you can still lose even if you really try

Draft last saved on December twenty-fifth, two thousand and twenty-two

"How do you not hate them?" 

The question echoes in my mind as I drive home. It sits in the back corner of my brain for the rest of the month. It pops up unexpectedly the month after that. I'm washing dishes while the voices of Ryder and the Paw Patrol filter into the kitchen from the living room, and suddenly I'm wondering, "How do I not hate them?" It's complicated, this parent-child relationship, and for a while there, I did. Hate them, I mean. But before that, I couldn't imagine a time or situation in which I ever could. And after that, well, I couldn't think of any good it would do to hold onto it. 

We all have those scenes that break our hearts. No matter how many times we see them, how many different contexts we see them in, they push - with unforgiving fingers - at all the parts in us that are bruised and tender. We may not even know what those parts are, but we know that every time we see the child searching the audience for a parent that isn't there, or the pet dying, or the shoes/jacket/picture they were so excited for laying in a puddle torn/broken/ruined, our eyes will burn and we'll find it hard to swallow around the lump in our throats. For me, one of those scenes has always been the moment that a parent goes from hero to disappointment in their child's eyes. That loss of hope and faith crushes me. Every time. And while the bruised parts being pushed may seem like they change as I grow, I think that the fear that's actually doing the bruising stays the same. 

Not all parents do the best they can. Not all parents want to be parents. Some parents refuse to step up to the plate, and that's... well, that's just a difficult truth. A different kind of heartbreak than the one that presses against my ribs when I think of not hating them. Because some parents do try to do the right thing. They try their best, but sometimes the steps forward that took all of their energy still leave them too far behind. Trying doesn't mean you still can't fail. Doing better doesn't always mean doing enough.

Maybe it's the natural progression of things. When you have a parent that tries, they don't always hit their limits right away. You don't know at first how it'll break you when they come up short. And before they have pushed themselves as far as they are able, before your needs move past their capabilities, the very idea of it is incomprehensible to you. It's not a fear that you know to fear. You may as well worry that the sky will turn into pudding. 

I can see, now, the ways in which they tried. I can see the places where they succeeded, the monsters under their beds that they fought and beat so that they wouldn't make their way under ours. I can see the ways that they didn't try hard enough. I can see the places where they came up short. And maybe it takes becoming a parent that tries yourself, maybe it's one of those things where you don't get it until you live it, but I can accept both of those things now. I can hold both the good and the bad and not hate them for either. 

Sometimes a truth will wriggle its way into your mind. It will sit there tapping against every thought you have until you recognize it for what it is. And if you don't recognize it, or if you tell yourself that the tapping is just the drip of the faucet or the sound of legos banging together, it'll find other ways to get to you. After years and years of letting it collect dust on my TBR shelf, I finally read The Glass Castle after a friend suggested it. And that book broke me and put me back together in so many different ways. My childhood could not have been more different than hers, but every single word she wrote spoke to my soul. I needed something light to escape into after it so I picked up a fluffy romance novel and got smacked in the face with similar truths, demanding that I answer the question that was asked of me months ago. 

So how do I not hate them? By recognizing that hate does not help me. By trying to see them without hero worship or victim mentality clouding my vision. By hoping that learning from their mistakes can push me far enough along to get my own kids to where they were hoping to get me. By letting myself be angry and letting myself be heartbroken and letting myself be forgiving and letting myself not forgive. 

"Anger with all the broken parents, heartache that they too must’ve felt like kids—helpless, unsure how to make the right decisions, terrified of making the wrong ones." ~Beach Read 

*All I Need - Matchbox 20

time for me to do it

this morning was so productive, you guys. so. productive. and now, when i still have a few things left to do, i just... stopped. my motivation and productivity and whatever else just came crashing down around me and i just spent the last almost hour trying to find a new chrome extension for tumblr because xkit stopped working and i'm not handling it very well. an hour that i was supposed to spend grading the papers that i didn't grade on tuesday so that i could grade them wednesday and then didn't grade on wednesday because i am the laziest, most procrastination-inclined waste of academic space there is. i just... school. ugh.

this morning, though, i was a real functioning adult. i was overachieving. egg salad sandwiches instead of cereal and milk for breakfast. buffalo and ranch chicken wraps instead of pb&j sandwiches for lunch. (my parents are out of town, so i'm pretending once again to be head of the household slash homemaker, and i think this is what i was made for. once cricket starts school, i can totally see myself turning into that overly obnoxious pta mom that bakes homemade cookies for every event, never misses a single excuse to show up at the school, volunteers for literally everything, is crafty in the showiest way possible, and makes sure that every other mom hates me for making them feel like they probably don't love their kid as much as i do. i mean, i am basically that person already. god help us all. (although i can just as easily see myself going to extremes in the exact opposite way as well, like total slacker mom gives her kids a bag of chocolate chips for lunch and shows up to every event in the same hoodie and other moms both feel sorry for me and are slightly scared of me. it will be interesting to see which way i go.))

