Losing it

Heavy sigh. My best friend lives in California, which, for me, is light years away. I don't have the money to visit her, and she doesn't have the money to visit me either, but she was planning a trip anyway, but then her car broke down and so now she can't come because the money she was going to spend on the trip she had to spend on her car. We're both leaving for college very soon. I'm really bummed out, but on the other hand I can't help but think of how much I love her and miss her and then, I figure if she's half as stressed out about leaving home, she's probably tired and crabby and irratable
I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't sleep at night anymore. I can't. I can't shut my tired eyes. I can't move...and then I sleep during the day to catch up. But I never dream. I wake up every couple of hours before REM sleep happens, which is very unhealthy. Last night I was up til 4 Am...because lately it seems that during the day it is hot, and at night there is lighteningstorms early in the morning. But they aren't loud, just bright flashes of silver light, and then I can never sleep until they are over. They start at 3 am or 4. I generally can't make myself eat after 11, and I sleep during the day until at least noon. I feel like I'm missing out on my family somehow. I'm leaving them. I'm leaving literally everything I've ever known. Where I'm going, I won't know anyone, or anything. Except what I already know about the place. I picked this particular college because it was a good distance away from home because I wanted to know what it would be like to have some independence. The independence will be wonderful. But the missing my family, somehow I overlooked in my college search. Sigh. I'm ready. I'm ready for this. I've been building all my life up to this moment.
Except the fact that Dad told me that senior year...the summer after senior year of high school is the most fun summer because you don't yet know what it is to be a poor college student. However, the way I spend my money, or rather...the way I SAVE my money because of the parent's constant badgerings, I would dare to argue with him that I DO know how it feels to be a poor college student. Of course they would just roll their eyes and say "You have no idea" but then I look at some other kids. The ones who get to eat out once or twice a week, the ones who could always do everything and be in every activity they ever wanted, the ones who always had the coolest toys and the coolest clothes. I never had that. I will never experience having that. Because even if I grow one day to have alot of money, I won't eat out twice a week. I won't enroll in every exercize class or bridge club. I won't buy cool toys or gadgets, I won't become the sort of person who cares about fashion. Because that's not me. That will never be me.
Don't even get me started about how much I hate shopping. Like for clothes. Ugh!
If I had money, like alot of money, I don't know what I would do. I'd first have to help my parents get their feet on the ground financially, because it's always what they've always wanted I guess. It is so rediculous how they fight over money. It's so rediculous how they make one another feel, when, in truth, we have alot of very nice things. Of course, my father believes that you should never buy anything unless it is supposed to last. But the problem with that of course is that technology is changing so fast. CDs are going out, MP3 disks are coming in. Tapes are a thing of the past, now DVDs are even giving way to newer forms of technology.
Computers are changing really fast too. As soon as you buy a new computer, there are already viruses out to get it, and you then get virus software which also gets outdated every month or so. It is the way of the world. Out with the old in with the new.
But I was talking about my friend, my life....
And now I'm annoyed. Because it is always the blogs that people focus on themselves so much that nobody ever pays any attention to unless they know the person. I know that, when I die, my journals (and there are many) will never be published because they are so boring. I mean, it's all about me and my life and my problems and my friends and my thoughts. And only someone who needs to get a life wants to read about someone elses. Nobody really cares what I think about so-and-so. Nobody really cares about what I did today. Or what my middle name is. Or any of it. Except me. I care. I care alot. Kristen cares. But Kristen, you see, she is starting to fade. She's always so crabby because she doesn't eat or sleep the way people should. She doesn't have any energy anymore. She doesn't have anything to do. It's like our life was put on hold until college. She cares what I do, but how much does she care about other people? I suppose she should care more. I should just tell her "Kristen, you need to be more caring." And I wonder if she'll listen. What does one occupy oneself with from 12:00am to 4? As for Kristen and I, we blog and talk to each other (quietly) and sometimes we go on MSN. We both need some encouragement and neither of us have the energy to give it to one another.
And we worry too much these days what people think of us. It's like, part of me thinks that people should be like, treating me extra nice before I'm gone. But then that's self-centered. And I'm not the easiest person to be around these days. Especially because I'm sleeping all the time.
I always think, today will be the day that I will stay up all night...into tomorrow. I'll be up, and I'll finally be able to fall asleep at about 11 and stay that way for a while. But no.
This morning I had a small success of a breakthrough. I was up at 9. So I got 4 hours of sleep, instead of my normal 12. 12 hours is too much sleep. But then I slept tonight from 9 to 11. Making it 6 hours...but now I'm up again. I'll be up for some time. Who knows.

