weeping may endure

There is a reason why I sleep with my lamp on. The light is necessary to ward off suffocation. The dark, at times, becomes oppressive, and pain threatens to stop my breath. A light, like a beacon for help, calms me and makes me feel like I am not alone. I use a night light when I am lonely. Of the past eight days I have slept in a lighted room for four. The remaining time I spent away, and the days so revived my heart that I didn't need a lamp. I'll write more on that later. For now, I need to discuss pain.

Last Tuesday night I saw, for the first time, my father cry. He discovered that my mother is living with Bob. He asked me. Yes, I told him. It's true. He handed me my Christmas present--which, incidentally, is what my mom gave him. Fitting, I suppose, as she gave her present from him to Joyce--and started weeping. Then he drove off. Unable to breathe, I walked up the stairs and hid in the shadows. I couldn't go back inside, because only Julie was waiting there. Luckily, I had my cell phone. I tried to call Emilie, but she was on the road. I tried to call Ted, but no one answered. I fell back against the brick and slid to the floor, concentrating on stilling my sobs. The subsequent high-jinks of the night chased away the threat of breaking, but still I slept with the lamp on for the second time in a row.

Sunday night, Christmas, I cannot explain the reason. I think I left the lamp on in protest against the day ending. In all reality the time had been perfect, if also tiring. Perhaps I fell asleep before I could turn the light off.

But Monday was fraught with disappointment. I do not deal well with disappointment. That is something profound to learn about me. I am gracious when let down, but I will not forget the lesson. Two years ago I learned not to spend Christmas Day with anyone who does not love the holiday. Now I will add to it. I will not celebrate Christmas on any day with someone who does not love the holiday.

Also on that day I got to hear the poisonous remarks by both parents regarding the other. They now hate each other. Their war is a competition to see who can be the most indifferent. A cold war, as someone remarked. Mom called while I was playing a game with my brother and dad. I answered it with my dad's commentary in the background. Tell her how much fun I'm having. If only that had been the worst remark of the night. You have to find me a wife, Audrey. It's up to you. No, I protested. That is not my job. Find yourself your own damn wife. I'm only kidding, of course. I just should have done better the first time. I wanted to cry, that's my mother you speak of so derisively. Did he make it better with his retraction, if I hadn't married her, I wouldn't have you? No. I hated him for wanting to erase those twenty-seven years, for wishing my life, my family away.

I half-heartedly opened up to Ted about it when we went to Walmart. But, midnight was approaching and I didn't want to be burdensome and demanding, so I fought against the battering ram at my heart. When he lay on my sofa looking at me, I knew that if he didn't talk I would break, and breaking wasn't an option at 11:50 pm. So we spoke trivially, and he left.

And when I checked my email to find a distraction from my emotions, I found something. And it was certainly distracting. Kevin has a girl friend. My organs, previously melted in anguish, instantly solidified into molten lead. Kevin is not supposed to have a girl friend. He's not supposed to get over me. I'm not supposed to mean that little to him. I know, cognitively, that it's right he move on, that he moved on eight months ago; but I rather wished to go on believing that I mean something to him. I did not respond to the email, and instead meandered to bed.

The lamp remained on, this time on more active duty than guard. Nuora, light-giver, in full battle array. The war I fought was to keep the sobs from breaking my throat, and to keep myself from crawling into bed with Cassidy for comfort. Every time my chin started the tell-tale shaking, and my eyes stung with tears, I forced a breath into my lungs. I shivered with the exertion, using compulsion to bring relaxation. I fell asleep two hours after crawling into bed. I learned a lot about myself in that time. I learned that I can take a lot of pain and internalize it, neutralizing it slowly until it loses its toxicity.

I learned something else too.

I learned that despite the pain of the night prior, the morning is healing. That is how I know I am not depressed. I am just sad, and the hurt that comes from very definite events ambushes me in the dark alley-way of bed-time; but in daylight the shadows hold no threats, and I can continue on with my life in my usual happy manner. I can even reply to the email and tease with ridiculous follow-up questions that, come night, I will not want to know the answers to.

Pain came again tonight, but not for me. I had to observe and attempt to share. My protests against accepting a broken heart were met with the cynicism of self-preservation. Life is pain, highness; anyone who says differently is selling something. Or the less popular, because never said before tonight, life hurts, but it's good to have a dose of reality every once in a while. There will always be pain, wounds I wish I could understand, bear or heal. This evening proved that. Tonight, I know I will sleep with the light on, but it will be with the hope that my lamp could cast its rays to a distant room. Sleep well.

Weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning.

dreaming

I had nightmares again last night. I woke up smiling, snuggling deep under my covers and squeezing Raphael with fondness. You know those dreams where you suddenly realize at the end of a semester that you've been enrolled in a class that you've never been to, and now you have to take the final? I hate those dreams. But last night's was just a little different: I was on stage. For most people that would make the situation worse. Not for me. I had the lead role, and the day before the performance I remembered that I hadn't been to a single rehearsal. Everyone knew what they were doing, while I read off of someone's torn apart script. Annoying disasters occurred, and I kept appearing places I didn't want to be and having to get back to the stage. Yet, despite it all, I woke up with the thrill I always feel just before a performance.

Oh, how I miss theater.

I've been talking nonstop about the stage ever since Ted and I discovered it in the JFSB. There is a small theater there that he and I explored in the dark on Sunday. He found a piano and immediately started playing. I stood in the middle of the stage, automatically putting back my shoulders and raising my head. Lovingly I stroked the curtains as I ambled around the stage, playing imagination games with myself in my mind. I sighed as we reentered the lighted world of Real.

It's been five years since I quit drama. My one relapse was my senior year in high school when I wrote, directed and acted in the ward roadshow. The night Ted and I talked about good advice not taken I brought up how Nora, sage that she is, told me to stick it out in drama no matter how terrible the high school theater teachers became. I didn't listen. At the time I blamed it on a new teacher who treated me like the underclassmen that I was. Now I know that I couldn't have been happy acting during those years no matter who directed me. That was the time when I shut off my emotions, finding daily life a bit too difficult to feel deeply. And, to be Great on stage, one has to feel deeply. I quit because suddenly I found the emotional vulnerability a bit too much like standing naked before a panel of judges.

Now, however, I think I would jump on the stage and pirouette before them, letting the world see all the things I fear about life, just for the chance to enter that world again; the chance to experience opening night, to see the eyes watching me and then feeling them disappear as I become the part I play; the chance to feel the rush and jolt of being part of a world I create for the audience, as they and I fuse into one entity; the chance to bond with fellow actors as I explore the script and all the possibilities it holds. For that, I would give a lot.

the morning after

This morning I reread the blog I composed last night, and I shake my head to myself. You stayed up late to write that? It is mostly the last paragraph that annoys me. She sits there at the end of my thoughtful, albeit rambling, prose laughing at me. I cannot delete the stupid reference to a poor rendition of A Christmas Carol. The fact that it is there says a lot about me. It says that I will mock my own emotions, especially pain. It says that if I try to do anything great, even by way of a personal thesis, I will trip myself up, because I am too afraid that if I take myself seriously, no one else will. So I laugh first.

But I was in pain last night. Sometimes, when things hurt, it is easy to feel through them. It is a clean pain from an overt wound. Sometimes, the pain is better denied. Sometimes when it is too hard to feel one kind of hurt, feeling another makes it better. I understand why people inflict physical wounds on themselves. I did not do that. Instead, I systematically and unemotionally demolished my heart. A sledgehammer in one hand, a pickaxe in another, I swung left then right without passion or prejudice at the deep places where I feel pain. Mostly, to me, that last paragraph says the things I didn't say, can't say--not on this blog at any rate--about the topic I brought up. I know, now you're all curious. Ask, and I'll probably tell you.

At any rate, I cried myself to sleep, but not until nearly two in the morning. I couldn't bring myself to call anyone, and I prayed only for a minute before I shook my head at my own ridiculousness and crawled into bed. I didn't want to burden anyone with an abstract pain. I slept with the light on. The glow protected my dreams, like a sentinel, like a guardian angel perched on my dresser, cramped but unable to move for all the clutter he would knock to the floor. He was rather unshaven, his trench coat was wrinkled, and his overly-large wings bent at odd angles as they tried to make themselves unobtrusive. I felt glad of his presence, but this morning he was gone. Likely he had a Christmas to save, like Gideon or Clarence.

This morning it was righteous anger that got me up and out of the house. It was also righteous anger that got me back home within the hour. So, now that I don't have a job, I'm feeling great. I think I'll go back to sleep.

perfect love and all the rest

Everyone needs a Reason and a Way.

There is One Reason, and He has given us a Way. I am the light and the life of the world. Life. The Reason to work, to endure, to try and succeed. He opened to our imaginations a veritable cornucopia of rewards. He told us the Plan, the Reward, and how we were going to get there. He is the Way. Light. We follow where he leads, and where he leads is to life. We cannot blaze our own path, we cannot make it alone. But with him all things are possible.
He is the Light and the Life.

He is life. Life mirrors him, copies his perfection in minute replicas all over the universe. C. S. Lewis said that, "miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see." Seasons change; spring eradicates winter. Dawn burns away night. A birth and death of all things, in a simple and perfect design, His design.

Art imitates life, just as life imitates its creator. The archetypes of the hero, the protector, the king, all point to him. We knew in LOTR that Gandalf couldn't really be dead, because he died for his friends, and we all know how the story progresses from there. Same with Aslan. Believe me, dad, you don't have to read the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to know the story. You've heard it every day of your life. And I don't mean since you were born. Even Ayn Rand, vociferous atheist, wrote her greatest novel about a perfect man who redeems those who have been abused by evil -eventually suffering phyiscal torture. He saves them from their own follies after they worked for those who enslaved them by sanctioning the evil that destroys them. Oh, Ayn, I shake my head at your determined denial of truth.

But I get off topic.

Where I mean to go with this is here: We search so desperately-albeit unconsciously- for anything in this life that will remind us of The Life. Is it surprising, therefore, that when we fall in love, the emotion mirrors the Greatest Love? We seek a Reason and a Way.

