.:: falling apart and coming back together ::.

Have you ever noticed how seldom things work out how you picture them in your mind? If you'd asked me a few years ago, maybe when I was 18 or so, what I'd be doing at 23, I might have said that I would be married by now.

Ha.

I might have even thought I'd be more mature than I am. I'm starting to embrace the fact that virtually nothing that I had predicted has come to pass. Things haven't turned out like I planned, and thank goodness for that. It's like one of those "choose your adventure" books where you make a decision that takes you down an entirely different rabbit hole than whatever other options you have. Except with those books, you can always go back and have ALL the adventures. Life is not so. With every decision I make, doors shut behind me and I close chapters of my life that I can never revisit. It makes me sad, but I am so entranced by the possibilities coming at me each day that I can't help but enjoy the journey.

I suppose the one thing that really bothers me is when I lose people. There are several people who I have been very close to and now, for whatever reason, cannot even talk to anymore. I think most of them are men. I don't just mean that I can't talk to them because we grew up and moved away. I am talking about people who I have shared my heart with...people who have meant more to me than I did to myself at the time...and they are completely lost to me. It hurts so much to think that I will spend the rest of my life wishing I could have just one last conversation. It kills me to think that it won't be until the afterlife that I am allowed to be in contact with them. Maybe I'm getting too personal with this, but it's been on my mind lately.

Isn't it strange that the people that mean the most to you — the ones you really let into your soul — are the ones you are at the greatest risk for losing? There are people I would storm the gates of hell for, but for whatever reason, a phone call is impossible. I don't get to hear them say they love me ever again. I don't get to hear about their day. I don't get to ask them for advice or know that they care about me. Because the truth is, they probably don't.

It makes me feel very expendable, and I don't like to feel like that.

Sometimes I convince myself that I am the poison in my own apple. Maybe it is me that so unloveable that even when someone loves me, they eventually become overwhelmed. Perhaps it is my opinions. Perhaps it is me pushing these people away. I hate that. I never wanted to push anyone away. Maybe I loved them too much.

I remember realizing for the first time that my father was human and that he was very much not the man that I needed him to be. He let me down so much. He shut me out. He ignored me when I tried to talk to him. He didn't say that he loved me back. He let me leave the room without coming after me. He didn't return my embrace. Most of the time, I just imagine that he isn't even there anymore so it will stop hurting. But it won't ever stop hurting. I don't have a father, and I never will. I have to do this on my own. The point is that I think I am repeating my hurt from my father in other relationships. I expect you to eventually leave me, so I save you the trouble and walk away first. It makes things easier, and it keeps you from feeling guilty. You can just blame me. That way, I take all the hurt, pain, sorrow, bitterness and guilt upon myself and you can just explain me away as that messed up girl who had too many problems to even try to deal with.

That's how much I love you.

.:: ouch ::.

My heart hurts.
But I like St. Louis.
So I guess I'll be ok.

Nobody reads this anymore.

Which makes me sort of sad...

*is it worth it? can you even hear me?*

Why is that just before you leave somewhere you start feeling really attached?
I've spent four years resenting Lexington and everything about it. Now I'm sure that I'll miss parts of it immensely and always look back on my time here as a time of immense growth for me.

To keep from feeling so down, I'm going to make a list of things I want to do in the next few years. I'm not sad about the past, I'm not living in the future, and I am thankful for today.
Here goes nothing. I'm sure that nobody reads this blog anymore so I feel like I'm talking to myself, but I sort of like that. Bring on the mental hospital.

1) Visit Italy again. My first trip was very rushed and I'd love to have time to wander around at my leisure and take pictures, write and eat dessert first. I'd also love to take a good friend or love there so I would have someone to share it with.

2) Write a book that touches someone as much as The Perks of Being a Wallflower touched me. I'm so serious...that book made a monumental impact on the way I see things every day. I'd love to be able to give someone a different perspective with my writing.

3) This one is pathetic and selfish, but I've always wanted to be painted. I'd love to sit for a portrait by an art student. I'd probably just drape a piece of silk around myself and let them paint me like that. I don't know anyone who has ever been painted, and I think it's very romantic and plan to do it before I get old.

4) I want to sing on the top of a piano in a black dress. Pearl necklace. Black heels. The whole works. I've got an idea of what I'd sing, but I'm open to suggestions.

5) Save someone's life. I hope that if I am ever in the situation to, that I would be able to react quickly enough to save a person's life. What an amazing feeling that would be.

