Feeling like...

I'm on the outside yet again.

Is it me? Or is it them?

I don't know, and I can't let it get to me.

I must just focus on other things, more important.

Getting things done - books, writing, eating, sleeping, working.

But I confess, that at the moment, all I want to do is nothing at all.

So how can I possibly be hurt by the things that others do, when I do it too.

This is something which I must remember, something which I must learn and move on from.

Until next time. School starts on Monday, things are theoretically going smoothly and well, though they aren't.

Ta for now.

The Last Letter

When reflecting on this past day, I am reminded of a story I wrote once. It was called The Last Letter.

More than the story itself, what I had wanted to convey when I wrote it was my own physical ailments that I was experiencing at the time. I attributed it to my backpack straps pinching nerves in my shoulders. I would get random spasms of pain from my nerves, in my neck, shoulder, head. Anywhere it could hit, it did. It was like something was stabbing my temple, and I usually ducked my head to try to get away from it. Often, it made me flinch when I had such a spasm. In my story, these happened to my character, and she was dying. This last week, I have had the same such nerve chaos that I was experiencing nearly two years ago. 

It is painful, to say the least. Horrible headaches - like sharp jabs at my temples, base of my head, neck, shoulders, and lately - lower abdomen. 

Now that I look at it, I believe the origin to be more caused by stress and lack of sleep than backpack straps. Not a fun picture to assess. Maybe my body reacts badly to such things anymore. It had too rough a time in high school - perhaps I should have treated it better. My wrist was throbbing all day today, and again, I believe it is how I have treated it in the past. My past will forever haunt me, it seems.

Bruises come, and fade, but do not completely go. They still hurt, and you can still see their imprints on my legs. Except for the recent burn on my wrist, I seem to scar more than I ever properly heal. Perhaps this is a statement on my life.

I don't mean to complain my way through this blog. It seems that's all I have done the past few posts. I apologize. Life isn't all horrible. I simply like to dwell on my disappointments sometimes. And when I do so, it helps me to think, and analyze myself more than I would if all I spoke of were good things.

I am getting along with my grandparents far better than I ever have before - and that is a fact I am quite happy to acknowledge. I have written at least 12 or 13 pages on my book in the past month, and that is more than I can say for the past year. That too makes me happy. I survived one year of college - and that amazes me. I still have friends to talk to (though I often feel alone more than anything else) and that is a comforting thought, when I can remember it. I have those who love me, and would help me if I need it, and that is something one should never forget.

But so often I get mired down in the icky details of life, the sludge that makes a murky haven in my words and thoughts.

I am at least moderately healthy. And except for the few bumps I have hit along the road in the past couple weeks, I am in a good place with those in my life. Some things can never be fixed, and other things must be accepted or be allowed to ruin you. 

Perhaps, with the events of this summer, I will learn better. Hindsight makes sages of us all. But if only the lessons are absorbed, perhaps they might help me along this road, and around the potholes and puddles.

Philosophical I wax tonight, it would seem. Perhaps in my dreams the words I have written will penetrate deep enough to be understood and absorbed and wielded with the purpose they were intended for.

Until then, and for now. Good night.

Door Mat. Walk all over me, please.

I feel like I'm living in the same house as my brother - the paranoia about my own things, and about leaving the house and putting my things in a more vulnerable position.

Not only that, through the words of a future in-law, I now feel supremely unwelcome.

The charity case. Who doesn't deserve shit because she doesn't do shit. Especially because I'm not family.

I cannot wait for the next week to pass. I want to leave. I wish I could. The sooner the better.

I'll have to find a different place for next Christmas break and summer. Make some extra money so I can afford the dorms over the holidays, or something. I'll sleep on the floor of my grandmother's basement if I can find no other option. But this - this won't be repeated.

I can't stand this, my limit has been broken. I feel like I have been both reverted back to my childhood self-and belittled in the most supreme way. There is no self worth here anymore.

I must become independent this year, as best I can, so I won't have to endure this kind of humiliation again.

Oh the Irony.

This Aching Empty
I do not mind the waiting
The silence, or the lonely
The thing I mind, as you will find
Is living without you.

My thoughts are mine alone, you see
My time - free to command.
But emptiness is hard to breathe -
This living without you.

The bed is not the problem
I sprawl, I twist, I turn alone
But when the sleep eludes me, love
I find this just won't do.
___

You can't imagine how unbearable it is to be so far apart. I never imagined it would be like this. Sigh.

Scholarships....or lack thereof.

Ugh.

It's a quarter past midnight, and boy am I exhausted. I attempted to fall asleep around ten, but after an hour of not falling asleep, I decided to get onto my computer and search, search, search, agonizingly search for writing scholarships.

One hour later. And guess what?

Still found nothing.

What was it my step-dad said to me? "You just type it into google and you'll find hundreds of them, all you have to do is look. It's not that difficult." Why doesn't he just try it?

Sigh.

I'm tired. I'm annoyed. I'm empty handed.

Thought I'd share. Maybe if I'd done this in high school, as a high school student - I would've been eligible for a hell of a lot more. Now that I'm in college, you have to attend a certain college or be (no offense meant or implied) black or hispanic or latino or native american or whatnot. One white female who goes to a dinky little private college in a highly stereotyped farmland of a state, well, doesn't exactly stand much of a chance for finding a scholarship.

Unfortunately, the best and only one I have ever come across was the Haynes Foundation Valedictorian scholarship only offered to valedictorians in my state, and probably only offered at my college. And you know what? It wasn't even that much. But I guess even the little things help.

I'd love it if I could find more of those little things.

Sadly, however, even my fantastic searching abilities uncover zip.

Until whenever, I'm going to attempt to sleep yet again.

My EASY button.

