wishin' and ________

We sat across her little kitchen table and I picked at my brunch. Initially it was my lack of appetite that startled her.
I mumbled an apology and continued to pick at my food.

"I just can't understand it," she said peering at me over her glasses.
"You can't understand what?"
"Where is all of your hope?"
"My hope?"
"Darlin', the reason why you're my favorite is because you have all of this hope. You believe in people, you're so trusting. But sitting here with you for twenty minutes, I can tell, that your hope is gone. Where did it go?"
"I'm not sure..."
"Find it."

So I began to look.

First I looked under the table and it wasn't there. Then I looked under my bed.... [i just realized what a great childrens book this would be]

I looked at my long lost friend as we pulled up to my house.
"The thing that I learned, honestly: When it's good, just let it be good," he said clearing his throat. "You're too worried about the expiration date. Just enjoy each other while you're together. Don't spend anytime without trust."

He's right.
and so is she.

shake it out.

I've had the sudden urge to sing again.

And today as the water beat down on my back and the water dripped down your face and your crescent moon smile broke open and became a huge half moon,
I couldn't help but laugh.
My brain ached with the familiar and new feeling of all the blood rushing to my head and quickly leave.
But you were looking at me and I was looking at you.

"How have you been doing with...that?" he asked trying to run his fingers through my hair.
"I've been too happy with you these past couple days to think about it."
"But, how are you."
"I'm not ready to leave."

no man is an island.

I don't know who said it, but someone said no man is an island.

I felt like I was on my own private island for about twenty-four hours.
With all the uncertainty and jealous and fear on my part it became so apparent how much he loves me.

I have spent a lot of time wanting it yet resisting it because I don't believe it to be true. I was not raised watching an affectionate relationship. so how could this be? because I always have some sort of frame of reference.
We just made it.

Still in spite of everything I have a fear in the back of my aching mind that I'm not coming back. That the doctor is going to tell me something bad.

i want to stay on the island.

home. [home.]

Being home made me realize a lot of things.

FIRST of all, my friends at home care about me more than a lot of people in the world. Which is why they don't realize that they make me more sad than most people can.
But the weird part is, I've changed... and they haven't seemed to notice.

NUMBER TWO, telling my father what I can plainly see was one of the most heartbreaking things ever. He looked at me with near-tears in his eyes searching for a response to my statement.
"You aren't happy."
[the longest pause in the history of pauses.]
"I'm a man. I stay with my family. I will not change my situation. This is just how things are."
I studied his face, his hands on the wheel waiting for a "but" but it never came.
Sometimes people just stay miserable out of "duty."

THIRD, I am in a great relationship. I spent the last month searching for a reason to not be in it because it scares the shit outta me but no more of that bullshit.
It will end when it ends and when it ends I will be okay. I have a feeling that won't be for awhile.

FINALLY, This time, for real, I am not in love with you anymore. I'm different. I have learned how to accept love and not dismiss it as silly or a waste of time. Even in the moments that he annoys me I still love him, which is something you never were capable of.
Thanks for making it so easy for me to realize.



oh and PS. I'm finally going to get this thing diagnosed and figured out. December 12th. Save the date.

starveling and starving.

I'm happy to be in it.

but I feel awful that she isn't.

I wish I could be the person that could be there for her in the way that she is always there for me. But I know I'm the last person she wants comfort from.
Bittersweet.

well this is part of it right?

like crazy.

"Are you happy?" He texted me from the chair next to me as he admired the girl he was going home with that night. Then he looked at me and smiled and I knew we would be friends for a long time.

"I can't tell anymore." I replied instinctively.

I'm drunk and I don't know what to make of things.

there are so many things that I want that I am simply not getting.

I watched a horribly depressing movie tonight, alone in my room, about college sweethearts who cling together even though they have clearly grown apart.

how do people stay together? does it become routine and monotonous? do we thrive off the chase and the beginning or is that just me?
these are the questions I constantly ask myself.

I am almost positive I will not find out the answers.

helena.

If I take anything away:
I learned more about Shakespeare today than I have my whole life. I got a glimpse of what next term could be and I want it.

But this is the first time I have ever walked away from an audition with truly no idea if I got it or not.

I never thought this would be something that I would want so bad.

I understand her. I just don't know if that's enough.

But actually screw that. What do I have to lose? I can be scared. I can fail.

the more my wrong

I'm so nervous for tonight. Don't want to make a fool of myself doing this Shakespeare.

These are the times I curse my high school drama teacher and myself for not learning how to do this.

how does it make me feel? stupid.

hate being that person that he clearly needs spend time away from.

what is happening.
I'm becoming that person in a relationship that I never wanted to be.


this is going to be bad when it ends.

lbs

I've lost seventeen pounds since the end of the summer.

for some reason it doesn't feel like a positive thing.

but the trees are pretty and I'm loved here.

the best imitation of myself.

