For the record I am almost always a blissfully happy, white, thin, upper middle class, smart, creative teenage girl with a future.

Yet I'm also a blank canvas. Not like it's really a bad thing. Maybe that's why I've always been friends with artists, musicians, actors? I've got a limited amount of witty comments, I can get conversations started, but that's really my only skill. I'm something for people to act off of, I'm a mirror, a sidekick to everyone's routine. I've got a endless list of friends with record deals, that've been published, had their work in art shows. I'm just the girl with the quips, the bounce board for you to work with. I'm so typical; reading through Chuck Palahniuk's quotes, I could swear he's talking about me. Is the "darker" side of things really so bad? What makes them darker? What makes death so bad, hurting another so evil? It's all about your perception. And if it's your perception, as your mirror, I guess I think the same.
I think for Christmas, I'll ask for a personality.

Have you ever felt so uncomfortable in your skin, know that you're not yourself, just a picture of a picture of a picture? Not the real thing. Not close. Had to force a smile, laugh, that goddamn goofy dance you're known for. I feel like I'm twelve again, eating my feelings, staying in or forcing myself to go out and end up miserable and making snide comments that ruin everyone's night. That girl this June is an entirely different girl, someone I can't relate to. She was bright and shiny, sparkly and magical. She was a novelty, a breath of fresh air. Now a gust of frigid stale air. Sleep's never enough anymore, I'm always tired. I wish my life wasn't on the same damn track, I'm on a rollarcoaster going in a loop, same highs, same lows. But the lows are always more so than the highs.

A lot has happened the past month or so. I'm in Auburn, again. I moved from the dorm rooms back to the area I lived in this summer, with my own room, a big bathroom for two, living area and kitchen. I joined a sorority, went through the fake plastic hell known as recruitment week. Laid my heart on the line and it got thrown in the trash, blah blah blah. I hate feeling the right to blame others for my misfortune, for my stupidity. Real college has reminded me how stupid I am, how unspecial I am. Is it wrong to feel so jaded after a month in a new place? I'm honestly missing June, how easy everything was, how I managed to get everything I really wanted with little or no effort. And now I'm sitting in my ohsocute, well decorated room, and realizing almost everything on my walls, on my bookshelves, hell, even things in my closet and drawers are all my "prizes", things I kept after the demise of a relationship, after I wasn't needed, or after I did the discarding. Serial killers take things from their victims, I take posters, purses, movies, electronics, t shirts and presents from... I don't even know what to call them. MY victims? The men in my life? Boys I've dated? Everywhere I look there's a reminder of someone I had a panic attack over, someone I made a snide comment to, someone I hurt, someone that hurt me. I never got expensive jewelry. I took pride in my Marc Jacobs bag, "exclusive" film school shirt, my favorite movie I managed to guilt out of you. I always ignored the blatant obvious truth, that all my treasures, all these things that make up my living space, my personality, they're the scars and reminders that maybe I didn't get these gifts out of love, or as part of the wooing process. Maybe they were gifts from guilt, the way wives get jewelry after an affair or broken promise. Maybe these gifts were an apology in advance. "You're hot and all, and kinda funny, so I'll keep this thing going. But here's a cheap something that'll mean a lot to you so you can't hate me after I get tired of you." And ironically, my room is decorated with all the reminders of how I was never good enough to keep someone's attention. It's like I have to keep throwing back my lack of worth at myself everyday to keep from getting my hopes up. Maybe they're why the boys that do seem genuinely interested in me, boys that just don't tell me I'm pretty, those are the ones I refer to with disdain. I thrive off of emotional shoves, I spend my time like a sad little puppy, trying to win the affection of guys wandering into the pet store, paying me brief attention, trying to waste time. Throwing out all my reminders of past, present and future fuck ups seems like the logical decision, hell, keeping them seems almost as masochistic as my relationships. But maybe keeping them, reminding myself of how little I'm worth makes sense too. Maybe it's what keeps me from believing in fairy tales, maybe being jaded and tired is really better.

I'm sitting in my bed, staring at the collection of boxes and suitcases on my floor wondering where the hell summer's gone. I move back up to Auburn... tomorrow. I feel like I've been ignoring this blog, but at the same time, I'm a little happy about that, it means I've been too happy, too busy to record it. I've been on lazy rivers, up until four in the morning talking about deep things (beyond rush, beyond social drama, beyond music), surprised myself and everyone else by being happy for people I didn't think I'd be happy for, seen people that matter the world to me that i may never see again, and packed up my whole life, and got ready to live with a girl I've only had lunch with. Terrifying? Extremely. Exhilarating? You have no idea. The next chapter of my life starts tomorrow, and God, I'm diving in, eyes closed, feet off the ground. The place I'm in is the happiest I could ever feel; but I'm not looking toward the future, I'm not counting on any days being better than this, so every day is the best day of my life.
Is my bliss and peace boring to read and hear? I'm sure, but that doesn't mean I'm any less beyond thrilled with every single bit of my life, the people I know, and who I am.

I'll just keep it to myself in the sun, in the sun

this past week has been the very definition of an emotional roller coaster, not just those of myself, but everyone around me. Thankfully, the past 24 hours or so were possibly the best of my life. I went to the She and Him show at Sloss Furnace -which, by the way, is beautiful and the picture of intriguing. I'll definitely have to make a stop next time I'm in town and take a tour- and danced, laughed, sang and fell in love with M. Ward and Zooey all over again.


I'm so happy I decided to go up a day early, it was maybe the best rash emotional decision I've made in a while. Overall, this past long weekend was honestly the best girldate I've had in an extremely long time, with a spur of the moment decision to make the trip to Ikea in Atlanta. What should've taken two hours ended up being a five hour drive with countless illegal uturns and three point turns in the Atlanta highways... Thank God for A) Liz and my's ability to never be around cops and B) however we managed that without getting in a ridiculous wreck.
I'm not exactly sure what the past week means, however, even calm and collected, I still want to look into internships or working somewhere where I'd be able to live on my own, or with roommates or something of the sort. I understand that every person I know has no earthly idea of who they are or what they're doing at this point of our lives, but I do realize I need to start listening instead of just hearing, and hopefully my internal dialogue will eventually stop playing when I should be paying attention to the rest of the world.

My heart is full of pages of honest, bitter, questioning, painful words sentences poetry prose of things I have no right to say, no one to say to.
I understand your disdain, but I thought mutual respect was a given. This town, she's screaming at me to leave, and never come back.

My mom offered to fly me to my brother's for the rest of the summer, and God I wish I could. Maybe Beaverton wouldn't throw everything it has at me within a week.
Fairhope isn't my home. Next summer, I make my new home wherever I get an internship. Birmingham, Atlanta, Montgomery, Jacksonville, who knows. Symbolism has never been so prevalent in my life as it is now.

I didn't ever believe everyone that said you'll grow apart from your high school friends once you get to college. It could never happen, my inner monologue kept repeating, we're almost all going to the same school, we'll always stay tight knit. And here I am, not even home a week, and already yearning to go back to Auburn, to go back to the people I've met there, the people who lit the spark in my soul. I adore everything about Fairhope, except who it turns me into. I feel myself retreating into my shell, into my uncomfortable state, back to everything I thought I shed behind. And maybe I did, just left all my dead skin, all my old self, here.