nothing is happy anymore

unexplainable feelings

nervousness
anxiety
fear
...mistakes...

unexplained feelings

silence
silence
silence

speaking

backstabbing
regret
friendlessness
frustration
pain

heartbreak

crying
unrequited love
abandonment
loss

unhappiness
bitter tears

spite
jealousy
judgment
unfaithful

faithless

rejection
solitary
wandering
lost
...despair

darkness
grief
death

...

light?
hope?
a promise a future joy?

happiness?
friendship?
love?
eternity?

...

waiting.

Photography

Michelle is going to help me purchase a camera soon. I have decided it's time for me to go back to my photography because I love it and miss it so much! I have lots of ideas, and I have been taking pictures, but since my Canon Rebel is a manual, it takes a lot of work to get my photos online for sharing. My new camera will be a digital Rebel and I will begin posting almost as much as Michelle soon--though my pictures won't be as good as hers, that's for sure!

For anyone who's interested in watching the progress, ask me for my username and see my photo uploads fly!

...this should be a healthy competition...especially since I live with a photography expert and it used to be my major as well! I'm looking forward to this.

Never to Be Undone

I had a long talk the other night with some good old friends (people who have known me longer than almost anyone else I know!) and the conversation was really interesting and revealing. It was both fun and encouraging to share views and experiences, even if we did just discover that life is equally disheartening, at times, in all directions.

We talked about how strange it is that there are few good Christians in the world, at least Christians who maintain a public desire for purity. So many Christians are content to just slip right into the ways of the world. I don't call myself innocent on this count myself, in all ways. It's easy to be deceived by some people and to fall into the traps that are laid in sin. Sometimes people can be that conniving and deceptive, and sometimes even Christians can be that stupid, whether it comes by the help of others or not.

The part that bothers me is the bragging and unrepentant attitudes. We are so quick to judge other people for their wrongdoing, but so many of us are already too far gone to even consider what we might be doing wrong in our own lives. We all make stupid decisions and create through our errors and instead we think only about what we can gain out of the things that we do.
We create disasters for ourselves, but we cannot seem to learn from those mistakes and stop making them. We don't realize what we may have destroyed
But...what are we losing as a result of our errors?

I have to wonder sometimes...

"What if I missed you, you got caught in the sun; what if I did something never to be undone?" -- Course of Nature

This has been a lifelong fear of mine and yet I walked myself right into some of these set traps as if I had forgotten...

Relationship Schmreelashunshiphs...And the latter word is what most of us end up feeling like at the end...

I have been thinking quite seriously of late about the way in which we, as human beings, and young ones at that, tend to engage in the relating process...and I have come to the conclusion that it is rather an unpleasant business that we make of it.

Please allow me to note, for the sake of clarification, that this post is coming from a notoriously hopeless romantic, and therefore if presented in the negative should be seriously considered without a write off! Don't take me at face value only. I have a'plenty to say...

Alright, first of all, I have not been in a relationship continually since I have been an adult, but I have been in several relationships since I reached the age of 18 (and none that counted before that, which is a really good thing, in my opinion...I got to have a strong foundation of Crystalism before entering myself into the state of being a half of a whole).

I have come to the conclusion that singleness is a refreshing thing right now. I don't know when I got to the point where I was confident and comfortable being myself, but I am glad that I have fully arrived at that place. I am burdened by loneliness at times (I do tend to be a very social person, when it comes to emotions...sometimes I want to share my feelings with someone else). It's not that I am incapable of love right now--I am in love, always perpetually in love, it seems--but at the moment I have found that being alone is the way to create in myself a certain strength of character that I have long desired and only slightly achieved throughout my periods of relational attachment. And yet, I realize that I have learned a lot about myself because of those very relationships as well...Life is truly a grand period of self-realization and new revelations of things that have always existed are constantly surfacing.

Right now, I am comfortable being alone, not because I don't feel loneliness, or don't want companionship, or do not feel love for someone, but because I am interested in pursuing this path right now, interested in seeing what I can learn about me for a while. Who am I, what do I want, me, me, me...but isn't a form of selfishness a good thing, once in a while? I am not trying to exclude anyone, but that is the exact reason why being technically alone is probably for the best right now. I'm actually optimistic about it right now, and it surprises me, because I generally love companionship to the utmost. But at this point, my friends can surround me and have been giving me new life through their loving support.

Now it's time to be both sides of a whole, and perhaps undivided as well. I think I am almost learning to find what I would want in a partner--if ever I should have one. I have learned the importance of growing with someone, not changing someone or being changed by someone...relationships should be complementary, not controlling. I realize, now that I look back, that there are probably several really great guys I passed up because of not understanding what relationships were all about at the time, and probably some really great people who just didn't work with me so the failure was inevitable. (It calls to mind the MuteMath song, Lost Year, which says, "At least now we know something we can't become..." It is a good realization when one comes to it: some things just don't work between two people and it's not something to feel wretched about...just accept, treat each other with respect, and move on.)

I don't really know what I want...that's why I'm better off not wanting or doing anything right now. Too much pain, too much frustration, too much of too much this year...I need a break from love for a while.

Disclaimer:
No, this post is not directed toward anyone but me; consider it a self-reminder.

I didn't want to resort to this...

I don't like REAL blogs to have questionnaires, but I thought I would JUST THIS ONCE, as long as it's particularly profound...

10 things you want to say to 10 different people:
1. I wish my dreams didn't have to be shattered by whatever you're going through, but I hope you find yourself through all of this. I can't say I'll be waiting at the other side, but I'd never turn you away.
2. I wish I didn't have to hurt you so much, and I wish you didn't hurt me back; we might have made it if I wasn't so broken, but as it is I'm not even a whole person to begin with. I wish I could go back and change it somehow, but I think it was an uncontrollable storm.
3. Meeting you has been like getting to know a soul mate that I never knew existed, and I love it! I think you could be a new best friend.
4. Meeting you has been like getting to know a soul mate that I always knew existed and it's great to finally know you! You have always been the one who knows everything about me.
5. You get me like no one else ever has or ever will. You see through my facades and know the REAL ME...I hope to never lose you.
6. You always tell me everything like it is, and even when it's harsh, I really appreciate it. It keeps me grounded.
7. I am glad that once all the crazy fun times were over, you and I were still friends after all. You've made everything a lot easier.
8. I hate it that you're gone. Really, really hate it.
9. I was really disappointed in what happened, but I will always love you no matter what you do
10. I have always been in love with you, ever since the beginning, and I believe that I always will see you as the best thing I've ever found and never had.

