on homesickness.

I text a friend earlier, one who is out of town for six weeks, saying 'don't tell me you're homesick already'.

To elaborate this idea, being homesick, while it shows you what you love, solves nothing. It doesn't prevent the fact that you're not at home (if you are capable of returning at that exact moment though, why are you hesitating??), it just takes you out of appreciating your current location, both geographically and mentally. You may not be where you want to be, but take it for what it is, learn what you can, and love it with your whole heart. Every place you go and every person you meet becomes a part of you, so why not take the best from it as opposed to making yourself bitter and resentful because they are not your ideal? You're getting there, I promise; if you're working your ass off and figuring it out.

Don't take the here and now for granted. Embrace it. And when you get home, you can tell everyone how much you missed them, but how freakin' incredible your learning opportunity was.

the last song

I just stayed up to a ridiculously late hour to watch "The Last Song". Cheesy, poor writing. At moments, grimace-worthy acting. But, still, somehow, the message came across. Or a few.

One. Life. Live it. Do it. Don't hide, don't hesitate, don't be anyone less than the whole, great person you want to be. There is no other time, do it now.

Two. Parents are wonderful. Brothers are wonderful. Never take these people for granted.

Three. I have no idea about love. None. I was never one of those people who said "I love you" to my early teenage boyfriends. Maybe because those people never existed in my life, but I never had that. I see it in movies and I still don't quite understand it. Even now, I've never really been there. The idea of it, yeah, it's great, but... I just...

Which leads me to: faking it. I spend a lot of time lately wondering if everyone isn't just... faking it. If figuring out where you go in life and where you should be and what you should do isn't all just faking it as you go. Acting like you know what you're doing. How do you know?

Last Movie Watched: The Last Song

Last Song Played: Taylor Swift- Ours

"love".

you don't love me. and you never did. saying it any other way is simply a lie. because love doesn't change its mind. love doesn't question whether it cares about you on a day-by-day, hell, moment-by-moment basis. love doesn't split itself between multiple people. love doesn't close doors or windows, it asks questions, it inquires, it cares about the answers. love doesn't walk out the door.

you didn't feel love or anything like it. you felt greed and manipulation and the fun of the game.

you can try and spin it any way you want, honey, but that wasn't love. keep telling that story if you like, but i don't think anyone, not even you, believes it.

toxic friendships

I unintentionally destroyed a relationship with a boyfriend by having negative energy. I got to a point where school, finances, family problems, and busy-ness of life got to me. When I was out and about, I was a happy, cheerful, friendly person with people who didn't know me as well. When we got home, just me and him, I was awful. I was negative and down and depressed, unresponsive and unhappy. My negative energy killed our relationship. He was great, fun and funny, fantastic and supportive, sweet and thoughtful, and I got so bogged down by the negatives that I forgot that or couldn't see that and I lost someone really important to me.

That was a few years ago. And in this quest to find me and figure out who I want to be, I had that epiphany tonight when I realized I'm friends with certain people who do to me what I did to this boy. They will be smiling and kind with everyone else and then just turn and take out all their frustration and negative energy on me. Yes, we all get like this from time to time, but this has been an ongoing thing for some time now. I know I have become someone or am working hard to be someone who is positive and looks on the bright side as much as possible about everything, so maybe they just subconsciously think I can handle it or their negativity won't affect me. But it does, and tonight, it broke me. I really got upset and let it get to me. I gave up.

I know I can be a sensitive person and sometimes this can mean I let things get to me, but I'm not out of line or crazy when I say this would have gotten to anyone. That boy and I eventually broke up because the relationship just wasn't fun anymore, for either of us. These friendships need to be evaluated, perhaps, in the same way. Either something is got to change, or I want out. It's really that simple. I can't keep playing the positive to everyone's negative. It might me I'm not as strong a positive person as I thought, but... that's that. There are so many amazing people in my life who are positive and full of good energy, and then there are those who I keep trying to make positive and I honestly don't know how much more I can go when I continuously get shut down.

Peace and love, x's and o's.

simply put- i'm still learning.

I've thought as I'm rushing through so many things in the past couple of weeks "man, I should really blog about..." this or that, and lo and behold, none of those posts have come into fruition. So now I'm sitting here, waiting for past inspiration to re-spark, perhaps, and I've got nada. So, as opposed to picking a topic, maybe a summary of my semi-recent past, a recap-ing of the year, of sorts?

I have a very hard time seeing past where I am in the present into the future, so I think back to college, specifically senior year, and I have no idea what or if I had any expectations of where I'd be right now. I hoped working in a theatre, professionally, somewhere East Coast, so of my most minimializing details, I managed to fill those aspirations.

