Look Up

2008-02-07T18:01:00.000-08:00

there's always time
pass me by
i'll be fine
there's always time

2008-01-12T02:44:00.000-08:00

who are you: just one person. just allison. still in the makings, or at least the discoverings.

what are you doing: thinking too much, or maybe too little, about life and the people in it that make it important. also, lying in bed, getting ready to fall asleep and then wake up in three hours.

where are you going: the east coast, to escape and explore and adventure and hope.

recommend (something): telling the truth down to every last detail even stupid or embarrassing things that don't matter. (wow, that sounded cliche... but when you can look a person in the eyes and know you have never lied to them, it's a both liberating and frightening feeling.) also, writing letters. also, the book "extremely loud & incredibly close." there is another one, but i'm editing this for public publishing purposes.

what is your idea of a perfect day: i just don't really believe in perfect, but nowadays, i'd like to wake up next to bestfriends in a big ol' city like new york and prepare to play music together and eat delicious food (there is an empty plate of what used to be pad thai by my bed) and stay up late that night having real conversations.

what's your favorite quote:
i have lots. here are two:
"So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them." - from Perks
"When we first were friends you asked me what I believed in. I never answered. I believe in you. I believe in us."
- a text from a friend I got on the plane ride home in October

maybe you should fill this out.

2008-01-01T21:20:00.000-08:00

Regardless of how seldom I write in this, I still feel as though an end-of-the-year entry would be nice. If nothing else, to give one giant "fuck you" to 2007. It was easily the worst year of my life, and I know I'm not the only one for whom that is true. I don't really need to say too much about that because everyone close to me knows some of the shit that went down and I don't feel a need to re-cap it.

In vintage Allison Francis form, however, I should recognize that if the worst year of my life also contained meeting people that would change my life, and change me - as well as the opportunity for a fresh start in an incredible city - then I remain blessed.

I can't say I'm feeling incredibly optimistic about 2008, because although 2007 is over, I am still exactly where it left me. We all are. And things still feel heavy. But in times like ours we have to take what we can get; we don't have a choice. So 2008, bring it on. But please take it easy.

"Sad to still be here, but happy to be alive
It seems the more one lives the less one thrives...

I raise my glass just one more time
Try to write another rhyme, a word that rhymes with hopeful...
for the new year"

2007-11-26T23:06:00.001-08:00

The friendship anklet Lauren tied onto my ankle two summers ago just came off.

I'd been dreading this for so long.

Missing.

2007-11-04T18:19:00.001-08:00

It's been exactly twelve days since October 23rd and exactly six months since May 4th. Those days that feel like the worst days of your life, they're not really, because you've still got further to fall and lower to feel. This isn't optimistic, because I don't feel optimistic. I have a friend who reads this blog and has commented a couple times how she admires my outlook - how, no matter what's going on, I'm able to see the beauty of life and humanity and the like.

But I feel like this Postsecret:

It's just getting difficult. It's not that I've stopped believing in all the good things, and that love is all you need. Frankly I just feel like the world has just stopped proving that I could be right. And I worry that even though love is all that matters, and the only thing that can transcend life and death and everything in between, love might not be enough.

I've been torn between two coasts, two lives. Last Friday my best friend from school put her headphones on my ears and played me a song that made me cry on the spot.

"I could stay here, become someone different.
I could stay here, become someone better.

It's hard to go into the city, because you wanna say 'I love you' to everybody
It's so hard to go into the city, because you wanna say, 'hey, I love you,' to everybody.

When we were teenagers, we wanted to be the sky..."

Sometimes you have to choose. So for now, I'll stay.

2007-10-10T08:43:00.000-07:00

My college experience thus far involves the following.

