A foundation

At this point, I don’t know where to start. I feel as though life is hitting me like a ton of bricks. No, scratch that, I feel like life is coming at me like an 18 wheeler semi-truck filled with enough bricks to build a three story house. And here I am, standing in the way. Do I stay here, let it hit me and build myself from the ground back up again? Or, in the case of what most would do, do I run out of the way only to make sure that my heart is still pumping fast as ever and that I can feel my stomach in my toes… just to make sure it’s still there? There are endless options on the road of life, but this time I’m standing right in the middle lane, waiting for it to hit me. I’m contemplating where things go from here, and I’ve got to make a decision about which way to jump. Sometimes I wonder how people do this, how they transition from being a teenager into being a full-fledged adult. It’s not like it comes gradually. This transition comes in one full, swift, violent move that takes you under like a wave in the Atlantic. The end result only results in two options: sink, or swim.

My summer has been a dream. Minus all the dramatics, death, tears, sex and lies. It went off with a bang on my 21st birthday and from there has been a whirlwind of all these things thrown into a blender and some happiness, laughter, booze, sunshine and love thrown in for extra flavor. I tell myself I know who I am, but when all these things come out and I taste it, I’ve got a pretty sour bite. Put whiskey into the mix and you’ve got yourself in a few bar fights, too. I quit my job to move away from the only summer I’ve ever known just to collect my thoughts. And here I am, and here are my thoughts, collecting like rain in an empty bucket. I’m making this attempt to decide what I feel inside, whether it’s so empty that you could hear a pin drop from the top of my head down to my toes, or whether it’s that I feel so filled with love that it’s sometimes hard for me to form words. But in the end, I think that happiness comes at the end of the day, when you’re laying in bed crumpling up your thoughts for the day. Who are you surrounded by? Are you in an empty house, or is it full of the ones you love? I’m blessed enough to have every single one of my friends currently living within a three-block-radius of me, and for that I am ever grateful. The ability to walk across the street when I feel too alone has been a gift at the least. Especially in these hot days of summer, when the heat sinks into my bones and rattles them up and shakes out all the sadness I feel about the loss of my grandfather. There’s another flavor you can throw into the blender, one that comes with its own separate set of emotions. A hero, he was- not just to me, but to many other people. I have learned since his passing that people never really, fully mourn those they lose, but continue to bottle it up inside them in an effort to make them feel stronger. It doesn’t work. I learned that last night, after I had bottled it up for a long three weeks and let it all out at once. The combined effort of nightmares, memories and an aching heart all burst through at one moment in a quick kick to my pride when I couldn’t stop myself from crying in front of people who had never really seen me be anything but happy. I don’t really know how it came to be that tears make you look different in other people’s eyes, but maybe this was a good thing.
I feel sometimes like I have more to say than other people do. I sit in places bustling with people and I make up their life stories. I wonder who out of this crowd has ever been in love, whose had their heart broken, whose family provides them with everything they need, which ones have absolutely nothing. Sometimes I go too far and my thoughts get jumbled and twisted and I end up having their life story be something completely awful. At times I watch people walk by and wonder if they’re the one I’m supposed to be with the rest of my life. I also wonder if others do this same thing, or if I’m the only one who is curious about the person next to me at a stop light or behind me in the grocery line. Some days I’m just so full of thoughts that when I open up my computer, a document doesn’t open fast enough for me to spill out my words onto the keys and they overflow into nonsense. I go back and proofread and wonder why I think the way I do, why it always seems to make such sense to me when it’s on a screen or printed into writing but never in my head. My somethings turn into nothings which develop into ideas which turn into stories and then back into somethings. It’s all a process that I’m sure no one else can really grasp. I’m okay with that.
Here’s something. I’m falling for this boy, one who completely and totally isn’t my type at all. He’s a fraternity boy, who not only has a little bit of a southern Ohio drawl, but has a sense of humor that could make an entire room full of people laugh. And not the kind of humor that attracts girls and makes him look like a cool, funny, tough guy- it’s the kind of laugh that’s genuine, that makes people want to be around him because he radiates this sense of happiness. He feels like the sheet that you simply need only to know something’s covering you on a hot summer night, even though you could probably sleep with nothing on. He is comfortable, yet completely exhilarating. He refuses to wear a shirt most days and makes fun of my dirty feet when I won’t wear shoes. I will not admit that I’m falling, because it purely feels more like flying, or jumping off the highest diving board. I cannot wait to feel that cold water flooding my body when I hit the deep end.
Here’s another something. I am finding that I’m not the only one who overuses the word love. I am not the only person who simply needs to tell those surrounding me how I feel about them on an hourly basis. Having all these people I love within this three block radius has literally made me feel surrounded. And I like it. It’s like a tiny barrier of walls that I know will protect me in case of danger.
This is only an ounce of my summer, a tiny portion of the extreme highs and lows I’m bouncing through. It has taught me one thing so far, though. People say that life is all these things—it’s not like a box of chocolates, it’s not like a romantic movie where the people who’ve been searching for each other their whole lives find one another in a fruit market. It’s nothing like the things people say it is, because it’s completely and utterly indescribable. I could use all the descriptions, metaphors, adjectives my mind could conger up, but nothing puts into words how beautiful, overwhelming, entertaining and wildly exasperating it is to live.
This is just the beginning.


[This was written in June 2010. An oldie, but a goodie.]