Sometimes I feel so incredibly blessed that I feel I could float away.
Sometimes I get so damn unhappy that it knocks me flat on the floor.

So if you keep busy enough you don't have the chance to fall or float, merely work.  

That's the way I like it.

Sorta sad...

I realized today that I am going to have to quit working with Drew.
& it isn't because the job is too hard, because it isn't
& it isn't because the drive is too long, because it's manageable, although it's tedious
but I will have to quit working with him because I am simply too busy.

He is such a sweet boy, and working with him this week has been filled with trials, tribulations, and all kinds of rewards.

But the fact remains that I am simply too busy.
I want to go to UNT Football games on Saturdays
I want to be able to do day trips to Dallas
I want to go to Narnia in the fall
I want to be able to go visit friends across the state on the weekends and not have to plan so far in advance.
I want to have the freedom to drive to the beach because I need to get away
& regardless of the fact that I still want to work with Drew, the pros outweigh the cons.

I think I may quit Yummy's too. Just focus on school, possibly going greek (!), OTP office job, SGA (Senate and Freshman Intern Mentor) and on my latest idea to make UNT a more well knit community.

Bring this year on.

They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Aww!' "

It's weird to see a friendship reduced to "stuff"

When you thought we were done being friends you gave me back my stuff.  Who does that?  Why did it have to be instantaneous and so painful?

In the years of friendship that we've had you felt that by returning a few thing could mark "the end". How odd.

Anyways, stuff is working out now, I suppose.

What I've Learned From Orientation Pt. 2

1. Global warming is a "power-hold by the government to control industry", or something like that anyway
2. If a mom is trying to hook you up with her son you should probably be concerned. 
3. If a mom is trying to hook you up with her other son, the 25 year old med student, then you should be concerned.
4. Parent Orientation meals will be the death of me.
5. Writing a haiku about it will make everything better.
6. Coloring books  and crayons can solve almost anything, except a headache
7. Bacon guy and I have similar head band preferences.
8. I love my heels because my feet don't seem to hurt after wearing them.  Miracle shoes.
9. Painting my nails black now is fashionable.  In 8th/9th grade it just made me emo.
10. 5:30am is a horrible time to wake up, but 5:00am is even worse.

Here are some of the haikus we've written:

The omelette station

A dangerous place to be

Now my pants don't fit

Bacon is yummy

Bacon helps me meet new friends

Bacon is yummy

Here I sit, alone.

Why are none of the deans here?

This makes me anxious

Rachel is tiny

Parents call her "the intern"

She is more than that

Silver Eagle Suite

Why is this place so darn cold?

I need a jacket

Flash! A blur of green

The OL's guide the students

Such helpful people

"It was just bacon!"

Kimberly was defensive

We all know the truth

The presentations

Timeliness appreciated

Don't make me stop you.

13 hours days

I must really love my job

Sleep comes second now

As a reminder

Seven fifteen at Union

Khakis and grey shirts

My staff is the best

Rachel Rassmussen and team

I am proud of you

Thinking in haikus

I don't know if I can stop

I really need help

The Union is cold

Kimberly likes to cuddle

Where is bacon man?

Chris has a full glass

This glass is made up of sass

Go talk to parents

Exciting real talk

Parents ask the darnedest things

Please date my student

it is pouring rain

Are you freaking kidding me?!

Texas weather stinks

What's tuition draw?

Do I write my students name

I should keep reading

Cart 897

The breaks are a bit scary

So many flip flops

Session 3 began

We met a very strange man

Turkey or chicken?

Verde and Turkey

In Orientation? No.

But they love our girls.

Yesterday was rough

But today is looking up

Smiles all around.

Also,  got it confirmed that my dad actually interviewed with the CIA 3 or 4 times.  How cool is that?!  My dad is amazing. I wish I could have his life in a memoir to always read.  It is that cool.

What I've Learned from Orientation Pt.1

So this experience as a Parent Orientation Leader has been awesome, crazy, insane, yet still fun.

I'm going to be keeping a running log (in theory) of all the random things I've learned.

