kick drum beating in my chest again

i am 24 years old. this shouldn't mean that much to me, but it just does.

when i was 17, fall out boy got me through the toughest of times, the loudest of fights, the worst crying sessions and the hardest feelings of betrayal. through them, i got out my frustrations of my awful job in parkland and worked out my feelings about graduation before leaving for college. through them, i cried over my ex-boyfriend, cried over my ex-friends, and learned to love myself again. through them, i told my true friends how much i loved them and realized that landing on a runway in chicago is something never to be taken for granted. through them, i started to define who i was, and i walked the streets of london feeling like i had at least one thing figured out.

fall out boy's music--however you choose to define or judge it--shaped my life since i was an immature teenager. and beyond that, i loved the melodies, loved the words, loved those boys regardless of who said it was shitty music or a stupid band. the few times i got to see them live, i screamed my heart out because they just meant so much to me and it was the only way i could show it.

i am 24 years old. this past monday after four years, fall out boy announced that their break was over. and i will tell you without shame that i got up and did the most embarrassing victory dance and did not care one little bit.

and it's because this band shaped who i am. this band gave me words when i didn't have any. this band gave me joy and cleverly crafted phrases and hope. and they are back and i couldn't be happier. you imperfect boys with your perfect ploys. you're the best. thank you.

this world we live in

A Brief for the Defense
Jack Gilbert

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

you're already home where you feel love

we lost. we lost, badly. i cried. it was pathetic. i cried some more. i came home and hugged my mom. i watched the end of the game from the corner of my eye as i posted on facebook about my love for my school and how proud i am to be from that place.

and then it hit me, that i am the luckiest to have this.

on saturday night, at a pep rally, i was part of a roaring mass of people who flew and drove cross-country and took off work to come here, ticket or no ticket, to cheer on their team, because this school means so much them. on sunday night, i danced on the beach with my friends as i ran into so many kids i only see once a year if we're lucky. the streets of south beach closed down as the gold, blue and green swarmed it, and we laughed and we cheered each other on and we marveled how we were here, we made it, we were here.

on monday i donned my number ten jersey and my beads and my lei and we meandered through the stadium parking lot that seemingly was overrun with irish fans. we yelled "don't stop believing" in the middle of a mass of dancers in the backer re-created and hey, it's all true - we are crazy, and we never stop believing,

we were: giddy, nervous, entranced, joyous. we were: shocked, hurting, hurting, hurting. we always are: loyal, strong, true.

so yeah, i'm still hurting. we're all still hurting. but there's always next year, and next year, and next year. and more importantly - we'll always have each other, and we'll always have that place up in northern indiana, where even on the grayest of days you can look up at that glint of gold and know you're okay.

'cause there are stars up above, we can start moving forward.

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.