Phone post! Thanks technology!

Ohhhh my god you guys. I'm a one hour meeting and a fifteen pager away from completing my first semester of grad school.

Fuck to the yes.

The truly hilarious part of all this is that my computer won't turn on. Whyyy, Mac? Why? Seriously, I need to know.

So anyway, if anyone has a fifteen page paper lying around, detailing the effects of birth order and sibling relationships on early cognitive development, go ahead and shoot those my way. Excellent, thanks in advance.

On a positive note, I plan to write the shit out of this break, which I'll be spending in Montana. Hopefully things get weird.

PSA: I'm alive.

Hi. I'm not dead or anything. So that's a bonus. 

Let's see.... things are not really improving money-wise as I so eloquently described in my last post, but talking about money makes me feel pathetic and boring and also veeeeeeery panicky, so I'm going to distract myself with another topic. I will say this, though: 1. I AM currently gainfully employed, thank the deity of your choice. I serve dinner at a retirement community and it's fast-paced and sassy, so basically right up my alley. If only it paid more than minimum wage. 2. If you commented or emailed me about my last post thank you SO much. You have no idea how much it means/meant to me. I send handshakes and high fives out to you. 3. I am not yet homeless. Check back with me in five days and I may be singing a different tune, but at least for now, I've got a roof over my head. And a really comfy bed. And apparently I can rhyme/jest about my dire situation, so at least I've still got that. And my health. For now. 

The first semester of my grad school experience is in its last few weeks, which means there is a ton of shit I need to get done and I feel like I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off, but kind of in a good way. Although thinking of literal chickens with no heads running around really freaks me out. I plan on holing up in my apartment this weekend with three gallons of Kool-Aid, a load of bread, and a pound each of butter and cheese so I can just crank out four or five papers. Partially because that's all the food I can afford and partially because that's what I'd honestly eat anyway. 

Just gotta avoid Netflix, that temptress minx.

I just can't state enough how I'm honestly amazed with my life in most ways. Amazed with how much I've learned, with how little I now cringe at seeing myself on camera and listening to myself talk, with how eager I am to hear how I can improve. I do not have a history of taking criticism with grace or dignity and I cannot bear to hear myself speak. I'm amazed with the colossally fantastic community I am building here, and the support I give and get within it on a daily (or more like moment-to-moment) basis. Shit gets intense. The idea of community is such a core value for me and I didn't realize how much it was truly missing until I moved to a funky little town in the mountains with these people that overwhelm me with their chemistry and empathy and joy and hilarity. 

There are these moments I have had during the course of my life sometimes, rarely, when I look around feel I am a part of, or in the midst of something special and unique, a moment in history that will never be replicated in pose. The last four months of my life are that. One of those times you try not to notice because calling attention to it might scare it away or cause it to end. I feel as if I've altered the entire trajectory of my life, that there are strange and lovely unknowns again, and dreams that scare me. The air around me is swollen with possibility and promise.  If I felt before coming here that I was an empty vessel with nothing to give to those around me, I can feel the drops plinking in again now, one by one, filling me back to a level that's enough to share. 

There are moments of misery and doubt, of course. They make life difficult and ultimately more interesting. There are bad choices and too many drinks and days that feel like a wash, just like any place on that map. This place has them too, because this person has them and will always have that element that strongly urges me against moderation and caution. I swing back and forth between feeling like I can someday be competent in my chosen profession to getting back a less than stellar grade and wanting to hurl my books and notes into the river. I have moments of desperation and what-the-fuck-am-I-doing-with-my-life?!! and I am challenged and don't always feel like I meet it quite right. Those flickers come when a couple walking down the street together makes me want to simultaneously cry and shank someone and hug someone and high five them both. I kind of hope that goes away. I'll keep you posted.

Everyone in my program is smart, and yet the environment fostered between us is not one of competition and superiority, but rather a building up of the whole as a unit. We are classmates, yes. We are friends, though, too. We are cheerleaders and each other's counselors and relationship advisees and the person willing to grab a beer on Monday night just because "I need a chat, it's been A DAY." We are equal parts fearless and terrified, yet it doesn't always come out looking like a balance. But there is always someone who understands how you feel because no one REALLY understands what the fuck that means yet. At least I don't think anyone does. 

If I could do it justice, I would. Believe me, I try.  There are study sessions, long walks, crafty afternoons, potlucks, and yes, even Friendsgivings. There are trips to new cities like Portland and karaoke at the VFW. There are parades and walks by the railroad tracks and concerts and hot springs and the unspoken breakfast date after a night out on the town. There are board games and movies, and just adventures in general. If you are hungry, someone will make sure you're fed. If you're feeling particularly stabby, someone will listen. 

If I'm in a messy state, at least it's a good messy state to be in. At least it's the right messy state. It feels a little like I bet that elusive "home" does. For now, it is home. 

no dollars left.

Sometimes I walk in the cold and the dark. Despite the menacing discomfort of it, the pure terror of being frozen alive, I need to know that even if the rest of the world can beat me, the weather cannot. Trust me, it feels right now like the rest of the world is beating me. Closing in from every angle and wearing down my edges until I'm too small to see or even exist. But the wind, the cold, it cannot beat me. It's romantic, the notion of survival against the elements when you're faced with the incredibly unromantic idea of, in the name of survival, pawning the shit you've loved and surrounded yourself with.

The financial aid woman at my school, Diana, was congenial and almost, but not quite, apologetic when she told me I couldn't take out a private loan for living expenses. Over the phone I suppose I didn't seem all that shaky, I probably sounded like I had other options, that I was weighing them or something. I wasn't. All of my eggs were in her basket and she made and omelet and ate my hope, bite by bite, word by word, over the phone. The end of the conversation was awkward, I could tell she just wanted to hang up and go on with her day, but I couldn't let her. I needed her to understand, but I couldn't find the words to make her see my need. She maybe didn't want to understand the amount of faith I placed in her giving me good news. I couldn't let the call end because when it ended I'd have to face other realities, make other calls, throw a tantrum or weep or curl up in a ball and pretend the world isn't rapping at my door. It all felt like too much. I probably even thanked her because I couldn't think of anything else to say, but I needed to have her on the line. 

It's true that I'm soft. I'm probably just a good-time girl. It's true that I'm afraid to move in a direction or maybe too depressed to try. But I also possess a strong will and right now I'm searching for that strength in the remaining booze in my fridge. When that runs out I'll busy myself with scrubbing the bathtub and doing the dishes. Taking inventory of what is left. Finding creative things to use as toilet paper, since I ran out this afternoon. Or I'll just drip-dry. Researching your options when there aren't any feels pathetic and fake, so I'm putting it off until tomorrow. 

