Lifetimes

Sometimes it feels like I've had more than one life in twenty-one years. Like, if you were to track me through the tail end of high school up until now, you could easily see where one part of me left off and the other started. It's a little harder to see what brought me here, the stuff that's on the inside and doesn't see the light of day except in extreme circumstances. It's hard to see the bad stuff because there doesn't seem to be a camera present when it all goes down the tubes. Why? Mostly because it's not a pretty picture. No pun intended.



Maybe it's because I realized this morning was the last morning I was going to register for fall undergraduate courses, and, well, that's got me more than a little freaked out and tooling through a bit of memory lane. The stages of me, not the pieces, because the important pieces don't fall off anymore. They chip - sometimes really easily - but they don't actually come off anymore.



I might have learned how to bend a little easier, instead of outright fracturing. Or I might have just morphed into stronger stuff. I don't know. And if I don't know, you people must not have a clue.



What I do know is that I can see the journey - the part of the journey - I've taken. I can the see the ways I've changed, both physically and in the ways that aren't so obvious.



Looking back might be a way to look ahead, too. I don't know where I'm goin', but I know where I come from, and I'm just fine with knowing only that. As for the rest of it? Well, I'll deal with it as it comes. One day at a time.

Habit

I've got no qualms about coming out and saying I'm a bad blogger.

How long as it been since I've last posted? How much upheaval have I gone through between then and now? Downright disgraceful on my part, truthfully. Never mind that I was running on about five hours of sleep that first official day back, still trying to reset my sleep schedule, and being bombarded with family and the fact that Christmas was only two days away. Excuses, excuses.

See what I mean?

Anyway, it's post the first of the year, so welcome to the first official post of 2011! Cue fireworks and singing of that damn song. Or, you know, you could just keep reading. That's cool too.

I thought about doing, before it hit New Year's Eve, a best of 2010 post to maybe reflect on what had happened, all the exciting - and not-so-exciting - and crazy, stupid, fearless, terrifying, etc stuff that I had done over the past year, reflecting on my three months (that feel like a dream, or that they happened to someone else and I watched) I spent in Wales, and whatever else happened that might have been newsworthy or just noted.

I didn't do one. Firstly because, like I've mentioned, I'm a bad blogger and secondly, I was just too damned tired to really focus and pull something like that together. I still have moments when it boggles me that I'm currently home and not still over on the other side of the Atlantic. Moments when I realize that I can walk down the hallway to my own bed, tripping over my own black cat, and not wander around the corner into the bathroom of some hotel in central London. Or wander to a public bathroom in an airport terminal.

So, things are adjusting. Or rather, Louise is adjusting to things.

But there are changes. If you were to sit on the back porch with me (proverbially, at the moment, as it's pretty damn cold here), with a cup of coffee, and just talk with me, you'll see changes. Little things, the way I'll go to say something and have to kind of think about whether that word means the thing I want it to or it means something different. The way my Facebook stream has a mix of both US and Welsh names in it, the way that one has subtly more or less switched itself to being sort of one top and the other a sort of background. Not that any of those people are to be considered background, but I'm hoping you're understanding what I'm having difficulty putting into words.

And that's partly why I haven't really reflected. For as good as I am with the English language, I'm struggling to put this experience into something that can be easily accessed, understood, and shared with the rest of the world. I don't know how to say what I'm feeling.

I don't know how to get what's going on in my head out onto paper or into a sequence of ones and zeroes that lets others read it, too.

Which, honestly, drives me up the wall to a point. We're used to me rambling, but this? For me to attempt to get this out would be crazier than what I normally post. Yeah. That's where I'm at.

But, hopefully - namely when I can find my camera in this post-holiday slow-down - I'll put up a couple pictures of those last couple days in the UK. Namely this post that's been in the back of my mind to do. Something about sneakers and a big, fancy word that I'm going to have to double check the definition of in a dictionary. Anyway. Hope everyone out there had a happy holiday season, a great New Year, and as for resolutions? That post (sort of) will come later.

Softly, Sweetly

I'm not quite sure how many of you actually follow my Twitter, but I said something the other day that there was nothing to calm me down quite like good classical music. My tune of choice? Pachelbel's Canon in D. A couple minutes of scouring YouTube (and time to listen, of course) had me with this absolutely beautiful six minutes and change. Enjoy.

"Just Like Guinevere"

This is kind of a companion post to the one below titled Dear Baby Binsk. Not to mention, I just love this song.

Things I Learned in High School

[In no particular order.]

- Taking independent study band sucks.

- Especially when you take it so you can take ACE US History, and normally this wouldn't be a big deal, only the ACE history book is so damned dry you'd expect it to light itself spontaneously on fire.

- Even though you have friends that you could tell anything to, there are some things that you simply can't tell them.

- When your math teacher and your sophomore English teacher are married to each other, it's a little difficult to get away with writing in a composition book in class because she knows it's the novel.

- It's okay to have the same teachers for multiple classes multiple years.

- Unless you sit there in AP English wondering why she couldn't have retired before you got there.

- Trumpet plungers were not meant to be thrown at the wall for entertainment, unless of course they were, and yours truly still has the record for the longest distance from the wall and Andrew has the record for how many times in a row he could get it to stick.

- Of course I have a band lesson this period, and not just because I want to miss class.

- It's okay to "kill" people if you're going to process them in Forensics class soon after.

- Though it's not very helpful when the dead body keeps squirming because he doesn't like bugs.

- How to hawk baked goods in the crowds on vintage weekend outside the bars because they were the easiest people to get to part with their pocket change.

- FYEX (First Year Experience) had to be the more worthless "class" ever.

- One of the trumpets falling off the risers every year during the first week of school.

- "A wooden clarinet is the orgasm of clarinets."

