Sunday, August 14, 2011

Who Packs Your Parachute

Since being back from Taiwan and being a "College Graduate", it's been a pretty slow process of finding a job. I've spent a lot of time going through all my old things and pretty much either donating it to the local thrift shop or throwing away old notebooks and notes. While going through all of the old stuff I ran into a bundle of High School homework and class notes that brought back some great memories. Things that I have forgotten over the 5 years that I have spent experience the "College Life". One of the best finds that I had stumbled upon was this Creative Writing class that I took senior year. I found some old stories that Billy and I had wrote and just laughed at how horrible they were but back then I thought they were the greatest things in the world.

As the sunset shined down on the coastal city of Eschenbach, our hated leader marched into the peaceful place much happily. Pulling into the driveway of the multi-million dollar house he confidently stepped out of his midnight shadow Benz. 
As Everyone knew him as "Papi", we knew him as Walter Crome. Walter had the figure of a young sapling of an oak tree, but his dress mesmerized people of being a celebrity from the Americas. Just glancing at the godly figure made people dream of having his seven figure endorsements. His haircut was like that of the tight rows of corn from the land of the Midwest of America.
He confidently walked to his eight figure condo not thinking about the dangerous ventures that could attack him from any direction like a panther. As the redwood doors open he introduces himself back to his fantastically feather soft California King. Walter just takes a round off and slips into the fantasy world like the ones all little kids do.
Drifted off, the only noise he might wake to is the silence of his house. As he arose like a dead king from the pyramids, he checks in the dungeon of his castle. He surprisingly finds a timer and the only thing he hears is a tick, tick, tic...

-BHP&NM '06

Well that's an interesting beginning to one of the stories that we had worked on back in the day. I might have to finish this story or at least put some time into it and see where it takes me. I had forgotten how much love I had for writing until I looked back at all the little poems or little verses and haiku's I had composed. The one thing that surprised me the most (and to which had inspired me to write this post) was a short paper about a long forgotten topic. It was a paper that I wrote about my Creative Writing Teacher and it goes a little like this.

The one person that has helped me realize everything is Mr. Moon. He taught me to think about all the good people that make it easy for me to get through the day. He told me, "Think about who packs your parachute?"
That statement has broadened my horizon and now I'm thankful for all my friends. those friends that have helped me through sports, school, and hard times. I would have never even thought about what they do for me if it wasn't for Mr. Moon. 
From this day on I will forever remember what Mr. Moon told me about "Who's packing your parachute" because I'm going to be more grateful of everyone that helps out. I now realize that I need to appreciate life a whole lot more because I have friends that care about me. I shouldn't disappoint them, I should pack their parachutes like they pack mine. 
 He also teaches me that being an individual is not a bad thing. The way he talks and acts gives me the idea that I don't have to be secluded into the normal society. He shows me I can be my own with a humor that has my creative touch to it. He has the confidence to not care what people think about him and I should learn from him not to care either. Most of all I should be my own individual. I'm sure I'll learn many more lessons from him in the future, but this time I'll be more appreciative to his life long lessons. 

Sometimes in life we get so busy and we forget to tell the people that mean most in our life about how thankful we are to have them be a huge part of it. To be honest, I did forget about the phrase, "Who packs your parachute." (Sorry Mr. Moon) but I thought it's a pretty creative little saying. For me, it gets hard to stay in touch with some friends that have been a life saver for me since we are no longer in the same area code and that we both become so busy in our own life. It is sad to realize that sometimes your best friends become things of the past as we grow apart and we start our "new" life path. It takes a lot of time and effort to make some friendships last but it never hurts to give them all a call and chit chat for a little bit. You never know when some people need that phone call out of the blue to help cheer them up as they may be facing some scary decisions or hard times. 

I hope that we can all give a little shout out to the old friends that "packed our parachute" and see how they are in their crazy adventure called life. 

Until next time friends. Stay Classy

Cheerio,

Alastar Swift


PS: Anyone know of some job openings? :)