In the nick of time

I had a month-long streak of general happiness, only to be shot to shit by my stupid ex-boyfriend and a sudden cropping up of loneliness and fights with practically everyone I know. I don't know why everything can't just go right for once.

Free to Fly

I can see the possibilities of who I could become next in every shining green leaf of the trees, in every breath I take while I remind myself that I am alive. This is such a joyous feeling, something I haven't felt in nearly a year, to be truly excited and happy with what is coming next. This is the start. A change is coming, and I am prepared for it because I am happy and proud of myself and who I have become. This is only the beginning, and from here there is only blue skies and sunshine and the anticipation of what is yet to come.

It's a exhilarating idea, if I think about it for long enough: I am alive. I am free. I have good, healthy food in my stomach and classes that challenge me and a closet full of my favorite outfits. I have a space to think, to be inspired, to create, I have a bed and a TV to lull me to sleep, I have the love of my family and friends who I remain in regular contact with. These are simple things, that I sometimes take for granted, but right now I feel as if I am the luckiest girl in the whole world, to be living this life and have all these open doors and opportunities. This is one of those moments where I feel as if I've made it.

Our Deal.

This week has been full of progress and setbacks. I'm chatting more in class with my peers, exchanging smiles and laughs and anecdotes and names. I feel a bit more comfortable around them. Generally I feel more in control of my life, my priorities, my future. However, I still have yet to finding and securing a job, and each time I am let down, despite my status as a Work-Study student, it gets more and more discouraging. I've got to send my mom a description of the jobs I have been eyeing, hopefully she can help me out with starting the process all over again. Tomorrow I have to go to Merrill and fill out paperwork. I'm just scared that I am going to fail in this aspect.

This song has been stuck in my head for a few days now. Kind of reminds me of my deal, whatever that is.

My deal.

Yesterday was a tough day; it was the lowest I've ever felt, the ugliest I've ever felt in a long time. Luckily, my friends were there to buoy me up and were supportive and understanding when I kept delaying our meeting.

Today I have a lot of sorting to do, packing for school starts today. This is always a scary and stressful time in the year, and its even harder when my mom isn't there to support me. I am only 19, I can't juggle all of these things on my own.

Also, this song pretty much sums up my summer. Depressing, right?

Head first.

Something has snapped. I can't handle any of this anymore. I had such a great day yesterday with Kelsie, one of my closest friends, and we talked about everything and how we wanted the future to be, how we ourselves wanted to be. I felt so hopeful then, so full of promise and potential to be whomever I wanted. A mere 24 hours later, I've slumped down into this rut, where the walls of all the things I have to accomplish this week are towering over me and I am shrinking away from them, afraid of being suffocated under their importance and intimidation.

But I need time for me too, I've been running myself ragged all summer and I need to get down off this absolutely absurd level of anxiety I have been teetering on for the past four months. I think I'll try doing some yoga tonight.

the fear of god.

Today my brother, father, and I went to Plymouth Plantation, visiting the Native Americans (who are native to the area and whose tribe have lived in Massachusetts for 12,000 years!); the role players and their tiny, smelly houses and overgrown gardens; and the livestock they keep there year-round. I took this picture of a goat sniffing my camera! It was really interesting, coming back after all those years I had spent there as a child, being bored and not taking anything in and trying to trick the roleplayers. Now that I can appreciate the place, I found it so interesting.

Lately my patience has run short with distant friends and aquaintances who want to get together before the summer's over. I appreciate and am flattered by their interest in keeping me in their lives, but I go back to school on August 30. I have an almost dehabilitating form of anxiety. There is no making plans with me before that date. My schedule up until that point is already packed full, and I am not going to try and squeeze them in anywhere, so they'll have to wait until Winter Break like the rest of my friends. The only thing they're doing for me right now is increasing my stress.

The Girls of Wolfeboro

This weekend we spent with Jimmy and my step-siblings, as it was my step-brother, Tyler's, birthday. He had a party and a bunch of his drunk friends over, who are endearing and as polite as one can be while drunk, but towards 11 PM I started feeling claustrophobic and anxious. I was trying to focus on the Red Sox game, but the massive group of girls standing right up against me were all chittering about their previous drunken escapades in the last week alone, and arguing over who was the most drunk that night. Why anyone would ever want to brag about how drunk they were, is beyond me. Though, I do suppose it's a form of setting places- puffing their chests out, trying to look more intimidating than the girl next to her. The girls who I knew at the party- and there weren't many that I knew- were not participating in this social ritual, and I feel that it made it all the more easier to distinguish the girls with substance, stability, and morals from those floozies who had come for the free alcohol, weed, and maybe a happy ending by the end of the night with one of Tyler's many guy friends. It's not exactly my favorite way to spend an evening.