- Being Raggedy Ann for Halloween my senior year and lifeguarding IAC's still wearing my red, hand-made yarn wig.

- Powderpuff Football. Only we forgot most of the time to go for the flags as it was simpler to flat-out tackle people.

- Scuba diving in the pool.

- The massive bruise on the inside of my thigh from the giant's ladder in Lifetime Sports

- Jesse's face when he found out I'd sprained my ankle playing indoor soccer in the middle of basketball season.

- Though, the above didn't really matter because it's not like I played in the games, anyway.

- Having whooping cough as a sophomore and continuing on with life like I wasn't trying to hack up a lung simply by walking from class to class.

- My love of films can probably stem from film analysis sophomore year.

- I can write flash fiction; it might not come out very good or make much sense, but I can do it.

- I vowed never to take any more business classes ever after sophomore year.

- Though we made the family "dream" of having an ice cream boat kind of come true that year, with the magnets to prove it.

- My classmates weren't as unobservant as I once thought.

- Humming the Vonage theme song in public yields a lot of interesting looks from boys in leather jackets.

- Music Club trips to NYC were, in some ways, the highlight of the year.

- Riding three hours to Buffalo on a school bus was an interesting experience, especially for my rear end.

- I got really good at getting on the bus in the morning, leaning against the window, and falling back asleep for the twenty minutes it took to get to town.

- I cemented how easy it was to live out of a Jansport backpack on a daily basis, in an academic sense.

- It's a bad idea to let your friend fake-bleed you at the Freshman Humanities Renaissance Fair in the courtyard because it somehow leads to higher-ups thinking that you and two other girls have been cutting yourselves.

- In order to get out of there as soon as possible, showing said higher ups the slightly oozing patch of psoriasis you've digged open on your ankle will do the trick nicely.

- You might think you have things under control, but until you break out completely and totally in itchy bits that may or may not leave scars because of something that you have no genetic control over, you find out just how much you really have to keep your head high to live with things.

- I found out that, sometimes, when you really love someone, you let them go to make sure you don't hurt them.

- The above, however, does not ensure that they will be there when you return at a time convenient for you.

- Eating school food made me the fan of tacos that I am today.

- I think I wasn't too far into my sophomore year when I realized that I didn't want to be one of the popular girls; I just wanted to be me, whoever that was going to develop into.

- How not to sugarcoat things.

- Sunday in the Park with George is a truly awful musical when you're eighteen and there's such shows like Avenue Q and Monty Python's Spamalot to be seen instead.

- I don't like rye bread, and while it might look similar to wheat, it sure as shit isn't.

- Never had the urge to drink illegally while in high school.

- High school is a different ball game that takes a bit to get used to, and it doesn't help when you're about as down as you could get when you get in there.

- I learned how to temporarily shut up and go with the flow because that's what it took to do a good job on a job that needed to get done.

- You can be a bit busted if you know how to sit there and superglue yourself back together while paying attention in math.

- How not to give a damn about certain things.

- How to make my mom understand that being in the nineties in calculus might not be something that I achieve, and how to settle for high eighties when I'm still trying my best.

- How to play alto saxophone because who ever heard of a clarinet in jazz band?

- The opening to Colt 45 while tooling around the nation's capital for senior trip.

- That it's kind of cool to think about double calculus as double potions, but it's nowhere near as cool.

- I can't stand Ernest Hemingway.

- How cool having a sister is, and how much we do, despite our age difference, have in common.

- Going to Open House still in a uniform and cleats is perfectly acceptable.

- Trying to get to first base in softball to listen to your dad give you advice and tell you bad jokes to make you giggle.

- There are things in life more important than soccer.

- The new basketball uniform shorts were the most comfortable things in the world.

- Riding on the bus with the baseball team wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

- Riding the bus, period, wasn't all that it was cracked up to be.

- How to feel like you're stretched in fifty different directions, but still together enough to get everything finished that you need to, and well enough that nobody thinks twice about it.

- There's only so many times that you can say, "Eh, tomorrow" because your tomorrows start to run out.

- What it feels like to finish something significant.

- Writing a senior thesis in five weeks absolutely sucks.

- Being yourself, no matter how crazy and unconventional that might be, is so much easier and so much more worth it than trying to be anyone else.

- I'm about as bad at economics as I am at math.

- I like dressing up and looking decidedly female every now and then.

- Coffee is not only lovely, but also a necessity.

- Going to Europe and then returning and having the opening night and subsequent three performances of the school play when you have no voice makes life very, very interesting.

- Graduation is one of those things that always seems like it'll never get there, and then when it's looming, you wonder where the time's gone.

- A locker only holds so much stuff before it decides it won't shut, open, or even move.

- The instructions, "Put in your combination and then continue to turn like a doorknob" would have been really helpful that first time standing by 477 and wondering how to get into it.

- I don't think I was ever late to English my first year because my locker was right across the hall from the English room.

- I took one art class, and that was more than enough for my four years in that building.

- Sadly, cafeteria food doesn't get much better when you hit high school.

- Cafeteria's came with vending machines.

- Get there early enough so that you have a parking space.

- Doesn't matter what kind of car you drive, just as long as you have one to drive.

- How I ever passed my Earth Science regents is beyond me because there were eight seniors in a class of sophomores, and most of us, since it was the end of the day, slept through most of it.

- AP Calculus, AP Economics, and AP English was going to be the death of me my senior year.

- New York State Regents are, for a lack of a better phrase, the shitty things on the face of the Earth.

- The SAT's are just as bad as everyone says they are.

- Giving blood is fun. What's not so fun is passing out and scaring the living bejeezus out of your two best guy friends when you fall out of your chair.

- Playing softball after giving blood is always advisable - when half the team has done it, what else can you do?

- Things weren't always easy. Do the best you could, and hope for the rest to sort itself out.

