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Also: I really will do a whole post soon. There is so much thoughts in my head wanting to get out.

This Is Fiction

And there we sat, the two of us, each simultaneously pushing and pulling so it was like a strange tug of war where no one won and no one lost and it never ended.

“So what happens next?” I asked.

He looked out the window, at the planes coming in and the planes taking off. He shrugged. He didn’t know what to say and neither did I.

We didn’t know what came next, but after a few moments he said, “We continue.”

“Meaning…”

“Meaning we continue. We go on. We just… breathe. And live. And face whatever it is that’s coming.”

I sighed. It didn’t seem like much of a plan, to just go on blindly. But what else was there? 

“It’s just,” he said, “there’s tomorrow and then tomorrow after that and a hundred more tomorrows. And we won’t know any of them until we get there.”

“True,” I said.

But we didn’t get up yet. We kept sitting there, looking out the airport window. Thinking our seperate-but-the-same thoughts, preparing to get on with our individual lives.

And eventually, when the gate was empty, I turned to him and said, “So this is it then?”

And he said, “I think so.”

And I wanted to cry but I didn’t; I could cry later, and not just for him, but for that whole part of my life that I had to leave. So instead of crying I said something I can’t now remember, and he said something I can’t now remember, and we turned away.

I got in my car. I drove off, off to whatever came next. And he did the same.

And looking back at that place where our lives converged, I both miss it and I don’t. I miss him and I miss the time, that point in my life. But I know staying, being there now, never was an option. I had to grow. I had to become. Life had to happen, and even though I wanted it to happen there, with our strange friendship always intact, it didn’t.

Sometimes you have to let go in order to let Life Happen. Even when you don’t want to.

The Stories of Us

I would like to tell the story of him, of this boy I used to know, but I’m not sure how. I’m not sure what the point of the story would be. I know he mattered to me, I know he came into my life and made an impact, but I can’t put my finger on how. It was eighth grade. He was a boy who was nearly all of my classes, who, I begrudgingly admit years later, was smarter than I. Or me. Or however that word is supposed to go.

And I want to write the story of him and so many others, people who have came into my life and left something, an impact, a mark, on me and my life. People who mattered, people who still, regardless of whether or not they are a part of my life, matter.

The girl who made me realize sometimes what we want to change about ourselves is exactly what others envy.

The friend I barely knew who recognized, somehow, something at the core of me long before I did.

The boy who inspired me.

The boy who befriended me, then broke me.

The friend-boy-annoyance who made me realize how different two lives and two people can be – how different our realities can be.

The boy who summed up what loving and accepting someone is in one sentence and without even meaning to.

And so many others. So many stories, so many moments in time, so many people who don’t realize what an impact they’ve made, how they’ve helped me grow to be who I am now.

Answer. Please.

Question: In what situation is it okay to tell your friend something that is painful to tell and painful to hear, but true?

Answer: (this is where you come in)

Invisible Families

I see reflections of myself in family members, all of them. My granma’s anxiousness, her worrying tendencies that I wish I could erase – from both of us. My mom’s obvious love of children, the way her face – and mine – melts into a happy gooey smile whenever a baby is near. My dad’s need to work out his problems on his own, his want to fix things for others. My grandpa’s quiet, the way he can happily spend a day in his chair with a pile of books beside him.

I see all these things and I recognize them in myself, recognize the huge role they play in who I am. How each bit of my personality is traced back, is seen in another person.

And I wonder what it will be like for my children. The ones who won’t have that, who will not be able to catch glimpses of themselves in me, my husband, and our families. The lifeblood connecting me to my family is huge and apparent and without it I would be lost.

Will my children be lost without it?

I have always known I wanted children and always known I would adopt them. And though I am still years away from it I have been thinking it for years; wondering, what will their lives be like? How will it be different for them, for me, than it is for me and my parents? 