We want to be inspired. All of us earnestly seek someone who will give us a reason to rise above whatever in our life is bringing us down, ourselves most importantly. Not someone to say to us, you're okay as you are, but someone to say, I know that you have it in you to be amazing. For that person, you want to be amazing. You are willing to work to possess her (him, in my case, but its much more romantic the other way). She is worth every effort, every pain, to hold for one moment that glowing white fruit of perfection. She is the Reason. So gearing ourselves up for the enormous challenge, we suddenly find that she is also the Way. How being our best possible selves is suddenly so easy and freeing...why it's all a tribute to her. The inspiration that gives us the desire also unconsciously gives us the ability. That is the romantic love that all artists, philosophers, housewives and schoolboys aspire to. You've heard the song. You know which one I mean.

Isn't it amazing! The very act of falling in love is a testimony of our belief in a greater good. To love someone with one's whole soul is a sacred gift to the Father and the Son, an acceptance of their gift.

The reason I thought of this is not because of the conversation I had with Ted tonight, though my sentiments mirror his in many respects. I came upon this idea while watching a drama on TNT. Wanted. Now, ask me, how did a television show about police guys who hunt down wanted criminals make you think about the sanctity of romantic love? Because the criminal had Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I wish I could relate the entire show to you. It inspired me. But the relevant part has been related in full. The mad bomber was a PTSD victim of Desert Storm. It made me think of Dad.

Sometimes I think my dad is so weak, unable to do the simplest things for himself, unable to be a grownup in many ways. I feel burdened, thinking that it is my duty to take care of him. And yet, he has never starved, nor frozen to death. He is perfectly able to take care of himself. So why do I feel that he is not alive? My father is not happy. He chooses to live in the past, in the years he was surrounded by war, death, hatred and pain, rather than to live in the present. Why would anyone choose such a life? Why does he not let himself be happy? It's a simple choice. One that I've tried to make for him, so many times. But I cannot make my father happy. I do not think that even he has that ability anymore. But he used to.

PTSD is a catchword in our family, among we children anyway. A hiss and a byword. Like the phrase, "so damned depressed", it has ceased to mean anything important or real. I forget sometimes that people who have it are legitimately sick, and I use the word sick in its worst connotation. These bastards are sick! And, yeah, sometimes Dad veers that way, but for the most part, even he doesn't think of his mental unhealth as relevant. Dad is skitzophrenic. My dad is insane. And yet, it's not a big deal to us. Why? Because he has always been insane, since before we were born, but it never got in the way before. It was always there, unnamed, but he never let it bother him. My dad, my weak dad, never let his wife of twenty-seven years know that he saw his dead friends from Vietnam. How did he find that strength? Because of her.

I learned the meaning of the word romance from watching my father. Because of him, I can never marry a man who does not treat me like a princess. My mother once lectured him for the money he spent buying her flowers, as flowers die. So, whenever my father got the urge to splurge on a bouquet, he instead bought a single silk rose. In her bathroom, my mother had an immortal collection of ILOVEYOUs and JUSTBECAUSEs arrayed in all colors imaginable. Incidentally, I learned the meaning of disappointed from my mother.

In my mom, my dad found all the inspiration he could ever want for life. His wild past that we joke about with him did not influence our lives negatively, because the man we met was gentle-even when he yelled- protective and living a life within the lines. I'm not counting the Pepsi he drank behind mom's back. She was his Reason for fighting all the demons and dark things that lived in his mind. And she was his Way to do it. Heaven knows they did not have a perfect marriage even at the best of times. They probably ought never to have been married, but I may not ever meet a man who still means it for All Eternity when Time has turned her back on him.

Maybe that is why my dad could not believe in God anymore, and why the Son became fiction in his mind. Dad could not believe in Reason and Way. He had lost love. My parents' marriage really hit the rocks at the same time they left the church. The cause and effect is one eternal return. But I do know that my dad's mental weaknesses caught up to him when he gave up on her. That is why he chooses to live in the war; because to live in a life that doesn't have her is traumatic.

I wish I could do something more than observe it.

For my sanity, I must end on a note of inspiration. Perhaps I may speculate on my future prospects of romantic love. I may bear testimony of the Great Love. Girlishly, I may hope to be the Reason and Way for someone some day. But all of a sudden, I am afraid of messing up those sentiments and paths. So I will end, with a Tiny Tim thought for all: May you find love in your lives that make you a better person every day. May you find a Reason and Way, and the Light and the Life.

God bless us every one. (<--must use very bad cockney accent)

confidence

I do not like an audience. Sincerity becomes diffused between many participants in a conversation. Ted tried asking me about something today and, despite a desire to confide on my part, I did not answer. Not well, anyway. The reason is that Tarythe was present. It is not that I would not have told those things to her, but that I could not do it with more than one person at a time. The same is true if I play the role of a listener. I don't feel a connection to the speaker because I am trying to connect to the other listeners as well. My attention falters. At least, I feel that the speaker thinks my attention falters. Any conversation I hold with other people present feels like role-playing, a performance with the energy and wit and timing of a script. It doesn't seem real to me. I cannot make eye-contact. I am honest in word but not in spirit. Any other arrangement besides one-on-one just doesn't cut it for me when I want confidence.

Yet, when I lack confidence, a group of supporting friends helps to heighten my courage. Meeting new people, for instance, is a task I daren't undertake alone. When I am in a group of people who I know love me despite my follies, then I feel empowered to win over a new friend. It is at those times that I truly believe-a different thing than knowing-that I am a person anyone would like for a friend. So both settings are imperative for me, groups and intimacy. They are good for different reasons: one for the energy and wit and timing that make me feel beautiful and fun; the other for truth and honesty, another way of making me feel beautiful and appreciated.

A note to Ted: When you read this looking for a selfish confidence boost, hear this: I do not think that all you do is ridicule. I am not afraid that you will mock me. I trust you. You are a good friend. No buts about it.

me-mail

I once told Emilie that I learn things about myself through observations not of my emotions but of my actions. Then I find a pattern and trace it back to its cause.

Recently I did this with my obsession toward checking email. I noticed that it is not random chance as to when I sit by the computer clicking refresh on my inbox, nor do I run to the laptop every time I get home. The pattern is this: I check my email when I am exceptionally emotional. I may be very happy, sad, lonely, giddy, romantic, proud, or any number of other emotions. I check my email because when I feel anything that strongly I know in some deep place in my mind that someone somewhere has to be reaching out yearning to be a part of that sense. It is a faith I cling to despite evidence to the contrary.

It is faith that who I am in my most raw form must appeal to someone, and that I need to share it with that person. I am glad to discover this about myself. Especially after last night. Last night I confided to Emilie that I am afraid that when someone really gets to know me then they will stop loving me. Now I know that my soul is really more optimistic than that. My fear of abandonment or inadequacy, or whatever it is, is really a surmountable barrier. I respond very quickly and easily to encouragement, and discouragement alike. If one is enthusiastic about any aspect of my character, I am inclined to show more. It's progressive. And it is not because I dislike my innermost self, but rather that I so love my innermost self that I would reveal it to none other than those who would also love it.

Is it weird to associate that with checking email? Perhaps there is no logical connection. But the relationship, strange though it may be, is that when I feel truly myself, I get on line to see who out there is ready to celebrate it with me.

opposition in all things

Of course, the day after the perfect week ends, I get a cold. Not just any cold, one of those deep-chest colds where breathing seems an impossible task and you wish the knife in your throat would cut deeper and just get it over with. I had the day off, so I spent it sleeping. I called in sick to work today and again used my time productively, by laying in near coma hour after hour. I find that if I focus on my every breath, I can avoid coughing, and if I stay silent my throat had nothing of which to complain...as long as I don't swallow. So really everything is a-ok. I'm a little hungry and loopy from Dayquil, but besides those effects, I have been enjoying a new Zen-like state. Perhaps I'll reach enlightenment tonight. Or perhaps I'll call in sick again tomorrow.

the perfect week

This past week has been perfect.

First Contact
Emilie asserted all semester that I should be with her friend Danny. You'd love each other, she said. Or hate each other. She has wanted us to meet since she first mentioned him to me in September. Caitie agreed. Wednesday he came over for the first time. I was on the computer buying movie tickets, and Em came to invite me out to the living room. I grudgingly, though half-excitedly, exited my room. My breath caught in my chest.
Hi, nice to meet you.
Nice to be met.
Mmm, not bad. Okay, great. When he left I was glad to know I would see him again Sunday.

Scoring
No, not that way.
I played snow football Wednesday night, delighting in the exertion. I wanted to opt out originally-I was tired, hungry and sore. However, wiley boys convinced me to layer my clothes and gird up my loins. The cold air felt wonderful, and I even shed layers as I ran back and forth across uneven ground. Unfortunately, my quarter back wouldn't throw to girls. Ted was QB of the other team and made Emilie, Caitie and me proud by his admirable sportmanship. Finally the QB did pass to me, and I caught it in the End Zone. Ted claims to have won the game, but I was really the winner. Even when he flattened me in the snow to prove his dominance, I never relinquished my claim.

The exercise chased away all the gloomy, wearisome thoughts that had plagued my brain-the anticipation of homework and finals, the prospect of yet another semester feeling lonely, and any other feel sorry for myself thoughts that elbow their way into my mind when I am tired and hungry. I ran, played, laughed and won, and then returned home with my roommates and Ted for hot chocolate.

Night Time Talking
After hot chocolate, my roommates retired for the night. Ted stuck around, and he and I talked together on the couch in my living room with the lights off and the room illuminated only by a lamp and the Christmas tree in the corner. We only stopped when we realized that it was past curfew. We talked on all sorts of subjects. The one that meant the most was sparked by Alanis Morissette. No, we didn't find any deep and important truths in her music. Rather, a mocking discussion of the song Ironic led us to the question, "what good advice have you not taken?"

