A Response

"This is what I hate about her.

She doesn't remember, can't remember, anything. Anything with a capital A,

Just like how she is a child, and yet doesn't remember what it actually means to be a Child.

She doesn't remember what it means to love Art, to love Quality, if she ever even knew

Or if she ever even cared to know.

She is too happy with herself. She loves the world,

(but maybe that only bothers me because I hate the world)

And she gives in to it, and herself, too easily

And I think I love Her, but I don't love her

Or at least I hope I do.

She doesn't remember anything.

This is what I hate about her.

But this is what I love about her.

She's not innocent, but she's Innocent,

She loves the world, but she the funny thing is

I'm not sure that the world loves her, and yet

She wouldn't care either way. 

She's not pure, but she's Pure; Genuine, not genuine.

And I think she wants to love me and really wants to love Me, and though she understands me I wonder if she'll ever know Me.

I need her to know Me

Or at least I think I do.

She loves words, and I love words, but in the end that's all they are: words, not Words. 

Maybe one day they'll be Words.

This is what I love about her."

She was 19. But she was still 6. Every year she grew up, but she never grew Up. It wasn't clear whether she chose to stay 6 or if she was incapable of becoming any older. She wasn't sure, really.  Growing up made her realize that her friends were also growing Up. But not her.

All she knew was that most things made her happy. Sunlight made her happy. Company made her happy. Laughing made her happy. At 6, you don't really question why. She knew people didn't like her when she was sad. So she tried not to be. She was Sad, but most days she was happy. She didn't understand how to be Happy. That was grown Up stuff.

She loved words. She liked arranging them into pretty patterns. She liked making them flow. She liked making people like her with words. They were playthings to her. She loved words, they might have been her greatest asset. But she didn't understand Words like the grown Ups did.

She accepted things, and Loved them. Love was something she was good at. Maybe Love comes easily to six year olds. Probably. Her love was spontaneous and deep. She Loved, but was loved. All those grown Ups just didn't seem to understand Love. But they were her peers.

The grown Ups got frustrated when she didn't understand. She tried sometimes, but she was only 6. It's hard for someone who's 6 to understand grown Up stuff like that. But she knew her birthday was coming up soon. And things like Happiness and Words are much easier to someone who is 7.

She was scared though, that turning 7 would make her forget how to Love. And most of the time she thought that Love was the most important thing she could Know. And she already knew that.

All I Have to Say About This.

She sat there, looking at him. So many things were going on inside, but on the outside, she tried to remain blank. Unaffected. She couldn't think when she was looking at him, just feel. And all she felt was sad. You know, the kind of sad when one hears something they were hoping they wouldn't? Made just a little worse by the surprise of it, she just looked at him.  As her heart lay there, at the bottom of her stomach, it felt like it was falling apart. Not viciously, aggressively torn apart,
but as she felt the little, anxious flutter of her heart it felt like her heart was falling away from itself. Just separating itself into tiny pieces, like a completed puzzle falling off a table. Not harsh, or intensely painful, just a sad, disappointed, aching kind of pain.

And he was upset with her? That he was entitled to a "college experience"? Maybe. Maybe he was. When she was looking at him she couldn't think. She could just feel. Maybe he was right. Maybe he was the rational one. But she could only feel, and all she felt was sad.

But he didn't feel sad. That morning, before he told her, he looked good. She commented that he looked happy. He was, he said. He said he was happy because he was figuring things out.
She had no idea. He had written a song about her that morning. He woke her up with a text telling her that. Before he told her he played her a song she said she wanted to hear. He learned it for her.  They talked about love that morning before he told her. She told him he might be the first one she said that to. She didn't feel like that after he told her. They talked for a long time that day before he told her. She thought it was important enough to mention first. He said he did that because he missed her, because she was so far away. She didn't understand.

She felt sad. A little used. She didn't think he felt bad enough. He was happy that morning.  He was going for a run later that day, he said. He was smiling before he told her. He was the one who ended their conversation, because something she said was making him unhappy. She had stopped talking. She sat there, looking at him as blankly as she could. She couldn't talk any more because she didn't want him to see her tears. But when he was gone, she couldn't cry. Just a few, painful tears to wipe out of her eyes. She didn't feel like crying. All she could feel was sad.

It wasn't the usual kind of sad caused by a boy. She'd been hurt by boys before. Yelled at, broken up with, cheated on.   She'd lay on her bed and sob, in intense emotional pain. He'd made her feel like that before, too. That kind of sad was different. She wasn't the angry kind of sad, passionately resolving to never talk to him again, deleting his number out of her phone to try and hold to it. No, that kind of sad was different. It was the dull ache that might never go away. The idea of a girl getting to experience on a whim what she so badly pined for. The idea that her affection could be replaced. The idea of him falling asleep with his arms around her, while she snuggled up to her pillows every night pretending they were him.  The idea of him waking up and her being the first thing he saw. The idea that these were choices he made. That kind of sad is different. Yes, this kind of sad is different.

The Reality of College

I remember the first time I had an anxiety attack. It was the summer before fifth grade and I was living in St Louis with my mom, my sisters, and my grandparents while our house in Springfield was built. I was still young enough to be in the stage where you could just play for hours on end. I'd go outside with my cousins and the neighborhood kids and play in the sticky Missouri heat. A delicious homecooked dinner would be a welcome intermission between sweaty, breathless afternoons and cooler, country evenings. At nine or ten or so our parents would round us up, distributing the kids between their respective houses, where baths and bed would follow. I'd sleep in a room with one or both of my sisters, and we'd fall asleep talking after momma had tucked us in and given goodnight kisses. We repeated this almost every day for a whole summer. Until one day my mom told me she was going to Springfield for the weekend to look at our new house. I didn't want to leave; she told me in the middle of the day while I was busy playing with my friends. I told her I'd stay in St. Louis with my grandma, while she and my sisters stayed at a hotel in Springfield. I was too caught up in playing to even notice her leaving.