but back to my productivity.

after making sure the kids got on the bus and dropping the sister off at work and stopping at the apartment to check on the bunny and pick up my vitamins (because yesterday i was still a forgetful wannabe adult), i went to the bank and had an important adult bank meeting. and then i scanned and sent out all the important documents to everyone i was supposed to. and i made a bunch of important phone calls. (have i mentioned on here that i hate the house-buying-getting-a-loan process from the very core of my being? yes? well, there it is again.) and then i went to CVS and got important things i needed and nutterbutters which i probably did not need (but they were on sale! so still adulty!) and came home to pack the care package i have been meaning to seal up for weeks now but never got around to. and this was all before ten:thirty in the morning. and then i got on the computer to grade the papers and suddenly... i am me again.

i have tried to bribe myself with nutterbutters, but it has been going like this:

responsible me (rm): you can't eat any cookies until you grade at least half of the papers.
me-me (mm): i can, though.
rm: okay, yes, technically you can. but don't.
mm: *slowly reaches for cookies*
rm: don't do it.
mm: *picks up cookie*
rm: you can't eat that cookie until you at least start grading the papers
mm: *eats cookie*
rm: okay, that was just to remind you of how good they are so that you can start grading. motivation. and energy or something. but you can't eat any more until you at least finish grading two papers.
mm: i can, though.

and so then i wrote a blog post that probably could have been a lot shorter. just... ugh. school.

*On My Own - Whitney Houston

it sucks to grow up

so i've been trying to write a post for a few days now. a happy post. a look at my good news post. a post that should not be giving me so much trouble god dammit. but instead, all of the stress from everything else keeps seeping in and my good news sounds like overwhelming news. my happy sounds like i am three seconds away from pulling my hair out and jumping off the edge but i think i may punch you in the face first because aaaaarrrrggggghhhhh.

you guys, why is being an adult so effing hard? mortgages. like, why am i even dealing with this stuff? i was not built for it. i was built for fictional worlds and imagination. this is much too real for me. never ending phone calls from real estate agents and banks and mortgage companies and sales associates and i hate the phone. i will avoid phone calls for as long as humanly possible. i have to work up to them for days and practice what i'm going to say and take three deep breaths before i hit the call button and start praying that it goes to the machine the second that first ring starts. and that's when i call my grandmother. it's even worse with strangers. i really hate talking on the phone. and i do it now. all. the. time. and why are banks so annoying? and how can there be income that doesn't count as income when the money is all very real i assure you. and why are some sources of income more reliable than other sources? if the money is regularly being deposited into my account then why the eff do you care where it's coming from? like, i really swear i am not trying to steal your money, banker. i really will pay you back. i promise. just give me the effing loan. and houses. gah. why are there so many of them, and why are so many sucky? and why are the pretty ones the ones i can't have? and school oh my god. any forward movement that was started at the beginning of this semester has come to a screeching halt because i cannot even think about school right now beyond my office hours (and the first batch of assignments are due tonight. does it look like i have the time or energy to start grading papers? does it?) and i need to think about school because if i do not have solid proof of forward movement then the chances of me getting an extension on my scholarship (which ends this semester ohmygodohmygodohmygod) drop to pretty much zero. and mortgages, man. when did i become the type of person to worry about mortgages? and so much stress eating. i think i just paid the little debbie ceo's yearly bonus on my own. so of course i now feel fat and gross and filled with marshmallow cream as well as stressed and lost and like i should not be dealing with all of this i am the wrong person for the job.

AND my trip to harry potter world was effing cancelled because apparently things just need to suck for me right now with no light at the end of the tunnel and no silver lining.

uggghhhh.

see, this is why i never wanted to grow up.

*Still Fighting It - Ben Folds

this is one time that you can't fake it hard enough

i don't understand how people adult. like, how do you wake up every morning and go to work and pay your bills and buy a house? how do you not eat a bag of chocolate chips and stay up too late looking at gifs of tv shows you don't even watch? how do you stop not doing the things you are supposed to do? i feel like maybe i should have figured this stuff out by now. there are only so many times that you can fake your way through things, and i think maybe my abilities will start to wear off pretty soon.

but until it does, let's talk about house hunting. because oh my god it is the worst. i liked all of the houses that i lived in while i was growing up, so i really just want to hand my parents my money and have them buy a house for me. i don't do well with decisions or too many options and i just really want this whole thing to be over already. 

yesterday we looked at houses. most of them were in various stages of suckiness. i mean, they weren't bad but they weren't not bad either. there was this one house that i was in love with online. i was ready to buy it before i even saw it. and then i saw it. and i still don't think i am over the disappointment. and not "being committed" to a real estate agent yet means that i had seven hundred of them wanting me to commit to them and then some of them called this morning and i have no idea which one is which because i am really bad at faces. and names. and people. 

