Sara-ORourke blogSara O'Rourke (275)   Sara O'Rourke   My Courage for your BenefitPosted Friday, March 07, 2008 (121 days 8 hours ago.) Viewed 4,049 times. At sixteen, you don't really know how to handle big emotions. Feelings, they hit you over the head with a blow that's great enough to knock your confidence right out of you. At sixteen, I felt the strongest for someone that I had ever felt about another person ever before, and when that person turned around and told me that it was time for me to stop feeling that way, I didn't know where to turn. Because feelings cannot be switched off- they are an ongoing current that needs to travel somewhere else, if not to fuel a relationship. Mine happened to take me all the way to the gym. In my stomach, as I ran, I would feel a void that was painfully wonderful. My head felt as if it contained within it a sea of cold water, my limbs felt heavy as iron. And yet, for every stride on that treadmill, I could envisage myself running one stride further away from him. Yes, I would put on those great workout songs and imagine myself running down a pier with him chasing shortly after me. At the end, I would dive into the water, and my troubles would float away. What started just a loss of appetite, for apparent reasons, became another scenario. My new physique was attracting new people. And, to an extent, I played up on that. That's not to say that I liked it, but I still did it, even though every time I got close with anyone else I hated the idea of their hands on me. My body had become a machine, no longer a temple. It was fit, powerful, and I could do to it what I wanted. This was my mind-frame for a good five months. Then, after riding that high wave smiling and absorbing that euphoria, I crashed and cried and the world seemed blacker than it had ever looked before. It's difficult for me to properly describe my feelings, each individual train of thought, but I do know this: I knew what had been happening to me. I had developed a form of Bulimia. I researched it, and my new friends at the Psychiatric Clinic had confirmed my suspicion- a type, they say, where you exercise to cancel out any calorific intake. Do I write to you today as a properly-recovered basketcase? I have no intention of lying. I've managed to reach a point where I can recognise that the blonde brand on MTV is not something I want to buy into. However, having come that far I will also say that I can trip and sometimes I think I will trip and fall down a very long way. How could I not? Around me the glossy magazine pages scream at me, they teach me biblically what is hot, what is overweight, what I should do to win his heart. If they didn't know the answers, why would they publish them? Just as these magazines dictate to us the shape that our lives are to take, I will tell you now what I think. Problems such as this are frighteningly frequent. Some people, luckily, are strong-willed, and find the light all on their own. But there are others who fall by the side and these are the people that fund these super-skinny crazes. Recognise that there are imperfections in that glamorous, glittering celebrity world, and recognise that you are not alone. 
Permalink Comments (11) Regretting RegretPosted Friday, March 07, 2008 (121 days 9 hours ago.) Viewed 20 times. Lately I have been drifting. My mood, normally a whirlwind between peppy and pessimistic, has now only one word which does it justice; hollow. Lately, I have been hard at work in my mind, thinking about how things have turned out, why they are the way they are, and inevitably, I've started to cling onto the past with every last breath. It's slipping. When I was around twelve years young, my family and I moved into a different county, only around an hour away from our old home. For years since then, I have simply tossed that event away mentally, for it served no significant purpose to me. However, with the edge of the school cliff approaching, as I verge out onto the horizon of my future, I have come to realise that moving was a crucial mistake. It explains almost everything. It's smart logic. There was where I had planted my roots. Having moved there from Italy, I finally thought I was on solid ground. No more moving. But all of a sudden, those roots, prematurely long, were ripped out and replanted fifty miles north where the lifestyle resembles nothing of my past. Sure enough, I have made wonderful friends over the years, friends whom I would not give up for the world, but no amount of friends will ever enable me to let go of the friends I had back at home. And, speaking more generically, I have never felt like here I have properly found my place, whereas there, I had one. The necessary question now is whether the past is worth holding on to. Should we just move on, accept things the way they are and be grateful for the people and the opportunities that change has granted us? Can that really be expected of us, when our hearts and minds cry out for a little more time to mow over what could have been? What if I am just not ready to get over it? In September, I will hopefully be on my way to exploring the rest of the world. Relief, yes, I'll finally be free of this place. Ties with where I live, with exception of the few close friends and family, will happily and rapidly be cut, once and for all. I think, in fact, I know that this place is not for me. All the same, I know that part of me will look back and wish I had never used up my teenage credits, the best of all my life's credits, in that place, no matter how brightly the future might shine. And it is exactly that sentiment of regret and questioning that I hate most of all. I vow that never again will I regret something, at least for this long and in silence. It's sad that this piece of writing has been the only legible outlet with which I have been able to publicly confess my feelings about homesickness. I say that you should follow your heart. Only it fits the key to your happiness.