• Drinking tea (de-caffinated at night, Oregon Chai when I'm feeling self-indulgent)
• Finding ways to avoid paying for public transportation. And food. Actually, anything, really.
• Lamenting the superiority of the west coast.
• A garbage truck that comes by my window every morning at 3 a.m.
• Letters to and from all over the place.
• Exercising spontanaeity whenever possible. The academic results of this are yet to be determined.
• Sharing books, poems, and music - while avoiding conversations with people who are snobbish about these.
• Power-walking down Commonwealth Avenue for Tuesday and Thursday classes.
• Vegan ice cream, cantelope, and grilled sandwiches from the West Campus Dining Hall.
• Distracting Liz Pelly from doing work.
• Making eye contact with strangers/wearing sunglasses like it's always bright out, depending on my mood.
• Finding myself in absurd situations with Amanda James.
• Facebooking during Sociology lectures - even more so after I found out it was a 242-level class. Oops?
• Being the token girl with the camera at parties.
• Convincing people to come visit Portland next summer (Lee Falls plans in the works).
• Acquiring a taste for fashion, namely novelties such as hats, glasses, and other accessories.
• Complaining about how broke I am while standing in line at the register.
• Being more motivated to go to the FitRec Center than to take a shower.
• Composing killer riffs in my group beginner piano class (using the headphones, since I'm not working on arpeggios).
• Looking for inspiration for new tattoos.
• Debating which concerts to go to.
• Nagging Colin to come visit.
• Watching the Office three hours earlier than everyone at home.
• Wishing I wasn't asleep when Alli has time to talk.
• Thinking about how Lauren would like everything I'm doing and the people I'm loving.
• Living.

"When there's nothing left to burn,
you have to set yourself on fire."

2007-08-28T03:46:00.000-07:00

A life is time, they teach us growing up
The seconds ticking killed us all
a million years before the fall

I stepped outside to see the last moments of the eclipsed moon, but the trees blocked my view. My summer song drifted from inside and I looked up at the stars, wondering whether satellites or life moved faster.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the moon, nestled between hidden branches like a secret in the palm of a hand. Clouded and golden, it was beautiful. I looked up, my hands in my pockets, a cold tear on my cheek.

I miss you. I said it without words.

In this quiet night, the trees began to sway. The wind moaned softly and I listened, trusting. She told me I was going to be alright. I felt it everywhere. Just as gracefully, she drifted away, and the night was still.

I believe her.

2007-08-05T14:02:00.000-07:00

A little while ago I was looking through old letters I'd written Lauren and I found one from last year (2006) saying something along the lines of, fuck. I'm going to lose you and I can't stand it and I want to be set free from it. So I'll just say goodbye now so we can go on living. Goodbye.

Well, I'm leaving for Boston in three weeks and I'm not ready but I won't be able to stop it, so, fuck. I don't even know if I want to go but I'm going and that's that. So I might as well stop worrying about not having enough time because that's always how it's been. I'm leaving, but I've got three weeks, so I'm going to live right here and now and see how that goes before I face anything else.

This summer has been so much different from all the other summers I've seen. After a bitter breaking-away from my high school life I'm left with decisions about where I want to be. Quite honestly it's been a time of struggling to get through all the missing and the sadness and the frustration to find (and more importantly, to hold onto) the warmth in my life. Because there's a lot of it, but being the inherently flawed human that I am... it's like I close my eyes to take a break from all this, and when I open them, I see myself pushing away from people and things that matter.

I'm just really trying to keep my eyes open.

2007-07-30T18:15:00.000-07:00

Waiting for the Max underground a deep wind begins to build and chill us all, remniscent of the eerieness of dementors. The train shoots through the dark tunnel and I'm riding backwards, seeing what I've missed. Take me to the riot. Let a stranger transform. Let me stay.

I've said Portland would always be home. The sidewalks and the sky, even the pidgeons and burrito stands hold some sense of familiarity. Will I ever wake up in this town and feel there's nothing else for me here? Since you've been gone I am less interested in places I pass and people I see. I'm not sure why exactly that is.

Could I ever feel home again? Honestly?