that's another thing about house hunting. there's people involved. people use up so much of my energy. and there's shopping. and shopping uses up the rest of my energy. this was what the internet was made for. get with the program, real estate. i should be able to search for houses online (which admittedly i can) and then add the ones i like to my cart, eventually narrow it down to one, type in my billing information, and have myself a new house. (the disappointment of my dream house yesterday has already pointed out how bad of a plan that is. i know. just.... ugh.) 

i love looking at houses when there is no pressure to make a decision that will affect the next five to seven years of my life. and who decided that money should even be a thing? because budget limitations suck. 

and because i am me and this whole thing is too much adult for me to handle, i am planning to run off to harry potter world in florida early next month for a good dose of fiction. i'm trying to use it as motivation for house shopping. like, c'mon if you make a decision on a house you can go to florida! but i am too smart to trick myself and i know that i will go regardless and think that maybe i can figure out a way to just live in the wizarding world for the rest of my life. who needs a house when you can have a castle?

*The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most - Dashboard Confessionals

how do you move in a world of fog that's always changing things?

as of yesterday, i have been back in va for a week. it feels like i've been back for six months already. which is why every time i came to write one of the posts that i had planned to write this week, i couldn't help but feel like i was being slightly ridiculous. as if i was writing about airplane trips in the middle of december (which actually sounds like something i would do). so maybe i will hold off on those posts until the middle of december and instead talk about what's going on right now. which, aside from a bunch of family time, really isn't much.

but we started house hunting. again. sort of. i don't know why i'm finding it so difficult to leave my tiny apartment. i know that we need more space. but house buying is scary. and a huge decision. and a change. and a commitment. and expensive. and those are all  of my least favorite things.  

i mean, i love looking at houses. i always have. but i like looking at houses now the way i liked to whenever my family would move when we were younger. i like to look at the house itself, the paint and lighting and room size, with absolutely no thought to the hoa costs and home insurance and mortgage rates and all the other practical important adult considerations. the whole thing is just a little super overwhelming. just one more of those things they never really taught you how to do but then sort of just expect you to do because you reached a certain age and are now an adult and adults should be able to buy a house. or something. 

on a related note, remember how earlier in the summer i wanted to buy a lap loom but said i wasn't going to because a) i didn't need one and b) i wouldn't have time to use it? well, of course i caved and bought myself one as soon as i came back from the desert. and this note is only related as it proves that i do not know how to be a practical adult and how in the world am i supposed to buy a house?

*I Don't Want To Grow Up - Ramones

how does anybody get anything done?

sometimes people will say something referencing the fact that i am sort of somehow maybe on my way to becoming a holder of a phd and i just kind of laugh nervously and make some comment along the lines of "it's been a bit of struggle 'till now but that's the plan" because deep down i know how completely ridiculous it is. i mean, i do want to get the degree to end all degrees and all that, but there's something very self-sabotaging about the way i'm going about actually getting it.

take, for example, today. i was supposed to spend the day reading articles and doing some preliminary research so that when i meet up with my adviser this friday he won't know that i have spent exactly zero minutes thinking about my dissertation over the winter break. zero. and that i maybe stretched the truth a little (or a whole freaking lot) when he asked me in emails if i was following certain things and i told him yeah of course i am. but the best laid plans... and other useless idioms that let you know that that is not what happened.

instead i spent the day reading fanfiction (which i am apparently back to doing) and getting worked up over fictional characters. and i also worried a bit about a stain on my "books turn muggles into wizards" t-shirt because dressing like an adult is apparently beyond me. i did manage to get a load of laundry done and take out the trash, but that was about as much responsibleness as i was capable of. there may have also been a bit of pretending that the nervous tension in my stomach was solely caused by the stories and not at all by the fact that i was procrastinating life. and you know how much research i got done? none. i didn't even open the articles. i didn't even open the email the articles were sent in. but i did get the urge to write some fanfiction again, so there's that.

also, i bought a ring today and it's a little too big and seems to be getting bigger by the second which is making me sad.

also number two, last night i got exactly two hours of sleep (if that) because i was just. not. tired. and i wasn't tired the entire day and now it is past midnight and i am still not tired and what is wrong with me? i'm usually (well, at least for the last couple of years) that obnoxious person that has to sleep for like ten hours a night. and all i can think of is this girl they were talking about on the radio a few weeks ago who had a tumor on her brain which made her never have to sleep ever, and i can't remember what happened to her and am pretty sure that i don't have a tumor on my brain but my mind is nothing if not a lover of what if's and late-night hypochondria. also, lightheadedness. i've been feeling light-headed a lot recently and that's not a sign of brain tumors is it? i'm pretty sure headaches are, and my normally constant headaches have been noticeably missing from my life and thank god for that, i tell you.

this post has gotten wildly off-track.

anyway, long story short, i am not an adult and am getting pretty bad at pretending to be one. also, i wish i had studied english and was doing a phd on fanfiction and its role in something or other. i would be right on track. (i overuse the word also.)

