Lack of Postage

Can be attributed to many things. Lack of inspiration? Nope, that's not it. I have written a great many things, but my sisters occasionally frequent this site, and I would have to do A LOT of editing for them to look at my stories and not judge them.

I also have decided in my infinite wisdom to return to school.

I haven't been in school since June 2001, when I was almost eighteen. So after eleven years of no educational background, I have returned to school. To say that it's been adventure is an understatement. It's going to be a long 4-year journey, that will end when I am 33 years old.

Yes, you read that correctly. I am a 29-year old college student, enrolled in an online branch of the very college I wanted to attend when I was nineteen. It's taken me ten years, but I finally got there. I am studying to receive my Bachelor's in English with an emphasis on Creative Writing, which essentially means my degree will get me no jobs when I am done. But I am pursuing my passion, so that makes me happy. Besides, Eoin Macken has a degree in Psychology and he's an actor, so I am not too worried.

The Hellish Eighth Grade Year

When I was fourteen, my family moved across town. In this upheaval, I had to go to a new school for my final year of middle school. And we moved literally two weeks before school started. My first day was horrible, and it set the tone for how the rest of my school year was going to go.

Embraced

I turned away from the phone, sad and angry. I needed a release, something or someone to get my mind off of what just happened. Tears blinded my eyes, and as I wiped them away, I walked right into him.

He was this unknown light in my life. When I was away from him, I missed his presence, the way he made me feel, how much he annoyed me. At that moment, all those thoughts disappeared.

He looked into my eyes, and bent to look me straight in the face.

"Are you okay?  What's happened?" His hands protectively grasped my shoulders.
"Nothing, I just made an idiot of myself, and I'm angry with myself."

He nods, and then pulls me into his arms.

This is a foreign feeling, being in a guy's arms. He's wrapped them protectively around me, and I feel safe and secure. I can feel his heartbeat, the heat of his body. He's like a comforting blanket during a horrible storm.

Flooded with pent-up emotions, I just let go, and cry into his shoulder. His hands instinctually come up to my shoulders, and he rubs my back as sobs shake my body. He whispers soothingly into my ear, rocking me back and forth, and his hands run up and down my back. I realize what I've done, and I pull away.

"I'm sorry," I sniffle, wiping my my eyes with my hands.
"There's nothing to be sorry for. You needed to cry." He opens his arms to me, gesturing for me to come back to the safety of his arms.

I hesitate, weighing the pros and cons of this. I slowly bring myself back into his warm embrace, and his arms gently enfold me.

"I'm keeping you from your lunch," I speak into his chest.
"It's a shitty lunch," he chuckles. "You're saving me from a possible death."

He pulls back, pushing my face up with his fingers.

"You feeling better?" I nod, sniffling more. "I'm glad to hear it. Why don't we go into the cafeteria?"
"Oh I couldn't," I moan. "Your friends will make fun of me, being the weak girl and everything."
"They'll do nothing of the sort. If they do, they'll have to answer to me," he smiles.

I look down at the floor.

He pushes my face back up, so I am looking him directly in the eyes.

"They will not make fun of you," he assures me. His hands are resting on my face now. His thumbs are wiping the errant tears away.
"Do you trust me?"

"Honestly? No." His expression fades. "But right now, I feel compelled to believe you. Don't fuck with me right now. I am vulnerable."
"I wouldn't dare," he laughs. He leans his head in, and kisses my forehead. "Let's go," he smiles.

As we enter the cafeteria, I can see the people whom I embarrassed myself in front of stare at us in utter shock. Jonathan and I are well-known for not getting along, for having stupid petty arguments over just about everything. Jonathan's friends are introduced to me, even though I knew who they were. For the outcast in school, I feel like Cinderella. Jonathan warns them not to make fun of me, and they reply they won't. They all inquire if I am okay, to which Jonathan lays another soft kiss to my head and tells them I will be just fine.

And for that brief moment, I feel like the world is right. Something has shifted in Jonathan's and my acquaintance. And who knows where it will go from here.

A Poem I Wrote When I Was 20

Oh, god it's going to suck. I wrote it for a story. A fan-fic of all things, about Josh Groban.  Please excuse the possible crap of it. I post this strictly for the amusement it will bring me.


Who moves through life with beauty and grace,
Always carrying a smile upon her face?
Who touches me with a gentleness all her own,
Without a frown or groan?

Who loves me no matter what I do,
Or who is beside me,
Because she knows I think of her only?

She is my fire,
My ice,
My hope,
My dreams.
And even though it seems as if
We are separated too much;
It is only with one touch,
One breath, one kiss,
That our souls reconnect again.

Who, is this  goddess without a name?
Only two words sum up this elusive rhyme.

My wife.

Written January 27, 2004.

Waffles

This post stems from a conversation I had with my younger sister in March 2011. Basically, she brought to mind this thought that I hadn't had since I first began talking to that guy who inspired my story "Morning."  And I literally mean since I first began talking to him.  

At the time, he was living in his parent's house, in the basement. His "place" was in disarray, he couldn't bring himself to unpack the shit from his actual apartment, where he lived with his ex-girlfriend.  And early in our talks, we spoke of breakfast and cooking.  I can cook.  I cannot bake.  And in talking about breakfast, I mentioned I hated eggs, which he likes.  He said he could make a mean batch of banana nut waffles.  So, a week or two after conversations began, I started picturing it.  