Tomorrow I'm twenty.
Twenty years seems like such a large amount of time.

This weekend I opened my first show here, with [nearly] rave reviews. I feel good about here.
But this weekend also reminded me of the bulltshit going on at home. This weekend it became even more clear than it has been in years that my parents should not be together. Its shocking to me that I know this for a fact and yet they remain chained, and miserable. I'm twenty. I'm not suppose to know something is over before grown adults do.
Here I am, in the my first real, legitimate relationship having my parents tell me that he doesn't seem like "a great love of my life." WELL OBVIOUSLY. its college.

Were they ever like this?
is this just happens when you're an adult? You do things because you feel obligated to stay even if you're miserable?

it doesn't seem logical.

I feel young and wise.

But I also feel old and foolish.

A couple that I actually learned to believe in broke up. After three years. It is true when they say people grow apart and accepting that is the best thing you can ever do.

I've found myself oh so honest these days.

In my quest to not be needy I find myself needing him.

and for the first time in nearly 13 years the last thing I want to do is eat midnight pancakes.

but I'm happy? Happy birthday to me.

I gave her my heart and she gave me a pen.

Since when am I so good at relationships?
Not only my own but everyone elses too.




The whole always one foot on the ground has become sometimes, maybe one toe on the ground.

The wind is beating against my apartment and I don't want to be alone in my bed. I like sharing it.

This will probably be the first relationship to ever hurt me. The first one that after its gone the bitterness will stay with me because I will always know how much I felt.

but for now, I can love right?

[I'm Eve again and confused by the water on my face]

As I watched a potentially good, but not very good scene in acting today and all I could think about the whole time was myself. and the show. and the stakes.
Then my classmate said,
"Can I be honest for a second?" [and I snapped back to focus.]"I feel like all I think about during the scene is what you guys think and I'm trying so hard to not break character but my mind is on your reactions." I found tears rolling down my face without a warning. I brushed them away quickly.

"Okay," my professor said, "Well how do we fix that?"

The answer was obvious. I raised my hand.
"You reconnect with your scene partner. You find what you need in them."

"Correct."

After I answered I wanted to run out of the room and sob into whatever arms I could find. I KNEW the answer. I just wasn't capable of fixing it myself.

Except I am.

The stakes ARE high. So I meet them.

I am capable. I can do this. I deserve to be here. I earned it.

list.

maybe I haven't been writing because I don't know how to say the things I need to say anymore.

perhaps a honest list?


one. I open my first show here in five days.
two. I have now beat my longest relationship, [THANK GOODNESS a particular gentleman doesn't hold that anymore.] It's been 8 months.It was also sad not waking up with you this morning. I hope I'm not losing myself.
three. I am genuinely friends with someone I've wanted to be friends with for a year. Friends. just friends.
four. The bump in my neck as been aching as if to say, "Hey, I'm still here."
five. The addition of mind numbing headaches has been a blast. Headaches that happen at night that make me feel as though my brain will explode when I sleep.
six. they dyed my hair for the show but thankfully not blond. Its weird to think they spent part of the budget exclusively on me.
seven. I am happy. but, confused?

My neighbor is loudly talking to either a friend or a conquest and I can hear every word he is saying through the thin wall. talk about Saturday morning entertainment.

I am a zombie these days. I am so happy but distracted by the fact my body doesn't feel the same way.

Tech today.

300.

I feel like the things I say, do and write are all the same.

and yet last night as I washed our dishes and finished the last sips of the wine that we drank out of beer steins in an oh so classy way I thought about how different I am.
I am capable of taking care of someone else whether they appreciate it or not. I am talented and I earn the things that I get. Waiting doesn't bother me as much anymore.
He fell asleep and I sat out in the living room staring out the window. No stars were visible. Only the black sky.

It has been three years since my first post.
I thought that I was already here when I was there.

but now I'm here.

the art of the in between?

I am stuck in an in between.

I no longer have any desire to go to house parties. They are superficial and make me feel like an old woman. A lame old woman. Not like Maude.
I literally feel as though I have to put on new skin before walking into those parties.

on the other side,

I am not old enough to go out to bars with people closer to the age that I want to hang out with.

Which leaves me in my bed on a Friday night after a long rehearsal, alone and perplexed as to why I seemed to skip the "house party" phase.

This is one of those times I don't want to be pretentious.
but end up being anyway.

I am so,
I am too deeply human nearly all the time.

lets just BE IN A FORT and STAY there.

