I Miss You

  Another Thursday night, scrolling down the comments on the Owl City blog and reading them like a creeper. Names, names, names, I love you's, I'm sorry you feel like that way's, and more names. Then one name.

 Whenever I see that name I almost begin to cry. Memories are always partly healing and partly depressing. These ones just cut my little fragile soul like it's theirs to take. I've missed someone since I was eight. A second-grade loss. I know, so terrible sounding, right?

 Trust me, it hurts more than you'd think.

 She only lived with her dad. She had one of those American Girl dolls, the Kit one. It looked just like her to me. She was pretty and nice and we were absolutely best friends.

 I still remember the time I spent the night at her house like it was last week.

I remember the layout of her house. Where the hallway, kitchen, and her room were... There was a grate in the floor, a zipline in the backyard. We played Operation. We spread dominoes with matching ends all over her bedroom's hardwood floor. I couldn't fall asleep when she did, so I got lonely and stared out the window, where there was a streetlight shining in the night.

 The night before third grade started, I sat on my bed, facing my wooden dresser, crying. She moved. I had to go to school without her there with me. 

 Because I was still quite a little kid, there was a bit of hope I held onto that told me that I'd see her again. Surely the universe couldn't keep us apart forever, I thought. But as the years went on and on, I realized that I wasn't going to just see her and become best friends again. Still, I spent a lot of time daydreaming and wondering where she was now, who she was friends with. Most of all,

I wondered if she remembered me.

That was seven years ago.

 I've been thinking about her a lot lately, and I still wonder. Even if she did just pop up out of nowhere, how could I recognize her? Even then, if I tried to talk to her, there's no way... There's no way she'd even remember me. I was just listening to "Butterfly Wings". I smiled as I listened, then got a deep sinking feeling in my chest. I turned it off and started to cry. I'm crying right now. 

She meant so much to me, and I don't think she ever even knew it.

That was the first time my heart was broken.

Well, actually, I was born with a broken heart. But with the figurative meaning, the first time.

I'm that kind of person that just can't let go of the things she loved, which isn't very good because I've lost at least two and I see another one going. It keeps breaking me down and giving me more fears every time. Why is it that all love seems to just... End?

Hair, Height, and Scars

     When talking to any---what are they called? Oh, right.---"normal" teenage girl, a subject like hair is bound to be mentioned. What can I say? They like hair. Obviously, I'm not by any basic standard. But I did turn 15 two days ago and I'm very certain that I am, indeed, a girl. If not, then I really need to see a doctor. So hey, let's talk about hair.

 I myself have a family full of curl-folk. My parents, sisters, cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles, you name it; had curly hair. Not all of them, per se, but a considerable amount. As a kid, I never really had what you'd call curly hair but rather both wavy and straight blond wisp(which I still don't really understand)

 Then about three years ago, it happened.

MY HAIR WENT THROUGH PUBERTY.

 Suddenly it was exploding into a big fluffy mass of waves combined with ringlets. It took me almost a year to figure out what to do with it other than try to flatten it out by attempting to brush it.

 Then in the summer before eighth grade, I just accepted the truth and hung my head low with a shameful sorrow: I now had curly hair.

But I've grown to love my weird hair because it's fun to play with and since it's all bunched up in ringlets, you can smell the shampoo for a much longer time. That's also a bad thing since I'm so easily distracted. I spend a lot more time than I should sniffing my hair and twirling it in my fingers.

  Another very distinctive note you will make on my appearance is that I'm really really really really really short. Not exaggerating even a bit. I'm not even five feet tall. Hardly four eleven. It's always kinda been like that. Well, except when I was a baby. Right after I was born I measured a typical twenty-one inches. Other than that, I've been "the short one" for basically my whole life. That wasn't all that bad either. Because of it I've learned to climb onto things pretty well and I've been called "Shortie"(and no, I wasn't a melody in anyone's head) and "Little Eskimo". 

...I had a coat with a fluffy hood then...

  Oh yeah, one more thing.

Unless you've gotten seriously mangled, don't even start to think you've got a better scar than me. You see, I was born with a heart defect known as "Transposition of the Great Arteries/Vessels". Parts of my heart were where others should have been, and somewhere along the line un-oxygenated blood went through my whole body, causing me to turn a lovely purple-blue. In order to survive, I had to get open heart surgery at three days old. How a doctor managed to perform surgery on a heart about the size of a golf ball, I haven't a clue. But they did it, and now I've got a six and a half inch scar down my chest. This is one thing I feel proud to wear, because even though I had a short fight and I can't even remember it, I survived something.

 And I have a story to tell.

Four-Fifths Completed

   Tonight, I was at a dance competition. The Oregon State Championship. It including performing dancers from West Lynn, Clackamas, Canby, Lincoln, Parkrose, Liberty, Pendleton, and many more. Since an older sister of mine is on our high school's dance team, I spent hours watching the dances (and yes, it did bore me eventually). One in particular stood out to me.

It demonstrated the five stages of grief, which has apparently become a vivid pattern recurring in my life because all stages sounded very familiar and experienced to me.

The dancers started out wearing dresses with five layers in different colors. Five backdrop walls stood behind them. At the beginning, they turned a yellow wall to reveal the word "Denial".

   It reminded me of words I've held inside but wouldn't dare reveal.