We discussed regrets. I regret not giving my all to school. I could have been brilliant. You are, he replied. You just don't apply yourself. He misses his father. I've never pursued the subject, just as I have never pushed Ted for any confidences, but I'll admit curiosity. It's such a big part of who he is, a sadness I see only because of the walls he has around it. I want someday to have the confidence necessary to ask him those kinds of questions; I guess all I lack is the belief that he will answer. I never push when I think it is in the direction of Away. But Wednesday night I didn't feel that possibility existed. I felt so euphoric that homework didn't daunt me at all.

Lectures on Principles
Professor Kearl's last lecture Thursday morning ended in a thunderous applause. No other economics professor in the history of supply and demand has ever been given such a reception. The reason: no professor has ever traded in Adam Smith for Joseph.

My biggest fear, began Kearl, is that you will leave this class and believe what you have learned, that some invisible hand choreographs all your self-interested behavior into a glowing Utopian society. Kearl lectured on charity with all the might of King Benjamin, ending with quotes from D&C, for those who "don't believe in ancient prophets". Be generous of heart, he begged us. Give now, of your time, of your money, and of yourself. If you are stingy when you are poor you will never have enough money to help others. Absorb negative externalities.

The second soapbox on his agenda: take pride in your education. Don't let your major cheat you out of exploring all there is in various subjects. Learn to love to learn. Soak in culture and ideas, so that your leisure time will not be a waste when you are an adult. Find something about which you are passionate-Gothic Cathedrals, Eighteenth century British Literature-and pursue it with zeal.

In short, he ended, learn to better yourselves in all things. See you Monday at the final.

When the clapping started, I grinned. I felt like standing on my chair and yelling, "oh Captain, my Captain!" But fear of plagiarism kept me seated.

Narnia
I wish I had words enough to describe this movie. I am powerless. Just know that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the most perfect movie ever made. Feeling the Spirit at a Hollywood film is a once-in-a-lifetime event. I wept, and I was not the only one, not even among my companions.

I will comment on one thing. When Lucy and Susan follow Aslan up the hill and he asks them to walk with him, the two make a comment that they could not sleep. Did C.S. Lewis rewrite the story as it ought to have been, purposefully altering the behavior of Peter, James and John, who could not stay awake in order that they might watch with their Savior and Friend on that His hardest of nights?

As I said, the movie was beautiful.

After the Wardrobe
Driving home that night, Ted asked why he had been so fortunate as to have been invited with me and Emilie to the movie. The truth was that I had thought of him first, knowing that of all my friends (both of them) that he would love the movie the most. He and I have repeatedly discussed the book, and his enthusiasm has matched mine. In the car, we could hardly contain it as we relived scene after scene, hardly breathing for fear of banishing the aura of the two hours prior.

Finally, Ted turned his head toward me. Audrey, you know I love you, right?

No, actually. Ted had never said that before. In times of great sentiment, sometimes he would say he liked me. He always hugged me tightly, but Ted hugs everyone tightly. Despite all signs I have never known that he liked me, let alone loved me.

Oh. Well I do.

Oh. Ted, my best friend, had once said that he doesn't say those words easily. I have witnessed it before, as he avoided saying it in reply to Elise. My shock made me think of a conversation he and I had before the movie. Some people fight hard against believing that what they want is true. I realized that was the case with me. I had to have it spelled out.

Thank you, I replied. I was truly grateful that he had told me, but more grateful that he felt that way. It is not a romantic love-likely I wouldn't have said thank you to that- but just as necessary. I know he only said it because he was tired and had no control over his words. That, in a way, almost made it better. Eventually, my mind realized that I had said, Thank you, to an offered, I love you, and so I finished with, I love you too, not because it was expected but because I wanted to say it back.

Christmas and all the Trimmings
Christmas has always been wonderful. Sunday was no exception. There was even a stranger there, and I didn't mind at all! Each of us in the apartment dressed up and did her hair beautifully. Church was one long Christmas musical program. Emilie, Caitie and Danny sang and were wonderful. I made Chimichangas in between decorating the apartment and singing carols. To dinner came Ted, Danny, Jocilyn and we roomies. The atmosphere was comfy and loving. We ate chimis, then oranges and nuts from makeshift stockings Tarythe and I formed from Christmas-decorated oven-mitts. We laughed and quoted and teased and shared stories. I'll admit, Danny intrigued me. But that's not really what I paid attention to. I noticed the overall feeling of warmth and peace. Christmas is the best day of the year even if it is two weeks early.

School
I passed my economics exam and thus the semester. I can say nothing else on the matter. I am too proud and humbly grateful.

Flora
Cassidy got lilies from a boy. We put the flowers on a Grecian pedestal in the living room with arrows leading to the pillar. She glowed. We giggled.

Nora
Nora got in to BYU, though she doesn't admit it yet. Sure, there was no acceptance letter, but when you are informed that your credits are as follows and your standing is probation, that usually means that you're in.

Fitzwilliam
Even today, twenty-four hours later, I am ready to propose marriage to any male I see. Pride and Prejudice was superbly made. Wonderful direction, amazing cinematography, and grand sound track. The actors played their roles with conviction. I love Keira Knightly. I love the story. All the satire and down time in the books was deleted, all the passion and romance magnified. Wit kept. Visuals enhanced. But mostly, there was HIM! HE stood in the rain confessing love and vanity. HE ran to her side to help her from pain. HE walked across a field full of sage in the light of dawn, surrounded by morning mist, wearing a long black trench coat that flowed behind him as the music swelled in my ears. After HE married her, they sat outside his home discussing pet names. You may only call be Mrs. Darcy when you are perfectly, totally and incandescently happy. He kisses her cheek. Mrs. Darcy. He kisses her brow. Mrs. Darcy. He kisses her chin. Mrs. Darcy. He leans close to her lips and pauses. Mrs. Darcy. Kiss. Roll credits.

Post Final Party
Pizza, Never On Sundaes, Ted, Cassidy, Emilie, Caitie, no more school.


Like I said. Perfect.

masochism

Emilie, Cassidy and I watched an episode of Everwood. We didn't mean to. We flipped channels and there was the best scene ever. Boy and girls are dating and girl is insecure about her appearance overall, not just on this specific occasion. To make her feel better, he locks her in the bathroom until she can see herself in the mirror the way he sees her. Look at your skin, your lips, your eye lashes. We watched avidly.

It made Emilie want to cuddle; it made me want to be told how beautiful I am in someone's eyes; it made Cassidy wish she were self-conscious about her appearance. We relived the scene verbatim. We may as well have developed a habit of poking ourselves with flaming hot brands. Why do we do this to ourselves? Girls are gluttons for pain, as if wanting will replace having, as if viewing will feed longing. It's stupid. Really, really stupid.

Everyone wants a happily ever after, but planning out how it has to be will just leave us dissatisfied when the right person turns out not to follow a script written by the WB. There is no perfect guy, just a guy who's perfect for you. Yes, a guy who's perfect for me will find me beautiful -and better tell me so!- but he'll do it in his own way, and I'll be myself -someone who is too vain to admit feelings of inadequacy- and somehow that will work too, perfectly. Until then, I need to stop torturing myself.

workshop

My creative writing class liked my story tonight! I felt great, especially after the others workshopped with a lot of criticism. It makes me more excited for my own book. I've always been intimidated by my desire to write. Who grows up to be an author, really? But now my story is budding and my characters are becoming real to me, and even people who don't like me have told me to keep at it and finish. I love my CW class because my writing has matured, my ambition developed, and when I feel like I'm wasting my afternoon typing away on my ancient laptop, I remind myself that it's homework.

k-mails

Aren't emails the greatest?! They are especially great when they tell you how great you are, how much you mean to the writer and what specifically they love about you. These emails are so great in fact that you forget you're not supposed to smile that way. You forget that he's gone and left you behind of his own volition. You forget all the bad things that went on before. You might even entertain stupid daydreams where he behaves more like you wish, not like his character dictates. You definitely quote and/or read the email to all your roommates. Ah, the power of words!

But I am just speaking hypothetically, of course. I would never act so irrationally over a mere email.

addicted to chick-flicks

Watching chick-flicks is a dangerous past-time. It makes me want a boy. I want to hold hands, cuddle and, yes, maybe recieve a kiss or two. I want to smile that smile, you know the one. Those who can bring that smile to my face aren't allowed. Maybe Steven Shaw will come up here next semester and I'll swoop in for the catch. Or I could keep watching romantic comedies until I overdose.
I don't have problem. I can quit any time I want. I just don't want to.

the song i was trying to remember

BRIGHT EYES LYRICS

"A Perfect Sonnet"

Lately I've been wishing I had one desire

Something that would make me never want another

Something that would make it so that nothing mattered

All would be clear then

But I guess I'll have to settle for a few brief moments

And watch it all dissolve into a single second

And try to write it down into a perfect sonnet

or one foolish line

'Cause that's all that you'll get so you'll have to accept

You are here then you're gone

But I believe that lovers should be tied together and

Thrown into the ocean in the worst of weatherand left there to drown

Left there to drown in their innocence

But as for me I'm coming to the final chapter

I read all of the pages and there is still no answer

Only all that was before I know must soon come after

That is the only way it can be

So I stand in the sun

And I breathe with my lungs

Trying to spare me the weight of the truth

Saying everything you've ever seen was just a mirror

And you've spent your whole life sweating in an endless fever

And now you are laying in a bathtub full of freezing water

Wishing you were a ghost

But once you knew a girl and you named her Lover

And danced with her in kitchens through the greenest summer

But autumn came, She disappeared

You can't remember where she said she was going to

But you know that she's gone 'cause she left you a song

That you don't want to sing

We're singing I believe that lovers should be chained together

And thrown into a fire with their songs and letters

And left there to burn

Left there to burn in their arrogance

But as for me I'm coming to my final failure

I've killed myself with changes trying to make things better

But I ended up becoming something other than what I had planned to be

Now I believe that lovers should be draped in flowers

And layed entwined together on a bed of clover

And left there to sleep

Left there to dream of their happiness

nightmares

Two summers ago my nightmares became so bad that I would sit up in bed all night trying to stay awake, just to avoid dreaming. Last night, I had a dream that was so horrible, so totally vicious and terrifying, that sleep no longer sounds inviting. And for me, that's a big deal. I love sleep. But to face something like that dream again...It was like a Lifetime original movie, only with more violence. Maybe it's because I slept irregularly this whole weekend due to my work schedule. I will try to get to bed early and wake early too. Hopefully that helps, because if it doesn't, it's back to sitting up all night.

like love

I watched Julie reclining in the arms of her boyfriend whispering sweet nothings to him, and I had to wonder...how does she do it? I can't. I do not posses the ability to say all those googly gaggly giggly things to someone in whom I am interested. And pet names, forget it. I can see myself in the middle of a relationship being able to say nonchalantly, "hey hun, could you pass me the butter?" but as for starting it...Well, let's just say I'll never be the one to nickname someone Bry-bear. Am I just bad at a natural part of relationships -that wouldn't surprise me at all- or is it not in my character no matter how natural a relationship feels to me to whisper seductively all the reasons why I think my guy is knight-in-shining-armor-in-a-box?

