*sigh* Dayton...

because Jared says I must... :)

*tear tear* last trip to Dayton... and the first day is complete.

There are so many memories to think about, and yet so many moments to experience. To reminisce, or to live the new ones.

It's funny to think about my past seasons. It's funny to think about how far away they seem. How well I remember them, and how blurry they are at the same time. Planning the senior parties, and now, being the one being planned for. Crying that my seniors, my role model, and best friend, were leaving, not being able to imagine spinning without them. And now being the one moving onward and upward. To what I'm familiar with? Or to something new?

These times are my favorite memories: buying cheap sunglasses with Erin and Matty at AIA in NC; doing the first initiation skit in Dayton mocking the instructors; buying "I Heart My Extra Three Inches" shirts; watching Friends nonstop on the way to and from Dayton, singing the theme song every time and clapping to it; getting glowstick matter all overr the walls; it snowing... always; mall trips; crashing the instructors' room with Erin and Matty; senior shindigs at Chuck E Cheese; countless floor foldings, successes, failures, tears, laughs, and everything in between...

Late Nights and Snow Fights

SNOWWWWW!!!!
for the first time in like ummm... four years? we have a snow day! and it doesn't end there... we have not one, not two, but three! snow days!! and I must say, nothing beats days on end, taking pictures in the snow with your friends, staying up all night, fitting in as many movies as you can, laughing uncontrollably and loving the moment that you're in.

I haven't written in a while. And this isn't a very long post. But i just had to make a shoutout to my girls. I'll be profound at a later and less tiring time. =)

♥

"Take me somewhere familiar... So I can find myself again..."

It has been less than a month since I last posted, yet it feels like six. Life got crazy right there at the end before break... then I experienced the best week of my life. A week, straight, at the beach, at home, with the person I love, my best friend... every second spent with him... going shopping, going swimming, running out on the beach at night in the freezing air, watching the sunrise, celebrating New Year's, remembering our old promises and remaking them, laying in bed til two in the morning just watching TV and talking about nothing, beating each other up (playfully of course)... A lot of people would get annoyed, but it's just what I needed. It makes me sure. Because I always felt like, before, no matter how much time we spent together, it was never long enough. Spending every second with him, being me and loving him how I wanted to... it's just right. There's no thought, no worry. We just are. And are together. A part of each other.

...But that's one week.

And now I'm home. Now my tooth is aching. Now I get my wisdom teeth taken out. Now I have government projects, midterm exams, and college applications. Now we have our families, and our rules. Now he has his priorities...
There's nothing wrong with that. It's what we have to do. It's just a shock. And I'm lonely...

I'm making it work. I'm getting through the crap. But it's a blur. And I'm not living. And I just wonder what it is that makes me wake up. What is it that makes me alive? Because I've felt it... Felt it without obvious reason. That undying optimism. And now, when I am blessed with a best friend who is the love of my life, when I've been given the opportunity to get a great education, and when I have the most amazing friends in the world, I cannot find it.

I sometimes think that soon enough it will be like that week all the time. But then I wonder if it really will be. Or will it be four years apart. Of not seeing each other almost every day. We've been together for six years. And after that... once we can be together, what then? Jobs... responsibilities... people to take care of...

I hate worrying. And yet, it's inescapable.

I know it can be done. It has to be. Because I don't accept failure. But I do fear it.

What we give to the world.

Gosh, I haven't written in almost a month. Not like I really have a lot of time right now to sit and do this... but I've got a lot on my mind.

I've always wondered about what I give to the world. What I show. It's never been what I really am. And I'm not quite sure why...
I wonder if that's what makes us. Isn't perception reality? Then how can we say that we don't show the world who we really are...
Perhaps I have started giving the world my true self... Though I'm not quite sure when that happened. I can't think of anyone who I act differently towards though. I don't think I really care that much...
But is that what I'm trying to be? Someone who doesn't care? Maybe that's what's hiding everything else...
Which is another thing that I've never understood. Hiding your discontentment from someone you care about. If they hurt you, how are they supposed to know? How should they know that it mattered?
A sign of weakness.... or a scar from another....
But if you can tell someone that they aren't like any other to you, then you should not have to hide from them what you hide from any other...
That weakness is vulnerability... and only one person can really do damage.
Then why should fear exist? When we open our hearts, they are there unprotected. That person has the ability to break us... Fear builds walls. Walls that say, "I'm sorry I'm skeptical, but I've been hurt before..."
That is not true vulnerability...
So when we "know," why does it still hurt? Because we had been hoping against it...
And why should it linger? What is with memory of pain?
It's not an obsession... It's not an attempt to remember the feeling... It is the feeling. It's all of the pain, right there like it's happening. But it's only a memory... building up walls.

Maybe the best thing to do is just pretend like you know what you're doing. People fall for an air of confidence.
Maybe I can make myself fall for it as well.

Sometimes.. I should just not talk.

I have such a big, stupid, spontaneous, irrational mouth. I always always say stupid stuff when I'm in a bad mood.... So yeah, I don't know. I guess I'm just documenting that so I can look back on it and remind myself to shut up every now and then...

So, I was reading back through my posts, and about six posts ago was the line "there are four practices before our first show." And now it's over. Done. Never will I march with the Powhatan Marching Band again. In a show. Nor eat free concession food. Nor march down to the field. Smell the cool air of fall as I'm preping my mind for the show. I've never really loved fall or anything, but it's just so weird to think of. Winter's already here... yet just yesterday I was writing about the beginning of fall. I don't want winter to be gone like that...

On the bright side, our show... is sick.

Ahh... intriguing...

I guess you'll just have to come to one of our shows and see for yourself. ;)

Peace & <3