Visiting Home

In the four days I spent in Prescott I:
♥hitched a ride with Chris M.
♥Spent a lot of time outside of Starbucks
♥Got free coffee
♥Shared sushi with Deroy, Jaimie, and Bri
♥realized I'd really missed my cats
♥went to the mall and had my first photo booth experience with my mother
♥satisfied my craving for ice cream--twice
♥walked around the park with my cousin
♥smoked all the cigarettes I'd rolled before I left
♥laughed really hard at Mortal Kombat with Sean and Chris
♥got bitten by a wily mosquito in my old room
♥went for a walk by myself
♥missed Michael a lot
♥watched the entire first season of That 70's Show
♥enjoyed the rain
♥visited Michael's parents and animals
♥ate some interesting toffee made by Alex (those of you who know Alex probably can recognize that this toffee had a special ingredient)
♥did not have the urge to use a computer the entire time (tho I admit I used my ipod to check a few things once in a while)
♥spent time around the most girls I had in a long time
♥realized I'm one of the only romantics around the realm of my circle of friends and acquaintances

My Love Hate Relationship With Smoking

I know it's gross, I know it's bad for me, and sometimes when I take that first drag I cringe. I don't even smoke that much anymore, so why should I keep doing it?
The truth is I'm one of the few left who thinks smoking is attractive in a grungy rugged sort of way. And I have a fascination for the way smoke moves in the air. But more than anything, smoking is a vice and a way to connect with home now that I live somewhere else.
I like to sit outside by myself when my dad isn't home (he hates that I smoke) and watch hummingbirds come and go, and think about the last couple months. It makes me miss the part of Michael's family I spent so much time with while he was at bootcamp. We smoked and talked and smoked some more in the garage, and at one point I think I was smoking almost a pack a day. Just for a little while.
It doesn't really have a hold on me. It doesn't matter that much if I smoke or not. I've been able to quit for up to a year at a time and never experienced withdrawals. I think about smoking a lot, and when I see a picture it makes me want one but it's usually at a time when I can't because I'm "forbidden" to smoke around the house (I do it anyway when he's not here).
It reminds me of Prescott. It reminds me of parties and smoke breaks, and escaping with one to a few people outside in the dark and having an interesting conversation. In the scorching heat here I try to think of brisk winter nights and frozen fingers. Is that smoke or breath? I need the connection.
I don't feel awesome when I smoke. If I haven't eaten enough I feel sick. But I don't really care. The next day I want another one anyway. It just reminds me of home.

You Don't Get It

It's like,
I'm on the brink of some revelation
that I don't need.
Why
am I typing like this?
This is to anyone that doubts us. This is for the raised eyebrows and the snide remarks and verbal bites. This is for all those things you think I didn't know you said, but I do.
Texts and twitters and anonymous virtual comment boxes.
Oh,
it still makes me bitter.
Some things you really can't forget. I feel two things at once. I miss good times with bad people.
But really, really,
that's not my point.
Have you ever felt so whole and completely filled to the brim with certainty?
There is no room left for
questions
doubts
ugly feelings
or accusations.
All you cynics say "well explain love to me, what does that even mean?" You scoff and spit and stick your noses back into edgy x-rated books with sex and gore and say you're content with that.
But I am so full with this feeling,
and it's the single purest thing I've ever felt. Not a scratch of imperfection.
And the best part,
the best part
is another human being feels the same, and we connect over miles with this
this gorgeous thing.
And everything I've ever learned
to explain love to myself
doesn't matter.
I have never been so sure of anything in my life. You thought we'd fail then and we faltered, we fell and stumbled but somewhere along the way we found balance, we found that each day without the other had a hole in it.
Maybe I am shouting at no one but the sky. Maybe no one is paying attention. That's okay, too.
'Cause every little thing, is gonna be alright.
My feet say so
with every step I take
towards forever
with my best friend.

What If?

So the very last thing on the Frankenstein Blog Challenge I set up for myself forever ago is "Things that make you think what if I had ___ instead of ___?"

