I spend my fourth hour in AP Lit everyday. 

Recently, we’ve been dissecting pieces of poets’ souls as we discuss the figurative language sprinkled throughout these masterpieces that are life personified. 

And there is a bird feeder that has made it’s home in the tree outside the window. Through the slanted blinds, we, as a class, have watched the blue jay outside try to access the bird feeder that is just a tad too small to support him. He finally figured out how to make it work while we were picking apart a Mary Oliver poem. It was in a neighboring moment that I decided the poem represented how contentment means fulfillment. 

I have also realized that I have an odd affinity for custom license plates.

It both flabbergasts me that someone would pay extra money to customize the back plate on their car and astounds me that people are creative enough to replace the letters in words with numbers and create an end result that somewhat resembles a word. 

At red lights, I survey the cars in front of and around me to see if any of them possess a custom license plate; I usually verbalize the ones that I find to whoever is in the car with me so they can share in the odd joy they bring me.

And I’ve never quite understood why people wear shoes to weddings. 

They always get left under assigned seats and forgotten about amongst celebrations of love. They hinder people’s dancing abilities, and they always leave me small, painful reminders on my feet for days to come because of the extra height I gained for the evening. 

They are nothing more than an accessory that I would be happier without having to worry about. I always take them off as soon as possible and lose track of them shortly after that.

And for the life of me I can’t seem to keep my Elephant Bush plant alive.

I’ve relocated it to various shelves in my room with different amounts of lighting, and yet nothing seems to work. Said plant resides in a purple elephant jar that I painted myself this summer, and it’s what started the mini greenhouse I’ve converted my bedroom into. I feel better about myself after accomplishing that small task of watering my plants every day, yet this one seems to be on its last leg.

I’ve scrolled through websites and read countless articles about my quarantine passion project that has become a hobby, yet I can’t seem to save them. 

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. 

Thinking about things that will change the course of my life and where I’ll end up in the future—my head hasn’t stopped spinning in weeks. I seem to be unable to stop. When my head is resting against my pillow and I can’t seem to stop thinking, I’m trying to learn to redirect my thoughts similar to the ones listed above.

And I’ve been thinking about dumb things like license plates and my different plants as I drift to sleep to give myself a break from the inevitable, to give myself a break from my future. 

For now, I’m trying to stop thinking so much about the future, and instead, I’m going to think about how ecstatic I am for our poetry unit in AP Lit.