Applying Myself...One Day At A Time.

I apologize for the lack of posts lately. With the days until my grad school stuff being due, I can think of nothing else these days except finishing this story and turning in all my materials on time.

I actually submitted my application today. Unlike most schools, where you can submit all of your materials on line, I have to mail in my story, statement of purpose, and academic paper directly to the school. This is a good thing and a bad thing. It's good because it creates a deadline for me, it's bad because...now i have a f*cking deadline. The materials have to be in before the 15th which means this sucker should be sent out no later than next Monday.

Crap.

The story is coming along, but because I am so self critical of my work I am doing way too much editing and not enough writing. I have yet to master the art of writing something all the way through and working with particulars later. It didn't help that I had the flu last week which took me out of the writing mood, and it doesn't help that there are some family issues going on now, which is sucking the energy out of me.

I of course have been living with my aunt and her daughter since August. For the most part it is okay and convenient because I do not have to pay rent and I get a room to myself. My aunt is a person who constantly needs someone around her and I don't think she gets that i am a person who needs her personal space. With my older cousin in school, I stay in the spare bedroom. This is amazing because I get to shut myself away from my crying cousin and my very (very) delusional aunt.

Apparently, this is an issue for her. She wants someone to talk too about decorating and clothes though she doesn't have the money for either. She wants someone to watch tv shows with and window shop with, which I don't mind but not right now as I struggle with this story. When I was sick, I of course stayed in my room for two days. This was both out of sheer exhaustion and because I didn't want to get Michelle and the rest of my family sick.

A couple of days ago, my mom talked to my grandmother on the phone, who wanted to know how I was doing in New York. My mom of course told her that I was sick for a couple of days but that I was recuperating with no help from my aunt. My grandmother, who must have talked to my aunt some time during my sickness, said something along the lines of "well Beckett was secluding herself in the bedroom (as she always does), how was 'she' suppose to know that she was in there sick". This is hogwash.

I understand that I live in her apartment, but at the same time I pay for everything else. I don't use her phone, I don't use her Internet (sorry to the person I am stealing the Internet from) and I pay for my own supplies (food, clothing, yadda yadda). I babysit all the time, I don't bring people over to the house, I clean up after myself, and I never (NEVER) borrow money. Ever since we moved into this apartment I have enjoyed my personal space, and with the whole grad school thing looming over my head, I need it more then ever.

My mom was very pissed by my grandma's comments. Especially since she knows how difficult and vain my aunt is. Regardless, I am trucking along even though I feel like an inconvenience in her home now. As if, she'd rather I be anywhere else but in her very dysfunctional home.

I don't plan on staying here much longer. My application is due in April the 15th, and then I seriously have to start making some plans. Angie, who cannot afford to stay here either, may be moving back to Kansas soon. She too has lost her excitement for this place and she is sort of looking forward to being anywhere but here. She is giving it until the middle of April, and if she doesn't find anything by then her dad is going to move her home. I will miss her, but I understand the choices we have to make for ourselves in order to remain sane.

I know that I don't want to live here. Right now, it is just not the time for me. Once my application is in and I see if I get accepted or not, i plan on going home for a while. If the grad school thing works on then I'll start my life again in small town USA, get an apartment and two cats (named Dylan and Jack) and grow as a writer in my program. If i don't get accepted, which is a possibility, then I'll try something else. I can teach abroad for a year, finally move to Maine, maybe write for a small newspaper (that hasn't gone out of print) or try my hand again at publishing. Who knows

The future isn't so scary because while I evaluate my time spent here, I know what I don't want in my life which means I am a few steps closer to figuring out what I do. I guess.

Fingers crossed that I don't drive myself crazy with this story.

Fingers crossed.

A Clean Bill of Health

I am getting better. Yeah.

I don't think I have ever been this sick in my whole entire life (or what I can remember of my whole entire life). Marie and my Mom say that stress may have played into the whole flu thing. I never once got this sick in school, I never once got this sick at home but for some reason the amount of stress here triggered something and this time my body wasn't even in it to fight the brave fight.

I took Saturday and Sunday off from work and by Tuesday I dragged myself to the bookstore still sick as hell and carrying a pocketful of cough drops. Tuesday was not a good day, I sort of screwed up a lot, couldn't find books for customers and did I mention I met Stephanie Seymour (the model) but was too sick to realize or care. In all honesty I didn't know how she was. She was passed off to me by co-worker who was helping someone else. I looked up and there was this attractive lady who wanted some books about Saturday Night Live. We didn't have much but I showed her the book I could find and then wished her a good day. A couple of minutes later she came back wanting to know where she could find 'Lolita". So i took her to the fiction section said i thought the book was okay and then wished her another farewell.

