Peaks My Interest

I thought I saw my turn signal miss a blink. I said, ah! Just like me. Palpitations. Skipping rhythms. Your wiring knows when to blink, beat, blink, and then sometimes it just--sometimes it just--sometimesit--sometimes it just, doesn't.

I sip Christmas Blend from a mug as big as my face, admiring its body, the coffee's, not the mug's, though perhaps the mug's as well, and draw parallels between the way the liquid pans my tongue and the way this year has panned my mind.

Isolation, propagation, irritation, awolnation, speculation, interpretation, communication, ation, ation.

"Happiness is only real when shared." - Christopher McCandless

Well, gang, it's time to start over. No one who knew me knows me still. The difference between depression and isolation is that depression plateaus in a valley while isolation plateaus on a mountain. This is not a universal metaphor, and the geographic images are paradoxical, yes, but still, isolation the way I feel it sets in with the same hardships as do any adjustments to high altitudes. I survey the view and am surprised to recognize that I do so alone. Imagine the peak is the present and grows over time (also paradoxical... peaks can only erode... I really need to think these things through). In observing the decline and my past, I notice that my surprise may be rooted in naivety. I think I climbed for too long without regard to the gaps I'd created between my companions and me. The problem remains--I... don't really know how to get back down.

Confetti

"Trying to be a nicer person has made me meaner to myself."

***

Occasionally I allow myself to care for people indiscriminately. Pros and cons.

I fall in love with friendships all the time. I learned to function inside of those infatuations for so long that I don't know what to do with myself outside of them.

***

At 19.5 years of age, an age that must differ from person to person (primarily due to varied lacks of awareness that doing so is important), I can officially look back on who I was/how I reacted to things/the courses of action I took and reflect on how I would treat those scenarios differently today. Which is promising, I suppose. My brain chemistry must be fermenting right on schedule.

I look in the mirror and see two people: one girl won't need to be someone's partner ever again, and the other doesn't know how she's gone one short year without existing solely as one. Integrating those identities presents my current internal struggle. I typically settle on the notion that my resolute independence is shaping my future as a whole that functions simultaneously as a half.

Whatever. That's reading as a bunch of heart-on-my-sleeve mumbo jumbo. And if there's one place my heart isn't... you get the picture.

the long way to go never shortens

I'm usually floating along on a writer's spectrum that ranges anywhere from "Why haven't I published a collection of every thought I've ever had?" to "No use adding more thoughts to the world's already overflowing sea of thoughts" to "Why would anyone, given the chance to read already acclaimed works, want to read about what I have to say?"

The other day I was disappointed to realize that a few ideas I wanted to expand disappeared in the relentless Idea Stratosphere because I never wrote them down to remember them. Then I wondered if they were even worth remembering. Then I chastised myself for harboring insecurities regarding something so subjective. Then I chastised myself for encouraging unconditional confidence.

Long story long, I find myself reading so many essays and poems and song lyrics that I identify with. Not only do I identify with them, but I'd like to try my pen at a few. But I get caught up in the dangerous Motive Zone where I wonder for what reason I present such thoughts. If happiness is only real when shared, are thoughts only real if presented for discussion? If I keep something inside, do I benefit from it? If I let everything go, what do I have left?

Meh. I need to purify the process. Expand the process. Never again have to answer the question, "Are you still writing?" with "I don't know. Sort of."

looking at a milky skyline/the city is my church

Interesting: loneliness is attached to both people and places.

I was thinking about who I know best and thought, "who knows me best?" and couldn't really think of anybody. For the amount of talking I do, I suppose I don't do all of my talking with any one person. In fact, I always considered myself incapable of keeping anything about me to myself, but I totally am.

I was worried I was moving away for the people, but I'll fight loneliness everywhere. It really is a matter of fighting it wherever I want to most... right now, that's definitely here. I really miss my family, but I'll need to deal with that through most choices I'm excited to make right now.

Here we go again: what to do, what to do? Ah yes, choose the option with no cons.

Ah yes, realize there isn't one/choose the option with the most pros.

It's time to stamp New York with a different phase of my life.

***

Fresh sunlight paints the recently woken East and extends to greet the West. I take advantage of my window seat and grow eager to take inventory of where a new day meets old night. As the nose of my aircraft fights for its space in the atmosphere, I imagine my newborn nose poking sky for the first time as the animal kingdom celebrates the arrival of an heir to the throne. A few years from now, Mufasa whispers to me, “Everything the sun touches will one day be yours.”

Le Glorious Sigh

So I was thinking,

it's harder to write when I'm happy. now that I write that<-- I remember I've written about this before. my blog frequency trends follow the emotional trends I've had trouble dealing with without writing about them. when I'm excited to just get out and DO, I do that instead of write about it.

there are so many sensations and thoughts I'd like to mull over and get down into form, but I can't even sit still for that long.

everything is going my way, and I can't even fathom why that is, outside of God's great love for me. I remember saying, God, you had better show me fairly soon why I'm better off this way, because right now I don't believe you.

ha! I love how "challenging" God only challenges yourself. in God's goodness, He separated me from what He knew I didn't need and sat with me through the pain of my own ignorance until I emerged, better for it, on the other side. and now I sit in a warm bedroom I share with my sister-slash-best friend across the hall from my brother-slash-best friend killing time until I mosey on over to one of two amazing jobs. my biggest worries concern which dream I will follow next, and my biggest expenses are funding my next adventures. I have never felt so whole, and I could never have imagined that so much independence would yield so much peace.

long story short, if you're wondering where I've been, it's because I'm too busy thinking about where I haven't. what a great age and time and weather and disposition to consider all of this during. In sifting through my blog in future years, I need this to be documented. right now, Lucy, you couldn't have asked for more.

oh! no reason not to fill you in. this is why I'm so happy:

-I have a pet turtle named Simon and ILOVEHIM (there he is now!)

-I have a job that lets me paint my nails

-my other job just promoted me

-I'm not going to school ever again and I'm not worse off for it! [cue Tayler cringing and my hearing about it later... love yooooou]

-I see New York and all its wonders (and all my buddies!) in two short weeks!

-I have plans to travel to ICELAND

-I just auditioned to be a Wheel of Fortune contestant!!!

-I'm moving back to New York in 6 months :)

-just thinking about the holidays makes me giddy

-I have two kicka$$ concerts in my near future

-I know of ways to get myself to Portland, Seattle, Alaska, and Denmark

-I mull over which tattoos to get in which order, and that feels cooooool

-my hair is red!

-and more, somewhere, somehow :)

Seasons

I remember exactly what I wrote one year ago today. That year has been the most dynamic in my life.

My favorite part of my life right now looks like a winding neighborhood road on a beautiful, cloudless fall day. My windows are down, my favorite song is playing, I just ended my work day, and my family is home. The best part is that this happens almost every single day.

I still find ruts--one best friend expressed that he didn't realize I do. And I don't either, because I'm usually too busy mentally remarking at how fortunate I am and how much freedom my future has.

The only rut that sticks is that I have no motivation to write and I don't know why that is. I'm hoping it's a season of life just like anything else.

Most days, I realize I'm still waving at a boat that's very close to disappearing over the horizon. From then on... smooth sailing, friends.