here in my mind, all these words

i don't even know how to put this. i don't know who i am anymore. on one hand i am this person who writes and thinks and breathes and just feels really hard, and that is me, but then the person who likes to go out and meet people and meet boys and be cynical about life is also me, and i can't get them to coincide. i feel like my life is spent looking for distraction, but i don't even know what i'm trying to distract myself from. i think about myself and i feel the same way you feel when you're watching a movie, or a tv show--this is fake and we will be returning to reality soon. but this is my reality. i'm just trying to fill all my time up. i don't know if i'm having fun anymore, i can't even tell if i'm enjoying the things i do--now i do things for the sake of doing them, not for the sake of enjoyment. i call people and make plans, not necessarily because i particularly want to be doing something specific, but because i don't want to sit at home. this is no way to live.

i don't feel like i'm real, and i don't mean genuine, because i mean everything i say, i try to be good. i mean tangible, in a sense. sometimes when i'm talking to people i stop and think about how i must seem to them, and i am appalled--i talk too loud, i'm too opinionated about some things while knowing nothing about things that matter. i feel like i have no substance.

it's like there's a cloud between my soul and my body; i can't get to know myself anymore. i am trying to be grateful because i have everything i need, even if i don't have everything i want. but i can't shake this sense of panic that one day i'm gonna wake up and realise that i left myself behind a long time ago and there's no way to get that back.

get yourself together, shake shake shake shake shake

i miss dancing.

i miss the music, the dim rooms with coloured lights beaming overhead, turning people's faces blue, green, purple, yellow. the incredible feeling of just letting yourself GO to the likes of ratatat, the rapture, the yeah yeah yeahs, michael jackson, the cure. people dressed amazingly well, a cloud of smoke hanging over everyone out on the balcony. the feeling of sweat drying on your face as soon as you step outside. i miss going crazy with my friends.

i miss romance, i really miss the feeling of holding hands, feeling the distinct touch of the warm dry skin of a boy i'm really into. that's one of my favourites. kissing in cars, being unable to fall asleep in the same bed because it's so damn hard to fall asleep next to someone else, but enjoying staying awake silently together.

goddammit.

destination unknown

i CAN'T stay here another 2.5 months. i just can't.

i feel like i am just slowly diminishing, i am on the verge of tears more often than i'd like to admit, i am constantly fighting this rising sense of panic. i look around and i just hate this place.

why does this keep happening to me? how can a place impact me so much?

anywhere but here. i keep praying i'll wake up and i'll be anywhere but here.

well i've got a hand, so i've got a fist

you know what? i'm just as scared as you. i've been hurt, too. i've felt it and yes, it did hurt that badly. i hate the way i look, chances are i don't feel like i'm gonna be attractive to you. the music i listen to isn't as cool and indie as the music you listen to. you terrify me.

but the difference between you and me is, i don't let that fear stand in my way. i realise that if i hold myself back due to past experiences, i'll never get anywhere. i know that allowing myself to feel it, even if it hurts, is so much better than never feeling anything at all. and i know that once i get past it, we can be great together. i look at the future as well as the present.

i think your fear is pathetic, i think it's time to grow up. this is life.

this is why i'm not dating for a good long while. all the romance and all the feeling get sucked away, to be replaced with fear and careful stepping and "don't call hims" and "don't let him know you like him because you'll scare him aways"; i've realised how much people stick to these rules that should just not exist in the first place.

i'll become a part of this again when things go back to being simple. until then, i am happy being on my own. this is my much-needed opportunity to just do the things that i want to do.

take me back in time

my best friend is irreplaceable, plain and simple, as much a part of my world as the sky, the sun, music.

it's a long story, but we can't see each other anymore without it being rare and secret, and now it feels like a part of my world is missing--and who wants to live without their sky, their sun?

i get a cold knot of dread every time i think about the fact that nothing is ever going to be the same again.

that statement usually feels liberating to me. i never want my life to always be the same; i love change, i love experiencing new things and changing because of them.

but the thing is, i never thought i'd have to do it without her.

i am a circle

1.) i'm going to stop caring. i'm going to stop thinking about him, because he doesn't mean a thing anymore. i mean, he shouldn't mean a thing anymore.