1. The temperature in a building can be "not only uncomfortable, but unhealthy"
2. Deodorant and undershirts just aren't enough
3. The open bar at our receptions is merely a pregaming the dorm socializing the parents will do
4. You can never have enough easels for signs
5. 1000 people can't fit in the fourth floor of the Union
6. The walk from the Coliseum to the Union isn't bad, until it's 100+ outside
7. Playfair is more fun when you've already done it once
8. Heels on the first day only, then crack out the tennis shoes
9. The only time where I will wake up at 5am, shower, leave home while it is still dark, get home after dark, shower, and sleep for 3.5-5.5 hours before doing it all over again
10. Parents are some of the greatest people ever.
11. Parents have some of the greatest stories and most honest questions
12. If there is a shuttle open, they will take it.  If there is not a shuttle open, they will vocalize their need for one.
13. Always have shuttles
14. Our new stadium is beyond awesome. I'M SO PUMPED
15. I am considering going Greek
16. Just because you burn a piece of paper doesn't make the change official; it's just the right steps in the right direction.
17. Parents love to talk about their kids
18. The poetry my coworkers can write would blow most people away.
19. I work with Harry Potter fanatics, and I love it.
20. First impressions can be wrong, so can second or third
21. Sometimes we all just need to take a moment
22. Always wear your hair up, or at least have bobby pins with you, along with chapstick
23. The farmers tans from the Orientation shirts will sneak up on you if you aren't careful.
24. Parents will go wherever you direct them, students? not so much
25. You're not nervous; you're anxious
26. The fight song is forever stuck in my head.
27. The vegetarian lasagna is where it is at.  I kid you not, soo good.
28. The cheesecake bites and lemon bars could be fatal to my plan to stay in shape.
29. Orientation stresses me out so badly, I actually almost want sleep.
30. I need to buy some green TOMS or converse...

Why breaks aren't good for people like me

Okay
We are starting our second (third?) week of summer break and I am already a hot mess.

Today:  Went to bed at 4am, woke up at 10.
It is now almost 2 o'clock and all I have done today is dance around to the new Gaga album (paws up everyone!) in my underwear (Can I call that working out?) and put on some mascara.
Unless of course we are counting the insane amount of blogging/tumbling I've been doing.  Seriously,  I've joined the tumblr world (about time, right?).  It is addicting.  Like I need another reason to stay up 'til all hours of the night.

If I don't have something to do I become the most unproductive person in the world.

Tonight, Tonight

"Time is never time at all
You can never ever leave without leaving a piece of youth
And our lives are forever changed
We will never be the same
The more you change the less you feel
Believe, believe in me, believe
That life can change, that you're not stuck in vain
We're not the same, we're different tonight
Tonight, so bright
Tonight
And you know you're never sure
But you're sure you could be right
If you held yourself up to the light
And the embers never fade in your city by the lake
The place where you were born
Believe, believe in me, believe
In the resolute urgency of now
And if you believe there's not a chance tonight
Tonight, so bright
Tonight
We'll crucify the insincere tonight
We'll make things right, we'll feel it all tonight
We'll find a way to offer up the night tonight
The indescribable moments of your life tonight
The impossible is possible tonight
Believe in me as I believe in you, tonight."
-Smashing Pumpkins

What was with tonight? That was so odd. I don't understand. I'm not going to really question it, but I will ponder it. Glad to be home where I can freak out both internally and externally.

I'm really nervous for this summer.
I'm scared that because I work so much I won't get to balance my three different groups of friends.
I'm scared that because in my free time I will be balancing these friends that I will miss out on truly bonding with all of them. I hate shallow experiences and I really want to make everything work out.

I can do this. I can focus for one more week

"Believe in me as I believe in you, tonight"

Life is kind of wonderful at 3:10am

That's really all I need to say.

