Goodbai Utah

Sorry for the long post.  If you don't want to read the whole thing, this is the summary:
This summer sucked but also didn't.  I love my friends.  I'm moving to Florida to work at Disney World.  I'm going to keep writing but probably not often.  Goodbye, I love you.

If you're reading this, I am already gone.  My summer ends a little bit earlier than I wanted it to this year.

I'm moving to Florida.

I'm going to work at Disney World.  I'm going to be stuck in a store.  I'm going to be hot and tired.  I'm going to be on my own.  I'm going to be a "real" adult.  I'm going to probably not blog very much.  I'm going to go out and make myself feel uncomfortable so other people don't think I'm depressed.  I'm doing this for myself, because I worry about my sanity.  I'm going because I want to.  And because I don't want to.  And because it's Disney World.  And because it's Florida.  And because someday there will come a time when I can't just pick up and move across the country and I don't want that day to come too soon.

I'm writing this because I'm almost 20 years old and I don't know how to fold a fitted sheet or do my own taxes, and those seem like things I should be able to do on my own by now.

I guess I'll figure it out.

I'm also saying goodbye to the people that I miss most.  Our legacies are written on the floorboards of the attic.  They'll be forgotten in the fire.  We'll be dust in a matter of seconds.  But I love you all.  And if I never see any of you again, thanks for being golden.

This summer was long and dull.  I worked full time.  I saw friends when I could.  I did something horrible.  And I didn't exercise at all.  I made out.  I became a new person, and somehow stayed exactly the same.  I watched a lot of TV.  And I ate a lot of food.

But it had its moments.  When Jonah and I blew all our money doing pointless things and then complained about blowing all our money on pointless things.  When Aubrey and I sat on her roof and watched the entire valley light up.  When Austin held me and told me about how he fell in love with a girl who vanished one day.  When we went to Fong's and didn't talk at all.  When Sarah showed me her movie collection.  When Aubrey and I both got food poisoning and spent a whole weekend in bed because of it.  When Shay and I drank pink milk and talked about preschool and being sorry.

And as the construction workers tear down the Haunted Forest and start building that car dealership, I'm waving goodbye to him and wishing him a great semester, and it just feels so over.

And just like that, the only place we've ever had all to ourselves belongs to someone else.

These days are gone, and they are golden.  They are wrapped in tin foil and packaged nicely in yearbooks and H.A.G.S. and Facebook posts that we thought were oh so clever.  These days are finally finally over.  And I will miss Austin's old man sense of humor and his folk music.  I will miss Aubrey's giant notebook full of songs we wanted to learn.  I will miss Cosette's awkward way of cheering me up.  I will miss the way Lex could figure out your whole deal in five minutes.  I will miss Creative Writing.  I will miss Michael who is now a douche even though I DISCOVERED HIM.  I will miss Griffin Kerr's blog.  I will miss Brynn's blog too.  I will miss that brown couch in Jonah's basement.   I will miss Baylee's awesome fashion sense and sassy comebacks.  I will miss Jeff's girl problems.  I will miss Asher's ease.  I will miss Lauren's conversation.  I will miss playing music.  And writing music.  And I will miss the optimistic, innocent, and ambitious girl I was.

I will miss it all.  Until one day I won't anymore.  

Life is unpredictable.  Even when you have a plane ticket and an appointment.  Even when the email gives you clear instructions on what to do when you arrive.  We are experiments.  We are fearful and blind and passionate.  We are each broken in our own beautiful way, and we are strong because of it.  We are love, and we are war, and we are hunger.  We are children.  And I love you, and all that you think you are or hope to be or will be someday.  Because you are you, and I am me, and we are one.

I don't know what I'm doing or where I'm going, but I think I'll be alright.

Don't forget me.

Karma Was Here

Give me something I can put my faith in.

Give me a distraction.

Give me attention.

I'm going to be so different.  I will be better, stronger, more grown up.  Maybe a better friend.  And a better lover.  Or a better fighter.  I will be brave.  I will be confident.  I will.

Night after night and day after day, I look to the wrong person when I loose my way.

Oh you are a little girl.  Pretending to be things you see.  Asking what things you can take.  Well you'll scream and you'll fight with it, fake and desire for it, but you will never ever be happy.

Give me something I can feel right about.

Give me a reason to grow old.

Give me pride in myself and for the things that I have done.

But take away the shame and take away the fear.  And take away the person I don't want to be anymore.  And take away my hands and my eyes, so I can learn to rely on God.

Give me a reason to come back.

I'm starting to forget why.

My World In Youtube Videos

I tried to write something that sums up everything, and just couldn't.