I am sad. Kristen is sad too. Maybe it isn't attention that she needs. I think it's credit for what she did. But then what is it that she should have credit for? Getting this group of friends together? Starting the 'party' life? And now, some of these people, my dear friends that I'm leaving, I don't feel that bad about. And it makes me feel guilty that I don't think I'll miss them. That's why Kristen's a mess too. I think. And then I feel like, all the friendships that I have don't mean as much anymore. I mean, surely, some of them do, but some of them just don't really do that much for me anymore. And it scares me. It scares me to death losing some of the people that I love so much...my closest friends and family. But I'm supposed to move on now. And they're supposed to stay.

An Essay

MY DESK IS ALIVE

My desk is alive, it's alive, IT'S ALIVE! When the lights are out, the notebooks and the text books come out and sing. It's an ocean of books and paper. The desk itself comes alive and eats people's worries and it runs along. They come in the night only.

The books make their way to my bedroom. They go swirling round and round and farther and farther away from my school. All the books in my house arise and joins in on the haunting melody. The characters from the books all came alive to join in with the haunting chant. Suddenly, my math teacher jumps out of my math text book. Peter pan is spying for Wendy, John and Michael. Dorothy, and Toto, and Glinda, and the Wicked Witch of the West screaming

"I'm melting! I'm melting, oh what a whirl, what a whirl, what a whirl!" all twirled up into an endless cyclone.

All my fears and worries were sucked into a pen that wrote them down. Pencils scurry and write down my hopes and dreams. They write a haunted story about a deserted island. My mind travels time, and mountains grow.

While all of that is happening, Tarzan is screaming. White Fang howls, goblins scream, Bilbo hops, Gollum hisses: "yess my pressiousss" Charlette is building cobwebs all over. Frankenstein grieves over his creation. In the middle of it all, there is a wizard chanting:

Wishing, swishing

Wanting, dreaming

never stopping

never ending

grinding bones

for gruesome bread

Never stopping

Till all are DEAD!!

The second he shouted "DEAD" the floor gave way and EVERYTHING fell into a maze of darkness. Continuing it's haunting song.

At the end of the hole, someone caught me. I spent a lengthy month with the couple who had caught me.

IT took me a week to figure out why I heard singing in my sleep. Not the harsh, haunting sounds of the books, but a sweet, soft, flowing melody. I found a trap door within another week. As I walked I plunged into a deep, dark, water-filled hold. I screamed, I couldn't breathe, the stench was unbearable. I thought I would pass out. I opened my eyes, the melody had stopped. I saw a dark figure. She had long flowing hair. She whispered something. Suddenly, I could breathe! (hey-that's a big thing when your lungs are on the verge of popping) I sucked in fresh air. I looked around. I was in the middle of an ocean! Suddenly, a great blue whale tossed me up, up, up...into the air. I was scared, but I instinctively knew what to do. I dove. I went down twenty feet! I saw it plunge playfully at me again. We played our game for hours. For the first time, I realized I didn't have legs, but fins and beautiful green, blue and silver scales. The weird thing was, I didn't care. I swam from the east coast of Japan to California. I met sea turtles, and whales, and dolphins. One day, I saw people collecting turtle eggs on the beach. Disgusting! Yuck.

One day, I saw a gray mist in the distance. Wow! I thought, a new game... but as it came in closer... I snapped to reality. I swam as fast as I could, but I couldn't escape the oncoming tornado of books. I got tangled in the weeds. The tornado of books came closer. It carried me into the sky. The wizard chanted an uneven spell:

Blossom bloom,

Blossom fall

Can't you see it all?

If you see a kind of goal,

Try it and it'll take your soul.

Mountains cry "doom is done"

It's as simple as the rising sun.

Blossoms bloom

Blossoms fall

We won't stop

till' destroyed is all.

NOOO! I wailed. I woke up, but what was I doing in the library?

I wrote this when I was in fifth grade.

I'm proud of it, it started me as a writer.

No thanks to my teacher who thought it was weird.

Who also missed alot of grammar and spelling mistakes that I corrected.

Bleh!

A Rant

Will you remember me? I don't think you will. It seems to me that you're always so self-interested in self-preserving what you have. You say that I will not remember you. That is not true. I will never forget you. But will we keep in touch? Probably not. We aren't even doing that now. It makes me so sad to think that it is now the other way around. And then there are other people, namely one of my neighbors, not the one you would think of though, who I can't even remember her name anymore. It's like she doesn't ever call me, it's like she wants nothing to do with me. I'm sorry, I'm very sorry if I ever offended you. I'm very sorry if you're going through something hard right now, something I don't understand or know about. But all I can say is that I love you and that you will get through it. You are so wonderful...but I feel ignored.............WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU!