9 things about yourself:
1. I am passionately in love with little way that F. Scott Fitzgerald makes words go together.
2. I love being in love, and like The Format laments, I love it in spite of what it does to me.
3. My dreams are all mixed up in a crazy hope and a romanticized ambition...when it comes to knowing what I really want, well...that's a whole different story
4. I have a secret passion for dance music, and dancing, though I am positively terrible at it. There is something so exciting about going out dancing. It makes me feel like a modern debutante.
5. I adore my bed, but I don't spend anywhere near as much time in it as I ought to.
6. I have a weakness for designer handbags.
7. I'm really sorry to a lot of people because I often have a very self-centered appearance to my attitude, but I do love my friends more than myself. Most of the time, when I'm silent, I'm plotting to destroy someone who has interfered with someone I love (or some other less dramatic concern, but similarly related.) In short, I am a lot more likely to stay mad at someone who has hurt a friend than someone who has hurt me.
8. My dream of being a writer when I grow up has gotten more and more vague. I have realized that I am a writer always, whether I ever publish a book at all.
9. The best year of my life was when I was 22, and I miss it. This year has been the worst ever, as occasions of great lesson-learning is apt to be...

8 ways to win your heart:
1. Love the Lord with all your heart.
2. Mean what you say.
3. Be there for me when I need you.
4. Know who I am and love me for it. Don't try to change me. I'm too old for that now.
5. Be yourself with me, and don't lie. I won't judge you for who you are, or try to change you.
6. Cook for me.
7. Share books with me.
8. Be sweet to me and dream with me: I need to dream.

7 things that cross your mind a lot:
1. Someone I never stop thinking about
2. A top-secret project I've been working on, off and on, for 5 years
3. The great, mysterious future
4. Literary curiosities
5. Different songs that I love
6. Scenarios that could but never will happen, and so go into my fiction instead
7. My health, of late...

6 things you want to do in the future:
1. Go to Europe for an entire season
2. Get my own place and decorate it according to my taste...but I do not particularly want to live alone
3. Become a professor of literature
4. Write something worthy of my aspirations
5. Begin the love story with the love of my life, if such a person exists
6. Live the song "Kokomo" as my honeymoon (not kidding...this actually makes the list)

5 Turn Offs:
1. Social ineptness (in its many forms)
2. Arrogance or rudeness, even if it's a compensation for insecurity
3. Overt clinginess
4. A sense of humor that I don't understand, or a lack of appreciation for my fine-tuned sense of humor ;) hey...I work hard to be funny!
5. A lack of imagination

4 songs that describe your life:
1. If I Am - Nine Days
2. On the Road - John Hampson
3. Dog Problems - The Format
4. Books Written For Girls - Camera Obscura

3 places you feel the most at home:
1. My car
2. My house (go figure)
3. With my nose in a book

2 people you can't live without:
1. ONLY TWO?!?!
2. I refuse to limit it to two

1 confession:
1. My life is nothing like I ever thought it would be at this time, and I'm strangely okay with that.

Discovering People

I have come to realize (and this year "I have come to realize" more than I have ever come to realize before, so I feel the assertion is pretty valid) that people of value are few and far between. However, I have also learned that we all react to different things in different ways, so it's unfair to judge a person solely on the basis of their behavior in a certain situation. How are we to know what we would do in the same situation, given a selection of circumstances... Sure, we can judge and assume we would be so much more levelheaded than the other person, but who are we to say we're better than someone else?

My big problem, of late, is with judgmental people, people who like to look other people in the face and say their actions are somehow deplorable or inappropriate. I don't believe that it's fair for one person to place that kind of weight on another person, especially, in my case in point, on a fellow Christian. If the actions aren't sin, in and of themselves, the other person does not have the place to point out those supposed flaws, and even if they are sin, who has the right to remove the speck of dust from another's eye while ignoring the plank in their own? Jesus Christ shared this example with us himself, and yet somehow so many people think they are in the position to determine how other people should "work out their salvation."

Consider also in the New Testament where there is mention made of eating meat sacrificed to idols. Some say this is a definite sin, while others see nothing wrong with it, and the only insight the Bible gives about this decision is that it is up to a man to decide, and that a man should not do this act in front of someone who considers it sin. Well...allow me to get to my point, as my purpose here is more in depth than to merely point at Scripture and say, "See?"

If a Christian believes it is all right to do something that falls into the Biblical "gray area," the place where there is minimal mention of whether a thing is "acceptable" or "not," then clearly they should be wary of displaying this behavior for other Christians who do feel that it is "not" acceptable. The apostles warn against the "stumbling block" this will cause. For example, if a Christian feels something is wrong, and does it anyway, simply because someone else says they should, they are sinning in their own heart. But what about the other direction, because we seldom talk about this...

What about the Christian who is always trying to convince someone that something is a sin when the other person believes that it is not? I ask, because I have been guilty of this attempt at forced assimilation, myself. Is it fair, I wonder, for two people to be in a relationship with each other, trying to force different morals upon each other? Of course, this also requires a necessity of speaking up. (I have been the "convincer" before, without knowing how strongly the "convincee" felt about the subject, and I would like to regret that, but due to the lack of communication, I can't feel entirely at fault.)

I know that I am in very poor standing when it comes to judging relationships, since any that I have been in have ended in disastrous failure--whether by my own fault or not does not really matter in a track record. However, as I began with, I have learned a lot about people this past year. (As Claire says, "I don't know a lot about everything, but I do know a lot about the part of everything that I know, which is people.") I once thought I could understand humanity as a unit, that I just had to find a niche where I belonged and all the sensible things that made sense to me would just flow around me in peace. This is what I [unconsciously] expected out of life, and I think that this year served to teach me, once and for all, that nothing in life is ever what we expect or want initially. Whatever we plan, whatever we hope for, whatever we decide we want, is not necessarily where the road will take us if that is a part of our plan instead of His plan.

So, I can't control the people in my life, I can't control the people that I love, and although I honestly never wanted to control anyone, I did want to be sure of them. I sleep more comfortably knowing you are down the road and in your bed sleeping peacefully, or that you are up at work, but I know where; I can rest easily knowing that I am in your prayers, wherever you are, and that you love me in spite of my many poor qualities and often terrible attempts at having good qualities...

These people are my best friends, the ones who have weathered the storms with me and come out loving me more in the end. I have come to embrace these people for their nearness to my heart, even if they are distant in body. A lack of constant communication is not a problem for me anymore, though once I thought I would go crazy without communication (thought that was for a slightly different reason), because I have learned that if I truly trust the people I love, if we have proven to each other that our friendship is for life, it doesn't matter how often we talk, or how many times in a week, month, or year we see each other, because we will always come back together loving each other as much as ever! And I love that.

Even the GREAT Writers...

I was thinking last night about my much-loved F. Scott Fitzgerald, and while I was browsing the Interwebs, overly concerned with something extremely unimportant, indeed, I was led to the following thought...

F. Scott Fitzgerald has always been a writer known for severe and lasting bouts of writer's block. This very characteristic is what makes me respect the man more than anything. I always hope that somehow, I have a genius waiting to get out on paper too. He and I have dealt with writer's block in much the same way, except he had a Gatsby, and several hundred other delightful tidbits to show for himself. Maybe someday, I could be even a tiny fraction as good...

"All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath. " -- F.S.F.

