and all my friends say, hey, turn the record over

i think 2013 will be a year for resolutions. i think 2013 will be a year for ambition. i think 2013 will be a year for making dreams happen.

2012 was about beginnings, about transitions, about letting go of the past while loving it just the same. 2012 was about adjustment and adventures. 2012 was about a rollercoaster of emotions and ideas. it was good and it was also hard, and while it was a year to remember, it's time to say goodbye.

hey hey, see ya on the flipside.

settle down, it'll all be clear

i think that home can never be a singular place. i think that home is where you make it. i think home is memories, home is people, home is someone always welcoming you back to where you belong.

*

i returned to a summer beach house that i've been to four summers in a row now. slathering on sunscreen in a beach chair, riding bikes down lazy streets, eating ice cream on a bench outside at twilight, late night monopoly, drinking out of plastic cups on the beach watching the stars, sunset cruises and crab cakes for dinner, movie nights and falling asleep on the couch. i could have been doing it my whole life. this is a new family of mine but i feel just fine. i feel just fine.

*

i arrived again in london on the edge of september and it was like i had never left. the last time i came with one burden, and though i've long shed that one i came with others: the ghosts of all the people i've been carrying around since 2008. it was like every building to every stone held a memory, like there was a film over my vision reminding me of everything i thought i'd forgotten - every stupid joke, every 3am sidewalk, every conversation shared over cider, every late homework night, every best friend, every heart broken - and it was bittersweet because i'm not that girl anymore but there's a little part of me that desperately wants to be.

but somewhere along the way this time, we made new memories. different memories. i went to places i'd never been before (because london is infinite, and you could stay a thousand years and never do enough) and i began to realize that even though i'll never have the other london back, i'll get a new one every time i go. one night we sprinted to the london eye and i looked up at the lights in the big night sky as the wind streamed through my hair and i laughed at the sight of me and i thought, i could get used to this.

*

if you didn't go to notre dame, it's impossible to describe the way your stomach drops when you see the sign for exit 77 and catch a glimpse of the golden dome rising up from the trees in the distance. it's impossible to explain how your feet and your heart just know the way every time. it's impossible to stop the smile that spreads across your face as you walk through campus, passing familiar landmarks and familiar faces.

going back to notre dame is always something i think will be so transcendent, so mystical, so heartwrenching and bittersweet. and those reactions and feelings are true of a place like london, a place that felt like home, but a place that i could never fully know. with notre dame, it's not any of those things, because notre dame is not only home but also a place i know inside and out, like the back of my hand, like the inside of my soul. being back on campus isn't strange because it's a place i belong, plain and simple. why would it be strange if it's a place i'm supposed to be?

we sat on the steps of the dome waiting for the drumline to assemble at midnight. we planned our night at the backer just like any other night. we sang the songs and chanted the cheers and clapped our hands and yelled for our school to destroy the wolverines, please and thank you. we stood in a crowded line and danced in a crowded bar and swayed in a circle to the same songs they've been playing for years. and not for a second did it feel like we'd been away so long, even though when we're away it always feels like an eternity.

for the rest of the weekend we went tailgating and to the football game and rejoiced when we won and collapsed with exhaustion when we got back to our beds and went to basilica mass on sunday and cried over the hymns and took pictures on god quad and when we drove away i kept looking back even when we were long gone because of the hope that maybe the dome would be there, tiny but there, never fading in the distance because it never fades in my mind, not ever.

and these are the reasons i know notre dame will always be home - not everyone will understand it, but i hold it in my heart, and i'll always have that.

*

we drove nine hours to parkland and we settled into my old house like we had always been there all along.

my room had changed - furniture moved, furniture gone, new pictures on the walls, most of the decorations that made it my room were neatly stack in the closet on shelves. and still, it was my room, because it was changed but i was still there, just a little older, a little more mature. and i know i have a long way to go but in a bizarre way, seeing my room helped because it made me realize that it doesn't always have to stay the same for it to still be home. i don't have to stay exactly the same forever to still be me. memories live in these walls and they live in me too. i know i will always have a place here. goodbye is never forever.

*

we're leaving for pensacola again today. i'm always sad to leave here but i know that when i step into our apartment with all our ikea furniture and our pictures on the walls and our big tv and our little tiny kitchen and the dust and the life we're trying to build - when we get back there, i know we'll be home.

let it take you over

for four years i have dreamed of going back to london. it's haunted my dreams and thoughts and writings and because of that it's become almost hallowed ground to me. going back would be like a pilgrimage, a journey back to a sacred place where i left memories and secrets and pieces of my heart buried deep beneath the ground i can still feel under my feet.

and now, the prospect of returning has become an almost reality, so close i can close my fingers around it and cradle it in the palm of my hand. and now that it's more real, i'm thinking to myself: what will i do?

i know it could never be the same as it was four years ago. i know that i could only have that experience one, at that age, in that year, in those circumstances, with those people. there will be no drinking outof nutella jars, no games of kings with cider, no secrets shared at the crack of dawn, no dancing in the bars until our heads were spinning. and after all this time, i am okay with that - i'm glad that it happened but am content to leave that in the past.