Feeling desperate isn't a foreign feeling, exactly. Truth be told, I find myself in scrapes, especially financial ones, on a semi-regular basis. I've never taken money seriously, never really been without any prospects for income the way that I am now. If I was smart, which I am, but at the moment not feeling particularly scholarly, I'd spend my evening applying for jobs. I'd craft cover letters and take care to edit and reread for typos and inconsistencies. But now that I'm living in this limbo of desperation, I find myself feeling sort of paralyzed by it. There seems to be something missing in my resume, something that screams I WILL SHOW UP ON TIME AND GET SHIT DONE. God, I wish I could just write that in there somewhere. 

I don't know why it is, but it seems so much easier to take things offered to you when you have nothing to give in return. As much as I may wish it, handshakes and high-fives aren't exactly currency. As easy as it is for me to make new friends in the turn of a smile at a bar, increasing the capital in my bank account is like trying to put together something intricate when the directions are written in a language that you're not even familiar with the alphabet. I don't even know where to start. 

I'm in a corner. Backed in. I'm accustomed to fighting my way out, but some integral part of me feels exhausted, spent. I never thought that doing something to improve my knowledge, my place, my outlook, my profession, would be such a struggle. I took out the loans. I go to class, I raise my hand. I am an active participant in every way that counts, but still nothing wants to add up. Maybe it wants to and I can't let it. I don't know. I'm trying. 

I say "I'm trying," over and over again to anyone that expresses concern until it loses meaning. 

I mean "I'm trying," every time that I say it. It just seems to possess some unalienable flaw that causes me to never be able to have my shit together. 

And now, I don't know what to do. I don't even know what trying looks like anymore. Does trying look like selling my cars five months before it's finally paid off? Does trying look like walking into a strip club and offering my services? Is trying that moment when you start ugly crying in public because yet another fast food restaurant manager with a fucking high school diploma looks at me like I'm unworthy to mop a floor? I HAVE MOPPED FLOORS, I KNOW HOW TO MAN A MOP, MAN. What is trying when you've done everything you know and now the only things that pop into your mind seem scary and dangerous? I put myself in danger enough, but that kind never really feels terrifying. 

This kind is terrifying. 

my heart isn't cooperating.

this is where i live. i walked here from my apartment. i am the luckiest human on earth.

Let me just preface this post by saying the past few weeks have been fucking rough. Like, put your hand in a door frame and just slam the fucker over and over again. But with my heart. Ok, maybe not exactly like that because I'm not really a masochist and so it isn't really like I've been intentionally harming myself emotionally, just, you know. 

Let's start over? 

I'm having a hard fucking time. So layer that on with the fact that I'm so in love with Montana and my life here that I could probably weep on command and shit gets a little tiny bit confusing. 

Anyway, I'm not feeling like a summary of my last few weeks is really going to capture anyone's full attention, so I'm just going to say that I honest-to-god think I'm developing a panic disorder. I've always known I'm a spaz, but now it's legitimately kind of scary. I'll be eating lunch with friends or sitting in class or taking a walk and all the sudden I am 100 percent convinced I'm having a heart attack. It's like I can feel all the veins and arteries of my heart squeezing and constricting and the blood trying to surge through just starts sort of gurgling and foaming. I am just sure my heart is going to explode. To just call it a goddamn day and poof, that's the end of me. I know, not a great visual. I'm sure that's not even what a heart attack is, but I never claimed to be a medical professional, just a person convinced I'm dying at increasingly frequent points in my everyday life. My friend Brie thinks maybe I have heart murmurs or something? I don't really know, I start thinking I'm going crazy and I can't hold it together, but to be honest, I'm not even sure what falling apart would look like in these scenarios. My crumbling into a heap on the floor? Going fetal in a corner? Running around screaming and pulling my hair out? It's really anyone's guess. It freaks me out.

So yeah, good times. 

That kind of thing doesn't really inspire me to connect with the folks back home or write for this little corner 'o the web, so there's your half-assed excuse for while I've been absent in posting lately. 

Anyway, life really is beautiful here, I swear. The mountains make my heart so happy. I haven't even felt so much as irritated at the change in weather, constant damp, virtual lack of sun, or looming darkness. I'm serious. This place is so magical for my soul that things which used to trigger terrible moods and horrible coping mechanisms no longer affect me at all. I'm just happy to be here. I went to Portland with a friend a couple of weekends ago, and even though Portland was awesome and I loved it, I kept thinking "I can't wait to get home. To Montana."  I have never in my life been happy to leave the place I'm visiting to go back to where I actually live. Never. I mean that completely. I practically skip to class and I have the liveliest of friends and I live alone so I obviously don't have to wear pants most of the time and I can eat in my bed whenever I want, so in the grand scheme I'm set.

I just, you know, worry and stress constantly. To the point where I feel like I'm dying and/or falling apart. 

On a side note, I'm pretty sure my upstairs neighbor is having sex with someone right now directly above where I'm lying in bed typing this. 8:15 on a Saturday night, nice. But I guess what does that say about me that I'm home to hear it? I've never heard this kind of movement from up there before, so if this is his first time getting laid since I've been here, then good for him. That's still one more time than me. 

love.

I’m in love with fall here. In love. I’m in love with the way the leaves look, hanging on desperately as they change color outside my window. Flickering. Waving goodbye. Waving hello. I’m in love with seeing the mountains every day. I’m in love with adventures with new friends. I’m in love with the way I feel after I leave a lecture. I’m in love with cold beer, much deserved after a lot of work that I really, really worked at.

I’m in love with my apartment and my tiny kitchen and my bathtub. I’m in love with the sound my key makes sliding into my mailbox.

I’m in love. With so much.

But right now, love is something I’m really struggling with, too.

Matt and I are on a break right now. It was my doing. I can’t give him what he needs and deserves emotionally and I don’t know why, but I do know it’s not fair.  To put him through this. To pretend I have more to give than I do. To drag us both into a bad place.

You see, when we got together, I was in such an unhappy place in my life. And being with him, he made me happy. For a while. And he’s wonderful. But it’s not enough for me to have to rely on someone else to feel okay. To feel better than okay. To feel happy.

I need to learn how to be happy by myself, and I feel like I can really do that here.

But I have to learn how. I have to listen to myself to be by myself and I don’t know why. Maybe no one else in the world needs this. But I know me, and I do. I need to be alone.

I need to learn how to be alone again and how to self-soothe and how to love myself.

