It goes on and on, on and on, on and on (etc.)

So the earth keeps spinning and life keeps changing and here I am blogging about it.

My birthday is next week. The semester’s already nearly five weeks in and I’ve been to the gym every day for nearly twenty days this months. I’m loving German, enjoying but sucking at theory, and getting the help where I need it so I can understand the beautiful things that are going to shape me into a musician worth knowing. I’m trying to look for time where I normally wouldn’t, and also learning how to balance the mental health time that’s so very necessary to keeping a busy mind sane and efficient.

On a greater scale, my family’s nearly all grown up and a few branches have started families of their own. Life has taken my cousins all over the country; deaths have brought them all to one place again. Sometimes I wonder whether or not I would have ever gotten the chance to meet some of these people otherwise. When I asked  my grandmother to show me, finally, my great-great-grandmother’s autobiography, I discovered some piece of where I come from, some part of the family legacy that I and my sister and my cousins will build upon.

I’m living on my own (minus a few bills that I would otherwise have to pay on my own, but what the hell, that money is all being sucked into this thing I like to call “tuition,” anyway). I’m creating plans, choosing things for myself, making my own coffee… I’ve made my own coffee for years but it’s different when the coffee pot you use is something you bought with your own money, and the coffee you make is again something you purchased yourself. I’m almost a real person. That’s what it feels like to me, right now.

But life will go on, and we’ll have to see if my being almost a real person changes as it does.

Let’s see if I can write a blog in five minutes

It’s 11:25. I would really like some sleep but as usual I’ve got a couple of things clogging my mind.

01. Homework. It’s basically eating me alive and although I’ve gotten better at handling the workload, I feel like every day there is more to do, and every day it’s monumentally harder. One day I will be trying to breathe beneath a sea of dictations, listening modules and piano audits… and I might just stop swimming, and plummet to the bottom of the theoretical ocean. That’s what it feels like.

02. Friends. Sometimes I feel so, so blessed to know the amazing people I do. This is what I have to tell myself when they piss me off… or when I feel as though I’m not worthy of them.

03. Home. I keep having beautiful daydreams of being home. There’s a spicy pumpkin scent to the crisp fall air there and the leaves are already Halloween shades. Hot cider is on the stove and I have a pile of books to read and nothing else to do but laundry and the dishes. And most importantly, my mind is relaxed and my family is there. That is what I daydream about. Only two and a half more weeks until I’m home again.

04. Love. Is it possible to love someone but not be in love with them? I don’t know.

But my time is up. Five minute blog down. Gute nacht, it’s past my bedtime.

I just I just

I just want to be at home, with my wood stove going, and I wish I had my fat yellow dog. And some hot cider, and cinnamon, and a blanket and popcorn. I just want to settle down there with a hug and a fall wind in the darkness and love my life.

I want to have friends that’ll let me be, alone when being alone is all that I need

That quote basically describes my life. If I am to be completely honest, I love my friends. I love them and it hurts when some of them don’t love me back. Or when they don’t even realize how much I give a shit what they think. It is painful to force yourself face to face with the fact that you are so insignificant in someone’s life (someone you’ve known for over a year now), that they don’t even realize how much you need them to care, even a little.

Isn’t that how life works, though? You try and love with all you have in whatever capacity you’re capable of, and it either doubles and returns or trickles off into nothingness. And you’re rejected.

As I listened to the Bitchin’ Kitchen play tonight, I wondered, if the group of people (friends?) I’m talking about cared, would it make it better? Would it make the clinging sadness in my chest go away? Or it is just early-onset seasonal depression setting in, or what? Then I wondered, if there was a boy, would it be better? And then I decided, probably not. A boy of that sort is basically a built-in best friend you can have sex with, and somehow I think having one of those would complicate things more than it would help.

I mean, I don’t mind being my own best friend. And I’ve said for a long time that if no one talks to you, that’s your own fault and you should go be more social. But here, everyone is working their asses off to be the best. If I don’t talk to people, it’s because I’m working. I’m trying to make something of myself. I want to have friends who understand what it’s like to need to be alone, to focus or to refocus, but who also understand the necessity of human contact.

Maybe it’s all about finding the perfect fit of people who care a lot, enough to notice when you’re upset or lonely or tired or miserable. Maybe it’s all about taking closer notice of the feelings of the ones I am rather close to. The ones who don’t talk to me simply because they’re bored and there’s nothing else to do.

But for now, I guess I’ll be my own best friend. It’s okay. I’m used to it by now.

And when they ask you what you’re living for, say love

I wrote a song earlier (it’s not that uncommon for me, nowadays) that questioned, really, why we’re here. It referenced the grieving process, and the endless cycle of life, and death, and life again. It’s bizarre to know that my heart just ached when I wrote it. And now? It still aches, some, but I have my answer.

Funny how those things work out. It’s also funny, and by funny I mean bizarre, and sometimes annoying/frustrating, that sometimes, the more you think you can handle how you feel about something, the more it gets away from you. That happened to me tonight at the vigil: I was silent and respectful during the ceremony that consisted mostly of hushed speakers and a pathetic microphone and the wind in the courtyard, mirroring our breathing. I wrote my message to Victor, maintaining that respect and composure.

Then I saw David swoop right in to hug Katie and for some reason that embrace, one of friendship, support, and communal grief and understanding without words, took me right back. I thought I’d grown from my experiences with the fucking brutal unfairness of life. I thought I had grown from my experiences losing those I hardly knew, and those I knew well.

Well, I didn’t. I got back to my room and absolutely lost it for a little while. I didn’t bother to turn on the lights. I don’t feel bad admitting it here, but I’m a really ugly and disgusting sobber– I was a wreck and it would have been humiliating to be below with my classmates. So I cried alone. I cried, selfishly, because I was here and Victor wasn’t. I cried, still selfishly, because like Dan, Victor was only nineteen when he lost his life, with so much potential in front of him. I cried because I knew his family was coming in from China for the memorial service this Saturday. I cried because I know that those who loved him– and perhaps, even some who barely knew him at all– will be forever changed in one of the most painful ways.

I cried some for Dakota, even though he’s improved so much, because he’s lost a lot of time and a great deal of opportunities. I cried because his situation is truly heartbreaking, even though there is hope for him to recover even more than he already has.

And I cried a little bit for myself, because there is still so much life to experience, and I haven’t yet. And, stupidly, because I had pretended not to need a hug. My own stupid fault, but I couldn’t cry there. Seriously.

I realized afterward, after I’d written some lyrics and established a melody both haunting and pretty, that the communities I live in– both at home, and here at Eastman– are so strong and reseliant. People are there for each other. Like just a little while ago, when the sad knotted ache under my heart wouldn’t leave, and I had to talk to someone for just a few minutes. People here listen. People here care.

When Saturday rolls around, I cannot imagine the overwhelming situation Victor’s parents will be facing– having to say goodbye to their son. But I do know that this community will do all in its power to ensure that they have the strength, support, respect, understanding, and love they need to make it through.

That’s why we’re here. It’s not because we’re some science experiment, it’s not so we can make money and rot into the ground. It’s not for material gain or networking or technological advancement or to see if there’s life on Mars.

We’re here to love: whether in jubilation or darkest misery. We are here to accept it, to revel in it. And most especially, to give it.