Running.

We're living like it's never going to end.
That beautiful bubble we've created, the one we never want to leave, pops in three weeks. August 7th, summer ends and the rest of my life begins. A chapter is closing. Two summers, one very long winter, and so many tears and laughter, late night run ins at Burger King, countless drives to Red Rocks, concerts, snowboarding, drives to Frisco, ZooLights, Botanic gardens, cuddling, Wii, movies, Stellas, hot tea, hot chocolate, walks with the dog, driving around, loud music, soft music, dancing, plane rides, fights, that contentment of knowing that someone loves you unconditionally: all of this ends in 21 days.
Of course, a new friendship will rise out of the pain of separation, but what we feel right now cannot be duplicated. I cry sometimes, little tears seeping out of the corners of my eyes when I don't think he's looking. But he is. He knows. It's hard to let go of something you've grown so close to. I'm not crying because I want it to continue, I'm crying because I'm afraid to lose it.
We've been off now since April, broken up but not far from together, and I'm not quite ready. I never am. Every relationship ends with a period when it's not but still is.
And this is it.
When I talk to Emily, or see my boxes in the hall, or imagine myself walking down Michigan Avenue again, I get that sense of excitment, a little ripple through my stomach. I'm excited. I'm excited in a way that I haven't been in a long time. I want to go back. Nothing more than that. I want to have my own room, my own place, sitting in chairs with my best friends, laughing or talking or doing whatever may come of it all.
I can't wait to start over, to get that second chance at Chicago that I never thought I would. I promise, I'll embrace it and find myself a life that I could only have dreamed of.
I'm running from the past, running toward the future, no disconnect between the two, tears, I'm sure in both places. I'll have to take Mom to the airport and put her on a plane, and I'm sure I'll cry then; it'll be official. But then I'll turn around and face the city I've grown to love and everything will be alright.

I'm off. There's no turning back.

Hindsight is 20/20

I've been thinking lately.
Thinking too much and not doing enough.
I keep waiting for my life to begin. I rush around, stressing myself out about different things, always trying to carve a little bit of time for myself, which I end up not using wisely and then I am stuck with more stuff and more chaos than I ever intended for myself or my life.
I work, work, work, so hard, as many hours a week as I can get at Dairy Queen and then the babysitting job on the side. I spend long hours for little pay and now I have nothing to show for it. I owe my mom money for the car, which I am so grateful to have, but I can't seem to get ahead. I have no savings for next year. I did the math in the early spring, figuring out how much money I could make and save for next year, keep as my rainy day or alcohol fund. Nothing. Zip. Maybe two hundred dollars if I'm lucky for myself.
No shopping. No new shoes. Nothing to replace the box of clothes and shoes that disappeared in the move in December. We're certain of that now. Gone. Something is missing, and we're not sure how to find it. I was so relieved to get home that I didn't check the little packing receipts that I had, making sure that everything had been delivered. Now, six months later, no, seven, I am without pairs of shoes that I hold dear, without certain clothes. And here I am with no money to replace them. I'm not going naked, that's for certain, but I definitely haven't been able to do the shopping that some of my friends can do.
I stress out over little things. Do I really need new clothes? Part of me says, no, not at all, but there's that other part that is moving back to Chicago, where the elements of style are slightly different than they are here in Denver, a little more refined, fancy, dress to impress, business, etc.
I am sick, now too. Mom and I made our way to Urgent Care yesterday with my intensely swollen lymph nodes. They're fine, they tell me, I just need rest. Ha.
The lease arrived today via email. Now, we have to figure out a plan. I don't have a plan and that scares me. I need to start packing, need to find a way to get this all figured out, need to find a way to somehow be in two different places at once (Denver and Chicago) so that I can get my life settled in both places.
Time is running out.
Last night, I realized that Danny and I have less than a month left of hanging out. The lease on my apartment starts in less than three weeks. I asked for Sundays off, but that's lame because there aren't very many of them left. There is no time.
I'm scared. This is the definite end of some things and the definite beginning of others and I'm just not quite prepared. I need a plan, and we don't have one. All of this is expensive and to find the cheapest way to do it is not something that's going to come easily.
Ah. And I wonder why I'm sick. I'm out late every night, doing the same thing, haunting the same places and yet I feel as though I'm so busy. I wake up early, sleep a little later if I'm lucky and then do the whole thing over. Entirely.
What if I ship all of my boxes out there again and everything gets messed up? What if they lose all the boxes? What if we can't come up with the rent money? What if we get evicted? What if? What if?
I don't have the tools necessary to build a life, we're working on collecting them. Working on a lot of things.


"We're getting closer, maybe farther."

