Mine is not a life that is unique. There is no variation to the "I was born, I graduated high school, I went away to college...." generic story line of every other typical American life. The only thing that changed was the scenery. Maybe I had different motivations that led me different places, but it's all the same. We all tell the same story. Only the scenery changes it.
 

I know it seems like I'm quitting on the writing thing, the narrow margins of text here, the lack of a muse, - with all of the "life" stuff getting in my way, I forget some times that I was born to be a writer. Jealousy fills me when someone else remembers to grab a notebook and a pen, because I failed to do so. Jots of inspiration have left me barren in the longest stretch of non-personal writing I've ever had. It looks, even to myself, that I have given up this love affair of mine.

Last night, I sat around a bonfire, in a place in the middle of the woods that I could never have imagined, and I thought to myself, I am more enriched for having experienced it. In this study of life I've taken, I got to see familiar bonds of my family reflected in another. A guy who played the character of my brother in my own life, being exactly the same character in the family of someone else's. I immediately loved this person, just for being who he was. So fondly reminding me of someone I'd never really understood or known but always welcomed and missed.

For once, when I felt myself being lonely or feeling overlooked, I reached out and Matthew was there, just within arm's reach. Fighting back the lonliness and being the champion of my day. I got to watch someone I'm casually manic about lug firewood and watch after others, being the light keeper over this gathering. It is even now, no more than 10 minutes ago, that I have realized that was who this person is to me. The light keeper.
 

Dear one,

How foolish of me to think that I could be so casual about how wonderful you are to me. How mindless I have been about how deeply this dwells in me. I am taken aback by just how amazingly fun this is.
 

My boyfriend and I were lying in bed last night, for once, falling asleep at the same time, and I had noticed he'd started doing shadow puppets on the wall. An endearing and creative outlet, I'd have never thought of. It makes me wonder if we had kids, if they'd like him better cause he was the "creative" one. hopefully they'd love us both (or me just a little bit more)
 

For the first time in two years, I put on a cowboy hat and felt myself become a little more like the girl I use to be for a while. The attitude, the swagger, the "Quick, somebody get a picture of this!" excitement that always gives me fond memories of my hats. I mourn for the casuality of the "chic" hat I had once. It's a crying shame I don't have it any more. It was by far, my favorite.

One more week to go until finals. With any luck, I'll eek by and get to recharge for fall quarter. The great thing is - I may get to do more of the "experience" thing this year - NOT school related. Get to write some, get to work out and run some. Complete some of the other goals I've sent for myself this year.

Looks like I'll just have to pull my hat down low, and cowboy up. At the very least, save a horse.
 

Why this day is different from any other day is hard to tell. I woke up this morning, as I had the previous mornings recently, with my boyfriend/unofficial fiancee/soon to be husband - snoring next to me. Normally irritation grips me, I nudge him hard enough to wake him, demand as politely as I can that he roll over, and hope that the snoring stops with this effort. For this once, this morning of all mornings, I thought of my mother. I wondered if she had the urge to smother my dad with a pillow whenever he'd woken her with his snoring or if after 30 years of marriage, she just climbed out of bed with her pillow and blanket and made her way to the couch, no harm, no foul.

With that thought, I'd wondered if I had become a wife somewhere in the night previous. Then I had to wonder if being a wife was a mindset or a status. Leading me down the more persistant path of was I ready to be a wife? To have that part of my life begin. I wonder if it is the constant practice of being independent, the habit if you will, that keeps me from welcoming this new prospect without the small twinge of apprehension or if it's the love of it that keeps it there.

Will I have to give up that independent part of me, the lone(r) person, complete and content with her solitude for the constant companion? Will I one day cling to this companionship with so much that I can no longer be the independent? Will I become clausterphobic, stifled or trapped? Or will I exhalt in the life I hadn't dared to hope for myself. Can I have everything I asked for of my life, as it seems so many of those around me can not? Can I be worthy of such a life. Can I find happiness there?