And I thought about it maybe once or twice in the first week or so we'd talked, and not again until last March with my sister.

Basically, she says she plotted marriages with each of these guys she was interested in. And I told I never thought of things like that. When in actuality, I had. I think the point of this was that we weren't living with them, but staying at the house for vacation or something along those lines.  

I took this from a private blog of mine, so elements from still exist, just not the guy's name.

Parts from the original post will be in purple.

I'd come up the stairs, where he was sitting in the kitchen talking to his mom in boxers and a t-shirt.  The putrid stench of eggs hung in the air, and glasses of orange juice sit on the table. He smiles at seeing me, and gets up from the table, and gives me a gentle kiss on the mouth.  I sit in what was his seat, and he asks me if I want anything.  I reply with an "I'm not sure."  He laughs, and suggests that he can make me some banana nut waffles.  I nod, indicating I am okay with that.  He sets to start prep for them.  I sit at the table, across from his mom, and I glance out the window at the summer leaves blowing in the wind.  He is hard at work, mixing batter, and pouring it into the waffle iron.  I sip at my water, and smile at him working diligently to make me breakfast.

"Do you want some bacon, babe?"

"No, I am fine with just the waffles." 

He flips out a finished waffle, and places it before me.  He brings over his plate with margarine and maple syrup.  And we eat breakfast.

I think when I pictured this, we were married.  But I never once planned a wedding.  I might of thought what it might be like if we were to get married, but I never put plans into motion.  I never thought of the color scheme, time of year (at the time I was very interested in getting married in August), or anything like that.  In that one respect, I kept myself from being hurt any further.  Because had I planned something like that, it would have destroyed me far worse than the breakup already had.

I hadn't thought of the banana nut waffles since we spoke of it all those months ago.

Huh...funny.

A Little Addendum

I mentioned in my post yesterday about my short story that when I got the initial inspiration for the essay/paragraph part, that a pair of eyes captivated me.  What I don't mention is that these elusive eyes, which are brown in the story were actually blue.  Like every other morning or night of my life since 2005 (not any more, but back then), I was seeing the eyes of the selfsame guy who I sent the finished product off to those months later when I revised and lengthened it.  He doesn't know this, and probably never will, since he knows nothing of this blog, and we haven't spoken since October 2009.

The first sentence speaks volumes.  It's what I saw, felt, and heard that morning after the thunderstorm.

The morning air was dewy, an inconsequential trace of the storm that had raged outside hours before.  The trees dripped with wetness, and the birds chirped a quiet song, as if singing louder may cause the storm to rage once more.  


And you have to go down a bit further to find the crux of how you know it's me talking about him. Obviously, because I wrote this, I know where it is.  And because you don't, I am going to put it in here.


What angers me more than anything is that you haunt me night and day.  In the moments where I finally think you’re going to leave my mind altogether, your eyes pop into my head.  Those eyes: a shocking brown, which rendered me helpless anytime I gazed into them.  You’re everywhere, it seems...

...If I could say anything to you, it would be I’m sorry.  I’m sorry for being that wretched person that day, for saying things I knew would hurt you, and not even caring about the possible outcome.  You ought to know I say things before I realize what I’ve said.  With that said, I know that nothing in the world will ever change what happened.

Anyway, I just thought I would set that all out, so I can move on.  

My friend and I were going through a rough patch at the time this was written.  He decided to be a good friend and looked into local colleges for me to attend, since when I quit my job at the same time he did in January 2008, I was strongly contemplating going back to school.  I was conflicted by his actions, because I kept reading vibes from him online that he was into me in a non-friend capacity again, which he wasn't. I said some nasty things, and he essentially stopped talking to me.  I lasted two weeks without talking to him, before I extended the olive branch, apologizing for my attitude.  So the above sentence is my way of apologizing again for my lack of comprehension in reading his actions.  That, and the sentence about his haunting me.

He really did honestly haunt me night and day.  When I was left alone with my thoughts, there he was, popping in through flashes in my memory.  Although I didn't think of him as a romantic interest anymore, he was still very much a fixture in my life.  His emails were, at the time, my lifeline.  I thought at one point that I couldn't function without hearing from him, and I felt this way when he broke things off after we'd gone out those couple of times.  "If I couldn't have him as a boyfriend, I would have him as a friend, no matter how much it hurt me."

Obviously, since it's been over two years since we spoke last, I am just fine without hearing from him.

So there's a little side story into the inspiration for Last Words.

My History With Depression

Inspired by a post by my favorite female blogger Joanna Goddard, I want to open up about this experience.


People might view me now as this bookish person, who usually has a sunny disposition, and mostly likely was a straight "A" or "B" student all through school.

That's where people would be very wrong.

An Explanation

I said in a previous post that I would post the history of this guy and myself the next day.  Well, I had.  And it had gone live on my blog.  But I felt it wasn't right airing the dirty laundry of our past, so I deleted the posts.  And I am not sure if I will ever post anything about our past, and why I was so messed up with a guy breaking it off after only two dates.

What I will say, is this: I was 22, young, and very inexperienced. I learned from my past experiences, and I wouldn't repeat the same actions again.  And I won't let myself get as crazy mad for any guy that quick again.  Because like I had told myself after he said I was beautiful, this could go nowhere or end badly.

So that's all I might say on this subject.