2 am scribbles

Because I know you'll be sleeping

I can write you these words

Not much more than a whisper

But I know they'll be heard

Warm autumn air

That's how we parted

Crisp leaves and footsteps fall

That's when the heartache started

Don't be afraid

Deep breathes are for you

I left with high hopes

This time, I'm gonna see this through

Warm summer breeze

Came through here, the South

They'll bring me back again

We'll make a home of this house

Some Ambiguity

So,
When you say
"Do you want to stay over?"
and
"I have pajamas you can wear"
"but
I know you have class in the morning"
does that mean
I can stay over
And sleep?
Or does that mean
I can stay over
and dotdotdot
...

College is not much better
in the romance department
than high school was
But only in some ways

I guess girls are always
just going to be
baffling

Or maybe it's just that
I've continued with my same level of
naivety

Either way
I remain at a loss on
How to deal with this
Ambiguity

It's not all high fives and keggers

So there's this thing that I'm trying out.  Some aspects of it are kind of new to me, some are very familiar.  I've actually been doing it for many a year now but every time I think I get it down into a manageable system, someones goes and throws anther curve in the road.  This thing is called being a student.  This new part of it is known to some as being a college student.   

It goes by several aliases, some of which you may or may not familiar with, depending on what type of college student you are.  Some of the more commonly used aliases used by yours truly include, but are not limited to:

Sleep embezzler.  Confidence annihilator.  Culture shock central. You'll-never-have-enough-time plaza.  And my personal favorite (or so it would seem with the frequency of usage lately) is the Oh-Shit-I-just-woke-up-and-class-starts-in-five-minutes  generator.  

Guess who's about to be late for class...

Yes, it would seem that college and my inability to to manage time has not played out well for me this first year.  Not played out well at all.  

Spongebob knows what's up

I know there are other students out there like me.  I know because I see them chain smoking outside of the library.  I know because sometimes I inch my way over until I'm within breathing proximity of that lethally calming smoke and meditate in it until my brain has been soothed to a workable level.  

I do not, however, know if my chain smoking buddies will be there next semester.  I guess there's this thing that institutions of higher learning like to call "academic probation". While I myself have not been put on this "probation"...sometimes I feel like we're cutting it dangerously close.

Because there are other college students at this place of learning.  And these college students are not renaming this school names with such negative connotations as mine.  They call it things like, "Best time of my liiiife". and, "I'm so totally going to med school here, why would you ever want to leave?!".  and "I always find time to get my 6 hours of beauty sleep in".

These are the ones I just want to start a fight with for no reason.  These are the ones that I try and say make me look bad (even though it's really just me making me look bad).  These are the ones that really piss me off if for no other reason than because that's what that's who I was supposed to be.

I worked my supple little ass off in high school to get to college.  4.03 GPA, stellar extra curricular activities, outside job, teachers loved me, I freaking OWNED high school.  And I was so excited to graduate and get to a place where I would amongst peers who were as motivated and smarter and as excited about changing the world as I was. Am. Was?  

Now I'm here and...I can't stand it.  These people are not in it to change the world. They're in it to add to their trust funds.  I'm stereotyping a little bit, not all of them have trust funds.  But they do have very nice leather wallets.  

I'm searching in the nooks and crannies of this place and I can't even scrape up enough passion to spread on my toast.  I'm staying up late because I do all this extra work for all these groups I'm in because I joined all these groups because I wanted to find friends and I did but they're all lazy.  

No go-getters.  

And it's freaking me out.  It's freaking me out because I can feel it spreading.  Going to my feet making me slower getting to class. Going to my hands making it harder to write my papers.  Going to my face making it harder and harder to smile.  Going to my brain making it harder and harder to stay who I am.  I'm not this bad student! Who the fuck is this indifferent, distracted, quiet chick?  

Whoever she is, she seems to have some rather negative views on this new part of life called college.  

Something must be done to change that...

Astronomy isn't real anyway

Is it possible?

I have come to see the stars without their true brilliance.  Betelgeuse supernovas into oblivion: given in to selfish ways. 

I want to find you beautiful. 

I want to be pulled into you. 

But I'm not in that bundle of stars. 

If you could have accepted that to begin with, we could have saved each other.

So rip me out of this.

Get out of this gravitational pull running head on into Armageddon.  

Let me see someone else in my love. 

Getting that tumultuous taste from my body is-effortlessly impossible. 

Coming down from a high, words are vacuous and inconsistent.
I wish I could find the right orbit. 

Who's the little one?

There are some things I will never outgrow.