*Take It Like A Man - Dragonette

i feel stupid, but i think i've been catching on

when i was little, there were some things that i just assumed i would learn how to do when i grew older. now that i'm older, i'm ashamed to say that i have still not learned these things. here is a list of things i thought i would have learned by the time i was twenty-five (in no particular order):

• i thought i would know how to draw a straight line. after trying for the past twenty years, i think it's getting time for me to just accept that i will very rarely (if ever) be able to draw a line straight through a piece of paper. with or without a ruler. (a ruler just lets me draw a straight line at an angle.)
  
• drawing a straight line doesn't matter much anyway, though, because i still have not learned to cut in a straight line. i mean, sure, i got better than i was in kindergarten, but i still assumed that by this age, if i was cutting along a line, there would not be pieces of the line on both sides of the cut.
  
• for some stupid reason, i tend to trip over my right shoe when i'm walking. i don't understand it at all, but i thought i would have grown out of it and learned how to walk right. but, no. i didn't. it's not like i'm tripping over it every time i take a step, but enough of my shoes have scuffed right toes to show that it happens way more than it should.
  
• i thought i would learn what i'm supposed to do with my hands when i walk (and really most of the time). they're just there, hanging awkwardly and i feel like i should know what to do with them by now. oh, and i have also been made fun of for swinging my arms when i walk, which i honestly don't realize i'm doing until someone points it out, so i should probably learn to stop that too.
  
• have you ever watched the movie airplane? if you haven't, you should do so right now because it is hilarious. if you have, you may remember this scene where one of the characters says he has a "drinking problem." (basically, when he tries to drink it dribbles down his chin and out the sides of his mouth. sometimes, i, too, have a drinking problem. i thought i would have learned how to use a cup way before i was in my mid-twenties.
  
• i hate phones. i really do. mostly because talking on them is such a stressful activity for me. there are a handful of people that i can talk on the phone with normally, and the billions of other people alive give me heart palpitations when they call. i never know what to say or how to hang up or anything. i thought i would know how to talk on the phone by know.
  
• i really thought that somewhere along the way i would just start doing the things i said i was going to do. but i still do not know how to not procrastinate. i do not know how to get anything done until i have no other choice. i do not know how to do things that do not have to be done, and i feel like i should. 

*Mad Season - Matchbox 20

carelessly growing up and growing old

i'm sitting here in teenage mutant ninja turtle pajama pants and a ben 10 t-shirt eating tater tots and thinking about growing up. it seems a little ironic to me. but there are days when i think to myself, "have i grown up?" sometimes, the answer is a simple no and a belief that i will never grow up, not really. i will hold on to the best parts of childishness forever. but then, isn't being able to distinguish between the best and worst parts of being a child a sign of growing up? other times, the answer is a resounding yes. i am too old and have been through too much to pretend that i haven't grown up.

what exactly makes someone a "grown up" though? is it reaching a specific age? is it checking off enough of life's milestones? because i may have passed the age of childhood, but i still have no "real job." i still sit at home in my pajamas reading young adult fiction and watching nickelodeon and abc family. i still eat peeps for breakfast and sneak spoons of frosting when i'm home alone. that can't be very grown up of me.

what is the point of growing up, anyway? i already think of myself as a pretty responsible person (with a huge procrastination problem) whether i'm grown up or not. maybe you grow up when you decide to just be you and do your own thing, but if that was the case then i'm afraid a lot of the grown ups i know are not really grown ups at all. a lot of days, i'm perfectly content with hiding in fictional words with my fictional friends and being a child forever, but sometimes i wonder if maybe i should try this adulthood stuff out.

and these are the things i think about when i should be working on a project.

*We Intertwined - The Hush Sound

we get too old

i mention the fact that i'm old a lot. probably more than i should and probably more than it really bothers me. but today i was hit in the face with the realization that i really am old and completely out of the loop with the "young people" and it was sad. early this morning my husband and i were walking around the mall window shopping at stores that would not be open for hours, and we noticed a really long line leading to what looked like absolutely nothing. a security rolled by on his little segway and i asked him what they were all waiting for. his answer, "some singer is coming and they're waiting to see him. *tries to think of name* i dunno who, some pop star that the girls all seem to like." i thank him and afterwards comment on the fact that nothing marks you as old quite as much as not knowing who "the kids like" while going through my list of young singers for possibilities.

and then i see it. a sign telling people to come get their pictures and autographs with cody simpson. i saw the picture of the blond kid and read the name again, but i had never, ever heard of this person before. ever. so i google him, see that he's actually pretty famous and start to feel super old for "not knowing who the kids like." i comforted myself with the thought that he was a new face and suddenly found himself with enough popularity to do a mall tour and put it out of my head.

later we went to toys r us with my nephews to buy eid toys (happy eid by the way) and do you know what i saw there? t-shirts and backpacks and lunch boxes with cody simpson and his face plastered all over them. which made me come to terms with the fact that i am completely alienated from all the young people and what they like. so thank you, fifteen year old kid that i had never heard of, for making me feel so old on eid.

*Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol

i never want to act my age

at twenty-four i'm supposed to be a fully functioning adult, or so i've been told. if that's true, then i guess there are a few things that have followed me into adulthood, things that i don't think i'll ever grow out of. (not that i would want to anyway.) here's the first five that came to mind (in no particular order):

cake batter: i don't think i will ever get too old to lick the spoon/bowl when baking a cake (or brownies). i don't think i will ever reach a point when i say, "well, i guess i'll just wait until after the cookies are cooked to eat them." you can lecture me about salmonella and food poisoning all you'd like, but that spoon is still going into my mouth as soon as the cake is in the oven.

YA books: while growing up, i was never told to "read books for my age," and i guess that's stuck with me. i read books that were "too old" for me when i was young and books that are "too young" for me when i'm old, and i couldn't care any less. i don't think i'll ever stop switching from adult to young adult to children's books and back again.

nickelodeon/disney: i will be one of those people who is eighty years old and still watches cartoons. i will watch victorious and big time rush and icarly until i'm fifty. disney movies will never become too juvenile for me to enjoy. also, raffi and sesame street and other shows for that age group have awesome songs. i will never not think that.

sugar cereals: i don't know what age people generally go to the cereal aisle and skip over the lucky charms and cinnamon toast crunch, but i don't think i'll ever reach it. not to say i don't eat more grown-up cereal too, because i do, just not at the expense of my fruity pebbles.

puzzles and board games: i mean, does anyone actually grow out of these? i don't understand people who claim they do.

*What's My Age Again - Blink 182

i was too lazy to play or paint or write or try to make a change

the auto-correct on my sister's phone changes my name to satan. i'm not sure why sarah, being the most common name in the universe, needs auto-correcting.

i was recently told that the princess diaries movie came out ten years ago. ten. as in a decade has gone by. how did this happen? is this what getting old feels like? going through life normally and then sudden reminders jumping out just to remind you that time is passing right under your nose? 

my ipod has been dead for way too long, but i don't want to charge it until i download the new music i want to put on it. i put it off because i was busy, then i was lazy, and now i've forgotten what songs i wanted. life is hard. 

i made some sort of cheesy-spinach-bread last night and had a slice for breakfast. it was really good, but now i'm dying of thirst. i once complained that i was thirsty because the kitchen was too far away from my bedroom. since then i've moved to an apartment where it would probably take me less than ten steps to get to the kitchen, and i'm still thirsty and still too lazy to hydrate myself. 

i'm also too lazy to follow a single thought past its initial two sentences, read more than a paragraph at a time in my book, or make any effort at having a life that exists outside of my immediate family.

i might go up to CT this summer to visit my grandmother. i might go on a different road trip. i might go to the desert to visit family. i'm supposed to be meeting people to discuss potential dissertation ideas. i should be studying for my qualifying exams. at this very second i think i'll just sit on this chair and stare at a computer screen for three months.

i got on the computer today ready to write. (i really want to be a real writer, you guys.) but i suddenly looked at the clock and realized two hours have gone by while i got sucked down an internet wormhole and am now too lazy. i'm never going to get anywhere in life.

*Weekend Wars - MGMT

there was a time in my life when i didn't know where to go, and now the time is right and i still don't know

so i once again find myself facing another graduation day. and once again, after already completing a semester of my next degree, the whole celebration seems a little after the fact. but that doesn't mean that the butterflies that my stomach grows just for graduations aren't there. (actually, my stomach harbors butterflies to let out for just about every thing that could even possibly be mistaken for an occasion, but the graduation ones are different.)

i was a whirlpool of emotions the day of my high school graduation. the two most prominent of those were sadness and terror. leaving the sheltered hallways of my high school to take my first step into the real world without the teachers and students that i had spent more time with than my family was a big deal. a very big deal. before my undergrad graduation, i was more nervous than anything else. the idea that my time spent in-between school and real life was coming to an end scared me, to be completely honest. it didn't matter that i was doing my master's. i was already a semester into it and i knew it couldn't last forever. adulthood was looming big and scary just a year down the road. this morning, though, the nerves do not come from fear of the next step forward. i've already taken a few steps towards growing up since my last degree, and i find that i am looking forward to finally being done with school. (though i won't be for a while. gah.) no, the butterflies have gathered just to work me up over the passing of time.

it feels like just yesterday that i was telling my kindergarten teacher that i wanted to be a farmer, an artist, and an author. it was yesterday that i was using gummy worms to learn math in first grade. just yesterday i was moving across the country to start fifth grade in a new school, in a new state, with a semi-new language. it was just yesterday when i spent a year in saudi arabia, eating lunch on the stage in the elementary section and starting to overcome my debilitating shyness. it was yesterday when i spent my first day back at school in virginia locked up in the auditorium because i hadn't gotten my tb test after spending a year overseas. it was yesterday when i started mason afraid to be alone. it was yesterday when i finished my first degree at mason relishing every moment i spent alone. it was yesterday that i wrote the story, yesterday that i wrote two and a half novels and started to get over my fear of having my work read. it was just yesterday. all of it i swear.

and when i think about it, think of all the memories i have stored up and the degrees i'm collecting like they're limited editions, i panic. because it doesn't matter that i have two degrees in computers and am working towards my third. i still don't know what i want to do with my life. i still don't know how to balance books and computers without pushing one to the back burner. i still don't know how to walk the line between what's expected of me and what i want without disappointing someone. i still don't know how to fit religion and culture and family and dreams and fiction and reality and loves and distastes and personality and friends and responsibilities into a neatly composed package that is myself. i don't know.

instead of celebrating everything that i learned, that i know, this graduation is just bringing to light everything that i have yet to figure out, that i don't know, but probably should by now. guess i should go get dressed for it.