But, what, dare I ask, would have happened to American literature if the Internet would have been around sooner? Would Hemingway have been too busy playing a FPS on his XBox360 and never written The Old Man and the Sea. Maybe he would have written The Old Man and the TV. Would Melville have been too busy playing FISH: the Flash Game to have ever written an actual novel about the subject? Would Dorothy Parker have been updating her blog once a day and never ACTUALLY written any stories? Fitzgerald sat around drinking highballs and writing lists in order to cope with his writer's block, but what if he had just written lists AND played Sims? What "great American novels" are WE failing to breathe into life because we have too many useless things to do and therefore too little time to do them all?

I have thought though...Oscar Wilde would have had a subscription to GQ, and would idolize Justin Timberlake.

This is the biggest worry we had about Fitzgerald...

"I've been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library." -- F.S.F.

All writers have suffered from writer's block, that looming and evil disease, but that fact makes me all the more encouraged when I hear it from them, in the shadow of their great works of art...

"One of the most difficult things is the first paragraph. I have spent many months on a first paragraph, and once I get it, the rest just comes out very easily."
(Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

"People have writer's block not because they can't write, but because they despair of writing eloquently."
(Anna Quindlen)

"If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word."
(Margaret Atwood)

"Don't get it right, just get it written."
(James Thurber)

"Lower your standards and keep writing."
(William Stafford)

"I only write when I am inspired. Fortunately I am inspired at 9 o'clock every morning."
(William Faulkner)

"If you want to write, write it. That's the first rule."
(Robert Parker)

Quit?

I am misunderstood, even by those who understand me most. There are few of them who do understand, but even so there are those gray areas--more abundant in some people, I'd say--that no one can ever quite grasp. I think I have so many confusing twists and turns that even I do not understand. I don't even think I want to understand anymore.

I've decided to stop. I have gotten ahead of myself, miles and miles ahead, and I need to just stop. There is nothing ahead on this road, and certainly nothing ahead on several roads I've attempted to wander down this past confusing year, so I need to reconcile myself to the endlessness of the futility and just quit.

It's funny because I've never been a quitter; I've always persistently pushed forward to succeed in the things that I first set my mind to, but if I've learned anything this year, I've learned that quitting actually DOES have it's place in this world, and it really IS necessary sometimes. So many people just hang endlessly on to things that they need to separate themselves from, and if that's what they want, that's what they get. I don't know everything that I want, but I know a little bit about what I want and what I want is to find it, whatever and wherever it is.

If this is too cryptic, it's because it's supposed to be, and that's okay with me.

I was watching Big Fish tonight and it reminded me, yet again, that all I want is to go back to the dreams that stand out as most important to me. I want to be a writer, I want to fall in love with a dreamer, and I want to spend the rest of my life in stories. I want to be his "girl in the river" to my storyteller, and I want to be in love forever...

And I've discovered that, if it exists, I haven't found it yet. No one has ever loved me so comfortably, so completely, and no one has ever wanted to be with me so much that they just were; there is always a complication, always a difference between the story and its reenactment. If I can't write my own original tale, I'd rather just read someone else's.

I don't want to be a dime novel...

And I don't want to be a fortune in a discarded cookie...

I want to be a whole book, and I want you to be my Fitzgerald.

...whoever you are

English Majorness: The State of Being an English Major, a Lifestyle in and of Itself

This past week has been...so many things. I can't even begin to analyze it. Being the writer that I am, therefore I must commence the analysis. I know, I know, it sounds counterproductive, but it is highly necessary.

This week--and one particularly great English major friend--helped me to be reminded about what I wanted to do with my life. I don't know how I could have forgotten, but this year has been disastrous and confusing on so many levels. I think I slipped into survival mode and started to forget everything I was supposed to remember.

But all of that has changed.

This week I read an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, and buried myself in the wisdom of my forefathers. I have made myself exceedingly happy yet again, and I feel great hope in what is to come--whatever it is! I feel like a wandering soul that has lost faith in its usual haunts, only to return and discover there is no better place to belong. This week has been tragic and difficult (I was not in tears in the halls of Purdue for the first time in my life this week...) but in spite of the tragedies, I have found myself again. I finally have remembered who I am, and I am so thankful to belong to myself again.

My master's program, while technically looming to an end, is actually first beginning to open up its doors to me. Who will be my director? I don't know... But I am ready to write, and that is all that matters.

Well, actually, there are two other matters at hand now. The first is doctoral school. I am most certainly intent upon going--and upon not going alone! I am so in love with English major lifestyle, and I cannot imagine being anything but a student of the literature of my language. I was talking with a post-graduate friend at work this afternoon and she told me there would certainly come a time when I would be ready to be done, and that may be true. It certainly was true 7 months ago! I think I have been renewed in my desires for my life, though, and I am ready to be ready once again. I want to make up for all the lost time that I have spent being anything in the world but myself. I am intent upon surrounding myself with the people who love me for who I am and let me be that person, indefinitely. Whether it's good enough for them should be a matter of little consequence; this person is ME.

Which leads me to my other matter at hand. Acceptance! I am not naming names or identities of people with these concerns, but I am going to express my concern with the concerns themselves. Why, please tell me why, it becomes necessary for people to say that I am wasting my time "not living real life" by pursuing continued education? Just because I don't work a 9-5 job (and hopefully never will, THANK THE LORD!) does not mean this isn't real life. Once upon a time, an advanced degree in literary studies was the highest form of intellectual accomplishment (besides, like, inventing the universe or whatever Copernicus did) and now it is deemed lesser because it doesn't reap the "money" that the dull jobs do. But I don't want to work those jobs, I want to work this one. I want to be an academic...forever! I've learned that I always will be one whether I am in school studying or not, so why not be in school studying? I can't see this road ending and I don't want it to end; this road makes me feel alive! This road makes the deepest stirrings of my soul stir for a reason, and makes the unique quirks of my identity actually make sense.

So whatever comes next, I'm ready for it, because I can face it with myself inside of me again. I am no longer a strange soul inhabiting a familiar body, though I am undoubtedly changed. I am at least ready to return to my own heart and to walk again in my own path.

Literature makes me alive, and my Fitzgerald-soul communes with Hemingway in my heart.


*First photo, compliments of Michelle Cox*

The Gateway to Nothing

My heart is tired. It aches within me.

It seems that my dreams are like resounding echoes in an empty room. The sounds come from distant desires, and are the ghosts of spoken words that mean nothing: stolen kisses in dark rooms, whispered words through weary lips. All the things you say and swear you mean, all the things I say and truly mean... The words are jumbled together in my head until I can't remember what you said and what I said and what I merely felt in the gentle sweep of your hands upon my face. What did it all mean? For I know what it means to me, but to you? I am barred from that understanding, and I can never know.

I feel that I should give up and let go; after all, what does it matter to a broken heart as hard and cold as a crater of gray slab? No life could survive there unless you bring it, and you remain distantly within your own mournful sadness. Maybe the two will never meet, though my living depends upon it. Or maybe deep down, within the depths of our individual sadness a tunnel will span the distance between our two graves and we should meet...

I should break away from the dismal existence of hopeless hope, of longing that will never be sated, and of pain that will never be relieved. I am destined for nothing, and in weariness I travel alone, solitude before me and behind me, with no evidence that anything else will come...ever.