So true. Not only is my source of income ending, but a few of my relationships as well. Katie and I have grown apart lately, more so than ever before, and I think that both of us are okay with that. She's moved on to bigger and better things, sorority girls and the like, and I've just settled into myself a little more. Danny and I are well aware that this is the end of the relationship that we've dragged out for too long. We left it for the summer, a fragile bubble of hope, and the bursting is about to happen. There's love there, but not enough, and the wrong kind. I genuinely care for him as a friend, however, and I am going to miss having someone always there for me when I needed anything. Dad and I had a better relationship over Christmas break, but over summer, there's been a disconnect and I just don't know that it will recover at all. All of the effort that I made to overcome the past has been smashed to pieces and will only continue as long as I am in Denver. Mom and I are tense as well, though not irrevocably so. I'm stressed that she doesn't see certain things as a priority and she's thinking about other things as well. This move is stressing her out, understandably so, but I don't think she wants to make this work. (She does).

At times, I'm so very happy and at other time, I'm just so miserable I can hardly keep the tears in my eyes. This isn't good right now. I'm losing so many things, gaining so many other things. I'm just not ready for all of Denver to end for me. I'm scared that Chicago will be intense and hellish and I'm not sure I'm ready for all of it.
What if I can't find a job? What if I don't get straight A's? What if?

None of this made any sense, I'm sure, because I'm about to switch gears and tell you all how excited I am to have my own place. I can't wait to cook in it, to have my own space, my own living room, closets, a bedroom. I can't wait to move in and to see it. I can't wait to have all of my stuff set up in our apartment, I can't wait to live with Emily, I can't wait to get everything settled and get back into the routine. I can't wait to go to the beach, to drive up Lake Shore Drive, to get Portillo's and have everyone over for a housewarming party. I can't wait to drink cheap beer, to try and eat healthy on a budget (not so easy as it sounds), I can't wait to go back to classes and see all my friends. I think that will be the best part. I'm nervous.

Text taken from Internet

FOX has gone over the line--using racism, prejudice, and fear to smear Barack Obama. Join over 428,000 people in signing the petition today! Click here:
http://pol.moveon.org/stopthesmears/?rc=fb.fox

The petition says: "FOX must stop injecting racism, prejudice, and fear into our political dialogue. We intend to hold FOX, its advertisers, and its personalities accountable for FOX's attempts to smear the Obamas."

Click here to sign the petition -- then tell your friends about this group:
http://pol.moveon.org/stopthesmears/?rc=fb.fox

This petition will be hand-delivered by a big group to FOX's headquarters--in front of other media, so FOX feels the pressure.

Here's what happened this past month: First, a paid FOX commentator accidentally confused "Obama" with "Osama" and then joked on the air about killing Obama. Next, a FOX anchor said a playful fist pound by Barack and Michelle Obama could be a "terrorist fist jab." And then, FOX called Michelle Obama "Obama's baby mama" -- slang used to describe an unwed mother.

FOX won't stop until it becomes too painful to continue—until the public calls them out and advertisers start getting worried.

Click here to sign the petition--then tell your friends:
http://pol.moveon.org/stopthesmears/?rc=fb.fox







***I found the above text on Facebook and I wanted you to check it out. Regardless of whether the petition or any of the action that they say they are going to take is true, I feel like it was worth mentioning.

Deer.

First off:

Gas cards save lives.

Grandma and especially Aunt Sally, summer would not have happened had you not been there with those little envelopes I've come to love. So this is my lame thank you, on the internet, heartfelt nonetheless.

Also.

The lymph nodes in my head are swollen. I don't feel good. I'm exhausted. I hate my job, my manager, the uniform...everything.


On one of the rare days that I get out of work before midnight (this time at 6), Danny and I went up to Red Rocks to see the sunset. It had been one of those marvelously hot days, but the clouds had rolled in and there was no sunset to be seen. We decided instead to just hike around for awhile while there was still light in the sky.
As we were hiking, we came to this rocky place where the trail obviously stopped. Since it's Red Rocks, you are forbidden to do any climbing, which is of course the one thing you really want to do. There, maybe fifteen feet in front of us, across the rock, was a deer. I stopped and we spent a few seconds looking directly at each other. Danny, behind me, whispered, "Don't move," and we stood there as the deer came closer and closer. I waved, some lame attempt at trying to communicate my own fear and the fact that I wasn't going to harm it. It came closer still. We walked back, and it went parallel to us for a minute, before finding some apparently delicious shrubbery.
We saw five deer that night. Little babies with their mothers, one jumped out of the bushes not five feet from us and nearly gave me a heart attack. Another was eating grass by the side of the trail and we almost passed it before it jumped away.
There were some bunnies, too, but seeing the deer that close was amazing.
We made it to the car right as the sun had dropped beyond a preferable level of light and we headed home.
7/11/08