6) I used to dream of taking a picture that would make it into a newspaper, but I've done that so I'll up the challenge. I'd love to take a picture that made it into a magazine and really made people stop and take note. Not just to document the obvious, but to display the unusually beautiful.

7) I'd like to have my niece or daughter someday look me in the face and tell me that they think I'm brave. That would be the most amazing feeling to know that I'd inspired another young woman in my family. The thought of that moment helps me make decisions...

8) Be the kind of woman who makes pies for her friends when they are feeling down. I want my kitchen to be a place of conversation, love and friendship. I want people to always feel like they can count of me when they are feeling down and they can stop by for some encouragement. I want to be a truly great friend to everyone I can.

9) Have a drink named after me at a bar. This one is silly, but I mean it. I think it'd be funny to be sitting at a bar and have someone come in an order a "Mandy on ice."

10) I want to look back on things when I'm old and know that I never settled for anything less than what I deserve. I want to know that I've been worth the whole world to somebody and that nobody ever regretted standing up for me. I want to know that I've been a caring lover, warm friend and a decent human.

So yeah. Nobody will probably ever read this. That's cool.

* silent reflections *
I am usually surrounded by noise. If I'm at work, it's the police scanner and the sounds of the newsroom (phones ringing, jokes being told, stories being read out loud for suggestion). If I'm in the car, it's my own music that I'm probably singing to. When I'm at home, I'm more than likely watching a movie or listening to music. Heck, I even have a shower radio.
I am constantly surrounded by sound.
Except for right now.
It's so quiet in my house that I can hear the fizz escaping out of my bottle. It's so dark that the only light in the house is coming from the 4 candles I have lit on the top of my desk.
It is both quiet and dark. I like this. I have the house to myself.

* baking cakes *
As you may or may not know, being 22, single and female can be a challenge.
Have you ever been out on a date or pseud-date and things are going so well that it scares you and then your date says something that becomes the romantic equivalent of the Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki?
Allow me to relate.
Sometimes, when guys say things to me, I should realize that it is nothing more than a grain of sugar. It can be sweet, but it is to be taken very lightly because it's not the entire story. I have always been a baker. I will take one interesting, seemingly compatible or sweet thing ( follow the sugar grain agalogy) and bake an entire cake out of it. Or at least I'll see the cake...three tiers and covered in chocolate frosting. Looks delicious.
But it's not real.
Then, at some point, I discover that whatever I thought the cake consisted of, never actually existed. It's made of air. The sugar grain goes back to being what it always was - a microscopic momentary confection. And then I feel cheated and I go through sugar shock.
It's torture. Self-inflicted torture.
I look at the guys that I date as potential stories. I think that most girls do...whether they'll admit to it or not. You end up thinking..."wow...this would be such a cool story to tell later on.."
Maybe it's just because I'm a writer. Who konws.
Let me get to the point.

* the point *
I met a guy last Sunday. I was out covering a story on some military guys coming back from Iraq. (DISCLAIMER: If you are that guy and you end up reading this, I'm sorry. I'm not going to use your name, so calm down. You should have known better than to go out with a writer.)
As a member of the press, I was allowed to walk from the plane with the soldiers as they made their way to their families. I started walking with this one soldier and interviewing him...I ended up talking to his family and he became the focus of my story.
He introduced me to one of his friends, another soldier, who was standing nearby.
I interviewed him as well. He was funny, charming and easy to talk to. I could tell that he was intelligent. I could tell that he was reflective. I thought he was cute immediately.
On Monday, he left a message on my phone at work asking if he could come get a CD with the pictures I took on it. I called him back and he came in on Tuesday to pick up the CD.
Now this is apparently a trick that military guys use, so girls pay attention to this next part.
( I still think it's sort of cute though.)
He came to get the CD and was making small talk and told me how he'd been all over town trying to find someone to sew some patches on his uniform. He wanted to wear it to church on Sunday and couldn't find anyone to do it. I, of course, fell right into that trap willingly and told him that I sew. Going to get the thread turned into dinner and that turned into a long conversation.
By this point, I really thought that he had potential. He was a gentleman and he seemed like he'd be a blast to hang out with. We were singing in my car on the way to dinner, dang it. We danced in Wal-Mart while getting the thread. He was a doll.
Then at dinner, after we prayed over the food, he told me that I was the first girl who had ever asked to pray over a meal and he thought that was really nice. (APPLY THE GRAIN OF SUGAR ANALOGY HERE). My mind immediately rang off that old familiar...
"OH WOW OH WOW...YOU ARE COMPATIBLE...OH WOW!"
Ready for the Atomic Bomb?
He's Mormon.
I am very not Mormon. As a matter of fact, I don't think that I'll ever be even a tiny bit close to being a God, I don't believe that people with dark skin have dark skin as a punishment from God and I hold no human being in higher esteem than Jesus Christ (especially not some guy named Joseph Smith who lived in upstate New York in the 1880s). I drink caffeine, the occasional bit of alcohol in moderation and I don't want to be someone's 9th wife. I don't think that it is by my good works that I "earn" heaven or eternity. I don't believe in "spirit babies" and I really don't think that Jesus and Lucifer were brothers at any point in time.
Sadly, I did not realize all this stuff about Mormonism until the night after the date. When he said that he was Mormon, I only thought "Utah" and "poligamy...but nobody really does that anymore, do they?"
How do I get into these things? Where do I find these people? At least this cake came back down to reality very quickly and I didn't have any of my heart invested in it. *phew*

