Smile...

I'm sitting at my desk at 6:12 on a Monday night...

...and I'm smiling.

What a pleasant change of pace.

I think, that maybe, I could get used to this world.

Chaos

Brilliant: Marty finally gets his Oscar.

Beautiful: A school bus, seven of the people I care most about in the world, a snowstorm and me at the wheel.

Bizarre: That god damn rabbit.

As all hell breaks loose around me this morning I stop for a moment...to say thanks.

For everything.

"Life is the pause in a moment of chaos that allows you to shout, "I'm still here."" - Palomba

Paix, amour, mythes de bonheur... faits par les hommes pour expliquer la vie.

Odd.

I think...and I can't really be sure about this, but I think...

I think I'm heartbroken.

Now I know that sounds odd since I'm not in love or ever have been in love or ever will be in love. And how can someone who lives without that sort of love ever really be heartbroken?

But...

There it is nonetheless.

It makes less sense the more you look at it. And I've made mistakes before, been wrong before, may very well be wrong right now.

But...

I would do anything for them.

Anything.

And I hope beyond hope that they understand how very serious I am when I say that.

It's different then it is with bigger groups, where no matter how hard you try you can't like everybody, can't get to know everybody, can't look out for everybody. Different then it was when I was younger, when no matter how much I wanted to I simply didn't have the means or experience to do the things I wanted to do.

But I'm still sixteen in my head.

You love and are afraid no one will love you back. You lose and are afraid no one notices you're gone. You put yourself out there and worry about how you'll be received.

You trust other people but will not trust yourself.

But...

Why should I trust myself? I have made these mistakes before. Asked God to take away feelings I couldn't handle myself and as soon as they were gone realized how big of a mistake it was. I won't make that mistake again.

It's time.

I'm crushed with sorrow and grief over losing something I haven't even lost yet.

I've gotten ahead of myself in the worst possible way.

That's just part of being me. You sort of get used to it. You also get over it...kind of.

"Everybody can see, it's plain as day, we Palomba's, we fall hard. Real hard. But not everbody knows our secret. You see, we may fall hard but...we bounce." - Palomba

Shit. This Is Bad.

Twitchy.

All of a sudden I'm twitchy.

This is new.

I was sitting here at my desk, in my office, where I've spent the better (and I use that word lightly) part of the last three years and suddenly I noticed the walls were melting.

Now logically we both know the walls couldn't have been melting. I was fully aware of this fact at the time, but nonetheless, there were the walls of my office. And they were melting.

Suddenly I'm thinking about the late Mr.Olsen's third period history class my sophomore year of high school and how everyday we would watch out the windows as a groundhog would walk across the softball field at just about the exact same time.

Everything in my office is sort of grey and slow...and the walls are still melting but now everything else is getting sort of blurry.

I'm thinking that next week I have a lot of homework due.

Except I've been out of school for nearly three years now and I can't imagine any possible scenario under which I would ever have to do homework again.

It looks like its about to rain. And there's a pressure behind my ears. My throat is dry.

My mother doesn't like it when I drive in the rain. I've only had my license for three weeks. It's cold but refuses to snow.

The dorm room is a moldy yellow with cold tile floors. My roommate is tall and has funny ear piercings. We watch MTV all night, but never talk to each other. He speaks French in his sleep and I wonder if he's plotting to kill me. When I tell him he speaks French in his sleep he seems surprised.

I'm hiding in a shower of the bathroom on the first floor of the girl's dorm. I'm wrapped in a red sheet. There's shaving cream on my legs. Did this really happen?

She's a little girl playing on the rug with the tv running in the background while we all sit at the table eating burnt grilled cheese sandwiches and drinking tomato soup out of coffee cups. Why am I bleeding?

I'm in love. She's too young. I'm in love. She's too old. I'm in love. I've never been in love. I'm not in love. I'm too young to be so old. I'm so cold. Am I?

The walls are melting. I can taste it.

Twitch.

Shit. This is bad.

Poetry

"Sometimes you die when you can't get where you're going,
and sometimes you die when you're done.
But life's about a whole lot more than just living,
and dying ain't nearly as fun." - T.O. Hob, A Country Song

I don't feel right.

In the waking moment this morning I thought:

Life isn't worth living. I don't care about anything. I need to change...everything.

But these were not my thoughts. The worm which had worked its way loose in my head had returned to burrow it's way back into my consciousness...and suddenly I didn't feel right again.

Nothing is ever easy around here.

"Some people beg forgiveness for their sins...other people just pay for them." - T.O. Hob


I just had one of the greatest weekends of my life. I don't know what it says about me that the older I get the better I relate to these kids. That it becomes easier for me to care about them, easier for me to get along with them, easier for me to just be me. Maybe I'm getting better at this, or maybe I'm just getting better period. I don't know and for the moment I don't care.

You let go, you hold on, you let loose upon this world a feeling of epic proportions.

" Little Sallie Walker...walking down the street." - Hob

I spent the whole weekend trying to figure out who it was and when it finally blindsided me in the closing hours I couldn't believe I had missed it. She was right there in front of me the entire time. We were a lot alike. So I could have done something to help her, make some sort of connection, make some sort of difference, something...and I didn't, I blew it.

I am such a fuck up.

"Mistakes are like men. They grow old and die. You can only hope to outlive them." - T.O. Hob

I never really cared about anything. Never really cared about anyone. For a long time I was so cold. Maybe I would have been better off staying like that. It would hurt less to lose people then. But...

If the only options are hurting or being numb which is really worse?