I wanna go where the stars shine bright enough to show me the way

I'm not falling.  I'm not teetering.  I'm stable.  I'm me.  
I talked to my mom for a long time tonight, really talked.  
I hate when my mother makes me think.  She talked about me, that always makes me uncomfortable.  She told me I'm intense.  She told me that I am opinionated and that I'm independent and that I know who I am.  I don't need a guy to make me realize who I am, and I don't need to change myself to get a guy.  I don't need a boy or a relationship to make me feel complete.  She's right.  I don't need anybody.  I am independent.  Though just because I'm independent and thus not dependent, that doesn't mean I don't depend on people.  I have my friends, my close, in it for good friends and I depend on them.  I have my tiny bunch of "best friends"...my go-tos.  I have each of them for different reasons, I have all of my friends for different reasons.  I want them in my life.  I realized why when my friends hurt me, they really hurt me. Its because i let them in.  If I care about them enough, I'll let them in.  I don't let many people in, I don't like feeling vulnerable.  I enjoy being an enigma, observing those I don't let inside my walls.  I like observing, I can't hurt if I just watch.  When I do let somebody in, they're in for good. I want them in for good.  I'm independent.  i really am. But I still depend on people...I don't need anybody... but i do. I have high walls, I hide behind huge protective walls that I built myself and I'm really not sure why.  I don't know why I constructed such a barrier hiding my life, why I think what is hidden behind the walls is so valuable and treasured, but I made the walls.   That's why it hurts so much when I get hurt from the inside...because I let them in.  I opened the gates and let them behind my really high walls.  If somebody's willing to put in the effort to attempt to tackle the walls, then they might just be worth it. I hate being vulnerable. When somebody on the inside--on my inside--hurts me, it hurts.  A lot. I also realized I have all my friends flaws, that's probably why I accept them for being just who they are. I'm like Chris in that I expect so much from people. I'm like Kristina in that I judge people and dont think I need anybody to catch me when i'm falling.  I'm like Abby in that when even though I realize something isnt necessarily right, i dont let it stay wrong... for too long.  I'm like Joey in that I put all of myself into things i care about, regardless of what i push aside. I'm like Bryce in that i think what i'll think and at times ignore my filter.  I dont know...i guess thats why I'm still there for them.  Why I accept their ridiculousness and their flaws.  Why I see them for more than their flaws...because without their flaws,  I'm less a part of them.  My friends teeter on the brink of identity and insanity...I like that wording.  Sometimes it makes me love them even more, and other times it scares me.  I guess it's because I'm an observer.  I like to watch and think what I do doesn't affect people, but it does.  I don't intend on stating my opinion less, or silencing my thoughts to appease other people or make their lives easier.  So ya, I may be stubborn and opinionated and independent, but that's me.  I'm not changing who I am for others.  Take me or leave me, I'm still me.  I guess I just like to be liked and noticed for being me...just the way I am.  "When a guy gets you, he'll get all of you.  And want all of you."  Sometimes mommy is wise.  It's annoying.  I guess right now I just live and wait for somebody to notice my life and the way I live it.  I know who I am...or at least I know who I'm not.  

A Sleepdrunk Analysis

It's revived. For now at least.  To be honest, I'm restarting this so that somebody coughcough will friend me.  It's not fair if I have insight into their little blog world, and they have none into mine.  Friendship is two sided.  It's an ongoing balance of give and take, love and hate, push and pull.  So, why put forth the effort if it isn't always easy?  If it isn't as easy as it was?  Is it worth it?  In college, nothing is as easy as it was, nothing is as comfortable as it was.  Senior year I found a security blanket I could throw over my head when the world got scary. I could hide beneath it and feel as safe as I ever needed.  I was comfy.  Regardless of what was going on during the week, who was fighting with whom, who was dealing with whatever conflicts high school brought about, we were always there for each other.  I have never grown to love a floor nor a kitchen more than I did in my final year of high school.  In college it isn't easy, I can't rely on Friday game nights and Saturday baking to see and laugh with my old friends.  I can't rely on birthdays to bring a group of diverse people together.  It's an effort.  I bounce back and forth between the new world and my old world, trying my best to exist in both.  I know I come home (too) frequently, but it's home.  It's knowing how to navigate perfectly about in the pitch black as I try to sneak upstairs without waking my parents.  It's knowing which shortcuts to cut two minutes off a drive to a friend's house.  It's knowing that I'll always get a hug when I'm greeted.  It's knowing exactly what it'll smell like when I open my window at night.  It's knowing the comfy.  I've taken to laying out my weeks every Monday morning.  It let's me know what I'm in store for with the upcoming week.  I always like to have something to look forward to--an incentive to continue or something of the sorts.  Be it days, weeks or months in advance, I enjoy having something to look forward to.  The events approach quickly, and pass even quicker.  As much as I hate being cliche, I'm afraid life is moving too quickly.  I want to appreciate everything as it's happening because I know that things will never be just as they were at that moment.  Take a picture--it'll last longer. This weekend friends came home for spring break of freshman year.  Freshman year of college.  Because they're in college.  We're in college.  I found myself spending Saturday afternoon on the monkey bars, swinging and reminiscing of elementary school.  I found myself spending Sunday night at the junior high school playing Spud.  I have played on the monkey bars and run towards the ball for ghost numbers with the same people for almost 13 years.  I wish it were as easy now as it was when it began.  When time with your friends was spent on top of the monkey bars sharing secrets, and in a tree fort playing a made up game with random objects found around the yard.  Now time with friends is squeezed between walking to class and weekends spent home.  And yet, as a whole, I still have the comfy.  For the most part, as we continue to spring forward, we fall back.  We fall back to the way we were, and the way we want to be. Together and comfy.  Wrapped up in a snuggie blanket, hiding from the world. 


