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[23 Jul 2009|11:46pm] |
so, one of my favorite activities is to write down all of the things i would say to people, if i could. if i had the balls, the time, the means. all of the words left unsaid, for whatever reason. and i was considering doing that tonight, on the eve of my final day off from camp, but i realized...sometimes, silence is better. some things are more powerful left unsaid. maybe they should be said through actions, or not said at all, but honestly...words can fail. the best words are the ones most carefully chosen, the ones picked and placed and delicate.
alsoooo hearts are complex, with so many facets and spots and nooks and crannies for feelings. i'm pretty sure condiments can't do relationships or feelings justice. maybe you can reduce all of the complexities to single terms, verbs--want, need, like, love. but these blanket terms could never accurately convey all of the intricacies of each person and what they mean to you, or to others.
time doesn't necessarily heal, but it can numb, or let things fizzle...i don't believe anything heals or goes away, you just forget. space, distance, that's how you get over things.
on a less sweeping, worldly philosophy note--love camp. somehow, despite it all, despite any fleeting unhappiness, i'm so glad i'm here.
you grow when you least expect it.
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[26 May 2009|10:41pm] |
Okay, so. I'm so glad that YouTube exists.
I've spent the past...2 hours or so of my life listening to lesser known/unknown songs of my favorite artists. You guessed it...John Mayer. Gah, I'm such a freaking fangirl, it's a little bit disgusting. I apologize for how often I bring him up. But...okay, no one from PSU reads this (as far as I know?), but I think John Mayer is my Dave Matthews. Because, okay, my friend Gary is OBSESSED with Dave Matthews and owns trillions of Dave songs. He has at least 20 copies of "Ants Marching"--from different live concerts. So, okay, I think I'm kind of the same with JM (but nowhere near the same extent, thank you very much).
But I didn't decide to break my few-month silence just to discuss how much I adore and love John Mayer. I guess I came because...hearing all of this John, especially old John, makes me feel like I'm discovering a hidden life. Hidden lyrics, hidden songs, secret meanings & stories that have for whatever reason slipped through the cracks. Maybe he decided they weren't as good as his other stuff, or not the right feel, or whatever...but I feel like I'm uncovering new back stories, and I love it.
It reminds me of the feeling, when you listen to an album after a few years and new songs speak to you, for whatever reason. Your tastes, your experiences, everything changes.
I'm so thoroughly impressed with the power of music and how it can relate to anyone--how different songs can hold so much meaning, such alternate meanings, to different individuals.
Mmm.
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[29 Apr 2009|08:24pm] |
I apologize that I tend to write in here in nebulous, cryptic, incoherent thoughts. I guess it's just the easiest way for me to express myself here--concrete thoughts on paper, cryptic ones on LJ.
Pinpointing a feeling, finally, feels good. Even when that feeling sucks. It still sucks to feel that feeling--it doesn't go away--but at least you have a better idea why your stomach is knotty.
And it sucks to not be allowed to say what you mean, to even acknowledge someone. To know that no answer, absolutely NO answer, will make you feel better. No information, nothing. There is no ideal situation, not here.
I like to tie up loose ends--I don't like to leave things left unsaid, or to let awkward situations fester. I don't like endings--even if the ending has already come, really. There's a difference between the ending of an era and a true end--one that will last, one where new developments are impossible and people just disappear. So, it sucks that I'm not allowed to tie up the ends. That, for once, it's better for me to forever hold my peace and not speak now.
Bah.
My mom also says that if you get everything you want, maybe you're not reaching high enough. For the first time in a long time, I'm wondering if I'm not reaching high enough. I want to do things bigger--to really stretch out and see where I can go. The thought is scary, but exhilerating. I'm not even sure where to being, but I'm excited.
Also, I realized just how lucky I am to have all of the people who are in my life right now. I lucky I am to just know these people--to be around them. If nothing else, that's what I've learned this year.
But, damn, I think I've learned a helluva lot.
NOW, FINALSFINALSFINALS! BACK TO BEING PRODUCTIVE.
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[23 Apr 2009|12:34am] |
Do you ever sit and wonder who a song is exactly about? What they did, who they were to the songwriter...who are you? What situation is this? What happened?
