smileyjess

we had a bonsai tree and it died. i dreamt that i brought it back to life.

all of the trees outside my window are dead. so far, though, no dream.

i havent been writing because i've been so goddamn complainy lately. i'm doing you a favour by not writing.

countless times in the past few weeks i've seriously considered up and quitting this whole college thing. i cannot do it. it's just not for some people. i'm one of those people.

but then it's the little things each day that i have to focus on to balance out the big bad big things. the fact that my best friend remembered that i once mentioned in passing that i love corn muffins, so she made them for me the day i got my cell & molec exam grade back. the voicemail from ryan that says he's thinking of me that i listen to practically daily. my little sister calling me about high school advice (though i dont consider myself a valuable source whatsoever!!!!) having a song played for me on wdom on monday nights on my way home from the doctor's. smiles from strangers on the quad. and so many more...

i'm just so confused about every single fucking aspect of my life. yes, i know you are too; everyone is. why is everyone else so good at dealing with it though? what about me simply cannot handle even the most basic of life's curveballs without having a nervous breakdown? why is it that if i watch a movie that completely drains me of all emotion and i become lifeless, an epithelial shell with unblinking eyes and a mute mouth? how come i cry over spilled milk, literally? and let's not even get into the big stuff, the stuff that actually kindasorta matters (i.e. - my future) what classes to take next semester, where am i going to live next year, can i afford this? this? that? oh my god i can't breathe.

one minute at a time though, right? for instance, now, i will post this. then i will write a civ paper. tomorrow i will wake up and go to orgo. thursday i will not cancel movie date plans. friday i will take the trip to boston college to see one of the loves of my life. saturday night i will attend my parents' dinner party and make a mediocre attempt at being social around people i don't really know.

i will smile all along. try to, at least. it's all such a tentative schedule, one prone to getting thrown off due to a few drops of milk on the table or rain on the window and a beckoning bed complete with feather down pillows and blankets.

dan: hey so do you want to go to the bc vs. maryland game while you're here this weekend?
me: yes! i've never had the college football experience!
dan: oh, it's great, forcing alcohol down your throat at 10 in the morning, you're going to love it!!

no doubt, maybe we should just stay up the entire time im in boston and imbibe? that way it wont hurt as much as, say, waking up to start drinking at 10 in the morning.

i can't wait for friday to hurry up and get here

holy crap, it's amazing how much better i feel after one simple phone call. a phone call that i actually *made* myself (and not to cancel plans, as i am wont to do!!), a phone call for a conversation i should have had a long time ago, a phone call that will most likely result in things getting worse before they get better, but fuck it because THINGS ARE GOING TO GET BETTER!

really, truly. i should know, i'm the one controlling this after all.

reading flowers for algernon is so much better than writing about the monstrous similarities between frankenstein and madame bovary, so i think i'm just going to do that instead, mmmmmkay?

for the record, though, madame bovary is a close second on my all time list. i guess civ ain't so terrible after all.

you will never see one fucking penny from me when i graduate.

so, i am not living on campus next year. unless i get enough people to sign a petition and then we all stick it to the man and camp out in front of the president's house. because eff that ess i am so sick of this place.

on the plus side, allie, gabby, jaime, and i are now going to be able to throw some pretty amazing soirees. you had better just hope you get invitedddddd

today it rained and i didn't even mind

p.s. brand new released a new cd and i know i'm in love with it. the end, love jess

i woke up and someone new was watching me. my mom had finally gone home to sleep in something other than the blue plastic leather broken recliner by my bedside. four nights in a row. i was miserable, and not very much company. every six hours i took shots of foul-tasting rotten egg scented mucomyst from an opaque medicine cup. i had slept more in the past week than i had in the past couple of months combined. i still wanted to check out permanently. i got up, avoided the mirror, and brushed my teeth. i crawled back between the white overwashed jersey sheets and pulled my blanket - the one i had received in the hospital next door 19 years and 6 days ago to the very day - to my chin and pretended like i was normal and the new person was not watching me. was not getting paid to watch me. was not going to watch me for the next eight hour period and then someone else would replace him. maybe it would be that nice girl from the other night, or maybe the cop again. this guy was 23. so close to my age. pretty much my peer. someone that, under different circumstances, i might want to talk to.

"what'd you do, jess?" i hated that he knew my name and therefore seemed to think he knew who i was. and fuck you, read the charts, mr. know it all.

i pretended to have fallen back asleep and he played along with me.

i am very good at pretending.

I never even told you that I loved you until you were leaving. Literally, hours – no, minutes! – before you were scheduled to hit the road. We had packed up your car until the doors were about to burst open.- pillows and laptop and t-shirts (so.many.t-shirts!) spilling out onto a highway somewhere far away. I was afraid to let myself love you. After all, I knew you’d leave. Everyone always does. And I was okay with that from the start! I thought because it would end before it ever began then that automatically made it okay to not love.

I tried to show you… that you meant more to me than you could ever possibly realize. Stupid cards covered with my chicken scratch scrawl, poor attempts to say all the right things at all the right times (sorry I’m not too good at that) – I even pretended I didn’t like holding hands, either.

And I love to hold hands. Actually, to have my hand held.

The first time you kissed me in front of other people I thought I was dreaming.

I’d come over after a day that I swore was longer than the average 24 hours, sit on your old faded comforter with my spine against the cold wall, and we’d just sit, not needing words and those were some of my happiest times. I’m only sorry I didn’t realize that sooner.

One night you called and it was really really late (you had a game the next day!) and I remember I was at allie’s working on a ridiculous chem lab and I could sense something was wrong.

You should have just told me then. Not done me any favours. Ended it. I’m a big girl. Then it would have been easier, later. Then I would have realized how lucky I had been and stopped running around like a chicken with my head cut off long enough to stop for just a split second and see what really was most important to me. But I refused to. I told myself instead that nothing was happening, that I could not possibly be loving all this because all this was really nothing at all to begin or end with.

And even though you’re gone and I’m right back where I started, I wouldn’t do anything differently. Because now I know that if I push someone away with all my might, they’ll realize how not worth the fight I am, how they should just give in and go in the opposite direction.

But at least now I also know that if I want someone to hold my hand, I have to hold theirs in return. I can’t pretend I don’t want it. I can’t pretend to not love. I can’t say it’s nothing when it’s something. And instead of worrying so much about when they leave, I have to entertain the thought that maybe – just maybe – I can be the determining factor that makes them maybe kind of sort of want to stick around this time.

I loved you.

i am so sleepy but all i want to do is finish crime and punishment tonight even though it's not due until next thursday.

i'm not sure what this means. but it is an entirely new concept for me. enjoying work to the point where it's not work anymore, but pleasure.

who knows, i'm probably just hyped up on skittles (again) and dostoevsky is probably just a good enough writer that my attention span can be captured for longer than the blink of my overtired eye.