distance

numbers and calendars are funny things. It is funny that Saturdays happen every week, and that February 2nd will happen every year. I would feel more comfortable if every single day had a different name, not measured by numbers and cycles. This weekend is that weekend from last year. And Monday is February 2nd. One year ago, 22 Lexapro.

I really do feel like a different person. Sometimes it does even feel like last year never happened. I wish some people who knew me then could know me know. There are people I wish I could have gotten to know better but I wasn't in the right state of mind to do so. I am lucky for the people who were around before, during and still today and I wonder about the people I will meet in the future who will be important enough that they need to know about the past.

On a less deep analytical train of thought. This first week of the semester was pretty kick-ass. I'm excited. I'm motivated.

and a random thought: I have a bunch of photographs taped to my wall and all but one are curling. They are on the same photo paper and are on the wall with the same amount of tape. Odd.

Grandpa's first haircut

I've been asking my mom all kinds of questions about my Grandpa's family in Worcester. My mom has never met any of her cousins nor has she ever been to Massachusetts. I've always found that incredibly weird. We were at my grandma's house and she made me go into the library to see if there was a photo album in there with pictures of her cousins. She kept telling me that there was a purple photo album in the library with pictures of my Grandpa's side of the family. I of course knew that there was no such photo album in the library because I spent hours and hours as a child going through every photo album in the house. I've always had an obsession with recording the past. I got my first camera when I was five and since have been a big fan of documenting everything. When I was 8 and got my first yearbook from the school I attended 2nd-12th grade, I decided then and there that I MUST be in the journalism class so that I could work on the yearbook. And that I did, and I was newspaper editor. I am very determined to have my Grandpa's high school yearbook. He was one of the city's star athletes in high school and very popular as well. The yearbook captures all of that, and I want it. I know where it is, I am tempted to just take it one day. My mom is one of eight children and I have 16 cousins. My cousin Elisa wants the fancy phone in my grandma's bedroom. My cousin Daniel desperately wants my Grandpa's solid gold watch, but my grandma has already given it to my uncle Greg.

My Grandpa died on September 11th 2005. It has been a while but it is still a difficult thing for me seeing as he is the only person I've been close to who has died and that we were very close. But anyway, my mom and I found a photo album in the library that had some pictures of him as a child and indeed pictures of his family in Massachusetts. It was a green photo album however, not this purple one my mom was looking for. That one is probably upstairs in the room off of my Grandma's bedroom where there are mass amounts of photo albums. It takes a lot of photo albums to hold our family and my Grandparents' travels around the world.

In this green photo album I found this great picture of my Grandpa on a pony. There were two of them, so I stole one. There was also an envelope containing locks from his first haircut. It was weird touching these soft golden brown locks of baby hair cut from my grandpa's head 90 years ago. But it was the same texture I remember his hair. He liked having his head rubbed. I remember sliding myself across the wooden floors on my knees sneaking into the library and popping up behind his favorite chair and rubbing his head. I spent a lot of time in that room with my Grandpa. I would watch I Love Lucy at night and he would read the paper or a Tomy Clancy or Dean Koontz novel.

I stood in the empty space where his chair used to be. It was a weird feeling. One time this past summer I slept in the chair that is in the corner where he died and I felt nothing.

Leah

My sister (stepsister) Leah is being bullied at school. The whole Mean Girls type of bullying. Leah started Jr. High this year. lately she has been having this issue where when she goes to sit down with a particular group of girls they tell her that the seat is being saved for someone else or that someone else is already sitting there. Leah is mildly autistic. because of this she is socially behind other kids 2-3 years. For a long time Leah was oblivious to the fact that her interaction with other kids was a bit off. She is starting to realize things though. This breaks my heart because I remember what is like to be in the 7th grade and how kids treat kids like Leah. I love Leah. My other sister Gracie, is a 9-year-old badass and will probably beat people up.

Thoughts as the year begins

I've been staying up absurdly late because I am afraid of the part that comes before sleep where I lay in bed and think. I've also been having a lot of weird dreams.

I don't understand practicality, and I never will. I do not understand why people pick college majors based on financial stability or job security, blah blah blah. There is no such permanence as financial stability or job security.

Being home is like being on pause.

Most disturbingly I have realized that drinking induces a high that is followed by a low, this exactly matching my bi-polar tendencies. This makes me glad that I rarely drink. However this has helped me to better understand how my moods work...as I inch closer to the 1-year anniversary of that night last February.

I really want to go to France this summer.

I really want to get a job that involves working with people because losing ArtWorks left a big hole in my heart in that respect. I miss that feeling of making an impact.

I find my work with the Creative Writing Guild to be extremely fulfilling. I like being part of the writing community.

I've become increasingly turned off by the art community, beginning with my last few years of ArtWorks where I was introduced to this whole idea of putting on this big show to bring in a profit, learning to sell ones self and creating a product rather than art. I know there is a way around that, I also feel like there is less of that as a writer. I can't have a gimmick. If this is my downfall as an artist than I suppose I will never be successful and I'm completely okay with that.

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