I should have just gone to bed.

It's been a while
since I've written,
but also since other things,
so who knows.

It's too late to be up and it would be lying to say I couldn't sleep, so I won't.  I can always sleep.  My body has that skill.  But my mind, tonight, it doesn't want to go there.  I'm scared of what will happen when I close my eyes.

So I'm stuck.  I can't be productive, exactly, because I'm thinking too much and feeling too much and frankly, crying too much to get much of anything done.

My roommate found me crying as I transferred chocolate chip cookies from the baking sheet to the plate.  Admittedly not my shining moment.

It's just one of those nights, or maybe it's been one of those weekends, when I can't deal with anything because it's all too big for me.  The whole past week, I suppose, has been a little much.  Not all bad.  Just all... much.

I've been having such extreme floods of memories of the past four years, seeing people I haven't seen, remembering emotions I thought died with the mono my freshman year.
But, of course, the mono is back.  It's just that this time it's not me, and this time it's got some ugly friends.
And it's hard to tell what your tears are for when there's two cases of mono and one case of cancer and 90,000 cases of excitement about beating Stanford and one torn up, twisted, knotted stomach inside you competing for your attention.  It's like butterflies in there, but dermestids instead.

I'm falling into a place I don't want to be.  I don't want to be here I don't want to be here I don't want to be here I'll repeat it over and over until my lungs give out.
The truth is, though, that I want to be here so badly.  I just want here to look differently.
It is impossible to deny how well this semester is going.  All you have to do is discount my ever-growing list of failures, the brief fight and break-up, and the cancer.  Because then you're left with the mind-blowingly supportive people that have crawled out of the woodwork and convened on my metaphorical doorstep to bring me some of the best times of my life.  What you're left with when you ignore the fact that he's leaving LA tomorrow, maybe for good, is four classes that speak directly to my heart, a band season that just won't fucking quit, the best co-section leader I could have asked for, and a lunch with Bobby Kennedy, Jr.

But I can't ignore those damn pesky facts.  Can't get it out of my mind that he might never come back.  Can't help looking up flights to Minnesota just in case.
Can't stop realizing over and over again that this stupid fucking band program has meant so fucking much to me and I'm just going to miss it in the stupidest way possible because it brought me to the best people at the most important times.

It's after 2 AM.  I've officially ruined the rest of my Monday.
I'm an idiot.  And I'm so lucky.  And I'm so sorry.  And I'm so scared.

What a way to come back to this.  Maybe I'll write something worthwhile another day, but this one was just for me.

Habits of time

That was 8 years ago,
it occurs to me too late.
It doesn't feel like 8 years at all.  I could say it felt like yesterday, but I'd be lying.
It either feels like last year or another life; it's hard to tell, really.

It's happening more and more recently, as it is bound to do.  People popping up on my Facebook news feed for the first time in ages because they are engaged.
And then, today, married.
I saw it coming, obviously, because... you know, engagement and stuff.  And it wasn't weird, it was just... a strange reminder of what happens.

My immediate reaction was to lean over and grab the picture that's been leaning on my nightstand for, well, 8 years now, I guess.  Bunk G7, 2005.  My last bunk.  We were a good bunk.  Now we're getting married, it would seem.

8 years ago.  I'm looking at the picture, I keep comparing your face in the photo to your face on my screen, it's so strange that I'm able to hold both simultaneously.  It's strange what's happened.  It's strange to write this now, after so long.  I don't know you anymore, but, I mean, you're in my hands and all.

Just a few weeks ago was another reminder of G7.  Real life, New York City, in the very middle of a sentence exclaiming how I hadn't seen any of those people in so long and how -- and there you were.  When I first saw you -- I'll never forget this -- I thought I could never be friends with you because you looked like a Barbie doll and I didn't even know how to approach knowing someone so beautiful.
You made it easy.