"No, you can't. You don't." "I'm completely fine. It means nothing anyway." "There's no way she feels how I do."

   The yellow was torn from the dresses and a new red wall flipped to show "Anger".

The old thoughts that haunt me returned.

"No! I'm just what she wanted me to be!" "Why does everyone like her so much?" "He's not what you say he is."

   When the red fell away, green spelled out "Bargaining".

But all I ever remember doing in this stage was crying out to God over and over again until I thought he'd never help me. Desperate cries and wishing to be not a cell in the air filled in the empty crevices of this word.

   I already knew what was coming next. The least bearable, most horrible pain I'll ever feel, and also the most returning turned into a blue word: "Depression".

This chilling phase always illustrates the same thing to us every time we experience it, but in a new and somehow even more terrible way than before

" I'm such a loser. I'm completely hopeless." "I'm entirely nothing to others. I'm completely hopeless." "There's another that fought the same fight, and there I was, thinking I was valiant. I'm completely hopeless."

   The one stage I wasn't so familiar with was the last.

White streams flew through the air as appeared the word on the wall: 

"Acceptance."

   Now I can't think of one time I fully accepted myself. I was the crime against my own mind. All of my "suffering" has been me chattering in my own ears. For once, I'd like to be proud of something I'd done and not ashamed. None of those conflicts were ever fully resolved in my mind. They were just ignored after a while and I learned to live with them. Every long while, all the previous pain comes right back  at the same time and does all but drive me mentally ill. I've rolled on the floor crying, been afraid of my own reflection, and had emotional breakdowns at some of the least convenient times and places because of this. When a whole life's worth of regret, fear, shame, loneliness, and fallen hopes comes crashing down on you all together, a little piece of you just dies.

What do you do when most of you has already died?

What?

  As quoted by multiple individuals and as copy-quoted by many more:

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! ---------- Wait, I don't get it."

We've all done it. Maybe it's because the things that are so routine to us are often completely meaningless and make absolutely no sense whatsoever. There are many things that seem totally normal to almost everyone that I still tilt my head at. Like..

-Why do people brush their teeth before breakfast? First of all, your cereal will taste like mint mixed with that nasty morning-spit taste in it and your orange juice will be about as good as fermented. 'Nuff said already.

Not only that, but the bacteria you just brushed off will just grow right back with whatever's left in your teeth.

Yum.

-What's the point of earrings? When did the idea of metal shoved through one's earlobes become intriguing?

Just... What?

-There's no reason for an automatic soap dispenser. Did anyone ever consider that maybe, even if it was all grubby, that the pump of a soap dispenser is touched before the soap itself, therefore any impurities on the pump would be washed away almost immediately? Just think about it.

-Why do we do such crazy stuff with our hair? I mean, it's just keratin growing out of our scalps, not clay for a sculpture.

-Who ever thought of kissing? Like, REALLY? How does that express affection? A hug makes sense because you're holding someone close to you. And if just pushing your mouth onto someone else's wasn't weird enough, why did people have to start sucking each others faces? It's SICK. 

  Maybe it's just me that gets confused from the world. My mind works far differently from any normal one. Is the world this strange to everyone else too?

Allow us to move onto pictures of inanimate objects with faces on them.

 The ice cream lid man laughs. Haha.

Happy face.

Unhappy face.

 ...And this is lint as a sixteenth note. Enjoy.

So So So Sorry.

  So there I was, feeling the relief of resignation as I decided it was time to end my day when I realized it was Thursday and I hadn't posted yet.

Crap.

And now I'm more than a little ticked off with myself for not doing this earlier in the day, as I am very tired and very uninspired.

  But there is one subject I'd like to discuss tonight.

 You know those times when everyone around you has a purpose, a gift, an obvious offering to the world to cater to and you sit there with your hands empty? You know there has to be something, but nothing ever seems to work for you. That undefined hollowness in the place accomplishment and fulfillment should live is ever reminding your soul of what you should be. The people out there see something in you that you can never find inside yourself. I feel guilty knowing that they think I could be something when I've shamed it all. 

  Every time someone says I'm smart it just kills me. I don't even want to think about it. It gives them every right to be disappointed in me because I have nothing to prove for it. Never have I gotten great grades, magically know the answers to all their questions, or anything else you would expect a "smart" person to do. All I hear when they say I'm smart is "You have more potential than the others." The worst part is I've got a lot less to say for myself than almost anyone I've ever known. Not only do I not live up to my "smart" title, but I'm socially inept, physically inept, instrumentally inept, and inept in practically any other way possible.

 So many times I've prayed just to know what I could possibly be useful for in reality. The question haunts me day and night, no matter where I am or who I'm with. Well, to this day I still haven't really got a clue, but once I think about it, I realize I can't just assume my destiny will unravel right in front of me.

 This is where the words are escaping me. That just seems like the last few words, but they aren't in concluding format. Well, I'm gonna just let it all go here.

  I'm trying to say sorry to everyone because I'm currently not a very good person. I've also caused much more emotional stress to others than one should and I always only think of myself.

  I'm really sorry I have this blog and I'm sorry I act like life is so hard and I'm sorry none of this makes sense and I'm sorry that I've wasted all that's ever been given to me and I'm sorry I can't stop saying I.

Sorry.