It’s not fair, and I know that. No one should have to be collateral damage for someone else’s happiness, but I feel like that’s probably where Matt is with this. He has been supportive and understanding and just there for me. And this is how I repay him?

Yes.

I wish I had better words and better ways to explain that I’m not trying to be selfish or uncaring. I’m trying to become a strong person who will be a good partner. A partner who is supportive and understanding and just there for the person I’m with.  And the truth is, I’m not. I’m not a good partner.

But I want to get there.

And I really feel, with every fiber of my body, like I need to do this alone.

It has nothing to do with a shortage of love in my heart. I send love to him every second of every day.

It has everything to do with learning to love myself. 

forsaking punctuation. forgive me.

everything felt so contingent on one moment falling into the next. everything felt like a cosmic hug, like  we're in the dramatic music that comes before the grand gesture. when he's running through crowded streets to get to the airport to get her back, make eye contact with her. before he kisses her and she stays. she stays! she doesn't get on the plane. thats what it felt like. like something life changing is in the air and it's coming and it could be anything. i felt like maybe i could pick it. i could pluck out what it would be and choose and it would be that simple. but thats not how it works. you don't get to pick, not really. recognizing the feeling, really being in it, that's as much as you can hope for. sometimes that's all you get. i'm happy i noticed at all.

i think someone actually did a handspring. i'm sure of it now, it was christian. and we laughed and i asked him not to do that again but that i was so glad he did it. but next time he could really hurt himself. people don't do back handsprings enough, though. they're these amazingly expressive gestures. they seem so optimistic, hopeful in yourself and in the ground and the air. and we were this cohesive unit of friends and it was night and the bars were closed and we were going to a party.

i kept saying 'we're going to a party' over and over like a mantra, waiting for it to lose meaning and just become part of the mass. but it didn't. we're going to a party. any party. it doesn't matter. somewhere on this street. does this look like a party? it doesn't. this isn't it, but here we are and they're playing music on the steps.

sometimes you meet a person who starts playing guitar or has some skill they perform in a way that makes you feel like you've never really found it. you've never really been that good at being alive because you don't have something like that. it's more than a way to express something for some people, it's an extension of who they are. when it's not there, it's a phantom limb. that's what it felt like. it was like watching a person take a shower without them knowing it. private.

but i watched and i watched and he started playing prince's 'kiss' and then his funny friend started singing, really singing it. and i started wondering what that was like. not just that kind of friendship, but being that kind of person. who smiles when they sing and just so naturally bounce around and just interact with the rest of us. it must be hard not to float away. it must feel like watching people drag bags of heavy things around with them to interact with the rest of us. we probably feel so cumbersome and slow.

it's no wonder.

and you know, that feeling i was talking about? the one in the air. the feeling of being on the swollen side of events before the momentous occasion? when i was walking around on a warm night in october with new friends, going to a party? we laughed our way there and i was waiting for it to hit because i knew that it would. i felt so in control of all of our fate. at the same time i realized how little impact my wants and actions have on anyone else in the world. i thought about chain reactions. starting one. sustaining one. i considered falling in love with everyone. i wondered if i'd ever fall in love with myself. we passed the library three times and went back to the party with more beers and this woman played the cello so beautifully that i noticed my mouth was hanging open. i left it there because it felt good to know even i don't control every function of my own body every single second of the day.

and it was a night. on the cusp of something i wanted to badly to push over to the other side. to take a peak. see and maybe change my mind. but that's what is funny about fate or the universe, in order to really see, you have to go. and i wanted to go, i was ready. i could feel the air particles brushing against my skin, gesturing wildly and romantically. i had no idea where, but it felt so natural to want to go. anywhere. but i didn't. i didn't. i just knew i could.

i think maybe some nights you have more power over things than others. maybe we all have our moments. that night, that was my night. they don't come often. certainly not often enough. but i really think i had the power to tip the scale. and maybe in some little ways i did. but really, noticing it was nice enough. i thought i wanted a giant something. but i just wanted to know what i held in my own hands. what i hold. and last night, i did.

i think that was the momentous occasion.

the universe has got tricks.

The other day I went for a walk to the park to do a little reading and writing. This is not uncommon. First, I went to the trendy, super intimidating coffee shop to get a beverage. I thought I was being super innovative when I ordered half hot chocolate, half coffee. Turns out that's called a mocha or something and I'm just an idiot. Whatever, I'm honestly proud of myself for not crumbling over the intense anxiety that comes from not being a coffee connoisseur whatsoever and patronizing establishments where that seems to be the norm.

The coffee part is totally irrelevant.

So anyway, I walk my happy ass to the park and I compose not one, but TWO, potentially award-winning emails to dear friends. And I'm taking in the afternoon light and I'm breathing the air in really deep and really realizing how much I love Saturday afternoons before the Saturday night transition comes and changes the energy in the air. I am so content. Then it starts to get really cold and dark and my fingers start getting really stiff from the chilly air, so I head back home, which isn't super far, but you know, it's a walk. A several block walk.

And I walk up the sidewalk and mount the stairs to my lovely brick apartment building, so ready to take a pee and take a load off- and I suddenly no longer have my keys. And I suddenly have no clue when I saw them last.

So I start rifling through my bag and I eventually just empty the whole thing out and now it's starting to actually be dark out and it is at that moment that I also realize I have no cell phone either. In fact, I am a mess. I have a full bladder, no keys, and no cell phone.

And suddenly, for the very first time since I moved here, Missoula, Montana seemed like something other than this sleepy, funky, little town. It seemed like just another place that can be cold and impersonal and unbelievably big during desperate moments of need. It was a moment. Just one of those moments the universe stores up to say "Slow down, girl," or, "Catch your breath," or "Maybe you need a new perspective, just for a minute. Just so you know you're not dreaming."

And so in my mind, I started mapping out my options. Places I could go. People I could find to help me. And honestly, one of those ideas was to go to a bar and that the bartender would help me. But there were other solutions, other options, there usually are.

I ended up cramming my hands into the pockets of my fleece and hoofing it back to the coffee shop, where asking if you left your keys is infinitely more embarrassing then not knowing what coffee drink to order, but also much less embarrassing than many other things in life. And you know what? I'm kind of on an expresso kick these days, which I really don't hate. Anyway, my keys weren't there, so I spent the next several blocks staring at the sidewalk as I retraced my path exactly and willed my keys to show up beneath my feet.

And when they didn't, instead of the panic escalating, a clearer plan started forming. How the maintenance guy in my building has spares for all of us. How I have a spare set of car keys. How I have friends that live close. How I can walk over to the police station and see if anyone turned in my keys. How I'll be fine. How I am fine.