Because I know where I come from. I know the craziness, the insanity, the wonderful strangeness. I know the tendencies, the traits, the engrained personality quirks. My children will know it too, but it won’t be the same. They will know my craziness, my insanity. They will know of the family they are chosen into, but not the one they came from.

But there is another side of the family I come from too. My mom’s side. And, strangely, I do not see any of myself in them. In my mother, yes. In her family, not so much. Maybe this is because I have not grown up with them, have never spent a summer full of days talking with my Memere or joking with my uncles and aunts traipsing in and out. Even Michelle, who I know inside out, does not bear much resemblance to me. Our personalities, our senses of humor, our looks are entirely different.

And that unsimilar half? It doesn’t bother me, not in the least. But I wonder… if it weren’t unsimilar, but just MISSING, would it bother me? Would I long to know about the family I don’t have? Would I miss it? Would I imagine it?

I can’t say. I honestly can’t.

But I can say that if I were adopted – if these parents weren’t the ones I came from, I would want to know. I would want to know about my mom, and why she didn’t keep me. About my dad, who he was. I can’t imagine better parents and I’m sure if I were adopted that wouldn’t change, but I would want to know my past. I would want to know what happened, where I came from. A part of me would feel missing if I didn’t know.

And it’s really strange to think about.

 

Note: Yes, I know I am eighteen. And maybe most eighteen year olds don’t think of these things so much; I wouldn’t know, I’m not most. But I do think of them. And so I write them.

Different Life

I was eleven the first time it happened, the first time I felt like I wanted to run out of my life and into another one. I was sitting in a room in a childrens’ hospital in Phoenix, a room with Dr. Suess characters painted on the walls. I was there and my parents were there and my doctor was there, telling us how bad the curve in my spine was.

Talking about options. Talking about surgery. And this, on top of the other surgery I needed to have done – the Fontan – was too much to take. It didn’t seem fair that this was ahead of me. It didn’t seem fair to have my parents sitting there, holding hands, talking to the doctor, looking scared.

Parents aren’t supposed to be scared, not when you’re eleven. They’re supposed to be superheroes, able to save the day in a single bound. They’re supposed to be fearless, brave, have all the answers. They shouldn’t look like they’re about to fall apart like mine did.

And that was it: I wanted to run. I had a visual of me running down the hall in my paper gown, running right into another life, one where these problems weren’t problems that belonged to me. But I couldn’t do that, of course. It was impossible. I couldn’t even run to the end of the hall and cry – I wouldn’t make it that far. So instead I sat there and listened, wiped my nose and eyes with a Kleenex, and when the appointment was over put one foot in front of the other and had to face what came next. Without running away.

Now things are different, but I still get that feeling sometimes. Except instead of wearing a paper gown, it’s jeans and a t-shirt and I’m in my car and I just decide to miss my exit and keep going and somehow I end up in the right place.

Or maybe I don’t end up in the right place. But I end up in a different place. A place where I can start over, because three years into this place and I’ve yet to make a life for myself. Somehow everything I have that should add up to one full life just adds up to pieces of one and maybe if I got some superglue I could make it look halfway normal, but it would never be RIGHT. It would always be a little bit off, because in this place I am a little bit off.

I feel stifled. Like if I stay too long I will get trapped, will be like a fish in a bowl and unable to get out. I’ll stop being able to move around and breathe and before long I will turn into nothing, just an empty shell where a girl used to go. I feel like I am being, daily, pushed away from something, something I am or was or something I need to know, need to be close to. It scares me that someday, if enough days pass, I might be pushed far enough away that I forget the need to push back and I just surrender.

It scares me that I might forget to leave.

Solitary Island

My granma, amazing lady that she is, sent me the graduation announcement that was in the paper for the class of 2008. The one with everyone’s photos. She sent it in a manilla envelope, an envelope I had been looking forward to getting.

A few days ago I threw it away, unopened.