The strangers who used to feel like soulmates are now just smiles looking past me. I see a ladder leaned against a bare ceiling and feel as if I've climbed it. People are just people, they shouldn't make you nervous. Has this city changed or have I? I see a boy soaring down the street in a wheelchair less than two blocks away from where I met him and didn't like him, at least six months ago.

It doesn't feel like home anymore.

Places I've been are vaguely familiar amongst change and new doorsteps. What has everyone been doing while I've been gone?

A nice girl in Backspace says she likes my shirt and doesn't judge me when I tell her it's just from Urban. Could we be friends beyond admiring each other's styes? Not that I'm planning on it. I'm just considering the possibilities. Anyway, I respect that she probably has reasons for her tattoos, but I don't understand them as of now.

How did I become so detached? Realization exhausts me a little.

Lauren, where did you go? I expect to see you in these places you'd like and feel comfortable in. Are you re-reading Harry Potter again? Come outside with me. I need to feel you.

Remembering her smile, and the nuclear bomb, and the reasons I loved her. I'm walking through Central Park; I'm in a foreign country, and I'm waiting for a sign. It's a hot summer day and I have goosebumps because I'm listening to "Begin" and looking up at the sky. Is that you? There's a girl sitting in the bench diagonally across from me. Is she wearing heavy boots? God, I used to be so in love with the world. How could the abscence of one person make me feel so alone and disillusioned?

A homeless lady passes in front of me, looks at the ground, and rolls right along. The girl has left. "The city's changing, because we are changing. We are all in this together." Don't forget. Can everyone see how I need them? I need their eyes locked to mine, our shoulders brushing, our worlds colliding.

When I leave, will I come back here; will everything be as I left it?

I saw you crying; I started crying
because we're all in this together.

I want to believe.

But I read with every broken heart we should become more adventurous. If I knew where I was supposed to be, I would go there. I would sacrifice money and heaven for love. But I would rather it found me.

I feel a faint sense of comfort when I am taking a picture of the graffitied wall across the street and a taxi driver slows down so as to avoid getting in the way. For the first time today I look directly into someone's eyes. Even the slightest comfort can be dire in moods like the one I am in. Sitting in a park of bricks, I get a paper cut, and everyone around me seems to be on drugs. I could be standing outside a broken telephone booth with money in my hand.

Walk from Chinatown to the Pearl District to downtown Portland. Where have I gone?

On the train home a woman is reading a book called something like "The Terrible Things Men Do." Did someone hurt her or is she afraid or is it something else? The Max is filled with tired-looking people and I wonder if I've got anything to give but questions which, quite honestly, I do not know if I want the answers to.

If anyone has tried to talk to me, I haven't noticed. I've been trying to stop listening to music that makes me sad, but every song is about love and I can't help but feel melancholy.

What now, kid?
Which way, love?

2007-07-09T10:32:00.001-07:00

I'm reading this book, "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close." I'll be honest; although the language of the book is not notably advanced, I don't always know what's going on, but it brings me near tears every other page. Granted, that's not really hard to do, with me. It's just, I live for those books whose words touch you so intimately, so honestly. Books that articulate truths that maybe you understand, but have never been able to explain, or books that expose universal truths that are difficult to acknowledge, especially to yourself.

"She wants to know if I love her, that’s all anyone wants from anyone else, not love itself but the knowledge that love is there, like new batteries in the flashlight in the emergency kit in the hall closet."

Is that true? Is reassurance, not love, all we need? I don't know that it's all that pretty a truth, but I think I believe it. I think logically most of us understand that we are loved. But if that were all that mattered, it wouldn't hurt, it wouldn't scare us, when someone could not or would not say "I love you," back to us, or otherwise. I guess it only becomes scary when you already love the person. "To protect yourself from sadness, you also must protect yourself from happiness."

I don't really feel like this is going anywhere. Since I've been reading this book my writing only feels more inadequate. Journalism major? Really? I feel like I need to cue the "Hercules" theme music or something ("I would go most anywhere to feeeel, like I belonggg!"), and I feel like I am just like every other college freshman... ever. Which is fine, I guess, since that's what I am. Ha, even though it feels like a lie or a joke to say.

