Adios 2008

I don't believe in New Years Resolutions. I've made them in the past, usually some fickle thing that I followed for a week and then waved it away because both human nature and life are not alterable in the course of a day. Life is not black and white, it consists of gray area. New Years Resolutions are black and white.
A few months ago I learned that all my effort to live in a black and white world (it either is or it isn't) was a terrible idea. Life is no fun that way. I'd rather be struggling in a gray area, filled with thought and creativity and messiness than ignorantly successful in a black or white area.
Because of this, I make goals for upcoming years. This is different because I am not going to just focus on one idea to alter something about myself. Instead, I am taking aspects of my life and strengthening them.
My hope is that 2009 is filled with new, creative and adventurous experiences. I want to look back on 2009 next December and go "Wow, I never thought I'd ever get to say that that would happen."
I don't feel particularly daring in saying this, because when I look back on 2008, I can say the same thing.

Now For:

The Best Discovered or Re-Discovered songs from 2008 (however the selection spans through time)

- Claire De Lune: Debussy
- I Woke Up In A Car: Soemthing Corporate
- Rehab: Rihanna
- Alive With The Glory of Love: Say Anything
- Reverie: The Morning Of
- Mariella: Kate Nash
- Shut Up: Dirtie Blonde
- Fairytale: Sara Barielles
- White Horse: Taylor Swift
- Our Love: Rhett Miller
- Collide: Granian
- Going Going Gone: Paloalto
- Torn: Natalie Imbruglia
- Storms Over The Ocean: Ollabelle
- What Sarah Said: Deathcab For Cutie
- Bowl of Oranges: Bright Eyes
- Something: The Beatles
- Fidelity: Regina Spektor
- Landed: Ben Folds
- Almost Lover: A Fine Frenzy
- Flannigan's Ball: Dropkick Murphys
- The Resolution: Jack's Mannequin
- Hazel's House: Richard Shindell
- Unmistakeably Love: Stephanie's Id
- Existentialism on Prom Night: Straylight Run

Dream

Since I've come home my sleeping schedule has been a bit off- I go to bed well past three in the morning and I wake up between noon and two. This is not preferable for me, but I've given myself until the new year to follow this schedule before I make any sort of change.
Because of this schedule, I think I've been harboring strange dreams. Mostly they've been harmless, mostly just things I wanted to see happen in life that play out when I'm unconscious. Friends make up and act civil, things clean themselves, family drama melts away, trivial things like that. But last night I had a nightmare that was more sinister than I've had in awhile. I'm leaving most of the elements that were "sinister" out of my re-telling of the dream. These are things that others don't need to experience, even in conjuction with my own re-telling.
I dreamt I was in a third-world country, it seemed like it was Africa... maybe Ethiopia or Northern Kenya. The dream began with me in a charter plane flying over a mostly desert region where deep ravines were being dug in an attempt to create a clean well for water reserves. The plane landed and I walked to the edge of these ravines, which were deep and clear with the exception of discoloration around the edges. There were people in clusters everywhere, using tools to carve the edges of the ravines. I began to help, and the tools did not feel strange in my hand and I squinted in the sunlight as I worked with strangers through the day.
At some point a woman with a baby, who must have been around my age but taller, darker, and much skinnier than myself came up to me and began to ask for a doctor. In this moment I suddenly became aware of an outcrop of buildings in the distance, very near to where the plane I had arrived in had landed. I led the girl over to the building, and fought with six very unwilling doctors to get her an appointment, even though the building was strangely deserted. Finally I marched her to the back rooms and found a doctor who was sitting beside a tiny hospital crib and a examination table. I brought the woman into the room and she sat on the table, holding her child. The doctor looked at us harshly and picked something up from the hospital crib, a very sick baby who, in the moment that I laid eyes on him, died. The doctor- a woman with sandy red hair and a rash complexion looked at me and said in a European accent of some kind, "Her mother left her here." I stood there in silence, not knowing what to say. The doctor placed the recently passed infant back in the crib and turned her attention to the woman I had brought in. I continued to stand there in this ramshackle doctors office, with holes in the walls so big that I could see the sun setting and dirt on the floor so thick that there barely seemed to be a floor at all. I even saw the dust motes in the air, caught in the sunlight as the doctor questioned this woman, whose illness and the illness of her child could not be figured out.
"Has anyone you know travelled recently?" The doctor pressed- a very strange question, when applied to reality, but I suppose it was just my mind connecting to what I know- and the woman struggled with the question. Suddenly, I turned to the girl and spoke to her in her native tongue, and re-asked the question.
"My father. Hell's Kitchen." She stuttered, but not in a frightened way. If anything, she spoke with stubborn defiance. She knew the doctor had little interest in diagnosis, and she knew I couldn't help her.
We walked away then. We left the building and the tiny village it was in. We walked together with her child along the edges of the ravines, which were filling with water.
"Look." I told her. "We can drink from these, can't we?" I was hopelessly naieve, and the woman sighed.
"That water is poisoned. See the pollution at the edges? We cannot drink this, we'll die." She told me, switching her child from one shoulder to the other before gesturing to the pieces of color I had seen earlier in the daylight. I could barely see them now, but she was aware of them just the same as if the sunlight had been strong and glaring. When I looked closely I saw the pollution, and we moved on to another ravine. When the sun set, we were standing together, overlooking rancid water with a silent baby between us. The people along the landscape were silent, and the woman turned to me. She began to speak about New York, the streets and the buildings and the traffic lights. She had been there once, she declared, when she was a child. She had been to a place that I called home but had returned to the place that she called hers. In that moment I felt like the United States was a undesireably reality, as if I had no need to be there any longer, because I had found a new home.
The dream ended with the woman and I and the infant seated at the end of a polluted puddle of water, in the darkness, waiting for the sunrise.

Warning: Bad Mood Killer

I've been having such a hard time lately, with the people in my life. I know I speak occasionally about how wonderful everyone in my life is, how blessed I am to have them and all of the good and kindness they all have. I just wish that this would be enough for them to see in each other, or in me.
I understand I am less than perfect, and sometimes a downright terrible person. I've been lucky that I am surrounded by people who see the good in me, or at the very least my intentions.
This may be confusing. Let me explain, the people in my life are all struggling, or I'm struggling with them. My family is incredibly stressed and I am afraid every day for what that could bring. I live in a ticking time bomb, and sometimes I feel like the only one with the ability to hold it all together, to bring some semblence of normalcy, is me. Unfortunately, I need a break sometimes, because I'm getting anxiety attacks in my own home. So I'll "go out" for hours- I'll leave at 6 and come back at three in the morning, or I'll suddenly just go "I'm going out with so-and-so" and I won't worry about when I'm coming home.
The sick part of this is, particularly with my parents, I'm being vague about who I'm with. Generally its a friend, but many times Alex is there too, and usually at my insistance. Because I know it makes me insane, but even with how much it hurts me to be with him, it hurts more to be without him. And right now I'd rather be hurting while he's right next to me than hurting while we're not speaking and he's four hours away. Because the decision not to be in contact with him keeps me up at night, and I'm tired of either crying myself to sleep, or pretending that I'm fine. So I've been seeing him a lot lately. I hold it together rather well, I believe. I act with near indifference when we're together, and when he offered me a ride home last night I refused, because I am afraid that I am hurting him, too. I know how he feels, and he knows how I feel. Unfortunately I don't know if he's been hanging around for the right reasons. I'm afraid that he feels guilty. But I won't get into that.
I guess I just miss consistency, in my life. Friends who I love and used to be closer to each other than to me aren't speaking anymore. They're both huge part of my life, and sometimes it feels like I'm being ripped in half, particularly when I have to chose between the two of them. My family is barely holding itself together, and instead of going to each other for support everyone is going seperate directions. And everything with Alex just threatens to overtake it all. My vision is so clouded when it comes to this that I feel like I can't make sense out of anything at all, and I'm bound to just be a completely emotional wreck for the rest of eternity.

