Vision

The thing I mainly like about having glasses now is that I don't have to feel self-conscious about my face. I don't feel like I should be wearing eyeliner or mascara because what does it matter? My glasses feel like they cover up my whole face.

Also, when people first meet me, they probably just think "glasses." They don't evaluate what I look like, maybe, because there are just these big glasses staring back at them.

I like that.

Maybe it's cowardly, but I can shield myself with my glasses.

Also I can see.

It really helps to see.

Christmas Pizza

When I started going to Malone, I didn't know anyone. I knew a couple of Betsy's friends who were also freshmen, but they weren't particular friends of mine, just people I knew and chatted with when I ran into them. I was nervous about it, it being college, at the beginning of senior year, but by the end of the year I was really glad I was going to be starting over with a new group of friends and a whole new environment. For various reasons, senior year sucked a lot. I'm not saying that to be all mysterious and dramatic and vague. I'm saying because I'm over the stuff that happened then, and looking back it was all for the best and I don't need to talk about why it sucked. But I'm mentioning that it was terrible because that's the reason why I didn't make a huge effort to stay in touch with my friends from high school last year. Of course I was really busy adjusting to my new schedule and friends which played a large part as well. After all, I still loved my friends. I just wanted to take some time to distance myself from...well, pretty much everything. Even people I love, people who were there for me. I needed time off.

This year has been really nice, because I'm getting back in touch with friends I haven't seen much since I started college. For example, the week before Christmas, I met up with some choir friends at the Christmas Candlelight Concert our choir performs at every year.. I was worried at first that we were all going to be too different and it was going to be one of those terrible moments when you realize that your old friends aren't friends anymore, but as soon as I saw the first couple of friends, I knew it was going to be okay. I saw Jake first, because he's pretty flipping tall, and grinned a cheesy grin, because it was just like old times, guys. Then I saw Ginny, and she ran over and gave me a huge hug, and reminded me that we NEED to hang out, especially since I'm only about 15 minutes away from her when I'm at Malone. And then we talked about how we sat next to each other for years and years and she always thought that as long as she held her music up in front of her face our director couldn't tell what she was doing at all. (Shout out to Ginny, who told me that night that she reads this blog. Woo hoo!) Ginny was ushering and Jake was with his parents, so they left to go show people to their seats and sit down, respectively. Then Melanie showed up, and that was exciting. I still talk to Melanie on a pretty regular basis, so we just goofed off and waited for Andrew, the other former chorister we were sitting with. He gave us a pretty skillful double-hug when he showed up, and we all went in.  The concert was fantastic, of course, and afterwards we went to Luigi's, which definitely has the best pizza in the world. Originally I wasn't going to be able to go, because Mom had to pick Dad up someplace else as soon as the concert was over, but Ginny offered to give me a ride back home (even though it's an HOUR DRIVE, for Pete's sake) and then Mom said they could meet her halfway, and so all was right with the world.

It was a really good night. We were loud and full of laughter and stories about college life and the last choir trip they'd been on. Baby Alex protested his nickname of Baby Alex (there are two people named Alex in our group of friends, and he's the younger one), and Caitlin talked about how certain members of the choir none of us had gotten along with were doing. On the ride back with Ginny, we talked about our lives and how her brother steals her breakfast cereal and almost got lost, and promised to keep in touch this semester.

I guess I'm trying to say that I've had enough time off from high school, and I think I'm ready to renew these old friendships. That's what I learned over my Christmas break.

Vintage

I've been thinking about quality a lot lately.
Like, someone with a "quality" voice for musical theatre now would have been considered a terrible singer 20 years ago, because styles change. Or people say that American movies are the best quality, and that our acting is better, but isn't that just a matter of opinion?
What about music? The music that I like, other people don't. Does that mean that they like "bad" music and I like "good" music.
It might be unfair to judge things in such a black and white way. I'm trying to see art as not a matter of good and bad, but of personal taste. Maybe people should just say that they don't prefer things.
It's really hard not to judge, though. It's really easy to make fun of stuff that I think is crap.
It's really easy to make fun of stuff in general.

Look at that. Hippies. Hippies wear the AWESOMEST clothes, hands down. I would dress like that if a) I had those clothes and b) I were beautiful. It's all headbands and bright colors. Geez.

Sometimes I get in the mood to watch every All American Rejects music video there is. I don't care if that's wrong. I love them. I taught Noraa to sing "Swing Swing" when she was too little to even understand the words.