In spite of it all, you are still a tower of light, to me, a beacon of hope spanning a distant horizon I can never reach on my own. I see you, but cannot stretch out my hand to grasp you. You are always escaping me, yet I keep you always in my sight. Your light pours out on me and gives me warmth, even if we should never touch again. I am a weak and frozen stone beat upon by the waves of heartbreak...nothing without your love.

Please, please, please just take me away forever. I can think of nothing better than to leave this cold emptiness forever and go with you to a place of warmth and happiness and love, just you and me.


"The strongest guard is placed at the gateway to nothing. Maybe because the condition of nothingness is too shameful to be divulged." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald

Night of Ice

In the quiet and stillness of a winter night I sat. I could feel the crinkle of the wind against the house, though it was shut out. It seemed that the house was as delicate as an eggshell, coated in a thin layer of ice, and it could crumble with too much movement from within and too much wind from without. I held my breath and tiptoed as if I could keep the house standing by my near immobility.

Although the blinds were drawn, I thought with a shiver of what I was shutting out. The snow encrusting the earth was like a china dish: glossy, smooth, and fragile. To set foot on it's delicate crust was to fear a crack in it's surface, and a crack would shatter the earth. So I sat still and quiet, fearful of the outside.

I listened carefully to the silences, hoping only for the sound of your footfall on the delicate earth outside. I needed you there, I needed you home, because I missed you. It was as if I hadn't lived since I last saw you, though you had just been there with me that morning, warming me with the sweetness of your smile and the tenderness of your loving arms.

The silence invaded my soul and brought a cold darkness over me, from the inside out. I felt so desperately alone and yet I could not remember why. I could hear the patter of soft feet inside the walls and the beat of bat-wings above my head. White spots formed before my eyes like the foreshadowing of mini strokes that would leave me trembling in paralytic immobility. I listened for you, awaiting your arrival at any moment. The opening of a heavy door, the crack of a frosted hinge, and warmth would be restored to my frozen heart. I pressed my forehead against the floor, my palms and tingling fingers groped to balance my reeling mind.

I sat thus for the longest time, until the gentle tick...tick...tick of the chime clock on the wall became drumbeats in my ears. My mind went dark against the pounding waves of sound, like a rock smashed time and again by the beating of the surf: whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...until erosion has rubbed the rock into nothing it once was.

CRACK.

I startled awake from a sleepless stupor, lying in a pool of saltwater on the floor, the sobs I had been gushing forth were still wracking against my ribs like a clamoring beast struggling to get out of me.

CRACK.

I shivered uncontrollably and huddled into the corner of the room alone, my feet slipping on my own tears as I crawled away from the windows in fear. The earth was like a piece of glass, shattering around me because someone, somewhere, had cracked its surface. I grasped the slippery floor and reached into the darkness around me, but nothing was there to hold on to. The sobs beat inside my body until I couldn't hold them and they controlled me. Where were you? If only you'd come; if only you were here to hold on to now.

The white spots before my eyes grew brighter until they were long white lines of piercing light. The walls and floors of the house were crumbing into giant cracks and I would fall through into the depths of the earth. I sobbed, incoherent, begging the earth to swallow me, wanting to be taken.

Without you there was nothing, and I willed myself forward, through the pool of my own tears, toward the precipice where I could throw myself over the edge.

In a sudden moment of clarity before the end, I remembered why you would never come. I remembered that you were dead.

***

When I awoke, it was morning, and a pool of sunlight illuminated me as I lay in a heap of aching sadness on the hardwood floor of our home. I had survived the first night of the rest of my empty, lonely life...

Pillars of the Earth: the Quirks and Qualities

My friends and I are lonely people. I love them because of their loneliness and melancholy, and because they remind me of myself.

Life has shown me some things about myself and others; I have learned that some things that seem so certain often disappear without warning or seemingly without cause, and some things that seem temporary, like seasons in time, just remain and grow stronger with age. I always thought certain people would always stay in my life, but maybe it was that very direct certainty that was the thing that made it all come undone. I don't know...I think I've always seen relationships as future-oriented love, but my mistake has been in my tendency to see things as certain, instead of as having the [very human] potential to fail.

Now, my thoughts have changed over this very productive Thanksgiving holiday and I have learned some new things to be thankful for. I have changed immensely this past year. I think I grew up--scary thought--and suddenly entered this strange state of realization about what life really is not. (I believe I am still likewise unable to say what life is, though...) I see the things in life that are steady, the pillars that are more than mere signposts and truly are structural components that keep me standing. These structures that hold me secure are not the permanence of anything, not the fulfillment of dreams, not the little things in life that I take pleasure in, although they are truly connected. These pillars that hold me steady are people: my best friends.There are codes in keeping with these friends of mine: specific codes for each friend and universal codes for all. I love each of my best friends with my whole heart (it's as though I have 5 whole hearts) and do not speak against them, or allow others to talk badly about them. Even when I am confused by my best friends actions or in disagreement with their decisions, I am behind them to support them against the world (although that is not meant to imply I didn't give them hell behind the scenes when no one was looking! What kind of best friend would I be if I didn't look out for them?) I want my best friends to be beside me all my life and I truly cannot imagine not having them to hold on to. This past year has been an example of the testing of bonds, in every quarter, and my best friends have come through it with me--stronger for the survival.

My best friends have unique qualities that I love, and each one of them has some parts that are like mirror images of me: opposite in some senses, but identical in others. Even in our dissimilarities, we all have certain connections that make our bond secure. Each of them holds a piece of me and yet, because of their differences, I cannot imagine living without them as a whole. They make me stronger as myself, and they make the complicated concept of "me" make sense.

A tribute to my best friends; from oldest to newest (in order of our acquaintance, not in order of importance--not that I could ever assign an order of importance to these beloved individuals)

This is a public version of my annual Christmas letters.

Michelle Deane Cox, since December 30, 1986

Michelle doesn't have a choice in the matter of best friendship. God made her born to the same parents for the sole purpose of giving me my first best friend. (In humor, I state truth.) Michelle and I fight (less often now that we're older, I guess) yet through our fights we have come to understand each other. (We're siblings; siblings fight. No explanations should be necessary.) It's funny because I have come to realize that Michelle and I achieve something that would be otherwise unachievable between other friends: we understand that we don't always understand and that brings us to an understanding--Michelle, do you understand? If so, you prove my point! We don't always know why the other does what she does, but we definitely know what the other is going to do...or at least in a small, vaguely foreboding way. We know and understand each others shortcomings from 23 years of living together--and living with two other people who are varying degrees of us--and we could not know the same knowing with any other friend, no matter how hard we tried. We speak the same language, and a unique one at that, one that often remains uninterpretable to our friends around us. Michelle is smart, talented, beautiful and successful and I'm proud that she's my sister and best friend. Her extreme loyalty throughout the troublesome year has been refreshing and has proven to me that I must always (continue to) do the same. I know that one day she will find the perfect guy who appreciates her for all of her "quirks and qualities," because as the doctor said when she was born, "She's a keeper!" (Or was that me he said it about...hmm, either way)

Disclaimer: Boyfriends who do harm may or may not be verbally abused as a result of this sisterhood...