I've gotten really into early John Mayer recently...and I can't help but wonder who he was singing about. Piecing the songs together, trying to figure out how it all fits. Wondering what happened.
It's been a while, a while while since I've posted. My life? Good. Different. I thought second semester of freshman year had been disappointing--lacking adventure, intrigue, exploration. False. These past few weeks have been full of moments and memories, just in a slightly different mood. A refocusing, if you will.
I'm excited for summer, and for GAMEFEST tomorrow, and for camping, and for life. I'm excited for the future. Nervous, antsy, wondering...questioning.
I love how certain songs evoke certain emotions...John Mayer seriously speaks to me. I'm so lame, I really am. But there's nothing like sitting in a car with two of your best friends, driving down nameless highways (okay, nameless to me, I'm no navigator) and all mindlessly singing the words we know so well, that we have in common. Emotions and conjuctions and phrases (yes, I did let a My Favorite Highway reference slip in there) effortlessly describing the world.
So, I used to listen to songs and figure out how they apply to me--which lyrics fit into my life? I still do that, no doubt about it, but I've graduated to wondering about the orignial intent of the songwriter. Wondering what it must feel like to play a song about someone who means nothing to you anymore, or means everything. Wondering if those songs, those words lose their meaning with time, or if it only grows stronger. Wondering if the objects of the song know that it's about them--know that the words, good or bad or whatever, were for one time about them, for them, contained some part of them. I sometimes--okay, just now--wish that I could be an acoustic songwriter, spilling every personal & taboo feeling into a melody and releasing it to the world. How cathartic that must feel...and yet terrifying. I wonder what it's like to play a song for the first time to an audience, small or large. To let that person in on your secrets. Hm.
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[19 Feb 2009|09:33pm] |
But this morning there's a calm I can't explain--
Rock candy's melted, only diamonds now remain.
Maybe it's cheesy. Maybe I'm cheesy, putting these lyrics in my post and trying to be all profound--because apparently, John Mayer can speak to me. But I feel it. I feel the clarity and the truth and the reality of my thoughts and perceptions these days. I'm not sure how I was able to call myself mature or self-aware until this moment, until these times. After this month. And I'm not sure exactly what it was or how it all came about--maybe the perfect storm of actions and events and consequences--but here I am, and I wouldn't trade this past month for anything. Where the timing had been so painfully off--and still is--maybe I needed this.
Looking back on events and situations and my actions, I can't imagine how I missed it all before. And how I let myself act a certain way, let myself be used or whatever. This isn't to say that I'm perfect and flawless right now--I know I still have my vices, and I can feel myself when I'm being nothing short of ridiculous. But I can pinpoint it now. I can see what certain relationships meant to me, the things that I did wrong and that I did right. I can see who I was and can compare and contrast my actions now.
But it's so frustrating to not be able to articulate these realizations to other people. I've been struggling with this concept--with that fact that just because I realize something and I've grown, it doesn't mean that anyone else has. I can't tell them the answers I've discovered, the analyses I've made. I can't make other people understand. And maybe this change isn't perceptible or tangible...maybe I'm being melodramatic. Or maybe I just believe that it exists, and nothing's really different. Regardless, I feel different.
Also, these changes...these internal growths that dramatically affect your perceptions of situations and people...how do you tell those people? How do you let them know what you've realized, what you now see as unhealthy? I'm not sure.
I'm considering getting the word "NOW." tattooed on my left hand somewhere. And by considering, I mean that I thought of it today in business ethics and spent a solid five minutes figuring out where it would make the most sense and how I could hide it. Regardless, I've taken to writing it on my left palm--retracing the lines every so often--just as a reminder. To act. Because it's easy for me to let my mind sift through possibilities, through "what if"s and "how it could be"s and I don't want to anymore. It drives me crazy. So, instead, no hestitation. No questions. I'd rather regret doing something than wonder about what could have happened if I had the balls earlier.
In my defense, the timing was off. And there's no excuse for how I acted, what I did. None. I passed something great up because I was too hung up over someone else, too invested in my own unrequited situation that I wasn't willing to look at something good and real and now. Not again. Bah, I really did suck. I was a huge bitch. I did some horrible things. I sent the absolute wrong signals. But I learned.
