The Holidays

ohh Christmas...what do you mean? this holiday season is completely different from all others. my brain is static. my heart is alone. my joy is under construction. the city lights and red-nosed reindeer create a magical atmosphere, a constant i can always rely on this time of year. it's always tough to know that you're going to be alone for the holidays, i hoped this year would be different, but it doesn't seem that way. i'm just a girl with a lot of love to give, but no boy to want it. it's lonesome, and i miss a lot of what used to be. the holidays are difficult to decipher, and i don't have all the answers right now. more to come when i figure more out.

BUT.
i have my best friend. and that's really all i need =]

Hello, College.

hi. i'm all moved in now, into my scarysketch dorm room at virginia commonwealth university. i love being on my own, spending everyday with my best friends and learning things i actually find interesting.

i've decided that i'm in a very transitional period of my life right now. i can't exactly figure out who i am. i know it's not something that i really need to have figured out as of present, but i can't help but wonder. i know what i believe in. and i know what i percieve to be good moral, and nothing is going to change that. i've had a lot of difficulty adjusting to life here. i'm so used to having the cusion of good friends constantly around me, knowing that i'm in a safe place, with people i can trust. i miss the comfort of smalltown life. i miss guard practice everyday and spending all my time with the people that make my life wonderful. college is such a huge place, and i haven't quite got it all figured out yet. i know that this is where i need to be, but sometimes i feel like the only reason i'm here is because that's what society told me to do. when you graduate high school, you go to college. i know that it is childish to even think about not growing up, but that's what i want to do. i want to stay in a time bubble where i'm with my guard and everything is happy. i've never been very good with change, and i can't stand the idea of my happiness drifting further away with every day. i suppose i need to find another source of happiness, another way to feel at home, but it's tough. the whole idea of home is being somewhere where you know people love you and respect you for who you are and i don't feel like i have that right now. honestly, if i didn't have my best friend here with me experiencing all this too, i don't know if i could take it.

i feel like i need to get away. have a good cry, or stand on something very tall and scream out into the wind. i want to be secure in my own self and not have to constantly worry about what people are thinking about me. that's always been a problem of mine, and probably always will be. i never trust people enough to not make judgements of me. i feel like i need to feel the rain, close my eyes and breathe into the sunshine. i need a good old-fashioned day with the people i love, to know that they're still close and not slipping away. the term 'too emotional' keeps playing through my mind as i write this. i guess that's just who i am. emotional. and this is a good way of releasing it.

i know that the days of powhatan winterguard are over for me, and i'm honestly having a really tough time accepting it. it's the only place i've ever been truly happy and really felt like i belonged. i loved the feeling of working so hard for something you cared about. having your ass kicked, and loving every minute of it because you knew that it was making you better. it's been said a million times, but it still is on replay in my head. "what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger." and i guess that applies here too. i'm stuck in this 'real world' where i am no longer someone. i'm just nobody. and that's a horrible concept. comfort and acceptance are very important to me and it's hard to feel either one of those things in a city this big.

i'm very grateful for having my best friend here with me. it's made everything easier and it's a wonderful reminder of what i have back home. we were discussing the other day about what would have happened if we had gone to different schools, and the answer: absolute chaos. and as we both don't need anymore chaos in our lives, it's very good things worked out as well as they did.

i look back at this entry and i realize how many stupid times the sentences start with the word 'i'. i hate it. everything shouldn't be about me and my problems. i've been told that sometimes it's okay to have something for myself, but i feel selfish. like instead of getting my measly self-provoking complications out, i should be out helping the world and taking care of people with real problems. i hope that this remains a place where i feel like using the word 'i', isn't so bad. someday i will make a change in this world for the better and i will actually be able to fulfill my needs through fulfilling the needs of someone else. a way to make the world a better place.

a lot is going on in my life right now, and it's very difficult to accept most of it. i want to feel everything i can, for exactly what it is, be it pain or happiness.

all i can do is look forward and try my best to not look so much into the past. i will always look back those times fondly, they were truly some of the happiest moments of my life. the people i spent those times with are completely irreplaceable and have to have a prominent place in my life in the future. as of right now, i'm signing off on a good note, happy to have gotten this out. college will be a completely new experience for me, something i've always welcomed. i'm happy with my life right now, and i know that everything has it's place in life. i need to make it through this to feel completely content later. 'later' meaning in the next few weeks, months, and years. i welcome this milestone in my life with anxiety and open arms.

Gah.

hi. OHkay. so i just realized what may be my biggest pet peeve. my god. when people make the same freaking face for every. single. picture. they. take. i mean come one! mix it up! maybe throw in happiness, or apathy, or exasperation or sommmmme sort of emotion. if every picture in existence of you has the same pouty, kissy, generic, myspacemirror look to it, i'm talking to you! variety is a good thing. embrace it. take it out to dinner. and then maybe people won't remember you as the person whose face froze for all time in the most ridiculous of manners.

just something to think about.

oh. also. i love free slurpee day =]

peace.