Robin Lynn Wieringa-Jellema, since December, 1997

When Robin and I met, it was "friendship at first sight." This is often the case with close friends of mine, but with Robin, it was literally instantaneous. I think one or the other overheard some conversation about the seventh grade obsession 'NSync, and the rest was history. Our friendship grew stronger in college years and later high school years, though we had always had a good time together. I think that our friendship has been put through minor tests several times, and we have always come through for each other. This past year has been the test of tests: we were both able to see what the other meant to us and whether the other would be there through tough times, including her living more than five hours away for the past two and a half years! I can still remember one afternoon in May where I felt like the whole world had collapsed at my feet. As I sat there sobbing by myself, feeling completely alone, the only coherent thought that went through my mind was, "Robin!" I remembered that I was in no way alone from all human contact, and I called her. No, she didn't make it all better, at least not right then, but once everything was all better I could easily look back and see her as one of the biggest components of making it better. She is always there to listen and she understands my heart when it comes to matters of great importance. I am so thankful that we have not only remained friends, but become stronger friends over the years. I know she is one of the friends that will always be there for me.

...And I'm about to be an aunt to a little Jellema baby!

Brian Patrick Brennan, since March, 2005

While thinking about Brian's role in my life today, I remembered the early days of our friendship when we used to fight a lot, and when we used to text each other long epistles on our cell phones. It's funny to think about how different we are--no longer texting as much, and definitely not fighting anymore--and yet how all the little tests of time have brought us closer together. We have had each others' backs on more than one occasion throughout our years of knowing each other (remember photocopying work schedules for me so I would know when I should be aware of possible sightings of "The Enemy"? Then there was no enemy, and now there is again, and still you're here.) Brian has been the most loyal friend and the most compassionate listening ear throughout so many difficulties, and he's one guy who, as I've said before, has never not been there. (Let the double negatives fly tonight!)

When I think of Brian, I can never forget the moment 10 gallons of cold water came down on his head (by surprise) at 5:30 one relaxing summer morning of a Home Depot day...

Kelly Ann Baker, since August 2005

I debated for many minutes whether Kelly or Carl came first in chronological order, and I realized that I began to know Kelly several weeks after Carl, but I initially met her 4 1/2 hours before Carl...so we will place people where they are due to be placed. (That was an awesome day, not that I think of it! Wow!)

Kelly Ann is my long-lost sister. When I met her, I was all grown up already, but I felt like she had somehow grown up in my house and I'd never seen her before. Perhaps it comes from love of the same things--literature, music, writing, all things nerdy--that made us become friends, but I don't know for sure. She just seemed to fit into this little niche all her own, somewhere in the middle of my family, like the missing sister that is me, Michelle and my mom all mixed up in one person. Kelly was the one who had my back during another great fallout in my life, and she and I were later almost split by another foolish catastrophe, but through many trials, we somehow remain strong and secure. Our friendship--sisterhood?--has mellowed out to become a calm understanding that we'll be there for each other. I am very thankful for Kelly, and I miss her terribly during the school year now that we are both so terribly busy. Kelly is a beautiful person, inside and out, and I am happy for her in her soon-to-be marriage. I have always hoped that she would find someone who appreciated all of her many quirks and qualities that I hold dear, and I am so glad that she has! To me, she is a wonderful woman who deserves and equally wonderful husband. (I approve of Tom.)

I miss our CD burning nights in which we accomplish no homework yet stay up until sunrise. Oh, and coloring princess coloring books instead of studying linguistics. Oh, and the wonderful moment when we discovered that our linguistic book was made in Boston because of the phonetic key! I miss Kelly who taught me to embrace my inner nerd...and make it my outer nerd!

Carl Walter Roach, since August 2005

I met Carl's 6 foot 6 and 3/4 inch self by sharing a desk with him on Andy Miller's (and my) first day at Purdue Cal. After class, we went out in the parking lot and talked for two hours. When I got home and my mom asked me how my first day of school was, I said it was awesome...oh and I met the male version of myself. Since the first day, I knew Carl and I were meant to be friends, but almost five years later I find him to have a lot higher friendship ranking than I originally imagined. He has literally proven himself to be the male version of "me"--literature lover that he is--and he complements me perfectly as an amazing friend. We recently discussed our friendship code--that no one comes between us...EVER...no further explanation necessary--and we will never again allow ourselves on near-friendship-ending grounds. (It is great to know that he has my back just like I have his!) I love everything about him--seriously, where did such a great guy come from? (I laughingly recall that I said he was just like me...ah, I amuse myself.) Our friendship has grown stronger and stronger, and somehow this past year has been the best yet. With all the other shipwrecks of relationships and friendships around us, ours still stands in spite of the storms. It is my hope that Carl finds happiness in his life, because in spite of his emo tendencies (I don't mean that negatively. It is, after all, a common quality of the English major...) he does deserve it because he is a unique and wonderful person (I love all his 1,001 weirdnesses) and I am honored to be among his best friends. I might love him too much, I think. Seriously, isn't he adorable (and a tall something)? Ha. I also can't get over this picture...he's really been around a long time, it makes me feel a little old, but also really glad to know that he's still here.

I can remember all of the fun times with Carl (and we have had many, such as me supposedly almost killing him in an ice storm, us almost sleeping on the floor in Gyte the morning of a big paper, and him spilling random beverages in inappropriate places on his clothing) but the more serious side of our friendship--more lately developed--has been a comfort to me this year and stands in a place of highest importance over even the fun memories.

For Thanksgiving this year, I am thankful to God for giving me all of the wonderful people he has given me to love and be loved by. No one will ever take you guys away from me! I love you.

You guys keep me standing and I couldn't ever be the same person without each of you.

Hilarious, ancient ramblings...

From April 18, 2006:

It is now a blog! THE NERDITY OF THE MIND

There is a blog in progress.

EDIT:

For those scoffers (no names mentioned, Kels) who did not believe that this would become a blog, to them I dedicate this. I simply find rare moments when my computer works so it seemed like the most logical thing to...oh no one cares. Let me begin my blog.

This piece of writing has been a thought process for many weeks, but I, being the busy woman that I am, have not had time to take pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, respectively, to convey the thoughts into a medium easily understandable by non-members of my personal brain cult. My subject is nerdity, my purpose is to promote it and my goal is to make you love it...you, oh desired reader, whose secret longing for my heart draws you to my blog. Be amazed, interested, and amused. May I suck you in to the deep thoughts of my tangled mind.

Most of my profound thoughts are concocted in the deep cogitations of my heart during intense plant watering at the Home Depot. There are so many thoughts that flit through my brain: here....gone...back...gone...here. sit awhile...run away again. By the time I have a moment with a good piece of paper and a pen ("good" to be expanded upon in future) I am either falling asleep or my thoughts have definitely fled. As they are fleeing now...rapidly... Oh, I finally have a functioning computer and I have no thoughts!