*Still Don't Know - Icona Pop

i wish i was young

[day twenty-three: something old]

i realized the other day that i've always felt old. it's more common recently to hear me bemoaning my age, but i've always had those i'm-so-old feelings.

i remember in fourth grade we had a journal to record the books we read that year in class. i thought it was a cool idea and contemplated starting one for all the books i read. but then i thought, "i've already read so many books. i'm too old to start this now. i should have started it when i was younger." and so i didn't. when i was fifteen i really regretted that decision. i realized that nine years old is actually really young, and i should have started recording my books then. you would think that i would be smart enough to start after that realization, but no. i once again thought i was too old to start and it would be pointless. (though to be fair, at that point i was in a bit of a literary dry spell. i think i read like three or four [new] books that year. i thought that my reading was pretty much over.) now at twenty-three, i'm a big reader again but i still haven't started to record the books i read, and i doubt i ever will. my bookcase will have to be enough of a record. that and my memory i guess. (i have thought of creating a goodreads account, but i just never get around to it.)

though i still feel old, i also know that in a few years i'll look back and think about how young i was at this point of my life. i'll think of all the times i said i was old and laugh at my ignorance. knowing this doesn't change much.

*I Feel So - Boxcar Racer

these changes aint changing me

i had a few friends over for dinner friday night, and one bought me a vase. it was such a grown up person kinda gift. like, that's it. we're at the age where we can give each other vases and it's perfectly normal (or, should be perfectly normal at least).

anyway, one friend asked me if married life is different than non-married life, and that question has stuck in my head. in a way, i don't feel like i can answer it yet because at the moment i'm in a little bubble, cut off from the world and my usual life. normally, at this point in the summer, i'd be in jeddah surrounded by family and the dessert heat and whatnot. i haven't spent an august in america since i was in single digit ages, and never in virginia. so i really have nothing to compare my life right now with. with it being the middle of summer, there are also a lot fewer responsibilities waiting around for us. so i'm living in some kind of twilight zone at the moment, and comparing this to my "normal life" is just not possible. it's like we're stopped at the top of the ferris wheel, giving us time to look around for a minute before it starts turning again. once my family comes back and school starts up and the wheel starts moving, i can really say how different it is.

here a few small ways in which i've noticed it is different so far, though:

[one] i sleep in a lot more. i used to wake up between six:thirty and seven every day, sometimes staying in bed until seven:thirty. now, i don't wake up until at least ten:thirty, usually closer to eleven. yesterday i didn't get out of bed until one.

[two] after opening a package i got in the mail, a piece of plastic stayed on the floor for four days. until i got annoyed with it and threw it away. my dad would have had a heart attack over it being on the floor the second he saw it, and it would have never lasted four days out of the trash.

[three] i'm used to living in a town house with my two parents, two brothers, and one of my sisters. there are always a bunch of people everywhere. there is a considerable lack of humans in this apartment compared to what i'm used to.

[four] i'm one of those people that speaks in quotes. i'm constantly spouting a quote from a book or movie or a lyric from a song. my family (mainly my sister) knew all my references and understood them. my husband seems not to have read any of the same books, watched any of the same movies, or listened to any of the same music as me. a lot of what i say now either gets misunderstood or requires an explanation. i have subconsciously started to censor the quotes in what i say.

[five] my dad doesn't drink cold water, so at home the brita filter sat on the kitchen counter by the sink. here, it sits in the fridge.

[six] i walk up and down stairs a lot less. like, hardly ever.

[seven] i used to watch gsn and nickelodeon all the time. now i watch the food network and nickelodeon.

but besides these little nuances in my everyday life, i really don't feel like i have changed much at all. i know a lot of people who seemed to switch themselves in for a completely different version at their wedding, but i'm just not one of them. i still eat candy for breakfast and ignore everyone to read for hours when i feel like it. i'm just as lazy and awful at keeping in touch with everyone as i ever was. i'm still messy and obnoxious and i really can't see myself ever being anything else.