In search of answers I interrogated Julie and Tarythe. All I got out of it was that I'm screwed up. Thanks Julie for saying, "Well, there are a lot of things you just try to get out of, aren't there?" Ouch. I lost my drive on the research mode and switched to defense mode. I lost time and momentum, and have yet to understand mushy relationships.

There are reasons besides my own psychoanalysis for understanding. The characters in my book cannot all think, act and feel the way I do. I need the perspective of someone uninhibitedly romantic, someone male, and someone completely stoic. I am not any of those things. I am a cynically optimistic romantic realist. Therefore: I don't understand anybody.

Another topic of concern. How does one go about saying "I love you"? Tarythe has dropped the word numerous times. She means it the way I mean it when I talk to Elise. How does one mean it the way Jane Austen writes it? The more I feel for a person, the more I want to pull away. I don't hold any emotion back, but I let the other person think that I have. Maybe I feel more secure that way. Really, however, it means they don't love me and then they back off, leaving me feeling very naked and wounded. To prevent said broken heart, whenever the impulse to take any next step hits me, I inevitably take a step back. I have been in love, but I never voiced it. So, to reiterate, how does one do it the normal way? How does it work? How does one bring oneself to saying those three monumental words?

Get back to me. Because I just don't get it.

happy holidays

I never knew why the Holidays created such depression in people. For me they have always been a time of supreme bliss, a time to share with loved ones, to celebrate all that is good in the world. Now I understand. The reason for the depression is not having loved ones around with whom to celebrate. For three days I felt this. It is a crippling, debilitating pain that turns everything gray and makes breathing the biggest task of the day. Now, I tend to learn things about myself by observing my actions, and I watched as I slept too long and then did nothing but read all day. When the phone rang I raced haphazardly toward it. I crashed into walls in my enthusiasm to reach someone, to be reached. Then I got an email inviting me to thanksgiving dinner with my family. It will be enough time before work that I can go. My day turned into rainbows and artichoke hearts. I watched a chic-flick without tears. I still race for the phone, but I don't think I'll ever outgrow that.

nora, too big for prose

When you were near I rarely cried.
The need was gone.
But when outside forces overpowered me,
when I finally melted into tears,
you were there to make sure that I wasn't alone,
and then you picked me up again.

With you around laughter was language.
We made ridiculous an art,
as we squirmed and squished on my bed.
I told you everything and you understood.
You would tease, as sisters do,
but then you loved me more.

When you were home I was never lonely.
Homesick was when you were away.
And then I could call you and you would always be there.
I never had to tell you of the pain,
because as soon as I heard your voice
the loneliness was gone.

My world fell apart along time ago.
I never knew it.
Because I had you.

Since you've been gone,
I feel each time a wall shakes,
each time my heart breaks,
and I know how much you bore for me.

It makes me glad that I am now
old enough to bear something
for you.

success stories

It is a universal rule that when a girl confesses love to a guy, he shuns her forthwith. Well doesn't it just beat all that Julie receives a date invitation when she makes her confession. How does she do it? Does the awkwardness help, or does he have to have affection for her already when she comes to him? That's been every girl's problem.

But now, ladies and gents, I have a better success story to properly inspire you all. Nora is considering going back to school at BYU. There are many laws upon which this blessing is predicated, so we can't yet count our chickens (I just mixed scripture and chickens!) but the success is that she wants to try. I'm so proud. It just tickles me. It rendered me speechless, quite speechless I tell you, and I have not stopped talking of it since.

Eegads, I'm too hyper to write anything sensible, but when I calm down there will be an entry dedicated to my fantabulous sister.

matchmaker, matchmaker

Emilie and I had a wonderful and sad conversation. We both cried. It involved our hurt feelings, not from each other, but from past relationships. It ended in one conclusion: we need to reinstate arranged marriages.

We will set up a network, like LDS Link-up. Parents can communicate over vast distances, narrowing their network to a community of shared values from which to pick their children's spouses. This would solve so many problems.

I would never try to give a bad first impression because I know that he's in it for good, no matter what.
I wouldn't hold back and because of that he would love me as I am, making a long-lasting strong relationship of its own.
My parents, who have such different ideas of what's good for me, would find the perfect match when finally forced to compromise.
Those who cannot marry arranged out of sheer principle will be those story-worthy passionate ones who are destined to find true love or a great calling on their own anyway.
Guys would be held to a much lower standard for romance. That's good for them and us.

Overall, good idea.

in my mind

We used to go on walks holding hands;
now when my hands close they cannot help
but remember the calluses and
creases in yours.
I cannot close my hand all the way;
my fingers leave a space there for you,
as if your hand had never let go.
it's still there.
When I walk alone my hand will still
take along you.
that's not true.
we never held hands.

It is my mind that takes you with me.
i am in distant lands without you;
but it seems to me that you are here.
constantly here.
We laugh at all of our inside jokes;
together we sing that same old tune;
tell me how you learned to play it on
your old guitar.
We discuss the new ideas I've heard.
i debate you.
why do I lose;
it's all in my head?

I remember everything for you;
i bring back the jokes, songs and hearsay.
now we can laugh and sing and argue.
now it's true.
We live the walk that you took with me;
then you in turn tell me of your life
and the walk that I went on with you.
i was there.
This is how I hold hands with you -all
when we talk.
on my walk
and again on yours.

irony and regrets

When Emily told me the news, I had to laugh. It was funny in the too-much-drama-to-handle way. The blog I wrote last night, venting my feelings about Julie, was only posted for twenty minutes, after which time Emily and Cassidy told me it was too harsh. Although my feelings were justified, they said, there would be consequences for what I write. I have often chided others for their naivete. Just because you didn't want consequences does not mean they won't happen. I did not want contention so I deleted the post. The humor comes into play when it is discovered that in that mere twenty minutes Julie read the blog and has sworn estrangement hence forth. She told Emily that I deleted the blog to destroy evidence. Yeah. Okay. If I wanted to do that, I'd erase her ridiculous comment.

The sad part is that I deleted it for her feelings and for my soul. I wanted to rise above it, to be a better person. I released my frustrations slowly, reading the scriptures and elevating my feelings. I determined to be more like the Savior. I was glad I had erased something so hurtful. I was humbled and repentant. But I still got to face the consequences. I missed out on the chance to explore something beautiful because I was laughing at something ridiculous.

I am sorry when I lose my temper and say things that are cruel. It is what I hate most about myself. I deleted the entry because it was the first time I could literally take my words back. I'm not sad that they were read. I like to be honest about how I feel so that it does not get suppressed and start suffocating everyone I'm around including myself. Confrontation leads to clearing the air, to understanding each other and to learning to find a middle ground. It is an irony in life that avoiding confrontation leads to contention.

I am sorry that I hurt Julie's feelings, but I would not retract my own. I am sorry that she wants to avoid the apartment because of me, but I am not sorry if that brings peace. I am not sorry that I used my own blog -my journal- to express myself. I am sorry that it is leading to such drama.

touched

Tonight Emilie got home. Oh, how I have missed her. I babbled to her like I do only to my family. Babbling is my forte, but I only do it around people with whom I am comfortable. I told Em about the drama this weekend, about fights with roommates and calls from home. We talked about falling in love. We talked, she talked and I talked. Then we went shopping. At Walmart I was given one of the best compliments of my life.

"I like talking to you," she said. "Even though Caitie isn't home I know it's alright because I can talk to you."

the man trap

The bait is released, a beautiful girl of only nineteen. The unsuspecting beast is lured to her lair with whispered promises. That is when the trap is sprung. The entire pack moves in for the kill, submitting the victim to hours of physical torture. We've done it before; Tuesday night was not the first time. It will not be the last.

Chris was victim number one that night. He wanted to learn to dance, and Julie had seemed a promising teacher. What she hadn't explained was that she would force him to move his body in extreme fashions to absurd music with her roommates watching. But oh! We did more than just watch. We heckled. By the end of the night he was sweating and utterly disheveled. All the while he is of course aware of what he is undergoing. Or is he? Does he know that every look, every step is being analyzed for future discussions, so that when Julie asks us at the end of the night what we think of him, our answers will be full of over-killed observations. He was innocent, and we destroyed him.

Unfortunately for the male pack, our hunger was not appeased. As Steve walked below our window, carring home a supply of cupcakes, Emily's impromtu soliciting secured us dessert to top off our earlier feast. Dance for us! Dance he did. He spun Emily with the naive belief that he was demonstrating his lack of dancing talent to the group. What he was actually doing was submitting to our psychoanalysis. Did he look at her the way I think he did? We examined him over and over, telling him what to do and when in order to observe his alacrity. We, the sick-minded females of laboratory 99, decided to play Pavlov. Drool puppy! Drool for Em! And when you go, leave the cupcakes here.

