Someone Cover Me, I'm Going In!

Written at 9:57 pm EST while flying from New York to Seattle.

Fun fact: listening to ‘Ready for Anything’ by Skyway Flyer (Song of the Day) makes airplane rides SO much more epic.

I’m flying over Michigan.

I am FLYING. OVER. MICHIGAN.

As in, I can actually see the outline of the state, in its glove form. I can see the water between Michigan and Wisconsin, with Wisconsin on the west side and quite possibly Canada to the north. And all this without consulting a map.

Wow.

I mean, have you ever seen the outline of this country? I know some of the states are boring with their squareness, but the natural borders are nothing short of miraculous.

Have you ever been able to pinpoint the naturally made contours of our borders? Ever seen the glory of Michigan from 35000 feet in the air?

It’s kind of amazing.

I’m just saying.

Thirty five thousand feet in the sky
it's hard not to feel like I can fly
a long stressful week, an excess of goodbye
plenty of nights absorbed by a cry
summer is close, no time to be shy
adventures are waiting, vacation on standby
chasing the sunset through the sky
tomorrow is looming - home is nigh.

Blah, Change.

Song of the Day: 'La Vie En Rose', Louis Armstrong

Tomorrow is my last day on the East Coast for a very long time.

The last time in New York.

The last time on campus.

The last time in my dorm.

The last time with my roommate.

The last time I’ll look out the window and see the bell tower and the library behind it.

The last time I’ll be able to see Long Island and all its flatness, with the ten or fifteen water towers visible from my room on the seventh floor.

Today was the last time I’ll see the many friends I’ve made within the drama department this past semester.

The last time I’ll be in the design studio.

The last time I’ll probably walk around South Campus.

The last time I’ll see some of my best friends.

For three. Whole. Months.

Why do I feel like my arm is being severed off?

I have their phone numbers. I’m friends with them on facebook. We can skype. And I’ll see them all again next semester, only three months away.

And in the meantime I get to go home. To see my family. My friends. My puppies. My sister will be home for a few weeks, after SIX MONTHS in Spain, after not seeing her since January. I’ll get to go back and visit my high school friends, actually SEE one of their shows, mayhaps even help out a little.

I’ll be interning at one of the more prominent theatres in Seattle. Granted, for no pay, but I’ll get the Experience (with a capital E and that rhymes with P and that stands for Pool!) and spend time working in a legitimate theatre, doing legitimate theatre type things.

I may even get a job for when I’m not at the Paramount, so as to get myself a little money for, oh I don’t know, college and stuff. Perhaps I’ll take a summer course, to raise my GPA and get some general requirements out of the way.

Not to mention the IMMENSE amount of time frolicking in the sun, watching movies in the dark, and the all sorts of adventures in between with my amazing friends who I haven’t gotten to spend time with in way too long.

I’ll get to go to my best friends graduation and subsequent party, to celebrate her achievements and success in high school and figuring out what she wants to do with her life.

I’ll get to celebrate the Fourth of July with my family and some of our best friends, possibly the way we did last time around in the hopes of starting a tradition.

I’ll get to laze about the countryside with my grandparents in their secluded home, with an open yard for the dogs and croquet and plenty of card playing.

Maybe I’ll even get my driver’s license. Finally.

Last semester all I could think about was how much I missed my family and my friends from home. This semester, with new amazing and wonderful friends, that feeling was lessened (though still present). And now, with my impending departure tomorrow, I feel as if my world is ending a little bit.

I can blame my abundance of sentimentality on my period, on being sick, even on being exhausted from the last few weeks. But while all of those might be having an effect on my emotional state, I really just want to blame myself.

I made friends. Good friends. Best friends. I’ve determined what I want to do with my life. I’ve gotten involved in a department that has so many familial type qualities, it makes for a wonderful environment in which I can grow and learn and maybe go a little crazy. I’ve signed up for classes in which I actually want to excel, that will help my plans for the future. I’ve done SO many amazing things this semester and made so many awesome plans, it’s got me all excited for the next three years here.

And tomorrow I leave it all behind to go back to the mundanity of ‘life at home’.

Which isn’t true, not even a little bit. I’ve got all those amazing and exciting things to look forward to this summer, and I couldn’t be more grateful for wonderful family and friends and the opportunities and experiences I’ll get.

But it won’t be here.

At least I won’t miss the humidity. 

‘I would like to hold my little hand
how we will run away
how we will crawl
send me on my way.’ - ‘Send Me On My Way’, Rusted Root

Family?

Song of the Day: ‘The Call’, Regina Spektor 

I know that some people just do not get on with their family members.

And more often than not it’s a generation thing that just can’t be overcome.

But it pains me when friends hate on their parents. 