This is pretty intense and I've put it off for a long time. I'd also like to find a new blog challenge. I was hoping I'd find it by now but I've been too distracted.

The thing is, even though I think about the past a lot (too much for one person) I don't want to change it. I don't dwell on what could've happened or what I should've done, because things turned out this way for a reason. If anything different had happened in my life I wouldn't be where or who I am today. I just try to analyze the past and learn more from it. I try to understand other people who are no longer in my life. I get curious about what happened when I wasn't around, too. I'm really nosy.

But if I had to hypothetically put some questions out there, I guess I have a few I could ponder.

1. What if I had dated different people in high school? 
I mean I can't really see it, I don't know who else I would've dated, but things could've been pretty different if I'd avoided a certain crowd my freshmen year. I lost touch with my long term friends because of the temporary new ones. I picked up bad habits. I wasn't nice to people. I fell in love with anyone who was around long enough because I saw the good in every body and I wanted to bring it out or fix them or something. If I could go back I'd give myself a stern talking to before high school. Not clues, just inspiring words.
2. What if I didn't try so hard to be friends with people I wasn't meant to be friends with?
I don't know what it was but I had some friends that not very deep down I knew I wasn't meant to hang around. I tried really hard to impress them or be there for them or share things with them and I only got burned. This happened repeatedly all through high school. I changed myself trying to be someone they would like, and when I finally stopped they didn't like me anymore. I wonder what kind of friendships I could've had if I had been true to myself, or if I was meant to have many friendships at all.
3.What if I had accepted and embraced who I was entirely earlier on instead of later?
I could've been more assertive, more confident, I would've said those things I choked down. I would've been kinder, I would've known what I wanted, I wouldn't have let things get to me. I would've taken better care of myself and not tried so hard to please the people I could never please. Half the time in high school I didn't know what I was doing or saying until someone judged me for it. I was still trying on new personalities and saying things I knew I wouldn't actually say but seemed to fit at the time. If I had had myself all figured out by high school I would've made different choices.

But it's okay. If given the chance to go back I wouldn't. I've said and done things I'm embarrassed of and some memories still haunt me at night when I'm trying to sleep. But it's said and done and over with, and the life I have now is the one I'm meant to have, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Hi (an awkward slightly emotional post)

I really wonder who my audience is some days. I have a link to this from my Tumblr now which is probably silly/kind of stupid, leading strangers to stories of my personal life.

There are at least three people I know look at this blog:

-a certain someone from my past
-my boyfriend
-a guy friend: Austen (whom I miss and think of often, regardless of my terrible communication skills )

I'm slowly leaning away from personal posts and going towards reviewing stuff I look at. I don't really know if I necessarily want to be that blog. I've started using livejournal again for strictly private journaling purposes (viewable to one person and one person only) because I have a lot of thoughts that don't belong on this blog anymore. Although it's fun to share my opinion on stuff I don't really know why I do it. Plus aesthetically, my blog isn't as pleasing as every other blog I've seen and I'm not entirely sure what I would do about it if I were to reach in and give in a makeover. I might need help because I don't really understand Blogger's design.

