Transition

Currently, my life is in a state of transition.  Or maybe more accurately, a state of hiatus.  My life consists of failed job searches and crafting from my dwindling supplies.  I'm almost out of clay and I'm lacking in wire.  Every day is a push to keep myself from going insane from a lack of things to do.  I must have rearranged my room thirty times by now.  I've become almost meticulous at keeping my room clean, if only for the reason that cleaning gives me something to do.

I've angered one of my best friends again.  I seem to be getting good at that.  We were doing so well too; we'd finally started mending the cracks that were left from this summer.  We were talking, joking, and enjoying each other's friendship again.  But then a misunderstanding happened, and suddenly I'm back on his list of people to ignore. 

It's kinda funny, in a sad, sad way, how all it takes to destroy something good is a misunderstanding.  Such a simple, small thing that causes so much damage.  It's truly a shame, that the one thing I'm skilled at is causing such detrimental misunderstandings.  Some people can sing, some paint, some are athletic.  My skill is making people mad at me.  And I do it so flawlessly.

Slamming Doors

Well, I'm done my fall semester, and Christmas break is officially here.  And here I am, two in the morning, lounging around in my room at the new house (which is FINALLY somewhat clean after coming home with all my college stuff to find it completely wrecked).  I'm weary and my body aches from cleaning and packing all day yesterday, and moving furniture and cleaning MORE when I got home.  But despite that, I feel completely at ease.  I'm not so much sleepy as I am relaxed. I feel like I'm floating, the sounds of the room coming to me kinda muted and mellow like I'm hearing it underwater.  The whirring of my laptop, and the planes flying nearby, and the soft snoring of my boyfriend from my floor where he crashed before making it to the couch, are all serving to lull me off into a contented state of total relaxation.  And right now I can't help but think about how wonderfully blessed my life has become, and how thankful I am for all the things, even the seemingly bad things, that led me to this place.  I'm starting to realize that sometimes even the most painful events can be a blessing in disguise.  That, had those painful things never happened, I would've never had the amazing things I have now.  It's almost funny to me: I had been so upset from being hurt, when getting hurt was the best thing that could have happened to me.  I thought I was losing something good, when really bad things were getting out of my life so that great things could happen.  I was foolish, and attempted with all my might to hold onto the things that weren't good for me.  Now, looking back, I'm so thankful that those doors were slammed in my face.  Because I'm kinda silly sometimes, and if they hadn't been closed for me, I would have gone through them.  And if I had gone through them, I would never have experienced this happiness I feel now.  Happiness I could never have gotten on the other side of the slammed doors.  The happiness may have come about from really painful stuff, but to me, this happiness was worth it.

Just Tell Me That You Still Believe

I wish I had a better understanding of people.  Sometimes, I even wish I could read minds.  I know, that would be a horrible superpower to have, and would backfire all the time.  Sometimes it is best to be oblivious, after all.  But sometimes, sometimes I stare at people and try my hardest to find out what people REALLY mean, what they REALLY think.  I think if I could read people's minds, and know what's really going on with someone, it would prevent me from saying the wrong thing, and hurting people and causing people to be mad at me.  I seem to do that a lot.  I've realized too late that I've already lost some of the most important people in my life, because I couldn't predict or be sure of what they were thinking. I've said stupid things and done stupid things and hurt them without realizing, and by the time I had a grasp on what was really going on, it was too late.  They were gone.  There aren't any second chances when it comes to stuff like this.  

The thing that makes it really sting is the little voice in my head that keeps reminding me that it's all my fault.  The pain I caused them, the pain I now feel at their absence, all of it could have been avoided, SHOULD have been avoided, if I had the ability to see things through eyes other than my own.  Even now, though I understand what my shortcoming was, I'm no closer to knowing how to fix it.  I still don't even know where to begin to know how to grasp another's thoughts.  And even now it's still causing problems.  I'm continually hurting one of the most important people to me, and I don't even know how to stop.  If I could just know what they were really thinking, I think I could figure it out.  But I don't know how to know.  I can't get that information from them.  People never tell you what they really, REALLY think, after all.  And the information I have gotten from them is so completely contradictory I don't know what's truth and what's false.  Shady actions and blatant horrid words strike me in the face, and my brain is telling me that they're lying when they feed you kind, placating words.  But then my heart speaks up and vehemently denies the possibility.  "They're there for you" it says.  This is someone who's had your back time and time again.  They've held you when you've cried and made you laugh when you didn't feel like being happy and they've said so themselves that they'll never leave you behind, that you're too important to them to abandon.

