Branching Out

You know what? Life doesn't suck so much anymore. Well, my grandpa just died, but all that upsetting news aside, life is...better. I got a new job and FINALLY quit RadioShack for good. My sister is giving me her car, so I can FINALLY get around without begging my parents for permission. My cousin wants me to move in with her so I can FINALLY be my own person without my mother constantly glaring over my shoulder. Things seem to be looking up for me. I've decided I'm just gonna try to have a better attitude about things. The other day, my adorable little niece turned one and was walking all over the place and I was like, holy crap where has time gone? She's so big! And it made me realize that I don't have time to be depressed and ornery all the time. Life is like, SUPER short and I wanna live it the way I know will make me happy instead of inforcing my depressed attitude by thinking about only depressing things. So what if I don't have a boyfriend who loves me? So what if the boyfriend I do have only wants to break up with me? So what if I don't have any friends cause they've all forgotten me? So what if I'll never get to dance with my grandpa at my wedding...a wedding that will more than likely never happen? So what if the sister I adore and try everything to get her to like me actually hates me unless I'm doing something for her? So what if my mom bursts into tears every two minutes, my dad screams at me, and my little brother seems more and more belligerent? So what? So what is now I just made myself depressed. This whole happiness thing is harder than I thought....

What am I?

I realized today that things are not always what they seem. Someone close to me wanted to commit suicide today and literally dragging that person away from their death hit me kinda hard. I may not be ready to kill myself, but I'm certainly not dragging myself away from my death. I'm just sitting here waiting to die. I don't live. I exist. I function. I pretend. But I don't live.

Maybe I should go skydiving or something

Artificial Life

So Mel and I went out to lunch today. Sometimes it's hard to talk to someone who is so happy and whose life seems to always be perfect when your own life is so completely beyond miserable. Well, I guess the best way of defining my status in life is this: I'm not happy. Neither am I unhappy. I just exist.
I wake up a robot and put on glasses, hypothetically searching for a clarity that eludes me. My programming kicks in and routine replaces life. Work, eat, imitate interaction, sleep....a repetition of monotonously mundane actions that in their very essence mean nothing. There's no Operating System for life. Simply a red flashing light and an error message that reads "Can not compute".
I'm happy for Melissa. But just once I wish I could see her miserable. That's horrible. I'm a horrible person. Also, the way that that sounds isn't completely what I meant. I meant that Mel is always so happy that it hurts to see that I can't have that same happiness. I can try all I want, but I can never find peace or joy. It sucks. Seeing Mel miserable would have some sick justice to it. As it is, I just smile at her happiness while secretly cursing the universe. I put on a mask for the world and grin while I hold back the tears and force myself not to feel. Force myself to be metal and hardware and electrical wiring.

Can not compute.

This is like in high school

In honor of our high school days where all we ever did was fill out these surveys and email them to each other....here is yet another survey about myself. Enjoy.

1. How old will you be in five years? 24. I'll be able to buy alcohol and gamble. Can you say Vegas? .....not that I would do that....

2. Who did you spend at least two hours with today? My mom, brothers, and grandparents.

3. How tall are you? 5'7 1/2"

4. What do you look forward to most in the next six weeks? Being able to sit on my roof at night and look at the stars without freezing to death. Also, quitting the job I hate

5. What's the last movie you saw? The movie Madagascar 2. Oh my gosh so much funny

6. Who was the last person you called? Lonny. He's handicapped and can't set up a computer by himself.

7. Who was the last person to call you? Lonny. He's handicapped and can't set up a computer by himself.

8. What was the last text message you received? "It's complicated, i know. Sorry haha." From Kody's girlfriend kristi

10. Do you prefer to call or text? Usually text because there's less pressure, but i HAVE to call lonny every night before bed.

11. What were you doing at 12am last night? Reading jokes on some weird website and writing an email to Danny in Japan

12. Are your parents married/separated/divorced? Married

13. When is the last time you saw your mom? Right....now. Oh, I looked away. And....now.

14. What color are your eyes? Green. I used to think they were blue. Melissa was the one who told me they weren't in high school. My little brother walked up to me 3 days ago, put his face 2 inches from mine and said, 'wow. you're eyes are green.' Thanks for that, captain obvious.

15. Do you own slippers? Yes. Inevitably I get a pair every Christmas.

16. What are you wearing right now? An oversized gray hoodie, maroon scrubs and slipper sock boots

17. What is your favorite christmas song? Um....angels we have heard on high i guess. It's the only one I can think of.

18. Where is your favorite place to be? Anywhere that I can cuddle with lonny.

19. Where is your least favorite place to be? Work. Hands down, at RadioShack.

20. What is one of your pet peeves? Being ignored or when my brothers choose the worst possible times to scream and sing loudly off key.