I finally trudged across the park, toward the picnic table where I spent my afternoon, and there sat my stupid set of keys, metal teeth grinning in the last shards of daylight. I picked them up like I was mad at them, manhandled them into my pocket and cursed my awful, beautiful luck.

And then I walked home smiling, because I am here and I am alone and I am okay. I am okay.

it's no measure of good health to be well-adjusted to a sick society.

this video is one of the most moving things i've ever seen in my life.  watch. love.

phoning it in.

god, isn't this place beautiful? it snowed in the mountains yesterday. i can't remember a time that i felt more giddy than on my walk to class, staring at the clouds and white tops.

Yikes, bikes.

It’s noon now and the light seeping in from my windows is reminding me of my grandmother’s house. I can’t explain it, I just looked around the room and it felt like she was here, or rather, I was there. It’s bright, insistent. Even though my shades are drawn, the sun won’t be denied. It will persevere in its task to light the world; it will make me acknowledge my own refusal to be a present and willing participant in this day.

Anyway, like I said, it’s noon now and I’m also basically still in bed, although I’ve gotten up a few times for provisions and teeth brushing, etc.  I figure I should say a few words about grad school since it’s basically my life now and I don’t have a job, which is actually pretty terrible. I seriously, seriously need to be working and making money, but that’s a subject for another day.

So far grad school is good and not even really that hard time-wise and I really, really love the program, my classmates, learning all the history and theoretical techniques of therapy, and the faculty. But shit-damn am I feeling just emotionally drained and/or emotionally hungover most of the time. When my day is done I don’t want to talk to the people I love on the phone or cook myself dinner or go for a hike. I want to fucking drink my face off and watch ‘quirky independent romantic comedies’ on Netflix until I fall asleep. This is probably not effective coping behavior.

And honestly, I don’t want to sound like I’m bitching about this AT ALL, because it’s such a beautiful and self-actualizing journey to be on and I’m so lucky to be on it. But being this engaged and invested in something, to the point where I’m more than just showing up to every single thing, I’m really not sure I’ve ever done it before. I mean ever. My autopilot is more functional that most people’s engaged. I don’t really know if that’s true or not, but it seems like it could be. I feel like I could go pro at maximizing my life potential with minimal effort. It wasn’t always this way, but getting out of it, shit. My seize-the-day-and-try-your-best! muscles are like, really fucking rusty.

Anyway, that’s not really the point. I’ve really never thought of myself as a completely non-self aware person or someone that was harboring super intense and deeply-engrained issues before. I mean, we’re human, we all have our shit and we all have our struggles and shame and sadness. We all experience these things differently and we all deal with them differently. That’s part of what makes being human and interacting with other humans so enthralling for me.

I just feel like I’m in this weird mind-fuck. I alternate between talking opening about things that are bothering me with my classmates in the client role for learning exercises that always seem to get way deeper than I ever thought they could possibly be and then having conversations where I act as the therapist so I can play back the recording and literally pick apart every single one of my actions and words. I now fully know how frequently I blink and exactly what the side of my face looks like when I talk. And all that would be fine if at the end of every day I wasn’t thinking, “Holy fucking shit, I still have so far to go and I have to start seeing ACTUAL clients in three months what the fuck am I going to do and how will I get there?”

And I mean, I’m trying so hard to trust the process right now. I have faith that my professors will be able to get me there and I have faith in their selection process and belief that I can probably definitely do this and that I will be a good counselor. I just sort of don’t know how to handle the part of my life that isn’t school when school is just rubbing up on every single part of my life, especially because I moved across the country to do it.

So yeah, I’m phoning it in today. From my nest of pillows and down comforters. Sorry, sun. Try back tomorrow.

you know who you are.

Remember when we were wild? 

Riotous hair whipping as we dangled our upper extremities outside the car at sixty miles an hour. The music was always louder at night. I always feel braver at night. The road was dark and the air sank its fangs into every exposed patch of skin as we screamed at the top of our lungs for as long as we could. My eyes would start to water from the cold and the wind and my hair lashing into them violently. By the time I gathered myself back into the car, my face was an atlas of saltwater rivers and streams. Sometimes we'd see if we could get lost. Sometimes we'd see how long we could hold our fingers out of the open windows before they hurt too bad to bend. You never really know what love is until you find the people that finally make you feel comfortable in your own body for the first time. 

I still have that inside of me, you know. Sometimes it flickers across my eyes when I'm looking in the mirror and I know that even though I floss my teeth and wear hats and gloves and I've eased up on the black eyeliner, that something inside me is still as feral as it was back then. I still err toward recklessness even though I insist that I hate gambling. I do hate gambling, when it comes to money. When it comes to my life though, that's a different story. We made ourselves that way. We made each other invincible, and now we're just waiting to see how much that will cost us. 

I'm scared, you know. I'm scared of losing my ability to let everything inside me swell to capacity and just wait for the dam to burst and know that no matter what, you'll help me paddle to safety. I'm scared to stop moving, to really entertain the idea of building a life, making a home. When I need comforted, I don't look at old photographs or call those dear to my heart. I find the darkest road I can and I drive as fast as possible, careful not to pay any attention to the route I took getting there. I crave the sensation of being lost, of almost running out of fuel, of seeing how many different angles I can howl at the moon from in one span of darkened sky. 

Those nights when our hair was long and speed-blown, back in the warmth of the car, we'd comb the knots out with our fingers, but something about our manes always stayed windy and unruly. I'd wake the next morning to the smell of cold air and dark roads on my pillowcase, and I'd smile to myself. Everything felt like a secret then, a promise, an oath, a testament to the people we were sure we were brave enough to become, eventually. And then it was time for a new night, a different driver, the same roads, and thrills only we knew how to seek. We were shrieking like dying creatures into the wind, but I wasn't angry. That was the happiest I've ever been. To have a security blanket, a grid of roads that holds you gently and lets you go crazy, it's more than I could have ever thought to ask for and somehow it just knew to give. 

I felt like I was leading a double life at times, making the grade at school, staying off the radar of any human who could be deemed an authority figure, but destroying and stealing and roaming and gnashing my teeth when no one was looking. I'd curl my hair every morning before class, smirking to myself. Barely able to wait to bang my head around until each tendril straightened into individual strands and gnarled together into unmanageable clumps. 