Curtis Sittenfeld, you were onto something.
Trial relationships.
By the time I recognize this moment, this moment will be gone.
But I will bend the light, pretend that it somehow lingered on.
Well, all I gots--
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[10 Feb 2009|10:28pm] |
Come into my world,
I've got to show show show you!
It's lasted, if only for a few days longer. Still here--it waxes and wanes, but hasn't faded or disappeared. I can only assume that this natural high can only last so long, and something shitty will happen sooner or later. But who says that shitty thing has to tear me down? If nothing else, I'll ride this natural high as long as it lasts.
Sunday night first found me lazing on my bed, complaining for 2 hours, and then took me on a whirlwind tour of delicious tortellini and fighting for kids with cancer and late night purchases and storytelling circuits and finally took me to rest--if you can call it that--on the same bed, but with a new discussion. Talking about social drama to religious philosophy...it wasn't even one of those fantastic late-night conversations where you're so exhausted that you don't know what you're saying. False. It energized me--helped me realize what I really want and need and feel and just...my mind was racing for at least an hour afterwards, long after I should've dozed off.
I love loving life!
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[31 Jan 2009|12:49pm] |
And I'm finally there, and all the angels, they'll be singing
Ah la la la, ah la la la, I la-la-la-la-love you!
My heart is Jason Mraz right now. Filling and swelling and bursting and that is such a wonderful revelation. To walk into a room after getting home from a jazz club concert and hearing a song that just...reflects everything about you in that moment. This is how I feel, right here, now.
Sometimes, I think life likes to spill itself all over you. Gives you one, two, three challenges to deal with and suddenly your routine existence shifts. But that's okay--you never get dealt anything you can't handle. Or, at least, you make it work.
Chapters ends, emotions fade, revelations are made. And I've made a hell of a lot of them this week. Absolutely everything is a learning experience, and sometimes, things just aren't right. But now I'm ready to pursue something that is right--to cast away the past and to just...put myself out there. To attack my life with a new direction and drive. I'm just feeling so...positive. This whole week I have been, to be honest. I'm just lucky to have so many people in my life who support me and offer me advice and listen to me and just let me get it all out. I can't tell you how many hours I've spent on the phone recently...yet no conversation was the same, or disposable. That feels so good.
And now I've decided to life my life by a few new guidelines. I've decided that I will never be a metaphorical second semester senior. Or maybe that I always will be. There are two major assumptions that can be made using that term, and one of them completely applies while the other does not. So bear with me. But I've decided I never want to live my life in a way where I'm waiting for something to end, for the next big thing. False. I don't ever want to coast on hopes of the future--I want to attack the here and now, be in the present--be in the room. Thanks, Hitch. So, meaning number one--slacker. NOT what I want.
But the second meaning...the concept that, once you're a second semester senior, you're more willing to try ridiculous things. To try everything. That is exactly what I want to do, who I want to be. I want to audition for One Axe and act as a page at the MUN conference and put on a kickass Relay for Life. I want to shed those inhibitions and embarassments and just try everything. Yes? Yes. So, second meaning--CORRECT.
I'm not sure if this is all a front, but I don't think it is.
My heart, and my life, and everything...Jason Mraz. Love.
And timing's everything, and this time there's plenty.
I am balancing, careful and steady, and reveling in energy that everyone's emitting.
Well, I don't wanna wait no more--
Oh, I wanna celebrate the whole world!
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[12 Jan 2009|07:19pm] |
moonlight breathing down my neck whispers "let's go, baby, let's go..."
i went from zero to snow in five hours. from days spent driving with the windows down (only a few, but still, they were there) to curbs filled with inches and inches of the fluffly white stuff (that was actually grey & compact & reallynotsolovely, butbutbut...). the strange part is that, although i had been loving the 5 am to 3 pm sleep schedule that was winter break, it feels so...natural to be here. i feel like we started right where we had ended--the jokes, the meals, the laughing. and damn, i have received some of the BEST hugs of my life. okay, maybe even the very best.
there's nothing like a Good Hug.