We have pictures to document the evening, the proof satan will use against us in the judgment day.

discretion

Hey!
Hi.
I recognized the back of your head.
Impressive.
Where are you off to?
A meeting. Hey, can I talk to you later? It doesn’t have to be tonight.
No, my curiosity is peaked. I have no patience when I know people want to talk to me. Come over tonight. But not until eight because I am watching Gilmore Girls.
Can’t I watch too?
If you really want to.
See you at eight.
-------------------------
So, it’s nothing serious. Don’t be worried.
What’s up then?
I need to talk to you about –
I thought so.
It’s just that, well I mean I, do you know…
Blunt equals good communication.
Let’s just say I know what’s going on.
Do you want me to talk to her?
No.
Good.
I just wanted to talk to someone about it.
I hate to say it, but honesty is the best policy.
Ok. I’ll talk to her.

check mate

Last night I chose Steel Magnolias over the homecoming game, much to the chagrin of my roommates. We'll let that pass. As a result I was shunned, left alone while they hunted for an unused TV to watch our teams potential failure. (weirdly we won). While I was thus ensconced I received a visitor. Chris, the unaware love of Julie's life, came over and invited me for a game of chess today. My smile appeared before I thought about it.

Julie came home that night grinning from ear to ear because Chris had sat by her watching the game. Her cheeriness cooled when I told her of his invitation. I know the girl rules. I tread dangerous ground. My wariness grew when Tarythe told me Chris knew I was the only one home and had come purposefully.

We played the game today. Julie sat next to me as the match progressed. She watched like a hawk to learn the dynamics of each player. The King had very little room to maneuver. The Queen was ruthless, a jealous guardian of her domain, while the Knight sidestepped trap after trap, heading for the King. In the end it was check mate, as it always is. One player is backed into the corner with nowhere to move without dying. To stay perfectly still also welcomes doom. Today I got check-mated.

tombstones

I watched Tombstone yesterday and cried through it. I cried over the friendship between Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp. Doc, dying of tuberculosis, never misses a fight along side his friend.

Wyatt: Doc, this isn't your fight.
Doc: You've got a hell of a lot of nerve saying that to me.

Man in Posse: Doc, you should be in bed. Why do you do it?
Doc: Wyatt Earp's my friend.
Man: Hell, I got lots of friends.
Doc: I don't.

Doc passes out in the saddle from exposure and exhurtion. He is left behind when Wyatt goes to do battle one-on-one with Johnny Ringo. Wyatt leaves him out of love, and for the same reason Doc beats Wyatt to the rendezvous and dispatches with Ringo first. The battle costs him and he goes to Colorado to a sanitorium to die. Wyatt comes every day, on the last of which he gives Doc a present before dealing out the cards for poker, but Doc doesn't want to play anymore. Yet, before he dies, he takes care fo his friend.

Doc Holliday: What do you want Wyatt?
Wyatt Earp: Just to live a normal life.
Doc Holliday: There is no normal life, there's just life, ya live it.
Wyatt Earp: I don't know how.
Doc Holliday: Sure ya do, say goodbye to me, go grab that spirited actress and make her your own. Take that and don't look back. Live every second, live right on through the end. Live Wyatt, live for me. Wyatt, if you were ever truly my friend, or if ya ever had just the slightest of feelin' for me, leave now, leave now, please.
Wyatt Earp: Thanks for always being there, Doc.

After Wyatt leaves, Doc sees a pamphlet-style book entitled My Friend Doc Holliday by Wyatt Earp. Doc smiles and dies alone without anyone to hold his hand. I wept watching that, watching how the two men loved each other, and hurt themselves for the other. I watched the last scene and decided that I do not want to die alone. What if my tombstone didn't read "beloved wife and mother"? I can't stand the idea that I'll have no one to hold my hand as I face death. Someone once said that (probably) that it is not the manner in which you die but the manner in whih you live that matters. In that case I want someone to hold my hand as I face life. I want a friend like Doc, who will always be there.

rain

When it rains I feel a symphony. I love rain because, unlike the soaking from submerging, the sensations come individually, a drop here, a splash there. As each contact with the skin is made, an indistinguishable note comes forth. Disney's Bambi captures the effect. As I walk in the rain I feel the music, as each little piece of the storm joins in with the others. The flute, the violin, the cello, the kettle drum; when it snows, the large soft flakes sound like an oboe. It's a magic thing walking in the rain, hearing the comforting drip of water on the surrounding surfaces, and imagining the echo of the orchestra.

hiding behind mascara

My feelings were hurt by Ben yesterday. He told Julie that I had been mean to him. I went to apologize. I told him it was unintentional and even unnoticed. I stood before his roommates, looking at him and gave away my pride. He rolled over on the couch and told me it was no big deal, that it's not like it's keeping him up nights. He turned back away. All I could do was walk out. I couldn't explain my hurt. Had I been disappointed that I hadn't wounded him? No. I felt small because he had not acknowledged my effort to be his friend. I felt that I was no big deal.

That was my last visit to apartment 130, at least for a while. It's not because of Ben. It was a feeling I got putting on mascara before FHE. I looked at myself in the mirror -beautiful, Caitlin said- and hated something, knew something had to change. I skipped the meeting to which I ought to have gone and sat alone in the apartment, listening. An observer would have witnessed one side of a conversation, as if overhearing a phone call. What is it that has to change? What am I meant to do? /I can't. I have to apologize to Ben. /Fine. I'll say my goodbyes then. /Not at all? /I can do that....When I went I did not say goodbye. They don't know I'm not coming back. How can I tell them? There's no reason to it. How can I say to them, I'm sorry but I have been wearing too much mascara recently so I can't come over anymore?

The connection as I see it is this: vanity. Or self-consciousness. Either one. Sure I like putting on makeup, I like playing dress up. I've done it at slumber parties and before the mirror with my roommates. I often enjoy how I look, but I am afraid that that was all I was becoming. I was losing myself in a mess of paint and powder. I have always given bad first impressions to those who end up meaning the most to me. The reason is quite simple. I trust my friends more when they go through the bad and still stick around. If I can get the bad out of the way at the very beginning then I can stop being afraid, stop wondering when they are going to find something in me that they hate, something that will make them leave. With apartment 130 I have done just the opposite. I have flirted and flounced and primped. I needed mascara. Ted did not recognize me. And the thing is...I am much too vain to do that. I believe myself beautiful without a facade, and all I want is someone else to realize that, to think, she might not be wearing mascara but she doesn't need it.

I loved that Ted was thrown off when I wore mascara. He should be. I don't wear it, and he knows me. That is what means the most, being known. Ted told me a week ago that when I hurt so does he. He once told me that when he met me he thought of me as a cute fun girl worth getting to know. Now (and here comes a phrase meant especially for his amusement) why can't I find a guy like that?

I called him when I felt slighted by Ben, and I told him that I needed to talk to someone to whom I wasn't completely expendable. He laughed at me, at the turn of phrase and the modest hope of my value to him. I used to hate when Ted laughed at me. I hated feeling that I wasn't good enough. I was scared to show him who I was, because to have him laugh at my inner self would have killed me. But, lo and behold, when I let him see me, he did not run away, did not find anything to hate. He still laughs, but he doesn't leave and so I love his laughing. It reminds me that I am known, all my ridiculocities (made up word but effective nonetheless) and I am loved.

I think I can go back over to apartment 130 when I decide that I am fine with rejection. Because, when that time comes, I believe that I will not meet with it. Ted taught me that.

lessons in love

Angry girl music. That's normal. At least it is for girls who have been dumped. But does angry girl music usually include Wicked and Cindi Lauper? It seemed more uplifting than any post-breakup rant that I had experienced. In fact, Emilie insists her boy isn't a jerk. She, being a good person, takes comfort in the fact that his intentions were honorable and that he didn't want to hurt her. I, I take comfort in that eventually. At the time I want to revel in bitter thoughts of him as an evil heartless jerk. I don't want the touchy feely, we'll still be friends approach. I want to blame him, myself and then him again. After I heal then I can be thankful for what I had. But right away I don't want to think about what I learned, and I definitely don't want him asking how I am. She, she loves him for still caring, where I would curse him.

I learned most of my breakup lessons from Kevin. Of course I had three chances to learn them. What did I learn? I learned that I can make my face absolutely blank to completely mask my feelings from my emotional attackers. I learned that I am just as irrational as everyone else despite the fact that I maintain calm. I learned that I would rather be hurt than hurt someone else, but that hurting still feels terrible. I learned that despite the fact that I claim with firmness that I will never agian be hurt in that manner, I will once more put myself in the vulnerable circumstances I claim to despise. I learned that all the lessons we learn from breakups are the wrong ones, and that if it weren't for chocolate shakes and popcorn no one would ever try a second time to fall in love and the species would be doomed. I learned that the lessons worth learning are found during the relationship and not the breakup.

do we have mustard? cuz i've got ham

Yesterday, thanks to the giving nature of God, I had a monumental day at work. I got 1.5 times my record in sales. I happened to set the work record. On my own I made a quarter of the sales made total that day. To think, I was planning to call in sick. I expected a terrible day, but the Lord gave me confidence and opportunity and so I made improvements to my mood and wallet. I earned about $100 in an eight hour shift.

The reason I wanted to skip work was because I had only gotten three-ish hours of sleep the night before. After work I managed to force myself to avoid napping. By seven I was exhausted, but, wanting to avoid getting too much sleep, I kept myself up for nearly three more hours. I was asleep by ten.
I woke feeling magically wonderful this morning.
I went to class and turned in my homework!
I came home from the temple to find Julie watching Follow That Bird.
It's just one of those days.
Thank Goodness.

i'm not a gymnast, maury

The dumbest song ever written: Back in the Saddle Again by Gene Autry, but I have had that song stuck in my head. I feel that I am indeed back in the saddle again. I am going to get out of this slump. I am!

I am depressed. There. I said it. Isn't admitting you have a problem the first step toward getting help? I am depressed. I have a problem. I haven't passed a day where tears haven't come. I can't sleep but can't wake up either. I can't eat and then eat too much. But I am done with letting that stand in my way.

