Picking Up Lots of Forget-Me-Nots

Oh woe is me. Woe is the world. Salvation? Salvation is a word that drips from tooth to tongue with the gracefulness of sap sliding down a tree. Love? Love is like the last little bit of warm air in your lungs before they are filled with the icy, frost-ridden air of outside. Salvation and love. What a joke. What a God-forsaken, bitter, sick joke. Salvation. What is salvation anyway? My salvation? I find salvation in cigarettes and on tops of bluffs, in hair conditioner and wool socks. What a God-forsaken joke. My love? My love exists in the cracks of everyday life. My life is just one big joke, one huge, ridiculous, pathetic joke. A cycle of love, lose of love, searching for salvation after love, losing faith in salvation, finding love, love, losing love, etc. You get the idea. Burning holes with cigarettes in pantyhose, in tee shirts, in my hand, in scarves, oh yes my dear, that is salvation. Herr Temptation, deliver me.

Musings of a Girl Who is Alive

I never want to grow old and fade. I see older people just trudging through life, and I pray that will never happen to me. I want to always be excited, to never dim. To find pleasure in hearing a favorite song or watching the black silhouettes of trees as the sun sets.  I wonder being so excited about life is a young persons ‘ game. If we are the one’s who feel so damn alive, and that we use it all up before we hit 30. Or I wonder if it’s personality. I know young people without zest, who are merely floating by. Complaining and unhappy with the supposed banalities of everyday life, instead of discovering new emotions and trying to describe them. Instead of having an insatiable curiosity for every moment. Do you ever hear a song at a particular time, sometimes unexpected, and believe that in that very moment everything will be fine and all the terribly awful things in life are actually very small? Do you ever remember that happening to you?  I try not to complain. I’m horribly optimistic, a rather esoteric quality that I have been realizing not many people posses to the same degree that I do.  Even the happy, optimistic people I know seem cynical. I loathe whiners, and they in turn abhor me, since I always give them plenty of reason why they should be happy-the simplest and most obvious reason is that they are alive. That they are well. Whenever I see mentally handicapped individuals, I think of their nature. I have not the faintest idea what that must be like; I cannot fathom what goes on in their minds. But I see them smile, and think that if this life is enough for them, then surely it must be enough for everyone else.

What if I stop loving road trips? What if I grow weary of stopping at random gas stations for coffee and candy, lottery tickets and slushees? What if staring at trees and hills and general scenery bores me? What will I do if I stop looking at everything like it’s a work of art? How phone lines and scaffolding are comparable (and more relatable) than Michoangelo’s David. How the sun shining and reflecting off the clouds is indeed a more beautiful ceiling than the Sistine chapel.  What will I do? Some people now don’t even understand my mind. How I adore old things because I feel they have some sort of residual spirit clinging to it of the person who had it, wore it, or looked at it before me. I wonder of the stories. Who made it, what they loved, and if they’ve felt everything I have ever felt. If it’s wearable items, jewelry especially, I wonder what they did while wearing said article. If they ever felt love while wearing it. If they ever did something that made them sad while wearing it. Where it has been, and it’s journey thus far traveled before reaching my hands.  I’ve tried explaining this people before, and they just don’t understand it. They say they prefer new things that are theirs to start with, or that they don’t understand who outdated things are special. Or sometimes, after I gleefully present a new find or treasured artifact to someone, the more polite one’s will utter a “That’s so cool!” in a light voice. I’m always searching for someone who understands.

Everything has been designed, through God’s hands or by the hands of beings he created, so how could we Not appreciate the general magnificence of this life?