I just wanted to get that all out. Later on tonight I'm going to write up another post, a happier one, focusing on the good things that have happened in the last few days.

Guilty

My Mother: "So did you have fun with Wyoming last night?"

Me: "Yeah, I had a good time."

My Mother: "Good. It was nice to hear you laugh again."


I promise, from here on out, even if I'm absolutely fucking miserable, there will be a smile on my face.

Twisting the Ends

My bags are all packed and piled neatly by the door. I'm bringing home more than most other people, because I brought too much with me in the first place and now I'm trying to cart the bulk of it back. This is the first time I'm being picked up from college for a few months, because I generally take the train home. That being said, a good bunch of my stuff has been waiting to make it back to my hometown for a few months.
All of my craft supplies- my pastels, beads, knitting, writing books, and sketchbooks are waiting in an old trunk that I was given by my mom's boss, who owns a floral shop and has collected a slew of props over the years. They're joined by a few well-worn pairs of shoes and my favorite books, along with most of my cd's and some fancy paperclips and a sewing kit. Two duffle bags stacked on top of the trunk hold everything else- clothes and makeup and nailpolish, as well as a few sweatshirts. I don't wear most of these things, so they're going back home. There are a handful of bags with essentials as well, but these are the bags that I've needed easy access to, because I've been living out of bags since last Thursday.
I've never had a month off in the middle of winter before. Usually I'm off in the summertime, when the days are longer and walks are pleasant and I can go barefoot through the streets just because I like the warmth of the pavement under my calloused heels. There are two major plans for this month off, and three goals. The first plan is to clean my room back home, to rid it of everything I've tactlessly kept over the last eighteen years. The second is to take a lot of time to do creatively-charged things. I want to continue to make earrings and jewelry and get better and ore creative with the craft. Knitting and painting and pastel pieces are also high on the list of things I want to do, and I foresee a handful of afternoons being spent in a craft store or two.
My goals are similar but slightly different. My main goal is to get my etsy shop, where I will be selling jewelry, up and running. Another goal is to kick meat for at least a little while. I do this for about two months every few years, but I haven't gotten it to stick yet. My last goal is to just remember to take some time every day to be reflective. I do this often enough during times when my life is not as stressful, but I feel as if my life would be a tad more stress-free if I did this in times of chaos as well.
Also, I'm trying to take more photos in general, because I feel as if I don't take enough photos of just silly things. So for the next few weeks, I'm going to be married to my camera.


Love and Peace,
Sarah Elizabeth

I lied

It’s the wind in the box,
Whispers unheard about what we won’t talk about,
To keep our damage minimal,
Contained in four walls and a close-etched lid,
Our names scratched into all sides and burned at the bottom.
I can only tell you why the box is closed,
You may never know why the box is opened.
My secret is in the rough, unfinished edges,
The dark spots that are my favorite and the cuts where emotion ran too deep and never healed.
Fleshy undersides and innards are revealed,
The parts no one was supposed to see.
But when you watch the box,
When your hands hesitantly grasp the sides and I tell you not to open it,
Whispering the lore of Pandora and Idis under my breath as I watch you peek inside,
You gape wide-eyed in hurt and confusion and respect.
I knew it was useless from the beginning
I knew you would warily look inside, overturning the stones to shine light on the gray and the wet and the cold which we pretended not to be there.
You see the bottom of the box,
The roots where the tree had grown and where things were sanded and left to weather,
I see only the entire entity,
My hands on yours as we both will it to close,
And the dark inside too deep for either of us to firmly grasp on our own.

In Light

Hey Everyone!
I know I haven't been updating as frequently. Usually I post a little something at least every other day or so. But over the weekend a lot of emotional things have begun to happen between Alex and myself. Out of respect for him and the situation I'm trying not to blog as much, because I often write about what is on my mind and the current situation is pretty much all I can think about. So, because this is a public forum and because generally I don't hold much back, I'm going to take a leave of absence until things become either subdued or blown over and I will write less with the crazy, emotional side of my heart.

Much love to everyone,
Sarah Elizabeth

Ramblings Before Math

When I went home last weekend, my relationship with my ex (who from here on out, I'm just going to call Alex) came up. I hadn't expected it to, after all- it happened in September, mostly everyone knew, and I've been working so hard to move past it. In late October, I even thought that I had been able to forget about everything and move on. But as the days of November tolled on, I knew that I had not.
On Friday last week I went in to my old High School to get some documents I needed, and I decided to stop and visit a few of the teachers that I had been close with. My first stop was Mrs. C, who I often feel is the person I am eventually supposed to be. There is only one other person on this Earth I am comfortale discussing anything with, besides her.
We chatted for a few minutes, and eventually she got to The Question.
"Are you seeing anybody?"
It was one of those occasions where you knew it was a loaded question- poised to segueway into a conversation that may be unpleasant. She probably guessed my response due to my hasty reaction.
"Oh, oh god no. Not for awhile. I'm taking a break...a long break...I'm not dating." I stumbled. "No relationships." I concluded, as if she needed clarification. My heart rate at this point had skyrocketed, and I felt like I wanted to lay down.
"What happened with you and Alex?" She asked. I sighed.
"It ended. Poorly. It was really bad." I mumbled. As I mumbled, I saw the flashes in my mind... the moment of the breakup, me crying and going to the only friend I had at my school, and the pile of everything I had connected to Alex in my haste to get rid of it.
"Its probably best not to date right now. You would only be looking for a healer, anyway. You would jump into a relationship with someone for the wrong reasons. Most people usually do. Its good that you didn't."
I smiled at her, and opted not to mention that I almost did, that I've been fighting an endless parade of desperate crushes since September. I didn't tell her that on the rare occasion that I thought I would actually be interested in someone, I did something to end that possibility quickly. I had (and have) no desire to hurt another person, not ever.
We moved on to other topics of conversation. I left the school and walked home, looking away when I walked past Alex's house, his car, and the porch that had seen years and years of memories. I kept walking, and went straight home. I don't remember what I did afterwards, nothing of any particular importance, I'm sure.
The next day I went to see a play with Jereality, who has been by my side and as supportive as she can possibly be through this whole mess (its amazing, how much she's supported me, actually. She lives almost 4 hours away from me right now, and we barely see each other anymore. But she still somehow knows me better than almost every other friend I have). We met up with my boss from the summer job I worked in an office. After about seven minutes, my boss turned to me.
"How are things with Alex?"
It was in this moment that I decided that all my relationships occuring from whenever I re-establish the will to date on would be absolutely secret.
"We broke up." I whispered, wishing the damn play would start so I had a reason to be staring straight ahead at a castless stage.
"Uh-oh, what happened?" She asked. Her voice was thick with a knowing smile. She had predicted the failure of the relationship early on, and had done little to hide her beliefs from me.
"We got into a fight. I told him not to call me anymore, and he didn't." I told her, my eyes holding an unwavering gaze towards the stage. These words were not upholding the absolute truth of the situation, but it was as simply as I could put things without giving her enough details to hold against me.
"About what?" She may have asked. I'm not sure, because at this point my mind was searching for a reason to find a different seat, or to talk to someone else, or to run anywhere else that I could go.
"Something stupid." I muttered, before opening my program and noting out loud all of the different advertisements inside. She didn't bring it up again, and I was able to enjoy the play mindlessly. My eye caught Jereality's sometime later, and the incident was only mentioned once afterwards, by me.
Some days I feel like I've been cursed, or crushed, or both. I have to fight to avoid absolute bitterness regarding the whole situation. Other days I'm fine, I feel ready to at least stop thinking about the past relationship. Most days I filter between the two, making every effort to just retain a staggared sense of normality above everything else.
I feel lucky, and blessed that most of my friends have really been there for me. They have supported me, and lightly chided my not-so-bright decisions. They have joked with me, sat with me, and offered me rides home when I decide to wander the streets alone at night. They have distracted me with movies and games and baked goods and bowling, and they have offered to kick Alex's ass on more than one occasion, even though he's done nothing wrong.
To end, I suppose I'd just like to say that I defy anyone to try and find a group of people who could be better for anyone. Through the ridiculous disaster-slash-personal hell, my friends have helped me keep a ray of sunshine in my life. Just thinking about them, and knowing that they've been here for me, pulls me through sometimes. And even when it doesn't, they are still understanding and sympathetic when I lose sight of things.