Like I said before, it's not easy being a S/W/F. I just wish that there was some way to stop the cake baking at some uber-preliminary stage. What is it about me that makes me just jump into things and have so much faith in people? I get let down really hard every single time when I realize that they're not who I built them up to be...
and don't say that I have unreachable standards and that I want someone that is so perfect that they don't exist.
I have gone out with the following in the past year:
1) most recently, a Mormon
2) a guy who had several other girlfriends he failed to tell me about
3) a guy who got mad at me for no good reason about really stupid things and treated me horribly (worse than he'd treat a total stranger)
4) a guy i seriously think is gay
5) an eternal college student (think 25-year-old sophomore)

It will probably get worse. I have even been told that I'm intimidating. Well, to guys like that, I guess I would be. I'm 22. I have a job and I get along with my family. I have goals and dreams that I am actively pursuing. I am comfortable with myself and I have knowledge of political issues. I can discuss the French Revolution with some degree of accuracy. I have traveled. I am not afraid to be alone. I am not afraid to let someone know when they've hurt my feelings or upset me. I love to laugh and can have a perfectly good time with or without someone. I have a great knowledge of music and 90s trivia.
And I date losers.
(and people with wacko religious beliefs, just to be fair. he wasn't a loser, just a bit out there.)

* dreary Saturday far away from you *

It's snowing a little bit again. Sort of makes me want to go home...just take off and drive all the way across Indiana and Illinois and sit out by the lake. Days like this really make me long for summer...I can't stand cold weather.

I guess it's time to start a countdown of days until I leave for England. I remember when my friend, Frances, left Paducah to go to college. She was a year older than I and that meant that I had a whole year of high school to get through without her around. That fall, I made a paperchain of little pieces of bright construction paper and hung it up in my room. I would tear one ring off for each day that went by until she came home for Thanksgiving break. My friends and I even organized a welcome home party to meet her at the airport and we made signs and brought flowers. It was such an exciting day.
I seriously doubt that anyone will be making any paperchains over this one, although my English friends (Stef, Laura, Claire and Kat) sound pretty excited that I'm coming back.

I fly out in 18 days.

It's hard to imagine. I remember waking up on June 2, 2003 and packing up the last of my belongings and leaving my vacated room...I met Kate down in the courtyard of Whitendale Hall and we made our way to the train station. I have to admit, I felt pretty overwhelmed. I remember the train ride to the airport as clear as day. Kate and I were on separate flights and so we parted ways with a hug and a "see you back home."
I was sitting there waiting to board my flight and watching the people around me. What were their stories? Could they possibly know how empty and sad I felt? A few days before, I had been on the beach in Spain and dancing in Italy. I was leaving without really accomplishing anything I had set out to do, except that I had a grand adventure. I don't feel like that girl at the airport in Manchester anymore. I refuse to be all sad and nostalgic about the way things went. I am going back over there to have a wonderful time and sort things out in my mind.
And then I am coming home.

I had a short conversation with Kelby last night. He's in California and I miss him terribly. It's so nice to hear his voice sometimes...just when he calls me and leaves me little messages to say that something reminded him of me or that he misses me. It's a great comfort — it makes the miles between us feel like nothing. I suppose everyone that I have ever really loved is quite a way away from me right now. It's a hard thing to swallow, but the little messages get me through. It really makes me want to be in heaven — a place where there is no distance and sad goodbyes anymore. You just get to be surrounded by love all the time. How nice that must be.

John Mayer gets on my nerves sometimes, but I heard this song on the commute this morning and had to share it because it felt so much like today. Read them out loud and let things be very still.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I know a girl.
She puts the color inside of my world.
She's just like a maze,
Where all of the walls all continually change.