"I thought, it’s a shame we have to live, but it’s a tragedy that we get to live only one life, because if I’d had two lives, I would have spent one of them with her."

Ask yourself what you are protecting in the parts of your heart that you don't allow even yourself to see.

2007-06-26T00:13:00.000-07:00

I've been avoiding writing for a while now.

Tonight, driving down a road both endless and finite, I hoped I'd recognize your headlights, though the lights around the curves became few and far between as the road went on. Even though I'd told you not to come, over and over again. I think we all do that, sometimes. "Push yourself away from your one best friend," yet not let go of the possibility that they could push their way back into your heart even harder. That's how we break our own hearts, again and again.

We all know how things are going to end, ultimately; the only thing that changes and makes living interesting is the way we choose to approach this, the inevitable.

I've never really been sad in the summer. I don't really know if I'd consider myself sad now. But, inevitably, things are different for me than they've been for the last five years, and different for the world than they've been for the last twenty. I'm scared for a lot of our friends. I'm not scared for myself as much as overwhelmed with the responsibility to live, and live well. And missing her. Unspeakably and indescribably so. The littlest things can set me off. I see her in colors and lights and feel her in the sun and in our songs and in the dark. And I know it's real but it's never enough.

What struck me hard, and stays with me significantly, was when Paige said at her service, we've been through missing her - from 3,000 miles away, from a deeply-buried place of powerful drugs and long-lasting nightmares, from holding on so goddamn tightly that we fear even more we might lose her. And now, missing her is all we have to look forward to, in life. That's a very difficult thing to accept and to understand.

We all know how things are going to end, but still, here we are. What are we fighting for? What are we living for? Maybe there's some inherent wisdom that understands why living is worth it. Maybe there's a more conscious feeling that understands why living means more than just staying alive. Maybe not. But I have got quite a long way to go if I ever reach the disheartening conclusion that it's all been in vain.

'Til then, or 'til another moment.

"I've been downhearted, babe,
ever since the day we met."

2007-03-11T19:20:00.000-07:00

This is my new bike Belle. I was very excited to get her. Today I took her for her first ride, down Tunnelwood, past Bridlemile, and onward. Coasting down the hills, I was so happy to be in the open air with flower petals fluttering up in my wake.

I found my two best friends saying goodbye.

Really goodbye.

The cat made a clamor and he looked its way, as if he cared. He held her hand while I went and sat in her room. I clutched a miscelleanous stuffed animal and looked around with strained vision; I saw a "To See" movie list in her familiar handwriting and the sweater that won "Ugliest Christmas Sweater" contest for me folded up on her desk; I saw a mirror and barely recognized myself.

He came in to say goodbye to me, not for the last time. We were both sorry that he was leaving.

I sat with her a while longer and whispered things that I hoped she'd hear with something other than her ears and tried with all my might to just be. Until I left. I didn't get very far. I haven't figured out how to adjust the bike gears yet, the hills were too steep, and I was too weak.

I am too weak. Getting a bike, all this, seemed like such a great idea, but it doesn't seem like it will last much longer. Everything is just so tired and wearing. I can't imagine it will go on much longer.

"And I could feel our days becoming night..."

2007-02-19T21:45:00.000-08:00

“You need to get out of here.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her out of bed. She wrote my phone number on a scrap piece of paper, left it on the kitchen counter, and followed me into the night.

Two a.m., we left Crady Street. Guns n’ Roses played loudly and my car swept through the dark, silent neighborhood like a dart.

“Where do we go?
Where do we go now?
Where do we go?”

“What am I doing?” she screamed, excited and scared. She had never left home in the middle of the night before. She threw her hands around me and kissed my head.

I chose west, the Old Jackson School exit. The stars shone clearly in the sky --- like summer, but cold enough to make me shiver. Or maybe that wasn’t the only reason, but I couldn’t stop.

