may's end

i think ryan's the only one who reads my blog on a regular basis. and he wants me to write all the time. and talk about my life. but i talk about my life to him all the time. so i guess this is for him anyway. and the rest of you who may stumble upon this every once in a while.

my friends are getting married tomorrow. my other friends got married a few weeks ago. my other really good friends are getting married next month. i'm living with a married couple (who i LOVE by the way). i'm celebrating first year anniversaries with others. this is a fun time for me because i'm enjoying seeing people that i care about care about eachother. that makes me feel good about the world. i like enjoying life alongside them.

one of my two summer classes is over. i have no homework until monday night. ryan goes back to pa on sunday. i move to bloomington on the 9th.
i wouldn't mind moving into my house for next year soon. but not until august.

there's a moment you know...

every time i go home (back to pa) i feel more and more like a visitor. less and less like home. less and less a part of the tides of change that occur without me. im changing plenty, but it's a separate track from everyone that i keep seeing and leaving, seeing and leaving. and my parents living in a different city than where i grew up, though still wonderful, lends itself to the separated feeling. it's my new room, but i never sleep in it. the "guests" get it even when i'm there, and i'm up in the attic. everyone stops by to see us, throwing off their normal week to see the far-away ones who are in town. and it's flattering. it just makes everything feel fleeting. im not skilled enough at long distance communication to stay close and up to date with anyone in pa. im not skilled enough at no-distance communication to stay close to anyone in indiana. so with at least two physical homes at a time and an unfortunate talent at keeping people an arm's distance and a smile away, trips home are rejuvenating and nostalgic but simultaneously disheartening and alienating. explain that one.

as i was driving out of town this morning in the sunshine, wondering why i couldn't stop crying, i remembered that i didn't have to keep leaving. but i decided a long time ago that i would, and it was a brave and hard choice back then- that plenty of others never try. and every time i have to make the final round of hugs goodbye, it's a brave and hard choice that i somehow stick to. i could always stay and settle and make one place home. but i would always wonder and imagine what if. my parents did it before me. and they left. without the college and with more independence and even farther distances. and they turned out a-ok.
at least that's how it makes sense to me.

decoy

my brother used me as a decoy to start talking to some cool girls at a social institution last night. i guess that's how you have to play it when you're out with your little sister. the regular methods just don't quite cut it.

i liked talking to them too.
they were from california, boston, and pittsburgh, so we had plenty to talk about.
then a half-hippie half-computer guy invited me to "kick it" with him and his friends later if i wanted to.
i told him i had to go home to my grandma who is in town.

decoy grandma.
i smoked half a cigarette on the way home with my brother and felt it had been a well-accomplished night.

home for a weekend

ive been traveling back and forth between pittsburgh and indiana more than usual over the last six months. or maybe the time in between just goes faster now. i know i talk about this a lot, but i really love my home. maybe it's because i'm not used to really liking going home... meadville was fine but it always reminded me of so much negativity (mostly my own fault). pittsburgh has always been the place i would rather be-- i used to cry every time we left to go back to meadville. dramatic, i know. and i'm bored here sometimes too, but i don't mind. it's beautiful and my mum is beautiful and my family is beautiful. not perfect, but beautiful. even in the ways we argue-- it's ok now and we know that we'll stick it out. my extended family has always been huge, and i've been as close to my cousins as i was to my siblings... but lately, now that both my brothers and i are in different states, when we are all together it's a much closer time. more cohesion. we spend more time together than splitting up to see different cousins. i'm starting to get a sense of why many grown-up siblings stay close, but it's a different dynamic with just the three of us than watching my mum and her seven siblings staying close. that's more like a tribe haha.
apologies for spouting about home again. it all comes back when i'm here, and i have time to think about it.

both of my brothers are taller than me now. and we all have kind of the same sense of humor. at least when we're together. they're funny. but don't tell them i told them that-- they'll think i like them ; )

think about feeling like a thinker

so the myers briggs says i'm a thinker rather than a feeler. i felt all proud and logical and rational when i read that, but sometimes i wonder. most minutes of my day are governed by what i feel. overwhelmed. distracted. organized. professional. enamored. failing. disappointing.
but i keep going because i think about it. and i guess i think my way into functional behavior. so apparently i'm a thinker.
most of the time.
when i started packing today (knowing i'd be living out of those bags and boxes until september) it took all i had to just get started. where do you start in a mess of a lived-in room? i started getting ridiculously overwhelmed, but a calm and supportive best friend with dreads kept me sane and taking one step at a time.
later i tried to finish without him, and almost lost it. but then after separating and trashing and emptying and reaching a certain point of accomplishment, suddenly i was skipping around the apt again.
and i look back on the roller coaster of feelings that was my day, shake my head, and realize that i'm a thinker, because i catch myself sitting around thinking about it.
shower time.

you look nice

i hate dressing up.
auditions. singing juries. interviews. interviewing. award ceremonies. photo shoot. meetings. shows. weddings. dress rehearsals.
seriously.
i don't own dress up clothes.
my poor roommates- praise the lord for sharing.
and the jeans i can change back into afterwards.

droopy eyes

i'm tired. i tell myself that i can pretend to be like everybody else and put things off or just hang out with people or stop and have a regular meal.
and then the catch-up avalanche buries me. and i seem to get sick at these beautifully inopportune times. because busy people can do even less when they're sick. but busy people don't have a choice. they don't miss class. and work. and turn assignments in late. and lounge with friends. not because they don't have the ability, but because they've learned that taking a break means incomprehensibly (and in my case unmanageably) more. which in turn leads to less sleep again. which in turn leads to not getting better from being sick. which in turn leads to struggling through accomplishing anything even more. this is the cycle.
mine won't stop until august.
hopefully if i go home in august i won't get sick there. again.