now i'm gonna set them free, letters never sent

way back during my undergrad years (which feel a lot further in the past than they really are) i took a class that discussed identity. we had a bunch of interesting assignments for this class, and a couple of months ago i came across one where we had to write a letter to our future husband/wife. because this blog is pretty much my diary posted for the world to see, and everything goes straight from my head to your eyes, i figured why not share it with you. i was supposed to post it on my anniversary but having no internet at the time kind of made me forget. so here it is. (it's funny seeing how much and how little i changed since then.)


dear future soon to be husband,

let me start off by saying, wow. if you are reading this right now it means that i have agreed to marry you. after swearing left and right that i'd never in a million years get married, you must be some amazing specimen of the human species to have made me change my mind. let's take a moment to let you bask in your awesomeness before i proceed to tell you what an idiot you are.

okay, ready? first, i am extremely moody. i can be happy one day and suicidally depressed the next. i won't tell you why or explain myself, and i'll bite your head off for asking. i don't share much, feelings that is, and i probably spend more time in my head with my fictional friends than what is socially acceptable, but i don't care. you'll just have to deal with it. i like me, and am not going to change for anyone. if this seems like it'll be a problem for you, run. now. fast.

i have completely immature moments and can act like a five year old half the time. i have a childish appreciation of the world. i have an extremely high tolerance for mess. i talk in movie quotes and refer everything back to books, so you have to be well-read or watched or whatever to understand me. i talk fast, or so i've been told, and can't slow it down. i am sarcastic, all the time, and can turn anything into a joke if i have half a mind to. if you think you can not handle this, run. now. fast.

i like writing and the english language. i like to put the mundane things of everyday life into flowery language to give it beauty. i believe in magic and fairies and castles in the sky. i make stories in my head and put a fictional mask on reality, i let them bleed into each other more often than i probably should. i will correct your grammar and spelling and punctuation. i will use big words, even if i know you wont understand them. i may expose your deepest darkest secrets to the world in my characters. i may not have a lot to say out loud, but my writing can drag on forever, as you'll probably see by this letter. if i ever finish it. if you can't live like that, run. now. fast.

i am stubborn and like to argue, and am usually right. i have a twisted logic that is sometimes hard to follow, but makes sense if you can work it out. i like silences, both the awkward and the comfortable. i like facial hair and smiles that start in the eyes and staying at home. i like going to the movies and eating hamburgers for breakfast and chocolate bars for dinner. i will spend endless amounts of money on books and chocolate and never feel sorry about it, but you will have to listen to me whine about buyer's remorse if i buy anything else. if you can't do that, run. now. fast.

i don't like to ask for help, in anything. i can't make decisions to save my life. i don't like to feel dependent on anyone, and it takes me a while to really trust. i am generally not a people person. i have a terrible fear of failure that keeps me from trying something if i'm not completely sure i will excel at it. i will probably be better than you at a lot of things. we will play scrabble until you're counting up words in your sleep, and there is a very good chance that i will win. i can be cocky and arrogant and insecure. if that doesn't sound like something you can live with, run. now. fast.

but if you don't run, if you decide that you can live somewhere between fiction and reality where all the food is unhealthy and everything is debatable, then you'll find that there's some good in me, too. i can listen to a problem better than anyone i know, and solution finding, should it be needed, is a special gift of mine. i can be fun and caring and make you feel like the most important person on the face of this planet. i can bake the most amazing things, and my cooking isn't bad either. i can clean, if i have to. i grew up with the belief that it really is the thought that counts, and a fifty cent present is better than a fifty thousand dollar one. if i have agreed to marry you, then it must mean that i believe you're my true love (insert disbelieving scoff from the past). i am not disillusioned into thinking that means everything will be sunshine and butterflies all the time. there will be fights and arguments, pushing and pulling and lots of compromise and hard work, but i can do hard work. i'm pretty patient. i'll introduce you to great music, excellent movies, and amazing books. i like to help people and i love kids. though you may find something annoying in me every day, you'll find twice as many things that you like. i can dress up and dress down and look amazing either way, sometimes... kinda... maybe. i am accepting and open minded and a good person, even if some of the things i do or say seem to contradict that. i am not perfect and don't expect or want you to be perfect either.

i'm not sure who you are or if i've met you yet, but if sometime in my future you convince me to marry you, then congrats and good luck and i suppose i probably love you? maybe?