21. Where do you think you'll be in 10 years? Probably alone, still stuck at RadioShack...and maybe I'll have a dog.

22. Do you tan or burn? Burn like a lobster

23. What did you fear was going to get you at night as a child? Have you ever seen Dante's Peak? The part where the grandma wades through the acid water to rescue her family and her legs get practically burned off? I used to dream she'd come back alive out of my floor and crawl over to me and drag me down to hell with her. I was a sadistic child.

24. What was the last thing that really made you laugh? My grandma. She's a freakin nut. Crazy Canadian.

25. How many TVs do you have in your house? 2 1/2. My laptop sorta acts as my television.

26. When did u last get in an argument? Um...probably with Lonny about something. I'm always overreacting. Oh, actually, it was with a co-worker. I made a mistake at work and she turned it into some big thing. She's kinda a biotch.

27. Do you have a laptop or desktop computer? Laptop. I'd die without it.

28. Do you sleep with or without clothes on? Depends on how cold it is in my room and my mood

29. What color are your walls? Boringly white. I wanted to paint them red, but my parents won't let me.

30. How many pillows do you sleep with? 1. It's real down and so comfy

31. What is your favorite season? Hm...I love them all for different reasons. Probably summer though because it's so dang hot.

32. What do you like about fall? The weather is cool but not too cold and the colors are beautiful

33. What do you like about winter? Snow storms and the whiteness. Everything looks pure.

34. What do you like about the summer? Sunshine, swimming, and barefeet

35. What do you like about spring? Perfect weather and my wardrobe is perfect for spring

36. How many states have you lived in? Just 1

37. What states have you lived in? Utah

38. Do you prefer shoes, socks, or bare feet? Socks. I almost never take my socks off. I like walking barefoot in the sand or in freshly mowed grass, though.

39. Are you a social person? I used to be. Now I'm really shy and withdrawn...unless I'm with Mel.

40. What was the last thing you ate? My mom's special dump cake. Yummy.

41. Have you tried escargo? Once in ninth grade when we went to Lacai (sp?) for an etiquette class. It was gross. And don't let mel tell you it wasn't that bad. She puked it up in the bathroom.

42. What is your favorite ice cream? Maggie moo's cotton candy mixed with yellow marshmellow and oreos.

43. What is your favorite dessert? I don't know...there's lots of yummy food out there.

44. Have you drank a Shirley Temple? I have no idea what that is. As far as I know, Shirley temple is a little girl with a pouty face who dances and sings her way through life.

45. What kind of jelly do you like on your PB & J sandwich? Homemade strawberry

46. Do you like Chinese food? On occasion. And I usually just get chow mein and sometimes the beef and broccoli

47. Do you like coffee? I tried it once and it was really gross. But i also tried frozen coffee and it was better...i'm just not a fan of hot drinks.

48. How many glasses of water, a day, do you drink on average? Uh.....3 ish?

49. What do you drink in the morning? Milk. What else do you drink in the morning? Oh yeah...coffee....

50. Do you sleep on a certain side of the bed? left side...or right...depending on how you're looking at the bed.

You're free to leave me, just don't decieve me

You're free to leave me...

I recently discovered the movie Moulin Rouge. I wish I had found it years ago, but I never saw it even when people told me I should. The title of this post is a line from one of the songs. He sings 'Why does my heart cry? Feelings I can't fight. You're free to leave me, just don't decieve me and please believe me when I say I love you.' If I hadn't lost my poetic flair, I would've written words just like this. My relationship with Lonny is...complicated. We talked about breaking up, but I think we stayed together out of fear and sheer hatred of loneliness. He is my best friend and the one that keeps me sane, but he hurts me a little bit each day. Sometimes I wish he would just pretend to love me. Just to humor my lonely fantasies. The other day we went on a picnic because in almost 2 years of dating, we'd never been on an actual picnic before. So we're laying on the blanket watching the clouds after eating and Lonny says he has something serious to say. He tells me that he's not sure he should say "I love you" because he's not in love with me. Now, I know we've talked about it before, about how we know we're not going to get married (trust me, I long since gave up on romantic dreams) but for him to just say it so blatantly that he just doesn't love me and never did while I'm trying to bask in the sunlight stung. I tried to play it off like it didn't have any affect on me, but it really kinda sucked. I do feel like we're more like best friends with benefits more than anything romantic, but it still hurt to hear it. And then tonight, I read this on his blog:

I decided not to break up with bri. after long talks about what i dont like about her and what she hates about me and both of us trying to change for the better, i realized that she makes me happy. I still am strong in the fact that we wont get married, but for now, while i have no interest in seeing anyone else and while marriage is the furthest thing from my mind, i dont see any harm in being with her.