Minutes later my boss came over and said "that's Stephanie Seymour". I was like who the hell is Stephanie Seymour (knowing of the name but not knowing why I knew her name) and my boss was like "the sports illustrated model!". My bad, guess it was never my thing.

The Janitor, oh the janitor, took advantage of my weakened state. He kept offering suggestions on how to get better. My favorite was ' take a nice bath'. Baths are cool though I haven't taken one in a very long time (what, showers are more efficient). Of course he wouldn't be The Janitor if the conversation stopped there. 'You know my place is small but i have a really big tub". Nice.To.Know should I ever want to take a bath over his house. Gross.

I survived the night but I don't think I convinced anyone that I was any better. This has been a horrible writing week. I haven't gotten anything done and the time to submit stuff is coming soon. I was going to take the GRE but I don't have the money to take it again and the scores wouldn't get there in time. I mailed my old scores off and am hoping that my superb writing potential, letters of recommendation, and academic paper will make up for the score. I am turning in my paper on The Medieval quest because it was my favorite paper by far (and plus the professor for the class is the graduate student coordinator. If she happens to read it, she may remember who I am. Which is a good thing).

The fiction story is coming along but at the same time I am doing so much revision I don't know where it begins and ends. My writing mojo was put on hold for a while during my sickness and I literally had to bring myself back to that mental place where I want to write and create characters on paper.

My story is good. Well the story that I have in my head is good. Getting it down on paper is a very difficult thing, I am embarrassed by my words and I catch myself revising before I even type anything down. This has been an unhealthy writing thing for a long time but I don't know how to break out of it yet. I hope that I get accepted but if I don't, I still know that I don't want to live here anymore. The old saying is true "been here, done that" and I've realized that this is a place I'd love to visit on regular basis but living here just isn't for me. I have no interest in this banana filled rat race.

Time to get some real work done. Fingers crossed that all this late minute hard work pays off.

I HAVE...

The flu.

I don't know how I went from a coffee hangover to the flu, but I did. I have not been this sick in a very long time. Scarlet Fever and the Chicken Pox combined never felt this bad. I don't remember ever having the flu but it sucks. Majorly.

I have been bedridden (literally) since Saturday, a day I was suppose to work but had to call out on. My suck ass family continues to prove that they are inconsiderate assholes. When I went to get some juice my aunt asked in an annoyed tone if I was "still sick" and then spent the rest of the day ignoring said sick ass. My cousin, who was home for the weekend, couldn't care less that I could have been rotting away right next to him.

I think I hate my non immediate family.

I pretty much have been doing the whole drinking a lot of fluids, eating ever so often and sleeping A LOT, thing. I am getting better, but being sick has a taken a toll on me. I must finish this story by the end of the week (I have set this deadline for myself) and then I have to figure out how long I should stay here for if I do get accepted.

My head hurts, I am going to take some strong medicine, pass out and hope that i survive this thing.

Hangover?

I have 11 pages of my short story written! I mean right now they are scenes and such but with some nice polishing (and a few more pages) I think I will actually have something worth sending. For some reason I have some sort of writing mojo floating through my fingers and I have been pushing myself to finish this mess on time.

In all honesty going to grad school is only the half of it. I would like to return home. I miss my insignificant life there and my last year of college seemed unfinished. I was just getting into the groove of everything, I was just tapping into my potential and I feel like I left prematurely. This should not be a deciding factor but to be honest it is. I am not ready for the real world, or at least not my idea of it. At 23 I still miss being able to go to my mom's house where she caters to my appetite and lets me watch cable in her room. I miss it, I miss it.

I look forward to writing, and having an apartment. I look forward to seeing if this potential I have pays off and all that jazz. And because of this knowledge I am very excited and determined to get into school. So much that I have my mojo back. It feels grand.

Unfortunately, I decided a week ago that I would drink coffee to keep me up at night. The days when I have drunk coffee after six have been my most creative because I thumb out some good stuff in a very manic state. Yeah, I'm up until 3:30 in the morning but hey...what we do for art. Tuesday I decided to drink some coffee because Lenny is letting my have Wednesday off to write my stuff ( i told him about my deadline and he said it was cool for me to just come in on Friday's when the use me the most), and I figured I would have a productive writing day like I did on Monday.

