"We need never be hopeless because we can never be irreparably broken." J. Green

I think there are points in life where everything just seems a little meaningless. It's hard to continue, and everything you do seems to have no real end point, no real reward- like you're working really hard towards absolutely nothing.
I've gotten to that point now, and while aimlessly trawling through the internet a while back I stumbled across a saying; "Everything will be ok in the end. And if it's not ok- it's not the end."
It struck me that I had been looking for this saying my whole life. There are variations of it, "things will get better" being one of them, but only this set of words really struck me as the most meaningful thing I have read (especially when trawling through the internet).
I thought, and thought, about this one little phrase and what it could possibly mean. And I realised life is one great marathon- everyone is just trying to get to the end. No matter whether you jog it, walk it, run it, wheel it- everyone is just aiming for that finish line. You start off confident, able, and slowly that confidence is knocked and you get more and more tired and weary until you feel you can't go any further. And at some point or other you wonder why the hell you are even running the damn race in the first place- especially since no one else around you seems to be struggling with the run.
I feel like this is the make or break of that persons marathon/life- we can choose to discontinue and leave the race, or we can continue and accept that water bottle from that stranger (or that helping hand from God, a friend, or family in real life) and keep on going even though we have blisters and we're tired.
I think of it as this- there's blister plasters to cool the blisters on your feet, there's power bars to keep you energised, but there isn't another marathon once you've left it.
And even though sometimes it has sucked, and it's worn you out and all you want to do is sleep for a thousand years at the end- you're happy you've made it, sad it's all over and relieved you can rest now.
I imagine that's what it's like at the end of life. And I pray that I make it to the end because even though I'm tired, and I'm battered and everything seems a little bit pointless- it's not the end yet. And you know what?
Everything's going to be ok in the end.

This post is dedicated to a friend of mine whose Dad is in the hospital, and struggling a bit at the moment. To him and his family, everything must seem like that terrible point in the race. So this post, my first post dedication, is for them.

Love to all of you runners in this never ending race,

B x

Contemplation squared

I apologise for not having written for a few weeks. I was waiting for some lightning bolt of inspiration to strike me or something, I suppose. It hasn't.
But as I was lying on my bedroom floor not five minutes ago (as I often do to contemplate the day and my actions), I realised it's because in all honesty I'm really not that inspirational.
I know a lot of people who read this will probably jump to argue that statement, and I know my family will- but to be perfectly honest what have I done, besides cancer, to make me in any way inspirational?
1 in 3 of us, in our lives, will get cancer. If you count how many people that is in the world, then that is a lot of people who are inspirational, not to mention the fact that probably another 1 of those 3 probably have a different kind of disability that makes them equally inspirational.
If you really think hard, its a small minority of people that DON'T have something horrible/monumental happen to them throughout their lifetime. So really that makes everyone inspirational. And if everyone's inspirational, then is it really that special anymore?

I don't know, I'm not saying that those who have such things happen to them aren't inspirational because I have met some truly inspirational people- including Stephen Sutton (who I am praying will get better because he is THE most fantastic addition to this planet) so inspirational people do exist but I don't think its a case of necessarily everyone who has had something bad happen is automatically inspirational for getting through it.
I mean, personally I see nothing inspirational about me. If you look at it, I'm just an almost seventeen year old girl, who spends too much time inside, is probably a little too selfish and attention-loving for her own good, drinks a little too much red wine for her age and finds that she can only really concentrate to 70's punk rock.

Really, I'm just a normal teenager (albeit with a slightly less than normal sense of style). So my point is, next time I won't wait until I feel that inspirational lightning strike that is sure to never come but I wait months for, anyway. I'll just write.

So, to all you perfectly average people, thank you for being average. And to you inspirationals- thank you.

Contemplating lying back on the floor for further contemplation,

B x