always

There are few feelings worse than seeing the man behind the curtain. Whether it's the person in your head meeting the actual person or seeing how tiny the "cliff" you scaled in second grade actually is. It's this feeling of loss and the idea that you can't go back after this, everything is different now and it always will be. The closest you can ever get to that moment is to freeze right here right now at the second you became disillusioned and well nobody wants to stay there. not really. 
So I suppose we must choose to move forward. We delete that song and maybe we get a haircut. We smile and refuse to let whispers and glares hurt us because they could only hurt the "us" that was not what we have become since that night. Still though with all this moving forward we have to find a few things from the past to bring with us.
I reread the first harry potter book this morning, and you know what? It was as transformational and sweet and funny as it ever was. We don't have to lose everything. In the end we will forget people places and events because we want to, because deep down we know that we don't need them. 
We keep the people, songs and books close because we know that they are and will always be enough.
Love is always better than longing. Love what you have because it is brilliant and you'll see that when you stop hoping for silly impossible things. The rest with a bit of luck will come to you. 

Today I learned that we never stop looking for our patent medicine. Remember hearing about tales of days gone by where salesmen would hawk their miracle elixirs that could cure everything.
I think we still want those.
We think if we kiss someone else it will stop us thinking about the people we really want to kiss or that there is a cure for everything. The idea of dealing with something for the rest of the foreseeable future is terrifying and so we search for and experiment with a thousand things that might cure us. We get too drunk, we read thousands of books, we sit in the dark and stare at a wall hoping that something will shift and that it will all be better.
There is no cure for sadness or loneliness or loss just like there is no poison that can kill off happiness, love or joy. 
There is only life.

Today I learned about getting "happy"
It seems like all we ever do is try to "get happy" we may not be aware of it but we try so hard to like ourselves,to like our classmates, our family, our course selections, that picture from that party. All in this quest to be happier than we already are.
But today I learned that although you can make the choice to try and be happy you rarely have any control over whether that works out. Yes it is substantially easier if you make an effort but be it brain chemistry, the weather or the plans of other people sometimes we just can't be happy.
Then something changes.
Someone sends you a text or the sun comes out or the perfect song comes up on your ipod and things get a little brighter.
It will feel like something has shifted and I can't promise that it will last much longer than the next text, until the sun retreats behind the clouds again or the song ends but I can promise that for a moment there things were better.
Little sister teen angst is a terrible thing but you know what else is incredible? That childish pure unadulterated happiness that comes in great beautiful waves for no apparent reason.
You are lucky you get both.
And they are both important.
So just try to learn.

You've Got The Love

Today I saw how incredibly beautiful life is. Today I learned that sometimes you have to cry about the snow.
Be it teenage hormones or coming to sudden realizations or falling out of like/love/whatever , today I cried cause the snow was so freaking beautiful and it reminded me how freaking beautiful life is. That song "The Cave" but Mumford and Sons was playing and it was dark and everything was illuminated by the lights that reflected off the creek.
I was reminded that I could of missed all of this.
Today I learned that life is a journey but there is more than one destination. Often it is easy for us to see life as an A to B sort of thing ; you're born and you just keep going till you die.  But maybe that's not right. Why should we only get somewhere in the end? Because in seventeen years I've done far too much travelling to not have gotten to a destination. 
Life is a highway and all that crap but I guess the exits aren't marked. Either the road ends or you veer off course and for so long I wanted to veer off course.  But I never made it all the way off. But I never thought I would get anywhere either and yet here I am.  
Mostly we're all in different places but we can see each other, we are there for each other. Geographically we stay pretty close and yet a thousand different things are happening to all of us. We fall in and out of love, we get accepted and rejected by universities, we go for walks and we stay home, we go see a film. Its easy to think that all of this is meaningless or that's its simply a part of a journey because that is easier.
Important things are supposed to happen at destinations and that is terrifying because the important things aren't always what we want them to be. But recognizing where we are as a destination can make the little things seem bigger and the snow a bit more beautiful. Because the snow isn't just a sight on the passing highway but a destination. So you call someone and you cry and you make a memory. And you keep travelling.

Measure In Love

New years resolution : blog more! Actually I made a bunch more but those are boring. So I won't get into them.
On new years eve I had a terrible babysitting job but when the child and dog were asleep  (and I stopped cowering in a corner) I read a book and listened to my ipod. And the song I kept going back to was seasons of love from rent.
I've always loved this song and it's always been one of those songs that speaks to me.
But this year I heard it differently. 
See last year I wrote myself an email which was delivered yesterday. It made me think about the hopes I had for last year when I wrote it and then my mind first went to all the times I screwed up. I thought about the fights and the snide comments and the terrible outfits. But as the song swelled I did what the song was telling me to do.
I remembered the love.
I remembered how after the fights there was the reconciliation and how things got better because finally the things that needed to be said were said.
I remember that for every snide comment I felt a little regret and I said something good.
There were failures but the triumphs had a greater impact.
For every selfish relationship there were real whole ones.
For every terrible outfit there was a good one.
2010 was a year filled with love.
So I resolve for all of us to measure in love and laughter not strife.
A year is composed of five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes.
Many of those will be minutes of strife.
But we have to remember the love.

Still I Just Want Back In Your Head

Today I learned that sometimes you need to get back inside your own head.
There are dangers in living too much inside your own world, you start to forget the people around you. But sometimes you need to retreat. Last night was my Christmas concert and the general feedback that I got from the audience was that they have never seen me that happy. And I can believe that. But I think that it was more then seeing how happy I was I think what everyone saw was more of "me" then I've ever shown. I felt like my body ceased to exist and all anyone could see was my insides , not the blood and guts and stuff but your real insides the ones that only come out when you lose yourself to something greater than you are.
In small doses this is good but it is tiring and it's hard. So sometimes you need to leave the crowd, put on your headphones go for a walk to nowhere, look at some pretty things and read a book. Think about everything, think about nothing make a commitment not to talk or listen to anything around you just be. When you come back everything will be just as you left it but you will be a little different. Because it's easier to let go when you know you can always come back.

There Are No Legible Signs

Oh my god my last post was in October!
Wow I'm feeling neglectful.
Little sister I just read your blog. I said because it was on the internet I could and now you will probably read mine. Which is good because this post is for you. Personally I've already learned this but you need to hear it tonight.
People are going to break your heart. They are going to grab it stomp on it kick you in the stomach then shake your hand and walk away.
Be selfish. Demand that you get closure in the healthiest way you can.
Talk.
Cry.
Laugh.
Eat some good food or go for a run or have a Buffy marathon or hug your dog or sleep in your big sisters bed like you used to when you were so tiny.
Know that as much as everyone tells you how unimportant this is in the grand scheme of things (I must also now mention that this heartbreak is highly unimportant in the grand scheme of things) right now it hurts. a lot.
And it's supposed to. Because this is going to happen again in varying degrees a hell of a lot more times. And you are going to do this to people because that is how life works.
So here in these early days of real relationships and real breakups you learn. You learn when to speak and when to be silent, you learn about taking sides and the importance of friendship.
Even when you feel at your weakest remember you are strong.
And everything will be okay.
So take a few deep breathes, read some poetry , hell write some sad poems in your journal.
Just know that this is the first night and it will probably be a long one.
But the sun will rise, the darkness will be just a little brighter.
And you have a sister who loves you.