I don't know what the fuck was wrong with this coffee (that i bought from work) but an hour later I was feeling ill, very ill. This feeling was not like my usual caffeine induced states. My body was unnaturally warm, my head throbbed like death, and I felt dizzy and nauseous. I barely hung in there that night and instead of writing late into the night I passed out in bed feeling like the world was ending around me.

The next morning my writing day did not go as planned. When I woke up I was paralyzed with a headache that was terrifying. By all accounts it was as if I woke up with a hangover. I was too weak to move, i still felt like throwing up and loud noises and bright lights were killing me. Turns out Coffee works the same way as alcohol in that it dehydrates you. This is what causes the headache and flu like symptoms or what some people call hangovers. I am suffering from a coffee hangover! Unfortunately I did not know this when I was chugging my coffee regular and if I would have known this I would have seriously considered drinking that coffee.

I still feel like crap. I would consider going to a doctor if I had the means or the money to do so, but I think he will just tell me that I am dangerously dehydrated. This f*cking sucks. I have to head into the city tomorrow and I hope that I have the energy for it. I may get some pages down tonight but this setback is a downer. I feel pathetic and sick and incapable of putting any sort of sentences together.

Blah.

Falling 'In Like".

I met a guy yesterday. A beautiful interesting guy. He name is Julian and I think I seriously might like him. Not in an imaginary '' I've put him on a pedestal way' but in the real way.

I was working at the cash register last night when Julian asked me a question about return policies. He was sort of lingering around because i was resting my head on the counter making it completely impossible to see me. When I lifted my head he made some joke as to him 'wondering briefly why a bookstore would have no one working at the register'. It was corny but funny and I explained that I didn't really like being up there but I volunteered.

He wanted to know about the return policies and after my by the book explanation he said thanks and offered me his hand...so I could give him a high five. Yes, I haven't given a legit high five in a very long time but Julian was cute and I was bored so I swung my hand in his direction and made contact with his open palm.

He came back a few minutes later with a brown leather bound journal with horrible bulky paper. It didn't have a barcode on it and he wanted to know if I could scan it and tell him the price. I was eating skittles at the time (which I am not suppose to do up at cash wrap) which I noted to him, as I struggled to speak with a red skittle in my mouth. The journal turned out to be 43 dollars. We both looked at each other as if it were a ridiculous amount and I mentioned that he was better off getting a Moleskin.

He said it's the journal he always uses because he is writing a novel but he couldn't find the journals in the store. Holy Shit. As soon as he said he was writing a novel, I blurted out that I was writing a short story. Luckily the Moleskin journals were located in talking distance of the cash register and we spent the next 10 minutes talking about writing. At this point I realized that Julian was very pretty (or I guess hot). I mean clearly he was a college student (beanie, book bag, philosophy book) but hot nonetheless. He told me about his story and I sort of told him about my short story while we raved about the efficiency of a moleskin journal.

Just as things were getting good I had to ring up a couple of customers. Shit. This took forever and by the time I was done I didn't know where Julian had gone. Of course he was still in the corner near the moleskins and we resumed our conversation. I liked Julian a lot. He was going on and on about writing and I don't even remember half of it but i told that he was cool and that I liked him and his writing stuff. Yeah, I said that out loud. Kill me know. When he left, I was sort of sad that I didn't have his number or at least his full name.

Why I can't I met more guys like that, preferably ones who are a little older then hot Julian (I think he was 19/20. Too young for me) but still with the nice artsy sort of vibe. I left thinking of our encounter all night and woke up thinking of it too. I am totally in like with him, I forgot how much I missed that feeling.

Anyway, enough of that...

One whole month until writing stuff is do. I have a story, a legit one, that I have been working on for days. I am so nervous and antsy at this point but I have to channel that energy and "Make It Work" as Tim Gunn would say. My boss freaked out yesterday when I told her of my plans. She suggested applying to a school in the area ( so I could work at the bookstore when I could). Decisions are hard to make but in regards to grad school just going alone is the right decision. I have realized that I can't write here. I mean some people can but it's too much for. The fact that everyone is writing. That everyone feels the sense of entitlement over their work, even when it sucks, bothers and stifles me to no end

I'd rather go away for 2 years, write away at my old school or at Chatham Unversity and just be in the craft. I have so much to learn and I am excited about being able to do so but I know I don't want to write here. It's just not for me.