I buy the big bottle of whiskey now, because it's more cost efficient. But I also pace the streets at night, wishing that something which offers an actual threat to my personal safety will make me feel fear instead of the idea of never again experiencing love at first sight. I wander around and wait for something to happen in front of me that will require a show of character, more for myself than the opportunity to do the right thing. I just want to know my character for sure, in general. I want to be tested and to come out on the other side of it knowing whether I passed or not in a multitude of situations. So I walk at night and I wait. I write stories in my head that I never get around to typing and I smoke cigarettes like it's normal to feel this arrogant about my own health.

But don't let it fool you, I'm afraid now of so much more than I was back when we were free. Sometimes I feel totally desperate for passion. Fraught with need for something to hurt me and scare me and yet to be tied to it so strongly because it's also the best thing I've ever felt. I just don't want to lose my ability to give myself over to it, to feel that way. To need to relent. I'm terrified that I'll never have that moment again, when you meet someone for the first time and it's chemical- you just know. Just know. Just know. Just know they're going to be important. It happens so rarely anyway, what if I miss it? What if I've used them all up, all those serendipitous moments?  It's disappointing how much less romantic life is than in the movies. It just happens. We crash into each other and break apart and fall together in such random patterns. Nothing is the way we grow up having it shown to us. Love looks so different every time it manifests itself. No two times look the same. It's like a kaleidoscope or something, always vaguely aesthetically pleasing, but kind of abstract and at the mercy of your own motions. Once you've shifted the frame you can never really duplicate what appeared in the viewfinder the last time. Don't even try. You'll never get that sparkly bit of ribbon to catch the light that way again. And the sun is setting anyway, so fuck it. It always looks good, but some patterns are more appealing than others to any given person. I've grown so in love with the struggle that I can't enjoy anything that comes easy or becomes easy. 

I keep having these flickers in my memory today of the big blue house. Kate and I rented it that year and it was the best house I've ever lived in. We had that huge backyard and I bought a lawnmower for $35 on craigslist because part of our lease was that we had to keep up the yard. I could cry thinking about the library, with the fireplace and massive doors leading into it. We had so much art between us, so many things hanging on the walls.  And we'd have fires in the backyard when the weather was nice. We'd take one of the racks out of the oven and wrap it in foil and grill mushrooms and egg plant and peppers and corn and sprinkle them with rosemary and salt and oil and then burn our fingers trying to get them off the make-shift grill, which was really a bird bath I stole from my parents' house. There was always wine. Always. There was a massive magnolia tree and lilies everywhere. Our bedrooms upstairs were grand expanses with high ceilings and so much natural light that I rarely turned on my lamps. We almost froze that winter because we were too stubborn and too poor to properly heat the thing, but even that felt right. Layering on blankets and crowding each other while we watched a raunchy comedy or some shitty horror movie. We'd gather around the kitchen for lively pasta dinners sometimes and other times paint while smoking hookah on the front porch. I'm sorry I missed so much if the little part that I was there for feels this way to remember. It's hard to describe the feeling. I miss it. I miss sitting in the kitchen and talking about the events that made up each of our days. Even then we were less wild than we once were, but I think with more of us present, living in the same city, it was easier to conjure it back. I have such a hard time getting there on my own. 

I woke up today to the sun coming through my windows, surrounded by all my art hanging on the walls. It’s like my insides are on the outside, I’m surrounded by myself in my apartment and it feels like home. I brewed hot water for tea. I listened to Fleetwood Mac on the record player as I slid over the hardwood. I sat in my breakfast nook and actually ate breakfast while reading a book that keeps making me lose my breath. It's like I'm finally getting to be the person I always had a picture of in my head. The person I always strove to be and up until now fell miles short of becoming. I love almost everything about it here. But, it's strange, scary, being here alone, too. I'm overwhelmed by all the possibility and don't know quite what to do with myself. Sometimes I walk to the public library. It's two blocks from my house. Little perfect details like that abound now, and it feels so fragile because it can't possibly be my life. I feel so desperately full of possibility. I guess I see how people fall quickly into boring and predictable patterns in the face of change, just to have something to grasp onto. Not necessarily what they wanted, but too scared of instead doing nothing and getting stuck standing still to take their time. It's a lovely picture, the best I've seen, but something about it feels tenuous. I guess I've always wanted everything RIGHT NOW. I'm trying to slow down and let things happen naturally, trust the Universe to yield. Time is the most frustrating construct because it’s required for almost everything and there are no short cuts. I just keep trying to bang ahead and race it but I never catch a clear lead. It just can't be real, this life. But it is. I can see the mountains from my windows. 

Doesn't it hurt that we're all works-in-progress?

It does.

I'm just one of those works of progress, bumping and jolting my way along the endless assembly line which wavers as it fades into the far away abyss of my failing vision on the horizon. I don't like to think about myself in the context of an assembly line, it makes me feel tame. Like I'm becoming a pet, something that needs to be fed instead of killing what I need to live. I'm afraid to feel anything other than half starved, because at least hunger means I'm still forced to pay attention. Sometimes I suspect that the habits I picked up to keep myself wild are only serving to dull my senses and eat away at my ability to focus. 

Remember how, those nights in the car, we'd sing? Our voices would blend together and the honesty of it was almost unbearable. We were a pack and we howled together in unison and pushed, really pushed, some invisible cage that held us. Slammed into it so fast that I felt the opposite of a collision. I learned to be whole. I could never limit you as just my friends after we became that kind of family, it's such a loose and fluid term for the people who keep the pieces of your soul that your body can no longer contain.  Sometimes I forget what it’s like to feel so sure of my own ability to sustain myself on noise and air and the sensation of moving so fast alone.

And you remind me. 

faxing the universe.

Greetings from Wednesday in the West!


This is how my week goes now:

Monday: Dick around at home allllllll morning, climb a mountain, convince myself to shower (or not), go to class, come home, drink (a?) beer, read and write for Tuesday, mentally prepare myself for the Clusterfuck (yes, capital C) that is Tuesday, sleep.

Tuesday: Hype myself up with some early morning Bob Seger, class, class again (three hours each...sheesh), record myself interviewing a stranger, stagger home, avoid preparing an actual meal, read, force myself to complete basic hygienic tasks (aka brushing my teeth), sleep.  (I KNOW it doesn't sound that bad. And it really isn't. It just drains me of all my emotional and physical energy. nbd.)

Wednesday: Wake up psyched on life because I made it through Tuesday, class, skip home, dick around, read and write for class, check blogs!, hike, avoid doing dishes, drink beer, watch netflix, sleep.

Thursday: Supervision with my professor (where we go over recorded interviews and I get really sweaty), do a happy dance that I'm done with class for the week. Foolishly glance at my planner. Panic.  Avoid school work. Go exploring with new friendz!