That night, everything went as usual. Grandma knew the routine and everything went regularly. And then I was laying in bed, all alone. I couldn't fall asleep. Minutes ticked by. I got out of bed. Grandma told me to get back in bed. It was 11. It was 12. And the later it got, the more worried I got that I could never fall asleep. My anxiety of not falling asleep was keeping me from falling asleep. I cried. I kept my grandma up. It wasn't a lot of fun. I just attributed it to missing my mom and feeling lonely. And that's probably what it was. For the next two nights, the same thing happened. I was a mess. I couldn't sleep, I cried, I just...hurt inside. I couldn't explain what I now know was a panic attack. I loved playing with my friends during the day, but when night time came I felt so...alone. I wasn't close to my grandma at all; I might as well have been staying with a stranger. What started as a little insomnia morphed into a panic attack because I had no one to turn to when I was feeling vulnerable.

And in a lot of ways, that's how I feel about college. A difficult situation without someone to rely on for emotional support quickly spirals into something much worse. I can enjoy myself immensely during the day here, and like the people I'm surrounded by, but at the end of the day I feel really isolated. The little problems like homesickness and boy problems turn into anxiety and depression when I have no one to help me.

But, maybe that's just life. Life isn't always being as socially successful as someone else, or making lifelong, deep connections as soon as you meet someone. Life isn't always perfect, and it's not always going to work out the way I want it to. Life is working through the difficult times. Life is getting my sad ass out of bed and going to hang out with people, even though I feel like it won't help. Life is pursuing the reward, while realizing it doesn't happen as frequently as the struggle.

So what do I do? Do I just write off my problems at Pepperdine as part of life, and try to persevere through them? Or do I take the opportunity I have to transfer home to family and friends who already love me?

I do have so many things at Pepperdine to be thankful for, and I don't give those enough credit. I DO have amazing people in my lives. I just feel like I can't appreciate them fully because I'm so caught up in feeling like I don't belong.

Boys and College.

Is there such a thing as a perfect fit? or does everything require work? I find myself in two situations where I just keep asking myself when it's worth it to keep trying, or when the chemistry isn't there. Most people would agree that to cultivate a good relationship (with a boy or with a school), effort is required. Right now though, I am struggling to decide how much effort is too much effort. Is one semester at a school too short a time to decide that it is not the right school for me? Is "x" amount of time talking to a boy far too much? I am just struggling to understand at what point I should expect harmony, and seek change if that harmony isn't reached.

Mylea.

Yesterday was Mylea's fourth birthday. It seems like such a short time ago I was meeting her for the first time as a three week old little baby. Now, four years later, she is undoubtedly my favorite person, the number one in my life. It's so hard to watch her grow up, to change from the beautiful, happy little baby she used to be to the rough, crazy toddler she is now. I miss rocking the tiny infant to sleep, and I miss walking around and singing the 18 month old to sleep. I miss being called her "dotie," and I will most likely carry her around until she's 8, but it's amazing to see the person she's becoming. I've suffered a fat lip from her headbutts, laughed until I've cried when she does funny things like tell her cousins that Santa is fake and kiss 2 year old Colby on the lips, and she continuously melts my heart when she snuggles me or kisses me or randomly tells me she loves me. I just can't believe she's four.

A Subtle Kind of Love- A story by Jake Christie

Found this while stumbling yesterday. Did not write it but absolutely had to share it. No, it's not really relevant to my personal life, but it could be one day.

http://www.jakechristie.com/smallstories/subtlekindoflove.html

He loved her in a distant kind of way, the same way the sun heats the Earth. If she were to disappear completely, he knew through pure logic that it would have no great, disastrous effect on him. He would not cease to be; he would not stop breathing; his heart would not stop beating; the world would not stop spinning. The sun would keep shining, radiating heat, if the Earth were not there. On a certain, purely physical level, her absence would have absolutely zero effect on his person.

And yet...

He loved her in an abstract kind of way, the way a bee loves honey. He wasn't sure why he wanted to love her, but he wanted to love her just the same. Maybe somebody told him once that he should be in love with somebody, so he felt a need to pick somebody and it just so happened to be her. Maybe. Being in love was nice, sure, but he didn't need to be.

And yet...

He loved her in a removed kind of way, the way a butterfly's wings can start a tsunami halfway around the world. He knew that it had an effect on her, but he wasn't sure how great. On a certain level he was aware that if he were to stop, if he were to disappear, it would have a drastic effect. For him it would be one less flap of his wings, in a manner of speaking, if such a thing were possible without him falling from the sky.

And yet...

He loved her in a subtle kind of way. It wasn't the kind of love you see in movies, with swelling music and giant gestures and running through the streets to catch a departing train. It wasn't the kind of love that Byron or Shakespeare wrote about, with flowery language and hyperbole and iambic pentameter. It was still and deep, like water that you might mistake for shallow if you just watched the surface. It was entirely his, not dependent on her own feelings for him, and it would still be there whether she, or him, or everyone else on the world disappeared. It was a subtle kind of love, but it was true.

And she loved him just the same.