Friday, February 15, 2013

here

I know I haven't been around much.

There are a lot of reasons for this. Not all bad. Not all good. 

Mostly just a lot of what Michelle likes to call unbloggable.

I know that’s irritating and vague, but that’s how it works.

Sometimes, right-now-times, I need my life to just be mine, away from the vast interwebs. The vast interwebs that I love dearly.

I am here. Shoot me an email.

Drop me a non-spamy comment.

I’m not sure how much I’ll be around here, at least for a while.

But I’m still here.

I’m still good.

I’m still living life. 

Thursday, February 14, 2013

The Nutritionist

yes. this. all of this.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

it's still going

Before I start, let me just make it very clear that this is me needing to vent. I am aware of this. I am aware that things almost always look better with distance and time.

But right now time isn't moving fast enough and I'm feeling a little trapped.

***

I feel like I just finished something and before I can even start to breathe, there's something else I was supposed to have already begun.

It just doesn't stop.

I just want some time to appreciate the quiet.

Just a little bit.

And okay, while I'm talking in these big, broad terms, it's not all my classes. It's not everything.

It's a few (okay, one) classes that not only do I not enjoy, I feel like I'm constantly behind. And seeing as a lot of that is due to the teacher, there's nothing I can do about it.

See? It always comes back to me needing to let it go.

I need to go talk to the people who might be able to make a difference and then I need to move on.

Accept that it's out of my control.

Ha. I'm not very good at that.

The whole being chill thing isn't inherent in my personality.

***

Thanks for listening.

I'm going to go make Valentine's.

Thursday, January 31, 2013

going

I am exhausted.

Sitting here, at my desk, I realize that all I want (need?) to do is sleep.

To curl up under the covers and hide from the world for a while.

This world that is so busy and crazy and complicated. If someone wanted to come and keep me company, that would be okay too. Just no thinking allowed.

I have been going going going since I got back from break and haven't really taken a second to stop.

....

Just be.

This amazing campus with activities and people and classes just goes. Constantly. We don't know how to stop and breathe.

How to sit without obsessively checking our email (or maybe that's just me).

So I got up this morning and finished my Spanish homework and wrote a letter to a boy who needs it (write one!) and talked with a professor and went to class and tried to not let my nose freeze and ate lunch and went to class and talked to a professor. And there were friends in there and long treks through the snow. A hole discovered in my rainboots. But mostly, the point is, I didn't stop.

There was always another and.

And here I was thinking I was doing well not working constantly.

I guess I have a lot to learn.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

my holiday, in pictures

There were presents.

And Santas.

Pretty lights.

Snowmen.

Kitties.

Hot tea.

And snow. 

It was lovely.

Friday, January 18, 2013

catching up

I have changed.

So much.

I feel it deep within me. And I love it.

When I'm here, with my friends, talking about the present, I don't notice it. It's just who I am. It's who I've always been to them.

It's when I talk to people back home. That's when I notice it.

Because they haven't seen me change. For them, it hasn't been a gradual process. It's sudden and huge. And to me, they're still the same people that I left. In my head, I'm the one who left, so that means I'm the only one who's changed.

I notice it when I try to catch them up.

When I think about all they don't know about me, about my life.

Trying to describe it all, trying to put it into a nice little package, that's hard.

There is no way to do it. I don't fit into a nice little box.

I don't even know where to start.

Friday, January 11, 2013

on stories

What if I tried to write a story? 

Like an actual story: one with a beginning, middle, and end. 

This isn’t like me saying I wish I could sing. Or imagining a beautiful picture in my head and not being able to draw it. This is something I could actually do.

I think. 

I really believe that in me I have many stories to tell. Some of them small, some of them big. Maybe some of them are even important. 

But it’s up to me to find them. To work for them.

To take the words and images that float around in my head and put them on paper. 

Most of them come and go, without leaving a trace. I should write them down: I tell myself this all the time.

But the ones I really care about are the ones that stick around. They're the ones that mean something to me. And for that reason I think they could mean something to someone else.

Maybe.

Someday. 

After all, I have had my dedication written for years; isn't it about time I wrote a story to go along with it?

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

only six months ago

It seems strange to me that it was only a few months ago I was desperately packing boxes and checking my list.

I made trips out to the car, arms full of falling apart boxes full of memories and old tax returns.

I figured out how to turn on the sprinklers, and decided that was all I could do outside. I had the car parked in the driveway, full of what amounted to three people's lives, ready to run.

And then I waited. I watched the news. I answered the phone, communicated with neighbors and friends and parents who were making the long drive back home.

I don't think about it now. It gave me, gave many of us, a great scare, but no more than that. Our house and neighborhood are both still standing.

I walk around my house, surrounded by familiarity.

Now there is a revised list hanging on the side of our refrigerator. One that includes clothes for us, one that means drawers have been reorganized and sturdier boxes are close at hand.

It is strange to remember those few days. Especially that day when it was just me. I was the only one around. I was responsible. But I distinctly remember realizing that as long as I got myself and the cat out, we would be okay. The rest was truly just stuff. We would recover.

We are prepared, as a family and as a community. No one really thought, I don't think, that it would happen. But it did, and we were some of the lucky ones.

***

I'm talking about this fire from the summer.

Friday, January 4, 2013

living

Sometimes I am astonished by the pain that people carry around. Their histories and stories that lie hidden beneath the surface.

I am awed by the pain that people feel and experience.

I am saddened by it too.

Shocked.

I am impressed by people's ability to survive.

To function.

To live.

I am constantly shocked by people's stories, because it is so easy to judge and make assumptions about someone based on their outward appearances. But really, I should know better than most that what is on the outside is almost certainly not the whole story.

I am impressed by people's ability to see and find the good.

To see the beauty and take the time away from the pain to capture the beauty.

I need to be reminded that to be human and to truly live means to feel. To feel the euphoria and the excruciating.

Both are equally important.

Both make us human.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

the vast world of the interwebs

There are so many places I am on the internet.

I exist on Facebook and here and another shared blog and school websites and professional websites.

They are all me, yes, but sometimes I get sort of confused as to which me I am embodying at the moment.

There are so many different facets of me, of my personality, and not all of them are pieces that I choose to share in every place. Either because of personal choice or merely the audience.

Sometimes, when I flip from one to the other and back again, from anonymity to full name and birthdate, I get confused. I get lost as to who I am supposed to be when and where.

I understand that part of this comes with the territory.

In many ways it is no different than keeping my personal and professional life different. Switching from class to interview to friends. All those people see me, but they don't see everything about me.

I think it just feels different online because there are so many different places and it is so easy to flip back and forth between them all.

It can start to feel like I'm getting a little lost in amongst all the descriptions of me.

That somewhere in all those adjectives and adverbs and long sentences, my true essence gets lost, because I am so preoccupied trying to figure out which true essence I'm supposed to be displaying.