Time to write. I have a crap load of things to do in a short amount of time.

Oh, and I am seriously obsessed with this band and song.

On Not Being A Good Friend.

I've decided to compromise. I am going to email Lenny and ask him if I can just intern once a week until I get all my grad school stuff in. Wednesdays are dreadful at my internship. I literally don't do anything and now with the new secretary (who is eye candy for all the men on the floor), I can't even sort the mail anymore.

I would rather just quit the whole thing but I hate bailing last minute. If i could intern on Friday (when I am used most) then I would say money and not feel like balling my eyes out every Wednesday because I am bored to death.

That sounds fair enough. Right?

In other news Angie's boyfriend is in town. He is about 5'1 and is giving everyone the creeps at work. He walks her to work, and then lingers around the store for awhile. During this lingering time we all get to critique and discuss him. My co-worker Josh came up to me yesterday and told me that he was afraid of her boyfriend. " he's just a little creepy". Though I have not been a good friend to her lately I refused to agree or disagree with him. He said he saw them making out in the aisle and because of the significant height difference he stares at her boobs more then her eyes. For Josh to say he is a freak is almost guarantees it.

I talked to her boyfriend briefly the other day and other than the lack of eye contact he makes he seems like an okay guy. This grad school stuff and horrible haircut followed by my lack of money and homesickness has put me in a mood though. I don't feel like doing much of anything and I would rather spend time by myself for a while. I don't really know how to explain this to her, so I keep making excuses as to why I can't hang out with her and her boyfriend.

For someone who hates bailing, I have certainly been doing a lot of it lately. I bailed this Monday on the whole MoMa thing and then I bailed today on the whole dinner thing. I said I would go to dinner with the both of them, but I seriously don't have the money to do anything besides dream of being able to afford dinner. So i made up some lame excuse about getting stuck in Brooklyn and that I wouldn't be able to make it on time. I think she is beginning to catch on, she called endlessly while I was on the train and I eventually had to turn off my phone.

I am beginning to think I am a horrible friend. I have a tendency of going AWOL when it isn't necessary.

I know. This makes me a horrible person but sometimes I hate pretending like the whole smells like roses. No matter how optimistic I am, I am wearing myself out and I wonder how long I can hang on. I am thinking of heading home for a week. I'd have to figure out which week and which mode of transportation I can afford to get there but...I just need to get away from this place. My mom put a dresser in my room, a white dresser that she says I can sand and repaint. She is luring me back big time and sometimes I am tempted to take her up on the offer.

Closing Time

I thought I would never get out of the bookstore tonight. Even though it was a pretty slow evening ,in regards to sales, the floor was trashed.

I spent much of my time in the kids department, where I shelved some books in between writing down phrases that made no sense outside of my own thoughts. Writing drives me crazy some days. I don't know what I am saying, or how it sounds out loud. I seriously need to get into a program or at least a workshop.

The last two days have been rough. On a good note I didn't quit my internship. I get like that sometimes, i freak out and I want to bail from a situation that isn't going quite how I imagined. But after a fun filled Friday where i train hopped and visited Brooklyn I realised that I have a pretty cool gig, even when it sucks. Plus Adam stopped by and his computer geekiness makes my heart pound.

On Saturday however after my great internship day, I got a horrible haircut that makes me feel less like a woman and more like a boy. It's severe and I have been wearing a bohemian scarf ever since to hide my displeasure with it. Along with my new short (short) do I am still pissed at Angie. Okay, pissed is not the right word. I am disappointed that she forgot my birthday, and I am more disappointed that her saying Happy Birthday (or in my case not saying it) means something to me. I pretty much ignored her calls until Thursday because I remembered that her boyfriend was flying into town and that she would need someone to talk to about it.

She sent me a text asking where I had disappeared too, and I replied with some bullshit "I've just been busy". Still forgetting the whole birthday thing she wanted to know I was still up for going to the MoMA. I suggested some weeks ago that we go to the MoMa as a birthday present to myself. My mom gave me money for my birthday to do what I pleased with it and I haven't been to a museum since i got here. If all looked good (I told her), I wouldn't mind paying for her ticket because I didn't want to go by myself and it would be a fun birthday thing.