Why I want to go into film:

I used to want to be a writer.  And I quickly realized that no matter how hard I try, I would never be satisfied with anything I ever wrote.  I'm always missing something.  It never is as effective or provocative or interesting or beautiful or emotional as I want it to be.

But there's something special about words and music and pictures and when you put them all together, it says more to me than any epic could.

I sometimes spend weeks and months writing, and it never makes me feel the way I want it to.

These videos are everything I have always failed to communicate.  

They are everything to me.

If you watch all of these videos from start to finish, I'm pretty sure you will transcend.

A Gasoline Pump Is Not A Toy

Once,  I was a poor creature who looked to the sun for direction.

I lived on sugar and lived for the summer.  There was never enough time in the day.  There was always another adventure.  I waited for no one.  I wanted for nothing.  Except to run and to hide and to live forever as a bird would.  

Once, I was a frail girl who hated her nose.

I spoke to many people, but never said things that mattered.  I pretended and wished my days away.  I waited for things to end.  I wanted for too much.  Yet, I achieved nothing but mediocrity and intense disappointment. 

Once, I was a peculiar child who laughed at herself.

I went out at night and worked in the day.  I used my money for things that didn't matter and wasted gasoline.  I waited for the future.  I wanted for the past.  I left a lot of things behind in boxes, and still had too much to lug around with me.  

At any given moment, there are thousands of processes going on in just my right arm.  

There are synapses and nerves and blood cells and bone, and I can't even feel it.

You're going to live an entire life and still end up with only three words on your tombstone.

Tell me, can you feel it?

Things That Don't Matter At All (And Some Things That Do)

I still get embarrassed when people ask me out.
I think it's funny when people are rude.
I like to talk to myself.
I have a crappy job.
I hate working out.
I like soft pretzels and caramel candy.
I cry during every movie I watch.  I even cried during Sky High.
If I could, I'd watch youtube videos for the rest of my life.
I still have my baby blanket.
I like apple scented things.
I used to have a big problem with lying to take the easy way out.  (Oh, it's still a problem.  Just not a big one anymore.)
I really hate it when people talk about themselves too much.  Kind of like I'm doing right now.
I have a crazy obsessive personality, and I probably have a social disorder.
I love musical theatre.
I could live off of strawberries and flan.
I like being alone more than I like being with my friends, which really worries me.
I went through a phase where I only said things I heard on TV.  I was convinced it would make people like me more and think I was funnier.
I still like to hold my dad's hand.  Even in public.
I am really uncomfortable with sexuality.
When I moved to Colorado I spoke with what I thought was a rocking British accent for a week, and then randomly stopped.  On an unrelated note I also had no friends.
I'm obsessed with Jessie Mueller.
I have a shopping addiction.
I'm constantly trying to prove myself to everyone I meet.
On two very separate occasions, I've used my dad's heart attack as an excuse to leave work early.

I keep a lot of my emotions to myself, and am afraid of being up front about my life with people.
Everything is a metaphor.  Everything is a simplified and censored version of the truth.
Yes, I lie.
Yes, I prefer to be alone.
Yes, I want to be happy.
But no, I don't.

I have too much in me, and I'm always different.  I'm always the same.
A constant existence with nothing to show for it.


I still wait for the bus to come where the high school got torn down.

Comrades

*Disclaimer: This isn't about any one person.  It's about all of us.*

Half empty, half full,

we're starting over.

I wrote you a letter called Comrades In October.  It doesn't make a lot of sense and goes on for longer than it needed to be.  I talked a lot about Pulp Fiction and it got a bit accusatory of Israel.  But I meant well.

Things never really turn out right.  Or at least not how we want them to.

I wanted a lot more than what you gave me.  The minimalist approach to human interaction, the half-hearted blow off.  When it was slow, it was alcohol you turned to.  The feeling that whatever you did didn't count or mean anything turned you on.  You were invincible.

But you didn't even recognize me at midnight when I left.  Telling you I was just a phone call away and you turned the other way and said you really hate the way I look at you when you're drunk.

"I need to get my life together, don't I?"

We're always starting over.  A big hug and an empty bottle.  You'll get your life together maybe if you want to.  But until then, I'll paint you a picture of a girl who is trying to not let herself love you any more than she already does.

But we'll always have October.  And you'll always be that one who sang me songs and cared about my stupid crushes.  You were there from the beginning, when all we needed was our tree.  Our tree, our music, and our wasted teenage lives.

I'm starting over.

Here's A List

• I just wish
• I was doing something
• More important
• With my life

The Extras

I forget sometimes to believe in gravity.  And the peace that comes with having two feet stuck firmly to the ground.

