While cleaning through my room, I found a bunch of shoeboxes tucked into the back of my bookshelf. I admit, I knew they were there, but a part of me had forgotten those parts of my life. The outsides said "Freshman Year," "Summers," "Junior Year," and some guy's names that are completely irrelevant at this point in time. Looking at one of them, I felt like something was wrapping itself around my neck. It was the familiar sense of strangling that I knew all too well for almost two years. I stopped for a minute, and realized that I would never have to deal with that again if I didn't want to, and that fact alone reassured me. I pushed past that box, contemplating just throwing it away when I was done, and found one that gave me all happy memories at this point. Before I even opened the box, I remembered the beginning of it all. Some summer afternoon in the middle of a nap, I got a phone call. I spent a good two hours reading the letters in that box, looking at ticket stubs, and things that had decorated the locker we shared. There was a letter to "the only girl I would walk four miles for at 5am" and I found myself remembering those times. That fall we shared was a blur, mostly because it was so many good times spent together. The winter came with the kind of destruction it can do to pull people whose relationship is based on warm weather. I remember saying goodbye at school for winter break and then everything changed. That was goodbye to whatever was normal, goodbye to our fall together and goodbye to the hypothetical fall. The months to follow can be summed up by busying myself with other things as to not have to think. And in that spring came my time tested theory that rather than being upset, I'll just find something else to spend time thinking about. Enter what can be best described as two years of not letting myself feel upset or remorse for things that had gone wrong. When one relationship ended, I had already found something or someone else to amuse me. And you know what? I don't feel like any worse of a person for doing that. Rather than be upset as what I'd spent a year and a half working towards self destructed, I fell in love with a world that was completely different than what I had become accustomed to. And rather than feel like a year and a half of my life was missing and had been pointless, I felt absolutely fine. I eventually found that my distraction had could stand Greek Islands and hotel courtyards, but could not hold its own on American soil. And then began more distractions.
Looking through those boxes was an mixture of a lot of different feelings. I found things I related to people I wouldn't dream of talking to today. I found things I had completely forgotten about up until that moment, and most of the time I found myself laughing at how dumb I was when I was fourteen, sixteen, and even eighteen years old.
I love remembering things; looking at pictures, hearing songs from a certain time in my life. Memories the first time you really look at someone you haven't seen in a while. You either get that warm feeling of recognition, or you realize you never even really knew them at all.

I've always been the type of person to put in more than enough effort into something. When it comes to getting what I want, I go for it. I make the plans for my friends days in advance and watch when they make other plans. I tried to talk things over to make things better, but somehow he didn't see I was worth any value to him.
Right now, I just want to know if the people I care so much about think about me nearly as much as I do them
Because it doesn't seem like it at all. After spending three weeks alone, save for my parents and the two times I've gone out and did something, I'm not too optimistic

I am usually so full of optimism. I had a great day today, but as I sit in my room right now doing absolutely nothing, I have never felt more alone.

Why is it that no matter how hard I try, it always comes back to you?
You, the first person I woke up next to consecutively to where it felt normal. You were the first person I truly felt like I had couple friends with. You saw me through the beginnings of the worst and a lot of the best. When I think about you on "paper," you were not good for me. I cannot shake the sense of caring that I have for you, now months later.
Ugh

ideally.

Sometime in the near future, I want a wraparound porch that can easily fit twenty of my closest friends and a keg for those summer nights when the last thing we want is to go inside. Ideally, it would be somewhere in Lincoln Park, of maybe just steps away from where I grew up. A part of me longs to return to Damen and Grace Street when I am done with my time at school. To be a few blocks away from a fly ball, the city, and the Lake would be ideal. I want a guy who understands my urges to lose myself in a new city or town, who will not hesitate to be right there with me as we drive just to hear the wind and music at the same time. Someone who sleeps better when he is holding onto me, and understands the many things I can find myself fitting into. I will shed the outfit I put tireless effort into buying from a trendy store and put on workout clothes to train myself for something or another. When I get back from the gym, I will neglect to wear makeup like I do any other day, and as soon as I hear some of my favorite songs, I long to have a blunt in one hand and a Long Island in the other. All of this can and will happen within the same day. I want there to be buttercream cupcakes with just a little frosting easily accessible when I want one, yet far far away when I know I should not have them. If only there was an endless supply of Propel water in my fridge and watermelon grew all year. Ideally, Bob Marley would still be alive and would live down the street. Most importantly, guitar would not be so damn hard to learn.