I feel like my life consists of eating pasta and making excuses for my lymph node.
I woke up and it was the size of a babies foot and can't physically do anything the rest of the day because of it. I feel skinny. I'm still just only living on oatmeal, pasta and salmon so how can that be making me skinny?

what's up body?

aaaand we're back.

I don't get back together with people. This is the exception.

Could not be more sure of the decision and more happy about it.

I have grown up so much.
I'm GROWN.



happy birthday princess. I didn't get you a present but I feel like I'm enough.

at long last.

Yesterday was easily the craziest day here. I am still in disbelief that I got cast. I got the part I have wanted all summer and I get to be in the black box all term. I have a real director. I get to be directed and have character conferences and costume fittings and an AUDIENCE. a month from TODAY is our final dress.

things are beyond all measure of sensational.



*it just seems insane to me that despite all of this, all I wanted was for you to hug me and say congratulations and walk home with me after rehearsal and sleep next to me.

I'm a CLAM because I'm happy!

I love acting.

and me, I have no idea.

Yelled at a boy I love last night because his behavior will not change.
I don't yell.
Things don't make me mad.
Things only make me mad when they involve people that I love.


But its time for a truth of the matter:
The truth of the matter is I am person I want to be. I feel ten feet taller then I am because the truth of the matter is I am capable of so much more than I though I was.


I audition today.
and this time my name will be on the list.

it was just the back of your head----

and I felt as though I was going to vomit up my heart.
not to be dramatic, but feeling this is weird.


School starts tomorrow and as always the first day of school excitement I always feel, [even in seventh grade and high school when I hated school] is especially hitting me like a ton of bricks.
*side note since I've been all into recapping my relationships in my mind lately I read an old love letter given to me two years ago and could not stop laughing. Real love letters are difficult to come by. Though I have received a few I only count one as a love letter. And I doubt it was his intention to even make it a love letter.

More than anything all I can think about is my audition.
Talk about love letters.
The love letter I could write...

I wish I could dance so I could DANCE.

I am just....

....so sad.




maybe this is what heartbroken feels like.

I feel so far away.

once we move.

I can't say that I feel heartbroken.
I suppose heart-torn would be a more assessment.

I sat with my head against my wall staring at the corner of my ceiling thinking about how I was going to form words when he showed up.
It was nearly two-thirty in the morning when the knock on our front door interrupted my roommate mid-sentence. We looked at each other and I immediately knew what I had to say to him.

He sat down on the bed and looked at me with the all too familiar dazed expression on his face.
I instantly felt as though I was underwater, trying to come up for air long enough to say what I needed to say.
But I couldn't.
Inside my head I was making eye contact and breaking up with him in the same detached, empty way I have in the past.
This time I was fully aware that if I opened my mouth I would not be able to speak.

It all became abundantly apparent to me last night. We clearly weren't in the same place anymore. Maybe we never were but we were both too dazed to notice. Just in very different ways.

"It was clear to be one night when we were sitting on the floor that I cared much more about you than you would ever care about me"

I sat at the kitchen table and stared at the coffee in my hand feeling something between heart broken and torn.

But at least I felt something.

the very first to feel.

I've gone back to being bed ridden.
I think I just need school to start.


but maybe,
something IS wrong.

kitchen dancing and my part to lose.

theatre overload last night in the best way possible. I felt drunk from the beauty of August: Osage County at the festival and then driven and excited for auditions after the Dog Sees God reading.

i want to be in that show.
i need to be in a show again.
[its been TWO YEARS.]

I am too happy.

UP. [part II]

he told me that I looked beautiful in the dark.
whatever THAT means.

long after he had fallen asleep I stared at the ceiling and recounted the summers events in my head.

this is exactly where I have wanted to be all summer.

My roommate and I can't help catching the other ones eye and shouting "WE LIVE HERE" on a daily basis. It is unreal that I am living on my own and I'm about to start my sophomore year of college.

I feel so far away from the person that stared at the ceiling after the last comedy sportz match senior year and wondering where I would go from here.
In fact, I feel so far away from the girl that lay in her twin bed on the first night of college, staring at the glow in the dark stars left by the former owner of the room.

I closed my eyes and turned over.

I know exactly where I'm going from here.

letter again.

Dear the boy under the lamp post,

I've spent a lot of time laying in bed with my eyes wide open lately. And all I've been able to think about is the future.
Talking in that diner for hours had the strangest affect on me. Especially because I am still thinking about it.

Initially it made me feel like I was sixteen again. I physically felt like I was 5'4. I put my feet up on the dash board and you looked at me just like you did three years ago.
Then sitting there drinking too many glasses of water just as an excuse to stay I felt more myself than I've felt in a long time. This is always the affect you have on me.
As I slammed your car door I couldn't help but look back at you and the person that you still are after all of this time. You are still the boy under the lamp post.