If you must know I'm not happy at this particular time. Living in Phoenix with nothing to do is a lot like hell. It's hot, at times the air conditioning isn't running, no one else is here, and I find myself stuck on the same website 24/7 even if it bores me. It's my version of hell. I still have school things to take care of and I keep hesitating on whether or not I should get a job now or when I'm more used to school.
I miss Prescott a lot but I can't afford to drive up and down with no income without asking my dad for money, and he does a lot for me already. I feel really isolated and keep forgetting there are a few people I could see here if I really wanted to. I feel really unmotivated and I stay in pajamas most of the time (and usually have to change once or twice a day from sweating). I download movies, watch them. Look at facebook, look at tumblr, check my email all obsessively.
Basically living the dream. I feel like I'm sixteen with no friends. Good God.
But it won't always be like this and that's what's pulling me thru. I may not always get out of bed when I should but Michael is visiting the second day of September, so I feel like hiding in a hole to make August go away is the appropriate move until I have to go to school. It's a very strange transitional period and maybe one busy day I'll look back on it wishing for one more day of it, a thought that occasionally makes me feel a little better about my situation.
When I'm done with school in mid December Michael should be on his winter break, for which we have a few big plans, including: coming home to Prescott to see friends and family, gathering left behind possessions, and moving me to Oklahoma in an apartment off base. It's tough waiting for all those exciting things. In between then and now, he's visiting and I'll be traveling there to help pick a place for us to live. I'll be meeting his new friends and finding a school over there and mentally preparing myself for big changes.
So you can imagine why right now sucks so hard. I've been doing essentially the same things for days pretty much isolated from the world. So much is going to happen so soon and I hate sitting on my ass being this far away from him and anyone familiar. All I do is daydream constantly imagining the future. It's fun, but I can't wait till it all actually happens.

IRobot Day

Sunday marks an occasion I feel is especially important this year. It is to me, anyway. 

August 7th 2004 (I've had to check my middle school journal may times to make sure) I went to Harkins Theatres and met some boys from the other middle school in town. As all of our close friends know at this point this was the day I met Michael. I'd talked to him and his friends online for a little while before but meeting in person was an entirely different experience. 

Back in the day Michael was a lady killer. Seriously, he had this effect on girls and everyone wanted a piece. It was absolutely ridiculous. Girls I knew and girls I didn't know but made themselves known to me were jealous, and I'm not being egotistical here. I was just a silly nerd just starting to leave my awkward phase. But every time I turned around there was some bitch in my face telling me he was hot, I didn't deserve him, etc. Even my best friends back then admitted they were jealous. 

And I've never been the kind of person to let how other people feel effect my decisions. Sometimes that's harsh but it's lead me to finding the perfect person for me no matter what. I don't believe in girl world rules. I pissed off a lot of people I thought were my friends. But people are not property, and I've always felt good friends, real friends would understand that I'm doing what makes me happy. 

So IRobot day marks that first day I saw him and decided what I wanted. It lead to a long string of events that lead me to where I am now. Everyone knows we haven't been together since that day, but what we went thru then wasn't a waste. It lead to a great friendship that became so much more. 

Sorry if I'm making you wanna vomit but this is important to me. Since we got (back) together in 2009 every year we've watched IRobot in the first week of August. Both of us keep forgetting the date so the last two years have been an approximation. It's not about whether it's a good movie or not, but it isn't terrible and we both love Will Smith.

But this year Michael and I are physically the furthest away from each other we've ever been. It's a good thing the seventh falls on a Sunday so that he has some free time. We're going to do the best we can do to continue the tradition and have a Skype movie date. We'll watch it at the same time, pause when either of us needs to pause, and try real hard to pretend we're in the same room. It's become a pretty important date for us to celebrate. 

But I'm definitely glad I get to see him in a few weeks :)

Identity Theft

I woke up to a text from my bank this morning warning me that I was under my ten dollar limit.

Which made no sense. Last time I spent money was yesterday at the store, and I knew how much money was left in my account.

So I got online and saw that there was a charge to Match.com. I've never been to that website in my life, and why would I go there? I've already found the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. And from my parents' example online relationships never work out.

So I went to the bank, canceled my card and got the number to call Match.com and ask them if they could pretty please refund me since I'd never been to their site. And it turned out it wasn't a problem, I was on hold for some time but then they did exactly what I wanted.

It made me wonder, was it a mistake or did someone really need money because they were desperate to meet someone? I almost felt bad for whoever it was later when I thought about it. It could've been a mistake. Whoever took the card information could've written one number wrong and made it mine, but if it was theft, what a weird way to spend someone elses money. Did I ruin a strangers chance for love?

I just hope whoever it is learns either not to steal card info or that they should go outside and meet someone in person for once.