The lone tree in the old field stared at us as we drove by, staring right back…

We didn’t get back to her house until four a.m. The slightest shade of orange began to glow on the horizon, only urging me to hold on to the moment.

When I left her, I thought about the people finishing up their graveyard shifts, and wondered if they preferred being awake while everyone else sleeps. If they feel like they’re missing more or worrying less by sleeping when the sun is out.

Although I hadn’t felt tired for hours, I tread softly up the path to my house and collapsed into bed. I don’t think I missed out on anything that night. Instead I experienced a clear instance of exactly what was happening in our lives in that moment.

2007-01-20T15:45:00.000-08:00

So many people have these allegedly infalliable theories about life and death. Myself included -- we're here to love until we die, and we'll only live on in what we've left behind. So easy to prop these words on top of each other; they make enough sense. The truth is, though, even in sincerity, it's all bullshit. Bullshit inflated with hope and fear.

I've been reading a lot of Chuck, going a little crazy, and I can't say I've been feeling that optimistic lately.

But it's just difficult when death is on the impending horizon. And instead of a metaphor, it's my best friend. Instead of the beautiful circle of life, it's watching her literally fall before I get the chance to catch her. It's a migraine headache. It's alternating between lying in bed all day and trying to make it to the toilet in time to throw up. It's us, walking through seperate hells and expecting the worst.

And maybe some people who read this, maybe you are nodding your heads. Maybe you're thinking about that "Good Will Hunting" monologue:

"And if I asked you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone could level you with her eyes. Feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you, who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it’s like to be her angel and to have that love for her to be there forever. Through anything. Through cancer. You wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in a hospital room for two months holding her hand because the doctors could see in your eyes that the term visiting hours don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, because that only occurs when you love something more than you love yourself. I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much."

And as much as you don't want to believe it, maybe that applies to you. I mean, maybe not, but who do you love? How do you show it? Do you know how this will end? I'm going to say it outright; the kind of comradery I feel around my oh-so-tight class means so little next to what I know is the strongest love I've experienced. It's not like I expect things to change, but I'm so disillusioned by this false sense of what love is.

Hey, I haven't lost anybody yet, either. I don't know when it will happen, and I don't know what it's going to feel like. But I know that it's coming.

I don't have words of hope, because right now, I don't feel much.

2007-01-10T00:10:00.000-08:00

Good writing freaks me out. I don't know why this is. I'm re-reading one of my favorite books, "A Complicated Kindness," by Miriam Toews, and it's somehow even more stirring than I remember. It's just that every line seems so perfectly constructed and sensibly placed and I don't think I could ever create something so natural. And in the story the characters, though it almost seems inaccurate to call them that, are so heartbreakingly real.

"Things shouldn't hinge on so very little. Sneeze and you're highway carnage. Remove one tiny stone and bang, you're an avalanche statistic. But I guess if you can die without ever understanding how it happened then you can also live without a complete understanding of how. And in a way that's kind of relaxing."

I don't know why but sometimes when things are normal I feel so panicky. Things start to slip away, or maybe it's the other way around, and I'm slipping away from everything else.

In 5th grade I heard the Everclear song "Father of Mine" and later "Wonderful" and I wrote to Art Alexakis about how wow, those songs are so amazing and so my life, I've got so much pre-teen angst because my parents have been divorced for my whole life and gosh I just wish I could be normal. He e-mailed back in a few short lines and without proper punctuation, but it meant a lot at the time: "people always think their lives suck, until they meet someone whose life really sucks. normal is what you make it".

In October I took advantage of Chuck Palahniuk's limited time offer to write, and yesterday I received a response. "Some [of my stories] are extreme - but so is life. We can't deal with tragedy by pretending it doesn't happen."

It felt the same as getting that e-mail from Art Alexakis when I was 11. Some sort of idolized hero can still recognize where I'm coming from. Maybe it's childlike hope. But I can appreciate that.