This is Not the End

Sometimes I get overwhelmed with the fantastic quality of being alive. Simply walking along a path, discovering a new lookout place, sharing words with a friend.
I don't care if I'm judged. I don't care if people give me funny looks. If the people stare then the people stare. I want to be different. I am joyfully, blessedly irreverent.
Oh, of course I fret. I worry. I won't lie to you and say I am completely carefree. But in those moments of worry, of troublesome thoughts, I step back. I try to realize that I am here for a reason, that I am in this specific spot doing this specific thing for a reason, and why the hell am I worrying about things that are not right here with me this second. It helps. It's amazing how my mind can overpower my mind. Tricking a negative to think it's a positive. Pushing the negative so far beneath the covers that all I can see anymore is the good things.
I walked all over a grassy field today with a friend. To us, it was just a great open expanse wedged between two great walls of towering trees. Plush grass littered with dandelions, we meandered barefoot. We found a headstone in the ground, alone. A ways later, we found another. And then, down where the hill leveled out a bit, we found many headstones. Rows and rows of names. Remembered names, I suppose, the ones that people know. I can go find the Frank that I noticed, or the Otis, or the Gretchen. It was sobering, and my friend and I trekked up the lush hill to reach our previous path, we noticed a sign. The sign explained that over 2,000 immigrants were buried on the hill, and only about 200 were marked. Bodies in the ground, beneath my feet, and I didn't know. I didn't even think about it. I don't know their names. Unremembered. They all had lives, probably had husbands and wives, children. Lovers and heartache. Dreams and wishes,hopes and pet peeves, favorite colors and silly little habits. And now, they were under my bare feet, unmarked, and I didn't have a clue. Back to the earth, as they came. There might have been more Franks, more Carl's , more Emily's. And I can't even look, I can't find out.
What would happen if that happens to me? What if I get lumped into a mass, and when I die, I go unremembered? Oh, perhaps my friends might occasionally think of me, or my family. But not daily, and soon enough they'll forget what color my eyes were, or the way my laugh sounds. They'll forget if I had freckles or not, they'll not remember if my hair was red or blonde or light brown. They'll forget to think of me.
And while this is near-tragic, my first thought that occurred to me is that I don't really mind. I don't want to do anything so remarkable that hoards of people come to view the spot that my rotting body, which my soul has long departed from, then would lay.  If I live a life where I am satisfied, where I am content with myself (even being content with my restlessness), then why should I care if I'm remembered? Why should others matter? If I lived what I thought was to be a good life, well then that should be enough for me.
Why does it feel like I'm writing my obituary.

Babe I'm Gonna Leave You

Babe, I'm gonna leave you. I'm going to leave you because when I look at you, you can hardly meet my eyes. When I look at you, my heart still skips a beat, there is a catch in that funny part of my chest just waiting for you to charm me again. I'm going to leave you because when I touch you, your skin is cold. Your hands no longer fold around mine, and my lips are left waiting for tender kisses. I'm going to leave you because when we drive, and I look over from the passenger side to catch your reaction to what I said or just admire your profile, you don't turn your head to look at me. I'm going to leave you because when you look at me, your eyes crinkle and this warmth comes pouring out, and you don't even need to smile. I never really knew you, I suppose. I'm going to leave you because I need to take care of myself first, and even though I love you, I'll never have you. I'm going to leave you, even though it will break my heart. I'm going to leave you because I know it won't break yours.

Crinkle and Disappear

I'm tired. And I'm bored of the stairs that lead up to my apartment. I'm weary of the window that lets the sun in. I don't want to see the sun very much anymore.   I stare around, and I hope that things will change. I hope that things will transform, like a magic trick made real. I see the things, the objects that trap me. How this bed defines me, how those lights around my window show my soul. How that post-it with a scrawled note means so much to me.   Sometimes I look around me, and pretend that the surfaces I can touch evaporated. How this pill-bottle would go up in a gentle pop of lavender smoke. How my sneakers in the corner would brown and crinkle like a dead leaf until they were nothing at all.  I think of the things I love, like my antique ruby ring that cost more than anything I have ever bought. Like the stack of notes my mother sent me when I was away, because she knew I was lonely. How those things define me as much as the things that would go up in smoke, or crinkle and disappear. Does it matter that I prefer a cool, crisp white cotton sheet to the navy jersey one's covering my bed. Does it matter that five stray bobby pins scatter in a corner of my room, one pried open so it's useless. Does it matter that I don't care enough to pick them up.   I'm tired. I don't want to care whether or not I have sour cream on my tacos. I don't want to care if a stud falls of my purse, or if I lose my purse entirely. I'm tired of being contained by myself, by my choices, by my things. I want to have nothing. Once I have nothing, perhaps, then I will be able to find myself. Find myself outside of the splenda-crusted wine glass, outside of the mint green hat, outside of the seven pairs of boots lining my hallway.  Maybe by being more "inside", I can find more beauty in the outside, and again enjoy sunlight.