*All These Things That I've Done - The Killers

has it really been that long? and how did we get so old?

so my family and i went to a picnic today at my brothers' school, which was also the school that my sisters and i went to for most of our grade school career. it was super fun, despite the fact that most of us woke up in the morning not in the mood to go. a good chunk of the day (like three out of the five hours we were there) were spent sitting with a group of guys, most of whom were in eleventh grade but a couple were in their first year of college. anyway, they were really fun to hang out with. guys are always fun to hang out with, they're just so much more relaxed than girls. except when they start to "fall in love with you" and then things just get awkward and annoying. these guys were not stupid, though, and it was fun.

before we joined them, though, i saw this kid that i thought might be someone who graduated with me, but i wasn't sure. i asked my sister if she knew who he was and she was like, "he kinda looks like (i'm gonna call him Guy for the sake of this post, okay?) Guy, but..." "but if Guy ate a whale for breakfast, right?" "exactly." before we could go ask him if he was Guy, though, he disappeared. so we did the next best thing and went to my old math teacher to ask her. "he looks kinda like him, but that guy's fat and bald. there's no way he's only twenty three," she said. we sat with her talking for a while when the dude walks right by us. my math teacher calls out, "Guy?" and he's like, "yeah! i saw you earlier but thought you didn't remember me so i didn't come say hi." she goes off on the usual how are you, how's school, how's the family, blah blah blah while my sister and i were busy trying to pick our jaws up from the ground. he leaves and my teacher goes, "wow. he really let himself go." understatement of the century.

anyway, despite the fact that none of you know the guy which makes this a pretty pointless story, i felt that it needed to be told because it just shows how old i've gotten. forget the fact that the second graders i used to substitute are now tenth graders running around in packs trying to attract the guys that were also running around in packs. ignore the fact that most of the people i used to know at the school are either graduated or dead. look over the fact that the annoying little kids that were on my bus are now bigger than me. guys from my graduating class are being mistaken for old, fat, balding men. when/how/why did this happen?! thank god i'm still being mistaken for a fourteen to seventeen year old.

*So Cold - Catch 22

you finally know what was wrong: you are not young anymore

a few weeks ago (or possibly longer) while discussing music with my mom (who actually has pretty awesome taste in music) and how i couldn't find a song online to listen to before i bought it, we came to the brilliant realization that i could use my mom's CD collection which conveniently has the very songs i wanted. it was a great moment. really. this idea hung over my head in the following weeks when i couldn't remember to take said collection from the middle of a pile of tornado-esque debris and/or when i was too busy to worry about adding music to my iPod. finally this morning i brought the CDs up to my room. they have sat here all day next to my computer, just waiting for my parents and brothers to go to sleep. by the time they did, i was pretty excited because it's been a while since i did a major music add to my ipod.

so i put the CD into joe and waited. and waited and waited and waited. and then i remembered that joe's optical drive only reads DVDs now because he is getting old and going senile and has forgotten how to read CD. and i tried a bunch of different things to try and rekindle his memory because he used to have a lot of fun with CDs, but nothing worked. when you're old, you're old. i was quite disappointed. and of course junior doesn't even have an optical drive so he's no help either.

i was really looking forward to a bunch of new songs to listen to on the drive up to yorktown/jamestown tomorrow and now i'll have nothing new until i get the chance to steal someone else's computer for an hour or so (or, you know, until i download something). i'm thinking it's about time to actually get junior an external optical drive. or... could it possibly be time to retire joe? nah.

*You Are Not Young Anymore - Raining Pleasure (i changed the punctuation for the lyric to make it fit.)

and now, the end is here, and so i face the final curtain

sometimes, i get majorly anxious about this summer. i've always had a big peter pan complex and this summer is like taking the dream of neverland that was always hovering just out of my reach and throwing it in the trash. in zimbabwe. a hundred years ago. so far away that i can never even think of it anymore.

it's like my entire "childhood" or whatever you can call this extended childhood of mine that has lasted into my twenties is just ending. at once. all together. it's leaving and forgetting to take me with it.

this all started earlier this year, with things like my sister moving away and all the other stuff that was going on. but the culmination of it, the dramatic dropping of the curtain on my life so far happens this summer.

first of all, i'm getting married. that's obviously a very un-stay a kid forever kind of decision.

second of all, harry potter, which has been a defining part of my life, is ending. that's it. done forever. the funny thing about harry potter is that it always coincided with major events in my life. graduate from elementary school? the fourth book comes out. start middle school? the first movie comes out. i move back from saudi arabia when my brother gets super sick? another book comes out. start my senior year of grade school? sixth book and fourth movie come out. graduate from high school? i'm more torn up about the end of my friend's and my story we were writing than the end of school. my sister gets married? the fifth movie and last book come out. i get married? the last movie comes out. i realize that with a book and movie coming out every year, this is not really an exceptional thing, but it was a big part of my life. so to have it end is like, really having it all just end.

that's it. this summer marks the end of everything. i am coming up to the last page, the credits will soon start to roll, the actors will take a bow, i'll close the back cover... and then i will be an adult.