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[04 Jan 2009|04:25pm] |
I feel like my writing in here as gone downhill. And maybe it never was all that great. I wish I was more eloquent, more metaphorical...I wish I had more thought-inspiring concepts to present. Instead, my LJ has always served as a forum for me to simply...state things. Occurrences. Ideas. Half-brained schemes. I just wish I had something more...beautiful to say.
In other news, I just decided to go through my bag of stuff from junior year. At some point, I decided to keep scraps from high school--from middle school, camp, whatever. As I went through my basement & bedroom every June, I would come across notes or newspaper articles or cards or whatever that seemed interesting. Whatever I thought I would have fun going through at some undetermined future date. Often, I would try to stick these nuggets into more traditional shoeboxes, but for some reason, I decided to attempt to contain my junior year in a Victoria's Secret bag.
It was...something, to look through it all. Reading notes & embarassing thoughts & wow, I wasn't so happy junior year. Finding some of our old quiz & MASH games from marine bio, bits of gossip scribbled on the corners of our M&M handouts. BBBs. I really hated BBBs...bam bam bams...what the hell was she thinking, assigning those to us? More than anything else, I saw a change. Cards from certain friends who later became nothing more than objects of gossip. I guess that's one aspect of having a birthday so early in the year...there are no guarantees that the friends who I hang out with on that day, who give me cards & presents & such, will turn out to be legitimate friends for the whole year.
Some notes were kind of heartbreaking to read. Others, I couldn't.
A notion that's been solidifed for me this past few days is the fact that friendship can sometimes (for me, oftentimes) exist in a time & a place. It isn't an unconditional relationship between two people, an unbreakable bond. Instead, it's more...historical. You connect with people for a given period of time over given issues, and it seems like it could be forever. But for whatever reason, it doesn't last. That bond can't be recreated, regardless of your effort or your good intentions. Even if the two people are compatible, the friendship is past tense.
I want to find my independence, my drive, my direction. I want to sit at the library for hours, reading books on Cuban history. I want to learn philosophy. I want to take a philosophy class, even if they may be full. I want to take risks, rekindle my intellectualism (which I don't believe is a word, but perhaps should be). I've had fun--but now, it's time to get back to business.
I'm so torn, after going through this box, this bag. I found some cards & some notes that I want to make sure I never lose. To put on my walls or take with me to school or stick in my journal (because yes, I have been trying to keep a written journal again). But. It almost seems better to keep it altogether. To not let any of it be a daily reminder of my changes & faults & past relationships. To simply let it sit in the box, waiting for me to find it again. Or to be able to read it all, without heartbreak or hesitation. To let the past stay in the past, not let it creep into my active & living world.
Who knows what I'll decide.
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[01 Jan 2009|09:58pm] |
so, i just had a nice, long talk with my mom and i realized a lot of wonderful (and some not-so-wonderful) things.
Northern Virginia is incestuous. there's no other way to say it, no other way about it. everyone knows everyone else. take your average tj kid. who knows not only everyone at tj, but everyone at his base school. and then he proceeds off to uva or wam or tech and knows everyone, more or less (or less...but depending on the person, this number could get quite large), there. not counting elementary school friends, middle school friends (which can, in some cases, differ from base school friends), friends from camps, mun friends...lots of friends. well, acquaintances. but a lot of knowing is going on up here. and whoever you became, whoever you were when you graduated high school...sometimes, it's just so suffocating to be stuck in that personality, as that person.
and yet, a lot of change has gone on. tj kids who never spoke to each other in high school, dating in college. best friends in college. or kids who were besties (i actually hate that term) that don't take the time to even catch up with each other today.
change.
but so interconnected.
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[07 Dec 2008|04:51pm] |
And I'm surrounded, you spill all alive and brand new.
And I'll forget about you long enough to forget why I need to--
I love how the lyrics of songs, and your connection to those lyrics, can change so much over time. You see new things, relate to new phrases, gain new perspectives. Especially after letting a song sit for a while, lurking at the back of your iTunes until one day, you rediscover it and love it all over again.
My current love affair with Matt Nathanson isn't entirely applicable to that point...but...
The days are drifting away from me, I still wake up burning through everything.
