fractured memories part 1

Remember when we would stay,
lay in my bed all damn day,
wrapped up in the soft sounds of the covers,
each other's refusal to make breakfast or lunch,
as long as it meant leaving the warmth.
Who needs dietary sustenance?
We scoffed, all but immortal,
superheroes of our own respect.
Our only real need to make the moment last.
and it lasted, still present tense lasts.

Everything is ending (except not really)

It has only just occurred to me, as I sat on the edge of a motel bed in Anaheim and tried not to cry as I finished reading aloud the book we started a long time ago and have been reading on this trip, that my road trip is ending. I've been so wrapped up in excitement at returning home that I have left myself little time to contemplate that I am leaving this group adventure and carving out my own solo. On Thursday night, I will sleep in a bed that is (mostly) permanently mine. I'm going to wake up, for the first time in two months, someplace incredibly familiar and walk down streets I've known for the last ten years of my life.
This weird pang of sadness has taken me by surprise even though it shouldn't have. I hugged Rachel, tightly, before she climbed into bed and felt my throat tighten. I didn't want to let go but she was tired and I had blogs to write and sleep to evade. I'm leaving. Even writing it, the words sink in slowly and they hurt a little.
When I left home in May, I felt like I had something conceivable to come back to and it's a little fractured now but I'm clinging to my resolve. I feel a little torn but I made my choices and I'm sticking to them. I'm pretty certain that, either way, I'm going to feel a pull towards the other option but I feel ready to go home so home I will go.
Not to the Grand Canyon or Lake Powell in Utah. Not to Yellowstone or Mount Rushmore. My adventures this month will be on a different scale than the last two. Let us hope I don't regret taking myself out of the road trip and that my actions are driven by something more than hopeless longing.
I feel like Tara Finke from The Piper's Son in that way, not wanting my life to be spent in a perpetual state of longing--either for home or travel--and yet I'm starting to see longing as inevitable. I will miss my mom and sisters. I'll miss reading to them and making them laugh and pissing them off and drinking tea in a different coffee shop every day. But I've missed home, too, missed my dad and my cat and my friends and reliable wifi and... you. I've missed you. Is this what my life will be from now on, with my family moving nine hours away? Missing someone or everyone at all times, no matter where I am or who I'm with?
I guess I'll have to get used to it. Either that or take up drug abuse but I'm leaning towards the former.

travelling thoughts

There's something completely unique about travelling and maybe that is a super obvious statement but I feel it needs to be stated nonetheless. I access places in a completely different way when I don't live there, and the foreign layouts and places are food for endless wonder and comparison.

I've been to quite a few different places in the past three and a half weeks and I have pretty much found something to love about all of them, whether it is a desolate piece of beach or a neat hispter-y coffeeshop. Libraries are usually my favourite spot; I love it when they have particular rooms just for the use of teens. (I also love the clicking keyboards of library computers that give me a soundtrack as I type.)

Travelling brings so much contrast to my life. I can't help but comparing these places to home and picturing myself living here. There are so many amazing little towns on this continent that are full of really cool people and it seems unfortuante that I won't get to see them all. In part, it makes me glad to be away from White Rock, exploring somewhere new. I want to say I miss it and I guess there's some parts that I do but mostly I'm happy to be immersed in these new places--not knowing every street and its name, not having any memories attached to the buildings before my eyes. Like a blank slate, starting fresh in every new city.

I'm getting used to it, the wanderlove, as Kirsten Hubbard put it. The more I see, the more I realize how much there is to fall in love with. Hopefully, I keep falling.

I don't feel 18

I know it's not like your birthday comes by and suddenly a switch is flipped and you're supposed to feel OLDER. I'm not sure what older feels like. For the last couple of years, older feels like having less of a clue about everything, being less sure--and not necessarily in a bad way. I'm not saying I even want to feel noticeably more mature, even though I'm now legally now responsible for myself.

It's just weird. I remember being younger and thinking I'd have it all together at 18. Well, 16, too. I just assumed I'd be grown up and together. Sorry, 9-year-old self, you must be a little disappointed.

Or maybe you're not. I'm not. I think.

birthday blitz

Today, April 15th, kicks off the birthday season in my house with my oldest sister turning twenty two. For the first time, I just realized that my sister's birthdays take place in chronological order throughout the year (my oldest sister having the first of the year in April and my youngest sister the last in September, with Rachel and I in between). WEIRD.