There's something wonderfully to be learned out of everything.

-Sarah Elizabeth

Ohhh Dear

I cringe to realize that is wasn't until this week, the last week of classes, that I was truly able to take advantage of any sort of grasp of time management. As a matter of fact, it wasn't until today that the understanding filtered through my head- shower the night before, sleep in an extra hour and a half, get dressed, grab homework, and leave. Of course, I'm also taking an extra forty minutes to blog here before I do so. Because I love you all. So maybe time management isn't exactly what you'd call it at all. Instead, we shall call it "extreme laziness occurring only in the morningtime or after extended periods of sleep". Or ELOMAEPOS, which if you look really hard, appears to be Greek. Don't be fooled, its nothing of the sort.
Unfortunately a side effect of ELOMAEPOS is a complete lack of coherency.

Sometimes I Worry That I've Lost The Plot

Okay so, besides the terribly whiny (and unspellchecked...seriously, how hard is it to hit a goddamn button?) post from earlier, I decided to add one more senseless entry to cap off the evening. What could I be doing instead? Writing a paper and studying for a final. But I love you more, interwebs, and as a result I'm going to fail at (a very well recorded) life.
What will this entry be about? You ask, on the edge of your seat, I'm sure. Settle in, dear friends, because you are in for an intensely boring moment. Because I'm going to write about cleaning.
Wait...where are you going? Really, you're going to leave already, and not listen to my heady tale?
Whatever.
So, I go home on the weekends now. Every weekend. I strap a bag to my back and carry my laptop case down to whatever train station strikes me fancy first. Three to four glorious days are spent at home. Upon my return Monday morning to my dorm room, however, I generally dump my shit and go to class.
Typically this gets cleaned by Tuesday night. Well guess what it is, ladies, gentlemen, and germs- Tuesday night. Except I haven't cleaned. Oh no. You know how much I haven't cleaned? The only dishes suitable to eat off of at this point is a single cup and a mug that can't be microwaved. The drawer I keep all of my books and folder and notebooks in is completely empty, and I honestly can't see either my desk or my bed, because all of the books and notebooks are opened with scribbles and post-it notes and paperclips. Its like Staples had an orgy but didn't clean up after itself. Damn capitalist pigs.
Adding to the fuckville that has become of my side of the dorm is a tangle of wires that I'm not even totally sure are mine...they may have followed me here. On top of those wires are a multitude of black bags in various sizes. One backpack (that isn't actually unpacked...I'm just living out of it for a few days until I go home again), a messenger bag with Monday's books, a shoulder bag with today's books for my second class, and a purse with the books I brought to read during dinner. On top of all of these is a empty water bottle that is not mine and I have no idea whose it is, a roll of toilet paper for reasons I cannot fathom, and a jar of Peter Pan peanut butter.
The only explanation I may offer for this debauchery?
Finals week has begun.

The most emo-est list of them all.

A list of some stuff thats been going through my head lately:

- I'm not entirely sure how I get anything done, particularly since I fixed the internet on my temporary laptop.

- If HP could return to me the laptop they've been taunting me with for over a month (because it broke down two months after I bought it and I had to send it back) that'd be great...then maybe I'd be a tad less homicidal.

- My "no dating" decision I made in October (that few of you are aware of, because I talk about dating all the time to make people believe that I'm not spending at least 3 hours every day contemplating the epic fail of my last relationship....healthy) shows no signs of being shortened...but I may expand it to January, if not the rest of my life. Its how I plan to save the population of the word from disaster and myself from ever having to be this insane ever again.

- I may take my Political Science major (that I still have to switch to) and use it to go to Law School. Because apparently, I don't hate myself enough, and this is an even faster route to get myself to hell.

- When I go home for Christmas break I'm probably throwing out most of what I've owned for the last 10 years. I don't want it anymore, I don't want to look at it or to touch it or to know that it exists anymore. Keep an eye out on Ebay for the bulk of what's salvagable.

- I got really frustrated yesterday and wanted to cut my hair, because thats what I do when i'm unexpressibly angry. But then I realized that I got my hair cut this weekend so there isn't anything to cut.

- I haven't been able to cry since September and I would not only like to know why, but whether its part of a master plan to make me wander off into the woods one night and just stay there until the local animals adopt me as their own and I finish off my life as a deer or turkey buzzard.


Sorry for making you all regret having eyeballs and cognitive thought! :)

-Sarah Elizabeth

Texting opens whole worlds of possibilities.

a bit of sillyness to last between classes:

Me: "I am a magical unicorn with the wings of a sightless gnome."

Jereality: "Thats impossible. Everyone knows that sightless gnomes are afraid of heights."

Me: " How can they be, if they don't know when they are being exposed to high places?"

Jereality: "...The space-time continuum makes their ears ring."

Me: "Ah, so they must be statues then, because of their aversion to both movement and aging."

Jereality: "You remember the lessons then. Good, good."

I Forgot How To Spell My Name By The End Of This Entry.

Something about moving out of my house where I live with three other people, and living in a room with just me and one other person whose existence is not entire dependent on my own, made me realize my aptitude for living by myself. Unfortunately, I enjoy it much more than I probably should.
I have always had a abhorrance for depending on other people. I don't know why, because its not like anyone ever went out of their way to teach me this. I was taught, growing up, that different people have different skills and needs and that working with other people makes life not only easier, but more pleasant because you're not alone. This message apparently flew past me, and I waved to it as it did, wishing it a pleasant journey into the heads of every other living soul that I knew.
My tendency lately is to blame the anxiety for a few of my weirder intricacies. I do this mostly because people seem to feel better about me if I can tell them why I do weird things. The truth of the matter is that Yes, I have an anxiety that makes me basically want nothing to do with most people because unless I know you or you pass some sort of "not a creeper" test. But I am fairly certain that my constant need to be an independent as I can, my hatred of large groups of people (group dynamic is probably one of the largest causes of idiocy known to man), and the complete enjoyment I get from only having to take care of myself without having any consequences on other people, is probably just my own weirdness.
I'm sure at this point the image I have painted for you is one of complete selfishness. Maybe it is, but it isn't that I don't want to take care of other people. Generally, I don't mind that. I just hate when other people have to take care of me, because I don't want to have to impact someone else's life with one of my million idiotic tendencies. I'd hate to think I brought someone else down with me, you know?

Please note: These word are the ramblings of a very tired, unfed, cold person... written earlier in the morning than this person usually even crawls out of bed.

Much love,
Sarah Elizabeth

Another Place To Fall

Here's an interesting story I never got around to telling people, about a guy I barely know.