After a few more conversations she wondered if her boyfriend (who at the time was thinking of coming down) could tag along. I said sure, of course, why should it bother me. I guess I didn't know if this meant I would pay for his ticket too but the closer it got to my birthday the more excited she was that I was treating them to a nice trip to the MoMa. What the Fuck?!?!?!

Lets do the math for a moment. MoMA admittance is 20 per person. A train ride to the city is 17.50 round trip/peak hours. So I would be spending a whopping $77.50 (my train ride + our admittance) to feel like a third wheel. Something is not right about this. For the last couple of days she had been bugging me about the museum. Her boyfriend is in town and he is totally excited about going. She knows that we both have tomorrow off and sees this as the perfect time to go to the museum. I do have tomorrow off. But I was not playing on heading into the city. I was not planning to do anything along those lines.

I was planning on going to the library, grabbing some books, buying a pizza pie from my favorite place and writing my story. That's my plan. It does not revolve around her or her boyfriend or an exhibit of Georgia O'Keefe (which is pretty amazing). It's going to be my day far removed from that.

I know that I would be the third wheel or worse I would feel so miserable that she would no longer want to be my friend. I have a tendency of bringing a room down with my sullenness, and I know that i would be so pissed at the situation I would not be good company.

I've been passive aggressive about the whole thing. I keep telling her that I have things to do but if my day lightens up a little I'll let her know. In all honesty though, when she calls I will ignore the ringing of my phone. I'm too broke, pissed and at a loss of hair to entertain anyone.

Good Luck

I have decisions to make. Decisions that are hurting my head.

Decision one revolves around my internship. After 6 weeks of...nothing, I think this may not be the place for me. I am the only intern without a specific task. I mean yesterday he asked me to sort the mail and this was after he asked me to open the closet. What for, I have yet to know.

I know an internship is suppose to suck. I am suppose to do tasks that a fourth grader could do. I actually don't mind those tasks. But it seems like besides opening and closing doors, I serve no real purpose and I am not learning ANYTHING! For 35 dollars a week, I sit at a desk waiting for Lenny to give me a task, and more often then not he has nothing for me. Nothing.

Yesterday all four interns were there and I was the only one without a specific thing to do. Eventually Lenny said he wanted me to make a visual representation of what images we do and don't have for this 2 year camera project. I spent the whole day collecting the dates information and then creating an excel spreadsheet of cataloguing what days pictures were successful taken in each month since 2007.

At the end of the day Lenny was "pleased" with what I made but wanted a more visual presentation. You know with colors and stuff, maybe even a graph. I have yet to figure out if I can catalogue dates for each month using a bar graph.

Regardless, I am seriously considering letting Lenny know that I am swamped with grad school stuff and that the opportunity there has been great but...I 'need to focus on getting my ass into school for a while'. My mom (who has listened to me bitch about this internship) is all up for me calling it quits there. Marie thinks it's a bad idea. That it won't look good on my resume.

I don't know. I am going to make a decision this weekend. I mean I feel like I already know what I am going to do but I'd like to weigh my options.

I'm going to get some sleep. My lids are very heavy and i have a long day in the city tomorrow.

P.S. I forgot how much I love this song!

Samantha Baker, Who?

So my birthday was uneventful. Not only was it uneventful but every friend I have made here totally forgot it was my special, even after I reminded them. Bummer

I was actually hurt by this. I had such a fun birthday last year with my mom, that i expected this year to be just as fun. I mean I have friends now, right? And that on some level means that on my birthday I should be allowed to relish in my special day.

Not the case. My family called right away. Even though the phone conversation weren't long, it was nice to hear from repeat birthday forgetters... my bother and uncle. They almost said the exact thing but it's the sentiment that counts. My mom was all over the birthday, I opened the package she sent me a couple of days ago and I hit the jackpot with Rock Band 2, Sims Bon Voyage, several new writing journals, and Ipod speakers. Oh Yeah.

My aunt had to go to work so it was Michelle and me for my birthday bash (lower case bash). Michelle does not understand the concept that you only receive one birthday a year and there is no sharing of birthday especially if you don't share they same day of birth. Regardless she entertained me with singing happy birthday to the both of us and she helped me open my presents.