So not only is he telling everyone that there's a lot of things he hates about me, but that 'there's not any harm' in being with me as long as he doesn't want to be with another girl. Not even really that he wants to be or that he loves me or that he can't see life without me, but that it couldn't hurt. It couldn't hurt his pocketbook either. I feel like I'm desperately throwing money at him as some pathetic-beyond-belief attempt to convince him that he needs me. It's sad that I hold on to all these fairy-tale delusions of love as some weak effort at keeping up hopes that I never should've allowed myself to imagine anyway! Every relationship I've had that hit a year failed and failed miserably. Why, why in the name of all that is good and holy, did I permit myself to hallucinate about things that I will never have? Why would I allow myself to dream when I know my dreams will always turn out to be nightmares?

...Just don't decieve me.

A stifling moment of clarity

I just had an epiphone. Everything that is wrong with my life....here it comes...is my fault. I made all the choices that led me here. It all started with one choice. I can trace every problem I have to one singular moment in my life. It was the day I said "I do". Not literally, like in a church with flowers and a white dress, but regardless, I had a ring around my finger and I devoted my entire being over to one person to such extent that I no longer belonged to myself. My thoughts, my life, my body, and my heart were no longer my own. I gave myself so entirely to this person that I ceased to control any part of my life. I allowed every thought and movement and desire to be dictated by the boy I so naively believed I loved. I put a trust in a love that didn't exist. Not in the way love should exist, anyway. I put everything into the moment I accepted a ring and a promise of marriage from a boy. He wasn't a man, and part of me believes he never will be; at least until he admits to what he did to me. But he was a boy, and I was a foolish girl in love with the idea of love. I took his ring and his locket and I wore them every day. And every day I should have taken them off and thrown them in the trash where they belonged. Where he belonged. But I made that choice. And that choice led to where I am now. To being stuck.

This is all my fault. And the sudden clarity of it all suffocates me.

Another apology

Seems like I'm apologizing a lot lately. So I'm sorry for how depressing those last two posts were. I was just having one of those weeks. I promise I'm really not as 'emo' as those sounded. I'm just frustrated. Anyway, sorry for the suck fest. Hope I'm not so lame in the future. Feel free to tell me if I am, though. So yeah. Till next time, party.

Looking down

So, my best friend got engaged. I’m really happy for her, but it left me with a sense of…emptiness. Everyone I know is getting married and having babies. I feel like I’m stuck. Like I’m forever in an eternal loop of wake up, work, eat, sleep, wake up, work, eat, sleep, wake up, work….you get the picture. Nothing exciting happens to me. Ever. So Melissa got engaged. Lucky her. I went over to see her and her new ring at her New Year’s party. I skipped the hug she tried to give me and grabbed her left hand. When I did, I couldn’t breathe. I felt like someone had punched me. It was my ring. Well, not literally, but it was the exact ring I’ve always dreamed about and hoped for. In that moment, the world seemed entirely unfair. Why shouldn’t I get the ring and the guy and the life that makes everyone else so happy? And then it hit me. I’ll never get that. I’ll never have the guy that dreams of nothing but marrying me or the perfect ring that glitters in the light and everyone is jealous of or even the bills and worries everyone else gets the chance to have. Because I’m stuck. It seems like everyone’s path is a straight, flat path, all leading to marriage and happiness and everything they want. Me? I’m in a hamster wheel. No path, no street signs, just me and a wheel and I keep watchin the same things pass me by time and time again. I feel like I've done everything I'm going to do in life and that now...I'm just stuck in limbo between High School graduation and real life. I'm stuck watching life pass by my hamster cage. Watching the same things fly past me again and again and again and again and again.....................