- NYSSMA is a great excuse to miss school, though they'll flay you alive when you have whooping cough and are trying not to hack up a lung while you play classical music.

- When in NYC, one must visit in a Starbucks. That is nonnegotiable.

- I was the band geek, the writer, the athlete, and the chick with enough brains to graduate tenth out of ninety-seven. It hasn't always been easy, but if you stick to what you know and follow your instincts, the end result is pretty good.

Speechless

Ahem. This may give you cavities.

Roots

I'm not quite sure how many of you listen to as much country music as I do - and on a regular basis, too - but there's this song titled The House That Built Me by Miranda Lambert. And I've heard it a couple of times. There are some wonderful lines in there, and while some of them don't really mesh with life for me (I can't play guitar, and probably will never learn - I'd rather learn piano first) they still conjure a potent image. A specific potent image.

A little green house - that used to be brown, and still is, on the second floor in the front - that sits beside a stone driveway. Stone meaning rather uniformly sized large gravel that's kind of sharp in the summertime when you walk down the driveway barefoot. Walking barefoot anywhere within a hundred yard radius is pretty much a given between the end of May and the beginning (if the weather cooperates) of October, anyway.

So there's this little green house in a place called Townsend. Ask me where I'm from and you're going to get that response, even if we don't have a post office, don't have a traffic light (but we do have a stop sign) and everybody has a back yard in varying degrees of largeness. This little green house sits across from what used to be the stereotypical country store where if it was dinnertime, and there was nothing to eat, it became a great night for cheeseburgers on the gas grill, and Louise, go get some buns from the store across the road.

The school bus stopped at the little green house from kindergarten all the way through junior year.

One of the song lyrics is, If I could just come in I swear I'll leave/Won't take nothin' but a memory/Of that house that built me.

The little green house built me.

It was a place where I learned to run before I walked (which is, rather ironically, still true of many things). Where I took naps on the floor (and more or less slept there at night, too). Did my homework curled up on the right end of the couch and usually had a cat lying over the textbook I was trying to read. Which still happens, now that I'm in college. I used to practice my soccer juggling skills in the living room. The shade for the overhead light has never been the same. And the ball was a bit flat at the time.

The house that built me was the house my grandfather grew up in. Where my parents had lived for thirty or so years of their marriage. Where I lived for seventeen years. Where I started my novel, on the back porch in August after the world more or less tipped, tilted, and slid off its axis for a little while. Where I wrote most of the book I'm still working on, six years later. Where, during breakfast, I used to watch that one spastic little fawn run from one side of the upper yard to the other while his mother looked on, thoughtfully chewing on an apple from one of the little trees.

The turkeys. Oh, the turkeys.

Actually, more like a flock of forty turkeys and one brave (stupid) gray, black, and white cat who thought he was invincible. And wound up making new friends that he couldn't catch off a bird feeder.

The apple tree that was basically scorched on one side hand in hand with the barrels dad used to bring home from work, and that first fire in the them. Be thankful if it didn't blow up in your face. Literally.

Some are more funny than others. That's true of life. The main point - that house and the people in it, built me. Much the same way that Miranda was built by the house she lived in. My roots are buried in the back yard, near the "stream" (use the term loosely) and the apple tree that's only half-living (and how it hasn't died yet completely I don't know) with a view of the sun settin' behind those western rolling hills. I'm not being poetic - that's just the way things are around here. The hills roll (my friend from Massachusetts called them "mountains" the first time she saw them, mostly because where we go to school is much more flat than a mere thirty-five mils south) the grass grows (exponentially from the first hard rainfall and warm spell, and good luck getting a handle on it) and the peepers hardly shut their mouths. Rain-clean earth is one of the sweetest smells there is - along with molten asphalt, and summer-breeze-dried clothes from the line - and an endless sky above makes you feel very, very tiny in the grand scheme of things. Very tiny and very much alive.

And if that doesn't work, jumping in the lake certainly will, as that hardly reaches comfortable temperature even in the middle of August.

Part of the house that built me is hearing the current hooligans (or people with much, much nicer cars than I drive - not newer; some are nearly twice my age, along with their drivers) going around the track. You get good enough to start recognizing the time of year (Porsche, BMW, or NASCAR) and the type of vehicle (Porsche, BMW, stock car) by sound. That and the type of people you start seeing in town. Wine Festival? Go the old way.

We're all built by different things, events, people, and places into who and what we are today. I was built mostly by a little green house in a place that not many have heard of - and partly by the house across the road, and those six months of inhabiting the same space as certain family members again, oh, yeah, and have I mentioned that we've been living here four years and only recently (November) got curtains for upstairs - and the people I share it with. There's a bit left in the building process. That's okay, though. I'd think I'd rather have it that way than not.

How It Goes

Last year, a month or so before my sister's birthday, she sent me a link to an L.L. Bean bag that she really, really wanted. Because I know when to take a hint, and because I'm a good sister, I got her the bag as a birthday gift, and kept the travel coffee mug that I had originally gotten her to engrave with the name of the college that we went to for myself, and actually, this year, I use it regularly. Anyway, I opened my campus mailbox on day and found that I had a package, from Heather, and it was a cloth-covered mead notebook with a ribbon for a place holder. Inside the front cover was a simple note that read:

Molly Louise
Just because. You know how it goes.
By the way - I ADORE my new bag!! [There is a smiley face made from the exclamation points.] It Rocks.
See you soon.
LOVE YOU!
Heather

I taped that note inside the front cover so that whenever I opened it, I would see it, read it, and know that my sister is always with me. As for the notebook itself - I debated having it for a poetry book, and instead, actually, because it seemed fitting, settled on using it for a journal. I don't remember to empty my head every day; there are some things that need to rattle around for a little more, ferment a little better before they get dumped out. There are occasions when I update regularly [much like the blog, if you could see that comparison] and there are times when I forget that it's there. There is a side of me in those pages that is deeper, and a little more personal than the blog that I'm currently typing [and you're currently reading]. And that's the way it should be.