This guy and I met on an anthropology trip in the beginning of October. I was the only one who went that wasn't in his class, so we didn't really talk much. I don't even really know his name, nor does he know mine. The trip was to Ellis Island, so it wasn't until we were standing in some horrendously long line for a ferry that we really spoke at all. The conversation was light but easy, and I remember laughing a few times. After the trip, we went our seperate ways. But ever since then, I see him at 10:45 every other day, sitting in a hallway waiting for a class. He listens to his ipod as I put on gloves and walk down the hall, and every time we see each other, we both smile and wave. Last week his class let in early, and I realized that he hung back by the door for an extra few seconds, turned to smile and wave to me, and then disappeared inside the classroom. It was one of those "my faith in humanity is restored" sort of moments. It makes me sad to realize that the semester is going to end next week, and I probably won't get to see him anymore.

Developments

There are a handful of issues I feel strongly about that I've always wanted to do write-ups on, discussing the issues and my argument of them. I've been tempted to write these pieces to send as editorials or to create a portfolio so when the day comes that I interview at an organization dedicated to Human Rights, I can show them the issues I've been following and what I'm passionate about.

For this reason, I am starting a blog (connected to this one) about issues that I feel strongly about. The blog will be (obviously) political in nature, so enter it at your own risk. The first entry will feature an introduction of my views and what to expect. The second entry will be a response to all of the hate mail i'm sure will ensue.

I hope you will all check it out and leave some feedback!

http://www.TheNutshellPrerogative.blogspot.com

Songs I Can't Get Out of My Head Right Now

- I Woke Up in a Car- Something Corporate
- Existentialism on Prom Night- Straylight Run
- The Resolution- Jack's Mannequin
- La La Lie- Jack's Mannequin
- Life's A Cinch- Mundy
- Landed- Ben Folds
- Merry Happy- Kate Nash
- Lonelily- Damien Rice
- Easy/Lucky/Free- Bright Eyes

P.s. I've been feeling a wee bit crazy lately, but in a "I want to go jump off rocks and climb a tree and chase a cloud and call everyone I know and sing to them" sort of way. This is a great change for me, and I'm really excited about it and I hope it lasts.

All my love,
Sarah Elizabeth

Full of Win

I am prone to complain about my 9:30 class the way many people gripe about their "eight ay-ahms". It doesn't help that the class itself drives me absolutely nutters. So I decided to share with you (because really, who could care more?) my morning schedule when it comes to getting ready for my class! Lucky youuuu!

6:30 a.m. - Cell phone alarm goes off. Its some anti-climatic porno ring. I tried to change it to "Thats What You Get" by Paramore. It didn't listen. Press one of the outside censors to quiet the alarm for an extra five minutes.

6:35 a.m.- Hit snooze again.

6:40 a.m.- Hit snooze a third time. Decide to be nice to the roommate and shove the cellphone (charger, and all) under my pillow so she won't hear it and it will go off in my ear.

6:45 a.m.- Hit snooze again. Look out the window briefly and marvel at how pretty the morningtime is before getting five more minutes of glorious sleep.

6:50 a.m.- realize that the snooze addiction is getting ridiculous, but continue to hit it anyway. This will not be the last time, either.

7:20 a.m.- After hitting snooze six more times (Each time going "Now I have an hour and forty minutes to get ready!" etc...) I jump (literally) out of bed. Stumble into the bathroom.

7:25 a.m.- Look in the bathroom mirror. Decide that my hair, since I went to bed with it wet, will be completely unmanageable. Then wash my face (managing to get soap in my eyes YET AGAIN) and brush my teeth before wandering back out into my dorm.

7:35 a.m.- Look at unmade bed, Do nothing. Realize I should get dressed, But don't. Pull out the paper due for my 9:30 class to tweak it before printing, Ha ha! What do I really do? Start up youtube and facebook and whittle away the next half hour uselessly.

8:00 a.m.- Decide to download Trillian on the temp laptop. This will take five minutes.

8:05 a.m. grudgingly do the paper for my Writing class, even though its a terrible topic and could be written by semi-retarded birds.

8:10 a.m.- Start this post. Note:I am still in my pajamas with an unmade bed, no books in order, no breakfast, my hair isn't done, and I'm pretty sure I have no socks. If the entry were to end here I'm pretty sure I'm have to title this entry "Full of Fail!".

8:15 a.m.- Decide its about time to get ready. Make the Bed- marvel at my ability to spin my comforter a full 270 degrees while leaving the "throw" blankets usually kept at the end of the bed compeltely intact (sleep OCD? Yeah, I think so too!). Get dressed- a process made difficult when I realize that my foot is in fact, completely numb and a little blue. Ever shove a completely useless apendage into jeans? Few could say that they could. I am among those few. Print the Writing paper, track down the books (which I had already piled on my desk subconsciously the night before- excellent!). Listen to youtube music (through headphones, of course) and close the window next to my bed so my roommate will stop screaming "Polar Bear!" when she sees me.

8:40 a.m.- Do a few silly-esque things. Decide to leave early for my class so I can buy something at the school's Bookstore even though every time I walk inside a little bell in my head screams "Consumerism! Consumerism! Kon-Sue-Merr-Iz-Uhm!". I will talk some other time about the price policies of the convienience stores on campus. Its a treat, sort of like living in the tourist section of NYC at all times.

8:50 a.m.- Leave for class, full of WIN!

A Poem *

One hand out the window and I can't turn back now,

the air is pressing against my fingertips with something to say.

its feeding my urge to run and scream and

fold these hills into my pockets to carry with me on the days the bulldozers are too apt

to not ask questions,

and to instead flatten this land to pave the longest blacktop,

another parking lot.

warmth on the dashboard, the hair on my arms, the bridge of my nose,

strives to dominate the flush of my cheeks,

the hand i'm holding in the passenger seat,

where her eyes are lighter than the pale, white moon whose sway holds over us, now.

lighting the world.

We live behind two spot lights and a wide, cracked road.

little bits of soft green life sprout defiantly from the center,

challenging and defiant and

fresh like lips and eyebrows and the earlobes of the one you're

desperately holding onto

When the leaves start to fall I can realize that I'm alone

in a beat-up car of memories,

tapping broken fingernails to a faded rock song

that was once my anthem,

Now it carries me farther away than the hills and rivers and eternally stretching trees

I hike through when

Kismet hides the sunset and I watch

the sun rise

from the crest of a secret hill no one else can dare to see.

When my eyes close tonight my desperation will not be forgotten,

the keys are in the ignition and the

pedal has inched past eighty.

* All work on this site is protected by a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Love and Moonlight

At night in my small town, the sky turns cloudy and purple. I like to walk down the chilled, cold road late at night and imagine that I am one of the last people in the world, recording all of the imperfections and intricacies of the moment as a part of a final journey I must make before joining the rest of the population elsewhere.
The road is so dimly lit that the cars parked on either side of the tiny curbs can barely be seen, except for one, which glistens under the moonlight. I'm reminded suddenly of my need to buy a shitty truck, one of those old ones that are practically indestructible, and drive north. I wouldn't stop until Canada, then I would turn around and go all the way to Arizona, just because I could and because gas is under 2$.
I crouch down and curl up on the road then, in the fetal position, the way I entered the world and the way I hope to exit it someday that is not today or tomorrow or the day after that. My hands on the pavement at the center of the road seem special, because I realize in that moment that so few people touch the center of the road. They don't feel the cracks and the bumps and the leaves that are pressed there by the false rubber tires we all drive around and around. Sometimes when I'm walking all alone, in the darkness and the damp and the cold, I feel tears well up in my eyes. Because there's something about being the only one, being alone in a place so big and endless, that strikes at my heart and my soul and my fingertips. It makes me want to stay there forever, to sleep in the center of that road or to scream there or to just watch the stars in the big wide sky, until the moon sets and the sun rises and the rest of the world wakes up again, and I'm no longer alone.

