Story Time #3: Stranger Danger

I was probably seven years old and my brother eight years old.  We were sitting on the benches of the Costco food court.  Our mom clearly instructed the both of us to remain put on the benches to avoid any desperate strangers seeking our bench to eat their lunch.  I incessantly drove my brother to annoyance and finally led him away to my mom standing in line.  I was left isolated on the bench.

I twiddled my thumbs dully.  I hoped for any sort of excitement to feed my energetic nature.  All of a sudden, an unfamiliar man impetuously sat on the bench by my side as if he blindly saw an empty bench freely available.  I wasn't sure whether his nonchalant approach was unusual or normal and unrecognized to my uneducated seven year old mindset.  My underdeveloped timidness shied my curios eyes from ever gazing into his own.  I continued to concentrate on my twiddling fingers.  I pretended as if no one was sitting by my side.  He casually sat as if he also pretended the seat by his side was empty.  We both awkwardly acted as if it all was perfectly normal.

He discretely scrutinized his surroundings as if he was carefully locating something missing in the open air.  After a few minutes, he finally asked, "Are you here alone?"
I answered, "Nope."
He proceeded to question, "Where are your parents?"
I answered, "My mom and my brother are standing in line over there," and I turned back and pointed to the location of the line where they stood.
He then inquired, "What is your home address?"
I was the most naive and ignorant child.  I told him the exact address I remembered at the top of my head.  Luckily, I only remembered the first few numbers of the address.
Finally, he asked, "What's your mom's number?  What's your dad's number?"
Thankfully, for my safety, I was oblivious to the complete answers of nearly all the questions he asked.

Our conversation finally took a dead halt.  I quickly jumped off the bench and to my mom with the bizarre incident excitedly pressing at the tip of my tongue.  I finally reached her in line.  The second she noticed my face, her gaze automatically missed my face and headed straight to our table and realized a grown man sitting on our seats.  She was infuriated.  She began fiercely lecturing, "That was the only seat available and I told you not move to keep our seat! Now someone else is sitting there and we have to search for another seat!"  I struggled to explain the whole incident.  The utmost frustration in her blaring lecture destructively smothered my whole explanation into disconnected descriptions.  She never heard a single one of my words.

We finally collected our food.  My mom angrily searched for another available bench.  We ate and continued the rest of our day.  My inexperienced seven year old mind was completely oblivious to the creepy dangers of the interaction with the man. I stored the bizarre incident behind me to the past.

I soon learned all about "stranger danger" later in school.  I learned that grown adults with innocent intentions would not casually approach children with such questions as, "Are you here alone? Where are your parents?  What is your home address and parents phone number?" I learned of all the harrowing scenarios creeping behind the minds of dangerous strangers who inquired such personal questions.  I quickly reflected to the creepy stranger I encountered alone at the Costco food court.

Story Time #2: A Living Nightmare

 I experienced an unforgettable nightmare when I was five years old.

My mom and I were dressed in disheveled rags crippled in every direction.  An eerie darkness heavily masked the whole room. We huddled together on the second floor of a house.  In front of us were the metal railings of a stairway.  There was a widespread view of the floor directly beneath us if we searched through the open railings.  I'd never seen this house once in my whole life.  My mom's protective arms tenderly wrapped around me with everlasting comfort.  With pure terror, she continued to reassure me, "It will be alright, don't worry, it will be alright."  I was stuck in an utter oblivion.  Scared of what?  The more I anxiously wondered of the endless possibilities, the more fearful I became of the very answer I anticipated.  I curiously gazed through the open railings of the stairway.  I reached the very bottom of the first floor.  There was a lady dressed in a huge wedding dress, overly fluffed with black lace, as dark as midnight.  The huge dress completely covered the every slip of whiteness in her skin.  Her porcelain washed face was the only part of her flesh uncovered.  She fiercely paced back and fourth in a repetitive vertical line.

She grew taller with every step she took.  We apprehensively shuddered at the haunting possibilities that manifested into reality once she grew to the height of the second floor where we were at.  Finally, she soared to the very top of the high ceilings above us.  She was a colossal monster and we were the accessible bait right at her fingertips.  She carelessly grabbed my mom like a worthless rag doll squished in the palm of her tight grasp.  She unsparingly tossed her out a window.  I ran as fast as humanely possible.  I sprinted straight down an oak hallway.  A wall stood directly ahead of me.  It was a barrier to halt the run for my life that could potentially lead to an escape.  Thankfully, an open doorway, an open possibility of escape, stood to the very left of the wall.  I dashed straight inside.  I was in an empty room of 4 trapped walls that declared my ultimate defeat.  Morbid fear haunted me.  I turned around and right there and then envisioned the end of my life.  The monstrous lady fiercely glared at me from outside the room.  She plunged forward.

