a year.

It’s been a year.

A year without your feet on this earth.

A year without your voice, your smile, you.

A year wondering what if

What if I had texted you instead of him

What if I had stayed

What if I told you I loved you

What if. What if. What if…

I cry more now than I ever have.

I cry because my heart was ripped out of my body.

I cry because my magnet is gone.

My other pole. My common thread. My support beam.

You were my safe place. My home. My heart. What I believed to be my future.

I’m so sorry.

I’m sorry I failed you.

But I won’t let you disappear. I won’t let your memory fade. I won’t let them forget you. The good in you. The bad. I won’t let them forget you.

Too often in this world we feel alone. In a world with endless connection we are alone. I won’t let you feel alone. I promise on this day to remind others, to be there, and make sure they are not alone.

No one should ever feel like they aren’t enough. That their feet don’t matter on this earth. That they can disappear without a trace.

It’s been a year. Of crying, hating, screaming, cursing, and not understanding.

A year of grief. But this year, is a year of never letting it happen again.

facing reality.

21 hours.

Plus three hours of lab

Plus going to schools to start student teaching.

Equals not enough time in the day.

Or, not sleeping

Or, just slowly crumbling from the idea of not being able to meet deadlines and expectations.

So, now I’m just going to do 18 hours.

I’m a lot happier.

a letter to you

You,

I really needed you the most this past year. I needed you to be there and be around and be my shoulder when I couldn’t do it alone. I needed you. I have needed you for a year and half now and you have been nowhere to be found.

I told you to be a friend. I told you to pay attention to the world outside your relationship. I told you I would be here waiting. But it hurts. It hurts when people ask about you and I can’t answer. It hurts when you come to Austin and leave without a whisper. It hurts because I lost my best friend.

I get it if he is now your best friends. But you are still mine. You are the person I tell my secrets too. The one I explode on with information. The one who holds my deepest fears and worst failures. The one who knows what I have been through.

You have missed so much, and so have I. When did we become the people, who don’t speak? When did we become the people, who ask others for information? When did we get here? How did we get here?

I don’t want to be here, but I can’t fix this by myself. I won’t pour my heart into this if there is no one there who cares? I won’t devote my time to something that I know will fail. I can’t. Not anymore.

I’ve waited. I’ve tried. You’ve been silent.

From, me

you’re gone…

I don’t know if you have noticed, but I don’t really do emotions. I do sarcasm covered in more sarcasm, and if you look really really closely you may see a hit of feelings. But sometimes I crack. I am not titanium. I’m a rock and rocks go through erosion.

Let me explain.

I got home form Ireland and zoomed to Austin for sorority shenanigans. One afternoon, I got a text form my old best friend saying, “Something happened last night and I think you need to hear it from me. Call me as soon as you can.”

After talking to her, I was calm, I was thinking of others, like I do. Thinking about what I could do, who I could help, who needed my comfort. But after the fact, I felt the hole in my heart. The gap creating more and more space in my chest. He was gone, someone I had once used as my rock, my protection, my best friend was gone.

*Sidebar*     I don’t emote in public, for some reason I have always disliked it and felt I can’t do it. It makes me feel uncomfortable and weak, yet no one has every told me that. I don’t even feel comfortable crying in my bed and letting my roommates hear me. I tell people I am always there for them, I am a shoulder to cry on, yet I never let anyone take care of me.   *Sidebar Over*

The worst part was having to be okay, because I was on the third floor of a house with 197 women in it. Women who didn’t know, and didn’t need to. I had to be okay. I had to be

focused and working, not breaking, crumbling, and wanting to run home as fast as I could. I got through a day, and tore myself away from people the second I could. As soon as everyone started falling asleep, I went outside and laid on the grass, the sobs rang in and  day broke too soon. Time to be okay again.

My face and heart were saying two different things. I starting acting when I was 7, so by 20 I had mastered my 10,000 hours scientifically calling me a master. Throughout the day, news broke out back home about what happened, and my shell started cracking ever so slightly, but few noticed. People didn’t connect the dots between him and me, because we had kept our distance in recent years, a mistake I realize now. Our lives where in two different worlds, I didn’t know his secrets anymore, but I hold on to the fact I knew his heart. Hearts don’t change, and his was one of my favorites.

It’s been close to three months since he passed away. Three months. The wound is still there, the hole and the hurt come around every so often, but so does reminders of his life.  Reminders of who he was in songs, in stories, in random faces on the streets. I don’t believe he is gone, he is just here in a new way. Losing him was terrible, but knowing he is no longer in pain makes it better.

so biking…

So, I started riding a bike around campus and it is an adventure. Here are the rules I have learned.