Nerdiness, I must say, is a blessing and a curse. In each nerd, the characteristic plays differently, affecting the mind or the body or the soul or varied combinations of all three. With me, it is very certain combination of all three. It affects everything I say and do, it influences my emotions and my morals, it intensifies my feelings and my addictions; in short, it makes me who I am. Well, of course it does! I am: A NERD.

I write with Zebra pens. Not just any Zebra pen for Zebra makes many kinds. They are the stainless steel fine point black pens. They MUST be stainless steel, they MUST be fine point and they MUST be black. There are no other ways to make this known. Simply put, I MUST use these pens. And they cannot write on any old paper. Notes can be written on lineless paper as long as the paper is soft, but not smooth or shiny and never thick. I prefer a grain so that the ink is absorbed, but not TOO absorbed so that it spreads, blends or disappears. Lined paper is ideal for intense writing. If the words have purpose or beauty or convey innermost thoughts (as I desire all of my words to do) then the paper simply must be lined. The lines have to be thin. And here, I am not referring to college ruled. I mean the actual lines that the words sit upon must be thin. The print must be thin, the ink must be light or the lines will be greater than the fine-point-penned words, and that may never be!!! (Such would be an abomination!) As for rules, indeed, college ruled is the greatest line size imaginable. Wide-ruled is for fools and non-nerds. May I never be compelled to write on such blasphemous paper, such an abomination to the beauty of my art! University ruled paper sets my heart a-flutter (as long as the lines are printed finely, as I said) and my Zebra pen (of stainless steel, fine point and black ink) cries out in excitement at the prospect.

Words...writing...pens...paper...Such are my lovers! May I never be without them.

Such are the ramblings of a true nerd. Next time: WORDS: BEHIND THE SCENES. For now, the means by which they get to you...Crystal L. Cox, signing off!

From: December 5, 2005

1-800-DIE-4-CARL........with additional information!!!

For you wayward women out there who find yourself in love with Carl Roach, Jesse & I require extensive pre-screening for any female in Carl's life, to prove elligibility. Cyou handle Carl boot-camp? Do you desire him simply because he's the modern example of a Greek god or because his deeply senstive nature stirs the depths of your poetic soul? Are your reasons superficial & self-interested or is this emotion that excites you truly the eternal love that withstands the tests of time? These are the types of probes you will be faced with. Sessions are held on the third weekend of every month, lasting three days, generally Friday through Sunday. (For inquiries, office hours are Mondays-thru-Thursdays weekly between one and four a.m. only.) Activities include desert wandering without water supplies, walking on hot coals and high-diving with a ball and chain around your neck. A fee of "as long as you shall live" is required up front, plus the cost of meals and application fees (which are $7,461.67, updated seasonally). All applicants are required to submit application forms accompanied by a 12,000,000 word essay (Question: "Why do you think you would be a suitable wife for Carl?") Final exams and interrogations are held the weekend following workshops, led by Jesse, and usually lasting a minimum of 36 hours. (We are not responsible for lost or stolen items or deaths during these sessions.) Results (typically rejections, since we have found no elligible females at this time) are usually sent within 3 years of the completion date of this course--allow 6 weeks for delivery. Bring your own bedding, housing units (electricity supplied) and items needed to maintain personal hygene. Toilets not provided. These figures do not include the cost of course supplies.

For more information contact us at 1-800-DIE-4-CARL or visit our website @ www.ifyouwannamarrycarljesseandcrystalcantalkyououtofit.com
No refunds.

From: May 2, 2006

Carl's BIO for Skylark

Carl Roach is an avid reader and writer, attending college at Purdue University Calumet indefinitely. His parents are members of the faculty and therefore pull strings to get him preferential treatment on campus. He often parks his BMW in the faculty parking zones and aids his professors in operating electronic equipment in order to earn extra brownie points (called "hard earned A's" by the rest of us). He drinks a lot of Starbucks, spills a lot of Starbucks and tells a lot of funny jokes, his best being an impersonation of a gay, Mexican man named Esteban who always shows up at Starbucks while the humble editor is driving. Carl also loves to write satirical accounts of actual events, brag about the amounts of beer he can consume and hide behind his Greek nose.



From: Augiust 11, 2006

Thoughts in Words

Contemplations at 12:54 a.m. on what will eventually become the day of Saturday, August 12, 2006.

I think too much. Did I ever tell you that? It is most assuredly the truth. I do not believe that I have ever let thirty minutes go by without somehow allowing my brain to lapse back into the strange and absurd lifeform known primarily--and creepily--as THOUGHT PROCESSES. Lately, I have begun to think that my description of "contemplations" is vaguely incorrect. After all, often times my thoughts are from a serious, though nearly vegetative, state of subconsciouness so that I am very nearly hynotized in my brain rather than genuinely "thinking". Could I tell you what my thoughts are of? Often, no. Am I able to explain my sudden sadnesses or happinesses? Verily, I cannot. This is, indeed, because I am beginning to cease in my prolonged habit of thinking in words and I have begun to think in elusive mists of ideas. Yet the wordiness shall return...I promise. What I need--though I hate to say it--is a classroom, a notebook of college-ruled, lined paper, a Zebra pen, and hours of uninteresting classroom conversation at my disposal in which my thoughts may make themselves manifest in the WRITTEN WORD. Ahh, I admit it! I cannot wait...

Whatchacallit...I'm sleepy. (Compliments of Brian)

Work, early. Long day ahead. Little sleep in my recent past...The Answer is Obvious.

Happy Friday Night! Who goes out on Friday night anyway? Assuredly not I!

From: October 12, 2006

The Excesses of Semesterial Anti-Bliss

Hi, this is Crystal, reporting back after a night filled with long, rigorous paper-writing for Daniel Punday, professor of English. The class is Literary Theory, the text is S/Z, the writer is Roland Barthes, the subject is readerly and writerly, the summation is intense, the reaction is frustrated interest, the result is...

infantilization of self

thank you, and goodbye.

Stealing Dreams

I'm hoping it's the sickness, or the medicine, or even, dare I say, the cynicism that's been instilled in me this year after the loss or visible destruction of a large number of things that once stood as pillars of hope and promise in my life. At any rate, the self-destructiveness of my dreams is starting to irk me.

My dreams, let me first explain, have always been a place of escape for me. The images are vibrant, colorful and other-worldly. The scenarios are like heavenly movies: the kinds of things that happen could only happen in imagination, but since dreams are flights of fancy, I can accept the fantasy. So, the dreams may never come true, but some have in part, and I believe eternity has other pieces of those dreams in store for me.

However, lately my dreams have been horrifying and despairing for me because they begin beautiful and turn on me. They become dark representations of destruction and loss and sadness for me, and I awake feeling unhappy and listless. Even my dreams don't want me to find happiness anymore...

If I'm in love with you and can never have you, I can handle that, but only if I can dream of you. If I am to fail in my attempts and lose my life and see my hopes of something else dashed to pieces against a brick wall, fine, but I need my dreams of beauty and happiness to get me through. I need my dreams for survival as they are tokens of eternal promises. How can I live if my dreams are stolen from me along with everything else?