When I was little, I lived in a two story house with my mom, two younger sisters (twins), and my older brother.  We were a beautiful little family.  We were a perfect team.

Although I am a year and a half older than the twins, there are little pockets of time in which I seem to be the baby.

Looking up from a box of Lucky Charms (those magical marshmallows get me every time) in the middle of the store and finding myself completely alone is one instance.  I freeze, I panic, I am convinced I will never be found again.

Walking down a long, or medium...any length of hallway is another.  It can be well lit, it can be dark.  Either way, the patterns of the wall become the twisted and gnarled bodies of vengeful ghost, bound to detach themselves from their plaster prison and drag me in with them.  Or, the girls from the Shining will appear in front of my eyes, trapping me, forcing me to play with them...forever.  This can happen in the blink of an eye; thus, I do not blink when I walk down hallways alone.  Safety first.

Terror.  Turn and Run.

The biggest baby issue is the most inconvenient, as it occurs with the most necessary of actions and in the most necessary of rooms: the bathroom.

I cannot, to this day-and I am a freshman in college- walk into a bathroom, do my business, and come back to my room without being in a constant state of panic.  First of all, you have to walk down a hall to get there.  Secondly, I always wait until the very last moment possible to go.  Meaning of course, that my nerves are already shot and I am on the very precipice of bladder destruction.  Then, once I finally get to the toilet, I have to shut the door and/or stall and trap myself in a small box of doom while I become extremely vulnerable to any sort of attack.  This includes but is not limited to: ninjas, ghosts, demons, murders, crazy clowns, hidden cameras, phantoms from scooby-doo.  The loud sounds of the plumbing, the mirrors with the gross florescent lighting... it's all very nerve-wracking.

.Doom.

When I was younger and I lived with my beautiful family in our two story house, my unreasonable fears were very much present.  However, I had one weapon which I could yield and dispel all paranoia's.  With this weapon, all harmful spirits would shrink away to nothing and I was safe from all no matter the time or place.

This weapon was my kid sister, Clari.

Her tiny stature, her dirty blond hair, and her footy pajamas were all I needed.  Almost every night, I would beg her to sleep upstairs with me in my bed and almost every night she would look up at me and oblige.  She didn't like sleeping under the sheets but I liked to cuddle and warm my cold feet on her always toasty ones, so she would grudgingly agree to my blanket arrangement.  In the middle of the night, if the forces of nature were too strong to will away, I would whisper her name and press my arm into her shoulder until her little eyes cracked open.  With the bravery I thought only the most hardened of adult could posses, she would walk beside me down the dark hall to the bathroom.  She would reach up and slide her hand to turn on the light (anything could have been there to grab her) and she would wait.  She never had to say a word, she never got angry, she never got scared.  She was my nighttime hero.

When I was 13 and she was 11, our beautiful family and our perfect team was forced to scatter. It was hard for me to adjust.  I didn't need her for nighttime calls anymore, but for other, more simple things: stern fashion advice, a reassuring hug before school, the knowledge of 100% certainty that there would be a little soul to watch cartoons with at the crack of dawn.  These little things that should have been my contribution to her as the older sister.  These little things that have been a part of her nature from day one, that she doesn't give a second thought about, that she has no idea help me survive the terrors of my own imagination.  My little sister is more of grownup than I could ever be.

I, at 19 years, 5'8",  will always look up to my 17 year old, 5'4"nighttime hero.

That's one thing I will never outgrow.

Rip off the Shirt of Convention

Is it proper blogging etiquette to post more than one a day?  Is it wrong that even though it might be, I'm going to do it anyway because spring break is a time to let loose?  So watch out, Girls Gone Wild, cause this one's 'bout to rip off the shirt of convention and let the bazoombas of freedom bounce shamelessly. 

Speaking of spring break, here's a sample of my week in Florida for a community service trip:

1st service project March 6, 2011

...So, I'm back at the cabin while the rest of the group is out shopping for groceries.  While they are gone I WILL finish my paper.  I can feel it in my bones.  While I was picking through the thorny weeds at Mr. Mulch's house, I found myself going into some self reflection.  and I wish I came out with some philosophical break through like Stephen did in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.  Unfortunately, the only real note worthy thoughts included the realization that gardening is great, my mom must have been 10x as outgoing as me, and that I get bored easily.  In high school, it was easier to stay engaged at school because it was like that was all that mattered.  That got harder senior year when I really started to question whether all of it was worth it; whether school and education was all that really mattered.