However, there are times when I bare as much of myself as possible [not in that sense, thank you very much] and give people a little more depth to me that I might otherwise not let you see. Then again, that's probably just me.

I actually got this idea from Connie, over at The Young and the Relentless, which was inspired by her Connie Diaries, which are snippets of her younger days from (I'm assuming) her diary.

I've given you snippets about what happened in Philadelphia last summer, but I haven't actually given you the whole story. And, as a prelude to a post that's still rattling around in my head that might take a little while to actually hash out, I wanted to share with you something more personal, and slightly out of the archive. So, instead of me telling you what happened in Philly, and making it all nice and pretty and snarky in places, I'm going to give you the "original" version. Which, for the most part, is nice and pretty and snarky in all the right places naturally. But you get the idea.

And maybe kickstart a new series in the process. No idea about that, though, because I don't censor my language as much in the journal as I do on here, mostly because I should be [except on occasions like this] the only person who reads said journal] and I try to keep the blog as family-friendly [teenie-bopper-and-up-friendly] as possible. I try, which isn't the same as succeeding, but I do try and for the most part, haven't failed epically yet. Yay! Points for the home team.

Oh, and anybody playing with the idea of keeping a journal or a diary? Do it. Find yourself a comfortable place to write things [I'm talking about the book or notebook, and if you're like me and can't write on a blank, lineless page without slanting, then get one with lines, there's no shame] because it's a marvelous thing to have to track your emotional and personal trials, tribulations, and growth. Also, those vacation memories you have, the stories that don't necessarily correspond to the pictures, this is how you remember them. Sometimes I wish I had done a better job of writing about things while I was in Hawaii, New Zealand, and Australia, but, I was twelve at the time and it didn't seem like that big a deal. And who knows? Twenty years from now, if I ever have kids [or grandkids, which is a really scary thought] they can read about the adventures [the good ones and the no-so-good ones] that I had when I was their age [or a little older]. Might even be a trip down Memory Lane worth strolling someday.

The Point: Keep some sort of journal or diary. Trust me, it's a good thing.

So, [trying to get back on topic here and failing miserably, as usual] here's the low-down on Philly, and maybe the start of something a little different and a little special. Just because, well, you know how it goes.

This was written the following morning from when I was actually supposed to fly home. Names of the airports that I should have been flying into have changed ['cause, you know, I'm slightly paranoid] but everything else has been left the same as the original entry. And I think that's all the stage-setting that you'll need.The name of my job has been abbreviated. And that, I believe, is the last service message that you should need. And yes, usually the morning after a stressful, oh-my-goodness-am-I-ever-going-to-get-home-I-just-wanna-see-my-mama-and-sleep-in-my-own-bed night is brighter and a little better. It also opens a period of time for reflection. Or sufficient ranting. You pick.

August 1, 2009 8:11 am, Philadelphia, PA

As you can see I never made it home. There's a reason.

The woman at the service counter never took my name and put it on the Ipthama list. So that wasn't an option. I go back to the Epthama gate and they keep moving that back. Now, instead of leaving at 8:50, they leave at 11:15. And I'm not guaranteed a seat. After all the people with seats have sat, she starts calling [names] mine. She not only butchers it, she doesn't say the entire thing. So I go and tell her this, and she says go. There were 2 people ahead of me, and they sat and the flight attendant looks at me and says, "Sorry sweetie, I'm out of seats." I get off the plane and they realize that someone got on who wasn't supposed to. I was not about to pull someone, already sitting, off a plane. I have more...no idea what I have but I couldn't. I wouldn't feel right. Even though I just wanted to go home.

I got a distress form from the airport, took a shuttle to a Holiday Inn, stood around some more in line, and got a room.

So, now I'm writing from the 10th floor of a Holiday Inn in Philly. I probably look like shit, I'm most likely not awake, and I'm hungry. My flight now leaves for Ipthama, at 12:15 this afternoon. I don't know how long I'll be in the air, don't know when I'll land, and I definitely don't know if I'm going to work tonight. My mom has to call C.W. and tell them I'm still in Philly.

And since my stomach is making noises, I'm going to feed it. And I don't care if it's white bread.

Still no idea WTF my luggage is.

Did I mention that I can throw a stone and hit the stadium of the Philadelphia Phillies?

From the Archives IV

[I had quite honestly forgotten that I had written this - it was actually on my MySpace, of all things - which means that this was written back before I became fairly serious (in some respects) about blogging, since MySpace had a sort of blogging function, and it worked at the time.

Anyway, this was...This was a project, as mentioned below, for a friend/teammate of mine and her battle with leukemia. And there are things in here that are worth saying, especially about fulfillment and what matters to you as a person, in your life and around you. And it's quite evident that you see my voice, but it's not as....refined, as I've more or less become since then. There's good things in there. You just...might have to unpack a little.]


June 17, 2008

I feel like there's so much running through my head right now. I'm going to graduate from high school in a matter of days (I'm not bothering with weeks anymore) and that itself is a large step. My head is filled with those thoughts and everything that has been my life for the past 12 years. Trust me, it's a lot. There's so much and while some of it isn't very good or whatever, there's still a lot. It's almost like, after you walk across that stage, it's a permanent part of your past - something that's there and you remember, but can't go revisit. It's over and done with. It's a page in a book that's been laminated; viewable but unable to be edited. It's weird.

My friend, also my hero, Marika, she's home from being in the hospital battling leukemia. Her teammates, her WAZA sisters, we're making her a book with each page dedicated to the words that define WAZA. That define us.