And now for the part I've never said out loud: You are the person I thought about when I was Eve and any other character I play for that matter. Whenever I am searching for an emotion I find it in one of our past conversations. I am a good actor and writer because of the material and the things you have made me feel.

The crazy part is I can still be happy with someone else because of everything you have given me without ever even realizing it.

Always,
the girl under the lamp post

it has been a bad summer.

On June 11th I stood in my nearly empty dorm facing my bulletin board. It was still covered with the faces of the people who I cared about most.
On my first night alone in my room I carefully placed all of the pictures across from my bed and throughout the year when I was disappointed or felt by myself I sat on my bed and stared at those faces.
I was sad to leave school for a few months but my excitement to see everyone again outweighed everything.

Things are different. Its hard for me to pin point when things changed because it was presumably when I was away.

This summer my best friend was in Europe, I was bed ridden with some mysterious undiagnosed lump, my guys hung out with their girls and everyone sat around and smoked.

It isn't the same. I was naive to think it would be.
somehow, its okay though.

UP.

"I just want to go...somewhere."

My head and heart filled with a familiar weightlessness and I pulled the cuffs of my jacket over my hands. The music was soft and unintentionally made me want to say things I haven't even thought about in a year.
I chose to forget about that eye contact and yet there it was, as penetrating and honest as it always was.

"Okay. Lets go."

*regardless of everything I feel as though I will always think of you before anything begins.

melted ice cream and my generation.

As I inhaled my sushi on my five minute break at work I watched a girl who must have been around my age and a boy who looked no older than sixteen sitting across from me in front of an ice cream shop.
The girl was pregnant, and wanted everyone to know about it. The boy rolled his eyes as the girl complained about her swollen ankles and how eating ice cream made her feel fat.
I suppressed a laugh as I ate my last California roll.

"I DON'T WANT THIS ANYMORE. YOU FINISH IT." she said thrusting the cone in the boys face. He took it and leaned over and kissed the girl on the cheek.
"Babe. You're not fat. You're beautiful. I will love you always." he said in a flat, unconvincing voice as he touched her stomach.
"GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF ME AND MY DAUGHTER." She said as she dramatically left the plaza.
The boy sighed and picked up her huge purse that she neglected to pick up and threw the ice cream away.

Great lunch theatre, lunch theatre that almost made me throw up my lunch.

Strained Peas and wild pigs.

Max, the king, would not stop crying tonight.
I babysat him and his brother.
As I held and fed Max, Adam crawled up and sat on my lap and demanded a story.
"What kind of story?"
"The kind that has me and you and Max in it and there are cowboys!"
I proceeded to make up, on the spot, a story of epic proportions.

Spoiler alert: in the story we didn't ride horses. Adam rode a pig and Max and I rode an elephant.

As I finished the story Adam and Max both looked at me.
It is the strangest thing watching two brand new people grow up. They look at me as if I know everything, that I already have the answers or something. When Max cries about something it is the end of the world to him because that is all he knows.

Adam put his head on my shoulder and whispered, "Is Maxie asleep?"
I looked down and saw at long last he had fallen to sleep. "Yes."

and I know that I won't fall asleep until 5am.

restless is a word for it.

sitting next to a practically married couple while watching attractive people fall in love on a big screen is a sentence for it.

I have been thinking so much.


so much that my mind is blank.

guess we never had it

"Well there was that time you know, when I had a thing for you and you didn't have a thing for me and then when you had a thing for me and I didn't have a thing for you but you know it was timing right?"

I opened my mouth to reply and the lights dimmed.
I sat there in the theatre, dumbstruck, as I thought about the run-on sentence he just said.

Its not that I wasn't aware of the situation he was referring to it was the fact that I didn't know how to respond. Lately, I have been saying everything that I want to say because, why not?

That is when I realized, it was hard for me to say things to him because talking to him brought me back to the mindset of being a senior and being completely mute and not expressing what I wanted.
In retrospect, I didn't really say anything I wanted to say when I was eighteen.
Now, I'm not one for the "should haves" and "I wish I would have" but lets be real, here is what I should have said when I was eighteen. To all different people:

"You're an idiot for not wanting to be with me."
I wish I would have stayed with the other one longer.
"Don't lose yourself in her...But I know you're going to do it anyway."
I wish I would have enjoyed you while you were still on this planet.
"You ditch me for her whenever you have the chance."
I wish I wouldn't have let her.
"WHY AM I DATING YOU?"
I wish I would have picked differently.
"I don't actually like you its just nice that you like me."
I wish I wouldn't have even started that lie.
"Stop wasting everyone's time. This may not be important to you anymore but its the rest of my life."
I wish I would have sat down and explained to her what she could really do.
"You are literally one of the dumbest people I have ever encountered."
I wish I would have won a trophy for doing it my way, scratch that I DID.
"I miss you all the time but I know you don't miss me at all"
I wish I would have missed someone else instead, recognized it and acted on it.