I woke up in pure relief, thankfully, before any damage was done.  It was the middle of the night.  I panted uncontrollably like all the energy was drained from me.  My heart hammered distressingly.  My hair attached messily on the side of my face from all the sticky sweat.  The chilling fear evidently manifested internally and externally as if I had just jumped straight out of a truly living nightmare.

I was nine year old when my rustic one story home was remodeled.  The rustic old house was crushed to pieces until there was nothing that lingered but saw dust.  A stunning two story house was freshly built directly on top of the location of the one story house.  I walked straight into the empty new home.  An odd sense of familiarity brushed past me through every constructed feature.  I quickly realized this was the exact house in the nightmare I had when I was five.

Story Time #1: Sexism At Its Finest

My period 4, Spanish class, yet another average day. I was delightfully munching away on my very last tidbits of gummy bears that my mom recently bought from Costco.  Unfortunately, sitting directly in front of me was a purely obnoxious boy whose only purpose seemed to be insensitively insulting me during everyday's hour of Spanish.  He has rudely demanded for my gummy bears multiple times over the course of an hour.  Of course, with his condescending attitude, I instantly shut his request out of my mind each time.  One day in particular, a befuddling comment was made from another boy who sat beside me when I once again denied the rude boy of any gummy bears.  As if casually speaking his standard beliefs, the boy nonchalantly explained, "Lauren, you should just give him the gummy bears.  After all, when you're older and you have a husband, you're going to have to be giving him food, cooking for him you know, all the time anyway." I had no words.  The pure shock practically stunned every furious word at the very back of my lips to remain at a painful halt.  I never could've believed anyone, especially at my age, 16 years old at the time, could foolishly maintain such a biased mindset prominent 50 years before his time.

Lesson #3: You're Not Alone

Aloud or silently in our minds, my friends and myself have at least once thought, "Why did I have to be born into such a terrible life with all these stressful problems.  I would've been so much happier being born with anyone else's happy and problem - free life."

I'm here to tell you, the person sitting directly beside you, standing right in front of you, and the people who surround you everyday, have pondered the same morbid thoughts.  Every person you ever see privately has their own heartbreaking problems that may be screaming defeat yet constantly unheard by the tremendous public.

Do you want proof?  Just think of all the friends you have right now.  When you first met them, those friends seem perfectly happy and dandy, just like any other person you may ever see.  Then you wonder, why do I need to be the only one burdened with stressful issues of my own?  Overtime, as your friendships strengthened and the protective guards weakened, unsettling problems freely roam through the comfortable opening.  They finally open up about their deeply distressing issues because they can specifically trust you.  Apply this same scenario to every single person around you.  On first impression, these people seems perfectly fine and dandy.  However, it is only overtime when you've built a valuable trust between the specific stranger that they comfortably allow you into their own unsettling problems.  Remember, you are not every person's very connected friend to serve an open ear filled with their distressing issues.  Therefore, you are truly unaware to everyone's genuine pain.  Just like your first oblivious impression of that close friend, no matter just how fine and dandy the strangers around you seem on the very surface, there are despairing personal problems that may secretly run rampant beneath.  You're just not their valuable friend to tell.

I am just trying to reassure you.  You are not alone.  You are not alone with the dejected emotions that stir you restless day by day.  You are not alone because everyone, to some extent, is twisted inside out with their own distressing issues.  Trust me.  They are.  You're just not the very first person they tell.

Lesson #2: Appreciate Your Loved Ones

The loved ones in our lives are truly the most valuable aspects of who we are.  They generously provide us with unconditional love free of cost.   They share their everlasting happiness, support, and necessities with us.  They are consistently there to lend an ear for any of the intriguing events that fill your overloaded life.  When you're feeling at the very rock bottom, they are always there to compassionately pull us out of the bitter despair.  They timelessly have our backs because deep inside they wholeheartedly love you just so much.  Always appreciate everything they ever do for you! 