2.) i can't stop caring. i don't want to stop caring about her. i can't stop thinking about her, because she means the world to me.

i do this thing where i get all strong and make these resolutions in my head, and for a while, things are ok. then nighttime comes around and everything goes right out the door, and i'm back at the beginning. a line allows progress, a circle does not.

i've gotta remember how to go from here to there without ending up back here again.

through a glass; darkly

my heart beats strong inside its cage. it finds the space between the big and the small, it finds the grey of the matter and sometimes, it finds the truth. it doesn't have all of the answers, but it doesn't need all of the answers, because it finds experience as it walks down a dusty road.

my heart beats strong every time it meets a stranger, every time it greets a face as familiar as the day. it puts music to the sun and the moon and the cold air in wintertime, white picket fences and emerald lawns. it reads between the lines of every line of poetry, prose, every lyric born.

my heart beats strong against all odds, and i pray it never stops.

the fact is

Humans are fearful creatures...no, no ellipsis. Period.

When exactly was it that people stopped caring? When people got so fucking afraid? I want to know. And I want to know how to stop deluding myself into thinking that I can change it.

But the fact is, there needs to be change. This isn't meant to be one big episode of Sex & the City. It was never meant to be real, people were never meant to be like this. Or maybe I just wasn't meant to think like that, maybe I'm just different. Maybe the only change that needs to take place "should" be within myself.

Fitting squares into circles was never my forte, but why can't the two just coexist without friction?

Go spend an hour in the sunshine, ride a bicycle down a hill on a windy night, hold hands, watch people together and their interactions and their closeness/distance from each other. Go play with a laughing child, go have a real meaningful conversation with someone you just met and will probably never see again. Go drive your car going 90mph on the freeway with your music loud and your hand sticking out your window, doing the wavey thing where it feels like it's in water. Go smile at a stranger and mean it.

Go do these things, and then tell me how you can still be afraid.

cause = time

The first sentence is always the most awkward. This isn't an exception.

The thing is, as ridiculous as the notion may seem, I think I need this sort of thing to stay sane this summer. Written journals are too much hassle, too pretentious; you go through all the motions, you get out a pen and write all your "deep thoughts" and whatnot into an ordinary college-ruled book you've deemed special for your own purposes, and you hide it, as though someone would actually care to read it if they came across it.

Fact is, in this day and age, journals are so passe; so you have something to say. So you've got hidden thoughts and emotions, or maybe you've got some feeling of desperation that you can't let out anywhere else. So what? Everyone has that. And by now, most people have learnt to keep it all inside, and overtures of emotion are looked down upon. The person who comes across your journal is immediately going to put it down and go watch some ESPN. How does that make you feel? Maybe you should go write about it in your journal.

Yeah, I'm just as pathetic as you written-journal kids. The difference between you and me is, I'm too lazy to write--typing is so much faster.

So back to the point--I need this for the summer. Beyond that? We'll see when we get to it.

I just finished my first year of college. I gained: experience, a solid sense of self-confidence that gives me the ability to do anything I want to do, a better knowledge of the way people work, the best friends a girl could EVER ask for, and a general sense of happiness.

I lost: my best friend in the entire world, a semi-decent portion of my optimism for the endurance of romance, a few people [namely boys] who could have been real somethings, and a lot of respect for a lot of people.

Now I'm back home, in a place where I feel like I have no ties, trying to keep everything I gained in my first year of true independence from running away from me just because I'm back under my parents' roof.

I'm ecstatic, crushed, bold and terrified, and just trying to figure things out. I have stories to tell, questions to ask, dreams and plans and the overwhelming sense of something crashing down, the uplifting feeling of soaring through this thing called life, and I'm so happy that I get to share it all with you.