To Say it Would be to Say Too Much

We don't really know what to expect from life when we're young and inexperienced, so we paint the brightest pictures of the loveliest things, imagining what could be. We come to expect these dreams to come true.

Cast off yet again from the gates to my dreams-come-true, I find myself back at square one (my permanent residence, it seems). But some things never changed.

So we sat together in a brightly-lit room, cheery because of its brightness, yet dim enough to hide some imperfections, and we tried to reclaim our younger days of youth and innocence, hoping to recapture the joy and optimism, at least for a time. The endeavor wasn't quite as successful as we'd hoped it would be; we became quite serious after while and our conversation drifted into matters of a grown-up significance, the kinds of topics our younger selves would have fled from with shrieks and waving hands. We involuntarily lapsed back into our new-found sedentary approaches to life, our not-unpleasant--if artificial--steadiness that smoothed the surface over the deep fears and emotional turmoils we sought to keep hidden.

We were perpetually in flux, stuck between our childish selves that we had half cast off with with sentimental sighs and denial, and the very necessary adult selves that were so carelessly sensible and boldly averse to dreams of youth, without any reason for either the boldness or the aversion. We were not ourselves anymore, and yet we were no one else. We were in a transitional stage between what we were and what we were going to be, yet we couldn't help but to wonder if somehow we were at our end. "They" say we'll keep going, keep changing, and eventually it will all make sense, but we had no idea where it would finally stop. We talked like we knew we would make it in this world, but both of us were painfully aware of the fact that the other was also floundering, with no idea at all.

In the span of years that took us from hopeful caterpillars to our current state of entrapment in strange cocoons, we'd changed. A lot. We couldn't help wondering if we ever would become butterflies--or even if we wanted to be butterflies; after all, that was the expected result of this cocooning business--or if somehow this was it. We hadn't been given a choice in the matter; remaining a bright, happy caterpillar was never something we could have chosen for ourselves. It was a limited tour.

There had to be more, I told myself, and then it occurred to me that there was. Through all the fun and adventure, the heartbreaks and tears, that we had suffered separately, we had also changed together, not apart. Like so many who stand watching breaches form between them, powerless to stop their expansion, this had been the case with us and so many others, but we had not looked at each other through it all. I was certain there was something different between us, after all this, but there was no widening chasm pulling us farther and farther apart. It was as though the widening chasms all around us had driven us both backward until we hit, back to back. We'd turned to find each other, standing alone together on precarious footing. We stared for a while, deep into each others eyes, before we realized it, but even then without words.

No, I said to myself, I'm imagining this. Because we're both lonely I want to imagine there is more. Without trembling fingers and thrills of delight, this feels like nothing. Love is always like that, so exciting and fluttery, right before it ends in abandonment. And yet, while I was feeling nothing like that, something about this felt even more right...

I love my friends, and I treasure the people in my life. I could never let them go, nor would I want to. Those who have removed themselves from me have left scars that never fully heal from their perpetually smarting insides. As he looked back at me from across the table, with the staid seriousness of a friend who truly understood and cared, I realized that a bridge of years had somehow spanned between us without my knowledge of when and how it was constructed. Deep currents flowed between us without separating us. Until that moment, I hadn't realized how much I wanted very much to never lose him.


My heart doesn't exactly race when I see him, and my palms do not grow clammy at the thought of his touch, yet a deep longing for him settles deep inside and overwhelms me with a desire to be freed from its cocooning bounds. I want him to know, and little pieces come out under the guise of silly jokes, and yet I am likewise perfectly content to remain as we are. There is no way of knowing, and just now, no drive to find out, where this feeling will take us, or even if it is shared. It's different, this thing between us, holding us together like a glue, and yet stronger than a traditional bond. There is no fear, no worry, no wondering, no "what if," only an understanding--quiet, peaceable, and still--that is, and has taken a very long time to become, a deep and steady love.













I don't seek a relationship "status" or even a name for this thing, whatever it is, because to replace that, there is a confidence I have never felt before in a thing I don't even believe in anymore..to name it would be to risk its coming undone, while here in its very indefiniteness it could remain always: known to us both and never mentioned.

To say it would be to say too much.

Thoughts in my head on a different day...

These are some of the things I am thinking about:

--love and relationships
--career goals
--writing goals
--OTHER GOALS
--friends
--adventure
--travel

Is this really going to fit into a single post?

Okay, here's my first take on the whole shebang. When I wrote the above list, I realized that the biggest issue I face right now is GOALS. But I haven't been accomplishing them. I made a new friend on Facebook the other day and the very first thing I saw when going to his profile, right in my face, was this statement as a tagline: "It's easy to sit and ponder yet so few can transition that dream into action. Have you taken a risk lately?" Not much, perhaps, but enough to get under my skin and irk me for more than 24 hours, because here I am sitting at my computer "pondering" and more than ever wanting to take the plunge without calculating risks...I need to just jump in and do what I want.

Since May, my life has inadvertently revolved around the question, "What comes next?" and I have casually tossed the question aside while curling up in my proverbial comfy chair to mope. (Isn't sitting around dreaming about something without ever making the move to go for it kind of like moping?) I have several ideas about what could come next, and the same thing could come next just as easily as something new. It's all a matter of how hard I strive to get it. I have given myself the benefit of the doubt--oh, don't worry, Crystal, you have a broken heart right now! Eventually you'll pick up and be the old dream chaser again, just like you once were--but I feel that 6 months time is more than enough time to "mope" over something that isn't changing anyway. I mourned my loss, I calculated my remaining assets, I reconsidered the path as I saw it, I came to a unique understanding of what happened and why (After all, the answers that really answer why don't matter much when the result is still "no." The goal is merely to find peace within myself and the ability to move on from what happened.) and I can at least accept the finality now, whether I once liked it or not. 6 months...it doesn't seem like it's even been that long and I think it's because I've locked myself in and held myself there, steadfastly but stubbornly refusing to be removed from a demolished house. When I look back I can see how very much I've changed as a person in the past year. December 31 slipping into midnight will be a pleasant farewell...

So...love and relationships. In summary, these things are nothing at all like the way I imagined them to be, once upon a time. People leave, plain and simple, and the things we expect to last just don't last, and I'm much more comfortable now seeing everything that I do as a step of temporality; at least when I don't believe that something will last, I am so much more likely to appreciate it for its short life. Eternity should exist, and indeed does in other realms, but we as humans ascribe to much to it and expect too much from it. Everyone seeks happiness and comfort and peace and love and we all hope it lasts "forever." Sure, I want that...but I have lately narrowed my list of specific desires down to a mere three things...

1. I want to be with someone who will grow into love with me. My relationship with my best friend Robin is the platonic example of what I want in romantic love. We were just regular friends who knew each other, but there was always something in the back of my mind that told me I wanted to know her better, and over the years she has grown into the person that I go to with everything, and I can't imagine living without her. With romantic relationships, we are all too likely to jump in and press "go," but the flame burns so quickly and then it's burned out. Why can't a relationship grow like a strong, steady tree, so that we go from liking each other to being unable to live without each other without even knowing when the intertwining took place. I thought I had this kind of love before, but as always, my impression was different from the other's impression. The key to this kind of love is that the other person sees it too, not just me.