Bluffs Hide the Sky

I don't worry a lot. In fact, I consider myself to be one of the most relaxed, chill people I know. Few things set me off, few things annoy me to the point of anger. Competitions don't interest me, people vying for a top spot or titles bore me.  I've always taken this as a point of some pride, as Lilliputian and trite as it is. But lately I've come to wonder- if I am passionless in this aspect of my life, does it make me passionless in other aspects as well? I could list off the banalities of my anti-existence for you- I could speak of my days filled with time spent alone, sleep, eating. Writing, texting, hanging out with friends. Being drunk, dancing. Boring. I can't think of a single, real-life thing I did today. Passionless. Uninspired.
Drawing from a song I heard today (one that simultaneously struck a cord in me and depressed me), I can sum up my life in a sentence: taking your own life with boredom, I'm taking my own life with wine. How depressing is that statement? Yet I couldn't get it out of my head...one can't really take one's life with boredom, one can't really take one's life with wine (unless one goes on a serious, wild, wine-drinking binge, in which case one would need to consume almost stupid amounts of that fruity alcoholic beverage.) So what do those lyrics really mean? Being so average, so vapid, so vapidly average, that I am indeed killing myself, slowly yet surely, with my tedious, insipid life. And the biggest factor that is bothering me is that I don't mind commonplace things! No, in fact, I used to cherish everyday, simple things. I adored making them complex, velvet. Making a beam of sunlight trailing on my floor a prop for an amazing, inspired, of-the-moment dance. Instead of walking down the stairs, I would trip lightly, making a beat with the gentle thudding of my feet on the floorboards. I used to delight in the most childlike things, such as having an opportunity to eat ice cream, wearing a dress, going on a road trip, applying makeup as I got ready to go out for the day. Dancing in my apartment in my underwear, alone. Singing in the shower. Having fire in my veins. What happened to me?
I hate writing that comes to no conclusion, but in this case, there honestly is none. How could I possibly wrap these couple paragraphs up? With saying, perhaps, how I will try to change, how I will learn to love each day properly. Or I could say that I might never change, and how much this prospect scares me. I could wax on about other worries of mine. I could elaborate on love and life, life and love, love lost, life lost. Or, I could simply say "goodnight" and "see you tomorrow". Sometimes the simplest ways are the best.

Inspired Always

Right now, things are not going too well. It's late, I'm sick, I'm helplessly and haplessly attempting to do well on a take-home math test which I have been working on for the past four hours or so. I'm not even half done. In my frustrated state, I meander over to a blog of one of my friends'. I secretly adore him, and his assumed unrequited affections lead me to stalking him through his blog. Dear Lord. The biggest reason I do this is because he writes so eloquently...his thoughts tumble forth and make me more inspired to write myself. But somehow when I start writing, my thoughts seem simple and mundane compared to his, and I become bashful with my supposed writing talents. As if anyone actually reads this blog anyway.
The biggest thing I've been struggling with lately is lack of direction in my life. I feel that every moment defines who one is or who one will be in some small way, and by making even the most sub-conscious, infinitesimal choices one is forever adding or deducting from one's personality. This is probably misguided and silly, but I tend to believe it regardless. Take last night, for example. It was one of the worst nights I have had in a while, due to a boy with whom I have a history with refusing to talk or look at me while he talks to a girl standing right next to me, taking care of a boy who tripped on some stairs and needed convincing to go to the hospital for stitches, being at a party where I'm sober and trying to be friendly and introducing myself to new people (since I only knew a couple people) and the girls completely ignoring me, finally getting home around 2:30am and receiving a call from a severely inebriated friend who wanted to crash on my floor, which turned into him, another friend, and I having some very sloppy conversation in which the severely inebriated one said a lot of inappropriate things. I finally head to bed around 3:00am, only to be waken at 4:00am to a drunk call from a boy demanding I bring his keys over to his house. I drove over, drove him to Wal-Mart for a pizza,  and drove him back home; only to find that he had his room key with him the entire time. Around 5:00 I'm back in bed. Longest night ever, and I just wrote a huge paragraph writing about the longest night ever. Shit. New paragraph.
The point is: I did everything I did last night to try to be a good person. A responsible, nice, good person. And I ended up miserable and upset, tired and thankless. What should I surmise from that?
Ugh. I just spent a lot of time writing about things that frustrate me and are actually pointless, since they are over now. See? I told you I'm a bad writer.

