You Make It Beautiful, Friend

You make it worth it to the end.

Today, April 2, 2012, is a momentous day. It truly is. It was a lovely day, driving through the rougher parts of my lovely state and seeing the wildflowers grow in the streets and yards of strangers. Not going to school until 11 AM. I wish I could do this everyday. If I could, I would spend everyday driving around the country, playing tennis, reading Hemingway, gardening, and conversing with my dearest friends.

I had such fun today. I don't like days where some grand, false event happens, like a school dance or a first date... The kind of days where you know you are supposed to be happy. I don't like supposing to be happy, and I don't like events that plan for a good time or a smile. Because these joys just come in life, if you have everything sorted out right and true; you don't really need school dances or first dates to be happy. Just a jig in the rain and a kiss on the palm will do.

There was a small moment today, where I smiled and the person I was smiling at had this look of confusion. Sometimes I think I smile too big, greet too happily. Look like I'm in love. I'm really not. I have a lot of good things in my heart, but also a lot of evil. The human heart is truly the harbouring home for God and the devil; the pulpit at which both preach; the stand at which both debate a side. Lord knows I've seen a lot, but there's a lot more to see.

So now I'm all alone, finishing off a day exactly how it's meant to be finished: reading French literature, listening to Sufjan Stevens, and sipping ice water. That's love and that's happiness for me now; it's enough to hold me over into adulthood.

Almost Summer

It's almost summer and almost college and almost something new. I'm not used to this, when I've seen the same 33 faces for some time. It's going to be very strange.

I don't know if I'm the only one here, but if anybody reads this, I'd appreciate an answer:

I'm a relatively hardworking person. I get all A's. I take piano lessons and do well. I am in clubs and sometimes in sports. But I just don't see myself ever having a career. When people talk about their "careers", they talk about it as if it's something wonderful, that truly brings joy to my life. The only benefit I see to a career is earning money. Am I alone here, or do other people agree: careers do not seem all that fantastic? If I had my way with life (which, Lord knows, I never will) I'd spend my life traveling, helping, doing farm work, and reading. That's it. Really.

Am I just weird?

Anyways. My dream is to become a graceful ballerina. And contemporary dancer. Wouldn't take be amazing? I don't even dance, you know, and when I do I look very robotic; but I dream of a day when I can look nice while dancing. I am too embarrassed sometimes, even at school dances where it is dark and nobody cares. Normally I don't care what people think about me, but I care what I think about myself. Yeah, it'd be really nice to dance. I hope if I ever have a little girl, she will beg me to enroll her in ballet school at age 4, because I would. I'd enroll her in the best damn ballet school in the world.

You Are The Rock

You are the one when I watch myself.

I learned how to play "Happy Birthday" by Sufjan Stevens on guitar and banjo today. That means today was good.

I don't know what much else to say.

You're the Only Good Thing

A Sun Came.

I'm reading about Belgians in the Congo.

The Loneliest Chime in the House

All I had hoped for, I kept inside your car.

I am happy. It is not elation, really, which is really just false happiness. I guess I am at peace with life for once. Today was a good day.

I don't know if you still read this, Joe, because that'd be weird. But today was fun. Then after that, I went to Jenna's house and sealed the tile thing. Then Kyle and Jenna and me went to the pool... Too cold. These 2 girls were leaving when we were getting there and they warned us it was too cold. Kyle jumped in. Jenna and I wouldn't. Then we walked to Taco Bell and saw the girls there and started talking. They were pretty nice. Kyle ate $10 worth of Taco Bell (which is a lot) and we all walked back to Jenna's house in the dark, looking at the stars and talking about religion. Very interesting. I've noticed something about Catholicism, but maybe it's just about life: I seem to have many interesting talks about faith with my friends, and it is very normal. It is also normal to not do certain things. It's hard to explain without sounding trite... But I think this may sum it up:

The most I've had this year was making a lame Christmas puzzle with Kyle and Jenna at 10 PM. I laughed so much. And I don't know why. I guess I just don't want to miss these things, and I'm happy with them. It's not some cheap happiness, but a happiness that is so small right now and I know will grow larger with time. That is the thing that sustains it: hope. Without hope, happiness is hard to find. I'm realizing there's people I truly love. I mean, honestly. I'm done taking advantage of those who love me enough to put up with me. There is a God, and he has blessed me. Of that I am sure.

I at least deserve the respect of a kiss goodbye.

Oh, Sufjan! Your music is just pure joy. I love it.