8 years ago we were kicked of the porch of G7 in the middle of the night by the OD counselor.  We were just talking.  Listening to the soundtrack of the South Park movie, too, which in hindsight was outstandingly inappropriate.
Who knew that "Uncle Fucka" would have such a lasting presence in my life.
If that last line didn't make immediate sense to you, please don't read into it.
We fell asleep last every night, sneaking into each others' beds to talk until someone inevitably told us to shut up.  We always thought we were being pretty quiet.

But that was
8 years ago
and I can't figure out if that seems like a long time or not.
Because it was only one year before high school, which does seem like yesterday sometimes, and at least a decade at other times.
And sometimes yesterday seems like longer than 8 years ago, and certainly last year is a time I can barely remember, and it feels like everything that happens just drifts so far so quickly, and I just
miss it

sometimes.

It's hard to tell the difference between missing and regretting.  Looking back I think I could have done most of these things better.  The opportunities drifted away before I was ready to really deal with them.  I let too much pass me by without giving it what it deserved.  But I've been trying to let go of that feeling.  It gets me into trouble.  And it doesn't make me happy, just stressed and disappointed and generally bummed out about myself.

The funny thing about missing it is, I wasn't nearly as happy.  I have no reason to miss it.  This year was its own shit adventure, sure, but overall, the last 4 years, I mean they've been pretty great.  They've been really fucking difficult, and filled with terrible moments I never imagined, but that's its own kind of greatness too.  And the happiness it's all brought me has been great.  Greater than 8 years ago,
I think.
It's hard to remember now.

But I still remember thinking you looked like a Barbie doll the first time I saw you.
And I still remember the first time I went to a wedding where I, as a young person, could still tell that the couple was young too.
I remember dancing my face off at that wedding.
And I still remember when I freaked out and my mom told me, calm down, you have plenty of time,
and I didn't believe her.
And I still don't.
But I'm happy for you, and your wedding pictures are beautiful, and maybe 8 years is longer than I'm making it out to be.

Water, I guess

I didn't leave my bed yesterday except to sit on the steps outside my apartment and cry, a friend's arm over my shoulder a welcome warmth from the strange dry wind that doesn't belong in LA in May.

I didn't send any emails or make any calls.  I answered a couple texts.  It was the most I could do.

I slept a lot, mostly because when I was awake I felt like my heart might just give up.
I thought a lot, which sucked, so I slept again.
I ate a little.  A bowl of chick peas.  Then I regretted it.
I thought about calling my parents and telling them I couldn't get out of bed.  I thought they might have some useful advice.  I decided against it because what can they do from the other side of the country except worry.

I can't breath and my back hurts and my mind is unkind and my heart, my heart feels like a stone in my chest.

"Are you sick?" people ask.
Yes, I suppose so.

I said I am trying.  Most days I am.  But yesterday was an exception, because yesterday hurt more than most days and I didn't have the energy to try.

We all have these days, right?

Maybe.  I don't know.  Maybe I am just sick.

This is too big for me.

I'm coming back to good, soon, I promise, headed back to happy and things I love.  The rain helps, I think.  Whatever halfhearted version of rain we can get here, anyway.

I love when cars go by my window in the rain, the sound they make driving across the wet pavement makes it sound like it's raining harder than it actually is, like it's raining at all.  It's a soothing sound, as close as I am going to get to ocean waves from my apartment.
I love west coast beaches, I love their outrageous waves.  I love fighting back and losing to them, desperately holding on to my suit.  I love being thrown around in their fury and still getting up afterwards, miraculously alive, and I don't know what's tears or snot or salt water and my back is all scratched up from being pounded into the sand and I am laughing, looking crazy because now I'm cackling alone and red and sand all in my hair and still pulling my suit back up and I am just alive.
I love the idea that I might be able to just drift out to sea, and what would they do then.  They would just have to let me go.