Something

Tonight I bundled up in my knee-length peacoat and scarf, plugged Backseat Goodbye and The Morning Of into my ipod, and went out to meet a friend for a 12:30 am walk. He goes to college a good 6 hours away from the tiny, tiny town that we call home, so I don't get to see him much. Much like everyone else whose gone away, I miss him terribly.
Our walk crossed the boundaries of three towns, until we almost became lost and we had to scurry back to the only road we recognized, which was completely dark so it could barely be seen. Some would have considered this an adventure. But I openly admitted to my friend that if we had taken three more seconds than necessary to find our way back, I probably would have imploded and turned to ash. This would have complicated his lone journey home, because between you and me, I'm pretty sure he had no idea where we were.
This weekend included a lot of seeing people who I haven't seen in a long time. Because it was a holiday weekend, many campuses either closed or the students emptied out of them anyway. Because of this, we were all in the same place for once. Wednesday and Friday were competely dedicated to hanging with the guys- Topher, Cyborg, Dirk, AJ, DH, Njsnow, and Jereality (Note: Jereality is very much female, but neither she nor I are considered to have a gender when we hang out with this group). A lot of the time was spent lounging on chairs and couches, ordering take out, and telling stories about our campuses and remembering the crazy things we've all done to one another. Today I went out with an old friend who graduated High School the year before I did (he's also an ex of mine, so we haven't spoken much). We went to see a film and then drove around in his car for about two hours swapping stories. Now that I think about it, I've had an incredibly chatty day.
I'm home for another two days, after which I will return to my campus in what will probably be an internetless state. Because most of my friends are returning to their colleges tomorrow, Sunday and Monday will be a great deal more relaxed than these past few days have been.
I feel lucky that I've been able to spend so much time with the people that I care about. High School was a painful time for me, in that many of the people I surrounded myself with were not actually my friends. They openly had no desire for my company, and vice versa. To be able to come home now, and feel more than ever that I actually belong with a group of people, is a new and amazing feeling.
In the interest of finishing this entry, I'm posting it as-is. I'm going to start a new type of entry tomorrow or the next day where I basically "Word vomit" onto blogger. Maybe then I'd actually express something, instead of just talking about unimporant things like how I feel and my happiness. -sigh-.

In Need of Cleansing Breaths.

I am trying to remember those times when I was a peaceful, nature-loving person who tried her best not to be mean to anyone and be as organic and natural as possible. If you know me, do you remember these times? Because I'm starting to think that they didn't actually exist, and that I've always been this cold, unloving monster who worries about money and facts above all else, doesn't read for pleasure and can't write poetry about nice, pretty things.
I can't remember what it felt like to be at peace with my sexuality and my hair and my clothes and the way I spoke to others. The concept of laughing openly without hesitation is almost ancient lore and I haven't touched something pure and natural, like a stone or a tree or the grass or soil, in so long that I can't remember when.
I guess I've been so busy lately that I stopped trying to be happy. The love that I have in my life has taken a back seat to work and being what I am needed to be.
Tomorrow I'm taking a bus and a train home in an attempt to get home in time to go to a funeral with my mother. Then I'm going to work with her on Wednesday morning so that she won't be so lonely and stressed before the holiday. Afterwards the Holiday weekend will commence and the plan is to spend plenty of time with close family and old friends who I love. I'm really looking forward to the peace and tranquility I feel when I'm home, like all of the pieces of my life can come back together and I can be legitimately happy once again.

Have a wonderful Holiday!

I Don't Even Know

I'm trying to write this entry quickly. I have a research paper due tomorrow for my english class, and I have to finish blindly inserting facts via MLA format until it's four pages long.
So, a quick summation of some things I've had going on recently, since my last few entries haven't focued on anything informative in the least.

1. my laptop, the one I bought in August, died last week. Then my heart stopped beating and my eyes dripped out of their sockets. The mess was eventually cleaned up, but nothing could bring my lappy's motherboard back to life again. Upon telling this story to J from my Politics class, he responded....
"Maybe you should lay off the porn."
In other news, my faith in humanity has dripped away not unlike the content of my eyeballs.

2. Obama won, and I screamed myself hoarse in celebration for the ensuing three days. Others on my campus celebrated similarly, however they were peppersprayed by campus police. McCain supporters on campus were strangely happy the next day, despite their loss. Methinks a connection between the two is taking shape.

3. I've begun to realize that I spend more time with people I hate than people who I actually like. the results of this development are thus:
- increased moments using my ipod
- anger
- impotence.

4. My sanity has completely faded into nothingness for reasons unknown. Although re-reading the rest of the entry may provide some clues.

Travels

This Entry Was Written Over The Course of Three Days, I Apologize If It Isn't Pieced Together Very Well.

When I was thirteen, I knew that I was different. I was confused, and upset, and I denied my differences in the face of other complications. I was a pre-teen, I didn't know as much about myself as I do now. There was a nagging feeling in the back of my mind. I couldn't figure out why, when I watched television or read magazines, I kept looking at all the pretty girls. I shied away from what that sort of attraction would mean. I stopped watching MTV, where the feminine flaunting happened most often. I opted out of subscriptions to girlie magazines. For the next three years I hid in the back of my mind all of those thoughts that I decided would derail me.

Three years later, a handful of my friends started to "come out". At this time, I had been an activist for LGBT rights (from a "straight" standpoint) so I don't think my friends were uncomfortable sharing this aspect of their lives with me. I remembered being jealous, that they were certain, that they were brave enough, that they were comfortable enough with themselves that they could just put the truth out there.

I remember the April after my sixteenth birthday, I was out with a friend who I had always shared a great deal of my life with. We went back to her house and sat on the couches in her basement. "I have something to tell you". I said. She looked at me, and I felt color rising to my cheeks. "I'm bisexual."

Her response left something to be desired. Without getting into it, lets just say that I didn't tell anyone else. I put it away in my head. I think that at this point, I had resolved to just pretend that I was straight. And I did. The secret weighed on me. I had days where I didn't know what to do, I felt lost. The people I wanted to tell the most were the people that I didn't want to know, because they were the ones that could hurt me the most if they took off.

The weeks before graduating high school I was walking at night with another friend. I had decided that I wasn't going to tell anyone about my sexuality until after graduation. It was such a stressful time, that adding this to it just didn't feel like a good idea. I wanted the possibility of running if things went badly. I wanted to be able to hide.

The summer went by, and I started seeing a boy. I decided immediately that I wasn't going to tell him. I let myself get wrapped up in the relationship, trying to "forget" about my interest in women. By the time we broke up in September, we had only discussed the possibility of my Bisexuality once, and I had confirmed nothing.

We broke up, and I realized that I was in a position where I didn't have to pretend to be straight anymore. I didn't live at home, my friends weren't near me, and I suddenly felt like I didn't care. So I flirted with a handful of girls, without ever even persuing them. The summer relationship had left me heartbroken, and so through everything, I didn't want to be with anyone. But it felt nice to not have to hide, not have to confess. "Are you bisexual?" People would ask, and I could just say "Yes."


Some days I have a hard time figuring everything through in my head. I want to just say that I'll never be in any relationship, and I will be happy by myself, because then I won't have to deal with the backlash. But I chide myself when those thoughts enter my head, because I have every right to happiness and I should do what makes me happy, and be with whoever makes me happy. I tell myself that whether my friends can accept me for who I am or not, they have been good friends and are entitled to their opinions. The same goes for my family. I'm not here to make a statement, or throw anything in anyone's face. I'm just trying to find myself and do what makes me happy and what makes me, me.

This is the Bandwagon on which I've Jumped.