"I'll count the steps to happiness I've missed..."

2007-01-07T15:00:00.000-08:00

"These last three years, I know they've been hard
but now it's time to get out of the desert and into the sun
even if it's alone."

I'm not a negative person. I believe in humanity and in love and in the beautiful brevity of life as much as anyone I know. But it's gotten so goddamn hard lately. Being in school is a joke because I don't care, and so many of the people there don't have the slightest clue as to what is important in life; at least, that's what their actions convey. I can't sit still or listen to what people say because my mind's only on one thing. My best friend is dying, painfully, but everything else is floating on okay and that's not right to me. No one expects me to be happy but it's still so frustrating when I can't find comfort in anything within reach.

I'm so afraid. I know I can't be the only one. If things go as planned, I'll be living in a new city just a few months from now. Maybe 3,000 miles away. And the thought of a city of people who don't know a thing about me, or necessarily care, is totally overwhelming. Anything could happen; this could go either way. If I end up feeling worse, I don't know how I'll handle it.

Everyone's counting the minutes 'til class is over, the weeks 'til spring break, the months 'til we get out of Portland. Myself included. But when the countdown's over, no one's ever satisfied.

I'm trying to find something, anything, that could serve as a balm. And I suspect that nothing will be enough. But the scariest part is thinking about how I'll live through it all.

"We are here to make you feel,
it terrifies you, but it's real."

2006-12-29T00:12:00.000-08:00

I can't stop listening to the last song on the "Little Miss Sunshine" soundtrack.

"You already know, you already know, you already know how this will end."

And we do, don't we? Clearly, life is futile. And you can take that knowledge one of two ways: fuck it and party hard because tomorrow, we may die ... or take the moment, right now, because it will end.

I feel that this is all I write about, this taking ahold of life and living. Then again, I haven't written in a while. I'd like to think that this is not just because I'm lazy and void of inspiration, but rather, I've been spending my time in the real world.

I feel much older than I used to feel. I finished applying to college two days ago. Now all I have to do is finish out school, and wait. I've felt somewhat private the past few days. I'd say alone, but I don't want to sound emo; it's more just like, I feel like I move in and out of other peoples' lives mostly when I want to, as opposed to watching everyone come in and out of my life. I guess it's inevitable that a little more independence can lead to a little more sense of loneliness. I've been working more often, too. The other night a lady named Grace, who is very old and normally somewhat slow but very kind, kept leaning and lurching forward in her chair. I said, "are you sure you're okay?" And she looked directly into my eyes and said "no, I'm not okay, I'm dying." I didn't know how to respond.

So I made her an egg salad sandwich.

"You always wanted to believe.
Just ask and you'll receive.
Beyond your wildest dreams.

And you already know how this will end."

Maybe you don't feel so optimistic about how things are going in your life or in the world in general. But if you're here, there's at least a tiny part of you that believes it's worth it. Please, hold onto that.

2006-10-23T17:53:00.000-07:00

None of it makes sense, you know. I can't find words that mean what I'm feeling, and the closest thing to perfect articulation would be a scream.

But when I'm done screaming, what do I do?

I just returned from an east coast trip for college visits. Mostly I walked through the cities and waited for the right feeling. I thought a lot about cities being "living proof people need to be together". I imagined that if I yelled your name, people would brush it off without caring where it came from in me. And I know it makes sense for them to not care; I can't find it in myself to care about people I don't know, but it bewilders me that the greatest person I've ever met, whom so much of my life has been touched by, will die with the whole of the world unchanged.

And I know that to think this way is pessimistic and would lead me to believe that there's no point in living, but there doesn't have to be. I think living's worth it. It just sucks that we all end up gone forever. And it sucks that for the best person I've ever known, it has to end decades early.

Love is no shield from suffering.

So, heck, the question remains. What do I do when I'm done screaming?

2006-10-10T17:06:00.000-07:00

"Paradise lost is sometimes Heaven found." Sometimes.