The War

The war on terror. There are many sides. The conservitives hate the liberals and likewise we hate them back, but the real question is, what should we do about the war.
I don't think we should have gone to Iraq in the first place, but since we are there, I think we're at least doing the right thing now in trying to set up a new government. But I wonder if we hadn't stepped in. Saddam was a tyrant, but the people didn't raise up themselves into protest, we did it for them. Where there should have been a revolution, there was a liberation. If people truly and deeply want to be free, they will unite and they will conquer. But America stepped in instead, before the people of Iraq united to fight, and caused more casualties all around. Because the Iraqis that we are fighting fight a guerrilla war, Americans are killing Iraqi civillians along with the enemy, and this is bringing Iraqi sentiment against us; they are starting to believe that we are evil. And we are starting to believe that they are evil, and if you read Indigored's article, you may find that some of them are evil. But it is wrong to think that all of them are evil. I sense that my life isn't going to be easy because I know that something big is about to happen. And I think that alot of people feel that way and that is why there is so much hate flying around. Fair is foul and foul is fair. Hover through fog and filthy air.

Trouble

Toil. It's rough trying to get some information on the Middle East. First of all, there are sooo many different countries and different cultures there that it is nearly impossible to study such a vast place. And the really hard thing about it is alot of the people there are not all that different from people here, but some of them are, sometimes their values are different and sometimes they're not. I'm having trouble even just breaking it down. I looked at Bahrain...and then at Turks.
But I am fascinated with far-away places. Iran is so far away from my small dull town in the american midwest. The hicks here don't appreciate far away places at all. I really want to know what it's like in the OUTSIDE world. I need to open up my box. I've been living in this hole for too long. Leaving home for college isn't enough. I want to SEE EVERYTHING. Though, this is not that good.
I went to my local library looking for information. All I could find were books on the wars and the American involvment in the middle east. This saddens me because...americans can be so arrogant. Sigh. There are those of us who like to think outside the box, or in my case, the hole. Argh!

Disney

Fair is foul, foul is fair.
How is it fair that the Great and Powerful Micheal Eisner makes tens of thousands of dollars an hour, but the people who do all the work, the small and foul peons who are working...

Fair IS foul

Why did this happen this way? Why does it bother me. It is a happening which happened oh, so long ago. But like a dandilion, fair...he strangled me. And now I am naught.

Sullivan to Sarah, during the Civil War

My very dear Sarah:
The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days -- perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.
Our movement may be one of a few days duration and full of pleasure -- and it may be one of severe conflict and death to me. Not my will, but thine 0 God, be done. If it is necessary that I should fall on the battlefield for my country, I am ready. I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans upon the triumph of the Government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing -- perfectly willing -- to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government, and to pay that debt.
But, my dear wife, when I know that with my own joys I lay down nearly all of yours, and replace them in this life with cares and sorrows -- when, after having eaten for long years the bitter fruit of orphanage myself, I must offer it as their only sustenance to my dear little children -- is it weak or dishonorable, while the banner of my purpose floats calmly and proudly in the breeze, that my unbounded love for you, my darling wife and children, should struggle in fierce, though useless, contest with my love of country?
I cannot describe to you my feelings on this calm summer night, when two thousand men are sleeping around me, many of them enjoying the last, perhaps, before that of death -- and I, suspicious that Death is creeping behind me with his fatal dart, am communing with God, my country, and thee.
I have sought most closely and diligently, and often in my breast, for a wrong motive in thus hazarding the happiness of those I loved and I could not find one. A pure love of my country and of the principles have often advocated before the people and "the name of honor that I love more than I fear death" have called upon me, and I have obeyed.
Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me to you with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly on with all these chains to the battlefield.
The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them so long. And hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when God willing, we might still have lived and loved together and seen our sons grow up to honorable manhood around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me -- perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar -- that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name.
Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish I have oftentimes been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness, and struggle with all the misfortune of this world, to shield you and my children from harm. But I cannot. I must watch you from the spirit land and hover near you, while you buffet the storms with your precious little freight, and wait with sad patience till we meet to part no more.
But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the garish day and in the darkest night -- amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours -- always, always; and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.
Sarah, do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again.
As for my little boys, they will grow as I have done, and never know a father's love and care. Little Willie is too young to remember me long, and my blue-eyed Edgar will keep my frolics with him among the dimmest memories of his childhood. Sarah, I have unlimited confidence in your maternal care and your development of their characters. Tell my two mothers his and hers I call God's blessing upon them. O Sarah, I wait for you there! Come to me, and lead thither my children.
Sullivan

I know he doesn't see.