Anyway, because my mother was crafty, she planned for us all to be earth signs so that we would be compatible with and like her, zodiac-wise. And so we have the yearly string of spring birthdays, April 15th (she was born early and is an Ares, thus failing THE PLAN), April 20th, and culminating in my birthday, May 10th.

Fascinating, fascinating trivia, Alex. Thank you for sharing that with the internet.

No but seriously. Birthday season is here. When I think about my immediate friend group, it intrigues me to report that five out of eight of us are Tauruses. Five out of eight! Meaning that when I read my horoscope, I tend to think about it in relation to the majority of my friends. And I realize maybe that is a little weird.

But it's true. And now you know.

See, see? This right here is the downside of BEDA. Rambling pre-bed posts about my zodiac sign. What am I even?

I love metaphors like a love song, baby

I love metaphors. This love has been growing for a while now but it felt especially prominent after my first encounter with The Fault In Our Stars. Reading about Augustus Waters and his use of metaphorical resonance, I was ensconced in the magic of metaphors, the seemingly endless possibility that lies within them.

I started to use metaphors in my life as a way of talking about things without actually talking about them. It was easier that using the real words and maybe it was a bit cowardly but I still managed to access the same conversation, even if it was hidden behind a facade. It was even fun, finding the right analogy and trying to fit it into the situation, all the while avoiding the admission that this was my life I was discussing. It was easier for me to compare my life to a game of Clue than to openly say that I had no idea what was going on and I was stumbling around in the dark.

John Green first introduced me to the power of metaphor and I'm extremely grateful for that. He showed me how metaphors, particularly in literature, give us an easy entry point to asking the hard questions we have to ask if we're going to live examined lives. Metaphors are like the simple machines I learned about at Science World when I was ten; they make the heavy lifting a little more manageable.

I'll be continuing with my use of them to tackle the tricky stuff. When actually talking about stuff is too hard? METAPHOR!

Now, kids, go forth and conquer your challenges with metaphor clutched in your fist. I strongly recommend it.

my turn to leave

y brain gets the fact that you come as much as go,

though this logic exists incognito.

The rest of me is the tender skin under a band-aid,

and I’m not sure if what you were covering up will heal,

or if anything was ever broken.

But, damn—it hurts coming off,

regardless of speed or efficiency.

I don’t want you to stay forever,

wouldn’t ask that you’re always around.

But I’m jealous, okay? That you get to depart,

choose when to leave, and how.

I feel a bit stuck, like a ship run aground,

while you come and you go as you please,

never thinking of the transparent privilege you have

to ever so simply just leave.

I stand in my doorway

as you dish out your hugs

to my family members at large,

sink into the frame,

out of place in my skin,

not knowing where

in this puzzle

I belong.

You slink towards me,

I’ve forgotten I exist.

But I still garner the last embrace.

Your exit resembles the quick untying of shoelaces,

to me it feels like a corset pulled tighter.

I’m selfishly wishing to strip it off,

untie my own shoes and run barefoot

towards the ocean

until the tide and my own inhibitions

bring me back

effortlessly

to you.

See,

You don’t have to lie alone

in a bed that not the smoothest conman could convince you is half full,

nostalgia replacing the heat in your cheeks,

as your body forgets

what it was like to conform to another.

You don’t have to remain,

air stained

by my lingering presence

as I go off to conquer grander maybes.

Perhaps that’s not quite fair,

I hope you’ll forgive me

for looking at this through my own eyes, for now.

I hope you’ll forgive me

for asking you

to give me my chance,

to walk out the door,

Plant kisses and wish you goodbye.

Step slow with regret, out of sight, out of everything,

leaving nothing but memories behind.

But wait.

I want the pleasure of coming back too,

I want to not have to wait.

To show up at your door

when I want, when I’m ready,

swagger up with my unmemorized gait.

Not always be peering out windows,

and shuffling around empty rooms,

trying to convince myself I’m not waiting

for anything

for anyone.

for you.

Is there a way I can grasp hold of this balance,

not always be the one left behind?

Or should I accept my fate as the beach

give up hopes of becoming the tide?