Silent Prayers

When everything gets to be too much, I go to the Little Chapel of Silence.  And I sit and read but mostly sit, and I look at the carving on the wall, and I pray.
I ask for help.
I ask for everything to work out.
I ask for one to get through this episode, and for another to get through this illness.
And for another to find direction so they don't feel lost
for another to find the strength to go after what they want
for another to find compassion and let their defenses down
for another to overcome feelings of inadequacy
for another to be granted the ability to see how beautiful they are.
I ask for that guy sitting behind me to be provided with the strength he needs to get through whatever it is he is thinking about, praying about, writing about as I sit here encroaching on his space.  I ask for him to come out happy on the other side, and for his loved ones to be healthy.

I ask for everyone to be happy, for everyone to be kind.

And for me, for me I ask guidance and energy.  I ask to be opened up, to be welcoming, to avoid being a bitch, but always to be a Bad Bitch, to listen intently and hear with purpose.  I apologize for my arrogance, and I ask for the guidance to use it well.  I ask for the help I need to reevaluate and restructure, to help everyone that I can.

And I thank, I thank endlessly, for the people I get to love, my family and my friends, for the education I am receiving and the people who afford it to me, for the opportunities I am given that I do not deserve,  for the massive inspiration that is nature, for a warm place to sleep at night and enough food to eat.  I thank for the challenges I am given, the ones that tear up my insides and make me pull my hair and hide in bed.  I know they are of such great use if I can find the understanding to face them.

I don't know exactly what I am thanking, what I am praying to, but I ask to get closer to it, to G-d, to nature, to the infinite, whatever it is.
It's been nature, mostly, recently.  G-d still.  But nature.
Because what is more natural than G-d, who lives in the stars and the trees and the dirt?  In my blood, in the way that hemoglobin attaches itself to my erythrocytes.  That is my G-d.  In there.  Out there.  Doing work, bringing things together.  Giving me this little infinity to work with.
And why do I have this weird guilt attached to my fingers every time I type the word "G-d?"  As if it were a sin to believe, as if it were possible for me not to believe.  Call it what you want, nature, evolutions, physics, I don't care, I just need somewhere to put my questions and I like to call it G-d.  I ask to get rid of that guilt.  I ask for the energy to keep persistent in finding answers to those questions I store in G-d when I don't have time to answer them myself.

I ask for the guidance and energy to make a tangible, positive difference in the world.  And I return to the Serenity Prayer in the end, because that's what it comes down to most days.

I look at the carving again, and I think about the person who carved it, and I thank G-d for their talent and I ask for the best for them and their family, and I hope they are doing well and creating more art if they are still alive.  And eventually, I gain the strength to stand up and leave.

Morning light

Riding home in the purple light, the air is warmer than I expected, and smoother somehow, easier to breathe.  Everything that is not the sky is just a dark shadow cast against it, a silhouette they call it, and I wonder that word means.  What words mean.
I think about how silly palm trees will always look to me, like they do not belong.  I will never really get used to them.
And maybe I am just that sort of person, who will never get used to palm trees, who wonders what words mean.  Maybe I am the sort of person that will never get used to things.  So that waking up with a hand in mine is always a welcome surprise.

I think about how I never got used to you, about how I learned about certain words when I met you.
I think about how when I said I loved you I felt the earth drop from under me, about how I couldn't stand to say it with my glasses on and I remember the world being blurry and that seeming appropriate. I remember how it scared me shitless, because it was true, and it was so so stupid, and I couldn't control it.  Because I learned what those words mean in that moment.
I think about how you told me that love felt like taking someone's heart and stitching it together with your own, and I remember wondering how you could do that without that someone's consent.
I think about how those words mean so much more to me now, because I know what they mean.  I think about how I never get used to them.
I remember sitting on opposite sides of the couch and you telling me that you felt like you were in a movie.  I remember you telling me, in all our incredible naïve glory, that we could still be friends, and I remember choking back tears and saying the only honest words I had.  "I don't want to be your friend." I remember learning what the word "heartbroken" means.  I think about how I never got used to it until there was no other option, about how it felt like a surprise every morning that I could still exist.