In all sincerity, I could not think of myself as a wife. I could not see it. Which is why breakups, while bothersome, were ultimately necessary. I did not want to be the wife of any previous boyfriend. I did not want to be the Dreamer's wife, nor the Desperate man's. I felt stifled by the idea of the Teacher's wife. I could not see the complete life of the Magician's. I was never meant to have been more than a minor character in the Lost man's life.

The line that originally was here was "Renessance man" and it didn't fit. Wasn't the label and in anyway accurately described my loved one. He is the Light Keeper. He stands staunchly against the darkness that creeps in Man's spirit, defending his loved ones against it. Simply he is the person who keeps building the fire, tending to the hearth, responsible for the warmth that keeps the cold at bay. My dad, without even knowing, recoginzed this before I did.
 

Growing up, if anybody had asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, singing was the first thing I’d tell you. I loved it passionately. Still do, truth be told. But while I had some fraction of talent, I didn’t have what it’d take. When I got on stage, stage fright would cripple me. Give me a chance to see the warm bodies in front of me and I couldn’t sing. My small claim to fame came from a blind audition, actually. In a room separated by a sheet from those judging me, I threw my heart into the pieces I’d slaved over for months. It paid off. I was second chair.

I am not bitter about coming to the slow realization that I’d never be rich singing. I consider myself lucky that I did not believe blindly in my abilities as perhaps so many others before me had. One soul in particular, who I would have bet my life on becoming successful of his attempts, gave up recently to pursue another avenue. Whether or not it was the right decision, only time will tell. I for one had no doubt in his abilities.

However, as much as singing as been a part of my life, so has writing. Growing up it was not very often that I could be found going somewhere without a journal and a pen to write my thoughts in. I spent hours in front of an old 286 castoff typing stories, with whatever inspiration that came to light. One story in particular, at its climax, sat at a cool 563 pages long, at my last count. At the time, I had decided to throw the computer and it’s stories away, thinking I’d never miss them. I should have kept it. At the very least I’d be further along now, as a novelist than I am now.

Maybe I’m no more talented at writing than I was singing and one day I will come to the realization that I’d better cut my losses and try something else, but for the moment, this day, there’s a part of me that would like to see how far it’d take me.

 

Just added a new story to port. If you're interested, check it out
 

"Another one bites the dust....."

I just saw the wedding reception photos of yet another classmate. The cellphone on the table looks at me accusingly and my backpack, thank goodness I can't see it, would probably be doing the same thing. "Don't rush me." I glare at my Mc Donald's cup.

Two beautiful weddings. With the prospect of my own pending nuptials in the nearer (instead of latter) horizon, and no where near like the other weddings I've witnessed, I wonder if I'll regret not having the big and fluffy thing. The more I think about what I want, my backyard "housewarming" idea keeps reoccuring. I wouldn't necessarily not get my big and fluffy but it may happen in the form of a house warming party. After I've finished school.

 

They are my best friends.

I feel the need to mark these passings with a tribute of sorts, as they are the ending of several chapters and the beginnings of very different directions than previously taken before. We've taken our various forms of defined happiness and looked forward to these things with hope and promise and with the knowledge that if nothing else, we've grown as the people we'd strived for.

Officially, this marks the parting of company between the three of us. It's been something I've avoided looking at all too closely because, for me, it is the fondness for these friends of mine, that bring tears to my eyes and the thickness in my throat to choke me. These are two of my loved ones. And they have set upon their own courses, individually, and while understood that it'd happen, I've taken for granted that it'd always be "us". Not us individually.

She got married two weeks ago. The girl I grew up with. There isn't a childhood memory of mine that she's not in. I sat in front of a mirror, looking at her looking at me, and realized that we'd reached our "Someday". Thinking back to the moments when late at night, with the car windows down, hair tossled by the wind, listening to TLC and Brandy, talking about "someday". A childhood friendship that managed to remain into adulthood. That while life didn't work out exacly like we originally schemed it, it'd turned out as it should have.

to finish later