a change & an urgent thought

Hola.

Now, I know I posted yesterday, but this couldn't wait. I have two things to say, the first is short, the second is the basis of this post.

1st thing: I emailed Tane from Fifth Out Of Ten about a new blog design a while ago. She's quite busy at the moment, so I don't think I'll have the new design for a while, but I've been deleting unnecesary things from my sidebar and simplifying my blog. I want my new design to be clean and simple. :)
Now, the big thing about the 1st point *deep breath* I'm thinking about changing my blog name. When I named this blog, it was The Teenager's Bookshelf. A few days later, I stumbled across my lovely friend Kenzie's blog, think. eat. write. read. And I loved her blog name. LOVED. And I still do. It's a gorgeous name. Me being me back then, I loved it so much that I decided to change my blog name to something similar. I wanted my blog name to reflect what my blog was about - thoughts, books, writing and ambitions. So I changed my blog name to what it is now - think. read. write. dream.
But now, I'm thinking I need a change. A clean slate, if you will. New design. New name. New me. I have changed a lot and I think my blog should reflect how I have changed as a person. I was thinking, seeing how my bookstagram account is so successful, changing my blog name to my Instagram username, Fiction and Tea. It's nice and simple. What do you guys think? Please comment below with your thoughts :)

EDIT: I have decided to change my name. As you can see, I've created a simple header with the new name, just so that Tane knows my name has changed and so that everyone else knows my name has changed. The lovely Mahnoor has offered to do a redirect for me so I'll eventually be changing my URL, probably to fictionandtea.blogspot.com. But this will all change in due time. Thank you all. :)

2nd thing, and the basis of this post: I went into town this morning - got some lovely new tea-for-one teapots - and on my way home, with a Greggs pasta pot in my lap, we stopped at a red light. I gazed out the window as I so often do, and saw  a homeless man sat with his back against the wall - not an uncommon sight in a town centre. It's a big city, so there are lots of homeless people on the streets.

But this man was sat on the outskirts, not begging, not seeking attention. He was staring at his legs, wrapped up in a blanket that looked like it had seen better days and he just looked so sad. I continued looking out the window and just before the red turned to green, he looked up at me. In the half a second that we had eye contact, his eyes looked so....desperate. And then I turned away, ashamed.

But ashamed of what?

As soon as the car pulled away, I was so close to crying. I did cry when we got home. But as soon as we drove off, I stared at my barely-touched pasta pot and wished I'd done something. I pictured myself opening the car door, running over and handing him my pasta pot. I know I couldn't have done that - it's dangerous and the light could have turned green at any moment. But I just felt deflated.

And I think it's because I looked away.

Why is it that we do that? Why do we look away when something is too hard to look at? When something is too awful and uncomfortable? The house is dark, the murderer is about to appear and we look away from the screen for that split second before we hear the screams.

I could have kept eye contact, poured sympathy and sadness into my eyes and said everything there is to say with no words. But I turned away because what is there to say? Everything and nothing. But really, what would keeping eye contact have achieved? Would he have felt sympathy or like a zoo animal? He might have misinterpreted my sympathetic gaze for a patronising stare.

How many people turn away whenever something slightly real intrudes on their life filled with useless objects that we take for granted? How many people ignore anything terrible that goes on in the world? How many people pretend that these awful things - homelessness, terrorism, discrimination - are not happening, or do not read into them in any serious detail to prevent the burden of knowledge settling over their lives? How many people try to live in ignorance?

I think I turned away, not because I'm one of the pretenders, not because I wish to live in ignorance, but because I was ashamed of looking and not helping.

I was ashamed of noticing and doing nothing.

I think we're all guilty of that.

- B
xxxx