"I've Made a Lot of Mistakes "

My newest crush as of late(that's right, i'm totally cheating on Gavin Degraw).

I have been listening to an increasingly amount of Sufjan Stevens lately. Well it's more like 1 song by Sufjan Stevens actually.

It's called Chicago.

And for some reason walking to classes , his repetion of "I've made a lot of mistakes" with this almost triumphant band playing behind his soft voice has been stuck in my head.

It's the only song I have of his too, but I'm kind of drawn into him and this song. I'm like mesmerized.

Not really by Sufjan, but I guess by the concept of redemption within myself, and dealing with the mistakes in my life I have not forgiven myself for.

It's probably no shock that I talk about the past a lot. I replay things in my head like a song that is skipping or a movie that I have seen a million times, and I always wonder about the what if's.

I live in what if state of mind. I remember writing a while back(September probably) of all the "would have's" that may have happened. But it is not the "would haves" that I actually think of, it's the "what ifs" that seem to take hold of me. Like if the "what ifs" were different, I would be too.

What if I was taller?
What if I wasn't so shy?
What if James and my mom would have gotten married?
What if we hadn't moved?

Those "What if's" have been the basis of my frustration and isolation awhile back. They are the 50% that made me unhappy, that makes/made it so difficult to adjust. Because the "what if's" are something I will never be able to retrieve, and are lost forever in ideals of what they could have been.

With my recent Art boy dilemma, which has since been resolved after seeing that he is like a "real person, I see that's how I live my life. I look from a distance and dream of all the possibilities yet I don't take the steps in realizing if those possibilities are things that I will like, or things that I've hyped up so much there can only be disappointment.

As in liking boys and not telling them so, difficulties with finding my voice, of being scared of the experience, not enjoying Philadelphia and later giving up on it. I mean there's so much more, I wasted high school being so angry that I have no fond memories of it, and though I have become happy with the strides I have taken this semester in getting out there, I feel I should have done that from the beginning, I feel like I should have come with little to no expectation and let the surprises take me by storm.

And I realize that in a way, I haven't forgiven myself for those mistakes. I hold on to them deeply, letting them scar me and making me feel like I don't deserve whats on the other side of the rainbow.

I realized that I was grateful. That I am grateful for the scars that penetrate the skin, because they are reminders of how much greater I am than them. That I'm like a survivor or something. That I'm growing from them, and slowly they are beginning to fade. And though the other side of the rainbow doesn't hold all the ideals that I have hyped up in my mind, they are holding this realization of how much stronger I am getting with each step.

That I can do whatever it is I set my mind too, and that I forgive that girl. I forgive her.

Because I am also going to be that girl, that slightly out of place,smart-alleck, who doesn't play well with strangers girl, but it's time to let me forgive myself for those mistakes. Because those mistakes make who I am, if I would have had all the "what if's" I wouldn't have learned the lesson I have gotten this far. So I embrace them now, I forgive them now, it's time that I did so.

And that makes me extremely happy about my life, and happiness that seems to be leaning on the cusp of something that looks promising.

Just another one of my slight epiphanies walking to history class, where I later went on to draw on my hand for the next 50 minutes( i was drawing on my hand because the girl i was sitting to kept picking her noise for 50 minutes. It was the most disgusting thing ever, and then she feel asleep, kind of leaing near me, and i kept looking at her hand to make sure it wasn't going to touch me. GROSS). The things I realize when walking around campus, I should do it more often.

Its so crazy because we have only been at school for a month and i, like most other people, am in desperate need for a vacation. It's not even that i am tired, i just need to go home(NYC), i feel like as soon as i am there all the thoughts twirling inside my head will work itself out.

Being there seems to do that to me. Being there makes me happier than anything in the whole world, well other than my Birthday.

1 month until my birthday,iPod,Spring Break, and NYC. i'm so EXCITED, and a little impatient.