what i think about now are the artifacts, the pieces of me that are still woven into that city, that i feel like i am on a mission to go and excavate.

in london, i was stripped raw. i became a person i never wanted to be, but at the same time i was also the most myself i had been in a very long time. even though i was confused and conflicted, it wasn't because i couldn't figure out what i wanted or who i was - it was because i could see it clearly, laid out before me, and i chose not to see it, or do what i had to do.

and yet, there was so much beauty in that confusion, in that charmed semester where i was just me, without the labels of friend or girlfriend or sister or daughter or classmate. the people there that i knew from before were either acquaintances or friends i had grown apart from, and none of them were in my primary group of friends, anyways. and so i drank and i danced and i laughed and i was honest and i did what my flawed, flawed heart told me to do, and it got me in trouble but to this day i wouldn't change any of it, not a thing.

it's so funny to think of the person i was then, and the person i am now - we are so different and yet we are the same because we are both the most honest versions of myself that i have ever been. i learned a lot from michelle, version fall 2008. i wouldn't be where i am now without that lost girl who forged ahead even though she didn't know where she was going.

right now, i long to go back because i miss my city and i want to walk down those streets again and drink beers in my favorite pubs again and take in the imprints of history. i want to hold jeff's hand as i walk down the strand and show him the magic and life and wonder of this place i love so much.

and at the same time, i long to go back because i want to retrace my steps. i want to go write over the old memories with new ones. i want to pick up those pieces of my heart that are scattered around that city. i want to come to terms with that lost girl. i want to somehow reach back through the years and tell her to keep living and to keep learning and to cherish that time because the nights spent crying only make the nights spent laughing that much better. i want to tell her that she can become the best version of herself. i want to tell her that it all turns out okay, it really really does.

libero

why is it that children's books are the ones that stick with me? not too long ago i unpacked my boxes of books, cradled them lovingly and placed them on my new bookshelves in meticulous alphabetical order. now, when i look at my books all lined up in rows, i realize how many of these books i read for the first time when i was 10, 11, 12 - and have re-read so many times since that the pages are beginning to detach from the spines, that the corners where i turn pages are so worn that they're permanently bent into turning position.

when i re-read these books, today, it's like reuniting with a long-lost friend. it's in the re-reading of these books, as an adult, that i truly see the care and nuance placed into these books intended for children, the themes and literary devices so seamlessly placed within the narrative that my 10-year-old self had no idea they were even there. but now, instead of just enjoying the story and characters, i can really appreciate the deeper meaning - and even if there was no deeper meaning intended, isn't it remarkable that these books still have aspects i can relate to, more than 10 years later?

the joy of these books will always transcend time for me. in the past month jeff has awoken many a time from his slumber to see me sniffling, teardrops falling onto the already long-stained pages, desperately wiping my face with the sheet or pajama sleeve. i have loved these books for so long that they are a part of me, that the characters are my best friends, that what happens to them, in a way, also happens to me.

maybe it's because these books are written for the naturally innocent; for those who, even if they've experienced hardships, are not yet marred by the cynicism of adulthood. they're not jaded, yet. they have no need for swear words or sex scenes or love triangles. as we grow, many of us become convinced that we need at least one of these things for a story to be "realistic." but, as the unicorn gaudior says in a swiftly tilting planet, "what is real?" good children's stories are innocent and straightforward and not marred by the unnecessary filler many young adult and adult novels (and bad children's books, for that matter) fall prey to. and still, good children's stories say something about life, about death, about friendship, about family, about love, about the world we live in, about the world beyond our doorstep, beyond our country, and even beyond our own planet.

too many times i've stepped into the library, lingering for what i deem to be an appropriate amount of time in the adult fiction stacks, maybe picking out a classic or two, maybe coming across an old favorite i already know to be decent, maybe seeing an new offering from an author i already like.

but then, then - i tiptoe my way to the children's section and push my way past the tiny tables and chairs and around the picture books and there - there is where my heart lives. there is where i marveled at how the westing game just had to have been written backwards, because it's so clever. there is where i laughed and laughed at the wayside school kids. there is where i peeked into the fictional diaries of pioneers and slaves and peasants and merchant girls and princesses and queens long gone. there is where i traveled to europe in bloomability and road-tripped across the west in walk two moons. there is where i cried over beth march and pined over laurie lawrence. there is where the phantom tollbooth taught me about wordplay and the power of imagination. there is where countless fairy tales have been told and retold until i knew them backwards and forwards. there is where harry, ron, and hermione taught me about courage and friendship and goodness and truth in the face of evil and war, with a bit of mischief thrown into the mix. and a hundred other things. and a thousand other things.

you can call me juvenile. you can say that i don't understand the nuance of true adult literature. and perhaps i don't. but, perhaps, i don't really need it - not all of it, anyways. for these are my old friends, and they have stayed with my thus far, and they'll stay with me as long as i shall live.