They don’t do it maliciously. They’re not determined to hate their parents because they’re horrible people who don’t deserve life, or anything.

They just don’t understand their parents, and their parents in turn don’t understand them. 

And that creates a rift between parent and child, which can be painful and scarring and hard to get over.

Though, often, as people grow up and move away from their family members, they are able to appreciate them more. Friendships bloom from a lack of interaction, and people bond with thousands of miles betwixt them.

But it’s kind of sad that their relationship came to that. That they couldn’t be friends without the extra milage between them.

None of my friends, my non-related friends, have become my friend by me staying away from them. More often than not I’ve annoyed them to the point of inurement and they just put up with me. Which, in time, turns into an appreciate of sort for my quirks and never-ending presence, but still. We don’t become friends by sitting at opposite ends of the room never talking to each other.

For some people the distance does help the relationship, and they’re better off for it. I know three thousand miles between us has made me appreciate my sister as one of the best people I know. And now we can stand each other and have fun and hang out. Of course, we get annoyed (as siblings do), but we’re not just sisters anymore, we’re friends too.

Sometimes I wish people had the relationship with their parents that I have with mine. It’s hard for me to not, since they’re two of my best friends and we manage to act more democratic and communal than family-like. Which isn’t saying that we don’t have our family problems - everybody does. But we’re able to talk about things and work things out and not get hung up on the mother-daughter father-daughter sister-sister relationships. We manage to treat each other (most of the time) with the respect you’d save for someone you don’t know.

Which is another thing that bothers me - why are we so mean to our family? I’m definitely included in this - I’ve managed to treat my parents and sister more shittily than I treat my friends. But what makes it okay for us to treat them way worse than we treat our friends?

Is it their sense of permanency? As if nothing we do will ever be bad enough to make them not love us or not talk to us or just stop being related to us - as that isn’t something you can actually change. But their status of ‘not going anywhere’ has managed to work it’s way into our subconscious as justification for the crappy way we treat our family.

You’re stuck with them from birth - it just seems wasteful to not try and see and appreciate the real them.

Granted you probably see more of them than most, and very likely their unattractive sides.

But someone likes them. Someone sees something worth liking. Which means you probably can too.

Why not take the opportunity to practice being a friend to someone and be ahead of the game when it comes to meeting unrelated people?

You’re granted automatic friends and acquaintances for life at birth - why not make them your best friends and be luckier than most from the start? 

Life giving
hand holding
worry listening
rarely scolding
problem fixing
bacon bringing
praise giving
always singing
understanding
not reprimanding
thought sharing
never demanding
kind and loving
real seeing
forever parenting
the best at being
good people
best friends
love your family,
I recommend.

It's Hard.

Song of the Day: ‘The Call’, Regina Spektor 

It’s a hard feeling when you’re crushing on someone who isn’t aware.

It’s a hard feeling when he mentions in passing a crush he has on another girl.

It’s a hard feeling when you realize that you’re not spending your time justifying his bad traits like you usually do with your crushes because you’ve also come to realize he has none, or very few.

It’s a hard feeling when it’s one of your best friends.

It’s a hard feeling when you want to tell the others in that circle of friends, but are too afraid of weirding things out and making it awkward.

It’s a hard feeling when you know you’ll be three thousand miles away from this guy you’ll never tell for three months.

It’s a hard feeling to realize you don’t want to spend those three months getting over him.

But it’s a harder feeling to think you won’t get over this, you can’t get over this, and you’re wallowing in self-pity.

So you pick yourself up, brush off your hands, shake out the tired and keep walking. Maybe daydream about that cute nerdy guy you’ve seen around who you just KNOW is into Star Wars and probably plays World of Warcraft.

And then you remember who you do love, who does love you, and why life is so wonderful.

Regardless of all the hard feelings and stress and anger and angst you’ve had thrown at you and you’ve thrown at yourself the last couple of weeks.

Stay the optimist. Or at least try. Even trying will leave you leagues ahead of the other players. 

A piece reserved
deserved, she hopes
but copes when it fails
when it falls through
when the ship sails
and she’s shattered anew
a place prewarmed
but misinformed, she is
says her heart
sometimes her head
time to restart
a softer tread
a hand not grasped
gasps, she hurts
disconcerted by the lack
almost unexistence
her mind attacks
rushes to the defense
a hope yet to be crushed
flushed, she dreams
redeems her self worth
she refuses to desist
ignores the dearth
and stays the optimist.

DTH.

Song of the Day: 'Strawberry Swing', Coldplay 

I can’t tell people things.

Instead, I’m passive aggressive and rant about them to a third party who usually doesn’t know the person who caused my anger.

