"Hold Out For The Ones You Know Will Love You" or "Tear Down The House That I Grew Up In, I'll Never Be The Same Again"

Wait.

What's happening?

I don't know that this feeling is.

It's like blankets in winter, or the first time you use the fireplace, or christmas lights for no reason, or using lamps instead of overhead light so everything gets that warm glow and photographs turn out more personal and deep.

It's a little like feeling full, or being resolved, or maybe even the feeling you get when you've been driving aimlessly and lost for a really long time and you finally recognize your surroundings and you know you're safe.

I feel......

peace.

Time to get a new blog.

<3gen

"Your Love Will Be Safe With Me" or "I Love You For Your Little, Startled, Thoughtless Ways"

I think this is one of those grown-up lessons.

I'm slowly discovering the real depths of how self-involved and self-centered I can be sometimes. I care about other people immensely, and love to make them happy. You guys know this about me, I hope. But I'm not a very good listener, because much of the time I only act as if I'm waiting for my chance to speak. And I'm seeing more. I'm seeing that I very rarely consider the effects of my actions on other people aside from how I will feel about it, or how it will affect me.

I have had no problem seeing multiple people at once, dating a few guys, a few girls, and talking about it honestly (oh honesty, how often you lead me into trouble). But when I am seeing someone and they talk about other people they have feelings for, it makes me feel bad, I feel hurt. I have just been assuming all these years that they couldn't possibly feel the same way. They didn't care about me, since they didn't say it out loud every six seconds, so I can talk about whatever I want and it won't hurt them. How stupid is that?

I need to start really working on my listening skills and how perceptive I am. For so long I've thought I knew people really well, I listened, I was a good friend and always there for people. I'm seeing now that I should be better at it. I have got to start paying attention to other people, really start listening and taking it in and not just considering what's happening in relation to me or when I get the next bit of attention.

And as far as my habits with boys, well, we all know that I've been learning those lessons for years now. But it's always been all about me, right? I was subservient and dependent for so long, that I went headlong into being thoughtless and careless with people and that's not balance, it's just the inverse. What I need is balance. What I need is a way to understand my own feelings and pay attention to what I'm saying and how it would make me feel. And maybe if someone else says the same things I do, I need to remember that.

These seem like easy lessons, obvious even, but if there's anything that I've been wrong about for the longest time, it's love and relationships.

So hey, I'm listening this time. I'll figure this out. I'm gaining strength every day. I'm growing up.

And then I fell for a boy with blue eyes who I've known less than a week.

There is reason in everything.

<3gen

I love you
For your little,startled,thoughtless ways,
For your ponderings,like soft dark birds,
And when you speak ‘tis a sudden sunlight.

I love you
For your wide child eyes,and fluttering hands,
For the little divinities your wrists,
And the beautiful mysteries your fingers.

I love you.
Does the blossom study her day of life?
Is the butterfly vexed with an hour of soul?
I had rather a rose than live forever.

--ee cummings

"We Were Only Freshmen" or "Like A Story Told In The Faultlines of the Soil"

What I've been thinking about the most were those moments when I really thought I couldn't make it.

Nights when I had two projects due in less than 3 hours and I hadn't slept in 46 hours. Those nights when I was running on nothing but espresso, text messages, spellcheck, and cigarettes.

Mornings when the hangover was so bad I was sure it was cancer, brain cancer, a tumor the size of a grapefruit. They were going to have to saw my head open and let my brain expand. Mornings when I woke up much too close to the toilet for my comfort.

Days when I had $35 in my checking account, and the cable bill was $46.50, and I knew I'd wasted my money on lattes, toys, and thrift stores. Days when I had saltines and pickles for dinner.

Nights after breakups, after falling in love, after ruining myself over so many boys because I was just so. in. love. And I was just so. fucked. up.

I used to text Lindsey late at night, "Can we just drop out of college and move to Mexico?" Several times she said "Yes. Be there in 10 minutes."

But here I am at the end of it. Even the most devastating things, even the moments that made me wish I were dead or back home or wishing I were blind so I never had to see the world again, I made it through them all. I'm here, on the other side of the giant tunnel of youth, from preschool to graduation, and I came out of it alive.

It is actually physically jarring how different you are when you start college and when you end it. I am absolutely delighted with the person that I have turned out to be.

I have strength I didn't know I had, friends I never knew existed, power that only God can give. And how I start this new chapter, with a 9-5 job and a regular paycheck. I pay my own bills, I have my own health insurance, I'll do my laundry. This is what it's all been building up to. This is the moment. Right. Now.

Tomorrow I start my full time job. Last night I met a nice boy with soft hands and a sweet smile and I'm comfortable. My sister is about to be a senior in high school. Lindsey and Linn leave for Kenya in less than a week.

My next goal is to read everything Kurt Vonnegut ever wrote.

Let's do this.

<3gen