Bethany Larson
Bio
Writing when I feel like it
Stories (27)
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To Catastrophize. Runner-up in Unreliable Challenge. Top Story - September 2024. Content Warning.
A cacophony of cicada songs slowly rises from the trees outside the window you slide open as if hostile to your presence. Their eerie buzzing floats on the breeze that suddenly picks up and sends leaves into flight against a backdrop of storm clouds. The wind ruffles your hair and you shiver. Slam the window closed again; you don't like rain these days.
By Bethany Larsonabout a year ago in Fiction
The Listener
I hate to be woeful, but these days have been less than ideal. Actually I must quite like being woeful, as often as I allow myself to indulge in self-pity; I have even credited it as a personality trait of mine, this talent for sifting through all the positivity in this world and grasping at anything that could make me feel further from contentment. Maybe I seek attention, or comfort from a source outside myself. Perhaps I want to be proven wrong about all the negative truths I have discovered because I require convincing in order to believe in something good. Could it be, even, that I have become addicted to a form of sadness because I have chosen the familiarity of pain over the risk of joy? Regardless, my point is that I go through my days lately feeling downcast unto numbness, and all I really want is for someone to know that.
By Bethany Larsonabout a year ago in Psyche
(Heart)Broken Bones. Runner-Up in Identity Challenge.
When a sport becomes the defining factor of your identity, an injury can feel like becoming worthless. From ages four to twelve, I was a competitive gymnast training in USAG. On average, I was practicing at the gym between twenty and twenty-five hours a week, plus competing on weekends during meet season. I even attended the pre-practice homeschool classes whenever they were offered. Gymnastics was undoubtedly the bulk of my elementary years, taking up most of my extracurricular time, providing me the most social interaction, and sculpting much of the characteristics that have come to make up my personality to this day. Being a gymnast was nearly equivalent to my name in terms of identity.
By Bethany Larson2 years ago in Motivation