There is something else, but I can't tell what it is, really. Check #3 off of the previous list! WOO! And I guess #1 (but I mean that's more of something that will occur in May, and I can't rush it)... #4 I'm trying harder to be a better friend. I can't tell if I am. I think so. And #2 is the hardest for me. Definitely. Because she goes to my school, so I will see her later! And it will be awkward. I also want to add a #5: Hang out with Lauren. She's very cool and I LOVE people that like my kind of music. Honestly, just wonderful. Hanging out with Zack will be fun too, because he is just a nice, polite guy... You know, the kind that are hard to come by. People like that give me a sense of peace, that one day I will meet someone nice and polite and good... I think that is the most attractive quality... Well:

1) Pure goodness. This is when a guy is just good. Not sweet, not sensitive, but just good-hearted and kind. The kind of person that makes this Earth better.

2) Musical ability. Especially piano. Minus electric guitar.

3) Respectfulness. If it's not in the relationship, well shit, what is?

4) Humour. Tactful humour, not apes in tutus. Although...

5) Green eyes. Honestly. They kill me. Just like Holden Cauffield would say: They kill me.

I'm also thinking of movies I love. Honestly, most of the time I hate movies. They're awful and predictable and you can tell what emotion is trying to be evoked simply by the movie. But some movies... the story is so powerful that the music is secondary. (Another list.)

1) The Shawshank Redemption.

2) The Good Girl. Yes yes yes. Lovely. I love how tragic it is.

3 ) The Green Mile. When Dale died, I honestly wanted to just strangle Percy; because I know people like that exist.

4) Breakfast at Tiffany's.

5) The Breakfast Club. Just for the tough dude.

I also love Mrs. Otten. She is just so beautiful. I don't know what it is about her, but I want to be just like her. She is so nice and kind and pure-hearted. People like that are hard to come by. People are either rude, annoying, evil, stupid, high-and-mighty, obsequious. But Mrs. Otten is just a simple kind joy. Her laughs are genuine and her quirks are true. Mine are as fake as fakeboy. I want to be a pure, kind-hearted goodness! So badly. I do not want to be beautiful, really. I mean, I like clean hair and all... but to be beautiful? A waste, truly. To be funny? Eh. It gets old. But to be kind and pure and genuine... To make the world better. God, I just want that more than anything. I've been through the phases of wanting things. But that... That's really all there is here on Earth. I know it's true. It rings so true within my heart.

I fell in love again; drove to Chicago... We sold our clothes to the state; I don't mind.

I cannot wait to go to New York City with someone I love. To kiss the lamppost between 224th street and 225th! And get my three wishes. What would I wish for now? I think I'd wish for pure happiness for Joe, Susan, and Chris. That's really why I want to be a missionary. Really, that's what I want to do for a living. I'm scared of danger and death, but I think it'd be so wonderful. So, so wonderful. I can't wait to go to Italy and see Roma and Assisi and Hrvatska, too. Dobro jutro! Buona mattina! (In Italy and Croatia right now.) There is just so many wonderful things I haven't done. I am young and lively! Go me!

If anyone is reading this who is sad or anything close to sad, I want to say something:

Don't think it's the end here. So far from it. Even when you're on the deathbed, you can experience something moving. Life isn't over until it's absolutely over.

Well, that's all I know for know. I am young and I have a lot to learn, but I've learned a good bit in my time. I'm glad, and I thank God for my life everyday. I know that sounds so corny, and I almost regret saying it, but I do.

Hey Wait; Great Smile

Rosemary, Heaven restores you in life.

It's insane to look back on my life and see how much I've changed. It makes me melancholy that I have allowed life to push me these ways. I was not strong when life tested me, and now I am a lump of coal when I could have been so much better. I let you tear me down and hurt me, and I sat back and took it, thinking it made me better. But I wasn't ready for it. Now what do I do? I'm stuck in this place; a limbo. I guess I'm just a little tired of attempts. I lack commitment and insight. But the more I think about it, the deeper I go into those feelings, the sadder I end up in the end. That's why I guess I push it off and ignore. Not good either.

So I guess (as I've told myself millions of times before...) that it is time to take action. Dear lovely world, here is concrete proof I am trying:

1) The play. Even if I choke onstage and fail, I tried. That's enough for me.

2) Talking to Mercutio. It makes me sad a lot. I don't know what to say to people any more.

3) Talking to you. I am scared. I think you are trying to be better, and so am I. I hope you will take me in and listen. I should not be depending on that, but I am, love, please take the time. You were once lovely, not perfect, lovely but so much better. Now you are somebody that I used to know. This new person--I do not know her.