I don’t need to look at it. I don’t need to see the smiles on their oddly familiar yet faraway faces. The names of people who have impacted me so much, ones I remember so clearly but who, I’m sure, have long forgotten me. It shouldn’t hurt anymore, but it does. I thought the ache would go away after graduation – the one I was supposed to be a part of. It hasn’t. Instead it sits in waiting for the moment I am vulnerable, and pounces, making me miss things I was never a part of and people I haven’t seen in years.

I must not be normal, right?

When I talked to my dad months ago, told him I was sad about all the graduation hulaballoo, he told me not to be. He told me it was stupid, superficial, that I am so far ahead of those kids what with a whole year of college done already. And I get that, honest I do.

But I MISS it.

I miss having friends, people to hang out with, joke around with. I miss being a part of a group, being a recognizable face. I miss sitting down with a group of people who get my jokes, who understand bits and pieces of me. And this missing piece, this aching feeling, it pulls at me. Tugging. I can now count on one hand – two fingers, actually – the number of friends I have around here. One of them is my sister and the other one is intermittently close then faraway, both literally and figuratively speaking.

I still think about the move quite a lot. I ask myself this question, this question I know doesn’t matter: if I could do it all over again, if I had the choice, would I?

And I don’t know. I can see what my parents see of course, how much I’ve grown since we got here. How my writing has exploded, how I’ve pushed ahead in school, how I would have had to leave all my friends eventually anyway.

But I also see something else. I see all the weekends I spend working and never missing out on any other plans I had because there NEVER ARE ANY OTHER PLANS. I see days spent at the mall-plaza place – alone. And my call list full of my parents’ and sister’s numbers.

I see a girl who likes to be alone, but not this much. A girl who is always, always alone. Who has given up on reaching out to others because she is constantly shot down. It’s always “I’m busy,” or “Sorry I’ve already got plans,” or “Yeah, we should totally hang out sometime,” but then we never do.

For the most part I am happy. School, writing, etc etc. I like how my life is going. But I can’t deny what’s missing: I’m lonely. Friends you can only communicate with because you’re lucky enough to have email and texting can’t fill the space of a few actual, hanging-out-together friends.

And the worst part is that I’ve tried. And tried again. And I keep thinking there must be something wrong with me that this space in my life is still empty. But I don’t know what it is and I’m sick of trying to figure it out. 

It gets difficult to believe that it’s not my fault, that it’s the place not the girl. But I know it’s true: it has to be. I can’t be this horrible, can I? The sort of person who makes others run at the thought of being friends with her. This place must be messed up because I refuse to believe – to really, truly believe – that I haven’t put in enough effort or been nice enough or reached out enough.

This, more than anything, is why the college years looming ahead of me scare me. Five to seven more years of this loneliness, this friendless state, makes me want to run right now. I don’t know how I made it through three years and I don’t know how I’ll make it through so many more.

Checking Them Off

Hello friendlies!

If you remember, I made a list of goals at the start of summer. And now that summer is rapidly drawing to a close and classes are starting the 26th for me, I think it’s a good idea to evaluate which goals were accomplished. And which were not.