I. Hate. Towing. Trucks.

hi. so on friday, heather and i went to the canal club in richmond to see her boss' band, memory fade, play. they were really good and i even got a free cd, despite my attempts to win one in a bet that if we beat the drummer, zane, in pool, i'd get a free cd. that didn't work out too well for me. but anyway, the band was really cool, and super nice, and they finished their set at around eleven, so we started to make our way home. let my paint you a pretty little picture:

two seventeen year olds in schockoe bottom, richmond, walking down the street on a friday night, at 11 pm. they turn the corner and suddenly realize that the car that they arrived in has suddenly disappeared. who else to blame but marshall bros. towing specialists? the two girls then call the number on the billboard, conveniently located for all the towees to see. the two girls then walk across the street to the parked police car, explaining that they are underage and that their car has been towed. the nice policemen find a nice cab company to take the two girls on a nice drive to a nice hellasketch street in the outskirts of henrico.

so. upon arrival at the towing services office, we notice that the lights are out, and no one seems to be home. so we call the towing guy and he says that he'll be there in about twenty minutes. pah! heather and i sit in front of the office, on the ground (making sure, of course, we're in clear view of the camera, so if any one murders us, they'll have it on tape) for about 45 minutes before the towing guy decides to show up, towing along with him, two more cars. i mean really, who tows cars at midnight? that's people's way to get home. should be illegal. anyway. he shows up and heather doesn't have enough moeny on her card so we end up paying 55$ in cash, 50$ on her card, and 50$ on my card. yes. that's 155$ plus the 25$ from the cab fare of unpredicted, unnecessary pay. the guy finally releases our car and we are back on the road at around 1 am. ohhhh the adventures that define my life =]

peace.



FABULOUS Marshall Bros. Towing Specialists.

Wishlist.

hi. i wish i was the type of person who didn't need acceptance from everyone. i wish i didn't spend most of my time trying to figure out who i am and what my place in this world is. i just want to be able to be me. live each day for what it is and not worry about what the future holds. the present moment is such an amazing thing. there's nothing else like it and it's the only real thing in this world that is perpetually changing and infinite. i don't want my life to be determined by someone else's view on things. i want to be able to express how i feel without fear of judgment.
maybe it's okay to not be constantly worried about searching for ourselves. maybe we just do our best and through helping others, we find out who we are. maybe it's okay to sometimes let all your feelings and emotions go, and just dive into what's happening around us. and maybe it's okay to not have the right words all the time. maybe the right thing to say isn't always said through words, but through actions and thoughts.

peace.

'Mallows Have A Way...

hi. so yesterday, at about noon, i get a text message from jared saying i need to go to food lion. now, yes. it was noon. food lion is about a two minute drive. and getting out of the house seemed like the right thing to do. but i was in my pajamas, and i was very sore from a night of unintentional moshing at an envy on the coast/anberlin/taking back sunday concert at the national. and my dad was already mad because i hadn't done anything since i had gotten back from london. but i asked him, and he said yes. so i get to food lion, and i find jared standing, looking at jell-o in aisle three. he has a full basket, and i've already missed the majority of his intensive shopping list. and all he has left is marshmallow cream/fluff/mess. he says he can't find it. we look everywhere. probably circling the store three times. finally, we walk into the organic section (next to the peanut butter and mexican delicacies) and find something called ricemallow fluff. we make fun of it. then a nice vegan girl asks if we're vegan. i told her i was when i was born, because my mother was, jared said he like meat.

finally, we got the bright idea of asking someone. and the unhealthy, a-organic 'mallow cream/fluff/mess was hidden behind the lance crackers. sneaky.

then we proceeded to the gas station, where we bought four lotto tickets, hoping to win a bunch to take us to london...sadly, we were let down.

thought of the day: love everyone. for exactly who they are.

peace.

Back From the Land of Scones!

hi. i just got back from my trip to england and ireland with my grandparents, uncle, and cousin yesterday. the flights were crazy and dumb. and trying to get over there, we were left on the runway for three hours. it was a blast though...my cousin and i had a lot of fun. and apparently, much to our amusement, over there, when they say Adidas, they say 'ahdeedahs'. we were at this mega sports store in oxford circle and this lady with a megaphone was calling customers in to see the giantmegablowout sale. they have Nikks. Pyoomas. and Ahdeedahs. lovely. and also, on the bus, as we were poking fun at the ahdeedahs, singing in operatically, this nice british old man told us he liked our singing so much, that we had a mind to stay on the bus and miss his stop. cheers mate.

i'm back home. and already want to go back. i'm planning a photography adventure for sometime late june with my friend, jared. we're going to go to london, stay with my uncle, and be immersed in the art scene of london, england.

okay. time to go re-familiarize myself with my besties. i haven't seen them in eight days, and it feels like twenty seven years. and of course, where better to have a loud, outright obnoxious reunion than the mall? then maybe a movie, and then planning our photographic, english accented adventure with jared. funnn day.

peace.

The First.

hi. this is my small, yet infinite, piece of the world. and no, i'm not dumb. i misspelled it for a reason. i am a very peace-oriented person. i promote non-violence.

a bit about me:
i live in virginia, in a small town. in my short seventeen years, i've experienced a lot. i've been to many different countries, and i love to be emersed in different cultures. i have two dogs, a crazy mother, and a hard-working, strong willed father. i take after my mother in a lot of ways, but i always make sure i've got my head together. i am addicted to movies, friends, and laughter. i can make people laugh, usually by accident. i just graduated this past saturday, and i figure now is the right time to make a memento of myself online. the online universe is huge, and i honestly never expect anyone to read this. except myself, when i'm old and senile. this is a way to express myself through writing.

photography. film. art. music. winterguard. it's me.

today. my mother asked me where the remote was. we looked for a while. we found it in the dishwasher. i was confused, while my mother commented, "oh yeah..."

tomorrow, i leave for london with my grandparents, uncle, and cousin. eight hour plane ride. joy.

my guard and myself. the best friend and i.

my usual cause of complications: my earring.

my often-occurring gangsterself.

and me.
off to go pick up the best friend for a night of well-mannered frivolity.

peace.