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[21 Nov 2008|08:01pm] |
nova, you are so close--i can almost taste you. i missed you and your ridiculous traffic and SUVs and angry soccer moms. but oh baby, i'm comin' home.
in other news, i've decided that this thanksgiving break could not be better timed. after a week of thinking, of getting lost into thought and questions and variables, i'll finally be able to get it all out of my mind. i'll talk have a glorious 3+ hour car drive with my mom to discuss everything, sparing no detail and making some sense of the pieces. and then, i can forget. i can live and laugh and work and just enjoy my flashback to the past 4 years.
but i can't help but wonder if it'll all be the same, or entirely different. like i've said over and over in these past months, i feel miles away from who i was. will i slip into old habits, or will new meg emerge from the darkness and make her debut in fairfax county? we'll see, i guess.
the past few days/weeks have been eventful. full of friends and fun and food. midnight premieres and girls nights, devouring insomnia cookies or jammin' out to "all i want for christmas is you." BAMtime, TFG signs on doors, ljs. teeny bopper music. just a lot of love. AND SNOW. today, i couldn't stop proclaiming my love for the world. even after an 8 am after a night of twilight and sleeping 4 hours tops, i am still infatuated with everything around me. how long can this last? we'll find out. another "time will tell" situation.
BIG ROB, YOU ARE FO' REAL.
we're so close to reaching this famous happy ending,
and almost believing that this was not pretend.
let's go on dreaming, for we know we are
so close, so close...and still so far.
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[06 Nov 2008|02:16pm] |
"it's like i came home and everything's been moved six inches to the left. nothing's changed, but everything's different."
that dana pocket is one insightful chica.
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[29 Oct 2008|05:09pm] |
it was the first snow of the season.
i can almost see you breathin' in the middle of that empty street...
today is an Ataris kind of day. a wonderful, talk about the world without inhibitions kind of day. a i should get work done but instead i will skip class and actually live kind of day.
i think a few recent moments (and by recent, i mean moments from two weeks ago) have gone undocumented, so i'm going to remedy that here.
like the warm-yet-overcast afternoon that dana, sam, and i bought chocolate and sat on the old main lawn, surrounded by hippies and a traveling circus and assorted people running around in peter pan costumes. when hal (as we affectionately call him) decided to snap some pictures of us and wanted to stay and chat with us.
or the halloweek activities of the past few nights--late night explorations and run-ins with creepers & bicycling police officers and scary stories in the stacks and planning hijinx and mayhem on one another.
AND THE RIOT. which was messed up, and i have a lot of mixed feelings about it, but being there (before it got out of control) was...well, i was glad to be in college at that moment. being surrounded by a hundred or two people, some half-clothed, in the middle of college ave--cheering and laughing and dancing.
and today. going to class and eating a delicious lunch and deciding that i could only see bill clinton once, but i could go to poli sci class anytime. and the snow--in the morning, during lunch, the huge flakes drenching our faces and jackets on the way to rec hall to see billy. and then, on the way home...the overcast-grey-dark sky, yet the sunlight shining down on the pathway...complete with dippin' dots raining from the sky, sticking to our clothes. some guy chuckling at us as we cupped our hands to catch the flakes, and then cupping his own hands a second later.
life is good, really. everything is accelerated, but i feel like i'm finally living. days aren't always centered on math homework and physics problem sets and studying and college apps and workworkwork.
dana makes a good point--it's better to say things than to wonder. thanks, grey's anatomy, but it's true.
i found a map to buried treasure, and even if we come home empty handed--
we'll still have our stories
of battle scars, and pirate ships, and wounded hearts,
broken bones, and all the best of friendships.
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[05 Oct 2008|02:12am] |
saturdays have a habit of being utterly bizarre.
and oh man, that just killllllls me.
remember to let her into your heart. then you can start to make it better better better better better better OW!
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[30 Sep 2008|02:48pm] |
she got the power in her hands to shock you like you won't believe.
saw her in the amazon, with the voltage running through her skin.
i'm scared of what i'll see if i slow down-- if i stop.