Yesterday, when Melissa got out of work, we had dinner and then went to see Harry Potter 7.2 in 3D. It was just as amazing as the first time, and we were both crying during the end. I am so thankful for someone as level-headed and fun as Melissa for my sister.

lucky day

Yesterday I went to Boston to hang out with my childhood friend, James. His mother and my mother have been friends since they were in grade school. It was refreshingly great, we had lunch and chatted about everything- and I've never wanted to transfer to a Boston school as badly before. I wish it wasn't so close to my family, but I know that I need them there in case anything were to happen. I already know the city pretty well, and I was initially accepted into Emerson before the Farm. I would love to live there and start over, in a way. Part of me feels tied to the city, wrapped around a streetlamp by the Common, and yet another part of me feels the obligation and necessity to return to Maine, to fight through whatever demons I'm facing instead of running away. And right now, that seems like the best option.

Shut up.

Oh, and if by being "there for me", you mean going behind my back and telling my ex-boyfriend everything I said, then yeah, you were there for me. Also, who is "we"? You were my best friend. You and only you. There was no one else, there is no one else to put the blame on for why I stopped confiding in you. It was you.

I'm sorry that I just want to put the past behind me. I'm sorry that I don't trust you anymore. But, you know what? You never made this easy for me. So I don't give a shit about your whining that we don't talk enough. I don't give a shit about how much I'm hurting you, because you have no idea how much you hurt me.

Pessimists

I'm sorry for trying to destroy you. You don't deserve it. More than anything, you are my ragdoll that I beat up on, and you silently absorb all of it, take the abuse and the hurt. You have no idea that you are being hurt right now, but you will. I can't do this with you. I can't breathe anymore, I felt so much freer when you weren't laying on my guilty conscience. So, I'm sorry. You don't deserve any of the hurt I'm about to give you. But you just don't feel like you're mine.

Jess texted me and asked me to update her on my life. As if I am going to tell her anything. I'm sure that Kaylie has told her about me and my uncontrollable mouth, my inability to think before I speak and to form correct sentences that actually convey what I want to say. Those are mistakes, regrets, things that I would take back if I could. So are the things I told Jess, which she told to Allison, which she told to him. Feeding the fire and feuling a completely unneccessary blow up. And to be honest, I wish her the best in life, but I lost my friend when that fight errupted. I can't trust her anymore, I see now that she's not on my side any longer.

nobody said it was easy.

I am waiting as patiently as I can for the coming of the next chapter in my life, featuring a new boy who tells me sweet things and seems at least slightly more stable than you. I am reminded again and again of you, of everything we did, of the things you said to me, the way we felt when we were alone. The few pieces of happy memories that I was able to salvage in the fire of our breakup, they will stay with me forever. But our life together has burned down, I need to build a new one, with someone else this time. I think I found that someone else, for now.

So, although you continue to haunt my life, this is me, picking up the pieces and carrying on. Because you can't hurt me anymore. Because I found someone new to tell me I'm pretty and to hold my hand when I'm crying. I found someone new to care about me.

And so now I turn to you, fairweather friend, who went behind my back and said things I had told you in confidence, brought them straight to the enemy. Text me and facebook poke me and like my statuses and reblog my tumblr posts all you want, but that isn't going to undo any of the trauma you led me straight into, that isn't going to take any of the words back that you told him. You don't deserve a place in my life if that is how you believe you should treat me. I have always been there for you, through absolutely everything. Yes, my fight has been long and tiresome and difficult, but you clearly can't sympathize with me or be there for me if this is how you want to play. Game fucking on.

Former Self

The clock on my dashboard is 10: 31 PM and I'm pulling into my parking spot, and grabbing my shoes that got drenched when I stepped in a puddle climbing into Katie's car. The wet pavement and the scattered debris of nature remind me of walking with you around your cousin's street, while my heart beats too fast and my body feels too warm and I feel claustrophobic in your huge room, away from everyone else. I still hear all our laughter ringing in our ears, see all of our friends crammed into Katie's tiny car as we make prank calls, feel the cold and then the warmth and then the pain. This is the earliest I've been home in recent memory, the longest I haven't seen you. But then I turn on my phone and I get a text message from you, sent at 10:05 PM, simply saying, "Wish you were here."

This is what having the world at your feet feels like.

I wish that everything would slow down. May is flying by and my Senior Prom is on Thursday. To be honest, I am terrified of what comes after this.