But I Chose Freedom

So here I am on a Sunday afternoon, head still reeling from the night before, stomach still hollow. Perhaps I should eat an orange. Sometimes I like seclusion- I love the freedom of doing whatever I desire to do. Sometimes it's cleaning, other times it's taking a bath, surfing the Internet, playing dress up. Tonight I was aimlessly wandering through my seemingly endless Internet bookmarks and I came upon a site that I had forgotten about. Likealittle.com is so interesting...it's voyeuristic and sort of creepy, but intriguing in what anonymous people will say about others without the repercussions of identity. As I was scanning through people's posts, I saw one that made me pause. It was a girl, asking the men of my university what kind of girl is their "type". She asked of body type, what their type of look was, and even the hair color they prefer on girls. I found this question to be completely interesting.  I suppose it is interesting what guys think about women, but I don't think girls understand that different men like different kinds of girls. If every man loved the whole Megan Fox aesthetic (and many do, I'll admit) then some of them might not think that Lady Gaga is a total babe (she is). I just didn't understand why in the world this girl was wondering what guys like, so she could presumably change something about herself to better please the y-chromosome. Didn't she understand that she is completely beautiful, gorgeously unique, and probably a bombshell in her own right? It drives me crazy that these perfectly lovely girls don't recognize their own beauty, something that stares out at them from the mirror every day.
I'm bored of the girls who gripe about their insecurities when there are plenty of people in the world who have real problems. I feel bad for them, but it's hard to sympathize too much. See, girls are told by everyone that they are beautiful: their parents, their families, their girlfriends, the boys who fawn over them. They either just choose to not believe it or are looking for attention by moaning about their supposed flaws and deficiencies just to be told they are gorgeous (which is a form of insecurity in it's own form). I'm bored of it. And while I have days when I don't feel like a babe, a bombshell- days I refuse to have my picture taken on- I still don't let it affect how I feel about myself. I still toss my hair to my shoulder, slink my way down the sidewalk, whisper sweet nothings coyly in my friends' ears. I just look in the mirror a little less.

Lost Between Jesus and Suicide

The way people write and how they are in real life are completely different.
Written words don't convey inflection or tone, therefor bypassing some pretty vital aspects of this whole communication thing. Fuck. I've been uninspired for the longest time with my writing. And they say what you should do when you're uninspired is to do something dangerous. Do something that makes you scared, that's outside your comfort zone. All I've been wanting to do lately is drink. And drink. And sleep. I'm just ignoring this life of mine and completely frittering away hours and hours of time that could better be used for learning, for creation, for self-revelation. It doesn't usually bother me, because I feel like my brain is only being used half-assed anyway. I don't do a lot of critical thinking, I suppose. The most I need to think is to wonder if cold cream will clog my pores, or if using baby lotion makes me smell too much like a baby. Whether I should get Smirnoff Passionfruit or Watermelon.
I realize I sound stupid. I probably am.
I need to find something dangerous to do. Something to kick-start me, get me off my ass and start living. Having things to talk about, having adventures to write about. I don't even know where to start.
This annoys me.
I need a change.