Permalink Comments (0) Relationships in a Box of ChocolatesPosted Thursday, January 31, 2008 (157 days 12 hours ago.) Viewed 2,381 times. What a girl would give to be able to buy a book that could tell her how the relationship world operates in clear, black ink - perhaps even bold, just for emphasis. I find that today, it is not purely the dating scene that succeeds in puzzling us, but also the actual definition of that which a relationship entails. Then, should you have the same sort of relationship with people as you would with food? Should you do like you would a chocolate assortment box and pick which ever delight looks the sweetest, and then spend your evening discovering, or rather, if you're at the final few chocolates, remembering which one you enjoyed the best? Are relationships really like chocolates? I think this comparison is nothing less than perfect, and I will explain exactly why; 1) the type of chocolate indicates what kind of a partner you are, for example, dark is deep and passionate, whereas, on the opposite end of the cocoaphilic spectrum you have the white chocolates, who like everything sweet and romantic and fairy tale-esque. 2) Chocolate is not always good. Too much chocolate (too much love) can make you violently sick. And, just as relationships can be bad for you, chocolates do not tend to be kindest to your waistline. 3) The devilish genius who added whatever freak chemical that makes chocolate so moreish brilliantly illustrates the hormonal effect that love has on a person- you have a little bit, you want some more. It makes you happy. Now, the list of explanations could go on, however, what I would really like to know is whether we should labour through, box by box, by tray by egg, by bar by coin, just to find one chocolate, one single cube, that we can stick to. And, where does the search even end? Must we also compare the Cadburys and Hersheys? Is liquored chocolate technically bending the rules a bit? I guess the point I'm really trying to make, (during which I got pretty lost having too much fun creating not-so-clever puns about chocolate...), is whether we should be open-minded, and experience as many relationships as possible in our youth, at the very least, enjoying the flavours and colours, nationalities and textures, or whether we should aim for finding that one, special chocolate. To relate it to food again, does the fact that we only live once mean we should indulge in blissful gluttony? Is promiscuity the equivalent to a very bohemian and opportunistic outlook on life and relationships? Personally, when presented with a tray of chocolates, I will read about each and every one before I take my pick. Yes, you might say I choose carefully: fruit is an automatic no. But, I know what I like. I think I will always pick that same type (caramel/plain) until my tastebuds grow bored. I doubt they will, as I do throw in the occasionally Brazilian nut wonder. This is how I see relationships, for me, I think we should go through life not playing it out and tallying up both goods and bads, but searching for a good relationship, a good partner, a good chocolate. And a good piece of chocolate is like a good kiss.