2. I want it to be simple and true. I need you, you need me, we're better together, let's be together. I realize it takes wading through the dumping grounds of crappy relationships to find a relationship like this, and maybe even then we are too damaged to trust and too frustrated to heal, but I don't know. I have to believe that's out there.

3. I want it to be fun and interesting, but my idea of "interesting" is not overly intimidating, I don't think. This goes with 1 and 2, because if someone loves me like their best friend (provided I can find that kind of love again, and this time to last) the love will be simple and true, and fun and interesting because it's best friendship! My idea of "fun" is to be able to laugh--life without laughter is like a silent representation of a soul without laughter (a dead soul!)--and to be able to cry--because tears are simply outward manifestations of inner emotions, and I think that best friends should be able to share those feelings with each other, or at the very least have them--and be silent--because silence is comfort, although it isn't always romantic, and although I like to talk, one of my favorite things in the world is pure and uninterrupted silence, just to enjoy the love of the person by my side and say nothing at all. What remains unsaid sometimes keeps the mystery alive, and while so many people are intent upon knowing the answers, I've come to realize that as long as the most important answers are certain (namely, that you need me, love me, and won't leave me, and that I feel the same) whatever else is missing will eventually fall into place as the trees intertwine to become one.

I was thinking this morning (I'm finally beginning to think in scenes again, and I love it. I've been waiting almost a year to get back into my own head again) and I imagined that the most pure and simple profession of love would be a marriage proposal that was not necessarily fancy or romantic or rehearsed. It may not contain flowers, candles, dinner, verses of poetry or glistening diamonds, but it would contain the most important possible words, the keys to the heart. I just want that, that bravery that comes with loving someone, someone that will change my mind and make me believe again that people will stay and do need me, I just want to take care of someone who needs me and live a life of care and love with that person. I won't settle for anything less, and if I feel like it's less, I don't want to take it.

The hard part is feeling the same way as someone else; the part that trips up the whole deal is finding out that two people just can't feel exactly the same way about each other, and that there are always the little mysteries...but those are hurdles to jump in time. Right now, none of this is, and the castle I have just constructed in the air before my face will fade into the mist as I turn away...but is it possibly the representation of something in my future? I wish I could just know...but if we always knew the answers to our deepest mysteries, we would give up hope and have nothing to strive for, since we already know we won't achieve it.

I don't even know if I have time to get into the other goals on my list. I guess there will be another blog: "Thoughts in my head later on the same day..."

Thoughts in my head today...

1. I need to get myself a new car. I am absolutely claustrophobic with my inability to leave the house of my own accord and go anywhere I want. I am hopelessly dependent upon transportation, or maybe just freedom. The money that I got from my beloved Otto the Auto was a lot more than I had expected to receive, so I have more leeway when it comes to choosing a vehicle, but I just don't know what I want to do. I guess I'll probably just get something basic, something similar to what I had before, so that I am neither making a serious investment nor spending more money than I am able to spend. Hmm, time to think and shop around!

2. I like confetti cake. For my birthday this year, I want to have some. I want to do something fun for my birthday because this is going to be quite a depressing birthday for me. Last year was bad enough, but this one is even worse, and I'm afraid it's only downhill from here. I feel hopelessly old lately. People keep telling me I'm crazy for thinking of myself as old, but maybe they don't understand. It's not like I am feeling like I'm slipping into the grave, but I definitely am in the weird, entrapping gap between childhood and adulthood, yet I feel like there is some required step between the two, some decision I should make, something...but what? I feel unprepared for this, and I don't even know what I'm supposed to do now. I guess this segues naturally into another thing that's on my mind...

3. I'm not ready to be done with adventures. I kind of want to live that college-like lifestyle again, and this time I want to get a house or something with a group of people. Sure, I may be miserable in that lifestyle, but I am dying to do it. Marriage is no longer in my foreseeable future, so I feel like I need to take the opportunity to do what I want now. I have always wanted to be a kid forever, and I don't see any reason why I have to settle down to so-called mature responsibility. I can hold down my jobs, and I can afford to live and own a car, so I find it reasonable to let go of responsibility in some other areas. I already do this, I know, but I sometimes feel like I am walking on eggshells around adventure, like I can dream about it but I dare not jump in. Someone needs to just push me right in and take the ladder out of the water. I need more spontaneity in my life...I sure have plenty in my head and it goes to waste in there.

4. I want to have a graffiti wall in my room of art, writing, and inspiration. I want to paint the wall whenever I feel like and decorate it with whatever I feel like...

5. I love my students! I love being a teacher! It's not the only thing I want to do, but at least I can say I do love this one thing :) It is exciting to never know what they are going to do or say next, and it's rewarding when they really get better at writing!

6. I've been thinking a LOT about relationships and commitment and what I hope to find in the great search for love (whatever it is)...but these thoughts of today must be saved for continued contemplation in tomorrow...or else maybe tomorrow will have enough thoughts of its own and won't need today's...

Quarter-Life

He bought a motorcycle at 50. It's a mid-life crisis.

She got a face-lift at 47. It's a mid-life crisis.

He left his wife at 52 and started dating a college student. It's a mid-life crisis

She quit her job at 55 and went back to school to train as a professional singer. It's a mid-life crisis.

But...

He graduated from college at 23 with a degree in English and became a waiter at TGIFridays...

She quit college at 25 in the middle of her Master's program and went back to her college retail job...

He taught high school for one year and then at 24 enrolled in college again to start back at square one...

She was engaged to her boyfriend at 20 and changed majors to get married sooner, but when he left her at 23 she realized she hated her new major...

What crisis is this?

It's quite unfair that the world fails to acknowledge the quarter-life crisis, the one that tends to have almost more serious effects on people's lives than even the mid-life crisis. At the quarter-life, we are trying to discover who we are, trying to place ourselves in a state of mind where we expect to be for the rest of our lives, and consider what we are going to be DOING for the next 40 years before retirement. Sure, we are told often enough that this decision doesn't have to be final, but there is no mistaking that this understanding follows us anyway. We spent 4+ years in college pursuing a degree and making plans for a future career with the impression that real life starts when college ends.

Kindergarten prepares us for grade school, grade school prepares us for middle school, middle school prepares us for high school, high school prepares us for college, college prepares us for real life...graduation day passes, and we ask, "Okay, where's life? When does this start?" And they look at us like we're crazy! "Ooh...that...well that was all a joke. You've been in 'real life' all along...this is as good as it gets!"

Oh. Thanks for letting me know, though!

This is the reevaluation period, the "now what?" phase when we discover that nothing is as we imagined, nothing goes the way we hoped it would go, and everything is all pretty dull and normal--why don't they inspire us to see that college is the best it gets? What comes after is pretty ordinary, after all.