W - Wisdom

A - Awareness

Z - Zen

A - Application

F - Fulfillment

L - Liberation

O - Oneness

I was given the page of fulfillment. You might think it's easy; look up the definition, find something that fits that, fits what you do with soccer and WAZA, and something that fits Marika's journey through cancer. It's not as easy as it sounds. I had to look for what fulfillment actually is, how I see it and feel it. Three hours and many steps of the gorge later, I have an idea of what fulfillment means to me. It's being happy; doing the things that you enjoy, being with the people who bring out the best in you, and just being who you are, even if it's a little crazy and all the actual tourists look at you funny. It's looking at the beauty in nature and seeing certain reflections in yourself. It's listening to piano music that makes you want to cry because you can just imagine what it would be like, listening to the music and hearing the speeches at graduation about how everybody is remembering the past but moving on to bigger and better things. It's listening to music from RENT because it speaks to you and fits perfectly the fact that you're balancing on ancient stone ledges in a natural gorge with swiftly running water at the bottom. It's connecting yourself to your world, the one inside your head and body and soul and the one that Mother Earth has created. And it's realizing just how you are, just who you are. The lens of the camera that you use on that journey is the one of truth. The pictures that will follow are who we are how it was today trying to find fulfillment in so many ways.

It's about listening to music, taking pictures, and realizing that there's more to life than what you're taught in school and see everyday. There is something to be said for saying "screw it" and doing what you want to do, simply because it makes you happy. That's fulfillment.

Fulfillment = Happiness = Spontaneuity = Being Yourself = Love = Life

Merely Mortal

In this day and age the media is dominated by futuristic movies like Star Trek, The Book of Eli, and that truly nawful 2012. On the other hand, media and pop culture is also dominated by something a little darker, a little edgier. Vampires. I believe that most audiences like the ideal that vampires give us - namely, living forever. Becoming immortal. And while there are other ways to become immortal (like being a great writer, for example - Poe, Tolkien, F. Scott Fitzgerald), we, as a society really like vampires because they are a way to cheat death.

This, however much we like to dream about, simply cannot happen.

"Because, believe it or not, each and every one of us in this room is one day going to stop breathing, turn cold and die." Neil Kleinbaum wrote this line as dialogue for John Keating in Dead Poets Society and it's the same line that has been running my head all day. Or variations of it.

A death in the family is never easy, including one so sudden. The life partner of my grandmother by marriage passed away this morning, and the rest of my day has been filled with tears, memories, and gathering in support.

And, it's quite ironic because I'm usually sitting behind my laptop, composed and with some sort of inkling as to where my posts are going, and I quite frankly can't seem to make much sense of this. I think what's really shaken me so much today isn't so much the death aspect (though, trust me, I'm still working on getting a handle on that since it's an inevitable part of life) but what do you do when you see your father cry? Fathers are heralded as the foundation of a family (traditionally, though I know a few different cases that can blow that out of the water) and my father is a man who is not easily rattled. The house could quite possibly cave in, but as long as everybody was fine and safe, he'd look at it and go, "At least we've got a wood supply." I think I truly can't articulate how difficult this was for me because my mind can't wrap itself around this. And I've been trying all day.

I think I'll leave it at that because I've been trying to form something relatively coherent all day, and I'm still failing miserably, and the only thing that I can think to end on is that when something like this happens, we are forcibly reminded of our own mortality, and the question that we ask ourselves at the end of our years: What have I done with my life?

When you're twenty, in college, going abroad, and trying to figure everything out, you get blindsided with: What exactly am I doing?

And you realize, you're still trying to figure it out. And you will continue to try and figure it out until you confuse yourself and finally say to hell with it and just live.

Top Ten of 2009

Yes, I believe I unashamedly stole this from my sister, and yes, I'm well aware I'm running out of time to post this, but today has been rather busy.

So, without further ado, here's the Top Ten Posts from the world of the Wandering Sagittarius

10) Murphy and Me

9) Finally being healthy!

8) Fall '10 in Wales

7) The Focus Adventures

6) One Day at a Time

5) Things to Know

4) My Ability to Laugh at Myself via Moments of Brilliance

3) My Relationship with My Sister

2) Redefining Beautiful

1) Madaline Elizabeth

The 19th Year: Rewind

Um...so, I'm not sure how many of you valued readers and followers out there are aware, but I turn twenty in two days. Yes, twenty, as much as my sister would like to ignore that (I won't tell you how old she'll be, she might get mad at me for that - but the answer is in this blog somewhere, and I know you people can do math) because to her I'll always be her little sister, big-eyed and small in the front seat of mom's car as we drive to Barnes and Noble.

So, I thought I would take the opportunity and share a little bit of what my nineteenth year on this planet has been like.

At three in the morning on November 25, 2008, my friends barged into my dorm room, decorated in the near-dark while I was still in bed, and at least let me climb out of it before they silly stringed me and my half o the room, also throwing silver star confetti into the air. (If my computer weren't asking for me to upload a flash player, I'd put the video here for you to see. You'll just have to make due with a photo or two.)





Julie baked the cupcakes, and they all decorated the windows of my room in spectacular fashion. Yes, there is no "h" in birthday, and there's a thing about visiting Seneca Castle because I was under the impression that there was a legitimate castle in Seneca Castle and then realized it was false advertising.

The rest of the day, once I'd drank enough sparkling apple cider and eaten cupcakes to be properly sugar high, and eventually gone back to sleep, entailed a calculus review thing that I attended, and then it was time to pack up and wait for dad to come get me.

Pretty sure we celebrated my birthday along with celebrating Thanksgiving, which was cool, since we've done it before. Sometimes (like next year, I've looked at it) it actually falls on Thanksgiving, which just means turkey instead of pizza and pie instead of cake (but there's also usually one floating around.)