I Am

I am going to be 19 in a couple months.
I am a female.
I've been to Boston and New York
And lots of other places.
I've been camping with my friends,
And road trips with my family.
I have some of the best friends
And I think I'll keep making more.
I have acted onstage...although I only ever got one line
I know how to play the clarinet.
And I used to love to play around on our organ.
I dance, but I'm not a dancer...Modern dance and clogging for years.
I've tried coloring my hair, but somehow it always go back to red.
I guess the German stubborness even goes to my roots.
I'm 25% French, and I wish I could speak it.
I took Spanish lessons for years, and only remember "hola" and "adios"
Flying by myself was one of the most exciting things.
When I look back, I should have been terrified during it.
I've jumped off a 40ft cliff.
I was not scared until I stepped off the edge.
Shots scare me, but the prospect of dying does not.
I'm in college, and I like it so far.
I was homeschooled most of my life, and instead of being isolated, I made some of my best friends.
I hate being called shy. I view myself as quiet, but not afraid to talk.
I have been in love.
But only once (sorry to the other guys)
I went on my first diet when I was about 9.
I didn't need to diet or lose weight, but I thought I did
I strictly regulated what I ate until about a year ago, and I'm not happy with the changes.
Apple juice is my favorite beverage, iceberg lettuce one of my favorite dinners.
I drink a lot of water too.
I sort of fall in love with some aspect of everyone...the way they smile, their eyes, something.
Sometimes I just need to be alone
And other times I just need to be around people.
I love the rain, I love breezy Summer days.
This is me.
And it's only a small part of me.
There is a lot more.

Rejection, Lies, and Love

Writing drunk, listening to angry mad music, and thinking about love. I'll bet you're just shocked. Love again. Here we go.
I just had a epiphany. People are always complaining about love: how they can't get it, how theirs go unrequited, blah blah blah. But what people don't seem to realize is how love is right in front of them (sometimes known, sometimes not) and they just decide to reject it. Sure, sometimes you're just not attracted, but the point is that it's right there in front of you, and you are just choosing to ignore it, to reject it. Maybe you don't like how they look, how they act. That's not the point. Even if no one is in love with you at the moment, I'll bet anything that someone has admired you, pursued you at some point, and you were not interested. If you are not loved right now, it's your own fault. Sound calloused? Maybe. But sometimes honesty does.
So don't bitch and moan about how you can't get any love. You probably have. You just chose not to accept it, so it's your fault. They tried, you rejected. No one's fault but your own. Maybe you would be in a relationship, albeit an unhappy one, but hell, you would be loved.
Fuck this shit.
I'm going to go to bed. It's almost 4:00am, and I'm drunk alone.
If you take anything from this....
You are loved, by someone, something.
Let it in, or don't (but don't bitch about it)

Cannot Spare Another Tear From My Eye

Here I sit on a Sunday afternoon, head and stomach still reeling from the night before. I woke up at 8 this morning, in a panic that I overslept (my phone charger was lost somewhere last night), and stumbled, still drunk, to my friend's apartment downstairs from mine. I'm not proud of my last night, and I'm not really proud of my today either.
I just feel that somedays, everything needs to slow down a little bit and I need to just breathe for a while and be calm inside.  Sometimes it's difficult, isn't it?
I just realized that this post isn't really going anywhere, and I guess that's ok. I'll make my own rules for this little slice of my life that I have complete and utter control of.
I'm not depressed. Well no more then usual.
Blah. I need a change.

Who is Using Who?