That was the moral of the children's book Holly and I read last night. "Hey Al." I went to her house after cheer and we spent an hour talking on her bed, and the book came up when we were talking about our childhood memories. She had images of her dad taking time to show her all the details in the pictures, and just the name of the book made it all flood back to me, too, how my dad read me the same story over and over again.

I think, that when Lauren was diagnosed again with cancer last January, that I lost my chance to ever be happy again in a certain way. Happy in an innocent sense. Since then I've of course become more fulfilled and sustained, but I think we all lost something irreplaceable when it struck in resonating waves.

I won't be ready. Not in a week, not in six months, probably not ever. But it'll happen and I'll have to be. And I can try to imagine the day or night-of -- devastation. But what's harder for me is imagining the days and months and even years after the fact. Every single second I've been alive, so has she. How could I go on?

I don't know. I don't think anyone does. All I have are my friends and family who care and the heart she showed me how to open. From now 'til always, we have love, love, love.

"I feel like I'm moving in slow motion and everything around me is moving so fast. And I just want to go back to when things were normal, when I wasn't poor Izzie laying on the bathroom floor in her prom dress with her dead fiancee. But I am. So I can't. I'm just stuck. And there's all this pressure cause everyone's hovering around waiting for me to do something or say something or flip out or yell or cry some more. And I'm happy to play my part. I'm happy to say the lines and do whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing if it would make everyone feel more comfortable. But I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to be this person. I don't know who this person is. "

2006-09-14T16:48:00.000-07:00

I turn 18 tomorrow. It's exciting to hit the milestone, but more than being amazed by the passing of time, I'm convinced that everyone in the world goes through life pretending they know what they're doing. Confidence is naivete because uncertainty is not a phase. And the people worth respecting are at least the people who bullshit with sincerity.

2006-09-01T23:32:00.000-07:00

First week of school down (or at least the first four days) and it went fine, but it felt like several weeks. I barely paid attention to time, so when Friday finally hit, I felt proud that I have yet to have a panic attack or nervous breakdown or emotional fit. But I'd almost forgotten the way school wears you down, and how any season other than summer doesn't allow for deep slumber. I forgot how everyone switches into survival mode and I can never seem to make time for mornings spent writing songs in my underwear or taking the Max downtown with no destination in mind or country drives with the windows down. Now there has to be a plan, a due date, and it's getting too cold to roll the windows down. And it'll be this way for the next nine months.

Then again, this is the end of high school. I'm not giving up yet. And I'll fight bitterness away, but for the first time I'm not afraid of losing myself, and I'm not jealous of anyone else's life.

I know I'll make it.
And at least I can be proud of myself for that.

2006-08-23T00:33:00.000-07:00

One of my least favorite things to see is people not taking themselves seriously. Not in contradiction of the "don't take yourself too seriously" philosophy because clearly we are all just people trying to do the best we can in life, but what I mean is ... certain people who are thought of in just one way. Funny, slutty, badass. And so often they settle for that because they don't see, or can't risk, choosing something else. Something better for themselves.

I see people and know they're beautiful and wish they knew it too, but I can't tell them because usually, it's not my place. And I'd like to say "I love you" but usually that's not really true, it's just that I love them for being people and having hidden things in them and the potential to create so much light in the world. And I just wish they would be able to take themselves seriously enough to discover their own light.

I feel scattered and unready. But when have I ever been ready? Seriously? It hasn't stopped me yet ...

2006-08-18T00:40:00.000-07:00

There's this lady who I serve named Lotta. She is 98 years old and she moved in just a couple days after I started working. She has issues with memory loss but for the past few weeks, I've just noticed a general vacancy or confusion about meaningless details, like, where the bathroom is, if anything at all. She often calls me cutie and kisses me goodbye on the cheek and has amazingly good humor for someone who's been seen 70 years' worth more life than I have.

