Samantha McConnell

Samantha McConnell Apr 2014

Fear.

It will start slowly, the way these things often do
It won’t feel slow; in fact, it will seem sudden.. you’ll wake up and look over at the space next to you and think that something must have snapped in the night.
But it didn’t happen there. It couldn’t have*
You’ve long since abandoned the possibility that anything could happen in your sleep.
It will happen in the absence, in the nights they spent with their friends and you with yours. It’s good for you, you’ll rationalize. Everyone needs to spend some time apart.
But time apart can tear you apart if you’re not careful, and slowly you will forget how to stitch yourself back together, how to return at the end of the day and fit yourself back into the crook of their neck, into the space between their arm and body like you never even left.
The hole you once occupied will close up slowly as you take more and more time to yourself, and it will begin to feel uncomfortable and tight and strange.
But we’re only human and we pick at wounds and scabs, and see wet paint and feel the irresistible need to touch it. Because we’re curious. Because we can’t leave well enough alone. Because when we see friction, we want to see the reaction.
When we fall in love, we don’t do it with an endpoint in mind, no expiration date on the horizon. To fall in love is to do the impossible, to promise the one thing you can’t really promise.

Samantha McConnell Mar 2014

The feeling of falling in love.

When you’re on a crowded subway at that too early hour in the morning and your face is submerged in someone else’s and your toes are being crushed by someone else’s feet and all of a sudden, right in front of you, a seat opens up. And as you’re sitting down, eye level at all the briefcase commotion, you feel as though the chaos can run around you and it wouldn’t even matter. You’d feel safe. You’d feel detached. You’d feel exceptionally content.
Or..
The first couple of seconds on a rollercoaster as your cart climbs slowly up the lift hill. Leaning back as your pumping heart is making a scene and you’re building up the strength to scream and you’re wondering if you can’t turn around now, if you can’t press the stop button and slide back down, if you could at least stay in this spot for a little while longer.
But...
maybe it’s also similar to that feeling when you wake up at 3am and realize you don’t have to get up yet. That you still have time to go back to where you left off and try again. Fall gracefully into that dream you’ll try hard to make sure your alarm clock doesn’t allow you to forget.

Samantha McConnell Mar 2014

Everything happens for a reason.

Sometimes people come into your life and you know right away that they were meant to be there.
to serve some sort of purpose,
teach you a lesson,
or to help you figure out who you are or who you want to become.
You may never know who these people may be but..
when you lock eyes with them, you know that at that very moment they will affect your life in some profound way.
And sometimes things happen to you that may seem horrible, painful, and unfair at first..
but in reflection you find that without overcoming those obstacles,
you would have never realized your potential, strength, willpower, or heart.
Everything happens for a reason.
Nothing happens by chance or by means of good luck.
Illness, injury, love, lost moments of true greatness, and sheer stupidity all occur to test the limits of your soul.
Without the small tests, whatever they may be, life would be like a smoothly paved, straight flat road to nowhere. It would be safe and comfortable, but dull and utterly pointless.

Samantha McConnell Feb 2014

Death

Death is the great universal in all our lives.
How will we do it?
Some of us will simply go to sleep.. and stay there.
Still others will discover energy at the end of life, contemplating marriage or a relationship.
A deep search for ultimate meaning will touch a large number.
When we're seated in our doctor's office awaiting our results to be cleared from cancer ---
Cleared from the flu, any type of sickness.
Or driving our car on the highway.
Or quietly talking about it with a close friend late at night during a conversation.
We view death like our worst fear, the only thing we need to fear is ourself.
In other words, if I live lighter, maybe I can die lighter.

— The End —