I took at walk around 1am and just walked around campus, blaring Florence+The Machine and simply marveling at how far I've come in my life.  I am happy to be alive and happy to be successful.  I may have my huge amounts of stress, and I may not handle it in the best ways, but I am truly proud of where I am in my life.  I may have some confused thoughts about people in my life and where they stand, but who doesn't have those problems.  I may want to ask those questions, but why mess with a good thing.  I am so happy right now.  It has hit me like a "bullet in the back".  I wasn't expecting it, hell, I shouldn't be this happy.  But I am.  I am going to take it and run with it.  Maybe it was the change of hair to allow a re-evaluation of myself,  who knows.  But whatever it is, I like it.  Now I need to go finish the rest of my papers that are all due tomorrow at midnight.

"You always look so cool"

Normal

Things are kind of going back to normal.  Still stressed up to my eyeballs, and I still feel kind of lost by it all.  But this kind of windy nostalgic weather rejuvenates me.  (Maybe I should have gone to the University of Oregon!)  

List of things I know:

• I shouldn't be wasting time right now
• I have officially given up soda
• My research paper over Chekhov could rock, if I could just focus.
• I am never taking 18/20 hours again (maybe...)
• I want my best friends to be back in my life.  Not having them here (mentally or physically) sucks.  They have held me together since longer than I can remember.  They keep me grounded.  They remind me of who I truly am.  They know me better than I know myself.
• Although I don't have them here (and no one has replaced them) I feel like I still have people I can turn to, granted I can't turn to them the way I used to, but I have people, and that makes me happy
• I should start eating lunch again; I've been forgetting to and then it messes me up later on in the day
• This year may have had its ups and downs, but I am so thankful for the Intern program.  It led me to strengthen, create, and maintain friendships that otherwise never would have occurred.  

I have so many blessings in my life, and it is really hard to remain angry about being so stressed, when I am fortunate enough to have all of these opportunities in my life that so many don't have.

This summer will be great, a mix of the old and the new.  

Friends, Lovers, or Nothing by John Mayer

Now that we are over as the loving kind
We'll be dreaming ways to keep the good alive
Only when we want is not a compromise
I'd be pouring tears into your drying eyes

Friends, lovers or nothing
There can only be one
Friends, lovers or nothing
There'll never be an in-between, so give it up

You whisper "come on over" 'cause you're two drinks in
But in the morning, I will say goodbye again
Think we'll never fall into the jealous game?
The streets all flood with blood of those who felt the same

Friends, lovers or nothing
There can only be one
Friends, lovers or nothing
There'll never be an in-between, so give it up

Friends, lovers or nothing
We can really only ever be one
Friends, lovers or nothing
We'll never be the in-between, so give it up
We'll never be the in-between, so give it up

Anything other than yes is no
Anything other than stay is go
Anything less than "I love you" is lying

Anything other than yes is no
Anything other than stay is go
Anything less than "I love you" is lying

Anything other than yes is no
Anything other than stay is go
Anything less than "I love you" is lying

Anything other than yes is no
Anything other than stay is go
Anything less than "I love you" is lying

Anything other than yes is no
Anything other than stay is go
Anything less than "I love you" is lying

Anything other than yes is no
Anything other than stay is go
Anything less than "I love you" is lying

Anything other than yes is no
Anything other than stay is go
Anything less than "I love you" is lying

Not totally accurate, but damn, I love how my iPod always picks the right songs.  The songs that it knows I should hear.

Back to the basics

I feel like I've kind of lost myself lately, especially in the last few months. I want to get back to me.

I used to know who I was. Now I've got some questions, but I feel like I have a general idea, and it is what keeps me going through. I am a nerd. Not in the fake 3D glasses, bright neon colors and fake suspenders way with a cute side ponytail. No, I am the person who holes herself up in bed to finish the latest in whatever installment I've been reading. The person who normally would rather spend a Friday or Saturday night by myself cleaning, organizing, and maybe watching the Food Network. I'm the kind of person who would rather play with my little brothers than half of the people I know. That is because I tend to be a bit of a homebody. Shocking, I know, but totally the truth. Don't get me wrong, I can go out and have a great time like no one's business, but later on I look back and go "yeah, that was great, but I could have started (insert book title here) and made Eggplant Parmesan" I feel like this year has stretched me in ways I wasn't expecting. I've learned the art of deception, and I hate it. Granted, I don't use it because I still believe that 95% of the time it is better to tell the truth, but the fact that I have those thoughts leaves me slightly disgusted with myself.