This is what I could think of in those first moments of the black out then I leaned over to him and whispered,
"Yeah. Timing. Probably timing."

its been awhile since I've seen your face

Saw Midnight in Paris again [I may or may not be a Woody Allen junkie] but this time I did not have the sudden urge to drop everything and move to France. This time all I wanted to do was pick up everything and move back to Ashland.

This has happened to me before. Feeling physically uncomfortable because I haven't acted in a long time. It has officially been over a year since I have thrown myself into a character and I'm beginning to believe this is the cause of my illness. I'm lovesick. I need it.

Not to be dramatic or anything.

seventeen days.

alleyways and eyecontact

and then sometimes you sit in a different car with a different boy and begin to realize that maybe he was the one you should have been sitting in the car with all along.

The words came tripping out of my mouth and he grabbed my hand. Not in a romantic way, just in a way that spoke for itself.

"Why haven't we ever really talked?"
"I don't know. We should have sooner."

I just wanted to sit in that car until the sun came up and talk to him.

I am currently the happiest I've been all summer.

wooden floors and cars again

I sat staring at my steering wheel. I didn't look up at my old friend.
"It just feels like I'm breaking up with...someone." I mumbled. I glanced up and saw her confusion. "I feel disillusioned. And the weirdest part is I've felt like this only once before."

The engine rumbled and I looked down at the wheel again.
I felt the lump rising in my throat.
"It's strange because I don't know who's changed, me or them. It's just like seeing someone familiar, the person who you use to say everything to and now there is just nothing left to say."

"Sometimes there isn't anything to say."

"But I'm at peace with it. just how I was at peace with it when I realized he and I would never be us again. We grew apart."

normalcy. right?

Its a funny thing when 'normal' changes.

I use to need to go out every night and be with people for the sake of being with them.

Now?

I crave being alone.

and when someone asks me how I'm feeling, I say fine. Because I am so use to feeling ill now.

Did you know that Warren G. Harding made up the word 'normalcy' for the sake of his 1920 campaign?

I wish I could make up words.

I ought to be in pictures.

I haven't said a lot of things out loud lately, mainly because I don't know who to say them to.

The greatest part of my days are listening to people I care about talk about people who care about them. I can picture the descriptive encounters so vividly and my mind is rushing with things I need to write.

For once, I feel like a true observer. Before my observations were riddled with biases and thoughts about my life and where I fit into the scene.
its now just me watching things play out.

but for the first time, this weekend, I realized something that I'll at least write down:
I want to be in the movies.


[my lump is smaller but its still not gone. something still doesn't feel right]

misty blue.

I have things to look forward, and for the first time this summer, they are in sight.

horcruxes and answering machines.

"Well, we got your results back. Your lymph nodes are very infected. Especially the one that is five centimeters big on the right side. If it remains that size for a month we'll do another scan."

First the education system, now the medicine?! This has been going on for a year. Can't we just find out what is wrong with me?

The medicine I'm taking is reminiscent of what I assume Albus Dumbledore felt when he drank that poison to weaken him when they tried to get the second Horcrux.

one small step.

The inside of my neck looked like the lunar landing,
with craters and mysterious unidentified objects.

it was beautiful and frightening.

ruining white rice for you.

As I vomited every last grain of white rice in the staff bathroom at the spa all I could think was "NO RICE GRAIN LEFT BEHIND" a way better promise than GW Bushy made to children a while ago. I laughed as I vomited the entirety my conservative lunch, splashed water in my face and walked to the reception desk.

"I just threw up. Will you cover my phones for the rest of the day?"

The doctor prescribed a 'mega antibiotic' to basically cover every base possible. the side affect of the antibiotic is vomiting. if it is truly an infection of my lymph nodes, I should be well in 24 hours. but to be safe, the doctor wants me to go to the hospital tomorrow to get a scan of my neck to see if its something more serious.

As my oceanography professor droned on about the formations of waves my mind was with waves crashing on my favorite island: Catalina. I thought about the pebbles that got caught between my toes as the water pulled the rest of them back out. I thought about the morning we woke up to watch the sunrise wrapped in towels on the beach and when we made it to the top of that mountain....................


I didn't even realize everyone had already gotten up for break until my professor said:

"Sarah. You look pale. Are you okay?"

"I'm not sure exactly. I'm somewhere between awful and blissful."

