2013.
Graduated.
Working.
Running.
Freezing.
Cooking.
Sleeping.
Single.
I can't decide what that means, but it's a pretty accurate description of what my life is. 

This year, I need to start writing again. As I was cleaning out my filing cabinet this morning, I kept finding random stories and things that I wrote when I was in elementary and middle school. Goodness, I wrote a ton. What happened? It's like I hit high school and poof - I forgot. It's kind of depressing. Sort of like this blog. I used to write in it every day and then I got to college. I guess my life got steadily more boring as I routinely did the same things day in and day out. No drama, no nothing. It's bittersweet, actually. But I digress. If I want to have any kind of future with literature and writing, I actually have to do it. So that means I read one book a week and I write at least two paragraphs of something every day.

This starts now. Enjoy.

Let's play catch up. Since the last time I wrote in here, I was just starting my last semester at college, an internship at a museum, and trying to just get through another three months with a boyfriend who was slowly draining the life out of me. It wasn't a particularly great time, but I was doing all right. Around March, right after spring break, he texted me and it was over. Of course, in the moment, I was furious and angry and I wanted to strangle him. In hindsight, it was probably a really difficult decision to make and in his best interests, he didn't do it face-to-face. Selfish, yes. Understandable, yes. For about a month, I was always fuming and any distraction was welcome. Then, he started dating another girl and I realized staying angry was just making my life more difficult than it needed to be. Graduation was coming and I threw myself into school. Soon, I had more than a 3.0 GPA and it was May. By this point, I was probably running about two and a half miles four times a week in the gym downstairs. It was fine and I was fine. I got home and started working at the company I was at last summer and I got a fifty cent raise.
Summer was uneventful with the exception of getting more responsibility at work and more frustration that comes with that. I was going to the gym still and slowly becoming the wallflower. I felt alone, but not really lonely. It had been a long time since I could come home and sit around without my phone. I missed certain things and I was glad that I didn't have to deal with other things. He still works for my parents and I saw him periodically on the weekend outside. We don't speak. It's for the best. 
Autumn came and the leaves fell. My sister left for college again, leaving me with my parents. I started walking the neighbors' dog. Halloween was brought in with no electricity and working in the dark and cold. Thanksgiving arrived, along with my sister. I started running faster and longer. I watched more television shows on my laptop. I cleaned my room. Winter is here now. And I'm probably freezing ninety nine percent of the time. I'm still a wallflower at the gym and I stopped reading novels at work. I'm saving my money and staying in almost every weekend. The holidays are over. I got a lot of clothes to fit my ever shrinking figure. My sister came home for winter break. And here we are. 
Maybe something will happen when spring comes and the world wakes up. I need to wake up.

My last semester of college. My last semester of college. My last semester of college. My last semester of college. My last semester of college. My last semester of college. My last semester of college. My last semester of college. My last semester of college. My last semester of college. My last semester of college. My last semester of college. My last semester of college. My last semester of college. My last semester of college. My last semester of college. My last semester of college. My last semester of college. My last semester of college. My last semester of college. My last semester of college. My last semester of college. My last semester of college. My last semester of college. My last semester of college. My last semester of college. My last semester of college. 

My last semester of college. 

Harry. Harry Potter.
I am a declared English literature major and I applied for graduation next semester and now I will hyperventilate obnoxiously. This semester is more than halfway over, so I feel like I'm buried under mountains of homework and papers and expectations that I can't possibly live up to. My GPA is not high enough to get into graduate school and I'll need to apply for internships and work for another year before I can think about pursuing a masters degree, which does not sound very appealing.
But, I like fantasizing that I'll be able to move out of my parents soon and be on my own forever. Maybe out of this state. Maybe out of this country. Well, maybe not. New England is a good alternative to the actual England. Old England? I digress. I'll figure it out.
This chapter of my life is interesting. It's nice. It's all about me. Looking back on my older entries here, most of my life was centered on someone else, something else. Now it's all about my future. And I'm not just whining about my indecisiveness. I've got this. I can do this.
There are moments where I feel lost and doubtful, but the moments -- however fleeting -- that I can see myself being an English professor are very refreshing. And when I think about those years that I spent wanting to be a high school teacher, I never felt like I would ever be as happy.
Who knows? I think I've made the right choice. If anything, I know who I am and who I will be and what I want to be and that balance alone makes me happy. Enough. For now.