I saw my grades. Even though I was sure I was going to get a B for Foundations of British Literature, I managed to pull an A out of that class. So I have all As for every semester, which is crazy. People keep asking my parents how I'm doing and stuff, and they're always like "Did she get her first B yet?"
I study a lot, I guess.

It's almost Christmas! It's almost flipping Christmas!

Too much

When I first started listening to the Beatles, I felt like I was listening to music for the first time. It isn't like I'd never liked music before, but most of the music I listened to was music my parents listened to or music I was exposed to in choir. I didn't have my very own favorite band. Not really. I went through a period where I really liked Train and listened to their albums constantly, especially when I was writing. I also once identified strongly with punk rock and ska music, but didn't have any favorites. When I started listening to the Beatles, I knew that I wanted to listen to every single thing they ever performed. I bought my first CD within the next week. I looked up each of them on Wikipedia, then found out everything I could about each album, then each song. Before long, I was getting books out from the library. LOOONG books. Extensive biographies. At first I read without thinking, not stopping to consider which authors were biased toward John or Paul, or which simplified events to the point of meaninglessness. While reading one biography, I realized that I recognized the source the author was using. That started happening more and more often, and I began to realize that I had actual personal opinions about the lives and personalities of the Beatles. I thought I understood why the band broke up, why John and Yoko were inseparable, why Paul couldn't handle her presence. I empathized with them both. I understood each person in the story, and didn't hate any of them. The tale began to feel like the saga of King Arthur to me. I don't hate Mordred, I don't hate Lancelot, I don't hate Arthur, I don't hate Paul, I don't hate John, I don't hate Yoko. I used to stay awake at night, running through scenarios in my head, thinking about what questions I would ask Paul and Ringo if I ever had the chance to interview them. I would ask Paul why he laughed in the middle of Maxwell's Silver Hammer. I'd ask Ringo if he liked acting or singing more.
To be honest, my fascination frightened me. Sometimes I worried that I'd never be able to stop thinking about the Beatles. I wondered if I should stop reading up on them to attempt to curb my own interest.
Life isn't like that. Maybe some people never get over their fixations, but most of the time people just get interested in other things. I still like the Beatles, but they don't consume me. I'm waiting for my next passion to come along. Then I'll learn everything I could ever want to know about that thing. Just like I learned everything I could about the Beatles. Just like I learned everything I could about ancient Egypt. Or Greek mythology. Or Garry Marshall. Things change. People get interested in other things. Most brains don't get stuck on one idea for their whole lives.
I was thinking about personality quizzes, and how I wish that there was some brain measuring thing somewhere that would just tell you everything about yourself. Because personality quizzes aren't that accurate. You pretty much end up getting what you want to get. A three year old could manipulate one of those quizzes to get the answer she wants. So I always end up being nice and awesome on those quizzes when I'm not really especially nice or awesome. I'm pretty much normal. Like, if I take a Beatles quiz, I'm going to get John Lennon as a result, because he's the Beatle I would want to be, so the test wouldn't end up being accurate. Likewise, I like to think that I'm a super-creative person, so when I take Meyers-Briggs tests, I end up being an ENFP, which is pretty creative and empathetic and stuff. I think that I'm like that. I know I want to be like that. Am I really?
So then I was wondering if maybe the fact that I WANT to be those things makes me like those things. Just the fact that I value creativity might mean that I'm naturally inclined to be a creative person. Doesn't our desire to be better influence how good we actually are? Then again, I know people who think they're really good listeners and value good listening, but actually are terrible at listening to people. Or people who think they're funny but aren't. Etc etc.
That's the point in my thought process where I start wondering if I really know anything at all.
(Usually it turns out I don't. Or that I know part of something. Or that I used to know something but then thought that thing wasn't true, but now it appears that it is true. The thing about knowing things is that the strongest thing I think you can ever do is THINK you know it. I don't know if you can ever know you know it, because maybe everything isn't as it seems. And that's why it takes faith to believe in anything.)
A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting beside the breakfast table, thinking about my troubles (not literally the breakfast table, mind you). Typically, that kind of activity does more harm than it does good. So of course I ended up thinking about how awful my life is and how many problems I have, and how I don't think any of them will ever be solved, and then I talked to my mom and realized that EVERYONE has really horrible lives, and no one will ever be happy, and life is a vale of tears. (I'm being hyperbolic, but you understand what I'm getting at.) So I was laying in bed, and I started praying, because that's what I do when I'm really upset. I just start complaining to God. Then I thought, "Hey, if everyone's lives suck so much, why should you even think God is listening to you? Why should you even think there is a God?"
I guess I think about evil as much as the next person, but there's always been some pat little argument I learned in high school to argue that God exists, even in the face of evil. But that night, none of those arguments made sense. They were all bull. (I think most of them are probably bull anyway.) So I just said, "God, what the heck. Why? Why, why why?" And then I curled up into a ball, because if there's no God, then there's no point, really. If there's no God, then everything sucks and then everything is over, and that's awful. If there's no God, then there's no point in morality, and there's no point in love, and there's no point in art. So I just stayed in bed for a while, saying over and over "God, please exist, please exist, please exist. Because I don't want to fool myself into believing. Just let me know. I need to know You're there."
Nothing really great happened. There wasn't any flash of lightning. But gradually a sense of calmness filled the room, and I stopped whispering to myself. I was just quiet for a little bit. And I read my Bible, and I read about faith, and I thought, "Okay, God, here's my faith back. I don't know if You're there, but I'm going to go ahead and cast this out, and see if You grab the other end." And I didn't feel like I was alone. I didn't feel a presence in the room, or anything. But I just felt like there was some reason in the universe. That my faith had caught on to something bigger. And then I fell asleep. (I think the sleep might be the strongest argument for God in this story, because my mind was so occupied that I don't know how else I could've slept.)
Sometimes people call Christianity a crutch. Okay, sure. It's a crutch. But when everyone is going around with two broken legs, I don't see a crutch as a bad thing.