Here's not one of my bright moments. Before he was my boyfriend, and, now, more importantly, my ex, he was my best friend. Personally, I would love to know who simply goes to dinner about forty minutes from home, but hey, that's none of my business. So, when I get a call from them - "Can we come visit?" - there was just...I couldn't say no. Let me be more specific - I couldn't say no to him. Which, came back to bite me in the ass like it always does because while I thought I had a lid on this, I clearly didn't. They didn't stay long, him and the new girlfriend (eventually fiance - and please, let's not talk about that) yet the effects were a little more than I had bargained for.

It took the reprise of "I'll Cover You" from RENT after "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" Rehearsal for me to sit there on the floor of the auditorium and simply start to bawl my eyes out. There were only three other people there, and I must have sat there and cried for a good forty minutes. Then my friends that were there, bundled me back to my room and from there to Wegman's to get pints of cookie dough ice cream, because that was really the only thing that you could do in that situation. And she stayed with me, through my pint and a half of ice cream (one of my other friends had bought Hagen-Daaz, wondering if it was as good or better than Ben and Jerry's) and drinking our way through bottles of Izze soda. Yeah, so...not one of my better days.

I think the next order of business, the next big thing, was the trip to NYC that I planned.



Well, that my sister and I had planned. Early that semester I had applied for, and been accepted into this career services thing through my colleges called "A Day of Publishing in NYC." It's about as self-explanatory as it looks, no joke. We visited some of the big publishing houses in the industry - McGraw-Hill - they were very amazing to us. One of them is a college alum, and after posing for pictures with him, we heard about how he'd gotten from college to where he was. He explained it was networking. Let me point out right now that the weather outside had been absolutely horrible - a combination snow/rain, downright damn cold, and I was running late. When Heather and I finally found the building, and I got my visitors pass - complete with horrible picture of me in my hat and looking thoroughly bedraggled and like every inch the country child in the big city that I was - I actually shared the elevator with one of the McGraw-Hill Top Dogs. Didn't know it at the time. And of course we're on the fifty-something floor, which means the view out of the floor-length windows of the city skyline is absolutely gorgeous and I'm really tempted to go stand by the window and simply gawk (which, I didn't) and I did my best not to notice that I was wearing my hospital bracelet around my wrist.

Yes, the Day of Publishing was the day before my Surgery.

Not to mention that yes, while I'm wearing my good brown pants with the red pinstripes in them, and my red sweater, I'm also wearing my Converse because when my mother hems pants, she damn well makes sure you won't be walkin' on the bottoms, especially if you're her slightly vertically challenged youngest child.

Which, no joke, the woman (who's also someone very important in the company) and kind of in charge of this whole affair, on their end, notices. And this is the type of woman that if she were to take a "What Animal Are You?" quiz on Facebook it would come back barracuda every time. Somehow, I think she liked me. I think it was the Converse.

From there, it was to Conde Nast.

But the most important one, that was RandomHouse. Now, when I heard that we would be going to RandomHouse, I literally started salivating. I've sent RandomHouse a copy of my coverletter. It's most likely lost in the slush pile that is a commercial publishing house, but a girl can hope, right? And I prepared, too. I took copies of my cover letter with me, and, actually, in the end, it really didn't matter. They guy from the fiction department told me to mail a letter again. And he didn't say that he'd look at it. Which, is understandable, but you'd think you'd at least humor the person in front of you by looking at it. But hey, maybe that's the publishing industry.

On the plus side, I now know what it's like on that side of the letter. I think I'll stick to my side.

Right. So, after having some communication issues about shuttle times back to the hotel, Heather and I finally made it out of the city and back into the Sunfire and headed back toward upstate. That was quite the ride back - we encountered snow and horrible wind up in the Poconos (but you could really see the lights from the ski resort, and the chair lifts, which was cool) and of course I couldn't have anything to eat after midnight, which cut down on the fact that you wanted to fall asleep in the front seat and couldn't even have chocolate to keep yourself awake at one in the morning.

Rolling right into that was the first time in my life that I've ever surgery. I remember laying there in the day surgery ward, and mom was sittin' next to me, holdin' my hand because I was scared. I knew it was supposed to find out what was wrong with me, to see what was making me have pain that I wasn't supposed to have, but how calm can you be when you know someone's going to slice you open and look at your insides?

One of the last things I remember was when they put the first half of the sedative in my IV line, and things kind of blanked out for a minute, and I came to again after they'd somehow gotten me onto the table. And I remember looking up and looking at this guy, who I think was the doctor - I think - and saying, because I could hear Matchbox Twenty playing in the background, "That's Matchbox Twenty" and then the next thing that I remember was that I was waking up a little bit when some of the nurses rolled me on my side and my belly kind of hurt.

I have three scars. Two on the sides, rather near my hips, and one in my belly button where they literally sliced it in two.

I missed the first time that my niece went tubing because I couldn't do anything but walk short distances and sit. I still had internal stitches, by my belly button, and still wasn't allowed to lift anything heavy. Two weeks out of surgery I moved back into my dorm room. Heather had to come with us because I couldn't lift anything. Walking back and forth to class that first week was all that I really could do, and I had to be careful not to slip.

Course at that time, it's the middle of hockey season, so, the Saturday night that first week, two of my good friends and I decided to go to a hockey game. And we're taking the short cut by the BPOE Elks club, down the snowy path, and one of them is in front of me, to catch me, and the other has a death grip on my arm.

Well, we missed the game. It was played at earlier that day at 4, and we arrived in what would be at timely manner for the 7 p.m. game. So, while we were there, we stayed and ice skated. Now, at that point, I had never ice skated in my life. And we did it, me included, with the stipulation that A) We wouldn't tell my mother because I still wasn't allowed do anything but walk, eat, sleep, and go to class and B) That they wouldn't let go of me.

And when we hit the ice and my first thought was, I'm not sick anymore.