Somewhere between my fifth house and my hundredth new school, I forgot.  Wishing on turkey bones and laughing at people who carry dogs in their handbags.  I forgot what it meant to be stable.

There is a person standing at the edge of a precipice, wondering where the gas leak is coming from.  Wondering about how many people still wear socks with holes in them.  And what time it is in Africa.  And how to do winged eyeliner without messing up.   

And how that boy had really beautiful eyes, and how he used them in the right way but for the wrong reason.  How it sounds when it’s quiet enough to hear everything.  How skin feels against more skin and how knees feel during bon fires. 

If it's worth the risk.

There are people who think about June weddings and flowers and big dresses, and there are people who think about girls with big lips and long hair at dark and musky bars.  There are people who write their feelings on napkins and leave them in booths in cafes.  There are people who kiss in parks and on boats, and there are mothers who tell their sons not to look down girls’ shirts.

There is Right, and there is Wrong, and there is Sometimes. 

And I am nowhere to be found.

Pause

You must know by now that because you've taken her, she needs you.
She waits on you.

I know you're looking for the same to come from where you once had been.  I know you're taking your time and being reckless.  Maybe you're killing time.  Maybe you're bored.

I know you're disinterested.
But I depend on you.

Unseen voices will come undone, and lower me down into my shallow grave.  Taunting me into the comatose fate I knew I'd always have.  Separated and detached, just like I always allowed myself to be.

If I wanted to, could I ever be more than what I've resigned myself to be?  There's so much still that I haven't known.  So much that I only think about when no one's listening.  They are the secret revelations I keep between me and the window well.

Romance never was my only option.  Yet it's the only thing that seems to make a difference anymore.

Will there be a way out for me, if I so desire one?
Or will it be too late?

Give Out

Oh dear.

I think I've done it again.

I tried so hard to be better, because I knew that better means happier.  I knew that perfect means success.  The closer I get to it, though, the more I realize how similar it feels to normal.  The longer you look at me, the more I want to leave.  The harder you try, the more I dislike myself.

I don't know what it is.  A combination of bad self image and the stomach flu, maybe.  Or misguided passive aggression.  Cuban cigars that smell bad, but are passed around like the neighborhood harlot.

Oh dear.

I was expecting it to be much harder to figure out, but it was as easy as stepping off the roof.

One step is too far, but three steps and I'm flying.

One day, I'm going to look back and know that no one will ever really understand what this all means to me.  No one will hear that song the way I do.  They won't care about the tree.  They don't get it.  How nothing really happened there, but that's why it is so unmistakably pristine.  That's why I can't love you.  Because of that tree, which means so much because it meant nothing.

Well yeah, a year from now, I know we'll all be in different cities.  Missing each others' calls and avoiding chance encounters in the supermarket.  If there are even supermarkets anymore.  Maybe we'll just be downloading virtual carbs from our super iPads or something.

This isn't what I wanted to talk about.

I wanted to talk about making out and not liking it.  I wanted to talk about not the first guy, but the fourth.  The one who actually made an effort to not be an idiot.  I wanted to talk about slow music and perfect moments that were ruined by a never-ending girl brain, but instead I think this is all about missing you.  Even though you haven't left yet.

Because I know that alcohol is promising and cigarettes are your mistress.  I know that your one true love is the back of your jet black motorcycle, and that I am someone who stands with both feet firmly on the ground.  Too afraid to do anything bad.  Watching you suffocate yourself because being young and free and careless is your only wile.  Because we are supposed to mess up right now.  Because that's what being alive means.

I miss you already, and oh dear.  I think I've done it again.

In my own way, I'm trying to tell you goodbye.  Because we used to talk about never growing apart, but I think it's about to happen soon.

Unpeeled, Like a Thread

I keep waiting for my big break, but now I think that maybe I've missed it.

I didn't need to do it.  I didn't want to either.  I had passed the point of desire and hate, and I was moving on to being more weightless and acceptable.  There were no more missed phone calls.  There were a lot more nights out.

We were choice examples.

Maybe the past is forgotten and the flowers are dead, and maybe I wait up too late.  I always was the more sentimental one.  And you think it's childish and juvenile to cling to remnants and pieces, but I never knew how to leave them behind.  I carry them with me wherever I go, picking them up off the floor and placing them in glass cabinets when you're not looking.  I'll always be too attached.

I'm terribly sorry for the things I pray about.  Forgiveness and cheap tickets to concerts I'll never go to.  Headaches and rose petals, heart strings to be untied.

I wish I knew how to get better.

I wish...

Winter, The Song

Okay.