I've done all I can
To stand on the steps with my heart in my hand,
But I'm starting to think
Maybe it's got nothing to do with me.

Fathers be good to your daughters;
Daughters will love like you do, yeah.
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers,
So mothers be good to your daughters, too.

Oh, you see that skin;
It's the same she's been standing in
Since the day you two met.
I bet I was on your mind
Never never anytime.

Fathers be good to your daughters;
Daughters will love like you do, yeah.
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers,
So mothers be good to your daughters, too.

Boys you can break,
You find out how much they can take.
Boys will be strong, and boys soldier on,
But boys would be gone without warmth
From a woman's good, good heart

On behalf of every man, looking out for every girl,
You are the god, and the weight of her world.
On behalf of every man whose looking out for every girl,
You are the god, and the weight of her world.

Fathers be good to your daughters,
Daughters will love like you do, yeah.
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers,
So mothers be good to your daughters, too.
So mothers be good to your daughters, too.

love,
me

*major life decisions with a magic 8 ball*

I bought a ticket to England yesterday. I am going to visit some friends and my favorite old town, Preston. I can't wait to get over there....I'll leave a few days after Valentine's Day (so that I have something to look forward to instead of how stupid V-Day is) and come back before the end of the month.
I called Kate (my travel companion in Italy) to let her know I was going back and she sounded like she wanted to go as well. It'll be 2 years in June since I was in England last and I think that calls for a return visit. Jessica from Indiana (another friend from my semester abroad) will be meeting up with me over there and I'm super excited to see her again.
It's all a bit overwhelming...the thought of going overseas again. It takes so much planning and so much thought. There will be a quite a bit of journaling while I'm over there, but I don't want to have my face pressed into a book the entire time and forget to look around.
My Lord, I really can't believe I'm doing this. It's insane. Oh to be young.

I suppose it's times like these you learn to love again...Thanks Dave for that lovely lyric.

So, there was a Katie Couric special on TV last night that I watched...it was 20 teens between 13 and 16 years of age talking about their sex lives. They answered questions about how the media effects them and what have become common practices in middle and high school. It was quite shocking, but really, these are monsters that we ourselves have created.
I had heard the phrase "friends with benefits" before from college kids who were convinced that they were capable of having physical relationships without any emotional attachment. I really didn't expect to hear that 13 year-olds were doing this. Good grief. I don't think I even knew about half the stuff they were speaking about when I was in 8th grade. How sick. I was busy in 8th grade playing soccer, having slumber parties and being on the honor roll.

Don't get me wrong...there were some skanks in our school just like every school who were probably sleeping around all over the place. It's just that they were the minority. My friends and I just didn't associate with them and paid very little attention to them. I'm really glad that I let myself be a kid when I was a kid.

Maybe I'm just being nostalgic.

*i am woman hear me roar...grrrrrr*

I had the immense pleasure today of attending a Roundtable Networking Luncheon for women leaders at Arlington. Former Kentucky Governor, Martha Layne Collins (1983-87) addressed the room of more than 40 women about the challenges and rewards of being a female leader. She was absolutely fascinating to listen to and I really enjoyed her talk. I can't imagine the pressure and sacrifice one would have to make to be governor.

DID YOU KNOW?

Martha Layne Collins has been the only female governor of Kentucky and the 6th woman to serve as governor in any state???

NOW YOU KNOW

These are the little perks of my job. I get to go out and meet all sorts of interesting people with stories to tell and advice to give. It's a little scary that I ended up at a leadership luncheon for women as I still get really excited about strawbery Pop Tarts and slipping into my sheep PJs after a long day's work. I still feel like a kid when I get home...

Also on the roster of random things I got to do today:

1) interview a scuba diving instructor about a class he is teaching at Berea College
2) go on a hunt for more Post-It notes (they are horded around here)
3) read a letter sent to the paper in my name from an angry middle-school parent (they are mad because their kid's teacher won't let them wear certain colors to school as they may be "gang related")
4) make coffee and drink it from my "Don't Mess With Texas" mug that a couple I interviewed last summer mailed to me
5) try to pick the mushrooms out of my pasta at the luncheon without looking like a 4-year-old picky eater

I really can say that I haven't been bored once this year. Things, random as they are, tend to stay relatively exciting around here. Even if they have to do with former governors and mushrooms.

The book I wrote should be coming in the mail today or tomorrow. I am SO excited to get it...Guess what you're all getting for Christmas this year???

love,
m