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. 

The Nutritionist

yes. this. all of this.

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.

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.

my holiday, in pictures

There were presents.

And Santas.

Pretty lights.

Snowmen.

Kitties.

Hot tea.

And snow. 

It was lovely.

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.

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?