And then my brain speaks back up.  It calls my heart stupid and naive.  It reminds my heart of all the times they WEREN'T there for me.  Reminds of the darkest times, when they abandoned me when I needed them the most.  Reminds me of the contradicting stories and all the times I trusted and was let down and hurt again and again and again.  My brain tells me not to listen to my heart, reminds me of how broken I ended up whenever I had faith in them.  It begs me to run for my own good.  My heart begs me to stay for the same reason.

Both my brain and my heart have gotten me hurt before.  I no longer know which one to listen to, if I should listen to either.  I'm terrified to take action at all, honestly.  Every time I do, it's another mistake.  Will this next time, be the last?  Will the next mistake I feel almost certain I'll make be the one to tip them over the edge, and make them abandon me for good?  Can I prevent this from happening?  Everything I thought I knew about them has been completely upended, and I don't feel secure in knowing anything about them anymore.  


I'm terrified to try, and get destroyed again.  But I'm terrified to not try, and have them slip through my fingers.  But most of all I'm terrified because I don't know what to do.


Song of the Day:
Believe- Skillet


I'm still trying to figure out
How to tell you I was wrong
I can't fill the emptiness inside
Since you've been gone

So is it you or is it me?
I know I said things that I didn't mean
But you should've known me by now
You should've known me

If you believed when I said
I'd be better off without you
Then you never really knew me at all

If you believed when I said
That I wouldn't be thinking about you
You thought you knew the truth
But you're wrong

You're all that I need
Just tell me that you still believe

I can't undo the things
That led us to this place
But I know there's something more
To us than our mistakes

So is it you or is it me?
I know I'm so blind when we don't agree
But you should've known me by now
You should've known me

If you believed when I said
I'd be better off without you
Then you never really knew me at all

If you believed when I said
That I wouldn't be thinking about you
You thought you knew the truth
But you're wrong

You're all that I need
Just tell me that you still believe

Is it you or is it me?
I know I said things that I didn't mean
You should've known me by now
You should've known me

If you believed when I said
I'd be better off without you
Then you never really knew me at all

If you believed when I said
That I wouldn't be thinking about you
You thought you knew the truth
But you're wrong

'Cause you're all that I want
Don't you even know me at all?
You're all that I need
Just tell me that you still believe
 

my pledge to him

i won't use your shoe to kill the spiders.  

i will share my fries with you when you've 

finished all yours and are still hungry.  

i will eat the onions when we order the supreme pizza.  

i will not laugh when your tummy growls and 

gurgles, but will instead growl back. 

i will try my hardest not to be annoyed when 

you beat me at children's card games. 

i will be the big spoon sometimes.  

i will kiss your finger if you smoosh it in a door.

i will wear that lotion you like that you 

think smells really good. 

i will send you random texts and put silly gifts 

on your windowsill and leave you wondering

how i scaled the outside of your dorm 

to the fourth floor to do so.  

i will remind you to eat so you don't forget and

bake you lots of cookies when you do. 

i will let you win in mario kart and brawl.  

sometimes.  

other times, i will not.  

i won't ever smack you.  

i will always let you know i respect you, 

even when i'm teasing you.  

i will hold your hand.

i will like you a whole bunch.

Memos to Myself

Hey You.

Yes, You.  Stop being unhappy with yourself.  

You are perfect.  Stop wishing you looked like someone 

else or wishing people like you as much as they like 

someone else.  Stop trying to get attention from those 

who hurt you.  Stop hating your body, your face, 

your personality, your quirks:  love them.  Without 

those things, you wouldn't be you.  And why would you 

want to be anyone else?  Be confident with who you are.  

Smile: it will draw people in.  If anyone hates on you 

because of who you are, than stick your middle finger 

in the air and say "Screw it, my happiness will not depend 

on others anymore."  

I am happy because I love who I am.  

I love my flaws.  I love my imperfections.  They 

make me me.  And "me" is pretty amazing.

Copper Cupcakes

Whenever I'm upset, my favorite thing to do is bake.  Something about making cute cupcakes or that perfect pan of cornbread is somehow just so therapeutic for me.  I don't like being home alone at night, so whenever my mother would travel for meetings, I would stay up the entire night raiding the cabinets for ingredients, scouring the internet for recipes, and baking.  I'm not sure what it is about cooking that de-stresses me.  I think it's the concept of working with my hands, taking raw materials and combining them in ways that make something amazing in the end.


