my life I can be grateful for. I have a great job and I can honestly say I’d be able to provide for myself and my family. By any normal standard I should be ecstatic at the prospect of getting everything I’ve ever really wanted. But nonetheless, I still get this irking feeling that I’m not getting everything I need.

I’ve never really had a long-term plan other than the cookie cutter outline almost everyone follows. The plan was always to (1) finish school, (2) be a good nurse, (3) grab a good job, (4) find a good girl, (5) attempt to sweep her off her feet, and (6) start a family if #5 was successful. Other than that, the people closest to me know that I never really plan anything else. I never plan on what I’m doing on my days off. I never plan on what I’m going to eat (which inevitably just defaults into Chipotle). Shit, I never even planned anything for my birthday. 

If and when I do have plan, it’s very short term. And it’s usually a poorly thought out plan. For instance, I don’t exactly know what my intentions were when I first met you. I don’t even really know what my plans were that night, but whatever they were, they didn’t really matter after you flashed your damn smile my way. Without even getting a word in past “hi”, a hug, and smile, I already had a new plan formulating in my head:

1. Get to know you
2. Don’t look like an idiot
3. Make it worth your while

Now? I officially have no plan. For the first time in a long time, I literally have no idea what to do. Is that a good thing? No clue. 

Having a tough time falling asleep. Not entirely sure of what I’m doing here.

Earn Everything

I earned the hell out of these next 4 days off. Work was ridiculous the past couple of nights and it feels good to know I have a few days to relax. Without getting into too much detail, just wanted to say that my coworkers are beast. 

Crayons

Do you know what my favorite part of going back to school was? Brand new school supplies. I remember grabbing that list of supplies and going straight to Staples with my parents and sister, grabbing miscellaneous items off of the shelves only to put them back for a different color. The one thing that remained consistent over the years, however, was the brand of crayons we’d buy. I think we could all agree that Crayola was, is, and forever will be the standard. Roseart? Trash.

We could learn a lot from crayons; some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, while others bright, some have weird names, but they all have learned to live in the same box.

That quote stuck with me for a long time. I remember reading it back in elementary school and I never really thought about it until I was old enough to really understand how cold and bitter the world can be. It’s sad how some people can focus solely on the differences between people, and seclude themselves within a group composed of similar “individuals”. You’ll never learn anything, never really grow, never really reach your potential without first accepting the people around you.

I’m not talking about tolerating the people around you. “I’ll be his friend because he’s a nice guy, but I won’t support his sexual orientation/race/religion/lifestyle.” You can easily tolerate the people around you and learn to live with them; God knows I tolerate people every damn day of my life. But truly learning how to accept someone for who they are, they’re perfections and imperfections, that’s something we all need work on. The world would be a much better place for it. In Luke 17:21 it says that the kingdom of God is within man. Whether or not you believe in God, as long as you have some sort of common sense there is no denying that each and every person deserves to be loved. “We think too much and feel too little.”

If we spent a little more time focusing on what makes us human instead of what makes us different, maybe we might realize that the things we do in this world actually matter. 

“You may not understand why there’s a smile on my face. It’s ‘cause this world could be, such a wonderful place.” - N*E*R*D