*My Way - Frank Sinatra

you are gold and silver

figures that when i actually have things to blog about, when i want to write a post so bad that i'll refresh the page a million times a minute hoping for change, the site will be down. and then it comes back right when i have to sit with people downstairs far away from either of my computers. and when i finally do get a chance to get on the computers hours and hours and hours later, the stories are suddenly after the fact and i'm too tired to make them exciting. oh, and i have a bunch of drafted empty posts that i didn't start because the site was down but that i now need to delete. on the bright side, i used my free time this morning wisely by rewatching easy a and painting my nails sparkly gold and silver. they're rather pretty if i do say so myself.

so the other day i was sitting in class (it feels like i'm the only one in the world that's not out of school yet) and the kid in front of me takes out his computer. a dell. and out of nowhere, the dell guy pops into my head. my sisters and i used to love the dell guy. really. you know, before he got caught with drugs and everything. actually, we still loved him, but we never saw him anymore. anyway, when i got home that night, i decided to see what happened to him. in my google search, which showed me that my imagination was a lot more interesting than fact, i cam across this which made me feel really really old. you should click the link because some of the things really amazed me.

so, pointless post, but do you have any idea how hard it is to write a blog post in the commotion that is my house right now? pretty near impossible, let me tell you. this has taken me three days to write and it's barely worth reading (though i would click on that link if i were you).

*Pop! Goes My Heart - Hugh Grant

then you took me by surprise

yesterday was a snow day. well, i had no classes either way, but if i did they would have been 4:30 or later, and if they were, they would have been cancelled. but my sister with her afternoon undergrad classes went, and i stayed home with my brothers. i could go into an elaborate story about how my parents left the house at 3:30 to pick up my sister and didn't get back until eleven with her when the school is twenty minutes from our house, but since i didn't play much part in that story i won't.

instead let's talk about the secret garden. we (my brothers and i) recently read it together, and when we read a book that has a movie, we watch the movie next time we get a chance. with the way our house has been playing lobby to the world over the past few weeks (read:months), we really haven't had much time. but yesterday we made a big bowl of popcorn, popped the tape into the vcr, and sat down to watch.

you know what's weird? when i watched the movie as a kid (i haven't watched it in over ten years) i hated mrs. medlock. she was evil and mean and kept trying to get into the way of the children's happiness and collin's recovery. watching it yesterday, i didn't feel that way at all. she really had no idea that mary was doing a world of good for collin. she really did think he was sick, and she was trying to keep him well and alive, and not only because it was her job. at some point of the movie, abdullah says, "god i hate mrs. medlock. she just wants collin to die," and i remembered feeling that way myself. and when did i begin to think logically and see the point of view of the adults? when did i grow up and why wasn't i informed of this earlier? i didn't correct him, though, because hating medlock is now linked to childhood in my mind and there's no reason to rob him of that.

speaking of mrs. medlock, she is played by maggie smith, and when she first came on screen my brothers broke out into a chorus of she-looks-familar's and where's-she-from's. when i said she was in harry potter, ali goes, "oh yeah! voldemort!" it made me laugh.

speaking of ali, he just came into my room to show me the flier he's working on. apparently he's starting up a drawing class during school to make some money. he's charging a dollar per lesson.

*Everything Will Be Alright - The Killers

i guess this is growing up

i have always had a bit of a peter pan complex. while everyone else was growing up, i was content to stay searching for neverland in all my spare time. and while i intend to hold onto a certain amount of my childness for as long as i live, it seems like this weekend is forcing me off the proverbial cliff into adulthood.

first of all, in a crazy turn of events, that let me tell you even i wasn't expecting, i've been officially engaged for twenty four hours. as in, i'm gonna get married. that's right. me. (don't look so surprised, it's not that shocking.) i, who can't commit to anything, have committed my life to one person. i, who needs long breaks from the public because i cannot stand people, have decided to live with one person (not related to me) day in and day out for the rest of forever. i, who keeps the world at arm's length, have decided to let someone in... a bit lol. it's really crazy, but also awesome. i'd post a picture of the ring because it's pretty but i don't feel like getting my camera cords and downloading them so oh well.

apart from that huge development in my life, i have also been summoned for jury duty tomorrow. i kinda sorta really don't feel like waking up early to go sit around all day doing nothing. i'm dreading this a lot more than is probably healthy, but i don't. want. to. go. my sister, though, is dying to go to jury duty and if she wasn't having a baby like literally at this moment then i would so let her pretend to be me. i mean, besides the fact that that's probably super illegal and i would never do anything to break the law. but yeah, i'm dreading tomorrow.

on a completely unrelated note because my brain is not functioning well and my train of thought got derailed, my nano novel is coming along pathetically. it's really sad how behind i am, but i just can't seem to find the time or motivation to write it. that little progress bar hasn't changed for days. i will catch up, though. if only because i refuse to lose this thing. my tenacity will lead me to victory. by the end of the month, i may have pages and pages of crap, but there will be fifty thousand words there. also, i refuse for ash, my friend, to lose either. we need to meet up to write pronto.

anyway, go congratulate me in me my comments, congratulate my sister too, and motivate me to write. please and thank you.

*Dammit (Growing Up) - Blink 182