However, I know for a multitude of reasons that this isn't "it". Many really don't need to be gotten into, if only because I found it ironically disturbing watching a movie earlier and an older actor was commenting on how this young generation right now (in which I am at best in the oldest category of) likes to blog their every single thought, no matter how trite or insignificant. So, I'm trying to stop myself, while being the rambling, angsty, post-adolescent I strive to grow out of.

There are people I miss in places where I have little artistic future if I want to continue in this field. There are places that are full of dreams, if only I had the financial means to throw myself into them. There are places where I can have a house with a white picket fence and buy every little cutesy thing I want because I'll have a house to fill that will be mine, that I won't be leaving in a year, or two, or three. There are places where I know one person for the entire city, state, but it would be such a great place to live. There are jobs all over, where I know not a soul, where I would be starting at the square one again of not knowing where to go, how to get anywhere, not having a friend or companion. And there's my great inability to see past the present to know which direction I should shoot. And not for a lack of effort either. I ask my present self what I'd like to do, and that person just kind of scratches her head and stares back at me, puzzled, perplexed, utterly distraught at the idea of change, that every altering state that brings terror to all.

A week ago I was in Lawrence. At present, I'm back at the ol' staff house, listening to Pink Floyd (I'm so bad ass, I know), after having watched not one, but two Redbox movies- back to back, no less- get down with yo' bad self. That's right, "Easy A", followed by "Going The Distance". The first, while well-intentioned (and with a not half-bad soundtrack), was trying to be a little too John Hughes, while being completely disconnected and scattered- I'm not sure whether to blame the original story, the directing, or the editing. Regardless... meh. Cute, but meh. The second, had a much deeper undertone. Very light and funny and jokey and Justin Long even reminding me of my own friends at times, but also deeper and harder and relate-able- something about that missing somebody who lives across the country thing- frak, that blows. And you can know each other so well and be so compatible and then not see each other for so long that when you do, you're nervous and you say the wrong things and it gets awkward when there's no reason for it to be. Not that I'm speaking from personal experiences or anything...

Other, bigger things- death. I feel weird "blogging" about specifics, because I feel like to put that sort of topic into the social media or a blogging atmosphere in anyway whatsoever is trite and devaluing somehow. So, sans specifics... I don't really know where to go.

Alright... this is a disconnected ramble of a post, the length to write equivalent approximately to the amount of time it takes to listen to "Echoes"- thanks Pink Floyd.

iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou... i love you.

the lies we tell.

What a cheesy title. Sorry about that. This is a post about lies. (We used to do journal entries in J-1 and then end them with 'this is a story about... so, same idea).

Remember when you were a kid and your mom or dad would be leaving to go somewhere and leave you home alone but they said if someone called, not to tell that person that you were home alone, so tell them your mom or dad was in the shower or something? Well, I was terrible at that lie. I'm terrible at every lie, but I look back on what should be the simplest of lies and remember a stuttering, stumbling 7-year-old going "Oh, uh, um, my, uh, she's, um, I think she's in the shower?" And yet, however many odd years later, here I am in theatre, still incapable of telling the smallest white lie. They're just not my style. I will avoid the truth, but if you ask me point blank, I just can't lie.

I found in talking to one of the questioners (see back entries) that as all those life questions get thrown out like it's the weather, I skirt all around, with ums and ohs and shrugs and nods. If there's a question I don't know the answer to, I'm completely and utterly speechless.

But you're taking the time to read my blog, so here's some truths about me I do know. Little facts I don't go out of my way to make public knowledge- not like I'm hiding them or anything, but just things that never seem to come up, perhaps? I don't know. Anyway... In the indeterminable future, I would like to run a marathon. Perhaps start with a half or something like that, but run a marathon. Or maybe even a freaking triathlon. I love swimming and biking, running is the hard part. So the running is the important part to defeat. I weigh on average about one hundred forty-seven pounds, as far as I know, the most I've ever weighed to date. I think flirtatious people in relationships are skeeeetchy. I think it's possible I think this because I've been a flirtatious person in a relationship and I know the thoughts that have crossed my mind when flirting while in that relationship. And yet, I find myself attracted to and simultaneously turned off by flirtatious people in relationships. Maybe it's the fun with no fear of commitment, but then there's that feeling of what kind of person would be in a relationship and flirt with someone else? Am I projecting fears about myself on other people? I'm currently listening to Death Cab's "Transatlanticism" album because it's my favorite of all of theirs- I listened to it on repeat junior year of high school. I obsessively do sudoku puzzles. I love mental math. I still sleep with my retainers in. For reasons undisclosed even to myself, I make it impossible to love me. I haven't worn a dress in over two weeks and this bothers me. I have yet to figure out where I completely one hundred percent fit in. Before my grandmother passed away, she gave me the Anne of Green Gables books and I still have yet to read them- but I should. They're sitting on my bookshelf in my room here, because they are special enough to have needed to travel with me the 1300 miles. I really like breakfast, but I rarely get up early enough to properly eat it- I miss first semester of college when Erin, Andy W, and I would get up early just to go eat breakfast together daily. I think being outside with a drink on a warm night with terrific company is one of my favorite things in the world. The older I get, the more I hate talking on the phone- I don't seem to be getting any better at it than I was at 7, though I tried and enjoyed it for several teen years.