I realize that I tend to talk about love, lose of love, yearning of love a lot...my only posts on this blog have been related to such matters. And I'm not saying that love doesn't matter-indeed, love is perhaps the most important feeling, the most important Being that there is. But I'm making a resolution as of today, and that resolution is this: I will find love in places where I do not need, nor expect return of it. I think this is my most ambitious resolution, albeit perhaps it is poorly expressed. Let me be a little more clear, and explain this a little more.
I'm going to find love around me, in places and objects, thoughts and notions. I've always had this tendency to love everyone (and this has caused many a heartbreak and disappointment) but I'm really going to start embracing it. I'm going to live a life lush with love. I'm going to love my physical self, love my soul, say only words that are said with love, respect everyone.  I'm not going to expect anything from this. But maybe I'll be a little more free. Isn't it silly, I have this little idea that I have been bound, been heavy with these chains that are called Love and HeartBreak. I've begun to think they are synonymous with each other. But how can I turn these chains into wings, something that is uplifting and airy.
And here I am, talking about love again.
What a sap.

My Heart is a Lonely Wanderer

Somehow I can't help myself from writing up this psycho-analysis bullshit. Seriously, I turn into an angst-filled twelve-year old with the emotional capacity of a teaspoon. It's pathetic. Fuck. Maybe I should just stop here.
I don't really know what I'm doing wrong, I guess. Well, maybe I do, but I just don't want to believe it. See, when my girl friends and I go to parties, I always end up kissing the boys I shouldn't (one of my brother's closest friends/roommate, for example). I'm the girl in the corner with the boy, making eyes, saying sexy things, letting my lips linger and stray along my teeth. I give off the vibe of a sexual, hungry animal (or so my friends say). Last Saturday was different though. As I was walking to my friends place to hang out before we went out, I passed by the house where this guy I was really into last year lives now. I was in love with this boy (even though we never "dated", just spent every day together and made out and so on) and he broke my heart. I walked past his house, and just as I get to the point of a little before the door, the door opens. Out bounces his new girl, and he comes out too. It was dark, and far enough a way that I'm not sure he could tell if it was me or not. I'm pretty sure he recognized me though, because he just stared at me. I walked on, knowing full well that my butt (the butt he so loved and lavished adoring comments about) looked amazing in my pants. I wonder if he looked at my butt.
By the time I got to my friends, I was pretty depressed, and I spilled my guts, like a pathetic heartbroken, weak girl does. They resolved to me drunk, and I obliged.  We went out, to an apartment to hang out and then we went to a party. I was pretty unaware of my surroundings, but somehow I ended up kissing a boy. I'm not talking about makeout, sloppy, drunk party kisses. I'm talking about sweet kisses, along my neck sometimes, his hands always respectably on my waist or cradling my face. No grabbing my butt, no trying to unzip my pants, nothing. Just...kissing. And I haven't done that for a while. I was so perplexed, I even whispered to him that I wasn't going home with him, that he could "find another girl" to take home. And he said no. He said it was fine, and that he wasn't going to leave.  And he kissed me again.
My friends left, and I was still there, kissing this boy. He called a friend, who drove us to our homes. I gave him my number. He has not text or called.
I shouldn't think that because something is different that it is special. I shouldn't get used to the feeling of worth that I get by just kissing. I should not expect anything.
But I do. And it frustrates me, and it's infuriating, and it hurts me. Why do I care so much about one guy, whose name I don't even remember, but whose lips brushed mine so gently and kindly that I would do anything to have been a little more together, so I could have been a little different, so that maybe, just maybe, he would text or call that different, slightly more put-together girl.
I don't even know his name.