At work on Monday I went to the bathroom and let myself cry, wiped the tears from my cheeks and then went back to work, instead of going home. I went to the library with Ted that night and got some homework done. And although I missed a class today, I don't plan on doing so again. (I know I will but not regularly).

I plan to buy some St. John's Wart, take my vitamins, make Richard Simmons a regular thing, and go to bed early; in short everything my mom has always wanted me to do. But, Mom, I just don't think I can take counseling again. It may be unfair but I blame counseling for how badly I did last year overall. I wallowed in weakness instead of pushing myself. I know, the connection between grades and counseling was probably this: both resulted from the depression. I don't want a counselor in my life.

I want the Lord to tell me He loves me, to give me strength and hope. I want friends to get me up each morning and to the library in the evenings. I want help in motivating myself to exercise and sleep. I don't want to be told that I have fears of abandonment and failure. I know this. I want to beat these fears. I want to succeed. And that scares the crap out of me.

When writing below entry I was at the library with Ted. Actually we're still there. Ted just snapped his fingers at me and told me to get back to work. He said he'd laugh if I put that in, so I had to.

the pleasures of being mean

There are times when I think I am evil. And there are times when I know I am. Ripping into Toby could be construed as evil; it certainly wasn't a bout of passion. My cool crossfirings were well deserved. What idiot goes to an apartment of girls, by their invitation, partakes of their hospitality and food and then proceeds to insult their likes, their pasts and their gender? I didn't misbehave really. He did.
Conversation:
C: I've dated someone who was 29.
T: That's disgusting. Isn't that against the law?
A: No.
T: Yes it is. He's eleven years older than her. (by the way it should have been: he's eleven years older than she)
A: Statutory laws specify an age difference of four years and the one being under eighteen. Besides you have to have sex for it to be against the law. She may associate with anyone she chooses of any age.
T: Wow, I don't think that's appropriate on Sunday.
A: The word sex is not a sin.
T: Are you going to be a lawyer?
A: No. I just believe that a person ought to be informed of a country's laws if he is to live in it. Or to speak about them.
T: Find special interest in that one in particular?
A: Rather.
I had other conversations with him, not all so nice. I decided that I don't like him.

But I do like the boys in apartment 130. I like them a lot. That's what makes my other rant less forgivable. That's how I know I am evil. I basically told them that they are overly content to be content, that their relationships are shallow as a result and the only thing I have seen them passionate about in Epic Duels. I was lecturing myself, but how are they to know that.
I can be very ungrateful at times. Luckily I think my presumptuous behavior may have led to a more open relationship with them. Blunt honesty is what I like best

good morning starshine

I have always been a morning person. Yes, laugh all you like, friends. I may not be an early riser, especially when I don't have to be up, but I have always been glad to wake up, to meet the day. My favorite way to do it, absolutely favorite way, is to lay in bed and here the soft sounds of others getting ready for the day. It started in elementary school when my older sisters would be getting ready for seminary and I would lay awake in bed listening to them laugh and talk, and hear the soft clinking of curling irons being set on the counter. Up until six weeks ago I woke up to April. First her blowdryer, then Rascal Flatts being played really low in the background. Today, I realized that I hate being woken up that way now. For the last month I have desired to throw anything sharp and heavy I have at my roommates when their music starts playing and they start talking loudly outside my door. I stumble out of my room bleary-eyed, as I have always done, and am accosted by jabs on my mood. Oh, don't talk to Audrey for a couple more hours... Good morning starshine, time to face the day...Sleep poorly again?...Just in a bad mood, I see. Yes, with April, with anyone before, I was still sleepy when I emerged from my room. Sometimes I came out so fast that I would collapse from dizziness. But the first thing I would do would be to say good morning, and usually I would make a joke. I would grin through my mane of morning hair and laugh despite the fact that I hadn't yet brushed my teeth, and then I would get really excited about the fact that I got to eat breakfast. I hate waking up now. I don't eat breakfast. I don't enjoy seeing their faces when I leave my room. I don't want to face the morning. Just tell me when it's over.

tough love, baby

Tough love, baby, says Lorelai Gilmore, as she cuts off her beloved daughter.

Tough love.

I have learned many lessons in my life. One of which was about the nature of God. I was walking up a long staircase to campus and ahead of me was a man in his late twenties or early thirties. Next to him was his daughter, of an age where she was just learning to walk. She was climbing each stair on her very own, struggling with intense effort, battling each step and then once having succeeded moving on to the next. Her patient father took each step as she did. When I passed them on the stairs they were perhaps fifty feet above their starting point. As I had traversed that distance the girl had made it up five. I was weighed down with books and fatigue, and I knew that the man could have easily outstripped me even bearing the child in his arms. Why did he sit by and watch her climb on her own, when he was much more capable than she at completing the task? Because someday she needed to be the one standing patiently as her child crept, fell and continued crawling. That is how I learned who God is.

Last night I learned a little more about His relationship with me. That overwhelming feeling of inaptitude and meaninglessness came to a climax. I realized that the time when I had been happiest the last few weeks was during the few seconds between when the phone started ringing and when it was answered. Those were the moments when I had hope. Other pleasant interactions were ways to narcotize myself from feelings of worthlessness.

Last night I prayed, begging to be rid of the feeling, begging for someone I love to love me back. I made myself hot chocolate -the ultimate comfort food- but took only a few unsatisfying sips. what I wanted, inexplicably, was to be found in a little leather cover engraved with a picture of Solomon's temple given to me by my best friend. I opened to the eighth chapter of second Nephi. Now I cannot say that the Lord chose for me to fall behind in my reading, that he planned for me to read only one chapter a night instead of two, but it certainly felt as though on that night I was meant to be reading that chapter.

Please let me be happy.
For the Lord shall comfort Zion, he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody.
Please make this end.
Thus saith thy Lord, the Lord and thy God pleadeth the cause of his people; behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again.
Please let me feel like I am somebody of value.
But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; who have said to thy soul: bow down, that we may go over -and thou hast laid thy body as the ground and as the street to them that went over.
Help me face a new day.
Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city.
Please send someone to comfort me.
...
...
...
Nobody came. I waited. I wept. I sobbed my heart out, wringing from it every bad feeling I could conceive. I closed the Book and clutched it like a lifeline. I fell asleep holding it like a teddy bear. The phone never rang, nobody ever came, and I felt abandoned by my Lord, unloved by my Heavenly Father. Yet, even while I hurt I did not turn away hope, but still looked to the verses I had read. I wondered why but did not punish myself in any attempt to punish Him.

When I woke I felt desperate for some time, time to sort out my feelings, time to get work done, time to read the Book that suddenly I craved like air. It was as if I were reassured, though I had asked for the answer to be given me through another, that it was acceptable to take time off to take care of myself. I called in sick, and my boss was lovely about it. Get some sleep, Audrey, I'll see you Friday.

I waited to understand why the Lord had not sent anyone to my rescue, and the understanding came. Tough love, baby. I am he; yea, I am he that comforteth you. Although I trusted in the grace of my God, I did not trust in Him. I waited for help from someone else. I would have given my gratitude to that person. I would have used that person as a prop on which to support myself. Instead, when I awoke, I felt calm and comforted, and slightly rebuked. It was almost as if He had told me to pick myself up and get over it, the way Ted might have. It was almost as if He had pierced me with His gaze, telling me I needed to have more faith in Him, and less in the arm of man. It was completely as if He had taken care of me.

Shake thyself from the dust; arise, sit down, O Jerusalem; loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.

pity-party

I feel like I am disappearing. Someday I might look in the mirror and not see my reflection. I am trying to avoid mirrors, just in case. I feel like my presence here doesn't matter. I am expendable, unimportant; I make no difference. My life has no differences.

My classes are on a weekly cycle, the same routine each week. My work is worse. Each phone call starts a new goal; at the cessation of each the past is wiped clean. I have no calling in church, no way to feel a part of a community I fear to join as it is. The people with whom I spend my time are as static as a John Wayne* character. I love them and they will always be the same, and we will always interact the exact same. Tonight I stayed home, just to not go to the same people.

I am plagued by the feeling that I have nothing to look forward to, no real reason to keep going through the routine. Sure, there is that vague future shiny goal of graduation, but that is no comfort. I am antsy, a feeling destructive in a situation where my future academically, socially and financially balances on the brink. My heart is not in my tasks. My heart is not in anything.

Often it comes back to my friends. I miss April, et all. I have no one to whom I can turn in good or in bad, someone with whom to share myself, and so whatever emotions, good or bad, that I feel are wasted upon unsympathetic space. Have I made my friends my horcruxes, places in which to lose my soul? Because they are gone, have I lost my outlet?

I use my writing. I have been diligent in my writing, losing track of time while I explore the emotions and interactions of the people who were born full-grown from my head. My Athenas possess me and make me take notice of them. Meanwhile I wallow in self-pity that I am going unnoticed.

I would rather lose than take a consolation prize. I will have no mocking medals to celebrate my failure to be the best. So why do I not make the effort to get friends? Why do I not ace my every class with amazing proficiency? Why do I not fly to the moon and be named Queen? Because I don't feel that I can. Because to me, these tasks, so easy for some, are difficult for me. And I fear failure, perhaps more than I hate mediocrity. Every time I fail I lose a piece of myself. I will take an unsatisfying routine, just as long as I don't lose anything else; no more friends, no more goals, no more me.

I will tick one more day off the calendar and do my life all over again tomorrow. I count 21 days since the semester started...is it really so few? I check voice mail every hour, I run to check the post every day, and I am constantly on-line to read my email. Maybe somewhere I will find proof that I exist.

*no insult meant to John Wayne, whose fan I am in the nth degree.

girls just wanna have fun

I have come to the important conclusion that my roommates rock my socks off. They are awesome girls, totally laid back, fun and free.