Star-gazing

Last night there was a meteor shower. Some of my friends and I bundled up and headed out around 11:30, stopped at Taco Bell for some Mountain Dew and nachos (because that's what we're fueled by, mostly) and drove until we could see stars.
It took a while.
I get bothered about stars every once in a while. There's so much light pollution in Canton that's it's futile to look up. I can only see the brightest stars. I can't see the Milky Way. Sometimes panic jumps up into my throat when I wonder if someday Millersburg will be like that, too. When I go home, I can see the Summer Triangle and Cassiopeia and even Draco, which is the hardest for me to find and sometimes I think I'm making it up as I go along, connecting stars that aren't meant to be connected. Still, the orange haze of civilization is already creeping up around the horizon of my house on the hill, and it's only a matter of time before I won't be able to see anything but streetlights and cars. I already feel isolated. Human beings are already consumed with ourselves. If we can't see the rest of the galaxy, how will we remember that we aren't the only thing that matters, aren't the only things that are breathtakingly beautiful, aren't the only thing that God created?
We started driving through fields and past Amish houses (you can tell they're Amish because they don't have shutters) and started wondering aloud where we should stop. Laura said we should just stop in a field someplace. I didn't want to because people have private property and I didn't want to get shot.
We stopped in a field someplace.
Sarah and I brought our guitars, but it was too cold to play, and we were close enough to houses that we decided it was best to stay as quiet as it's possible for four girls to be after midnight. So we put down a blanket and flung ourselves into a heap on top of it, and covered up with each other and more blankets. Then we looked at the stars.
At first, everything was overcast, and we could only see things out of the corners of our eyes. We weren't even sure if we were seeing stars or if our eyes were tired and beginning to fail us. Then a tiny hole in the clouds appeared and we could clearly see Orion's belt. Sarah started pointing out constellations that I didn't even know, and told us that she used to want to be an astronomer. As we waited for the clouds to blow away, Chelsea regaled us with stand-up comedy routines she's memorized and then just told us stories of her own. Laura flipped out every time a new star was visible.
I laughed until my stomach hurt and I couldn't feel the cold anymore.
I looked away for a second, and everyone gasped. "Did you see that! That was a giant one!" Laura practically yelled. Everyone had seen the first meteor of the night but me. I looked back up at the sky, and before long there was another. As the night grew colder, we snuggled closer together and gasped when another piece of space shot across the sky.
Eventually the clouds covered the stars again, and we all packed our stuff up and drove back to Malone. Laura cranked up the heat, and I almost fell asleep, covered in blankets and friendship. I crawled into bed, exhausted but complete.
I don't think I ever could have given myself a better life than God has.