4) Being a better friend. My poor Jenna, I have mistreated the only person who actually stood by me in a horrible time. She calls me loyal, but she is an easier friend to have than me. She is loyal. And how horribly I mistreat those I love! I guess I don't know what to say a lot. I'm quiet and shy and words escape me.

So there it is. I am excited, but I remind myself to keep calm with this. Sometimes I feel tired and hurt and bored and just done with it all; but I can't give up hope. Not at this age, not in this town and in this life. It is hard, and I don't know why it is. You would take a look at me and see building blocks for happiness; I do too... But it's confusing. Maybe one day I'll look back and laugh, be glad I am out of these times. But I know that not everyday will be like this. I know it. It can't be. It just cannot. There would be nobody.

I can say so much more. The things, the glue in my life that keep me going:

1) God. Prayer. Devotion to something beautiful and lovely and perfect.

2) Hope for a better tomorrow.

3) My parents and their love for me.

4) Jenna and her goodness.

5) Beautiful music.

Thank you for these things. Now I must sleep and become better.

Maybe tomorrow will suck. Maybe it will be the worst day of my life. Maybe I will cry and end up feeling like shit by 10:00 am. But I need to remember this moment, right now, 10:31 pm on Monday, February 27, 2012, and remember that at this moment, I have hope. Just that alone should be enough.

I Love You From the Top of my Heart

And the people bowed and prayed.

And what difference does it make for you and me?

All delighted people, raise your hands.

This song is truly one of my favourite love songs. It is beautiful, long and rambling on, quiet at parts, soft, loud, very dramatic, eerie, happy, silly, nonsensical, tragic, ponderous, all throughout a small 11 minutes and 39 seconds. Gorgeous. And all with the voice of the angel Sufjan; high-pitched and light, floating and cracked, like a fragile glass in a sturdy Roman Catholic church. Oh so beautiful. I love you so much anyway. On your breast I gently lay; your arms surround me in the lake. I am joined with you forever. I want this to be "our" song. Whoever the other part of "our" is. I am writing you letters, love. I am waiting in limbo for you, love. I am trying to be faithful and lovely and myself, a child of our God, a kind and gentle mother, a strong student, a woman filled with purpose and charity. As of late I have been jealous and tired and wandering and confused and someone-who-is-not-me. I have strayed. Or perhaps I was never on the right path. Sera que... I have been on the wrong path, one parallel to yours in a thin wood, a sylvan valley, so close, yet going down a different path. They do not meet. We cannot meet--and I am sure of it--until I join the final path, my love. The people I meet now, today, yesterday, tomorrow: they cannot be you. There is no way, my dear. God has let it be known to me. I have waited so long, but I now know that I have been just procrastinating. Telling the world surrounding me: it is hard to be me. Hard to be nice. Hard to be kind. Easy to be cruel. Easy to be superfluous and flailing like a blind cat in the street. I am slowly piecing through the rubble, and it is hard. So far from comfortable. I feel as though I am blind, deaf, senseless, mute. It is a dark, matted haze through which I sift my daily doings. I am relieved to the fact that I am young, I am 17-years-old, I am not down a path the same as my brother, I am not mentally ill or poor or ruined or orphaned or anything drastic. I am simply a person on this planet who is confused by herself, who feels as if someone else has had a fun time in my body, fun time controlling, and it is time for her to go back. It is my time. And I am joining all my thoughts to you. I'm preparing every part for you. That is beautiful. The focus and the devotion of that concept. That we can spent a whole life, be it 10 or 100 years, joining and preparing for a certain cause, one thing, one beautiful, unblemished entity that promises security and joy. That is the life I do want. That life of purpose, not of quiet desperation. The one that nourishes, not the one that kills slowly at night. The one that is of quiet purpose, quiet faith, quiet devotion. Quiet love. Love truly is quiet, is it not? It is quiet and calm as a still water in the winter. It is not filled with pomp and diamonds. It is patient, as St. Paul says in his Letters to the Corinthians. Patient and kind and does not rejoice in suffering. Anything that does is masked by our little Devil as love. But it is hate and it is harmful.

Oh my Mother, she betrayed us, but our Father loved and bathed us. Nature does love us betrayed to our desires and to the flesh. The ills that flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. When you crochet, I feel mesmorised and proud.

This is a new year. And I promise, I will not destroy myself in my failures. I will try. Just the mere thought of trying frightens me, because I am scared of failing. So, so scared. I have failed so many times. Every year.

I have hope.