la vita e bella

te amo vida. everything is beautiful. everyone should love life, love everything. it's not worth it if you're not happy. (bc i'm a nerd, like ms. frizzle said) take chances, make mistakes, get messy. gotta live my life by all three, and learn from them. don't stop smiling. live each day. i promise it will be worth it. spring changes my life every year. don't be afraid of changes. life is full of them.

te amo te amo te amo. dios mio santo, que mi vida sea buena. que aprende todo bueno de la vida. lo bueno y lo malo, todo. lo que sea. que mi vida sea completa.

wrote this last spring; it's still true

this is what life is about, really. it's about laying out on the quad on a warm day doing absolutely nothing even when you probably should be. it's about passion iced tea lemonades from starbucks, sipping them slowly in a booth with a friend. it's about meeting up at 8pm no matter what, watching american idol and squealing and critiquing right along with the judges. it's about riding your bike across campus, dodging passers-by, wind whipping through your hair.

it's about eating ice cream with friends, and then sitting for hours and laughing so hard your stomach hurts. it's about birthday plans and concocting dinners and surprises; it's about filling a friend's room with 120 balloons. it's about crying into each other's shoulders-- not so much about the crying, but more about who that shoulder belongs to.

it's about watching the glow of a million candles in the grotto. it's about the tulips that are finally beginning to peek out and bloom. it's about pealing bells of the basilica, waking you up on sunday mornings. it's about looking out your window and seeing the gold of the dome glinting in the sun.

we complain so much about school, about work, about teachers, about drama, about boys-- and in that, we forget about our youth. we forget that these are our golden years. we forget to let go a little, loosen up. in the words of a friend, we shouldn't worry: we'll find a way to be where we are meant to be.

i think it's time that i stop worrying, and start living.

the only thing that ever made sense in my life

something big i've learned in the past couple of weeks is that you've got to do what makes you happy. take chances. go with it. sometimes you've just gotta plunge right in. so many times in the past, i've opted out of things because i'm scared it will be awkward or weird or intimidating or whatever. i've learned that more than half the time it's really all in my head. any situation is essentially what you make of it. and i think that's one of the most important things to remember in life.

i feel like i'm finally on the road to figuring it all out. i look at myself at eighteen and i was a completely different person. i still feel like the core of me is the same-- basically, the me inside my head. i feel like i've done so much to get that person on the outside. there have been detours and wrong turns and roadblocks (think that molasses dude in candyland) but i think it's really necessary not only to figure out who you are, but who you don't want to be. there are things i have done that i am not proud of: straight-up PLC's, questionable life decisions, and even things that i thought were right all along that, in the end, weren't. but i'm learning. i guess that's what growing up is for.

i have learned how to be happy for real, which is not necessarily being in a good mood all the time. happiness is knowing that you're exactly where you need to be. somehow any bitterness i had has completely melted away.

i want you to be happy. i don't know if any of you still read this, but wherever you are, whenever you read these words, know this: go forth. be happy. it's worth it.

rage rage rage

a) uncalled for, b) SERIOUSLY?!

WTF?!

you've got a fast car, i want a ticket to anywhere

i just want to stop crying. i just want to stop hurting. i just want to know if i made the right decision. i just want to know if i threw away the only thing that mattered. i just want to know if i just made the biggest mistake of my life.

why can't i let myself let go

i can't even look at pictures anymore. for me it's music. it's memories. it's the things we don't have pictures of. it's the things i miss that i can't put into words. it's the way i felt when i walked down the street. it's the way the butter melted on the bread when i dipped it into the soup at lunch. it's the way the wind would rush across my face as a bus sped by. it's the way my umbrella would bump into everyone else's on rainy mornings. it's the way the pint glasses looked, lined up on the table. it's the way i felt when i stood on that spot in the center of the globe stage and said my lines to the whole wide world. it's the way i could just plop onto that red couch on weeknights and talk for hours. it's the way wine would taste when i drank it out of a nutella jar. it's the way i felt when i'd stand alone waiting for tube, headphones in. it's the way the sound of the street would filter through our window at night, no matter how tightly we closed it. it's the way my stomach would hurt sometimes from laughing too much.

sometimes i'd wonder if my city was made out of stars. everywhere we looked-- lights, lights, lights. when it rained, sometimes they'd blend together; every car that rushed by looked like it was painting streaks of color onto the streets. sometimes i'd look out my window and pinch myself because i after weeks and months i still couldn't believe it. there is something about that place that still has my heart, and will always have my heart. you could live there a thousand years and never discover all its secrets. london is alive; it has been alive long before us and will live long after us. we're just a dot on the timeline, a tiny world in the city of stars-- suns for every new galaxy.

in a place where we only say goodbye

every time i listen to death cab it brings me back. or every time i see pictures of people who are there now, or every time i hang out with my london friends here, or every time i look at pictures, or every time i decide to torture myself and google image search it.

sometimes i look back and i can't believe it really happened at all. it was like a dream, this wonderful wonderful dream that could not possibly have been real ... except it was. i don't think i've ever lived more. i don't think i've ever laughed more. i'll never forget it, even when memories fade i'll always remember the feeling, the happiness that just bubbled inside me every day and made me feel like i could do anything.

i wonder how long it'll take me to shake this. i don't know if i ever will.