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[15 Sep 2008|11:00pm] |
so, i think the last day of something may be even more important than the first day of something else. the first day--the birthday--signifies something new, a whole slew of exciting possibilities. but the last may mean something more. my last days of certain ages--16, 17--have always seemed somehow more sacred. at 16, i ran into a mcdonald's while grabbing a milkshake after a soc hop. at 17, i pretended to be an airplane while walking home from fourth meal, with the winds blowing and howling and feeling like halloween-in-september. i just wonder if that can mean even more.
beyond that, i realized that some of my best birthday gifts were so much more than the cakes and cookies and well wishing. i loved seeing the girls from my floor, and a few of our token male friends, all eating "whimpy burgers" at a diner, or playing pin the macho on the man (yes, it's exactly what it sounds like). i loved seeing everyone laugh and smile and just wanting to include the entire world. finding out that my two brothers have been going out to dinner together, just the two of them. my family means the world to me, and i feel so blessed to have them in my life. yes, blessed, not just lucky.
my body's still acclimating to the pennsylvania climate and altitude and whatever else is different from good ol' virginny. i've had a stuffy nose, and throat, and ears...for the past two or three weeks. but i just have to pull through it and get used to it. i just have to go.
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[09 Sep 2008|03:05pm] |
sometimes, my heart just bursts and bubbles and explodes and longs for people. specific people, society in general, whoever. some who know it, most who don't. actually, none who know it, but some who would be more surprised by it. and all i want to do is express it in words--in some kind of tangible, concrete format that sounds absolutely right and correct. but maybe that's the beauty of emotions--that no matter how hard you try, how beautiful a writer you are, how controlled your language is, you can never fully and completely express some feelings.
i need to get better at working. i need to be able to buckle down and get things done just a little bit better. but i can't help but find myself constantly reaching for something more fun, more...important, maybe. more important in some ways. i love climbing trees at midnight and sharing guilty secrets while plowing through a pack of double stuf oreos. i'm always shocked when people here connect with me on certain issues, certain personality flaws and defects that i've hidden, from myself and everyone else. the things i can laugh about now that i have never been able to even discuss until this moment. while there are some secrets i still keep, i find the number dwindling each day, slowly wheedling down to one. a single secret, one that i know and will emerge. eventually.
while i may pretend it annoys me, and to some degree it does, i love the fact that i wake up in the middle of the night here. i love looking over at my lock and seeing that the time is, in fact, 4:34 am and the lightning and storming outside woke me up, because we always keep our window open, and i can relax until 7:06. i've always loved waking up in the early hours of the morning and knowing that the comfort of sleep is still mine, if only for an extra few moments.
i also love the curling edges of all the pictures i printed from home--the ones that used to be plastered on my bedroom wall and are currently tacked up onto my corkboard. the fact taht some faces are hidden, some memories are obscured, but they're all still there. all of the smiling faces of my past four years, even if those faces no longer laugh for me in real life.
i just wish that people could know how much i appreciate them and love them, despite everything. i just wish i had the words to say it. the words and the balls.
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[31 Aug 2008|03:01pm] |
a weekend of many, many firsts. many.
you'd think that going to a school with 40,000-some kids would mean that compartmentalizing would be easy, a natural. but you would be wrong. there's nothing quite so jarring as running into someone you vaguely recognize from an obama-acceptance-speech-viewing-event the night before walking to class the next morning.
i'm not sure what kind of person all of this makes me, but that's okay.
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[28 Aug 2008|08:43pm] |
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Underground by Ben Folds Five |
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I can't seem to find an appropriate way to reply to all of the comments from my pre-college freak-out, so I'll keep it short and simple and generic. You all helped me calm down, learn to breathe, and learn to appreciate the fear while it lasted. Thankfully, I'm eating full meals again and fidgeting a little bit less (...hopefully...).
The past few days (weeks?) have been a whirlwind of new faces, late night explorations, getting lost in lecture halls, being goofy and serious and utterly myself. I would post all of the events here, but there's no way I'd be able to remember it all. I don't want to say things are going well, because I would be jinxing it all right then and there. Let's just say that things are going for now.
Oh, my. I guess I just feel like I have so much to say and think about, but it all seems so elementary. The same kinds of things that surrounded me in high school, but hopefully to a lesser extent. I'm trying to learn the same lessons, trying to improve the same characteristics. Let's just hope I'm more successful at my personal journeys in this new setting.
I'll post more later--gotta check out BIG O(BAMA).
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prepitup's journal