i was enchanted to meet you

day two - your crush/boyfriend/girlfriend.

i don't ever want to forget the way i felt when i first met you, when i first knew you. how we were so nervous, like eighth graders dropped off at the movies together. running off into the dark and laying flat on our backs staring at the south bend sky as you told me about the stars in africa. the way just holding your hand on the quad made my heart pound harder than any kiss from before ever could.

the way i couldn't shake you from my back of mind even though you were the last thing i should have been worried about. the way i loved you before i even really knew it. the way you make every cheesy taylor swift song true for me. the way you made me happy, so purely and sincerely; the way in which my home is wherever you are.

maybe together we can get somewhere

day one - your best friends.

what is there that i can say to you that hasn't already been said? we are beyond what words can describe; we are in the territory where a hand on a shoulder can mean so much while a whole paragraph can mean so little. what is there between us that hasn't happened? we were thrown together and then pulled apart and then thrown back together and then pulled apart again. we have fought and cried and rolled our eyes and still, here we are, keeping track of our days through the signals we send through computer wires, through our thumbs tapping out texts and crackling voices from miles away. what can explain what we are? friends, roommates, classmates, surrogate sisters? we do not fall under categories contained in our language or any other. we are who we are, and i don't know how i got lucky enough to belong to it.

15 days

say something to each of these:

day one - your best friends.
day two - your crush/boyfriend/girlfriend.
day three - your parents.
day four - your sibling.
day five - your dreams.
day six - your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend.
day seven - someone you wish you could meet.
day eight - someone you wish could forgive you.
day nine - someone you've drifted away from.
day ten - the person you miss the most.
day eleven - the person that you wish you could be.
day twelve - the one that broke your heart the hardest.
day thirteen - the last person you kissed.
day fourteen - the person that gave you your favorite memory.
day fifteen - someone that changed your life.

for this moment to arise

two things that give me hope:



To be free is to know who we are, with all that is beautiful, all the brokenness in us; it is to love our own values, to embrace them, and to develop them; it is to be anchored ina vision and a truth but also to be open to others and so, to change. Freedom lies in discovering that the truth is not a set of fixed certitudes but a mystery we enter into, one step at a time.

-- Jean Vanier, Becoming Human


&


How shall I hold on to my soul, so that
it does not touch yours? How shall I lift
it gently up over you on to other things?
I would so very much like to tuck it away
among long lost objects in the dark,
in some quiet, unknown place, somewhere
which remains motionless when your depths resound.
And yet everything which touches us, you and me,
takes us together like a single bow,
drawing out from two strings but one voice.
On which instrument are we strung?
And which violinist holds us in his hand?
O sweetest of songs.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke, "Love Song"

the well-worn path

i am constantly amazed at how quickly life moves. i went back to notre dame this past weekend and in a way, it was like i had never left. being there felt so normal that it became weird. i felt as though i could stroll into ryan, and our room would be exactly the same as it was a year ago. i still felt like i belonged there - but how could i not belong? i don't know how to not belong. notre dame is one of the places that has taken up residency deep in my heart, with a piece that will never go away. driving away from the dome will always hurt a little bit, like pulling off a scab that's not quite ready yet. it was good to be back, but bittersweet.

this past weekend also officially marks a year since the accident. i guess i never realized until after what an awful time that was for me...being positive sure takes a lot out of you. i'm a little amazed at how i managed to be so determined to not let it ruin my year...but i guess that force of will is something that comes only and exactly when you need it. but damn, it felt good to tread that terrain with two feet again.

you held me down in this starless city

i feel like i've created a world for myself out of my nostalgia. why is it that we can only experience things once? if you want to look at it the pessimistic way - memory is only a lie, a sad reminder that these times that made your heart swell are gone, and that every time you recall them they'll be more and more blurry, until eventually you can't remember at all?

it's enough to make anyone lay down and cry.

and yet -

why is it that a simple bass line can get inside my soul? how is it that when i hear a certain song, i'm immediately transported to my sixteen-ear-old self in the throes of selfish adolescence, or my eighteen-year-old self throwing snowflakes in the air, or my twenty-year-old self tripping on cobblestones on the streets? why is it that a simple line of poetry can make my heart clench? why is it that so many verses and lyrics and lines stop me cold and make me think that yes, yes, this is what i have been trying to say all along?

the truth is, art is what keeps us here. it is what makes this life, these shining un-relivable moments strung together like christmas lights, less of a line and more of a circle. i firmly believe that we would die withough art, without musicians, without writers. we are the lifeblood of the world. engineers and businesspeople keep the world running--but we, the artists, give it a reason to run at all. there is too much beauty in the world to ignore it.

this is what gives me hope. the artists of the world have given me something to relate to, something to hang on to, something to love. someday i hope to give that to someone else, another twenty-something year old who is grasping at straws to follow their dreams.

just a stranger on the bus tryin' to make his way home

to this day the smell of airports and ck one brings me back to those days where i almost can't believe how carefree we were.

we lived hard and we never thought twice. i ran through the streets of london in flats so fast that i got pins and needles in my feet. we drank entire bottles of wine and danced in clubs, laughing. we spent money on cover and gin and tonics and theatre tickets and overpriced sandwiches for lunch. we went to movie premieres and shrieked as we reached out and jumped for a glance at someone famous. we took trains and planes to corners of the world we'd never seen before. we broke out of our shells because for once, in this city, we could be whoever we wanted to be.

i know it's pathetic but i still miss it more than i can say.