Okay, enough time has been wasted avoiding homework. I need to focus. That is something else I lost, the ability to sit for hours at one task (unless it is reading)

Love,

M.

The Thief and the Dogs

"You seek the walls, not the heart" -27

" 'What wonderful days those were!' 'Say that, if you can, about the present" -28

" 'Have you thought about your future?' Said lit a cigarette. 'My past hasn't yet allowed me to consider the future,' " -43

"You made me and now you reject me" -47

" But why do we curse our anxiety and fears?  In the end don't they save us the trouble of thinking about the future" -57

"Your burning heart yearns for shade, yet continues forward under the fire of the sun" -79

12:32am: An early night for the insomniac

I had one of those moments today where you can feel stuff clicking into place.

The kind of day where you feel that everything will be alright in the end.  All of your "big" problems just seem to kind of, well, miniscule.

I have plans for my life, and I can't wait to watch them unfold.

"In a famous letter to Johann Joachim Eschenburg (December 31, 1778), Lessing relates the death of his infant son, who 'understood the world so well that he left it at the first opportunity.'"

Nietzsche

"In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems,there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. That was the highest and most mendacious minute of "world history"—yet only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die.

One might invent such a fable and still not have illustrated sufficiently how wretched, how shadowy and flighty, how aimless and arbitrary, the human intellect appears in nature. There have been eternities when it did not exist; and when it is done for again, nothing will have happened. For this intellect has no further mission that would lead beyond human life. It is human, rather, and only its owner and producer gives it such importance, as if the world pivoted around it. But if we could communicate with the mosquito, then we would learn that he floats through the air with the same self-importance, feeling within itself the flying center of the world.

There is nothing in nature so despicable or insignificant that it cannot immediately be blown up like a bag by a slight breath of this power of knowledge; and just as every porter wants an admirer, the proudest human being, the philosopher, thinks that he sees on the eyes of the universe telescopically focused from all sides on his actions and thoughts."

1:20am

So many conflicting influences in my life right now.

And I'm not just talking substance abuse.

There are so many truly beautiful people in my life right now, both inside and out, and every single day I aspire to  better embody some of those qualities.

In the past few weeks I have had more social stress than I believed possible, but because of those days and nights I can literally feel myself growing into the person I am meant to be.  How cool is that?  I love those almost existential moments, where I observe myself and realize where I will go because of this moment.

I've realized that my definition of a "full life" may be a bit skewed, but that is what I believe the summer is for.  As I've always said: Summer is the time to understand who you are.  School is the time to question everything you thought you knew.  

I can feel that I've lost myself a little bit this school year.  I don't appreciate the little things like I used to.  I don't take the time to notice the color and shape of a flower; I walk too quickly to even truly observe it; it is merely a splash of color in my day.

I don't know how I feel about my personal relationships with people.  I have all of these beautiful new friends, as I've already said, but I don't feel that I've truly connected with these people the way that I have with my old friends, who have spread across the state like dandelion seeds.  Please don't misinterpret, I love my life here.  I am in no way shape or form jealous that I didn't leave.  This place is my home.  I have school pride, and I desire to better my adopted community.  I just miss that instant connection with my friends.  The old inside jokes, the ability to relate it to "that one time in 7th grade with our English teacher."  Those are the things I miss. 

I guess this is the problem.  I am willing to work and try and build something for so long before I tend to flake out.  This problem happens all of the time, particularly in relationships, and I am so tired of it.  I don't mean to jump ship, but I somehow do, swimming 50 meters away before I even realize what is going on.  In the words of Arizona Robbins "I bail".  But I don't bail when times get tough; I bail while things still seem to be going great.  I freak out, bail, and have no explanation for what happened.