We are in a place to watch our world change.
Next week are the elections, for all of you United States citizens. Now, I could begin to spew my ideaology over which canidate I believe is more in alignment to my beliefs, my indignation over the continuation of our two party system, and general rhetoric involving political activism. But I'm not going to do that, not now, at least. The day will come where I will. But this is more important.
Please, on November 4th, go and vote. And don't just vote because someone told you who to vote for. Take twenty, or even just ten, minutes before you head to your polling place, to look up the stances of each canidate. There are websites that even put the stances side-by-side! Decide who aligns best with your beliefs, who you feel will benefit your situation, and vote for them. Don't do it because they seem more popular or their suit looks more stylish or because their wife is prettier. Vote because you want to use your intelligent and informed voice to make the difference between the last eight years and the next. Vote because you've never had a say in politics before. Vote because there are countries in the world where they don't have this right, and the right for all Americans to be able to vote wasn't something that was won easily. You've all heard of "taxation without representation", its the principle that spurred about the creation of this country. This country was founded on the right to have a voice. It took two hundred years after that to make voting available to every Race, Class, and Gender. Vote because the people before us fought their asses off to give us this right. Vote to thank them.
Vote because it is an expression of your individual voice, and Your voice deserves to be heard just as much as everyone else's.

Pause

By the time I wake up in the morning I can hear the construction going on at the bottom of the next hill, two residence halls away. The bangs and scrapes echo off the sides of the hills through the gray dawn of the early morning.

Today it was rainy, and windy, and dark when my alarm went off. The sky looks heavy, and its been hard to get motivated. This is the kind of day where I would usually curl up in bed and write all day, or knit, and maybe read a little. I would keep Damien Rice on repeat along with Jack Johnson and not allow anything heavier to play.

However I have a class in an hour, followed by another, and three meetings scheduled. I have to pick up a mug I made last week and defend a conference in a meeting for the school's budget comittee. I have a paper on North African/South East Asian Human Rights issues due Thursday that I haven't started.

Every once in awhile I wish I could go on a Yoga retreat, or a nature retreat or something akin to those. This is one of those days.

Poised Pen

I tried to write my first book at age twelve. I was in the seventh grade, inspired by my arrival in a new school, and determined to be published by the time I graduated.
Almost every six months, I would start a new book. Something about the old books (or "projects", as they should be called) would always begin to bore me. The tenses got old or the story felt repetitive or not enough was happening to sustain readership. These projects would only make about the 40-60 page mark before I would decide to kill it. Buried in the hard drive of my last laptop are the souls of at least seven former stories, and lying dormant in nondescript, white binders under my desk are two or three more stories, separated into parts that will never be united.
However I will go so far as to say that its not that I don't write well. I make mistakes and I have "tells" as it were (there are a choice 15 words that I probably wouldn't be able to write without, and my sentence structures are unnecessarily complex). I've come to believe that my real issue is that extended looks into the lives of my characters do not entice me. Sure, seven-book anthologies are wonderful. But true, meaningful conflicts occur in tiny spurts throughout our lives. Truthfully, if someone were to try and write a novel about my life, there are only a handful of times in the last four years that would be worthy and readable when recorded, and those times are separated by a good bit of time in-between. I feel the same way about my characters. I hate squishing the conflicts tightly together.
So outside of my current project (re-working an older story from last year I co-wrote with the wonderfully talented and intriguing Jereality) I think I'm going to start tinkering with short stories, and maybe even get back into poetry.
If I come up with anything decent, maybe I'll provide a peek up here.

By the time I finished this post, I felt a million times better. (Updated)

I had a whole post ready to be typed listing the kooky things I've figured out about myself over the last eighteen years. But as I sat down to type it, I felt a tiredness and misery begin to overwhelm me. The sad part is, I wasn't even surprised. The exhaustion has been eating at me for days, along with a terrible, nagging feeling because I can't figure out where it stems from, let alone how to get rid of it.
It wasn't until a few minutes ago that I realized what it was.
I just wanted to scream. Really scream. This is a sensation I've had for most of my adolesence. It gets buried sometimes, but I can remember laying on my bedroom floor back home, just wishing that I could go somewhere to scream as loud as I wanted, until my voice choked and I felt empty. But there really is no place like that. I think its that realization that may hurt the most. Its like the realization that I'm never going to be free from the stuff that plagues me every day, this tiny, cinderblock prison I've managed to build for myself. The killer part is that while I was building it I was painting the walls with poetry and pretty pictures, inviting everyone I knew to look in and admire my craftsmanship. "See how free the bird looks, on this cement wall. Look how high it wishes it could fly!"
Its enough to make me sick.
Maybe when it comes down to it, this is just a bad day, strung onto a week of bad days, which threatens to turn into a month of bad days if I don't become proactive. I think what I need most is contact, people. Up here, I have a good amount of friends, but they're all disconnected. Its not a solid group, they don't even all know each other. I just want to see someone who I have more in common with than two months of living like a well-behaved prisoner who earned extra yard time.
Luckily someone's coming up the day after tomorrow. I am amazingly excited to see her, and I promised myself that I would not burst into tears upon her arrival, with the mere greatfulness of feeling like those friends I talk to online actually exist somewhere out there, and they actually care enough to travel two hours to see me.
You can look forward to a much more peaceful, and happy post when that time comes.

P.S. I apologize for the overall despondent misery of this particular entry. Don't be worried about me though, all will be well.

I'm going to end with a quote from a book I just read by Kurt Vonnegut, entitled "Slaughterhouse-Five"...

"And So It Goes."

P.P.S. I've edited this post from when I published it last night, because while I don't generally feel the need to edit myself, I didn't want what I said to be taken the wrong way. I was speaking from frustration and the need to vent some core issues I've been having. I don't regret the original post, but I also don't feel it was accurately portrayed in my frustration.

Branching

A few years ago if you asked me how important to me the people in my life were, I would say that they were not very important or impactful at all. I had no comprehension of what its like to let people into your life, or to reach out and touch the lives of others. I'm not sure if it was some of the issues I had with others in high school, or if maybe its the sort of lesson you have to grow up a bit to learn, but I have come to understand how important people are. And not just the ones I know personally, but just individuals on this planet in general. Sharing with others, be it experiences or just good will, is an intricately important part of life.
This weekend was filled with seeing friends I rarely get to see, experiencing traditions, and laughter. Its been surprisingly easy to allow myself to forget the love I left behind, and become busy with other things or with new people. But getting to be with people that I care about and spending two days just taking everyone in has been one of the most terrific feelings. I've realized that you don't leave love behind- it is carried with you, buried in both your conscious, and your subconscious, in every second of the day.
I am so grateful that I was able to experience this past weekend. It serves as a reminder that our lives are laced together openly; things from the past influence the future, and we build those futures to incorporate our gained wisdom and love. The people from my past who have stuck with me, and the people who I am connected with without ever meeting them, these are the people who I am using to create my future and my present. I am finally beginning to realize how intensely lucky I am to be surrounded by these people.

Images

Yesterday night I took a local train to a nearby college, where a friend lives. It was a strange visual, speeding on a dirty, old train through industrial New Jersey, watching the sun set below the factory stacks and apartment buildings. The song Hard Love by Bob Franke played in my head the whole ride, and the colors of the sun reminded me of something you'd see in a magazine. When I see that sort of thing, it always creates an internal discord- I want to take a photo of what I'm seeing, to save and cherish, but I also believe that the important things should be captured in your memory, because a camera will never get the moment quite right. This is the reason I very rarely bring a camera anywhere- not to capture the extreme angles of New York City or the harsh contrasts of a bridge against the Adirondack Mountains. Sure, I sometimes take photographs of nature and trees, and I will always take photos of my friends, but when I see something tragically, heart-stoppingly beautiful, I keep it in my memory.