Friday, Saturday, Sunday: ???? School stuff, obvi.

Not a bad schedule. Except that I don't have a job yet. In due time, I keep telling myself.  Anyway. I don't really know this stuff for sure yet, because I'm still figuring it out! However, as I get to know the other people in my program I get more and more excited about what I'm doing. I've always been pretty shy about asking for people's phone numbers and asking girls to hang out with me in general, but it's so easy with these people. So stupidly easy. I'm like, "We should grab a beer after class sometime and talk about.... things!" And they're always like, "TOTALLY,  I LOVE THINGS! LET'S DO IT. " So I'm making friends, which is cool. And I'm making friends in my program which is probably good planning because when we're all overwhelmed in week 12 of the semester, we're probably going to have to talk each other down. Maybe. I'm just saying, I'll probably need that.

I knew going in to grad school that a lot of the bulk of it is the stuff that you do outside of class, not the studying and grades part, because that's not really SO important, but more the practice practice practice, pursuing knowledge, and putting a lot of effort into really grasping the concepts and theories you're supposed to be implementing in the profession of counseling. It's so fucking cool you guys. Like, so fucking cool. I want to shout from the mountain tops how happy I am not to have another power point presentation shoved down my throat by some humorless drone. ALL MY PROFESSORS ALREADY KNOW MY NAME. WHAT? Seriously, they probably know my dog's name too.

Anyway. That's me right now. One of my new friends from school knew I was looking for a cheap printer and bought me one at Goodwill yesterday for $15 and brought it to my home. FREE DELIVERY. I'm serious. Immediate friendship foundation laid, right there. The printer even works. AND has a scanner. And a copier. AND a fax. If I had a phone line, I could fax right now. And if I could fax right now, I would send the Universe a fax that said, "THANK YOU FOR DOING ME A SOLID. and also, I'm hungry, a little help here?"

search and rescue.

Something happened when I moved out here to the wild, wonderful, west- and it was so subtle and jumbled into all these crazy, awesome, changes and adjustments that I feel like I'm just now getting my breath and starting to catch on.

I lost my voice somewhere along the way.

It's not as dramatic as it sounds, not really.  It's just that the things that kept me moving, kept my head above the water line before I moved, they're not such necessary life lines here. Or maybe I'm finding different ones.

The point of the matter is that I've traded writing for this little corner of the internet and reading in the park for long solitary hikes in the mountains, copious amounts of netflix,  and constantly having my personal journal in my purse. Not to mention the course load of the first year Clinical Mental Health Counseling Masters student.

I actually cook meals here,  and carry the trash downstairs and around the building to the dumpster, and make my bed every morning. And these are tiny little details, but when you split a household from two to one, all the tiny stuff adds up. And oh! how I love my little apartment and living by myself and walking everywhere I need to go. I love it here.

But I think maybe I tried to change all the things I didn't love about my self all at once, too fast, and I lost some of the things I did love along the way. I'm allowed to miss my boyfriend even though I'm happy, so happy to be here now. I'm allowed to take time to write here even though I've got school work to juggle. So now I'm going to do a bit of back-tracking- try to find a balance.

Try to find my voice.

deep breath.

I just finished my first week of grad school and it was totally fine! 

Read that with a note of surprise in my tone. 

Because I have been FREAKING OUT. 

Like, walk past the restaurant you're about to enter to order food from three times before working up the nerve to go in and order because you're doubting every decision you've ever made and your ability to interact with people, that kind of anxiety.

But with the help of a few pep talks and some extreme sweating on the walk to my first class, I managed. I went in and sat down and listened and learned and suddenly all my anxiety seems a tad unfounded. 

It's going to be a ton, A TON, of work- but I'm actually kind of thrilled about it. 

Minus the recording audio and video of myself interviewing people and then having to play it back for the class and my professor to critique, because I really hate the sound of my own voice. 

But right now, I'm not going to fret about that. I made it through my first week of classes. 

Deep breath of relief. I've got work to do. 

 

the trek!

Ok, I SWEAR I’m going to get back into the swing of things now. Today I bring you a very abridged version of my journey westward! With pictures!

what i'm looking at. 

......and this would be more of the breakfast nook.

I’d just like to note before I get started that I am typed this in my breakfast book WHILE EATING breakfast, drinking tea, and listening to Fleetwood Mac on the record player…. So basically I’m killing it out here. Yesterday I got up, brushed my teeth, walked to a trail and climbed up the side of a mountain. It was awful! I’m terribly out of shape, but the view made it all worth it.- I definitely feel that I’ve moved to the most beautiful place in America. Plus- you’re going to be able to bounce a quarter off my ass before long from trekking all these giant hills! I can’t wait.

Ok back to the journey. 

we left last wednesday morning, my father and i. this is what we were working with for the next 2000 or so miles. at first driving this contraption was a bit...anxiety-ridden. but i eventually got the hang of it. kind of. 

the midwest is beautiful to drive through... but super boring. day one was 700 miles of mostly... this. we stopped in Sioux  Falls, SD the first night. 

on day two we started seeing more interesting and exotic (for me) stuff... like fields of sunflowers! the pictures not the best, but my dad tried, i was driving. this is also about the time we started listening to a book on tape. having someone else's voice have to be every single one of the characters in a novel must be challenging. it made some of the characters really hateable for me... probably my first and last books on tape experience. 

then we saw this shit and it was AWESOME. in the flesh!

we also went to Crazy Horse, which my dad was really intent on. it was actually really interesting and kind of depressing. not a whole lot of progress going on there in the last 30 or so years. 

we drove through deadwood after Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse. As you can see from the SUV in the picture, it's not exactly a lawless wild west town anymore. sad times. 

this is where shit gets nuts. it's the end of day two, we're driving through South Dakota, almost to Wyoming and the sky starts to look preeeeeetty pissed off. 

we get across the state line and my dad and I are both like "Shits about to go down, storm style."

and it does.  serious, serious hail/thunder/weird storm. so we stop on the side of the road because we were convinced the hail was going to break the windshield. dead serious. i was laughing hysterically because that's what I do in high stress situations. 

see that hail? damn. anyway. AS SOON as the hail stopped, the sun came out like nothing happened. DOUBLE RAINBOW. it was really bizarre. 

the rest of day two was pretty uneventful. we got to Gillette, WY and called it a night. 

day three was a blur because i knew we were going to be in my new city by dinner time and I started getting really antsy and excited to get there. here we are approaching the first set of actually big, real MOUNTAINS.  i almost peed/crashed the truck taking this pic. 

and then we got here and got some local beers because this place is like Mecca for beer drinkers. My dad is the best. The end. 

safe and sound

I've been neglecting and I'm sorry, it's just that I've been moving my life to the mountains.