hands up and touch the sky

one week: so near yet so far. i'm happiest when i'm traveling; i have always been about the journey. on long car rides i often find myself feeling slightly disappointed when we slow down, pull in, stop, park. there's something about the way the landscape rushes by outside the window, the way all the lights blur together at night, the way that if i crane my head back and look straight up, it feels like i'm flying.

a week from now i'll fly to boston and in my head i can almost see the dotted lines on the map, tracing my progress on this roundabout little trip from here to pensacola. i'm practically itching for it. i'm excited for reunions, excited for big cities and nice meals and sleeping in. i feel like i've been holding my breath for the past few months and i'm finally going to exhale.

new life's gonna start and here i am.

events become feelings, feelings become events

it's about exactly three years ago to the minute that you got yourself kicked out of that midnight volleyball game and flopped down next to me, feet kicked up behind you. funny to think that three years ago, i was trying to get over a breakup but didn't quite yet realize that i was already exactly where i needed to be. funny to think that the two kids drunkenly laughing in the grass three years ago had no idea what life had in store for them, and could only think about the night and the moment and the smell of the grass and the sand that turned up between our sheets the next morning. march 2009 was one of the happiest times of my life - the heralding both of spring and of a new life for me - a new life that, i'd come to realize, was always meant to be shared with you. here's to those two kids smiling at the ground, breathing in the south bend night air and the start of a time full of wonder, of beginnings, of the finding of something you've been searching for your whole life.

you always told me you wished you could get a postcard from your future saying, "everything turns out ok, everything turns out ok." but i think if we really had that postcard and that power, we'd hold back on sending it, because the thrill of figuring it out for ourselves was just too wonderful to be true. and yet, it was true: every sun-drenched moment, every moon-kissed minute, every, every, every.

i wear my heart upon my sleeve, like a big deal

living in the present is hard
when you're stuck somewhere in between
neither a rock nor a hard place but
living underground, holding your breath, waiting
for the chance to go outside
the sun is warm on your face but the gray clouds betray the sky's intent
and when the droplets drip then tumble down upon you
all you think is, i should have known
some days feel more real than others but still
you're living in a twilight zone
diamond on your hand catching the light of your childhood bedside lamp
sleeping with a teddy bear when you'd rather it was he by your side
all your ages coming together at once and looking at you, wondering
where you came from, and where you're going
time goes by both fast and slow
and life is like a pile of papers on a desk, building steadily
as you think, i'll get to it tomorrow
and then tomorrow's just the same
and the way this feels
can't be translated to handwriting or pixels
so you close your eyes, head tipped back, heart full to bursting
and as you type you know it's not what you had in mind
but somehow it helps all the same

the same stars

i had forgotten what a twisting heart feels like. i had forgotten how it felt to sit in my room, listening to too much carole king, missing someone with a dull ache in my chest. i don't cry too much. when i used to cry, it was out of heartbreak, fear, rejection. my tears these days are often a combination of frustration, happiness, and longing. it's still easy to smile. i don't spend my days hoping my parents won't notice swollen eyes and a heavy heart. i feel lighter, these days. i guess the difference between now and then is the certainty of the future, the steadiness of love, the hope and joy and wonder of every passing day. i open my eyes a little wider now, and even though i wish the days would go by faster, i try to stop and savor what i can because soon i'll never have this time again. i can step outside and look at the beautiful sky and love this place for what it is, and what it means to me. i'm growing up, and it's a little scary, but it feels good to be able to grasp onto my past for a bit longer before letting it go. and besides, it'll always be back here, waiting for me.

we are miles apart right now but this is a tether than no distance can sever. and i wonder where you are, are we looking at the same stars again? it comforts me to know that we are still sleeping under the same sky, and that the winds rolling down the coast mean that we have the same air in our lungs. i take a deep breath and it calms me. patience.  one day at a time, one slow crawl of the sun through the sky. i can do this. i can do this. i can do this.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will be be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.
-- Walt Whitman

had a feeling i could be someone, could be someone

life is climbing to the pitch-perfect peak of a symphony, and i'm sitting here waiting for it to crash down into a crescendo. beautiful happy things have been swirling around me for the past few weeks in a blur of family (old and new), friends, love, laughter. but in my heart i can feel things slowly dying down. jeff is gone in connecticut, last bleary spoken words at 6:30am on thursday; my family is leaving for home one by one. soon enough it'll be the four of us here in my house, just like i'm in high school again, and the wait begins. i feel like i've been in a state of transition ever since i graduated college (because let's face it: college was a state of transition in itself but it always felt like home). but i keep on keeping on. life goes by quickly but there's still so much that lies ahead. counting down the days but never wanting any to pass me by. i want adventure in the great wide somewhere, i want it more than i can tell. but it's all a great adventure, isn't it? not just the stars and the moon, but also the earth and the wind and the sand and the sea? like diving off a cliff and never looking back --

-- here goes nothing, she says. here goes nothing.