I think about this riding home in the purple light, and I think about how you are just a shadow against this morning sky now.  I know your silhouette and nothing else.  I remember the days I would have stuck around until sunrise to watch your features fill in slowly with the light coming in through the palm fronds.  I think about those days, remembering them fondly as a sort of silly thing I took very seriously once, as I walk inside.

I think about how these things are still important to me, but you are not.  You are the subject of a story whose plot is the thing that really matters.  And if I were asked about the story, I would not begin to say that "it is a story about someone who..."  I would begin with the point of the whole thing, that it is a story about learning.  It is a story about the meaning of words and being amazed by palm trees.  As often as you are mentioned, it is not a story about you.

I guess I know how all this sounds, and I guess I'm okay with that.  Because I'm that girl sometimes, who think about the past and gets emotional before the sun is up and writes cathartic blog posts instead of doing work.

Borrowed Book

"It's like when you buy a used book, and it's already highlighted," I explained.  "It's like I got a book with all the shitty parts highlighted today.  The other stuff, the good stuff, is still there.  I just got the shitty chapter today."
It wasn't a perfect metaphor, or even a really good metaphor, but it worked.
Because that's exactly what it felt like.  What it feels like.
This isn't my life.  I'm just reading about it.  I'm reading about the multitude of injustices in the worlds surrounding me, and I can't do anything to fix what's happened -- what's on the page is on the page.  And maybe it gets better in later chapters, and maybe I have a part in finishing the story.  I hope so.  But this chapter has already been written, and it sucks.
And I'm sorry, because my parts are the black-and-white, the uninteresting, the just-good, the unnecessary-to-highlight parts.  I don't add anything to the story.  I haven't moved the plot along.  Background noise.  What a privilege, to blend into the background.  What a privilege to be irrelevant.
I'm sorry because it's not fair, because I want to rewrite the whole book.
I'm sorry because you don't deserve any of this, you didn't ask to be that character, and when I couldn't explain what I was feeling and she said, "Like survivor's guilt?" I said, "Yeah.  Yeah.  Exactly.  Like survivor's guilt."

I'm sorry for how we background folk get by without catastrophe while you get highlighted in history books and memoirs and dreams.  I'm sorry you have to go through this chapter.
I'm sorry.
I love you.

Soul Circle

No one would believe me then, because they wouldn't take me seriously in closed eyes awareness, but I still think it was a beautiful concept.

The soul circle.

I like the idea that I might be in someone's soul circle.  I certainly know a choice few who are in mine.  Where sometimes it's not that I even want to spend time with you as much as it is that I want to melt together  into one being and just exist with you, not in tandem, but in unison, as a single being.  A sleepy being, at least right now.  Not understanding each others' souls but being each others' souls, being a necessary part of each other, a fundamental unit of the other's whole.

I literally cannot imagine existing without you.  Or I could, but it makes me sad and confused and lonely.

That's just how it feels with some people.  I want to be the place they put their dreams and fears that are too big for one soul.  We could share the burden.

And I know you love me, you most of all

because I tell you the worst

the worst things I ever do

or think

or dream

and you tell me right back

and at the end of the semester, when we see the other's face again,

nothing has ever looked brighter,

and I believe in nothing more.

You share my burdens and I share yours

and I hope, I hope you will not forget that no matter how heavy my burdens, no matter how full my plate or my heart, there is always room for yours too.  Your triumphs and your failures, they belong with me too.  Your smiles and tears and tantrums.  I am never too busy for sharing.

It's like how no matter how full you are from dinner, it seems like you can always find room for dessert.

You're the dessert. You're the shelf I keep empty just in case you need storage space.

You're in my soul circle; you are my soul.

So if you ever need that storage space, remember I keep a shelf open.  And when I meet someone new, I shove some of my own books into the closet to make a little more room.  It's like Mary Poppin's bag in there.  There's always more room, just in case room.

Just in case.

Just in case you need to share.

Why the fuck do I write these things.

Oh my god.

I am so easy to hate.

(Please don't mind me)

I do sometimes wonder if I've gone completely insane.