So I guess this 1:20 am rambling is to say I'm sorry.  I don't know how to fix it, and I love the rest of my life so much that, in the end, I loose perspective.

2:20am

I want things to happen between us.
I feel that it is what I need.
You could be the change I need to see in my world.

It feels so weird, like something was about to possibly happen, and then it just stopped.

All with no real reason or rhyme.
Just another way I lost track of time

The Gardener LXXV: At Midnight by Rabindranath Tagore

At midnight the would-be ascetic
announced:
"This is the time to give up my
home and seek for God. Ah, who has
held me so long in delusion here?"
God whispered, "I," but the ears
of the man were stopped.
With a baby asleep at her breast
lay his wife, peacefully sleeping on
one side of the bed.
The man said, "Who are ye that
have fooled me so long?"
The voice said again, "They are
God," but he heard it not.
The baby cried out in its dream,
nestling close to its mother.
God commanded, "Stop, fool, leave
not thy home," but still he heard not.
God sighed and complained, "Why
does my servant wander to seek me,
forsaking me?"

"And she says 'baby, it's 3am I must be lonely' "

Chekhov's The Lady With The Dog

"And what was there to tell? Was it love that he felt? Had there been anything exquisite, poetic, anything instructive or even amusing about his relations with Anna Sergeyvena"

"owing to some strange, possibly quite accidental chain of circumstances, everything that was important, interesting, essential, everything about which he was sincere and never deceived himself, everything that composed the kernel of his life, went on in secret, while everything that was false in him, everything that composed the husk in which he hid himself, and the truth which was in him was on the on the surface"

"He began to judge others by himself, no longer believing what he saw, and always assuming that the real, the only interesting life of every individual goes on as under cover of night, secretly. Every individual existence revolves around mystery, and perhaps that is the chief reason that all cultivated individuals insisted so strongly on the respect due to personal secrets"

"She wept from emotion, from her bitter consciousness of the sadness of their life; they could only see one another in secret, hiding from people, as if they were thieves. Was not their life a broken one?"

"It was quite obvious to him that this love of theirs would not soon come to an end, and that no one could say when this end would be. Anna Sergeyevna loved him ever more fondly, worshipped him, and there would have been no point in telling her that one day it must end. Indeed, she would not have believed him."

"Why did she love him so? Women had always believed him different from what he really was, had loved him not himself but the man their imagination pictured him, a man they had sought for eagerly all their lives. And afterwards when they discovered their mistake, they went on loving him just the same. And not one of them had ever been happy with him. Time had passed, he had met one woman after another, become intimate with each, parted with each, but had never loved. There had been all sorts of things between them, but never love"

I am the best at running away from a situation when I don't want to confront the emotions or change that it will bring.  Honey, I've been sprinting in the other direction for awhile now.

Dark&Twisty

Jack London; The Call of the Wild, To Build A Fire, and White Fang

"He did not know why, but he felt oppressed by the vague sense of impending calamity"

"He was beaten (he knew that) ; but he was not broken"

"There was nothing the matter with them, except that they were dead tired. It was not the dead-tiredness that comes through brief and excessive effort, from which recovery is a matter of hours; but it was the dead-tiredness that comes through the slow and prolonged strength drainage of months of toil. There was no power of recuperation left, no reserve strength to call upon. It had been all used, the last least bit of it"

"It was a steep bank, and he paused for breath at the top, excusing the act to himself by looking at his watch"

"It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life"

"The business of love was at hand- even a sterner and crueler business than that of food getting"

To Kill A Mockingbird

" I never loved to read.  One does not love breathing"

The Great Gatsby

"He was never quite still; there was always a tapping foot somewhere or the impatient opening and closing of a hand."

"possessed by intense life"

"And I like large parties. They're so intimate. At small parties there isn't any privacy"

"There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired"

"You always look so cool"

"The Affair that couldn't be measured"

"Blessed are the dead that the rain falls on"

"So we beat on, beats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past"

"Out of his puniness and fright he challenged and menaced the whole wide world"

So That's Who I Remind Me Of by Ogden Nash

When I consider men of golden talents,
I’m delighted, in my introverted way,
To discover, as I’m drawing up the balance,
How much we have in common, I and they.