A large but comfortable sweatshirt that smells attractive, a David Sedaris book I haven't read yet, the smell of lilacs blowing in through the open window, an eventless afternoon, and some chai tea.
I find this to be a decent beginning to the summer of 2009, even though I swear up and down that I'm bored of being home already. I have enough Snow Patrol and Keith Urban downloaded onto my laptop that I'll probably be content for hours without having to change the song.
In this entirely empty, uneventful afternoon lies a large amount of what I look for in the future. Whether it's the lyrics I identify with, or anything said by David Sedaris. One day, I hope to be somewhat like him- except straight and lacking a nicotine addiction. In "Sweet Thing" I hear how I hope my summer will go, and I feel like I'm close to getting what I want, if not a little bit off. (Something about speaking vaguely makes me feel confident that the people I'm talking about will not catch onto what I'm saying, but then again, that's never the case). In the stack of books I got from the library I can see more of what I aspire to be. While I didn't get any books written by what I really want to be- a high school English teacher who somehow has the income to support endless summers of traveling the world- I feel like almost any writer knows what I'm dreaming of.
And again, I'm stuck by that constant desire to be anywhere but someplace familiar. I'm going to Boston next month, a place I've been to many times, but still I would be counting down the days if I knew exactly when I was leaving. I can't wait to follow a red line through a city whose baseball team I loathe just to experience something out of the ordinary. And more importantly, to be able to have something to say about it at the end of the day.

As soon as I get home and can spread out on my cloud of a bed, I feel like I can't do anything but write. I want to travel the world and write about what I see, but I worry that I will never be able to compose thoughts as much as I can when I am right here. What if that really is the case? Can I see more clearly when I am in my room at home, with it's blue walls and a novice attempt to paint myself into some exotic destination? Or is it that when I am at home, away from the rest of my life, per say, I can see things from a different perspective?
I think that while looking at things from a different perspective, I'm finally realizing the magnitude of my actions. As of lately, let's say, the past two months, I've adopted an attitude that is all too familiar. I seem to get my heart stepped on by someone who is less than deserving of it to begin with, and in the weeks to follow I set out to prove to everyone that I don't give a shit to cover up for how much or how little I do care. I feel like the past few weeks are reminiscent of the last weeks of summer and my whole carpe diem approach to things. I find myself being openly critical and a little too honest about things. With that attitude, I'm realizing that even the smallest thing is important.
But back to feeling bad. I feel bad that I have so much when others do not. I feel bad about my actions towards certain people. I feel really bad about my actions towards certain people. I feel bad that I do not see my family as much as I would like to. I feel bad when I convince myself to cut a run short. I feel bad that I write things I wish I could share, but am too afraid of how certain people might take it.
I feel less bad because I volunteer as much as I can. I feel less bad because I am always willing to apologize when I have done something wrong. I feel less bad because I can reminisce and see the goodness in people that I may not like anymore. I feel less bad when my family all gets together and laughs for hours straight. I feel less bad when I wake up and can actually stand without my legs being sore. I feel less bad when I post everything I write to a blog that no one knows about.



sleep.

Put Dispatch on the stereo again and we'll kiss until we can no longer stay awake. Then and only then will it seem like a good idea to move into your bed. It's chilly in this room, so we'll snuggle together for warmth. There's not much room, but between the two of us, we could not care less. Dispatch is still playing on the stereo in the other room, or maybe it's the Red Hot Chili Peppers now. It doesn't matter, because your skin is enough noise for me. Let's take a drive when we wake up. We'll switch genres and play some country music as we drive down back roads with the window's down. Diet Pepsi tastes so much better out of a straw in a cup far too big for any car's cupholders. Will you kiss my forehead and look at me in a way that makes me feel like the wind can go right through me?

As I conquered my mountain of laundry tonight, my mom told me how she couldn't believe it had been a year. I laughed, and told her I couldn't either, but the realization I had made me stop what I was doing for more than a minute. The past nine months sort of played through my head like a low-quality movie montage, and I realized that I can't believe it either. At all. Like, the past nine months of my life have been amazing, so many highs, some lows, and amazingness in between. I almost feel like I'm going to wake up tomorrow and this will all have been a dream. Everyone who has touched my life and I have been blessed to spend time with seem so wonderful it's like they're not real

we leave as family..
I don't know what my life is going to be like this time next week when all of my friends are mile away from each other. Interesting, because this was exactly how I felt at the end of the summer. I have a small family, but such a large group of friends who have become family.