First you have to remember where you locked it up, if you don’t you spend two hours panicking thinking it was stole. This I have done way to many times. WAY to many.

Second, look out for people and cars. The streets aren’t that bad because cars look out for you. But people are the worst. On campus there will be individuals that will walk out in front of cars and bikes and expect them to stop. It is crazy; they think they are Moses and they can part the traffic for themselves. If this happens to you, you’ll probably fall off your bike and the person who made you crash will laugh at you. It is so great.

That point brings me to three, falling will happen, it will hurt. I currently have a permanent bruise on my right leg and a scar on the other. If you fall, just get back up and keep going like nothing happened. I get knocked down, but I get up again, you are never gonna keep me down.

Lastly, remember to have fun. Take new paths, try to work on some tricks. The other day I re-mastered biking without hands. Biking is fun, so don’t forget it. It is a great way to exercise without work to hard.

Biking is great, go do it.

Ireland Ruined Me.

Now, before you think this is going to be rude, it isn’t. Take a deep breathe. Now you may read on.

Ireland Ruined Me. I am finished. Done. I peaked. It is time to give up. I will never, ever, get over the fact I lived in Dublin, or worked at the GEC.

I check the website and twitter way more than I should. I look at photos of Ireland all the time. I still email Lisa, Vicky, and Linda (hi friends). I have tried to find cheap flights back, but there is no such thing as a cheap international flight. People have started to tell me to stop talking about the GEC, but I can’t. (and I don’t want to)

The other week, the GEC posted about the Christmas party. I then asked my parents for an early Christmas present… I asked if I could go to the party. My dad laughed in my face. Not a chuckle, but an evil Santa Clause laugh. Like he was jolly about not letting me go.

I peaked. I will never find a place like the GEC or live an adventure as challenging or wonderful as living in Ireland alone. I just signed for my apartment next year and I wish I signed for a place in Dublin.

I peaked.

I’ll just start my walk back to Ireland now. The ocean isn’t too wide, right?

Texas Football

This is the time for cheering, fights, and most of all WAY to much burnt orange.

Football season pushes the Fall semester along. It keep it going because you know at the end of the week the entire school will come together to fight whatever team wants a challenge.

Now, UT isn’t the best at football. But we love it. We support it. No matter what time, we are there. We aren’t there for the game necessarily, we are there to build up the egos of our football team. We are there for the beer. We are there for the free food. We are there because it is the southern thing to do.

This is one of the only times the entire school comes together. It is a time when you see people you don’t want to see. It is a time you sometimes don’t remember… But, it is great.

Please know this is AMERICAN football. This is not soccer, no one really likes soccer. But here, everyone loves football.

Why

The board turns around and the question is revealed. Pens hit paper. People start writing. I just stare at it like a deer looking into headlights.

It is such an abstract question. A question with so many different answers depending on what is going on in someone’s head. But at this moment, there was nothing going on in my little noggin. So, I started drawing, creative, right?

In the middle of drawing my 5th flower, my professor stops the class, looks at us and says, “Why not?“

crisis

Growing up you dream of the future. You dream about what is coming, where you’re going,

and what your job will be. But, in the mist of your dream you forgot that you’re aging and getting closer and closer to having to have life questions figured out. Then one day you wake up and realize you are grown, but don’t have the answers.

well shit.

People tell you “the world is your oyster.” “you will be great at whatever you do.” “we’ll see you do something great one day.” People, that is great and all, but you should give me a hit at what you think I’m going to do. I am a smart cookie, but a mind reader, I am not.

Maybe I’ll just write a blog for a living. Is that a thing? I’ll be a little over qualified, but I’m okay with that. You know what, I’ll start working on my 1st novel now so it can become a best reader while I’m sill in college.

mid-college crisis averted.

so, i’m back.

36 hours.

I had 36 hours from the second I got off the plane to the time I needed to be in Austin. Let me tell you, it isn’t enough time, but somehow it was done.

After two delayed flights and one rebooking, thank you for nothing United, I made it to Houston. I was hangry, tired and had to go find my luggage in the “lost and found,” I hate United. Trying to find my luggage was basically looking for a needle in a haystack, because everyone and their brother has a black bag, I knew I should have bough the highlighter yellow bag (jokes). After located my beautiful luggage, I learned my dear mother, man I love her, was at the wrong terminal.  This day was just getting better, but it actually was.

When my mom and I were reunited she said the best 2 words I had every heard. “so, Chick-fil-a?” I almost wept.

The other 30ish hours weren’t nearly as excited.