1. Get a new job.
   Accomplished. I’ve been working there for about two months now and it’s not the World’s Greatest Job, but it’s good enough and I really like most of the people I work with. So that’s a bonus.
2. Buy MacBook.
   I still owe my dad about, um, $500-ish dollars for it but I have it now and I’m typing on it. So woot!
3. Go to a concert.
   This did not happen. I considered going to a Boys Like Girls concert with some people, but that didn’t actually happen. So eh, I guess sooner or later I’ll see one. But I’m not really too concerned with it.
4. See Bradison and Madley if at all possible.
   It turned out to not be possible. But we talk on the phone sometimes. BB told me he’s riding his bike to school (EIGHT MILES!!!) every day and that he sets his alarm for 4:30 to get up. Mads is working, sort of, but not really during the school year (I don’t think). They amaze me. And I miss them.
5. Have at least 20,000 words to my novel by the end of the summer.
   Well. I quit the novel I was working on and began a new one (or rather, a new-old one) and I have 11,041 words to it so far. It’s not as many as I was hoping for, but I’m not too disappointed. It’s going well and that’s what counts.
6. Be a better friend and cousin.
   This isn’t exactly something that’s easy to evaluate, but I think I’ve become a better friend to my one socal buddy (or at least I’ve tried to) and am still working on being a better cousin to Bradis and Madis.
7. Call my granma often, like at least once a week.
   COLASSAL FAIL.
8. Stop waking up so late.
   Um. I don’t know. I’ve kind of ended up waking up when I needed too and not worrying about it too much. But worrying less? That’s kind of a huge accomplishment for me, so booya!
9. Work on getting an agent for Dusty Red Shoes.
   Yes. I mean, I don’t actually HAVE an agent yet, but I’m working on it.
10. Try to get into freelance writing.
    Wow this SO didn’t happen. 
11. Make it to the meetings.
    I’m doing a lot better than I was. Still not making all of them, but getting steadily better. I feel as if I am getting back on my feet spiritually and it’s definitely a good thing, even if it takes a little while.
12. Find another TV show to get DVDs of.
    Well okay. I have to get the fourth season of The Office when it comes out, but other than that I think I might try to find the Get Smart DVDs. Maybe eBay or something. I know they exist, they just don’t really sell them in stores much.
13. See Get Smart.
    Done! And so so so worth it. Spectacular!
14. Volunteer at the Ronald McDonald House.
    Um. *Fails.* I still really really want to do this, I just didn’t make it happen this summer. It’s still a goal though, for sure. They’ve helped me and my family out so much I feel like I should give back.

So… 8/14. That’s… okay. Not great, but not too awful. And some of the ones I didn’t end up accomplishing ended up not mattering so much in the end, so that’s okay. And others (like seeing Brad and Mads) I wound up having not much control over. But I tried.

Anyway, the school year is starting soon so I’ll hopefully be making another goals list. These things really help I think, even if you don’t do everything you put down to do, it’s at least a way to keep track.

How did you guys do on your summer goals? If you had them I mean.

The Teen Years

The slow-in-coming but finally here third installment in my Years series. This follows years seven through twelve, which follows zero through six.

Year Thirteen.

I am a teenager, but it doesn’t seem the landmark age it is for me like it is for others. I am still a kid. It is seventh grade and though I still have no experience with bras or periods, I don’t actually care. I feel like maybe I should, like maybe the part of me that wants to be grown up as fast as everyone else is missing, but I am concentrating too hard on the day by day for it to matter.

I am alive.

For now, that is all I need.

Year Fourteen.

It is split into two parts: the end of eighth grade and the beginning of ninth. Both are glorious, both are impossible to write about in this small space. They include friends and crushes and realizations and Life Happening and a million little incidents I may write about at length later on.

Year Fifteen.

I am midway between a child and a young adult and the ground is falling away from me. Or I am falling away from the ground. We are moving, me and my family, packing our belongings and leaving Radiator Springs to end up in Southern California. There are sad goodbyes and a sense of bitterness and so many tears I am surprised I don’t run out.

I say goodbye to my grandparents: the grandpa that is quiet always reading, and though he doesn’t know it I can see a tremendous amount of how he is in me, his granddaughter. And the granma who calls me her sidekick, who I have always talked to, who I can’t imagine not being able to run next door to visit. I say goodbye to Brad and Madi, not letting myself cry because we are supposed to be fun and light together to guard from the heaviness. I say goodbye to school friends who fall away and a school friend who will prove a life friend. I say goodbye to a friendship that has long since crumbled and a friend I am just getting to know. I say goodbye to the old haunts, the old smells, the old atmosphere, the old culture.

