It's 12:07 A.M. on January 21st and I'm alone in a hotel room. This is not because I wasn't supposed to room with anyone. This is because my room-mates are two rooms down consuming substances that they think will make them worthwhile and happy. I hate it, really. Because these people have such potential, and they have such life inside of them, but they can throw that away in the blink of an eye. It's great that my peers think so highly of themselves to intoxicate and harm recklessly. Most excellent. Oh, and before I go on, let me give a little pretext to this story. I'm on my senior ski trip in Durango, Colorado. I went skiing today with a bunch of friends and now those friends are acting like different people, the thing that I didn't want to happen, but I knew would. What's funny is how small the things that change people really are. Alcohol, Drugs, Reputations, Attitudes. I don't know how I'm supposed to react to this, because the last thing I want to do tonight is share a bed with 200 pounds of drunk teenager. It's hard to look forward to as well... life with my peers that is, because if I don't know how people are going to act now, how the hell am I supposed to know how they're going to act then? One thing that's so strange about it is how I don't know if anyone else feels like I do. I'm here trying to make decent decisions, while holding back accusations and not burning down any bridges. It's tough. I also decided a few more things on this trip. I'm ready to leave high school. I'm ready to up and move and never look back. I'm ready to sever ties. I'm ready to take my guitar, and my camera and my attitude to another city and just go. I don't want any of this anymore, because when I try to extend grace and I try to be a postive influence, all that comes out of that is brash, hateful behavior and apathy and things that I never intended to put into this world. I'm listening to this album, Iron & Wine's "The Creek Drank The Cradle" that is, and I just got to this song, "Upwards Over The Mountain" and it means so much to me. Even now. I always start to cry when I hear the guitar solo start because I remember a friend who passed recently and I just can't stand that all of this is going on when things like that happen. How can I stand for this kind of behavior when I know for a fact that life is shorter than any of these idiots want it to be. "So may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten, sons are like birds, flying upward over the mountain." I will never be able to write something so lyrically and prolifically substantial and heart-felt. I just can't do that... and that makes me sad too because I don't want to be a failure in my life while these kids down the hall make livings for themselves. I'm so scared of that. I don't want to die alone, or angry, or for that matter intoxicated. I need to get out and quick because these people never cease to let me down. Never. I want to write songs and take pictures with the kind of passion I feel when I worship God. I want the things that I do in the world not to sink into mediocrity and uselessness, but to be applicable, and true and pure. I don't know what to do. I haven't known what to do at all lately, but I guess that's because I've tried to do it on my own. Goodnight guys.