The lies hope tells

Ever since high school ended, I feel like I’ve been losing friend after friend. They moved on. I seem to be stuck. I can’t help it, I’ve always been a firm believer in everlasting friendships. I was kidding myself. No one stays friends after high school. That end-of-school-day bell rang for the final time and suddenly, all the people I called friend turned and ran. I was left in a dust of disappointment and broken fairy tales. People always said, be prepared (I just had a Lion King moment), that every friendship is doomed to end with the last tones of the school bell, but I didn’t listen. I knew, i just KNEW that my friendships would be the ones to survive forever. That I would marry my high school sweetheart, live next door to my best friend, and have play dates with all my friends’ kids and mine. Ah, the lies hope tells. In high school, I had a very tight knit group of friends. The posse. Me, Mel, Cori, Wendy, Aly, Ryan, Curtis, Cory, Dan, and Lindsay. Then I had Robert, Danny, Okin, Courtney, and various boyfriends on and off. Now I have………..an extra long ellipsis. I know I have Lonny, and he’s wonderful, but he lives in West Jordan and that’s way too far to see each other often. Also, he doesn’t do well with emotions, and sometimes I need someone to listen and care when I’m sad or upset. That’s just not something he can do for me. That’s okay…I just wish I had someone. The closest relationships I have to real friends are Mel, who is my friend only when convenient, Mel’s dad Todd, who acts as my personal counselor and second daddy, and Dave and Shane, who are default friends. You know, my friend by default because I happen to be dating their good friend, but the instant Lonny and I broke up, neither of them would ever speak to me again. Not exactly anyone I can rely on to help me. But I need help.

Flash Backs

So recently I've been having flash backs. You know, like in the movies? Well, six months ago when I was living in the College Terrace apartments in Orem. Run down, inexpensive apartments that I got by on, but definitely not a place to call home. At least, until my best friend moved in to the building next to mine. It was awesome because he was just a few feet away. Our windows even faced each other, though his was much lower than mine, and since moving out for the first time can be scary, it was comforting just to know he was near. We spent our days, when we weren’t working, renting movies from the redbox across the street or walking over to WalMart for groceries and snacks…or both. Of course, those were the days I wasn’t watching him play BioShock on his Xbox. You know, I’m really not into video games much, but BioShock was like watching one long, amazingly captivating movie. Even had an awesome plot twist at the end to rival those of Fight Club or The Prestige. Anyway, the summer quickly came to an end, and so did Lonny’s job. In addition to horrible management and crappy living conditions, the rent jumped another hundred dollars come fall, so Lonny and I both grudgingly dragged ourselves out of freedom and back into the arms of captivity. In simple terms, I moved home. Haha. The summer moved out was wonderful, and coming back to my parents house felt…and feels a little like suffocating. The upside? (Which, inevitably there has to be one) No rent, food is home cooked and paid for, and I get to be close to my family. Which, the majority of the time, is an upside, but can also fall into the downside category. Speaking of my brothers, Nathan, age 13, just got out of surgery today and for anyone who cares to know, he’s doing really well and we hope for the best. Also, Josh, 17, has become one of my best friends. I just wish other people could see the boy I see when I look at him. He’s deep, he’s smart, he’s funny, and he writes amazing poetry. He’s like me. Poetic and lonely. Well, not so lonely anymore. He seems to be quite popular these days. Anyway, dealing with my parents has been harder than I wanted it to be. I tried to make sure there would never be any conflict between us, but there always seems to be something. Something more to yell at, something to be angry about. I'm thinking that has a lot to do with my attitude, but I am an adult now. I guess I just think I should be able to make my own choices. Another downside to living under their roof...their roof, their rules. I just wish I could just be better. A better daughter, a better sister, a better friend. Just better. I’m sorry. I’m sorry to let you down, whoever you are. I try.

Apology

So, I'm apologizing for putting random poetry on here without explaining that part of myself. I love poetry. I love writing it, I love reading it, I love everything about it. So if some of my posts are nothing but poetry, indulge me. Or press the pretty red 'x' in the upper right-hand corner of your screen and rid yourself of my incessant ramblings forever. Your choice.

Heaven's Hell

I live in heaven's hell.
I mourn with the pious.
My silence is my tell,
My romance is my bias.

I fight in hell's heaven.
I write your name in mud.
Seventy times seven.
My legacy in blood.

With words unleavened,
Bound secrets not to tell,
You are my Heaven,
My solitude, my Hell.

Perfection in a little bundle

Here's something to be happy about. Meet my niece. She is the cutest, more adorable creature to grace this planet with her presence. Something about that baby just makes everything right in the world. Even when I’m babysitting her and she screams for 45 minutes cause she misses her mommy, her perfect little soul just…cleanses me. When I look at her, it reminds me of all the dreams I can achieve just by knowing that I know she could anything she puts her mind to. I don’t know what it is about Skye Isabella, but somehow, she is the most soothing, perfect being I’ve ever encountered. In case you can’t tell, I love her a whole lot. She is beautiful. And she’s lucky. I’ve seen my sister become a person I never thought she’d be. The cutest mom in the world…and more caring towards everyone else. I don’t think Skye will ever know how much her introduction into this world changed things. Changed me, my sister, her husband, everyone around her. I love that baby. I love you, Skye