"you could rest at the foot of my bed
and whisper reassurances
cause I'm not sure of anything
I'm not sure of anything"

behind the desk, in front of sleep.

I promised myself I would not write about how sick I feel anymore but it is hard not to. All I have these days is sickness, work and school.

I feel weak and small and the lumps in my neck are getting bigger. I need to get this figured out.

I'm sitting at work, watching all of these refreshed, rejuvenated people walk down the stairs after their treatments and I can't remember the last time I felt like that. I wake up every night from 10 to 15 hours asleep feeling exhausted and miserable.

My bed is drenched with sweat and my head is pounding.

its all the same.

except it gets worse with every day.

I miss the clean Oregon air.

and I miss the people there.

I'm so exhausted I didn't even mean to rhyme.

but whatever, I guess thats fine.

team neville.

Last night I saw Harry Potter. I forgot what it was like to laugh with these people. As we sat at dinner I watched them order their food with such strange enjoyment. I kept laughing and when they asked why I said:

"You guys are being so you tonight."

And it was true. They were all being the greatest versions of themselves.

I felt an odd sense of euphoria, I was giddy even. The dazed expression on my face was left unnoticed by the six of them and I was fine with that.

As we watched the final film of the books that I loved so much I thought about the impact the characters from the story have made on me. That's when I realized they have made as much of an impression on me as the people sitting around me have.
Tonks and Lupin at the end....

It actually had a way of putting things in perspective for me.

which I needed.

lymes and things

things aren't so bad.

I'm sick but its tolerable.
I got a job that pays well and will be eaaaasy. [receptionist at a SPA.]
I'm doing well in my oceanography class and I might actually be learning something which is SHOCKING because I've never learned anything in the math and science world.

I keep dreaming about next summer, and how getting a job on Catalina Island would be the best thing I could ever imagine. I need to start working on my application as soon as its available.
Things happen in a year. I could feel differently but as of right now a summer away from home and school sounds like the greatest scheme I've ever thought of.

I also keep dreaming about seeing you again. [I wonder if it will be different.]

Aight. I need to get a grip.

happy graduation, sister.

first: my sister tells me I can't borrow a dress because I won't fit in it.
second: I borrow a dress from my mother and my family over-compensates and tells me I look stunning in a fake disgusting way.
third: I change because I feel over dressed into jeans and a casual shirt.
fourth: my family once again "oooo's and awwwes" like I'm in a wedding dress because my mother tells them to.

How is it that I feel like a million bucks, and perfectly happy with my body at school. then I come home and deal with the rude sly comments of my size double zero sister and mother who works out every day.
even worse why do I let it affect me?

And I CAN'T STOP SLEEPING and I'm feeble and hurt when people touch me. I slept eleven hours last night and for at least four during the day. My head pounds when I sit up and I wake up sweating even though my window is open and I have a fan on. My body shakes uncontrollably and my swollen gland has become a hard scary mass.
Seriously. something is wrong.

ball and chain

"Got to take advantage of my freedom tonight." The man child said.
"Your freedom? What happen to being madly in love with this girl?"
"Well, I am. Of course. but you know. Its nice to have a night off."
"Why is it that you can only hang out with us when she's busy?"
"Because that is what being in a relationship is."


hold the phone.

WHAT?

swollen lymph nodes.

I realize now that every part of me was holding out for the first week in August when I would see my lad again. But now that he can't make it out here and I can't mope anymore.

Yesterday I went to the chiropractor. She does the B.E.S.T method. something that I have always been skeptical about. she basically reads my body and my body tells her what it needs.
I've been going for years [shes a close friend of my moms] but honestly thought it was silly. I didn't buy into it.

Until yesterday.

I was laying of the table and she began to read my body. she cleared physical stress and my neck for the first time in over six months finally began to feel better. then she moved on to clearing my emotional history. [when ever she says "I'm going to clear your history" I imagine myself as a giant computer and her deleting my web history.]
When I was driving up to her office I passed a spot along the road that made my body tense up. I thought back to when I was seventeen years old sitting in a car with a boy.

Then she said, "Okay, looks like we're going back to when you were seventeen."
"What?" I said sitting up.
"Wow. It must be something big."
"No." I said laying back down.


After my treatment I lay there on the table with my eyes shut. I was calm and happy for the first time in weeks.

"You don't believe others actually care for you. You have a difficult time allowing yourself to feel other peoples compassion."
"I don't think thats----"
"Hey its just what your body told me."


I'm weak. Always tired. Its odd. I could sleep all day but someone always wakes me up. When I'm awake I wait and anticipate what I'll dream about at night. My dreams have been vivid and little glimpses of my past and things that haven't happened.

I think something is wrong with me.