But guess what?


I made it!!!!


More to come soon.

my lovely little dining nook and kitchen. 

the carousel.

 

 

 

Remember that time we raced Jenna and Tony to the carousel?

 

To be fair, they had a head start. It was covered with a thick red tarp that made the whole ride into a tent because it was night and all the tourist kids who would have paid a dollar to ride it had gone back on the ferry or were tucked in for the night.  They always covered the carousel at night for protection. Only the adult-children with their ridiculous hamburger hats and slurred speech and teetering walks down the main drag remained. They were always bent on destruction, themselves or anything they could get their hands on. Usually themselves, but the carousel could have easily caught one of their eyes and been torn down to the ground. The bars weren't packed, but they were busy enough. It was a Tuesday, Wednesday, maybe, our evening off.

 

We, you and I, slid under the tarp sometimes, at night. I'd run my hands over all the muscled wood arranged in a ring, their antique bodies painted garishly and shined to a shimmer, even in the darkness. We'd plot how you'd take me on the fish I'd named Petey the Perch, the lazy wind whispering through the shadows and the dorm building we lived in last summer just a stone's throw away. All I wanted was to have you on that stupid child's toy, to sail into oblivion balanced precariously on the wooden spine of that antique fish. It wasn't for the irony, just the rush of doing something wrong. I felt so much of that those summers, and the stakes were getting higher and higher. I was scared to go through with it though, waiting for your sure decision to tell me it was okay. Waiting for you to slip off a shoe or a shirt or pop off your hat the way you always did. I was willing to wait. No one else knew our plan. But that night, by accident, I let it slip to Jenna that a late night trip to the carousel for two was what I was getting for my birthday. She and Tony took off into the darkness without a word as I hollered your name and watched their scrawny backs disappear from my place on the front porch. I waited for you, hoping from foot to foot, and then we sprinted, me barefoot, trailing them as fast as we could.

 

We got there and it was too late, after all. They had already stripped down and mounted each other on one of the painted horses, triumphant but not really caring too much about our matching destroyed expressions, I guess they had some physical distraction. They were already so far away. They beat us at our own game. 

 

That night after we found them, I sat, still under the big tarp on one of the massive red sleds that mothers hold their babies on before they can sit on their own on the ride. I felt like such a child. I don't know why I didn't slip back under the tent and keep on walking into the night, away from you, or them. Another disappointment. Their bodies writhing so close to ours, but the notion of privacy too abstracted by two summers here that I didn't even think to leave. Had I been on the main land, maybe I would have torn out of there, embarrassed to have been such an intrusion. Still, I sat, and eventually you sat down next to me, alluded that we could still do it, you know, right here, as you touched me, inquiring gently. This upset me more than letting them cross the threshold before us. That's when I left.

 

Later I reasoned that I should have maybe been mad at Jenna and Tony for what they'd done, for taking away something I'd said in secret. But more than anything I found I was jealous. Jealous of their daring, their passion, their total lack of commitment, yet complete focus on one another,  Watching them made our lack so much heavier, the gap growing between us so much wider. Had we ever been able to bring ourselves that close?

 

Isn't it funny how we lay in bed at night with our lovers, confessing timidly the moment we KNEW we had fallen in love with the other, but we never share the moment when we KNEW we had fallen out of it? Wouldn't that help bring some necessary closure?

 

Maybe, I don' t know. But I think that was when I knew that your presence in my life, as strong and important as it seemed, was also fleeting.

 

 

That night, you followed me into the star-pricked dark as the tent dropped back down over Jenna and Tony, not saying anything until you caught up with me, in long, pigeon-toed strides. You touched my arm and as I turned, and you slipped a pair of enormous flip-flops to me, motioning at my bare feet. I love walking barefoot in the summer, but something must have told you that while sprinting toward the carousel I'd carelessly scraped the soles of my feet to dickens on the gravel alley. I slipped them on, feeling warmth and the odd sensation of walking in too-big shoes, like dress-up, and I reached for your hand. We walked soundlessly up to my bedroom.

 

You offered to pay for me to get a tattoo for my birthday instead, a few days later, but it felt like a consolation prize. I've sat up nights since, thankful that I didn't let you pay for any ink on my body.

 

You put enough in my mind

sweeth tooth thriftstore diy fairy.

I'm almost fully consumed with packing right now, for the most part. I just downed three, ok four, snack sized Kit-Kats  in less time than it takes most people to work out a sneeze, so in a word, I'm hormonal as well.

 

 

I've got LESS than three full days left at work, which makes me want to dance a little jig on top of a rooftop in a crowded metropolitan area for all to see, but I'm not letting myself near crowds or rooftops right now because I'm anxious enough as is. And have I mentioned that my core four group of girlfriends will be reunited this weekend? Yeah, that's happening. Katherine has been in Korea for a year and Jessica's been in Portland but it moving to Finland for two years. So this will be IT for a while. A long while. It's going to be really, really intense.

 

last summer, the last time we were all together. we're taking it back to basics saturday night.

This weekend I spent the majority of my waking hours in thrift stores with my mother, which was good because we really needed at least one really solid day together before I leave. We're hit or miss, but this weekend was very much a hit, so hooray!

 

 

 I also had baller luck in the buying department. I purchased a pair of chairs for twenty dollars(!) which I'm reapolstering, and a small-ish table that I'll be painting for eighteen dollars (double !!) and I am absolutely brimming with anticipation at seeing them together as a set in my new sun-soaked dining nook.

 

 

I also ought some little odds and ends to add a bit of character, and I'm super psyched to show them off soon. All in all, I didn't spent a ton of money, which was a major bonus and I got to make a project out of my new dining set, which is both masochistic with time running so short and perfect for me because, in case you didn't know, I'm a bit of a  freak about personalzing/DIYing my things and I'm nothing if not overwhelmed with activities.

 

 

My newest furniture additions are below. Updates to come!

blah. imagine it the same, only different! confused?

how cute is the chair? how disgusting is the seat? what the hell.

i've never been happier to rip off a cushion in my life. that shit was HIDEOUS.

no ryhme or reason.

I don't know what to say.

 

I find that I often have that reaction when something too big for me to process in my usual, quick, compartmentalized way slams into me without any sort of warning. There's a lot of intersecting emotion that comes with great tragedy, that comes with being bombarded from all angles by something catastrophic and wrong.