So, obviously, the best solution to my collge work woes would be to take classes and find a major that will give me a life that truly matters.  To me.  I think that my lack of dirction (what do I want to do with life) has left me with no goals or aspirations.  And instead of continuing to work hard to keep all my options open, I'm failing and shutting myself out of everything.
But that's enough of that. I don't want to write any more about school this week.  this is spring break.  So I'm going to give myself a break, refocus, recenter, find some clarity, and go again.
I could do this forever though.  I can't tell if it's the sound of the wind through the leaves or the ocean, but the way it syncopates with the chirping and cries and whistles of the birds is fantastic.  The sun is starting to shine but not enough to take the goosebumps off my legs.  Feet kicking soccer balls and hands passing volleyballs go in between enthusiastic yells and the occasional hand clap.  Even though the ocean is far to my left the leaves on the ground in front of me give off a silvery reflection of the sun; it looks like water.  Give me this. Give me jobs to make this kind of world better for everyone, and I'll be the best at it.  Give me this.
I'm a natural March 8, 2011
I got to cut down an infected tree with a chainsaw and the boss for today said I was a natural.  I felt like calling my dad, he'd be so proud
...carpenter bees are starting to come out of the woodwork.  And even though they don't sting or bite, I still look like a tiny cry baby when they follow me in droves!! I am not my mothers daughter.  She used to smack bees our of her face.  There is a part of this little forest that I have to stay out of...
Beach:Success March 8, 2011
The salt water makes my skin sticky and my hair curly.  Emily showed me the little clams that burrow back into the sand.  I love life right now.

Google search illustrates my burrowing clams

What a Night! March 10, 2011
Oh man, I just had one of the best nights.  Are you ready to hear how this was so amazing?  I went to sleep at 10:45pm and it was AWESOME! Then we had to wake up at 7am to be out of the door by 7:20.  And that was awesome, too!  I feel so fresh!!!!! And I got to give Clari her morning wakeup call again which I love love love everyday because I get to hear her beautiful morning voice.  Even this music is bouncing my blood.  I love this morning!  I've got to start doing this more often.
P.S. Spanish moss is beautiful.
Post Beach March 10, 2011
My feet are covered in white sand and my thighs are huuuuuuge.  It's pretty awesome.
...I really have to be careful about who I throw my crazy ideas out to.  Some people actually take me up on them.
...I want to take a road trip this summer but I need a job real bad.  If I get in shape I could be a stripper.

Crazy Acquaintance

This is exciting.
I'm excited.

Putting fingers to the keys and starting a new blog is like putting the key into a new car and getting ready for a cruise about town.  It's like slipping the collar around a shaking puppy's neck.  It's like shaking hands with a total stranger and you just know something crazy's going to come out of being acquainted with them.  

There are a couple things one should know before continuing on the adventure I hope for this to become:

1. I am not great with grammar.  In fact, let's not play games here.  I might be one of the worst.  It's a shame, I know.  A crying shame.  I'm inconsistent with the mistakes that I make and I make them frequently. I think.  Commas and semicolons are two of my very good friends in the writing world so they get placed in places that could surely function well without them.  Many of my friends are very well trained and have a thorough knowledge of grammatical rules and regulations so they are frequently bothered by my free use of whatever punctuation.  So, if you are one of these people, I am sorry and I hope it doesn't distract too much from the overall goodness of the writing.
2. I am a great fan of poetry; reading and writing (incorrect usage of semicolon?).  
3. All things in, of, from, and about me are undergoing constant discoveries.  I'm what you might call a "work in progress".  But who isn't?  That's nothing new or unfamiliar to people.  I just thought you should know that I know because only good can come of knowing, you know?
4. I love lists. They help with my utter sense of indecisiveness and work wonderfully to aid my desperate procrastination.  
5. My family is a wonderful bowl of oatmeal.  You'll probably hear a lot about them.  
6. Aaaand I guess you should know that I'm a first year college student.  There is much to say about what this, but at a later time and date.  For introduction purposes, just know that this means I will be tired and on the extremes of emotions (sorrowful, excited, irate, jumping for joy), much like a pregnant woman.  For I am pregnant with the yearning for knowledge and for freedom.  I wonder when that bundle of joy will finally make it's way into my arms...

So, there is a small list of things to start us off with.  A little bit of starter wood for what will soon become a blazing fire of writing madness!!!!!

And with that I prepare to sign off and climb into my cozy sheets and worn out blankets that still smell a little bit like home.  I'm never washing them.
I leave with the greeting I received every morning from my mother as she forced me out of bed and into the world:
"rise and shine! Time to greet the day and be up&about!"