Like Burns, I have a weakness for the bottle,
Like Shakespeare, little Latin and less Greek;
I bite my fingernails like Aristotle;
Like Thackeray, I have a snobbish streak.

I’m afflicted with the vanity of Byron,
I’ve inherited the spitefulness of Pope;
Like Petrarch, I’m a sucker for a siren,
Like Milton, I’ve a tendency to mope.

My spelling is suggestive of a Chaucer;
Like Johnson, well, I do not wish to die
(I also drink my coffee from the saucer);
And if Goldsmith was a parrot, so am I.

Like Villon, I have debits by the carload,
Like Swinburne, I’m afraid I need a nurse;
By my dicing is Christopher out-Marlowed,
And I dream as much as Coleridge, only worse.

In comparison with men of golden talents,
I am all a man of talent ought to be;
I resemble every genius in his vice, however heinous—
Yet I write so much like me.

Common Sense by Ogden Nash

Why did the lord give us agilityIf not to evade responsibility?

By Henriette Posner

If I should die tomorrow,

        No care have I,

For yesterday

I saw the sun, the moon, the stars

And felt the snow, the wind, the rain.

If I should die tomorrow, 

        No care have I.

"Sometimes I use curse words when I pray"

From the pen of a dear friend:

The brevity and fraility of happiness amazes me. Happiness is never permanent. It comes in moments, like rain drops that come and then crumble. It comes in a smile, a gaze, a breeze...In the rays of the sun, in laughter, in tears. In memories, in dreams, in knowledge, and in power. Happiness is fabricated. It's created and destroyed in the mind of who beholds it. So someone tell me why we keep on trying to create happiness for others? Is it because our own happiness can be demolished so easily by the simple discontentment in another? A frown, a crease in the fore head, a gleam in the eyes, and that inexplicable and excruciatingly tangible sense you feel when those you care for are unhappy. It lingers in the air and seeps into you, creating nothing but an abyss, some dull ache  where that happiness was. Why do we allow multiple webs to bind our limbs?  Why do we smile, why do we embrace, why do we even communicate when our  individualistic and allegedly specific emotions are so intertwined with others?

The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me

"A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfullest,
A novice beginning yet experient of myriads of season,
Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion,
A farmer, merchant, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker,
Prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest."
-16

"But they are not the Me myself'
-4

"I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained, I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not on is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth"
-32

"My left hand hooking you round the waist, My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the public road. Not I, nor any one else can travel that road for you, you must travel it for yourself. It is not far, it is within reach, Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know, Perhaps it is everywhere on water and on land"
-46

"I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles"
-52

"Pure, unconditional trust and cooperation are naive and detrimental"

Mr. Rock and Roll by Fake Problems

So you're letting me go to play that Mr. Rock and Roll.
I hope the girls you meet are pretty, smart clever, and super skinny.
You know they'll fall for you so fast, Mr. Backstage Pass.
But you'll never follow through.
So I'll put a little more make up on.
Be Miss Outgoing, Miss So-Moved-On.
Here's to hoping that I don't get screwed again.
I'm gonna find a boy who loves me, respects everything about me.
Then I might as well just marry him.
But it's good to know I'm still your source of inspiration.
Just promise me you won't put words in my mouth.
Because you have absolutely no clue what I'm feeling.
Go have your fun Mr. Rock and Roll.
But don't call me baby, I'm not your baby anymore.

I am feeling accomplished.

I am pretty sure that I can take on the world right now.

Granted the world is just a massive pile of homework, but that is beyond the point.

This past week was hellish.  So many meetings, so much drama, and not enough caffeine.  

There was a time when I would rather stay up late than sleep. I've now hit the point where I want to sleep all of the time; I just can't find the time.  Too much to do.