I know he doesn't know either. He's so far off. But it's hard now. I love him. Part of me feels like I'm lying. Part of me knows that I cannot hold this love anymore. But part of me wants to see him more than anything. I want to wish him a happy 18th. I want to tell him good luck after graduation. I want to know if he's available. I want to see him again. And part of me thinks that that's ok. Part of me knows it's not. Because what if he's still seeing her? What if he's in love with her? What if she's the one for him. I don't know. I never will, will I??? Unless, unless I were to write him. Am I willing to take that leap? Yes. Am I willing to break my heart again? Yes. He was worth it.
But maybe I shouldn't get in his way. Maybe. Maybe if we're really really meant to be together we will be. I have to just trust that. If we're really meant to be together we will be. And no amount of me thinking about it will change that.
And if we're not meant to be together, forcing it will just make it worse.
But I love him.
But I can't.
He's so far.
He chose her...she must be incredible.
Either she is really incredible, or the distance was just too much for him.
Either the distance was too much for him or maybe I'm not as incredible.
Or, maybe he's not the romantic that I thought he was.
How could that be though? After the things we said, the things we promised one another? How can it be that he isn't?
Because he was. He was everything. I didn't deserve him. I wasn't ready.
I wish I could see him again. I remember praying that I could see him one last time so I could tell him goodbye.
And I did.
But now, months later, I have this relapse where I just can't stop thinking about him. Maybe it's because prom came and went. Maybe it's because many of my friends are dating now and pharimones are flying. Maybe it's all the roses everywhere before graduation. Maybe it's just spring. Whatever it is, it's unbearable. And hopeless. And it stings.
And then there's leaving home. Leaving home for college. Breathe. I just really want to see him that's all. I just really want to hold him and forgive him and love him. Maybe I should tell him that. Maybe I should let him know. I remember how I cried that day. I remember how I called my best friend right after we broke up and she helped me get through it. I remember seeing him in everything. I still do. Every time I look at the stars and think of the kiss. Every time the wind blows I hear his name. Every time the sun shines in the blue sky I see his eyes. Unto the insanity that now infiltrates my being and takes over. A little obsessed? Hardly.
I stare at the keyboard tears in my face, and feel nothing. My fingers are electrified with a rage only known to those who know betrayal and heartbreak. A rage only known to young romantics who let the romance become cynicism.
I know he doesn't see, or understand. I know he doesn't feel what I feel. Maybe he's just not as romantic as I was. As I assumed he was.
Fair is foul
Foul is fair.
Hover through fog and filthy air.

Fair

Foul. It's hard to explain. I went to Julliard's webpage. Part of me says "Kristen, why didn't you try?" Why didn't I try? Why didn't I reach for the stars. At least I could have said that I missed. Monty's happy enough with me. And I really do love singing. But only 8% of all the applicants get in! I mean, I'm a good singer. But I would have had to be training for far longer than 2 1/2 years to go THERE. I look at that and I wonder...dang...did I miss my chance for greatness?
And then of course I regain my own dignity (in my head) by telling myself that by going to a small, private, liberal arts school that I am truly exploring life and that there I will be able to really live my dream instead of becoming a performer. But what about performance? Am I suited to it?
I live to perform. I truly feel that I am really living when I'm performing. But I don't think I'm cutthroat enough to go into the performance business. Offstage, they have to put up with so much crap. People who jerk their chains and people who try to jerk their chains, but don't. And how could I tell the difference?
Everyone loves the limelight. Everyone loves attention. But I think the attention that I perfer more than any is just to be enjoyed by my friends. To make those people laugh. That's what I really enjoy the most.
So I'm thinking I'll be a teacher. I think it's only natural that I want to be a teacher. I think that it is because teaching makes you stronger....and when you teach, really you're always learning. And also, teaching touches lives. Forever. I want to help other people to grow.
Sigh. But what if everyone hates me? What if I find my life a sham and find that no matter what kind of beginning I had that I am a failure, and have been, and always will be a failure. Because it seems that no matter how hard I push, I always could have pushed a little harder in hindsight.
And right now, I've got no place to talk of pushing because I have let myself go. Bad Krystn!
Heavy Sigh.

Bubble, Bubble

Toil and trouble.
Fire burn and ice creams double!

There upon the heath bar
To meat with Macbeth
Upon the bear nights car.