Okay, so...here's the thing: I honestly don't really know what to do with this blog anymore. I never thought I'd stop writing here, always imagined I'd continue for a long time and that this site would follow my life for years and years until at least I was an adult, whatever the hell that means. But now, increasingly, I just don't really know what to do.
It feels like most people have abandoned blogspot by now. So many of the blogs I used to read, so much of the community where I made friends years ago, seem to have been left, or transferred to some other site. I appear to be a part of this mass abandonment; whether because other people left first or for my own reasons, I do not know. Likely it is some combination. This is what happens when you grow up, after all.
This is a strange in-between summer, after graduation but before moving, true, but it's been weird for the past year or so. I haven't blogged nearly as much lately as I did when I was fifteen.
Now I'm eighteen, and a part of me feels like I should just leave this here as a monument to my adolescence -- some untouched, left behind relic of the past. Maybe I should move on -- but to what, I don't know.
There are so many things I can't explain. So many things I don't feel I have to explain.
I want to continue writing, but in what capacity? I'm on my tenth journal in the past three years which is good -- it is more than good, it is necessary -- but sometimes I still want to share my thoughts with other people. Maybe this is just a human compulsion. Maybe I've just been convinced that the only way something is valid is if other people validate it for me, which seems a bit of an arrogant, annoying way of thinking.
Well, I've come to no conclusion, but I still thought I should say something.
This is not a goodbye.
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Saturday, June 21, 2014
that's what's up
Things that have happened in the past few weeks (ignoring the fact that it has been way longer than that since I've actually talked about anything that has actually happened in my life)
+ I had my last day of high school. It started off terrible and I was late to class and my life was finally like a movie in that everything was going wrong on such a significant day in my life. I only had one class, and then my mom picked me up and I cried all the way home.
I knew I was going to do that, and then I didn't think I was going to do it, but then I did it and felt really awful for a few hours and then felt a lot better later on. I haven't really felt sad about it at all since then.
+ I graduated the next day. It was fun at first, with all the energy and excitement of everyone together, but waiting for everyone to go up and get their diplomas had me almost falling asleep. Afterwards we had a little graduation party at my house with family and friends.
+ That night, I went to my school's Project Graduation held at a YMCA and stayed up until 7:30 in the morning, the latest I've ever stayed up. It was an interesting night.
I had a Real Life Moment on the way home when "Fade Into You" came on the radio while we were flying down the highway at 6:20 in the morning, the roof down and the dawn sky blue and hazy around me, the cool wind in my face, feeling tired and disoriented from being up for around 22 hours and it was perfect until Claudia's mom changed the radio station.
I went home and sat on my porch writing and processing things for a while until the bugs got too annoying and I got too tired and finally went to bed. I woke up at 2 in the afternoon feeling utterly disgusting. Later, I laid on the bathroom floor in excruciating pain for a while until I threw up three times, which, as my friend pointed out, is probably worse than what would have happened if I had spent the night drinking and partying. Ah, life. So that was how I spent my first day of summer and as a high school graduate.
+ The rest of the summer has been better. I went to the beach at Port Aransas for a few days with my friends and got terrifically sunburned. I saw sea turtles, dolphins, and weird flying fish in the ocean. It was a fun time.
+ Last week I took a lifeguard training class. It was at least ten hours a day, though Thursday it went for twelve. It was very strenuous and stressful and I learned a lot, most importantly that I do not want to be a lifeguard. So, there's that.
+ I don't really have many plans for the rest of the summer. I'm going to Idaho (? why) in late July for a few weeks with my family, where we'll be doing some sort of bike trip. Needless to say, it's a big departure from the past few summers where I've been jetting off somewhere new every few weeks, but I wanted to spend more time at home and with my friends before I leave for college. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I know at the very least it will involve more World Cup watching, running by the lake, swimming, random adventuring, reading, and other things that are the staple of summer and why I love this season so much.
Hope you've all been well! xx
+ I had my last day of high school. It started off terrible and I was late to class and my life was finally like a movie in that everything was going wrong on such a significant day in my life. I only had one class, and then my mom picked me up and I cried all the way home.
I knew I was going to do that, and then I didn't think I was going to do it, but then I did it and felt really awful for a few hours and then felt a lot better later on. I haven't really felt sad about it at all since then.
+ I graduated the next day. It was fun at first, with all the energy and excitement of everyone together, but waiting for everyone to go up and get their diplomas had me almost falling asleep. Afterwards we had a little graduation party at my house with family and friends.
+ That night, I went to my school's Project Graduation held at a YMCA and stayed up until 7:30 in the morning, the latest I've ever stayed up. It was an interesting night.
I had a Real Life Moment on the way home when "Fade Into You" came on the radio while we were flying down the highway at 6:20 in the morning, the roof down and the dawn sky blue and hazy around me, the cool wind in my face, feeling tired and disoriented from being up for around 22 hours and it was perfect until Claudia's mom changed the radio station.
I went home and sat on my porch writing and processing things for a while until the bugs got too annoying and I got too tired and finally went to bed. I woke up at 2 in the afternoon feeling utterly disgusting. Later, I laid on the bathroom floor in excruciating pain for a while until I threw up three times, which, as my friend pointed out, is probably worse than what would have happened if I had spent the night drinking and partying. Ah, life. So that was how I spent my first day of summer and as a high school graduate.
+ Last week I took a lifeguard training class. It was at least ten hours a day, though Thursday it went for twelve. It was very strenuous and stressful and I learned a lot, most importantly that I do not want to be a lifeguard. So, there's that.