Emilie is the only one who is older than I in the apartment. She is beautiful in the classic sense, with curves and long, thick hair. Her voice is soft without being breathy. She is a music major, completing her charming femininity. Her sister Caitlin is a sweetheart, completely generous and uplifting. The two girls ought to have a competition to see who is the nicest; only, the game would be rigged because one would surely let the other win. Tarythe and I have known each other for a year and a half now. She is such a hug whore, one of the most openly engaging and affectionate people. Julie is totally random, sometimes to the point of being indecorous but usually it is amusing. She's certainly not bland, as I once thought her. Then there is Cassidy, the youngest in our home. She is quirky and energetic, with just enough sarcasm for me to bond with her. All my roommates love to dance, watch movies, eat, talk late into the night, and in short anything else we can do with each other.

Last night we went to FHE together, singing I Believe I Can Fly at the tops of our lungs. We spun in circles across the parking lot on the way. Afterward we embarrassed ourselves by doing Sweatin' to the Oldies, complete with obnoxious sound effects. We're now in love with Richard Simons. What a hunk!

When we picked up T from work we had loaded ourselves into Cassidy's POS so that the six of us could go out to the Pizza Factory. We went for a celebratory ice-cream party, courtesy of Emilie. Yes, she got kissed. Five of us dipped our spoons again and again into the communal Sundae while T sipped gingerly at her smoothie. We laughed and talked and annoyed our waitress. We tried to calm Em's nerves as she insisted she knew that Rob was going to break up with her that night. We spawned many quote-worthy phrases, and developed "the cassidy". Whenever someone spills in an obvious way, such as flinging food, that is pulling a cassidy.

While Emilie played grownup and arranged her insurance, we held a dance party in the living room. The girls were astounded that I would play along. It only lasted for a bit but I proved myself worthy by demonstrating my moves. Cass wants me to promise to go to a dance with her. We'll see. I don't do well in chaotic situations with loud and offensive music and people I dislike for the mere fact of not knowing them. But as for people I do like, Ted and Seth dropped by, so the six of us girls had someone to dote on. Our "Oopa's!" and flamboyant hugs found targets, filling the room with silly energetic affection.

As the night wound down, so did we, ending the evening with apartment scripture study and prayer. We all felt close to one another as we prayed for each other's welfare and happiness. I think Emilie is emerging as our mother figure. That is why we children all waited up for her as she had a talk with Rob out on the balcony at midnight. None of us five admitted to waiting on Em but none of us found our way to our beds, not even I, the sleep-glutton. When Emilie came back in at the end of the night and, crying, told us that Rob loves her, we loved her too. We found that our love was brimming over and spilling into each other's cups. Sitting on the two beds in mine and Cassidy's room we felt close and intimate. It was a scene straight out of Little Women, a perfect ending to a perfect day, one of many yet to come.

when my subconscious finds its voice

Sometimes I hate my dreams. I hate sleeping. I tend to hate all things that I am not very good at. Now, napping I am great at. During naps I don't have time to dream.

Last night I dreamed that Nora died. She died coming to my rescue when living with my parents was too much. I blamed myself. I woke from the dream and went straight to my email to send her my love, to let her know what she means to me.

My next dream was that I was stranded with my dad in the middle of hurricane Katrina. We had to fight our way out to safety, and on the way I tried to rescue some others. Some attempts succeeded, others failed. I worked really hard to save a pregnant woman, but only my dad and I crossed into sanctuary together. All the while I was on the phone with Joyce who was in the middle of a crisis, hating me because I couldn't help her.

Do I feel responsible for my family? Do I feel guilty for their pains? Do I want to rescue them, carry them on my back and save them from life? Yes. I just wish I could escape those feelings when it's time to sleep.

cat-scratch fever

I want a cat. I miss waking up in the middle of the night to annoying pawing and drooling. I miss that really obnoxious noise they make when you pick them up when they don't want to be held. I like how their ears go back and they flip their tails. I really love how they purr. I miss my cats. I am probably cursed to end up the crazy old cat lady sitting on her porch in a rocking chair. I can hardly wait.

anti-love poem

hands hold, fingers interlock,
locked and lingering, half-cocked,
fingering the palm of the other.
intimate and committed,
too much, to smother,
committing an inmate into a chain,
a relationship unrelating,
a change and deflating of hearts and minds,
minds that find relating too degrading,
hands grating,
dropped and missing.
kissing stopped.
egos popped and fizzing.
it's the end. let's just be friends.

sounds of silence part two

K emailed me back saying he wants to keep up communication. He said that it did actually take him the eleven days to make up his mind. I don't know what to do with that.

ruby slippers, anyone?

Is it totally insane to be homesick without having a home? Homesickness is just a feeling, a combination of loneliness, nostalgia, and directionlessness. Sometimes it is a complicated feeling resulting from failure, or loss, or from transience.

Maybe that is why I am homesick. I am experiencing all of that. I am afraid of failure. I live failure. I suck at my job, I am only attending school part-time, retaking classes that I inarguably failed.

I have lost my home. It was sold on Friday, emptied of all the little keepsakes that transformed it from a house into a place where memories were made, dreams dreamed and identities formed. My mom shipped out old books, paintings, couches and crayon drawings meant for the refrigerator.

I managed to keep from crying until I heard that not only do I not have a home anymore, but I have suffered a loss of limb, literally. My trees that I love so well, loved so well, have been cut down to make room for a pool. My home was not the walls, the carpet, the furniture, or the layout of the house. My home was the view from my bedroom window. The maple trees, the ivy, the niche of green that held promises of fertility and life. It was a shady spot, where the snow stayed the longest even as spring approached. This corner was home. The green-dappled light that flooded my room from the leaf-covered windows.

I am homesick for green light. There's no place like home.

sounds of silence

There are some communications that don't require words. Some answers come without saying anything. It is the pauses in life that are the most articulate.

Never wait around for a phone call. If he wanted to call, he would. Don't check your email every twenty minutes after the first day. When you ask if he wants to continue communicating and he doesn't respond for a week, then that means no. If he wanted to write, he would. Don't fly to him in Manhattan. If he wanted you, he would have made an effort.

I put the last one on the list to remind myself that I am not the only one in the world who holds out, who hopes for the insane, who stands in her own way in regards to happiness.

He's not coming, he's not writing. Go out, have fun, don't think about him. Don't call him. Yeah, I think I'll call him.

heaven is the spanish riviera

I have three rules regarding the behavior of people that I love.
1-they cannot move away, unless I move with them.
2-they cannot die, unless I die too, or first.
3-they cannot get married, unless I get married too, or first.

All in all the rules come down to the same thing. I don't like being left behind. Of course I don't mind leaving everyone else behind, so I suppose my rules aren't fair. But at least I have exceptions to the rules. I'm not going to just deny everyone's right to die. How unfair that would be!

I think I am a very reasonable person. I even came up with a solution to anyone's dilemma. Jocilyn, Julie and I were the only ones in the complex over Christmas break and we came up with...Spain. Bryan inspired it in a way. He had a job in Portland at the end of the summer and he wanted to work for a few years and then transfer internationally. I couldn't let him do it, not without me, so I decided to come too.

I made a list of friends who had to come along, who would marry whom, who would have what profession in the commune I designed, and even who of the six families would have the big screen TV's for watching BYU football via satellite. We'll go skiing in the alps in Germany for Tarythe and have trips to France for me. Our kids will grow up friends and be allowed to play in the street of our private cul-de-sac.

Since the original plotting of this story there have been some adaptations. Jon, no longer invited, for instance. Joe, now definitely invited. Marriages had to be shuffled around, but it all amounts to the same thing. I will live with everyone I love until the fateful day when I administer the special Kool-aid. Then, I will have them forever.

I think I have a preoccupation with my friends. Despite the fact that I dedicate this blog to the discovery of my own life, I recognize that I cling to my friends like to a life preserver. Although a shrink once said my biggest fear is being like my mother, I disagree. It is being unloved. Perhaps that is like her. Or worse, having no one to love. That is hell. Spain is my heaven.

dreams last for so long

My heart got broken today. I had a nap in which I dreamed I was reunited with many people I love. Ted was the principle character. Regretfully I woke up from such a happy dream and went straight to the computer to see if I had news from any of my friends. I hadn't checked my email in over thirty hours, and since I normally do it every half-hour or so I had high hopes. Hopes that were dashed to pieces when all I had was a horoscope entitled the Fog of Desire. I think I am lonely.

finding harbors

Today was a day to culminate the comings and goings in life. It peaks a week that was the same, of a prime month, etc. Today I took April to the airport to see her off. She went home to Ohio indefinitely. I wept the entire ride home as I listened over and over to a CD she gave me. I saw the looks that passing motorists gave me, watching me as I cried onto my dash and sobbed clinging to my steering wheel. Oh how I will miss her! And yet, I haven't a doubt in my mind that she will stay close to me, that we will keep one another posted on all of our "hands down" events in life. But for now I miss her like I missed the air I couldn't breathe for crying.

On the positive side of the temporary crossings in life, Ted is coming home. That is to say he is coming back to Provo. He's not sure where he'll live or for how long, but the important thing is that he will be back. One can't be without an April and a Ted in this life. That would just be cruel. I half-expected Ted to be at my door when I got back from the airport. Can I call it a fair trade? No, because I want them both! I'd never trade either. But no matter, Ted hasn't come yet. And when he does it will only signify a new medium for hiding myself from the world. As I am Ted's second favorite person in the whole world we will inevitably spend copious amounts of meaningful time together that will signify nothing and succeed only in damaging my potential standing as someone's first favorite person. Ah, how I the ostrich love my sand!

Other passings: Ashley, Elise, Laurie, Jackie, Julie, Jocilyn, Aubri, Joe, Brian, Dane, Troy, Troy, Matt, etc, etc, etc.
Other comings: New Roommates, Tarythe, potential friends? and Kevin.

What? Kevin did I say? Like I would pass over him so easily.
I took the opportunity of his starting work yesterday to email him a note wishing him good luck. It was answered. The determined silence is ended. Shall I let it now slip into accidental silence resulting from lack of maintenance to the relationship? After all, the hurt is gone, so why push it, right? Wrong. I have never been able to just let things go with Kevin. I certainly won't do so at this point, not after he called me a quality girl.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once said, "Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, Only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness. So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another. Only a look and a voice; then darkness again and a silence."