Which, didn't actually hold true for as long as I wanted it.

The boyfriend in February.

I brought my best friend from college home for Easter. She met most of my crazy, large, happy family and while I think she was a little shell-shocked at first, I'm pretty sure she had fun.

I pulled two all-nighters for my first year of college. The first was for Relay for Life; Freddy came back for that, and after it was done in the morning, we all went for breakfast at a place downtown. It was awesome. The second was when I was procrastinating on my final history paper. (The second probably wasn't an all-nighter, but close enough.)

I started my own blog, which you fabulous people are currently reading.

There was another medical procedure in my future, um, but this was a little less in its recovery time and more important in its preparation, instead. I never want to turn 50, plain and simple, if I have to do this again. And if I never taste anything lemon-lime flavored again in my life it will be too soon. On the bright side, I got to have lunch afterward, brought home doughnuts, and then crashed in my bed once I got home. Because I had been under conscious sedation - basically you're so out of it but still awake - they don't want you to drive for twenty-four hours. And by drive, they generally assume you'll be driving a car. But, lucky me, that afternoon was my safety procedures meeting at my job. And I work on a dinner boat. And I found out then that I'm the lucky one that gets to drive it, should the captain become incapacitated. So here I am, up in the pilot house, literally hands on the wheel, and going to myself, I can't drive a car but I'm expected to park this 200 plus passenger boat without breaking it? My next thought of course, was, Please Greg, don't let me crash your baby. I don't have the money to cover the insurance. But everything turned out okay. And Greg did most of the actual parking of said boat.

I think of my earlier posts this year, back when I started blogging, was about some of my favorite cruises that far into the season. We were only a week or two in, dealing mostly with high school cruises - senior class dinners (both college and high school) and all-night parties. But one Sunday we had a group from Canada, who had played a concert the night before in Corning. Thinking back, I think I can label this one as my favorite cruise from last summer. They were a Welsh choir (which makes me entirely happy, considering where I'm going in less than a year) and they were just absolutely amazing. Sunday dinner has entertainment, but when our music took a break, the choir started. Of course, we're right in the middle of serving dinner, and next thing you know, this choir who, when they first came on board, started either playing the spoons with their soup spoon and dinner spoon or made hats out of their napkins, starts singing the best version of "Sloop John B" that I have ever heard.

My summer passed kind of quick, and in the middle of July my best friend Em, from Massachusetts, says to me, "We're staying in Martha's Vineyard for two weeks, do you want to come out for one of them?"

Hell. Yes.

So, I get the time off from work, buy my plane tickets after much debate how exactly to get there by myself, and before you know it, mom's driving me to the local airport at an ungodly hour of the morning so I can get on a 5:40 flight to Philadelphia to get my other flight to take me to Boston.

I love to travel. I do. There's just this feeling I get in my chest when I leave the place that I've always been to go explore somewhere new. And when we were taxiing down the runway, it was...it was awesome. Except for the part where I got stuck in Philadelphia for 21 hours on the way back. And ended up getting a flight into Ithaca, instead, while my luggage went to Elmira, and I landed at 1:20, got home at 3 after eating dinner, and went to work at 4. It was great, it was one of the most fun experiences, to be out there in the Vineyard, and to see the island, and go to the beach, get smashed by the waves, and generally just have a blast.




I think this picture explains everything.

Here's another not so fun part of my nineteenth year. I spend two weeks in pre-season soccer, and a few days before the last weekend (school starts on the following Monday) I have this interesting conversation with one of my teammates about the level of play and fitness. Of which, while my heart is undoubtedly there, my body simply isn't. After an almost excruciating talk with the coach, it's decided that I will not play soccer this season, for the first time in fourteen years, and will instead take the season off and work on my fitness, hoping to rejoin the team in January. As soccer has been my life for fourteen straight years, this was not pleasant to handle. My mother, bless her, drove 45 minutes to be here with me that same night because I was not handling it well. And, considering I had a few days to go before I could kind of vanish into the proverbial background, I was not there all-together yet. Despite my first inclination, meals weren't difficult - the team had sort of been informed, and nobody really said anything about it. They went to practice, and I - I took a cycling class and biked all over town, interspersed with running. When school started, I played a little bit with the men's club team, and generally did homework and other things. I still went to games and cheered for the girls, my friends, and it was okay.

Then came the emails where the coaching staff needed to know how many were going to Brazil.

Honestly, I hadn't played that season. I hadn't even been asked to be on the JV sideline, I hadn't been asked to do anything further with the fundraising, and, quite simply, it was more stress than I probably needed. When I really thought about it, I realized that I would gladly trade one week in Brazil for an entire semester somewhere else, specifically somewhere in the UK/continental Europe. Soccer at that level, was simply not an option for me anymore, as painful as it is to recognize and accept. It doesn't mean that I still don't play - I just play for fun, like I've always done. Now it just has a different kind of connotation.

And, now that I have the option of hindsight, I can see that everything worked out in the end. I tried out for the campus production, Eurydice, got cut from that, and then tried out for the community theater show. I made that. I got to be part of the first performance in the new community center's black box theater. I made new friends, had new experiences, and learned something a little different. You might think I'm trying to convince myself that I'm okay, and maybe I am. But this is the direction that I've veered into, and it's working. And intramural soccer is coming up, so I'll have something else to do, too.

It's no secret that I'm in the teaching program. And, actually, I taught my very first lesson last Thursday, November 19th. I taught covalent bonding to 28 impressionable Regents chemistry students, who, were very well-behaved at the time. I was incredibly nervous, but it turned out quite well, in the end. And, I think, they got it. Which is enough to make anybody happy.