This is probably why I also love working at the anvil.  Making jewelry is actually my preferred outlet for stress.  The repetitive clang of metal clashing, the energy flowing through my body as I bring the hammer down in quick succession.  It is mindless work, a mechanical movement of my arms, yet at the same time I am sharply focused, molding the metal to my will to create a work of art.  The mindlessness of it helps me empty my mind of what is upsetting me, and being focused makes me hone in on something else, leaving no room to think about anything else but the weight of the hammer and the feel of hot copper against my hands.  Even though mindlessness and focus are contradictory, they seem to twine together into a moment of serenity when I'm working.


Unfortunately, though my thoughts keep me awake in the middle of the night, the neighbors definitely wouldn't appreciate the sound of my hammer awakening them from their rest at two in the morning.  So it's at these times that I turn to the kitchen.  I tend to feel at home in the kitchen (cue the age old joke about girls belonging in the kitchen).  It's true though.  I feel a sense of peace baking or cooking.  Maybe it's because cooking is something I taught myself.  I didn't grow up helping my mom cook or bake cookies like most girls did.  My family was pretty much "fend for yourself" when it came to food.  I had never even baked a batch of cookies from scratch until I was in high school.  Before that I had always scorned cooking.  I viewed it as "girly", and I wanted to stay as far from that adjective and the things I associated with it as I could.  When I finally realized how silly I was and gave baking a try, I found that I enjoyed it.  It was soothing.  I didn't really want to let people know I liked it though.  I wasn't good at it at first, and I used to get really discouraged because a lot of my friends were really good at baking, and I felt inferior because I wasn't.  I still get discouraged sometimes.


But as I continued to try and experiment, I learned and improved.  And as I improved, my self esteem improved too.  As a girl who, unfortunately, thrives on being told she did well, I am ecstatic every time someone tells me that they like what I make.  It makes me glow to know that I made something, and someone else enjoyed it.  Whether it's muffins I baked or a figure I made with clay, when I make something, and that something I made makes someone else happy, I am happy.

Lessons Learned

This summer was a summer full of lessons I needed to learn.  Some of them I learned, some of them I'm in the process of learning, and some of them I still am completely confused about, and am just going to hold on and hope I'll see what's going on eventually.  And all of the lessons were the hardest lessons I've ever had to learn.


Through the course of this summer, I learned that just because a relationship means something to you, doesn't necessarily mean that it means anything to the other party.  It doesn't matter how long the relationship has gone on, or how supposedly close you were to that person.  In the end, one critique could make them completely turn on you.  Throw you away like you're nothing.  Flip out and cause a scene just because you happened to be invited to the same gathering as they were.  With some people, it doesn't matter if there's enough good history between you to fill a thousand pages, and then a thousand more.  With some people, the moment you stop coddling them and bowing to their every idea and whim, they toss you away.


I learned that just because you were under the assumption that you were close enough to someone that you could point out a concern you had about them, doesn't mean you are actually close enough with that person to do so.  It doesn't matter if you've been extremely close for any impressive amount of time.  It doesn't matter if you pointed out that concern out of love, because you thought you knew they were better than that, and wanted to address the problem early before it became a character flaw.  It doesn't even matter if the person had previously done the same to you on multiple occasions, pointing out flaws in your personality and character that you weren't aware of, even ones that you didn't agree with but respected the opinion of the other anyways.  None of that matters, and some people will destroy you the moment you assume you're allowed to do the same.


I learned that you should never trust some people completely.  You should never be naive enough to think that some people have the best intentions at heart and will do right in the end.  You should never assume that some people are anything more than selfish creatures who would rip you to shreds and break your heart to get what they want or do what makes them feel better about themselves.  I learned that some people will use any excuse they can think of to justify destroying another human being's life, and explain away their actions until they have convinced themselves that they never did anything wrong.  


I learned that I'm a naive fool.  I believed some people didn't possibly have it in them to turn so completely against someone who had, at one point, been supposedly important to them.  I believed that some people weren't capable of being so completely callous as to throw away a relationship that was claimed to be so important to them at one point.  


I learned that some people are just disgusting people, who don't care about anyone but themselves, who will hurt you without remorse, and there's nothing you can do about it.


I'm still in the process of learning all of this.  I'm still broken right now.  It still hurts to know that I was so worthless to someone who was so important to me.  But as I work towards moving on, I'll become stronger.  I'll become wiser.  I'll become a better person.  And someday, I will find other people.  People who are worth having in my life.  People who won't throw me aside when they disagree with me.  People I won't have to coddle or bow down to or walk on eggshells around to keep them happy so they won't leave.  And someday I won't even think about the people before.   Someday, all this hurt will be behind me and they won't be able to touch me ever again.  I'm no where near that stage yet.  I'm still in the stage of feeling agony from all the pain their selfish actions caused.  But someday I will be okay.  And I'll be smart enough to not let such worthless people into my life again.