Love is Just Another Four Letter Word

     I have another blog, which I like to think I direct my more dreamy, superficial ideas and notions. This blog, I believe, I'll save for rants and the pouring out of my heart, as silly and cliched as that sounds. I doubt this will be read by anyone other then me, which is just fine. I'll consider it my journal of sorts. My private little empty page upon which to be as angry, loving, and thoughtful as I desire to be. I'll use as many four-lettered-words as I wish. No pictures, just words.
     I wish I had a direction in life. I'm not one of those people who say this so as to convey a sort of wistful, hopeless, helplessness that might inspire one to want to help me. I say this with a sort of fierce desperation, a determination that is filled with hope. I have vague ideas, of course. Someday, I wish for a family. I want someone who loves me so intensely that every glance between us is a declaration of our passion. But on everything else, I can't decide. I think I may want a nice house, or perhaps an apartment in the city. Maybe I would like to stay at home with my children, but maybe I would prefer to be working, coming home in the evening and kissing my husband hello, and snuggle with the kids and play before sending them off to bed. Those things are things I shall work out eventually, I suppose. The only thing I want in life, the only thing I'm certain of, is that I want to be loved.
How silly of me, you think. How perfectly unassuming of me. Of course everyone wants to be loved. Of course. I myself have loved, loved a boy so feverishly and resolutely that I wanted it to be a secret. We would love each other, I imagined, and it would be ours. Of course, I never was really sure I was in love, at the time. I felt strongly for him, it's true. But I had never been in love before. How should I have known that the feeling was something that could almost destroy a person.  After things went bad with the boy ( he did not love me, it turned out, but instead was fooling around with another girl), I could hardly function. A nice, stable depression settled in me. It took me a very, very long time to stop thinking about this boy. He toyed with me for months after it was over, sending me deliciously charming texts every few weeks. I replied, of course, desperate for some contact. I transferred schools, and sure enough, he did too. I only saw him once, and he didn't see me. Today, I found out where he lives. I recently got a new apartment, and on the walk in to campus, I walked past a house, with his car sitting outside. I know it is his car, because it is the same car that I rode in, laughed in, kissed in- the same car that made my stomach flip when I saw it in the parking lot after our relationship ended. I sought it out every time I pulled into the parking lot, every day of school, because I needed that reassuring twist in my stomach to confirm that I had not, in fact, dreamt it all up.
     Love. As children, we were taught that love was magical, that love would turn you into princesses. That love was worth waiting for, that love could change everything. That may be true. Honestly, I'm still a little bitter on the whole topic. I associate love with abandonment, and I know that sounds corny. Maybe I just need to learn how to trust again. For the longest time I considered love to be the dirtiest four-lettered word I could think of. I resolved to never put everything I have into a person, to care so much. I wanted to be a shell. To separate myself so as to never be so hurt again. And for a very long while, that worked for me. I didn't feel anything towards men, except distrust. Of course I had my best guy friend, Jeremiah, who is undoubtedly one of the best friends I think I shall ever have. But Jeremiah aside, I distrusted men. Oh, I flirted and toyed, teased. I wanted the attentions of every boy in my class, every man who walked into my work was a target, a test to see what I could do to him. It became a game for me. I came to realize that I could look at a boy, a man a certain way, make my eyes light up just right, something would happen. I only had to curve my lips, bite into something, smile just the right way, and somehow I became magnetic, charming. I did this all last semester. Over break, I came to realize something- this is not the kind of girl I was raised to be. I realized I was weary of the explicit text messages I recieved, the toying, the games which led to nothing, or everything. I realized that by refusing to look for love, by taking anything I could get, by willingly and shamelessly opening myself up (vulnerable in my confidence, my ability) , I was only hurting myself.  I was becoming empty, unable to muster even the faintest of feelings for men, other then to view them as a toy, an experiment, a test of my skills. I was unable to feel anything for men. And I had once felt so much passion. So I resolved- this semester I shall feel again. And so, I am trying to change. Oh, of course I flirt, I flirt very much still. But I don't do it for sport, for a distraction of the uneasiness of being me. I do it with purpose, with feeling behind it. I may not want something to arise from it, and some days, when I pull out all the charm, I come to surprise myself with the power that I have, as meaningless and surface-y  as it may be. But while I love flirting with everyone, making simple things important and complex and meaningful, I do want to find something more lovely then just toying. And so I've been trying to be better. And though it's the only second week of school, I've not done very well. Both weekends I've disappointed myself, as much fun as I have. And yes, I was satisfied, I was coy, I was in perfect form. But I felt guilty. Annoyed with myself. So I'm really trying to be better, ad to prove it to myself, I did something that I don't usually do. Tonight, I decided to not go out. I'm not in the mood to pretend and act. No, I am at my friend's apartment, watching a movie, and I feel good. Safe, cozy, and in wonderful company. I feel good, and that's a great thing to be able to say.