My birthday hit a sour note after that. The northeast is being hit with a huge winter storm (what a way to bring in the month of march), and I was trapped inside for most of the day. But I didn't get any warm birthday messages from any of the people I have become friends with here. Okay that's a stretch, I got a few "Happy Birthday" text messages and facebook comments but very little in the wide scope of things. Angie texted me early in the morning, but not to wish me Happy Birthday. She wanted to know how closing went the night before. WTF? Even Abagail bailed on the whole 'it's my birthday thing' even though the night before she texted me to tell me she was going into the city to celebrate one of her friends birthday. In comparison to celebrating a friends bday in the city the lackluster "Happy Bday" text I received from her later on followed by complete silence for the rest of the day, just did not measure up.

I am beyond disappointed. If you know me outside of this blog, you would know that as a friend I do not ask for much. I don't want you to pay for the bill, or spot me a 5, or any of that shit. I only ask that remember that March 1st is my special day. That it was the day I was born. That it is the day that I want you to take the time out to say "hey. I'm glad you were born today". That's it.

A while ago (2 years to be precise) I posted a note that my friend,Aric, wrote me in the 8th grade. Me and Aric became friends after a girl he use to hang out with moved away. Before he became tall and hot he was a short geeky guy with glasses. We were friends for a couple of months when my Big Day came around and he totally forgot about it. It slipped his mind. Not that I didn't remind him also that my birthday was coming up. After that day I started to ignore him. I couldn't understand the nature of our friendship if he couldn't even take the time out to remember my day. I was upset that he forgot and this made me feel insignificant as his friend. A couple of days later he slipped me this note in homeroom and walked away. It said:

Dear Beckett,

I'm very sorry for what I did. I want to be friends with you a lot!! I miss talking to you in line at lunch, and in home room. Please don't hold a grudge against me. Friends don't do that =) ! Just ignore John. I'm very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,very, very, very, very, very, very, very SORRY !!!PLEASE FORGIVE ME !!!*Huge smiley face** Enclosed is your late birthday present(which was a ring from Claires). SORRY!!!

Sincerely Aric"

After that day he remembered my birthday all the way until we graduated high school. And to make up for what happened in the 8th grade, he actually sent me on a scavenger hunt for birthday cards a couple of years later. I worked in my high school library so after school one day he asked the librarian if he could leave handmade birthday cards for me to find (via some clues he had given me). The first card was a small square one that fit in my palm, and the rest (because i found them in the correct order) grew in size until I found the last card that was as huge as a small poster. It was very nice of him and creative. I like handmade stuff, it means more to me.

The point is, my birthday is a big deal to me (and apparently only to me) , because it's seriously the one day I take into account how special I am to other people. And to not even have the acknowledgement is crushing...very crushing. I spent the rest of day sulking wondering about my importance to other people and coming to some conclusion that I don't matter to anyone outside of my immediate family and handful of real friends. It was crappy.

This is not to say that any of the people who called or sent sincere messages yesterday are valued less. They actually meant more to me then anyone would know. Those are the people who always have me in their thoughts and because of that I never have to worry about my importance. Everyone else though I am not really sure about and now I really don't have a fucking clue.

When my aunt came home she lifted my spirits. She ordered Italian from a place she thought I'd like. She brought the menu home for me to look over but she had already but a star by the Chicken Parmigiana because she knew I would order it. An hour later the three of us (Michelle, My Aunt, and I) were camped out on the couch watching America's Funniest Home videos and munching on our great dinner. We blew out my candles that were placed on the ice cream cupcakes she brought home and then we collapsed in a pool of our own gluttony. It was pretty amazing.

Despite the light at the end of a horrible day, I am in a mood now. I feel disconnected and on the verge of hiding under my covers. Angie and Abagail disappointed me the most and I feel like disappearing from both of them for a while. Because it's a physical representation of how I felt yesterday.

I didn't even get a cool Jake Ryan out of my birthday.

Here's to turning 23!

Technically...

I won't be 23 until 9;36 this morning. But who knows if I'll even be up by then. So,Happy Birthday to me.

I'm feeling sort of sad and lonely though. It is the first year i will be celebrating without my mom and for some odd reason I was mulling over the magnitude of the number 23 today. It feels insane to be a 23 year old. Like I don't know where time went or where it continues to go while I try to catch up.

I was putting some books away tonight and suddenly I started thinking "I just want to hang on to this a little while longer. I don't want everything to progress so fast". Even though it feels like it is.

Regardless of the apprehension at being another year older...Today I am 23 years old. I have made it this far without screwing my life up too badly. I think.

That's cause for a celebration.