This started as a blog about lies, but sort of turned into a blog of random facts... I am a scatter of strangeness. Take that and this for what you well. I am still in the process of "growing up", of figuring out who I am, who and what I want to be. So for now, I am a scatter of random facts, trying to figure out which pieces make up the significance of the future. One of the multitude of things that only time will tell...

X's and O's, Peace and Love.

decisions then, results now.

This is just one of those isn't-it-crazy-how-I-got-here posts. Basically, I was thinking, what got me into theatre? First, I danced. When I was going into first grade, we moved. I started all over at a new school, having only done it a year prior. For an extremely shy kid, to do it all over was terribly difficult. When I started second grade, my mom thought maybe dance would help me to be less shy or to make more friends (not that I didn't make friends in first grade, but still) or something. So she took me to sign up for dance, where I met Kathy, one of my teachers, who told me I had the perfect legs to dance (at 8! Who knew!), something that I have never thought to question since that day, because who would just say that to an 8-year-old? No one. IT MUST BE TRUE.

Anywho, fast forward to freshman year of high school. Still dancing, on the drill team, yada yada. One of my best friends convinces me I should audition for the musical. I do, terrified, do a horrendous job, and don't make it (to this day, thank you dad for going with me to brave the cast list results). How utterly disheartening. Regardless, this somehow started a curiosity and interest in participating in theatre. So for that, I have to thank a girl I no longer talk to. I digress.

After that musical, I saw all the shows, sometimes would go into the theatre and watch a minute or two of other rehearsals throughout the year. My sophomore year, I auditioned again and made it. Thus began the bloom of friendships that my teen years thrived upon, some of the best and brightest and funniest and full-hearted people I have ever known, who filled me with joy and love and confidence and laughter. The fact that I am still in theatre is owed entirely to them.

As, I had a choice once to give it up. End of junior year, I ran for the officer board. There were ten spots and I tied with one other girl for the last spot. Our teacher made the final vote, and since the other girl had already been on the board the year before (and perhaps for other reason as well that I'll never know), she chose her. And that absolutely flat out broke my heart. I spent a long summer trying to figure out if I still wanted to do theatre, as that was a tragic hit to my self-confidence, and now, looking back, probably a complete destroying of my relationship to my teacher, as at 17, she voted against me. I think I see it as more profound now then I did at the time, but my god, as a teenager, for someone who is supposed to help you and support you and build you up and teach you and make you a better person and belief in you- to vote against you, to say you are unworthy or not good enough- holy crap. How much more opposite of what you're trying to do with your position in my life could you be going by being the person to make that sort of decision?

But back to the amazing people that I could never give up. Ten people on that board. Two were the boys who reassured all of my teenage fears by showing me they had the exact same ones, by showing me what I was going through was what we were all going through. By holding my hand, by making me laugh when I cried, by making me cry from laughing so hard. One of them knew I still wanted to be on that board, and while going through his own stuff, didn't want to be on it anymore, so two-thirds of the way through the year, he resigned his position- to me. And he and the other nine officers made me my own officer ceremony, with official words and lights of cell phones in lieu of candles. Ten people did this for me. Ten people found me worthy.

I may be over-dramatizing the whole thing quite a lot, but it is because of those ten people and several more I met in that department that I am who I am and where I am today. They touched my heart and had a profound impact on my life and shared my passion and drive for theatre. They are people that are not easily forgotten, even when I live thousands of miles away from all of them. There is a love and a respect and feeling of gratitude that will never go away. They are fantastic human beings and no matter where we go in live and how far geography may separate us, there was a time when all of our hearts worked as one and for that, I am forever humbled to have been a part of something so special and it is why I continue to strive to work so hard at what I do and who I am today. So thank you, my loves, for sharing you with me. All my love to you.

X's and O's, Peace and Love.