today:

i'm eating honey nut cheerios from my obama mug (see below) and thinking about a year ago from this week.

also thinking about 12 days from now.

and also thinking about how much the lord has blessed me with good, solid, wonderful people.

distractions

so, i'm still putting off writing that essay. it's almost done, but i always justify writing one sentence with at least 10 minutes of blog stalking and mindless facebooking (because that's all facebook is: mindless).

it's kinda like how i put off going to bed last night, just because my heart hurt and i wanted to keep talking to my red-headed alycia friend.

(here's a secret: redheads are lucky for me.)

then i wanted to pull an all-nighter and make cinnamon rolls with her because it seems so poetic to be heartsick and cooking cinnamon rolls in the middle of the night when you don't want to go to sleep. then logic decided that since i get up at 4:15 in the morning, i should probably go to bed.

so i did.

then different art ideas were swirling in my mind and i almost got out of my bed to sketch.
then i was too warm and decided against it.
then i fell asleep.

there's me on the far left.
becca (my other roommate) in the middle behind me.
and the redhead laughing in the pink?
alycia. who'll kill me for putting up this picture.

'tis the season

it is now the first of december.
maybe i've been reminiscing a little about a year ago. specifically a year ago this saturday.
if you don't know what i'm talking about, it's cool. i won't go into details. maybe one day, but not today.

my portfolio for the art program? in. submitted. now it's out of my hands.

christmas?

oh, how i love it. LOVE it. i'm listening to christmas music as we speak, and it's bringing oh-so-much joy to my heart as i try to write an essay about byzantine and romanesque architecture that is due tomorrow at 4:30. i'll be done. i just don't want to do it.

and this christmas song is singing what i really want to say.

maybe i'm not as done as i thought.

speaking of:

i saw the inspiration for my last post today from a distance.
i was so happy with myself that i may have shouted a little.

and threatened to pull up bushes, because i felt so strong that i could.

refinement

they come and go. some linger for extended amounts of time while others are quick to leave.

there are fading outs like the fade-outs at the end of '80s love ballads.
there are abrupt endings.
and there are moments when they leave that continually haunt for months. and months.

and months.

and when those months threaten to become a year, another kind of abrupt ending comes.
maybe when you're sitting in a ballet showcase, watching the amazing things the human body is capable of. thinking of vulnerability and maybe more than thinking about it.

it's in that moment that the life you've lived these past months and months becomes your past. becomes a different part of you that is still there, but that an even better part of you has been created around. it's in that moment that you realize you have changed.

that you realize you're finally done.
and now you can and will listen to yellow.

dear; a letter.

due to circumstances that transpired yesterday, i feel it's my obligation to inform you i still can't listen to yellow by coldplay. in fact, i haven't listened to it for approximately nine months.

thank you for your time.

And then I sat there with my fingernails freshly painted blue. His pictures were haunting, but in a good way. I remembered why I loved him. And maybe why I still do.

Sunday was surreal.

There I was. The weekend still brimming over with the promise that my life was fulfilling itself more than it ever had before. It was crisp outside. I had cried because I was so in love with life: its struggles, the people, my friends. Supreme Court was telling me a tender story about miracles and prophets when in the crowd of people our eyes met. Briefly. Because if it hadn't been briefly, we would have waved. But because of its subtlety (and maybe because of the tears brimming in my eyes from happiness and the sudden tsunami of nostalgia that came from seeing him) I was a face in the crowd. It's as though he didn't want to disturb my moment. I felt pretty. And I felt like he thought the same thing.

insomnia revisited

couldn't sleep.
i was experiencing one of those in-between sleeps, where you're mentally aware of everything, but you are sleeping. the fan in my room was abnormally loud tonight. then the second you decide to turn over, you wake up again. not pleasant.

i think it's because the sunburn on my neck is mildly unbearable. that and perhaps the nap i took yesterday. but even with naps, i can usually sleep well.

so here i am. on the couch that is easily more comfortable than my bed. i have ice in a pink sock on my neck, held there by a scarf that whit leigh gave me last wednesday. sort of contemplating life, i guess. which is a really long way to disclaim that anything that formulates from my typing fingers may or may not be logical at this early hour.

i'm kind of thinking about the missionary; whether or not i'll hear back from him, and whether or not it will be a positive response. either way, though, it doesn't really matter. i was justified in writing what i wrote to him last time well, two times ago now and i wouldn't take it back.

kind of thinking about muslim, too. his book is on my coffee table. a little more worse for the wear than when he let me borrow it. for whatever reason, he was in my mind a lot yesterday while i was at church. i let myself relive things that i haven't relived in almost exactly seven months.

what's particularly disheartening about thinking about these two individuals is that i really am content with my life right now. i don't feel like i need a man. i'm happy. i don't feel like i'm missing out on life right now by not being married or in a relationship like so many of my friends and acquaintances from high school. i mean, i'm twenty years old. i've got puh-lenty of time. i'm not even really interested in anybody right now, to tell you the honest truth. let's just say that the events that transpired seven months ago have left me a little more worse for the wear than muslim's book. we'll call it even.

yet here i am. thinking about the missionary. and muslim. although he's a little more in the back of my mind, but still there.

thinking about what's going to happen with my life not exactly with the missionary, just in general.

endlessly. thinking.

man. i just want to sleep.
alas, work is nearing in about 45 minutes.

today

it was five a.m.
or quarter to five a.m., but who cares, right?

i sent a couple hundred text messages into a cosmic void, because that's what it feels like when you erase messages. where do they go?

it wasn't a centimeter in the right direction. it was a kilometer.
for whatever reason, my heart only measures in metric.

glad they don't come true

you know those dreams where you wake up and you're glad it's just a dream?

i had one of those last night.
about something that happened months ago.
apparently the scars are a little open still.







although i am moving on. a centimeter at a time.

in which we decide

we need to let go.

the sting was muted.

"i spoke to you in cautious tones.
you answered me with no pretense.
and still i feel i said too much.

my silence is my self-defense.

[and it was my self-defense.
in that silence, please have heard something.]

and every time i've held a rose,
it seems i only felt the thorns.
and so it goes, and so it goes,
and so will you soon, i suppose.

[you did.]

but if my silence made you leave
then that would be my worst mistake
so i will share this room with you
and you can have this heart to break."

[and you did.]

rough mandarin minus the characters

knee sure woda pung yo.