Regressing

I was kind of surprised when the girl behind the counter at Starbucks asked me a question while I waited for my tall mocha frappuccino, so I didn't really hear what she'd said, especially over the roar of the coffee-making-machine-thing.
"What?" I said, leaning over the counter.
"Do you have any big plans for tonight?" she asked again. I shook my head.
"Oh, uh, no." I paused, trying to think if I was doing anything special. I'm usually not. I'm single and don't have a driver's license, so any "big plans" of mine usually involve watching movies or going to Walmart and buying candy and/or milk with Sarah and Laura. Which are all of immense importance to ME, but usually aren't considered big plans by anyone else. "I'm, um, going home."
She smiled. "Oh, that's nice! Have fun." She handed me my coffee, and I was on my way.
I felt really grown up. Partially because I was drinking coffee, which I don't do a whole lot, especially not coffee from Starbucks, but mostly because that was the first time I've mentioned to a stranger that I don't live at home. I live on my own, now. For all she knows, I'm a famous safari explorer who has been living in the Sahara desert for 5 years. Although I suppose my immaturity is revealed by the fact that the first example I thought of just now was so farfetched.
My friend Grape is spending the night. She's downstairs about to sleep. We both have church in the morning. I went to a concert at her church with my little siblings and ran into her there. She saw me and literally screamed with excitement. It made me grin. It made my heart expand. She tackled me in a great hug.
I love hugs, I think. I'm really awkward with hugs, but I like them. I never realized that I didn't know how to hug until last year. I was in a play and was supposed to hug my "husband" and it became all too clear to everyone that my body couldn't manage to coordinate itself into a hug. Maybe it's because I'm used to hugging people much shorter than I am (my siblings and mother) or much taller than me (my brother and dad) and not used to hugging people who are roughly in my height range. Or maybe I'm just not used to hugging people who aren't my family. Anyway. The moral of the story is that now that I am better equipped to hug people, I like it. I especially like when Grape tackle-hugs me. Because it's an overflow of love and joy and it's slightly violent, but only because it's unrestrained. And wonderful.
So what I'm saying is, everyone who sees me anywhere should just hug me. (That's not true. Only because I think people would be crazed out if they thought I was serious.)
Do you ever feel like you're in junior high again? Sometimes I look in the mirror and can only see an awkward 8th grader. I remember one time in 8th grade I wore an outfit that consisted of all items of clothing with the word "princess" on them. Even my socks. My shirt said princess. My jeans said princess (and, to be fair, other things as well). I might've even been wearing a hat that said princess.
Why didn't anyone tell me that wasn't okay?
I'm often afraid that I'm making those same mistakes. I'm still the same person, if you think about it. I haven't learned all that much about fashion since then. I still just wear whatever stuff looks awesome to me. It might still be ridiculous. I wouldn't know. Most of my clothes come from thrift stores, which means that most of the things I wear are things that other people have already decided that they don't even want to own, let alone wear. The only difference between myself then and now is that now I'm aware that I'm capable of being and looking completely silly when I think I look great.
Maybe that's okay, though. My dad used to have a mullet. My dad is even a reasonably cool guy. If everyone in the 80s was duped into having a mullet, it might be okay for me to dupe myself into wearing weird clothes.

Snakeskin

I don't like losing people.
Who does?
The other day in one of my classes, my professor mentioned that losing touch with people is just a part of life.
That part of life freaking sucks.
I don't want to lose my high school friends. I don't want to lose my college friends. I want to keep everyone trapped in a little box with pins stuck through them and I want to pull them out when I'm lonely or want attention.
That is unfeasible. And cruel. And self-centered. However, it's what I want, deep down inside.

All these thoughts of letting go came from Fall Break. I went home. My brother wasn't there. He's in Pennsylvania, training for the 6 months he's going to spend in Africa. This break is the first time I've really been home for any substantial amount of time without him being there. I kept wandering into his room to talk to him, but he wasn't there.
Then I started thinking about how he's probably going to start living on his own soon. How, after he gets back from Africa, we don't really know what he's going to do. He doesn't really know. So, basically, I can't go home ever again. Slowly, we'll all leave. And I can't be a kid anymore. And I can't have a family anymore.
Freaking crap.

(I'll still have a family. We'll just all be living other places and some of us will have other families.)

Why do things have to change? I don't feel like I change that much. I guess I do, though. Probably some people feel like I've left them. I don't like leaving people, either.

As my professor said, it's an inevitable part of life.