"I don't know much about her but I'm kind of infatuated with this girl. Or maybe it's the idea of her that I've created. I found myself thinking about her tonight on a walk under some makeshift constellations struggling through the light pollution of Boston, fleeting thoughts coming and going like New England snowfalls. It's not a lusty, I-want-to-fuck-her kind of deal. I want to hold her close and sing her soft rainstorm melodies and move her in a way that makes her feel unspeakably alive because there's nothing that has touched her to the core like that in a long time. I want to bear my soul to her in the way that symphonies are written, so that at its completion, my story will have completely enveloped her like B minor at the predawn of a snow-covered day, and she'll realize that there is nothing more painfully right than the overlap of the lines on our palms and all the countless intersections of her eyes (beautiful, sun-drenched) and mine."

And we're back to the quoting.

"You forget all of it anyway. First, you forget everything you learned-the dates of the Hay-Herran Treaty and Pythagorean Theorem. You especially forget everything you didn't really learn, but just memorized the night before. You forget the names of all but one or two of your teachers, and eventually you'll forget those, too. You forget your junior class schedule and where you used to sit and your best friend's home phone number and the lyrics to that song you must have played a million times. For me, it was something by Simon & Garfunkel. Who knows what it will be for you? And eventually, but slowly, oh so slowly, you forget your humiliations-even the ones that seemed indelible just fade away. You forget who was cool and who was not, who was pretty, smart, athletic, and not. Who went to a good college. Who threw the best parties Who could get you pot. You forget all of them. Even the ones you said you loved, and even the ones you actually did. They're the last to go. And then once you've forgotten enough, you love someone else." 

Yes. I've quoted this before. In 2007. Still a good quote four years later. 

College is like the experience that never ends. High school went faster than this. Why is this dragging on forever?
At least I'm ninety nine and nine tenths percent sure what I want to be. But once I declare my major, I'm trapped. I can't pretend that I'm indecisive about my future anymore. I have to answer questions clearly and determined. And here I am, the biggest fan of "maybe" and I want to be an English teacher.
Today in class, my professor asked me a question to which I gave him a vague answer. He called me out on it, demanding a straight answer. I said, "But I'm a 'maybe, kinda' person."
"No, you're not."
Yes, I am. Yes. I am. Don't tell me what I am when I don't even know. I am the most concentrated form of 'maybe, kinda' that I know. I shrug with words more often than I shake my head. I wasn't happy with the judgment. So I gave the most unhelpful answer I could. I said, "No."
Needless to say, I don't think this professor will be calling on me for a while. But goodness, if I thought college lasted a while, that class lasts even longer.

"I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even have sex. Just sleep together, in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane."

Yes. I have just reduced myself to copying and pasting particular quotes I stumble upon whilst browsing or reading. My life really isn't interesting enough to ramble about. Maybe another day.

I'm in the middle of my new chapter now. I have this urge to write a story. A story about anything, everything. But that general topic probably won't get me started on a masterpiece. I can't seem to narrow my interest, though. I'm tired of rules and guidelines that I've had placed upon myself for years. I don't want parameters. I don't want to be fenced in. I hate when people use the analogy of walls. If anyone builds walls, it's never to keep people out. It's to keep themselves in. 

"This is my side of the story. Only my side of the story. Nobody cares, nobody's there, no one will hear my side of the story."

Do not stand at my grave and weep, 
I am not there, I do not sleep. 
I am in a thousand winds that blow, 
I am the softly falling snow. 
I am the gentle showers of rain, 
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight, 
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I do not die.

By Mary Elizabeth Frye

"A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave. A soul mate’s purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, and make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life."
I like this more than I should.