Can I simply erase the last few posts? No? That would be a violation of the past and the purpose of this blog I suppose...

Anyway. Obviously, things are much different than first semester freshman year of college. Different guy, different heart, different head - different thoughts. Different future.

I don't write like I used to. In fact, I barely write at all. I don't know if that's a problem with my mind or just a product of my new-ish life/situation. I'd like to blame college. Maybe guys. There certainly wasn't a whole lot of either of those before August '09.

I've made mistakes, too many to count. I wish I'd gone to a different college. Thought a little more about what I was doing, where I was going. Maybe made myself write a little more than I did. Worked on my book with a little more frequency. But most of all, I wish I hadn't lost sight of my dream.

Currently, I'm a little lost. I don't write, so I don't know if I'm even a writer anymore. I don't know if I'll ever finish my book, with the way I've been progressing so far. I'm not sure if I want to completely change my major from a literary to a scientific field. The reigning logic is pointed at no money with a literary major, but a greater likelihood of continuing writing. Or, an amazing salary as a science major but little to no chance for writing anymore. The other college is cheaper, but bigger and farther away. I'd save money, but I wouldn't see my family or my fiancé as much, if at all, during the course of the school year.

But I can't continue with what I'm doing right now.

I wish I could restart my entire year and a half. I wonder if that would leave me worse off, or possibly better.

In any case. Time to change the display of this blog. Time to restart where I am right now, and figure out where I'm going.

With any luck,

This just might work.

Mike

He was such a gentleman, he really was. My baby would do anything to please a girl. But he was still a baby too, at least at heart. He was always so polite. And he listened to me, he trusted my voice. Towards the end, he actually came when I called his name, instead of looking at me arrogantly from wherever he'd run to. And even though his litter box was half as big as it needed to be, he still used it. He was my heart and soul. He was my life, light of my day, the gold in my sun.

He didn't want to go into the cat carrier, I pushed and forced and tried to hard, and I got so frustrated with him. He wouldn't go in, it was like trying to drown a cat, it just doesn't mix - oil and water. But then, I couldn't blame him. The carrier was also too small, and the only times he'd been in it it was to move to a different place, with strangers. I held him in the car on the way over. I'd tried to be nice to him through the morning, clean water bowl, fresh food, clean cat box, open window and air. In the car, I told him he'd be right as rain, we'd be home before he knew it, we were just going to get a couple shots to make him feel better and then we'd go. He didn't like the room we were put in. The doctor gave him some tranquilizer in his back, lower spine. We waited for it to take effect, and when the doctor came back, he gave him some more, and some more, and some more. My baby was tough, remarkably immune to strong doses. He tried jumping off the table, his reactions were very slow by then. When I picked him up he was heavier somehow, and soon, as he was lying on the table, he would just stare ahead of him, his mouth drooping and drooling a little. Like when a cat breathes in a strong scent and their mouth hangs open. And then his head got heavy and it dropped to the table. I tried to adjust it so he could still breathe. I was sitting on the ground in front of his face, trying to talk to him still, trying to see some light of recognition. The doctor came in a last time and laid him out, shaved his arm, gave the last dose, the anesthesia that would slow his heartbeat to nothing. He left the room when there was no pulse. My baby was lying there, his arm stretched out so far it didn't look comfortable. I laid my head on his stomach like I used to, but it wasn't the same, it was like a pillow - no life beneath the surface, no gurgling stomach, no tension or breathing, just a pillow. I went around the table and knelt in front of his face again. His eyes were still open, and he looked so . . . angry, it was the same face he gave me when I did something he didn't like. I tried to apologize for the humiliating position I had to put him through, I tried to close his eyes. I tried to readjust him so he wouldn't be uncomfortable. But as soon as I touched him, tried to lift him up, it was . . . not the same. I backed up so quickly, he was dead weight, disjointed limbs, but most horrifying of all - he wasn't there anymore. He was so completely gone, and I felt like I'd betrayed him. So entirely betrayed him.

And I couldn't . . . be there anymore. That image of him - that's the last thing I remember. And then it's like a tape on fast rewind, and I see my holding him in the room, and then in the car, and then trying to force him into the carrier, and then the morning of attempting to spoil him and let him enjoy his last day, and . . . it kills me to see that it's because of me and my stubbornness that he's not here, my polite little gentleman, the most well-mannered animal, the most well-mannered cat with the stubbornest ideas and a yellow teddy bear to sleep with, is dead because of me. He's no longer here to sit like the Sphinx, or give me that arrogant look like the king of the jungle, or to lay on my side when I say I'm cold. He's no longer here to run after me to my bedroom, day or night, my little shadow, or to meow like a six week old kitten, or to soccer punch me so hard my glasses fall off my face. He's no longer here to lay on his back with his legs spread and his tail curled like a monkey's and his eyes looking at you saying 'look but don't dare touch'. And I'll never get to see his paws turn white, or his back get crooked, or his eyes turn cloudy. I'll never know how long he might have lived. He'll always be my baby, a couple white hairs here and there, a mucky little teddy bear that's never been washed, and the memory of the richest, sweetest, granny smith green apple eyes I've ever seen or ever will see. He had the loudest purr I've ever heard in a cat, you could hear it across the room, and I swear he could understand everything I ever said. He held grudges like no other, and when I left for a few months of the summer, he wouldn't let me pet him for weeks. And he loved only me, he trusted only me, and I let him down.

My guardian, my protector, my prince - I only hope he's watching over me now. And when I hear the thunder rumbling, and when I smell the crisp air of a fresh spring morning, or feel an ache on the side of my eye, I'll think of my beautiful baby boy, and know, and hope, he's thinking of me too.

I hope he takes care of my heart where he's at, and wraps his beautiful monkey tail around my soul.