All children, except one, grow up

I made a promise to myself when I was four:
never grow up

When I was eleven I realized that wasn't a logical promise.
I changed it:
never grow up alone

I never break promises to myself.
if that is true, why do I feel so completely alone?

baby, lets be honest. You're not actually a firework.

The sky was black with tiny explosions of color breaking through the darkness. I stared out my window and watched three different firework shows on the Fourth of July.

Though all I wanted was to stay in bed all day I begrudgingly put on my black bathing suit and left for the beach.
I immediately regretted this decision as I wove through the crowd of scantily clad drunk teenagers, hoping that my former classmates would not recognize me and pull me in for sloppy hugs. Luckily I was like a undercover spy with this new hair of mine and safely made it to the beach unharmed.
It was hot, and the drunk underclassman we met up with made me sad.
I remembered past Independence Days: Two years ago making smoothies at work and going next door to the little boutique my sister worked at on my break and returning to the dish washing station smelling like booze. And last year being the designated driver for my friends and sister as they lay in the sun drinking vodka poorly disguised in a water bottle.
I felt sick to my stomach remembering both of these instances.
It was the first time being home that I felt miles away from all of them.
I had never been this far.
I disappeared from the cluster of towels and walked up the long hill back to my car.
Since when were we so far away from each other?

I want to create something significant. how can I do that when everything is so disposable?

As the last of the fireworks faded away and only the distance sound of them remained I couldn't help but wonder when this place changed for me.

we'll always have....

Saw a movie last night that forced me to step back and examine myself. [aren't those the best kinds of movies?]
It was Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen's new flick. [what I would give to be in a Woody Allen movie.]
The story is a about a man who is successful screen writer, in a seemingly great relationship and is in Paris for a few weeks with his rich fiance and her parents.
He wanders around Paris wishing he could have seen it in its prime, the 1920s and to his surprise a car picks him up and takes him to a roaring party in the 1920s. He parties with the Fitzgeralds,chats up Hemingway and has his novel read by Gertrude Stein.

I was mesmerized with the Paris scenery and this fantasy because it is one I have had far too often. why couldn't I be drunk with the Fitzgeralds instead of watching my friends get stoned?
Somewhere in the middle of the movie my mind was made up. I wanted to quit school and move to Paris. I knew that I wouldn't be able to time travel but anything seemed better than being here.
The main character walked by the river seine in the exact spot where we all sat eating ice cream on our free day in Paris.
I wanted that back.
but I realized, while I wanted Paris back, I really just wanted those people back.

Maybe I will move to Paris someday.
but for now I need to focus on being here and find a way to break through the monotony and get back to the river.

not young enough to know everything

absence makes the heart grow fonder.
okay fine.

but this disappearing act that has been happening?

golden boy on marriage.

I've found myself at too many funerals lately which has made me a little too aware of myself. When I say too many I mean two in the past two weeks which is half of the funerals I've been to in my life.
On a similar note there have also been more weddings, and baby showers.
is this what happens as you enter into your twenty-somethings?

We sat outside eating frozen yogurt and I jokingly asked one of my good friends if I could be one of his groomsmen when he got married. He laughed and said probably. Then we started talking about marriage and when seemed like a suitable time to go through with it. As one of my other friends talked about how she wouldn't get married until she was in her thirties I looked over at my close friend [who i WILL be a groomsman for] and asked him knowing the answer, "So. are you going to graduate college and get married?"
"That's the plan."
Our other friend looked shocked.
"Woah. its so weird because usually I wouldn't believe things like that. I mean, she was the first girlfriend you ever had and you know you're going to marry her." I said looking right at him.
"I would have laughed at myself years ago if you told me I would marry my high school girlfriend. But we've been together for two years. and no one is as good." he said smiling, looking down at his hands.
"You know whats funny? I kinda believe you."

its odd to me that in three or four years I can clearly picture being in his wedding.....
the boy who i saved from the library in seventh grade.

caught in a

She looked at him through the sea of faces and colors and caught his glance. they worked their way through the crowd and the boy that she wasn't around to see turn into a man put his hands on her shoulders.
Why was it that even though everything between them was now merely platonic he looked at her the same way he always did.
They hugged just a little bit too long and she studied his face closer than she had since that night in his room.
All she could think about was how wise he looked, how confident and content. Because he was.

There was something that flickered behind his eyes which told her all she wanted to know.

no sphinx, just hedges.

its weird that I graduated high school a year ago. I reread what I wrote in response to finishing high school. dated June 26 2010.
I feel the same way then as I do now. I wish I had tried out to give the speech. minor details.

I feel the same because I am the same. I just understand myself better now. My head use to be a labyrinth which is stupid because it all was so simple. now its like that hedge maze we all ran through in the South of France, easy to navigate with one exit.