Lesson #1: Think Positive

All the way back since grade school, It felt like my mind was climbing directly behind my peers, but finishing the race last almost every time.  I was endlessly lagging minutes late in what everyone seemed to process in mere seconds.

In Kindergarten, I vividly recall swaying back and fourth on the swing sets, shooting myself into the sky like I was flying into someplace magical.  All the while, I passionately sang Disney princess songs aloud. I wished I could stay in the moment forever.   I felt like I was living a dream.

Moving onto high school: Aztec Singers.  The show choir.  Where do I even begin?
Everything about Aztec Singers, the singing, the dancing, and the performances, were like ringing bells calling in my passions to give it a try.  I was quickly part of an amazing team.  We all shared a vibrating passion of performance deep inside that pushed us to connect together perfectly.  There was one huge problem yet to come, a problem that unknowingly shoved me so far away into dead silence.  A problem that completely obliterated all my flourishing dreams for Aztec Singers.

Not a single day of practice would pass when I wasn't brutally criticized for a thousand frustrating imperfections that filled my singing and dancing on what should've otherwise been a picture of pure perfection.  I knew that each mistake I made tragically slowed down the whole team.  With every  frequent error, I felt like I inched another step closer to each student's "bad side."  Of course, many of these outrageous thoughts were only in my head, no one elses.

I'm outrageous, hyper, and sometimes insane.  A performing group, a home for these eccentric qualities to shine strongest, felt like a ruthless destruction that crushed every bit of my morale.  I hardly ever socialized with anyone in the team.  I felt like the mere thought of me in any one of their minds painted a picture of a disastrous klutz whose only purpose was to weigh down the glory of everyone else.  Every time I did speak to someone, I was haunted by the hateful words that crept in their mind, which only pushed me farther into dead silence.  Day after day, my over reactive imagination of everyone elses incessant thoughts of hatred killed me deep inside for a whole year.  I never told a single member how I felt.  After all, how could you ever spill your most antagonizing problem to those you believed hated you?

One teammate in tennis sympathized with the negative outlook I had in Aztec Singers.  Thinking she could find probable answers to contradict all the ridiculous paranoia in my mind, she asked an Aztec Singer, "Why does everyone not like Lauren?" He replied, "Because she always makes mistakes and its frustrating."  His response bitterly confirmed every pessimistic thought of the members that ever swept into my mind since the beginning of the year.  On a daily basis, I'd been pointlessly struggling to fill my negative attitude with sheer positivity just to push away any tears in the back of my eyes.  Finally realizing all the negativity was the truth freed all the tears I ever held back.  After school, Aztec Singers held practice when I was still an emotional trainwreck.  Seeing me cry sent some of the members welcoming arms to a circle of warmth around me.  I opened up about how I felt to one kindhearted member.  She told me, "Lauren, trust me, none of us hate you.  Yes, sometimes we get frustrated when you make mistakes, but we all mess up, so no one here hates you for it personally." Her words finally removed any unsettling thoughts and started a fresh new attitude for the rest of the year.

We can never be 100% sure how the next day, the next hour, or even the next minute and the next thought will unfold. I learned all of this through the hard way by genuinely experiencing head on the bitter consequences in pessimistically formulating the false truth in everyone's minds and allowing it to painfully kill me each day. You should never allow people's taunting thoughts you may have individually constructed to dictate your every emotion. You should always allow a light of positivity inside for you to brightly glow even in the darkest of times.  You should never waste your precious days moping on every outrageous negative aspect when you could be dreaming positively about the future ahead.  Had I done everything I just typed would have saved me dead friendships with team members, a crippled self esteem, and an endless heartache.

My Goal

Hi Everyone! :) My name is Lauren Lu.  I am so so excited to blog!  To start things off, I live in California, and I'm 17 years old, about to be a senior in High School.  Some of my hobbies include playing my guitar, writing songs, reading, volunteering, baking, and writing.  I want to use my passion to write to get myself living in a small home in California someplace exposed to the big world just outside of my computer screen.  I am beyond pumped for my small voice here to reach across, and hopefully inspire, so many people miles away from me.  If anyone reading this ever needs to talk, or is seeking advice about anything, I'm always here to listen.  Please never hesitate to just leave any comments or email me :)   For Blogging, I'm not the best writer, but its something I genuinely enjoy every second of.  In the course of 17 years, I've experienced breathtaking memories and enlightening stepping stones for growth.  It would mean the world if you'd stay tuned to tag along for the journey ahead!