There may come a time, a time in everyones life
where nothin seems to go your way
where nothing seems to turn out right
there may come a time, you just cant seem to find your way
for every door you walk on to, seems like they get slammed in your face
thats when you need someone, someone that you can call.

This Whole College Thing...

I should be a growed up.  Still giggling at the word boob, loving to pick at scabs, and finding those of the opposite sex stuuuupid, I find myself most closely relating to the 12 year old boy.  I've always kind of found myself as older than my age. Never getting caught up in the Limited Two stage, or acting different and stupid around boys I thought I kind of skipped the immature phase.  But as I sit listening to Gabriella sing her heart out to Troy, with my crayon drawer open and my Goldfish by my side, I realized the most "mature" thing I'm doing right now is sipping water from the wine glass my mom stole during Parent's Weekend. 

It was about 15 minutes ago ago that I realized Halloween is this Friday.  This time every year in the past I was already harassing Joey.  I would have already conceived some ingeniously clever costume that nobody else was going to have.  I was never a ghost.  I was never a witch.  I was never that kid who "dressed up" as a kid.  My costumes were always the best, I loved Halloween.  With the anticipation of smelling the crisp Connecticut air all night long, while walking around the neighborhood getting candy from neighbors and walking around with the same group as I had since the age of about 6, what wasn't there to look forward to?  Halloween to me has a feel.  It's the air that if inhaled too quickly fills up your lungs and makes your nostrils burn.  It's the faint smell of chocolate, dead leaves, and that strong, indescribable smell of "fall."  It's the sound of the once beautiful leaves, now dead, crunching beneath your shoes.  It's all of these things, combined with the distant shrieks of frightened children and the incessant laughter from my friends.  

But this Halloween is going to be different.  I won't be told 239 times by my mother to "LAYER LAYER LAYER" before I leave the house.  I won't make the familiar walk to Joey's house to get excessive handfuls of candy from Mrs. Greenspun when I go to pick up Joey and Kevin.  I won't mock the two of them for their overall lack of creativity and effort that they put into their costume.  I won't wander my familiar neighborhood, knowing which house gives out the big candy bars, which house leaves a bucket that almost mockingly says "take one,"which house has a person hiding in the leaves, and which houses still creeps me out as much as it did when I was seven.  Now, it's college; this is it--I've been told it's the ULTIMATE Halloween. If by ultimate they mean...completely and totally different than anything I've ever experienced or wanted to experience before in my life, then yes...it shall be the ULTIMATE Halloween.  

I feel like I should have known Halloween was so soon.  I feel like I should be excited for the insanity which is sure to ensue.  I feel like I shouldn't fear the embarrassingly drunk girls dressed up as "nurses" and "fairies."  Maybe that's where I differ, where I've always differed.  Girls annoy me.  The girl who is ditzy, the girl who drinks more than a 200 pound man should, the girl who can hide lipstick in her boobs because they're pushed up so closely together, the girl who wears heels that are likely more of a weapon than most switch knives...that girl makes me hate girls.  Granted, I vastly exaggerate to prove a not so apparent nor relevant point, but I've never been that girl.  I'm not the girl who makes guys heads turn, or eyes ogle.  I'm the friend.  I've always been the friend.  I remember in third grade, a group of girls was freaking out at the lunch table because everybody thought this one boy was SO. CUTE. OH my gosh.  I eventually went to leave the lunch table and tell the boy.  Why?  Because it was really damn fun.  Leaving much of Mrs. Galatioto's class on the verge of tears, I went outside to sit.  I distinctly remember leaning against the cool brick wall, pressing my ponytail and overalls as hard as I could against the wall.  I found it all really funny because I didn't care.  I didn't get it, and frankly, it was really fun to mess with them.  Now eventually, I'm sure that the group of girls got over the lanky boy with the cowlick, but in third grade he was who they were in looooove with.  Dressing their notebooks and Lisa Frank folders with various sized hearts with his initials in it, I dressed my own in elaborate doodles and logos of my favorite bands.  It's not that I didn't get crushes on boys, it's just that I didn't see the big deal in fawning over a boy...seemed like a lot of unnecessary effort.  For as long as I can remember, I've had a best friend who's a boy; I've just always had boys as friends.  Now in college, I once again have found most of my friends are male.  

But how's this all relate to me not being excited for Halloween?  Not really sure.  Not even really sure why I started this whole thing.  Main reasons most likely being the fact that I enjoy procrastinating, I have an Italian midterm tomorrow and Abby left me to go be productive...

I also miss my stupid Trident column.  Yes, I'm well-aware that very few people read it (okay, just the ones I forced to) and I was assigned it monthly to fill space, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.  It gave me a place in which to say what I'm feeling, in which to voice my opinion, in which to...well...bitch.  So here it is, the moral of the story.  Halloween won't be the same, but that doesn't mean it won't be fun.  Chances are, few will appreciate how clever my costume is likely to be.  Chances are I'll end up ignoring the memo that says 'Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it'...because I'll say something about it.  Chances are, this is going to be a Halloween to remember, regardless of whether or not I get to joke with Joey about his slidey clown shoes, or whether or not nobody mocks me for "The Hot Cocoa Incident of 2003."  And as I tip back my wine glass and get the last drop of water, I realize that I can't change all at once.  I'm not suddenly going to be a growed up, and I can't force it.  Just because I'm not making poor decisions, hooking up with random boys and drinking myself into a coma doesn't mean I'm not 'living it up' in college.  Most likely?  It means that I'm just vastly superior to the average college student...more mature and whatnot. You know what they say...

People are stupid.  

Adapt.