This past Sunday (yesterday, actually) my family had my birthday party because we're traveling to my cousin's for Thanksgiving and it was the best day to do it. Which, among the hilarity that ensues whenever we have a family get together, what I come away with, most memorably (other than my niece helping me open my presents) is

"I was so pissed I needed a torch to find my crumpet in the telly." (Which, if you know some phrases/words in British, you should find this quite entertaining)

Which brings me to now. November 23. In two days, at 10:25 p.m., I will turn 20 years old. In a sort of honor to that, I'll do a quick run-down of my favorite memories from my 19th year, in case there was so much text in this one that your head was swimming three paragraphs in (and there may be more photographs, too!):



+My friends bought me the 12-scooper from Friendly's after my no-dairy week when the doctor's were trying to figure out what was wrong with me. They then assisted me in eating it.

+A crazy trip to NYC with my sister - and a badass road mix CD from my brother-in-law that, every time we hear certain songs, think of that trip specifically

-Surgery

+Ice skating for the first time

+Almost making Dean's list first semester of first year

-The trip to Greece (NY) to get sets, also in which Steve tipped his car

+The hilarity that was "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown"

+Reconnecting with friends while seeing Star Trek for the first time (the new one)

+Traveling to see my best friend and getting stuck somewhere on my own for the first time

+Legitly keeping a journal



+Watching Madaline in the Lake

-The idea that an exboyfriend of mine would be working with me over the summer

+Getting up 5 days a week and working out at 6 in the morning

I think this video, and this song, embodies the idea that life is a journey, a hard one, sometimes, but a journey nonetheless and that, despite what it might try to throw at you, it's still the only place that you'd rather be.

Well, as per usual, I don't really know what the hell I'm doing in terms of trying to put something here, so I'll just put the link. And damn it, Heather, you need to at least listen to it! It's my birthday, humor me. "I'm Alive" - Kenny Chesney, ft Dave Matthews

And here is where I freely admit my love of country music. There, I said it. It should have been obvious, but yes, it's now in print.

So...now that we've recapped the 19th year - here's to this new one coming up, and to the next twenty, whatever they may bring.

[I would like to thank everyone in my life and those from whom I borrowed the pictures from (Facebook, most likely) and thanks to my family for simply being as amazing as you are. Thank you.]

Memory III

My favorite flavor of Snapple is Strawberry-Kiwi.

Effing tears.

Anyway, back toward the beginning of the semester I was having a rough day (it started off okay, my afternoon English class was canceled, I was working on...something, and making really good progress) and I went to get some lunch at the Pub. And the Snapple bottles they have there are glass, not the plastic ones like the cafe. The weather wasn't the greatest (windy, snowy, just plain nasty) and I'm carrying the take-out container and trying not to simultaneously freeze my hands off, and the Snapple slips through the crook of my arm and smashes on the sidewalk. So, I stopped at the bookstore and got some imitation juice type thing in a fruity flavor (definitely not the same) and when I get back to the room, I text him saying that I've dropped my Snapple. My day after that gets even better because I call my sister (whom I love and whom loves me) and tell her about a rather interesting thing that happened. (Lemme put it this way - my NY Yankee zip up pullover was my FAVORITE fashion item that week) And after much condescending and quiet angry talk in which she makes me promise never to do it again, I'm feeling all dejected and like I've done something wrong, something...dirty. Which just puts me in the state of mind of...well, what the hell. Em came over from next door and of course, I'm lying on the floor in the middle of the room (possible retreat back to my childhood?) and, because she's awesome, she gets down on the floor with me. Well, we ended up falling asleep there. Sleeping for about two hours, that is. Okay, so it was more like three but hey, we were tired and I had been crying and yeah. What wakes me up is my phone getting a text message. It's him. Downstairs, waiting for me to come let him in. I wake up enough to realize not only do I not want to get up, I'm not sure I want to have this conversation with him - about a lot of things really, that my sister matters to me but that I was also happy, happier than I had been in a really, really long time. So I tried reasoning that Em was closest to the door so she could go let him in. He solves the problem for us by waiting for someone to come along with a key and the next thing I know, he's filling my doorway and looking at Em sitting on the floor, me curled up on it, and he just knows that it's not going to be pleasant, that it hasn't been a pleasant afternoon. Em knows I'm in good hands and she goes back next door. He comes in, shuts the door, puts his backpack on my bed (actually made my bed some days) and simply lies down on the floor, shoulders against my mini-fridge, pulls a strawberry-kiwi Snapple from somewhere and puts it on the floor between us before taking my hand and squeezing to let me know that everything's going to be okay, that it'll get better and I can tell him anything.

I think we were on the floor for an hour.

And the hits just keep coming down memory lane today.

The Snapple stayed in my fridge until I moved out of the room.

Memory II

I swear today is just one big friggin' trip down memory lane. It feels like every ten minutes or so I'm looking at the window, at the blue sky outside, and simply tearing up, remembering so many sweet things.

Maybe this is my muse and my focus using my memories to try and assist me through my writer's block? It's a good idea in theory, but in practice...it's a little difficult. More than a little difficult, really.

Oh, jeez, here I go again...

Memory

At the moment I'm sitting in my living room, in the rocking chair in the corner by the TV, and have tears in my eyes. Because out of the blue this memory pops into my head and I can't really remember specifics - the where and the when - but I have the important stuff.

The way he's looking at me, both his big hands holding my face so gently and telling me, sincerely with a warm, reassuring smile, that it's okay, that it's nothing to be embarrassed about and that it doesn't matter. And he's shaking his head, still smiling reassuringly at me like, "You really think I would care about something that trivial? Please, thought you knew me better than that." And it's the tenderness and trust in his eyes and so yeah, right now I'm remembering this and I'm crying.

Doesn't help that I'm listening to "Where Are You Going" by Dave Matthews Band and "If Today Was Your Last Day" by Nickelback.

I just wanted to share that. Mostly because it made me smile through my tears.