And I arrive in a place where I know nothing. Where I have no idea who to talk to, what to talk about, even how to talk. I am lost, more lost than I know how to explain. It is a scary year; a different scary than I have experienced before. My school is huge. I feel like the girls around me are speaking a foreign language. My makeup free face becomes a bigger issue in my life than I would have ever imagined possible. I feel life pushing me away at the same time as I am pulling away, and I retreat into the shell that is myself for longer than I’d like to admit.

Year Sixteen.

My first job, because everyone around me seems to have a job and I am doing the homeschool thing now, is at a local burger shop. I am pretty much the only girl and I am around big-personalitied guys which of course makes me retreat even further away. I smell like burgers and fries and depending on where I am standing I’m always either freezing cold or burning up. The food is actually good but the constant smells upset my stomach and on at least one occasion I have to run to the bathroom and puke on my break.

I am there for nine months.

Also, somewhere in this year, a couple of essays are written. Sent in to a lady who is interested in the writing of teenage girls. She wants personal essays, and mine are plenty personal. Awful, I think to myself, but personal.

Without Reason

I wake up this morning, perfectly fine, my long hair everywhere. I put on some jeans and a t-shirt, an orange baseball cap, a hoodie. I get in the car and my mom and I drive Taylor the Lovely to her first day of high school.

Her. First. Day. Of. High School.

My baby sister is a freshman. She is around almost-getting-grown people all day long. She has classes like Study Hall and Humanities.

Ohmygosh she’s a freshman!!

It freaks me out a little. I watch her walk into the school, her just-dyed black hair swinging behind her. I guess she looks like she fits, or at least that’s what my mom says. But there is a part of me that wants to pull her back, that is not ready for her to be a high schooler, in the world of high school. A part of me that sees how little she still is, how big this school, this new world, is.

I think it’s the same part of me that can’t quite believe I have a car, or am starting my second year of college, or am officially, technically, a grown up. It’s the part of me that can’t believe childhood is in the past.

So I watch her walk in the school.

From here, me and my mom finish my school shopping. Three shirts and a pair of white shorts.

We exchange my shoes for a 6 1/2 instead of a 7. I run into Wal-Mart and buy some necessary items. Razors. Deodorant. Kleenex. Hand sanitizer. And then, because something in me feels like it, hair gel and shine spray.

I don’t know why I do this. I don’t use hair products normally, but I still buy them. I think maybe they will be fun and if (when) I get sick of them within the first week, there’s always Mom and Taylor to take them off my hands.

Then we’re home. I’m trying to scrunch my hair up and, while my head is hanging upside down, something in me shifts. I don’t know how or why, but it does. One moment I am messing with the gel and the next moment I’ve suddenly decided to get my hair cut.

And not just cut, but CUT.

And there is no real thought process, nothing that happens that makes me realize I want short hair. I just DO. And two hours later I am sitting in a chair at the salon, showing the hairstylist the cover of Paper Towns.

I want my hair gone, like that. There is no reason, no rationale, and it surprises me but I go ahead. I do it.

She shampoos and cuts and cuts and cuts and the hair is falling to the floor and something is happening. It is a little scary, after all these years of long hair, but it’s exhilarating. It’s exciting. It’s different.

But it’s not until now, until after everything is done and my hair is cut and my sister hates it but my parents like it, that I start trying to form some reasoning for my actions. Because I like to have reasoning. I like to at least act like a logical being. I’m realizing though, that there are lots of reasons it could be and yet, as strange as it seems, I had no reason. I can go back now and come up with reasons, and they might be true and they might not. But the bottom line is that, spontaneously and without thinking, I got my hair – my precious, long, always-a-little-scraggly hair – chopped off.

And I’m really happy about it.

Before

 

After

 

Also: I know it doesn’t look it, but my hair is THE EXACT SAME COLOR in both pictures. This has never changed.

Also: Later in the day I went all punky (because short hair’s like that, and I’m sometimes kinda like that… or at least I wanna be) and spiked it.