I'm thoroughly embarrassed and ashamed of this song, but I recorded it anyways, so here it is.

Listen if you want to.  

Don't listen if you don't want to.

Thanks.

#vivaparis

Something

If there were something to say, I wouldn't know it. 

I am out of time.  I'm out of reach.  There are no more words left for me to say, yet I'm still struggling to speak.  Still saying the same prayer.  

We're still trying to reach the heavens and we're still making iPhones.  

At the end of the day, I'm nothing more than just me.

Fraying hair and crooked teeth.  Compassionate and anxious.  Listening.  Watching.  Waiting.  Wondering.  And never doing anything about it.  

A Ballad For Mrs. Lovett

"Mrs. Lovett, you're a bloody wonder, eminently practical and yet appropriate as always."  

This is my final headache.  

I was not born to dote, not born to breathe for you.  

I had other opportunities, other loves.  

Other heartaches.

I get my own dinner, I clean my own space.  I take care of the dog, and I pay my rent.  I file taxes every year.  I hardly drive above the speed limit.  I have stamps.

Stamps.

An ordinary life for an extraordinary faith.  Faith that he will love.  Faith that he will forget.  

Faith for first choice.

I want to remember and to be remembered.  I am selfish, I am hasty, I am ignorant.  Praying to be better, and sleeping in until noon.  Hoping for blue skies, and wearing all black.  Contradictory to beauty, yet standing for just that.

He loved very little and I loved to pretend I was part of it.  

"How I've lived without you all these years, I'll never know."

Happily Ever After

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, because my whole life I've bombarded my mind with images of princes and princesses and divine intervention and Meg Ryan seeing Tom Hanks at the top of the Empire State Building and all those gloriously inglorious musings of regular people at long tables.

They are people who don't realize what they do.  They don't know that somewhere some 12 year old girl will see their story on television and think that her future husband will run to her in an airport and tell her that he was wrong, he does want three kids and a dog and a small house in Vienna.  And he doesn't care about her insensibilities and her selfish desire to spend all day in bed with morning breath.  He doesn't want someone skinny and white, he wants the patchy yellow skinned, bent nose, chubby thighed mistake that she is.  He wants her mood swings and her high pitched chipmunk impersonations.  Her messy desk and her terrible cooking.  

No, I think I have it all figured out.  He won't see me at a party and fall in love with me from across the room, he will instead fail to notice me as I make up the rest of our lives together.  Because we are not strings being sewn into masterpieces for the gods, we are merely just wandering around and waiting for our number to be called.  And we can wait, or we can leave.  But no one will do it for you.  

Well, I'd rather be a part of something much more selfish.

Because I am abnormal and also unwanted.

So here's to John Cusack's boom box and Ducky at the prom.  Here's to Molly Ringwald's red hair, and that scene at the end where they meet each other on the ice and just know.  To the leading ladies and to their less attractive best friends, who usually end up having sex with the creepy guy.  Here's to immaculate commitment.  Here's to the end.

All I used to think about was the day he'd sweep me off my feet.  But now I'm just hoping he doesn't hit.

I Let It Go

"What are your plans, then?"

"I don’t know."

"Whatever happened with that arts school?"

"I got in...

I’m not going, though."

"Why not?"

"It's cheaper to stay here."

"That's true."

"Chicago will still be there.

I can wait."

I never figured out how to participate in class.

I plan everything I say two days before I say it.

He didn't want to talk to me after we kissed.

I laugh when I should cry, and I cry when I should smile.

Only three people remembered my birthday last year.

The cute boy in my film class didn't sit by me this week.

My older sister once told me that she didn't like me until I stopped being ugly.

My dad still hasn't gotten a job after all these years.

One day he took me to dinner and when he went to pay, he realized he didn't have enough.

"I got it, dad.  Don't worry."

I can't use a curling iron.

He didn't love me back.

I got bad grades last semester.

I go out of my way to avoid talking to people I want to talk to.

I'll probably never be a movie director.

He hated my favorite song.

We'll never move out of my grandparents' house.

What if I never meet Tina Fey?

Or what if I do, and she doesn't like me?

I don't want to get married.

I don't want kids.

I don't want to be happy.

I don't even think I'd let myself.

I jut want to eat food forever.

I hate my nose all the time.

Marla West once said it was beautiful, and I laughed at her for saying so.

I will never be charismatic.

I'm not fun enough at parties.

Or sexy enough to be liked.

Or really anything at all.
I spend a lot of time trying to be someone other than myself.
And I think about it way too much.


I realize that none of it matters.
We'll all be dead soon, anyways.
I'm going to be just fine.

I took a deep breath, and I let it go.

I let it all go.