Or, it seems, I write about it on the internet for the two people who follow me to read. Go figure.

Either way, I don’t do well with telling people when something is wrong or when they’ve done something to piss me off. 

Which is entirely hypocritical of me. And I’m aware of that. And I hate it. 

I preach communication for the benefit of relationships more than most. Whenever someone is telling me about something someone did that upset them, I usually defer to ‘well, have you talked to them about it?’ or something of that ilk.

I imagine it comes from my family - while we may not be the best at how we approach our problems, we talked about the things that bothered us. Granted with much screaming and raging, but we got it out as best we could and that usually resulted in a fix of some sort.

And I think there’s always some part of me that just wants the person to know that they’ve done something to piss me off. How can you NOT notice you’re doing this to me? HOW. HOWHOWHOW.

But I rationalize my not telling them, either with the venting I did to ‘get it out of my system’ or the fact that I’m usually over it after a day or so and it’s no longer a problem.

But then it happens again.

And again.

And - wait for it - AGAIN.

And it’s a problem, and I don’t tell the person, and I’m not acting the grownup like I know I should and wish I could be, so I don’t tell them even more because I feel immature for not bringing it up in the first place, and then they’re never told.

Or they are, and I blow up like freaking Mt. Saint Helens did. Twice.

In THIS particular instance, the worst bit is she’s doing to me EXACTLY what she claims infuriates her to no end when others do it.

SO HOW IN THE HELL CAN YOU NOT REALIZE YOU’RE DOING TO ME WHAT YOU FUCKING CLAIM TO HATE.

Lil bit of bullshit, lil bit of hypocrisy. 

And then my inability to educate her on her actions and my pissed-off-ness. 

‘Just because I’m hurting 

doesn’t mean I’m hurt
doesn’t mean I didn’t get what I deserved
no better and no worse.’ - 'Lost', Coldplay

Drama Llamas

Song of the Day: ‘If This is It’, Newton Faulkner 

College has been hard for me.

I mean, no more than for most people, so it’s really not that big a deal. But I bring it up to preface my actual point for this post. So, moving on. 

The first couple months I spent very little time outside of my room, save for classes and getting food. I didn’t have any friends to hang out with, so most of my time was spent huddled in my pajamas on my bed with my computer, trying to reconnect with home from so far away.

But then after those two months, I began spending time with Meg - and things changed. Quite a bit. I had someone with whom I could not only get food and meet up after classes for homework, but to hang out and just be.

Sure, with her friendship came her drama, but I’d rather suffer through that than lose her friendship. Not just because I’d be excessively lonely, but also because she’s become one of my best friends.

Which is actually saying something, because I don’t make friends that easily. I can keep them, to be sure, but my usual modus operandi for ‘making friends’ stems from awkward moments and lilted conversation. And that actually means I don’t make many. Sure, there were people with whom I was friendly, but none who would go out of their way to hang out with me or even get to know me. Which made it hard for me to do the same.

But now, with this new semester and me with direction and an actual major, I’ve met SO MANY awesome and wonderful people. And I have my own circle of friends within the production majors - which I of course had to lovingly dub my ‘Drama Llamas’.

And I came to the realization today that I am rarely happier than when I am with my llamas. Maybe when I’m just hanging with Meg and we’re not simply homeworking. Watching 'How I Met Your Mother' with her has been awesome, as was making our way through 'Trueblood' together.

But ALL the time I spend with my llamas is great. Even when we’re in the design studio for hours on end working on neck-breaking projects that all we’ll do is complain about. Our group dynamic is so weird and silly and breathtakingly funny. Even some of the upperclassmen in the department have said that, were it not for their shared majors, they wouldn’t be friends with the others of their grade. They’ve even commented on our relationship and how different it is from theirs.

What’s great is that our time within the context of class is always fun and wonderful. But we also do things outside of the classroom - like teaching Katie to ride a bike, or Beja driving the five of us to the beach (or at least attempting to). Even simply watching movies while we work on projects in the studio. We’ve become our own little family. Granted, it’s extremely convoluted (I won’t even try to explain it outside the five of us) and wacky as all hell. But it’s OURS.

I'm rarely more comfortable than when I'm with them, rarely more at ease and simply happy. Which means a hell of a lot to me, after a semester of discomfort and downright despair.

Having them, simply HAVING them at all has made this semester so much better than last. We’re all designated to spend time together working, and we’ll have fun to boot, and make messes bonding all over the place. It’s heartbreaking to think that I may not be able to spend another semester with them simply due to finances.

‘Everybody wants to be understood
well, I can hear you
everybody wants to be loved
don’t give up
because you are loved.’ - ‘You Are Loved (Don’t Give Up)’, Josh Groban