Title: The Things iCarry
Summary: "We all carry these things inside us that no one else can see. They hold us down like anchors, they drown us out at sea."
Disclaimer: I don't own NUFFIN.
Author's note: I was inspired to write this after studying The Things They Carried in english class. It's a really, really good book, and I totally recommend it.
But anyway, I'm not sure if anyone will actually be interested in reading this, but I sure do hope so.
I pretty much just wrote it for practice, I wanted to practice writing in third person, and explore Carly&Spencer's characters a bit more; Sam&Freddie are so easy to write and I wanted to challenge myself a bit.
Hope you enjoy… talk to you later :P
Carly Shay constantly carried with her a small, black and white composition notebook. It was something many people did, she knew, all of them special in the eyes of their owner, and hers was no different.
Her notebook, for example, was decorated with circle stickers to look polka dotted. The spine was near-broken from perpetual use and then put back together with purple duct tape. The edges of the pages were coloured, which passed the time during study halls. She refrained from writing her name on the cover, fearing that God forbid, someone might get a hold of it.
What was written in her journal (she refused to call it a diary) was most important to her.
She felt constantly under pressure, mostly the pressure to be perfect, and she knew bottling up emotions would lead to a frequent amount of lashing out at the people she loved. This obligation never came from anyone specifically, Spencer was supportive of her in everything she did and forgiving when she made mistakes, and her father was the same, in a lesser role. Sometimes she thought that it was all in her own head, but it was still real to her and that was all that mattered.
She loved writing; it was a way to let out her frustrations privately, avoiding being judged and avoiding hurting peoples' feelings. Her writing was hardly ever in complete sentences, rarely even legible, it was an automatic, unconscious thing when her pen touched paper.
She revealed to her notebook the memories she would have most likely forgotten if it wasn't written down, what frustrated her that day, what she dreamed the night before, positive things, negative things, what she loved, what she hated. She felt that she nearly escaped madness every time she wrote. She was never unhappy with reality, though- but she was human, and had moments of weakness. Whenever she was overwhelmed, and worry pulled her below the surface, writing in her journal brought her out of the darkness and back to a decent emotional state.
Some of the little irritations she read over and laughed at how simple they were, for example, when she grew out of her denim skirt and thought she was getting fat and stopped eating breakfast for a few days. And then some were darker than that, like when she found the first (and possibly only) picture of her mother and got mad at Spencer for trying to hide it from her. The photo is now framed in the living room where everyone can see it, and Carly also carried it with her in her mind, where it could never be taken away.
Not everything she wrote was depressing, though, she tried her best to include happy moments- the moments in which she went outside of herself and saw how unperfect she was but was still truly happy with herself and her life. Moments she truly appreciated and didn't know who to thank for it. Some of them were simple and forgettable, like the many carefree nights she spent with her brother, driving down the highway at the late hours of night and blasting music. Or the weekly breakfasts she and Sam made Sunday mornings after their Saturday sleepovers. And then some were milestones that would be forever embedded in her memory even if she didn't write them down, like the proudness she felt after singing in front of a large crowd. Or the last episode of iCarly, which was filled with both laughter and tears as they watched their internet lives the past four years of high school.
Ultimately, Carly Shay left her burdens in her notebook. It was the only thing that kept them from stirring around her mind and eventually leaving her soul overcome with madness. Writing gave her strength and helped her face her fears, was always understanding and was never judgemental. It was the one thing she carried, a tangible version of her mind, each sentence was a thought, a worry, a frustration, an insecurity, a joke, an idea. And when they were written, they were no longer on the tip of her tongue, weighing down her soul, or out of her grasp.
Sooooooo… what do you think? :D
I wrote this one first because I thought it'd be the hardest one to write, Carly's really plain, in my opinion.
I think this is the shortest of all the chapters, but I do like it and I'm happy with it.
Next up… Spencer's chapter! I'll post that in one week!
Please R&R. You don't have to, though, no pressure.