+ I don't really have many plans for the rest of the summer. I'm going to Idaho (? why) in late July for a few weeks with my family, where we'll be doing some sort of bike trip. Needless to say, it's a big departure from the past few summers where I've been jetting off somewhere new every few weeks, but I wanted to spend more time at home and with my friends before I leave for college. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I know at the very least it will involve more World Cup watching, running by the lake, swimming, random adventuring, reading, and other things that are the staple of summer and why I love this season so much.
Hope you've all been well! xx
Wednesday, June 04, 2014
I'll see you when we're both not so emotional
I said I wasn't going to do this, but the thing is, I can't not.
It's my last night of being in high school. We went for burgers for dinner, and while the rest of my family was still finishing off their milkshakes, I left to wander around the shopping center. Sometimes I need to be alone. The restaurant was playing the OJ Simpson car chase, and it was making me sad, how confused and convoluted the world can be, so I went for a walk. I climbed on the columns outside the camera shop and sat there, looking out, until a policeman came and told me I had to get down. It was a liability thing, he explained. They didn't want to get in trouble if I fell and hurt myself.
I always like to climb on things, to be high up, and I'm always moving fast so I often scrape myself in the process. Today alone, I gave myself a paper cut and got a bright red gash on the back of my thigh from when my sister threw our cat on me. I dabbed at it with water until the napkin was stained more red than my skin.
It's my last night of being in high school, and I said I wasn't going to do this, but I couldn't not. I was sitting on the ledge and I was looking out at the past four years right in front of me. There was the pizza place we went to at my friend's birthday party in freshman year. There's the Walmart we stopped at this New Year's Eve to buy firecrackers, only to find they didn't have any. There's the movie theater where I saw Catching Fire, and the Grand Budapest Hotel, and Ponyo, so long ago. There's my family's favorite Indian restaurant. There's the Tigermart of my friends' legends -- it's not a Tigermart anymore, though. There's the streets that lead to school, and there's the ones that lead home.
I'm home now and reading something my friend wrote about this very feeling -- the 'being on the precipice of leaving everything behind' feeling. Sometimes I get stupid but when I think about a different life my throat hurts. My eyes are wet. Don't look at me. High school is over and that's cool. High school is over and I want to die. I'll settle for something in between.
I'm excited for college, don't get me wrong, but right now, tonight, I'm in mourning. This is my valediction to high school -- to skipping class to go to H-E-B and Jamba Juice, to early morning carpool blasting rap music, to our lunchtime group in that little corner by the library. To crying in the bathroom about the future, to class periods spent taking selfies and online shopping, to those times we'd stay after track practice just to talk and stretch. To making faces at people in the hallways, to sneaking into hotel pools just to dip my feet in, to misunderstandings that make your blood boil and make you slam doors. To all those late nights writing papers and working on projects, late start breakfasts, karaoke nights, picnics in the park, football games, flashcards, acquaintances who became friends, funny teacher stories, field trips planting trees, signing yearbooks, riding the school bus, camping in backyards, lab partners, college applications, driving home late at night with the car quiet except for the music, Coffeehouse, everything everything everything. Goodbye to all of it.
Maybe this would have been easier if I had been asleep, she said.
Maybe.
Maybe then it wouldn't hurt so much.
But maybe then it wouldn't hurt so good, either.
It's my last night of being in high school. We went for burgers for dinner, and while the rest of my family was still finishing off their milkshakes, I left to wander around the shopping center. Sometimes I need to be alone. The restaurant was playing the OJ Simpson car chase, and it was making me sad, how confused and convoluted the world can be, so I went for a walk. I climbed on the columns outside the camera shop and sat there, looking out, until a policeman came and told me I had to get down. It was a liability thing, he explained. They didn't want to get in trouble if I fell and hurt myself.
I always like to climb on things, to be high up, and I'm always moving fast so I often scrape myself in the process. Today alone, I gave myself a paper cut and got a bright red gash on the back of my thigh from when my sister threw our cat on me. I dabbed at it with water until the napkin was stained more red than my skin.
It's my last night of being in high school, and I said I wasn't going to do this, but I couldn't not. I was sitting on the ledge and I was looking out at the past four years right in front of me. There was the pizza place we went to at my friend's birthday party in freshman year. There's the Walmart we stopped at this New Year's Eve to buy firecrackers, only to find they didn't have any. There's the movie theater where I saw Catching Fire, and the Grand Budapest Hotel, and Ponyo, so long ago. There's my family's favorite Indian restaurant. There's the Tigermart of my friends' legends -- it's not a Tigermart anymore, though. There's the streets that lead to school, and there's the ones that lead home.
I'm home now and reading something my friend wrote about this very feeling -- the 'being on the precipice of leaving everything behind' feeling. Sometimes I get stupid but when I think about a different life my throat hurts. My eyes are wet. Don't look at me. High school is over and that's cool. High school is over and I want to die. I'll settle for something in between.
I'm excited for college, don't get me wrong, but right now, tonight, I'm in mourning. This is my valediction to high school -- to skipping class to go to H-E-B and Jamba Juice, to early morning carpool blasting rap music, to our lunchtime group in that little corner by the library. To crying in the bathroom about the future, to class periods spent taking selfies and online shopping, to those times we'd stay after track practice just to talk and stretch. To making faces at people in the hallways, to sneaking into hotel pools just to dip my feet in, to misunderstandings that make your blood boil and make you slam doors. To all those late nights writing papers and working on projects, late start breakfasts, karaoke nights, picnics in the park, football games, flashcards, acquaintances who became friends, funny teacher stories, field trips planting trees, signing yearbooks, riding the school bus, camping in backyards, lab partners, college applications, driving home late at night with the car quiet except for the music, Coffeehouse, everything everything everything. Goodbye to all of it.
Maybe this would have been easier if I had been asleep, she said.
Maybe.
Maybe then it wouldn't hurt so much.
But maybe then it wouldn't hurt so good, either.
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