Permalink Comments (2) Want to know who I am? - Read my label.Posted Wednesday, November 14, 2007 (235 days 8 hours ago.) Viewed 108 times. How do we escape our labels? Dominant and sticky feature of the youthful world, the label is something which gets us all. Usually, we are labelled in the earlier of our scholastic years, the same years in which we are arguably the most immature, inexperienced and naďve. This label, it must be explained, seems to inherit some freak indestructible potential, for it remains with you, opening the gates to people you meet for judgement to pass, until you leave that shell of an environment and hit the real time, and cover that label with lots of new ones. I depict the stuff too glamorously, I admit. The labelling process requires brief explanation- the girls with baby faces, the boys with baby faces, they are the hot generation of tomorrow, the intelligent kids, whom love nothing more than to read a good book, they fit comfortably in the geek column, or, if they are so fortunate as to find it already full, they will land the ‘unapproachable’ section, and end up being the ones who rarely make the guest lists. One of the great qualities of a journalist is the exaggeration and stereo prejudice that we convey through our writing. I do intentionally generalise and do choose my vocabulary precisely to raise that controversial brow, but in a sense, there really are ‘geeks’ and ‘hot people’ up until the time when we mature. Does that mean, then, that when we do mature the categories dispel? Rather the opposite. The rules of the high school code state secretly that those categories may merge; say, when a girl begins to wear make up and no longer looks like the nerdy bookworm of the class, or when a pretty girl develops the reputation no man would want to add to. Categories will not disappear, for there will always be room for geeks and hot people in the world, but they will continue to segregate and complicate into smaller, more nit-picky cliques, with stricter guidelines. A geek may specialise to become an arrogant geek, a slimy geek, or just move to a different category. Notice how all the additional prefixes to this group are rather negative! Labels are fundamental blueprints, barcodes, tattoos of identity that we cannot see, physically, but that we believe in and we apply. They could be regarded as useful- to survive in the dog-eat-dog social sphere at school, finding a snug place in a circle which agrees to accept you can be a comforting and secure thing. However, this does not, and will never make up for the repressions that come with labels. I have felt some, witnessed all; groups don’t feel they can mix with each other; groups slot themselves into a ‘cool’ hierarchy, which is significantly damaging to the confidence of those who fall near the bottom of the line. It comes down to enjoying your school life- all the memories that are granted you from school will be with your for the rest of your time, you will pass them onto grandchildren! The cooler kids, inferably, will tell a tale of colour and rebellious behaviour, while the others, they will probably be reluctant to talk about it, or feel compelled to let their imagination run wild and end up describing someone else’s life. Although I choose my examples extremely, I am very concerned with the generic effect of labels on the good of people. How can we learn to escape them? Can they really ever be escaped? Can we rather cover them with newer labels, yet always feel their pressure on our skin, beneath it all? Personally, I was lucky enough (or so I considered at the time) to be presented (and in all fairness, I did take it) the label of being ‘sexy’ and a bit of a ‘man-eater.’ I guess, on many levels, this adopted nickname was a result of the gossip and narrow-minded characteristic individual to my school, where one rumour is still being discussed six months down the line. This happened to me, in that, on one New Years Eve I decided to let go. I drank too much vodka. Unsurprisingly, the evening progressed with my passionate encounters with a handful of boys. I also chose to wear a very tight number that particular evening. I think this may correlate to the tally of scores that night. Anyway, this fresh ‘gossip’ drove the year crazy. I narrowly escaped becoming known as anything overtly trashy, but this preconceived image precedes me at any parties I now choose to go to, and I do find it hard to act any different. Do images and labels hence often trap us into being someone we don’t want to be? My defence, of course, was not consulted before the rumours began to take off. I’ll tell you the truth- I had recently come out of two very heavy relationships, I was out to clear my mind, and have my first carefree New Years. I had also always been curious to have a New Year’s Kiss. Pretty innocent, or not? Either way, I find myself today frustrated with this system of labels, because I know that in reality I’m quite a shy girl around guys that I’m interested in, I know that I don’t really like alcohol and I don’t think it’s particularly ‘cool.’ And, just for the record, I would much rather wear a nice jumper and jeans than anything that screams sex…unless the occasion calls for it! In my head I’m screaming out for people to grow up. There is little point in judging people when, at the end of the day, we are all trying to enjoy the years that are meant to be the best. Surely we should help each other make memories to look back on with a big grin, rather than alienating each other and ourselves for the pure purpose of prestige or ease.
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