Pinups

We were having a private conversation, until you decided to eavesdrop and then loudly offer suggestions that were completely inappropriate. You are completely inappropriate. And it was one of those times when you can't think of any witty, sly, or biting remark to come back with until you're driving home and fuming about the situation while the world outside cries with sympathy. And it was just that: You are completely inappropriate, because I know that would have gotten to you, because I still know you, because you haven't changed in the three years since we've last talked. And I can tell, just in the way others talk about you, just in the way you delivered that last, grotesque comment. You haven't changed a bit.

Sometimes, I kick myself for ever having such a romanticized view of you that I let it blind me. No matter how many times you attempt to get to me, either to crack a smile, or to make me explode, I will never be ready to talk to you.

torus

The strings of my life are coming undone, the glue that holds me together is drying up and losing its hold. I want things to be okay, I really do- but everything is catching up with all of us, and we are losing control of the situation and handling them in ways we should not. Stress is affecting everyone, and I hate that you don't try. There aren't many things that are stable anymore, and I wish you were one of those things.

Le Tour d'Eiffel

You brought with you offerings of Parisian life: a special painting of the Eiffel Tower, and an array of burned CDs filled with French music. I appreciated the thought, and fell in love with your thoughtfulness and effort that went into the painting. But on this occasion, when I pulled off my sweatshirt revealing a lovely blue, flowered tank top, your utterance of, "That is such a weird shirt" brought me spiralling back down towards earth, reminding me that some things just never change.

While having a long conversation about boys last night, my friends seem to believe that there isn't a chance for them if a boy likes me. Even though I don't return those feelings, hahaha. Also, although I really wanted to, I couldn't bring myself to talk to them about how I feel about a boy or two. The only person I've ever felt comfortable sharing that type of thing with is Erica, and that is most likely because she doesn't either know or see these boys everyday. Also, one or two of my friends have had feelings towards Kyle, to which I really want to scream, "He's the farthest thing from a great guy! He toyed with my emotions and then essentially broke my heart and put me in a depression for months! You deserve so much more than that!" But again, I can't bring myself to speak up. They know him, they have classes with him, they make jokes with him in the hallway. And I feel like there's nothing I can do but watch.

I can't talk about my feelings, I suppose, because that would make them real. I would rather discuss and analyze someone else's problems than deal with my own.

Two AM

Yesterday, Devon and I had a really deep conversation about time, hahah. We just can't believe how fast the months go by, while still feeling that the weeks drag on. We were sitting on the rocks at the beach, hiding our skin from the cold wind, and wishing that we were there instead on a warm summer day, wearing bathing suits instead of winter coats. Just thinking about cap ou pas cap?, all our beach days, camping, tagging Ryan's car- it all feels like it happened yesterday, when in reality it's been six months. I want it all back, the warmth, the sun, the loud music and all of the laughter. I want us all to be singing along to our favorite songs with the windows down, our sunglasses on, chocolate milkshakes and sodas, on our way to the beach. Summers in the past have all been when I was happiest, when I was free and in the sun and I was constantly moving, constantly travelling. I know it sounds hypocritical because I always complain about going anywhere, but I always want to be on the move, and being stuck here in the winter really sucks.

I really need to stop complaining about this, but I have had such a terrible case of S.A.D. the past few weeks, it's unbelievable.

The slightest things set me off and cause me to be in a bad mood for the rest of the day. I'm antsy for break, I want to have a week that is all mine and spend it however I want, filled with adventures to new places and long car rides and loud music. I want to have as close to a substitute of summer as I possibly can.

I can't wait for my birthday. I can't wait to have my tattoo, and I don't really care if no one supports my decision. I can't wait to party in Boston with my best friends and feel truly alive for the first time in a long while.

Arch

I dropped the biggest hint about prom to Ryan yesterday and I didn't even mean to. haha I was just being my normal, panicky self when Ciara started talking about prom and I was like, "Let's not talk about it." And Ryan suddenly perked up and was like, "Why?" So Devon and I took turns explaining that it's unnecessary for people to be talking about prom so early in the season, and that I especially didn't want to talk about it because I have to find a boy date and not just Devon, because my mom wants me to. Vikki backed me up even further, saying that her mom said she wouldn't pay for her dress if she didn't go with a boy. I don't think many people believe my story because my mom doesn't seem like that, but Vikki backing it up helped. My mom has been trying to set me up with senior prom dates since the summer before freshman year, it is that big of a deal to her.

Hopefully, the message gets across that yes, he should ask me. I don't want to take advantage of him like that because I don't have any feelings for him but he's my closest straight, single, male friend and I don't have very many options, okay? I hate prom so much.