Today she had no idea who I was, where we were, or what was going on. She didn't remember how old she was or what she'd done in life or whether she had grandkids, or much at all. I had to re-explain to her how she, along with a lot of people at the place where I work, forgets things sometimes, and today she was forgetting more than normal. She started crying and clutching my hand and asking me questions and insisting how she never used to have problems like this.

I'm not going to talk down to someone who's lived so much more than I have, and tell her, "you have memory loss, it's just a part of getting older, you're okay." I held her hand and looked into her eyes and told her honestly that I didn't know how to explain things because I couldn't imagine her frustration and fear and that I was sorry but if she could please trust me, that she would remember more the next morning when she woke up, and feel better. It was heartbreaking.

When we're born as babies, everything in us begins to grow. Our bodies grow bigger and stronger, our minds more experienced and wiser, our hearts stronger and free to love. We grow to be toddlers, children, teenagers, adults. At what point do we start deteriorating? When do we start breaking down and getting weaker? Are our lives, from that point outward, just downhill slopes? Is the rest of time just spent growing smaller and more tired 'till we completely exhaust ourselves and die?

Well, no, I don't think so. Our lives should be measured in more than what's apparent. But how?

A bunch of us went to the beach yesterday. It was beautiful, in spite of gray skies, one of my favorite days of summer. Lauren and I half woke up at numerous times during the night, which is unusual for us.

"Allison!" (I had rolled over to her side).
"Oh, I'm sor-"
"I love you so much!" (Sleepy Lauren embraces me at whatever AM, and doesn't remember it in the morning.)

I'm amazed that some love never, ever stops growing.

2006-08-04T10:10:00.000-07:00

I've been working at a nursing home as a server in the dining room, and I really like it. I mean, not the work itself; that part is brainless, mundane, and somewhat clammy, but the old people. There are usually a few frustrating grouchy people, but for the most part, they are amazing, and sometimes my heart swells with love just taking their order for special #1 on the menu, liver and onions.

Honestly, going into the job, I thought that if I derived anything real from it, it would be some sort of acceptance of deterioration and death. And maybe I just haven't been sufficiently immersed yet to gain that perspective, but more than anything, I've been amazed at most of the peoples' positive outlooks towards life. Even people who are in wheelchairs, going blind or deaf, frail and wrinkled, will look at me and smile and comment that it's such a beautiful day.

These people are able to appreciate the simplest, most natural gifts of the world while me and my friends spend time lamenting the impending end of summer, a less exciting night around the bonfire, responsibility of any sort. And I'll bet the old people did the same thing when they were our age, and for years afterward, but maybe it takes us years and years of loss and understanding to gain the most important thing, a sense of gratitude for life.

In other thoughts ... the end of summer is coming, much sooner than I feel comfortable with. And that's the way it's always been, I guess. The first entry of this particular journal consists of me complaining about the upcoming registration, and worrying about having people at Jesuit, and being sad about my friends leaving -- and yes, I still have apprehensions about these things, but in different ways -- considering everything that happened this year, with finding my own passions in English and Journalism, and becoming close to some of my now-best friends, and cancer all over again, I almost want to laugh. I have to keep the mindset that maybe next year, getting ready to head off to college, what I'm worried about now may seem trivial then, too. Or maybe things really are different.

Relatedly, I have my summer song.

"I'm still singing
twisting new melodies, breaking arrangements
Thinking about my heart
I guess you've heard, that sometimes it's heavy
But I just keep moving
When I hit a wall, I look up at the sky
Thinking about my maker
You know, in spite all this, I know she won't give up on me
And it's okay for you to care...
I only wanted to begin."

2006-07-22T12:25:00.000-07:00

She's picking her moment, she's making her plans
All of her dreams are dying to fly
He's grown so tired of the hollow facades
He misses the summer that he felt alive

We're singing the old songs, we're drowning in air
Declaring our love but living alone
Some of us leaving, some of us stuck in time
All of us needing a place to call home

Please don't say there was never a point
Please don't fail to notice the beauty around
I'm just one person and I've come here on my own...