Bright Eyes

Can someone please tell me what the normal amount your suppose to miss someone after a break up is? Because I've missed Nathan every single day that it's been over. I cry in the shower. My tears rock me to sleep. What if Nathan was it? He was the first to give me a chance. What if he's the last? The thought hurts my heavy heart. And lately, all I can think is how much I want him back.

Who was I to question our relationship? Why couldn't I shut up and be happy? How I didn't realize what I had until it was gone. How blessed I was to find someone who loved me so much. Someone who thought that I was beautiful and sweet and funny. Someone who saw the best parts of me, and the worst, and loved me all the same. Someone who made a broken girl feel whole for the first time in her life.

How blessed I was to find a boy so kind, and generous, and good. A gentleman. That guy that girls write cheesy myspace page decals about. A boy who inspired me to be a better person. The boy who did everything right.

I wonder if my mind has glorified our relationship in the retrospect. Because I do know there were struggles, hardships, unhappinesses. There was a reason that it ended. But in my brief time at college, I've made some mistakes. Mistakes that taught me that not everyone will appreciate me like Nathan did, or rather, lessons that rekindled a fear that perhaps no one else ever will.

The thing about Nathan, about our relationship, is that he will always be the guy I love(d) because he was "the good guy". He is the friendship that grew love. And it's funny, because growing up, I told myself that was always what I wanted - to find a best friend I could fall in love with, to spend my life with him. But at 18, my soul felt caged by the standard. I longed for something wild and free. I want to live a young life empassioned. But I've always been this vulnerable little girl when it came to romance. Looking for love is a dangerous quest. A road of a million rejections.

I want to be with Nathan, though I know I can't be now. But what if he isn't there when I go looking for him later?

First love is the first taste of water - from here on out there will always be thirst.

party of one

I've been meaning to write a piece on "college". Something motivational, inspirational, a little something to get me excited, to concretely define my path - but then I got here.

It was strange, I walked into my dorm room for the first time and thought, "hmm, this is my dorm room." I realized in that moment, that I'd come into this with absolutely no preconcieved notions. I hadn't pictured my room, or my friends. I hadn't really thought about what campus would look like, or what my classes would be. I hadn't considered who I'd be, or even mused on who I wanted to be given the infinite possibilities for redefinition. I thought "I'm moving to Boston and I'm going to go to school there." In retrospect, this is perfect. There will be no silly nonsense of upset at things being "different then pictured" - there is no picture. I really and truly am working from scratch.

I'll never forget the feeling I had coming out of the my first meeting with Susan (my lovely academic counselor). It was this overwhelming feeling of excitement, motivation, and mostly this isn't Notre Dame anymore. I can't say definitively that I've got it cracked after only four short days of living my environment, but never in my life have I ever felt so motivated. I can't ever remember me personally making the decision to not hang out with people because I wanted my reading done early, or passing up an ice cream run to finish my extra credit, or sacrificing sleep to go exercise.

My initial goal coming into college (the only part I actually did think about) was that for the first time in my life I was going to totally and completely give myself over to it. I was going to throw myself in for the sake of success. This I have thus done successfully.

With the arrival of course selection, I made an adendum. Not only would I throw myself into things, but I was going to throw myself into things I never thought I'd try. Things like Japanese, and underwater basket weaving, and documentary film making. I thought of the lovely Miss Christina Spann, a girl who has not ceased to impress me more and more every time I see her in the last few months. A girl who has always overwhlemingly seemed to go confidently into life, with full assurance of herself, and live contented with past and present actions a result. A girl who is quirky and does things like get octopus tattoos because she thinks it's cool. I thought of that girl and I realized it was some of those traits that through things like Japanese, and cartilage piercings, and experimenting with color scale photography, I wanted to emulate.

I am completely free of all attatchment right now, and I'm realizing more and more how incredibly important that fact is. I am free and ready to pour myself into my life and into me. And as selfish as that may sound, I'm doing it, regardless of what anyone else thinks because it's what I want to do with my life.

The part of all this "map of college" I couldn't've told you until the events of this evening is a part I'd never considered - defining my morals. Not strictly just my morals, but it's the closest word I can come up with for explaination. It's like, I grew up with this image of what my mom wanted me to be, and what she valued as appropriate and innapropriate and I live my life with that as the inner compass standard. From there, after years of not recieving her approval, I fell into the arms of Nathan. Finally someone approved. And that's what I didn't realize until this evening; in the course of that relationship, I began to shift from my mom's standards, yes, but rather than define my own, I found myself beginning to live by his. And you know what? I spend way to much goddamn time worry about what other people think of me.

So right now, I'm here, and I'm not living for my mother, or for Nathan, or for anyone else. I'm taking a step away from the life that was and into the mystery of what is to be. I'm going to take a little step away from what is "planned" and "proper. Try new things, test the waters. And yeah, not everyone will approve of some of my decisions. I'm going to try new things, live my life, and make some mistakes. But I'm going to go at life, full on. Be it academically, or in defining my existence. I've been presented with a glorious and crucially human opportunity to find myself. And I could not be more excited to do just that.