 

It's a jumble of emotions for me. I almost said cycle, because I often revert back to one or another, but really I find, it's everything all at once, just sometimes one or another comes more to the forefront. When I learn of something terrible and tragic, I usually feel really high alert first, and it's not even that my mind is feeling anything, just that physically, I break into a cold sweat and my body is suddenly, inexplicably coated with goosebumps. Complete focus. I'm devoted completely to what I'm hearing or seeing. I could drive fifty miles and not even realize that my body has been doing it, because my head is somewhere else entirely. Mental tunnel vision.

 

I feel sad, next. It's a wall of cold air just fully overtaking me. I think of all the people that were living their lives, completely and wonderously normal and mundane, and now will never get to do so again. I think of casual exchanges that weren't worthy of being the last exchange, because they simply weren't the last. They simply weren't going to be. Until they were. I think of putting pieces of broken glass back together, nicking yourself on sharp edges and crying out in pain while the world keep spinning on, crowds bustle forward, time stops for no one. But for the one affronted personally,  time has stopped. In one moment. One moment that can never be explained. Or reasoned with or have hope for repair, total restoration. And it hurts. Even in my far away state, I feel actual pain, I swear I do. I feel so, so sorry.

 

Guilt comes next, but fleeting, because I don't really have time to dwell on the brilliant and astonishing blessings I have been given, not now. It doesn't feel right to think about how fine everything is with me. How my biggest worry this morning was what people at work would think about the fact that I'm wearing my glasses and I didn't blow dry my hair. It's hot. I was tired. I feel guilty because how can I not? An hour ago I could have held onto these minor inconveniences like pebbles, let them grate in my shoe for hours, something to complain about. They evaporated as soon as I heard the news, but guilt, for the triviality of my concerns, that has come to stay. At least for a time.

 

I feel fear most after that, after realizing how truly good I have it and how much I have to lose. To hear of things happening beyond control. Out of all of our hands. Out of bounds completely from rational thought or societial convention. Out of the blue, no one saw it coming. People always talk about the fragility of life, of our feeble human circumstances when something comes through and plows our intricate structures to the ground so pointlessly and effortlessly. But you know what? I don't think a single one of us really believes everything is so delicate, so breakable until we're literally staring in horror at shattered pieces. I feel strong most of the time, invincible, in fact. To be reminded so blatantly and horrifically that I am completely wrong, it scares me and I hate it. To think, it could be anywhere. It terrifies me. I cried myself to sleep after watching the movie Taken. I appreciate it for the movie it was and I know there's more than an ounce of truth behind it, but in truth, I loathed it because it shook me to my core. Terrified me the way the idea of a person opening fire at a movie premiere scares me. I so strongly don't want to be the kind of person that is too frightened to live my life. I want to walk in confidence. I cannot stand to be someone who will fret when my loved ones leave my sight. But I am scared, now, and it's not fair.

 

It is so unfair, all of it. And confusing and terrifying and core-shaking. And you know what? Finally, I feel angry, then. A raking fury that I don't even realize is there until my jaw starts to ache from clenching it in an effort not to fly off the handle and start howling at the sky. Angry Angry Angry Angry Angry Angry. No words even come. I'm not even thinking, not really. I'm just mad, pissed off, wound so tight that a casual "Did you hear about that weirdo in Colorado that shot up a theater? Ha ha. What a fucking nut job, man," from some idiot at work is enough to make red lines appear in my vision. Actual red lines. Every impulse is screaming for me to get up and get in his face and just *#$&(*#$&(*#$&#$*(. But I don't. I don't. I don't. I didn't think it was possible, but I am just even more angry.

 

In an attempt to tune everything out and to look productive and to find answers or meaning or rhyme or reason or AT LEAST SOMETHING where there is absolutely none, I sit at my desk in livid silence, reading page after page on the internet. Waiting like a vulture for updates, simultaneously ravenous for information and completely disgusted that this is what it has come to. As people we need to exchange information quickly, now it is almost instant. Good job, humans.  I tell myself somehow I've cheapened the tragedy less because I steer clear of Twitter and it's pithy 140-character shows of sympathy. But I know I'm no better. And no better than what, exactly? People that express regret concisely? This is what we do now. It doesn't have to be cheap. But it feels that way and it annoys me and I realize maybe I'm the problem. Maybe it's not about 'cheapening' tragedy. Maybe in judging one person's show of feeling, I'm the one in the wrong. I'm so confused. I'm so angry and sad and guilty and everything. Everything.

 

Everything about this is confusing to me, everything. Another emotion that runs the gamut today.

 

Despite the confusion and anger and attempts not to be visibly crying at my desk, I feel so moved. It comes and goes in a moment, but it's something so much lighter than the frenzied rage that it sticks out. It's gratitude, I guess. For people who fucking did something. Who tried to help. Who did help. Who will be heros when the dust settles. Who find words when there don't seem to be any. I feel moved by the way society is outraged, absolutely united in our HOW DARE YOUness. How we crowd around and update each other and try to make sense as a team, even when we can't do it, we try. We try to make sense of it, we keep going because we have to, and we'll keep going. But we acknowledge and we regret and we HATE what happened and it moves me to have us agree, even if it's something so terrible as the fact, that this is wrong. This was unjust and terrible and NO ONE deserves this. Sometimes I feel like we as people can't reach a consensus on the color of the sky, but I'll be damned if we can't come together to offer sympathy and mutual outrage.

 

And then I feel guilty, again. for finding anything positive to say. Because, really, there's nothing positive to say and anyway, what in the hell do I know? I know nothing, not really. No one I knew was in Aurora last night. I've had injustice done to me and my family, sure. But I've not been touched by something like this. Something that never again leaves once come. In the future, maybe not for a long time, but someday, I know I'll go a single day without thinking about the events last night, and that is a relief to me, honestly, while it simultaneously weighs more than a boulder dropped square on my heart, because how could I?

 

And then I remind myself, that I am not special. That someday, something may happen that will literally change the course of my life. That may alter my reality forever. Something I'll never go a single day without pondering and shaking in fury and sadness. And that scares me. And I'm back to fear.

 

I'll go through all these emotions maybe a hundred more times before the day is through, and I'll lie in bed tonight, unable to sleep because of it. It's almost like an adreniline overdose, I can feel my blood moving a million miles an hour faster in my veins than normal. I'll try to reason and then remind myself that it's futile and I'll get angry. I'll cry out of sadness and fear and rage. Mostly sadness, that's what I feel most of all.

 

Mostly sadness.