Had lunch today with two old friends and watched in awe as they described their lives just as they use to in our regular booth. The three of us always ate lunch or dinner in the same restaurant and went around in a circle telling details and secrets about our lives. Time had clearly passed, they told tales that would have shocked our twelve year old selves. But as I finished my fries and the two of them looked at me expectantly to tell juicy college stories I merely smiled, looked at them and said:

"Nothing to tell really. I just finally feel things and stuff"

hey, yeah, I'm still here.

twelve inches gone, and so are you

I like my new hair.

but I feel sick.
I feel like I could throw up because I drank too much last night and I miss people too much. I miss person too much.

i know things now.

Things I learned or realized my first year at SOU:

One. I need powerful water pressure in a shower. My hair cannot be fully clean without it. [but not for long! It’ll be all gone in five days]

Two. Salad bars depress me.

Three. People in Oregon don’t always have very good hygiene so be careful who you let hug you.

Four. I know more than I thought I did about theatre. My theatre education at Costa seemed horrible at the time but I really do know a lot.

Five. When people use the term “hooking up” here it doesn’t mean just making out.

Six. I am horrible at hanging lights.

Seven. I’m a therapist at home and I’m a therapist here.

Eight. HOW TO LIKE FRIED EGGS!!!!

Nine. How to run a successful improv group [but I’m going to keep learning that]

Ten. To allow myself to be in a relationship and not be grossed out by it and actually, to kinda love it.

Eleven. The importance of being earnest, except not the play. Just that its important to be kind to everyone, especially in the theatre department. MAKE NO ENEMIES IN THAT PLACE.

Twelve. People that only talk about their significant others are not good friends to keep.

Thirteen. First impressions of people are either completely correct or COMPLETELY incorrect. There is no in between.

Fourteen. Audition for everything.

Fifteen. Age is almost always irreverent in relation to how mature someone is.

Sixteen. Always assume that it maybe might rain.

Seventeen. It’s easier to be friends with girls than I thought.

Eighteen. So much from Greer Markel

Nineteen. Advocate for myself. It’s the most important thing.

Twenty. It’s all about who you pick as your scene partner.

Twenty-One. The real difference between confident and cocky.

Twenty-Two. That I am a horrible dancer but it’s no longer pathetic, it’s just funny.

Twenty-Three. Strike up conversations with random people. They usually have wanted to talk to you too.

Twenty-Four. I can be alone, but I don’t need to be.

Twenty-Five. I will actually make it in this business.

Twenty-Six. When in doubt, always eat pie or artichoke dip.

Twenty-Seven. How to love things, really love things.

advice from the boy I give advice to.

"it doesn't matter if you buy a purple clock or a red clock. you still have a clock"
-words of wisdom from my brother at 3am while I sat in a puddle of my own tears

underpressure

I am completely, totally and utterly stressed out and it has nothing to do with finals.
you see there is this lump in my throat that is the size of the world and makes me feel like I'm responsible for things outside my reach.
and what is a person suppose to do with that?





this much may be true.
but
we'll see.

only one box

what is there really to say anymore?

lots of things.

seven more days and I'm outta here for a few months. I want the sun and my brothers and sissstaaas but leaving here...its a bigger thing than I thought.
I feel different and the same.
When I get back to the group and the way we use to function I feel like all of this, everything thats happened is going to feel like a vague dream.

I have filled one box to start.
not ready to say bye yet.

anymore

I decided I'm going to chop off all my hair when I get home. I'm sick of being defined by my hair. "the girl with the curly hair"

can't I just be "the girl" ?


Only twelve more days in this 10' x 14' room but I must say its grown on me lately.
I'll miss sharing this tiny bed with you.

Picasso took a shit.

My Art History professor said something that made me want to walk up to the podium in front of Picasso's Les Demoiselles D'Avignon and give him a huge hug.
We were discussing abstract art and the way it makes us feel.
Well rather, HE was discussing abstract art and the way it makes HIM feel. in a lecture class of one hundred its hard to have a discussion.

"Is everyone still awake? is anyone still paying attention?" he said as he peered menacingly over his little round glasses as the girl next to me doodled in her notebook.
He cleared his throat and sighed.
"You know what the most abstract work of art is? Its love."
"Dude. Greer. that isn't Art" said the bro sitting behind me.
"Oh but it is! it is the most subjective, indescribable, elusive, glorious thing we search for our whole lives. Every time you think you've found it, it is in some other form, its changed, grown with you."
Before I even realized I was saying it I said, "And how does it last?"
"The same way this Picasso lasts through time. People keep reexamining it and figuring out what it means to them all over again."