Its not crazy... its cute!

Okay, so here's the thing.... I'm really weird about illness. I know this isn't an uncommon thing, because really, who wants to be sick? But my weirdness takes the "Ahh I don't want the sniffles" issue well beyond "OH MY GUACAMOLE I'M GOING TO SUFFOCATE ON MY OWN SNOT AND DIE UNCOMFORTABLY IN MY SLEEP!!!!"
Yeah, I'm BIG fun!
Anyway, back home this was something that, while not normal, all of my friends at least knew about. So when someone turned up sick, and I stopped speaking to them while simultaneously wiping them down with disinfectant during lunch, they at least knew what was going on. (Saying that they understood would be taking HUGE generosities in the situation). But here... no one knows here. I am two hours away from the core of people who understand (read: Tolerate) my fear of the common cold.
So the dirty looks I was shooting Person A in my Monday classes? Its not your laugh, or your smile, or even your being that offends me... its the fact that as I sat next to you, I could feel your cough tickling my neck and shoulders. THAT'S RIGHT. Somehow, the hand you held fourteen inches away from your face didn't COVER THE MULTITUDE of illness leaking from your person, and it spread everywhere. Not unlike mold. Or the Black Death. I felt like Cruelle DeVille, stading in a room of 101 puppies that wouldn't stop shitting on the carpet, and all I could do in response was wave my arms in the air with rage.
And Person B, I know we have established that we are friends, and my unwillingness to hang out isn't because I'm busy or I don't like you anymore (in truth, I've begun to miss your company) it simply because I am afraid to catch your cold. Only dial that up a million times. Its not really "fear" its more like life-gripping, watch-my-memories-flash-in-consecutive-order, discomfort at the realization that you are going to get me sick, and then I will have to die.
I know that I am in my second month of college and therefore WILL get sick. After all, I live with over 200 people... we're like a life-sized culture for disease and social cues. But I'm just issuing a warning now- when I get sick, I am unbearable. I do research (every time, even if I've had the same issue twice before) and I refuse to get out of my pajamas. The only work I do is what can reasonably be attacked from the confines of my bed, where I lay moaning in misery. I alternate between building a used-tissue castle around myself, and disinfecting everything so that I can't re-catch the illness once I've gotten it, and so I don't spread it to someone else and keep the cycle going perpetually. Because forever is a long time.
I wish I could say that this uncomfortable case of the crazies is restricted to illness. Maybe, compared to all those other things I have stored in my artillery of crazy, the fear of getting sick is a generally reasonable one. But the truth of the matter is, I organize the food in my closet according to size and meal usage, I have a very specific ratio of distance between the magnets on my fridge, and I like to put things in either straight lines or distance them at 90 degree angles from each other, because that makes everything look nicer. And we won't get into my absolute horror pertaining to public bodily functions. We just won't. Not today.
Now please excuse me, I seem to have caught a cold and I now have to count my eyelashes so see how many I pulled out in horror. :)

A Letter.

Dear College:

I've been here for a month. And wow, its been such a quick one! The first two weeks were pretty difficult, I knew absolutely no one, I had no roommate, and every class felt like it was an hour's walk away. But now, I'm making friends, someone moved into the room, I have figured out the most direct route to every class, and I understand the meal plan now! Yay! Its amazing how much food you'll go through when you have no idea when your meal card allows you to eat (three times a day, in specific "meal periods")!

I suppose everything started to shift from "ugh I don't really want to be here" to "yay! This isn't so bad!" last week. I had come back from my parent's house (my other home!) which had been nice, except for the slighty abysmal breakdown I had on Saturday (wandering town in tears in the rain to Paramore's Hallelujah while everyone I loved thought I was somewhere else...excellent!). Anyway, I came back and basically threw myself into things going on on-campus. I figured out the campus Gym (which is free- awesome perk!) and joined a political club and went to a few different events that were closely related to politics and activism. It was pretty amazing- I started meeting people who had the same interests at me, who wanted to talk about the same things that I did.

So I guess when they say that waiting a month before deciding whether or not you like your college they know what they're talking about. It took me, basically, until the first week of October to find a swing, and actually want to leave my dorm room. By now I've been to New York twice (on two very different trips!) and I can almost get around with a map. I've moved back into semi-normal habits, my bed is sleepable, and I have a "social life" almost as good as the one I had back home! (Yes, i know referring to it as a "social life" is uber nerdy, but you have the option of choosing to read another blog! Really! Its True!). So at the moment, I'm pretty happy. Its been a rough month, with starting an entirely new way of life, the breakup, and some other things... but it finally feels like things are settling down and that maybe, just maybe, I can figure out a way to be happy here.

Also, I can make Hot Chocolate in my microwave. Yay!

Walk Over Me

A broken relationship is like shattered glass- you're left trying to figure out which of the pieces can be put back together, and why you broke the goddamn thing in the first place. I think the longer I stand there, staring at the pieces; re-shuffling and glueing, losing bits here and crushing other bits there, the more I just want to sort of sit down with every single piece in my hands, and just hold them there forever.

I am obviously doing very poorly right now. Some days are better than others, some days are terrible. I came home this weekend, and walked into a home filled with memories and knick knacks that I didn't have to deal with before, and its quickly turning things towards the ugly side. I also had to talk about the whole ordeal (at least, the generic bits, the gritty details are no one else's buisiness) to someone in-person for the first time, and it was like watching a tunnel narrow until everything turned dark. I'm told that things will get better. I guess I'll just wait for that to hurry up and happen.

Sorry for the misery. I'll post something kind, and smiley next time around. Pinky Promise.

A Quick Thought

Its days like today that I truely appreciate college life. How else would I get to experience what its like to own one bowl, one fork, one spoon, a single cup and a fridge filled with only pudding, milk, and free ketchup packets from the campus burger king?

Whirlwinds

College has been a strange entity so far. While I am adjusted (mostly) to my schedule and the habits I've adopted and the people I am around, I can't fight the feeling that its temporary. Its as if my body thinks I'm at some sort of hardcore summer camp, and in another month I will wake up one day, pack everything into a dusty duffel bag, and head home.
This mindset bothers me, A. because I am going to be here (hopefully) for another four or five years and B. because I'm trying as hard as I can to make college my life. I don't want to feel as if things are temporary anymore, I'm looking for a sense of solidity. Something I can hold onto. But for some reason, I feel more like a guest here than a resident. The sad part is that when I go home, I know I'm going to feel like a guest there too, because I will be living out of a travel bag for the weekend. Am I doomed to not feel at home for the next four-five years?
Part of the guest feeling probably has a lot to do with my new(ish) tendency to clean, often. I've always been an untidy person in a strange way- I will throw my clothes on the floor, but only in a specific spot, my desk may be a mess, but I can feel myself getting flustered the longer it stays that way. Knowing that the inside of a drawer is disorganized makes me cringe, and want to clean it. I have cleaned out my wardrobe, desk, under my bed, and the cabinets in the bathroom more times then I can count since I have been here. Its not the mess that really bother me either- its the little things like crooked sheets and lopsided pieces of paper that really drives me up a wall. I can have five million things cluttering a desk- so long as they're all equal distance apart and arranged in some sort of order.
So as I settle into college, I can see a litle bit more of my more obsessive side begin to peek its head out of the water, which I expected coming here. After all, a new place with all new people and an all new schedule calling for all new routines was bound to have an affect on me. For the first week, the impact showed intself largely in panic and anxiety attacks. Now, I'm becoming more compulsive, because being able to restore some sort of order helps me feel better about the realization that this is the longest I've been away from my hometown in my entire life, and while I'm making friends and hanging out with people I still don't entirely know what to do with myself. But I guess the biggest thing to do is take this all one step at a time, and try to get my head centered as best as I can.