I have seen proof enough to believe him, but still I don't. Some day these ships, all these vessels that dot the seas, they will find a harbor in which to moor themselves. Ships are not content with fickle signals cast out across the water. I would abandon whatever course I had set to reach a friendly flicker, even if it meant breaking myself on rocks as I inadvertently chased the glow of a light house. I am not alone in this. You want it too. Someday I will have anchor next to you.

it's alive!

At approximately 12:51 a.m. on August the 18th in the year 2005 I, Audrey Michal Hunter, finished my novel. Right now...Right now it is printing. As yet it is titleless, but shall be given as is to my trusted friend April and to Heather Jenkins who started me on this project. I'll trust their scrutiny of my first draft. Maybe April will even manage to give it a title. I feel like Dr. Frankenstein, and I love it!

thinking versus dying

"Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so."

I used to think too much. Ask anyone who has known me longer than a year. They all told me so. I was christened Thinky, the eighth dwarf, by my sister Joyce. Apparently there was something wrong with this. Too many people gave me the advice to stop thinking about it and just go with the flow. I tried it. I tried listening to myself, feeling my way through life and experiencing the ups and downs. I failed classes by not planning ahead. I wasted credits by not forming my graduation plan. I hurt people's feelings by not evaluating our relationship. I led people on by just going with the flow. I never thought. I experienced a whole lot. I wish I could take it all back, but there I go being cognitive again.

I just want to know, what is wrong with thinking? What? Mankind have some of the most highly developed minds on the planet, third only to mice and dolphins. Why don't we use them? We have made cities, maps, clothes, fire, wheels, airplanes, but now we have decided that thinking is wrong? Most people would cry outrage at that statement, but it is true. We settle for sub par everything, mediocrity is our biggest friend. Ingenuity is punished. Not everywhere, of course, but in general. What is wrong with our culture that we hate anyone more advanced than we? We teach our children to do the same by our example. The smart kids are tormented by their peers whose respect they ought to have secured. To this day, I hate being called smart, even while reveling in the fact that I know I am.

I know I am smart. At least, I know I was smart. Smart people don't get into stupid personal scrapes. They don't fail classes. They don't go through life trying to ride out the current. Smart people don't act as I have been doing this last year. I stopped reading too. It seemed as my mind liquefied I became more and more satisfied with idleness and interactions with humans whom I couldn't stand on a mental level.

It is time to change. For all that my roommates complain that I don't participate as much as I have, that I read more and write all day, I will continue to do so. I will be anal about where I am going with my college career. Hell, I will make a plan, with the aid of a counselor. I will analyze things until my mind is reeling, until I come to conclusions. It is high time that I think too much.

"I think, therefore I am."

the quill is mightier than the stereo

Today is going to be a day spent in front of my laptop writing the next great American novel. My time will be punctuated with Ace of Base songs, to which I am currently listening and which I have no intention of giving up. Ah the wonders found in my brother's CD case!

I wish I could say that I am proud of my book. I am, but I am so afraid of censure that I rarely talk about it. I am writing three books currently with many others dancing in my head. I love the quote from Little Women: "At night my mind would come alive with voices and stories. I gave myself up to it, longing for transformation."

I have twenty-nine chapters written of the story that needs the least background research. One hundred and seventy pages! I want to finish this summer in order that I may say I have finished something for once in my life. So here goes. I leave to write, to listen to the muse that sits behind me and whispers passages in my ear, when she's not getting The Sign stuck in my head.

missing K and not willing to admit it

It usually comes on suddenly and without warning. I am always amazed at the people I miss, especially the when and why of it. There are small triggers that spark something in my subconscious and then I am left with the effects of it. Yesterday was such a day where this happened often.

The Akula's had their softball game at seven, and despite the looming threat of an awkward run-in with J, I went. I felt like I was watched the entire time, but I didn't mind. As Julie said, I could dictate my own reactions. It was something else that bothered me. I never by any means missed J, but I did miss Ted, crazy badly. In his place some tall, skinny guy was pitching. Softball games will always do that to me, just as Haagen Dazs will always make me miss Elise. Billy Joel brings back Bryan and Rascal Flatts, Matt. These are the predictable ones. Like how I know I'll miss April whenever I buy a new toothbrush or listen to Blue October and Dashboard Confessional. It is the ones that blindside me that I am fascinated with.

Last night I got to missing K. It's odd really. Ashley was talking about DTRing with Brandon and all of a sudden I remembered how K and I usually never had to say things, we just knew. How when I had to tell him something important he would sit next to me so that I wouldn't have to avoid looking at him in my awkwardness. I could predict what he would do. Okay, he is really predictable. All I know is that last night laying in bed I was overcome by nostalgia for him, my friend. It happened Sunday too, when Bethany asked what had happened. Whenever he is brought up I find myself dwelling morosely on it.

Probably everyone lays in bed and forms conversations with someone who isn't there. I find it is usually the best time to tell someone off, to rehash exactly what I should have said when insulted. Last night I told off J with evil efficiency. When he looked at me all smarmily and tells me that he thinks I did have feelings for him, I counter scathingly, feelings for you? I was in love with K for a year and a half. He dumped me only two days before you kissed me. Tell me, oh genius, where in all that chaos did I have time to have feelings for you?

J thinks that he got too close to me and that my walls made me pull away. Deluded! I never trusted J, although I tried to force confidences every once in a while. One time I told him about my writing, pried from me with all my cynicism. I didn't even have the faith in J to hope that it would mean something to him. In fact, I wasn't surprised when one day he asked me with a hurt tone if I would ever tell him about my writing at all. Maybe it's not his fault that he has a crappy memory. I just remember how anything I told K about myself was cherished. He loved to hear me talk. Nobody has a worse memory than K but he remembered when I said something important.

Damn him and the fact that I miss him. Damn him that he's so far away when J is in town. Damn me most of all for knowing that I don't want him back but hoping that he might email me anyway, just to end this bit of not talking to each other. I don't care to talk to J again, but I do curse my pride that I drove K off as well. It just sucks that one is allowed to miss a friend but not a significant other, that to miss K is wrapped up with all sorts of complications. I don't want anything more than friendship with him, as if there is anything more than friendship, but I would at least like that back. I miss him and I can't do anything about it.

sisters

Sometimes I wonder if I am the peacemaker or the antagonist of the family. Probably, like everyone else, I am a little of both. I tread lightly around some areas. Sometimes after a while of egg-shell walking I decided to stomp as hard as I can right in that same tender spot. I did that with mom. I've done that many times. It usually involves the parents, though sometimes there are tensions with my siblings, mainly Joyce.

Joyce has never learned to deal. If it were her fault I might feel better being harsher on her. Even with the situation as it is, I sometimes want to grab her by the shoulders and tell her what the world is like. There are consequences! That's my wisdom, plain and simple. Every child knows that to touch something hot is to get burned. Not Joyce. She wants to move out. Again. She can't get a roommate because she is too difficult to live with. But she won't live in a cheap apartment, "because it's not safe". She only has a minimum wage job because she dropped out of high school and won't get her GED. She has to pay car payments, insurance, cell phone bills, and now living expenses for herself and cat. Her budget after bills are paid: -200 dollars.

My mom flies to the rescue. Well not exactly. My mom called me to work out a budget for me for fall. She wanted to see if there is any money left over for supplementing Joyce's "independence". She asked my advice about the whole situation. I can understand that my mom doesn't want to throw her money away on something Joyce may give up on in a week, but she also wants Joyce to feel supported so that she will make an effort to better her life. Joyce's fear of failure is crippling. Here's the clincher. Will a safety net encourage Joyce to cross the tight-rope resplendently, or will it encourage failure by blunting its consequences? Sigh. I don't know.

Along the lines of sisters, my oldest (but not old, never old) sister gets into town tonight! She is the opposite of Joyce in many respects; she's organized, successful, goal oriented. And yet, she and Joyce have always been the closest to each other. Heather, I think, is the protector. She's classy and funny and strong and honest. I am going to have a blast with her, even though I have to work and share her with my brother. It's still always good to have a sister around. Only eight more hours!

flower power

Last night the most gorgeous arrangement of flowers was left in our apartment for April. She had already gone to bed and we were forbidden to wake her. It was just as well. She woke up expecting a crummy day and got a wonderful surprise. It didn't just affect her either. All four of us in the apartment were giddy with it. I am wondering to myself, is it the thought that counts; the surprise that excites us; or is it really that we swoon over flora?

reaching out

hands. touching hands. reaching out. touching me, touching you.

Sometimes there is nothing I crave more than physical human contact. That's one of the many wonderful things about Elise: she touches all the time. If she is talking to you, her hand needs to be resting on your body. If y'all are not talking, her legs may be sprawled ungainly over yours. She loves to cuddle, to hug, to kiss. So does her male counterpart Gabe. I'm not often comfortable sitting with male legs draped over mine, nor do I usually lay my hand on a boy's thigh. But with Gabe I can! I who am so intimidated by touch have learned to freely use it.

Yesterday at church I was sitting in sacrament meeting and wanting so badly to touch someone. I finally turned to Julie and asked if I could hold her hand. She looked a little amused but offered it to me readily. I actually hugged William Way. I've been kissing Elise like I live in Anne of Green Gables. I spooned Ashley when we had a group nap. Uncomplicated touch is probably the best way to relate to another human being. I love that Elise taught me that lesson.

Last night was her going away party. She is returning home to the great state of Texas to await The Call. She wants me to come to her farewell. It's so fun. I know I will miss her, but she will make a wonderful missionary. She loves everyone, really loves them. I didn't know anyone took that passage in Matthew seriously, but Elise sure does. She takes everyone into her life as though they have been her best friends, and people react by loving her like one. The small gathering of her most intimate friends last night consisted of over twenty people. Elise spawns love wherever she goes. As long as she can keep her hands to herself for eighteen months, nothing will stop her. We she leaves behind will be better for having known her, more open, engaging and vulnerable; but we will find life is one light bulb short.