Sincerely,

20 year old Sarah

*Letters Never Sent - Carly Simon

so i'm back in virginia again and ready (maybe?) to stop being so lazy about blogging. i'm hoping that if i can get back into a semi-regular blogging schedule i can maybe force myself to get back into exercising and studying for my qual exams. maybe if i'm lucky i'll even force myself to learn the programming that i told all of my professors i was going to learn over the summer. but if "letting them down" is no motivation, then i'm really not too hopeful about this last goal. anyway, back to blogging. i have been writing for the past few weeks. most of it finds its way into drafted posts to be completed later, but it's still there. what i have been doing even more of, though, is reading poetry and pieces of prose to my sister, husband, and mom for hours at a time: really good writing, really bad writing, and bad writing that so obviously thinks it is good writing that it made me laugh. (no i am not mean.) what i haven't been doing a lot of was actual things - things worth writing about. leaving the house mostly consisted of visiting family, and those visits were mainly catching up on everything i had missed in the past year. there wasn't much time for outings and writable fun since my stay was so short.

there were a few noteworthy moments that i had planned to include in a sort of highlight reel of the summer. at the moment, though, i can't seem to remember what they were. i'm blaming this on jetlag and reserving the right to write a summer highlight post sometime in the next week or so. 

i'm finding it really hard to do the whole putting words into sentences thing right now. oh, and post titles will start again with the next post. thinking of lyrics is just not something i feel like doing at the moment. 

i have been in jeddah for about a week now (which means internet yay!) but just have not found the time or will to get back into blogging. there are so many blog posts that i have to read to catch up on the blogs that i'm following, there are so many posts that i have written in my head that need to be translated to pixels, there are so many visits to make and people to see and chess games to play (my brothers - especially the eleven year old - are newly obsessed with the game), and my i key is hardly working so i have to pound on it seven times every time i want to type an i. you just do not realize how many i's you use until something like this happens.

anyway, today is the first day of ramadan, so happy ramadan to everyone. i'm going to get into summer stories later so i guess this post is just a tad bit pointless, but i thought that seventeen days without any sort of update was a bit ridiculous. so here i am.

oh, and  cut my hair. it's the shortest it's been since i was probably seven (and now i'm twenty-four). it was the result of a semi-mix-up and resulted in a mini heart attack immediately after, but it's grown on me and i kind of like it now. so yeah, that's my big summer news. 

just a quick little update to prove that the plane across the world did not in fact fall into the atlantic ocean, and i was not rescued by a mermaid, and i am not now living in a castle under the sea. (though there was some major turbulence during a lot of the flight, so much so that the drinks were all jumping out of their cups looking for safety and the seat belt sign was more on than off.) i reached jeddah, and after a couple of days there we came to dhahran (where my husband's family lives). the internet situation is equally bad in both places (i might as well be in a castle under the sea. at least then i'd have a singing crab to amuse me). there is no internet in our rooms in either place and the second i leave the room to seek internet i get waylaid by someone or something or my computer is commandeered by my brothers who should be hooked up to technology drips, or it's time to leave somewhere, or i'm ready to sleep. anyway, we got a semi-connection thing here for our room yesterday, but it's agonizingly slow. it took me forty-five minutes just to open blogger and since writing this little paragraph i've been told twice that there is a problem with the connection and the post won't publish. so yeah, blogging will probably be infrequent until i get back to the states. hope you are all having great summers!