A Dream Upon Waking

Maybe its the new enviornment, or the stress, or maybe I really am finally going crazy- but ever since I moved into my dorm room I've begun to have strange dreams. They're dreams that, if I had one every once in awhile it wouldn't bother me so much, but having one or two each night is beginning to concern me.
The dreams themselves are not exactly nightmares, although a great deal of them are disturbing. Most of them seem to speak to the errors of human nature via things we find as a society to be particularly horrific. The thing I think bothers me most is that when I myself am placed within the dream, I'm not doing anything. I just observe the hellish things going on around me, in comparison to other dream I will have in the same night that puts me center stage in whats going on. What does it mean when I witness terrible things but I don't seem to exist in the situation? What does it say when I am only an observer, I can't help the situation?
I'm trying to figure out if the dreams are speaking of a fear of mine- that I will only be able to observe issues, never take place in the solution, or are the dreams telling me that that outcome is already inevitable, because of the path I'm on? I've always believed in the power of dream interpretation- it helped me cope through very, very difficult times- but because I'm only able to interpret certain aspects of my dreams and only when I spend a long time thinking about it, I'm afraid that I'm not interpreting with accuracy in this case.

Peeling Back The Curtain

Throughout my high school career I only dated a handful of guys. And by a handful, I mean that from freshman year to senior year there were three. Each of them were different, each was compatible to a different part of me, and some of them I dated more than once, with the blind hope that "this time, it would be different".
Shortly after graduation I got back together with one of these guys. He was the one I had dated the most often, the one who being with was as easy as breathing. The one I (stupidly) could see myself marrying. We spent the entire summer in love, we worked through conflicting schedules and barely being able to see each other. And even though we were going to college a few hours away from each other, we decided to see if the relationship would survive. Both of us believed that it could. We expected it to.
Last week that relationship fell apart. Its amazing how quickly something so powerful can splinter into nothingness. We went from being convinced of our future, to not having one in a matter of days. And I'm not writing this to point blame at either one of us, because in the end, what does it really matter what went wrong? We each relinquished our end of the relationship- starting with me, and soon afterwards he did as well.
Since the breakup a few days ago I've been burying myself in creative endeavors, trying to remind myself who I was before this summer. Its been a strange sense of relief, that through the intensity of everything I can still create. I'm writing again, and I'm connecting with people. I believe that the latter is because in a way, I lost a connection that I held onto very tightly. Now that that connection is gone, my need to create new connections has heightened.
So I guess the reader (you) would be wondering why I would talk about this publically. Aren't I afraid he will read what I've written? To a degree, yes. I don't want it to be taken out of context, and I don't want to be seen as cruel. However I am doing this "project", so to speak, to network through honesty. And right now, this situation is at the forefront of my life. So if he reads this then there is little that I can do about it. Would I be upset if he did the same? Probably, depending on what he was saying. But being a hypocrite is sorta the axel on which my life spins. For now, I'm just trying to balance something new among a million other new things. And I guess this is the first sign that some of these things, I'm going to fail at. But its the way I pick up after that failure, how I get everything back on track and plunge ahead, that categorizes how my life will be.

Starbucks Should Make Decorative Tiles

One of the difficult things about living on campus freshman year is that, like most colleges, I'm not allowed to have a car. I suppose since I don't actually own one I shouldn't be bothered by it that much anyway, but overall it definately cuts down on the amount of time any freshman is able to spend off-campus. Its annoying in many ways, one of those being the inability to buy food for the dorm or find something that you forgot to bring from home. Even if you do have a car, the parking lots are a decent distance from the residence halls anyway, so its a five minute walk just to find the car in the expansive lots.

However some students have special permission to have cars on campus (for off-campus jobs and lessons and things) so last night I went out with a few girls to Target, in search of dishtowels, pillows, and a lamp. We did our thing, grabbed dinner (Starbucks and Pizza Hut in a Target? Sold!) got back to campus, and began the attempt at manuevering our way to the residence halls. The other girls were loaded down with either a lot of bags or bulky items. I had just one bag, but I was banancing two small pizza boxes and a starbucks frappachino in my right hand.

Inside every residence hall is a check-in desk, where you swipe your I.D. before you can go up to your room. Its an annoying but also relieving part of the security system. Anyway, we all ambled over to this desk to swipe our cards and just as I went to slide the pizza boxes onto the desk to retrieve my card, the half-full starbucks frappuchino went sliding towards the slate floor, tipped upside down until the exact moment of impact, where the lid seperated from the cup and the innards of the beverage actually propelled itself throughout every inch of the room. The projection itself was the most shocking thing at all- because, as I said before, it was only half full, and it had been the smallest size to begin with.

So now the floor, and a few innocent bystanders, are covered in frappuchino and the only option (well no, thats a lie, the quickest option) was to go four feet into the public bathrooms(one of those single- toilet room deals) in search of paper towels. There weren't any. The bathroom was equipt with the epitome of "clean"-esque machinery; motion-sensored toilet, sink, and hand dryer- no paper towels to be found.

I guess at that point I should have just gone up to my room to grab the roll of paper towels balanced on top of my microwave, but I was all about "efficiency" at that point, and decided instead to use half a roll of economy sized toilet paper to clean up my mess instead. So for the subsequent ten minutes I ran back and forth from the bathroom, attempting to clean up frappuchino with 0 ply toilet paper from a bathroom whose machinery turned on every time i ran past, giving the over effect of having the toilet flush every time i left the room- announcing my arrival to the "scene" with a glorious flush every.single.time.

They definately left this sort of adventure out of those College Pamphlets.

The Third First Entry.

Two days ago I tried to post an entry on this blog. Yesterday I tried to post another. We are now on day three and still no post.
This is typical for me- I am constantly re-thinking, re-organizing, and throwing away old things in my life and trying to replace them with something else. I had a website before this, but I'm trying to start fresh.
I guess one of the reasons I decided to start from scratch (yet again) is because I started my first semester of college last week. Its a tiny, but decent college just outside of NYC that has a little bit of everything. So far the college itself has a few kinks it needs to work out- there has been a lot of miscommunication between the administrative offices, but everyone is incredibly friendly and there are a lot of comforts the school offers that make up for the other things.
Of course, as I expected, I've struggled with a few things now that I've been here for a few days. Panic attacks and Paranoia, which I've always experienced at home, have intensified a lot since class ended on Thursday. I've also been cleaning like a crazy person- cleansing every surface and sweeping every few days. I don't have a roommate (a story for another day) so its just me in a room with twice as much furniture as I need. Overall I'm doing okay- I'm making friends and being more social then I tend to be at home, despite the anxiety I've felt overtaing me almost all day today and most of yesterday. I've found myself having to do a lot of soul searching recently, but hopefully I'll be able to come out the other end okay. As I've mentioned before, I very much expected this.
So if you're still reading at this point and you're wondering what you can expect from me in the future- well, here it goes:
My name, for the purposes of this blog, is Luna Marie. Luna after an old internet name i associate myself with and Marie after my mother, who I miss terribly even though we drove each other crazy when I lived at the house. I'm going to be talking about college a lot, what its like, how i'm dealing with it, and how my anxiety manifests itself during this time. Maybe that seems too personal to put on the internet- but I've always needed to use words to express myself, and I've always found solace in the stories of others. I guess I'm hoping that if I write these things on here, someone who needs to will stumble across this blog and know they're not the only one out there who is trying not to struggle with this adjustment. After all, I know I'm not alone- so why pretend that I am?

More to come,
Luna Marie