"Coffee Break"

By: Forever the Sickest Kids

"I'm two cups into my coffee break
I'm sitting alone in the cafe front way
Reading all by myself
I'm Turning my cell off just to breathe
'Cause everyone I know just keeps calling me
And I just need a little time

Cause I've overcommitted myself
I guess this is growing up
I'm sleeping so little these days
I guess this is growing up
I'm feeling things are about to change
I'm guessing this is growing up
Yeah, I'm guessing this is growing up

And my mom hates my guts
She has every reason to
From all the things I do
And it breaks me just to know
That I have torn her apart so many times
So many times

Cause I've over committed myself
I guess this is growing up
I'm sleeping so little these days.
I guess this is growing up
I'm feeling things are about to change
I'm guessing this is growing up
Oh I'm guessing this is growing up

I don't wanna change, I wanna stay right where I lay
Eyes closed, head down on the pillow,
Better change, before it's too late,
I'm guessing this is growing up...

Now I'm done with my coffee break
I turn on my phone
Now that I've grown up"

Choices.

The best way to describe my life right now?

I am standing in the middle of a huge open field, not a tree in sight, endless horizon. No real sense of direction. There's a light breeze that floats by and lifts the hair off of my shoulders. While standing in this perfect moment of bliss I realize a few different things. I am totally alone, not a soul in sight, and I'm alright with that. Sure, loneliness can have its drawbacks. But the freedom of this situation is that I can go any direction that I want. And even as I type that I realize it isn't completely true. No one wants to be alone. I feel as if I'm watching a sunrise and a sunset simultaneously, and I don't know which one I want to focus on. Chase after the retreating sun or embrace the new day? "Infinity goes in both directions"

I realize the blatant contradictions within my words. I embrace them. What is life without a little conflict? Conflict is whatever you choose to make it. I remember when I used to hate conflict because I thought it always meant fighting. Conflict merely shows that you care enough to make your opinion known. I am going to knock myself out of my ambivalent funk and care. Whether in my professional or private life. I don't like a lack of knowledge; I don't like not caring enough to know.

"Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional"

Tear Down The House by The Avett Brothers

Tear down the house
That I grew up in
I'll never be the same again
Take everything that I’ve collected
And throw it in a pile

Bulldoze the woods
That I ran through
Carry the pictures of me and you
I have no memory of who I once was
And I don't remember your name

Park the old car
That I love the best
(The) inspections due and it won’t pass the test
It’s funny how I have to put it to rest
And how one day…I will join it

I remember crying over you
And I don't mean like a couple of tears
And then I'm blue
I’m talkin’ about collapsing
And screaming at the moon
But I'm a better man
For having gone through it
Yes, I'm a better man
For having gone through…

Ever since I learned how to curse
I’ve been using those sorry old words
But, I’m talkin’ to these children
And I’m keeping it clean
I don’t need those words
To say what I mean
No, I don’t need those words
To say what I mean

Tear down the house
That I grew up in
I'll never be the same again
Take everything that I used to own
And burn it in a pile

And, bulldoze the woods
That I ran through
Carry the pictures of me and you
I have no memory of who I once was
And I don't remember your name

Clueless

I have no idea what I want right now.

I wish I could skip the prelims and semis rounds and head straight to finals. Because that is really all that matters to me.

I should probably make up my mind as to how I feel first though...probably a wise decision...

Classes have been pretty fantastic, minus the fact that I lack the true motivation to get my work done, yet somehow I'm still pulling it off. Thank God.

"There are always a million reasons not to do something"

Sunrise.

I find this feeling to be fresh,

like a dew, covering the petals of a new morning.

The sun has awoken and imparted its knowledge unto me.

It whispers the ageless phrase carpe diem.

It shows me every facet of every option.

I have boundless opportunities, choices.

You, seemingly random person, have shown me just that.

You allow me to see a different kind of beauty.

It reminds me that there are people out there with substance

This new year is feeling pretty damn good.

I love the direction my life has taken.

I've never loved learning so much, nor have I ever felt like I was learning so much.

I've got some new friends whom I adore spending time with.

And I am ready for the marathon to start.