We can stick anything into the fog and make it look like a ghost.
But tonight let us not become tragedies.
We are not funeral homes
with propane tanks in our windows
lookin’ like cemeteries.
Cemeteries are just the Earth’s way of not letting go.
Let go.
Tonight, poets, let’s turn our wrists so far backwards
the razor blades in our pencil tips
can’t get a good angle on all that beauty inside.
Step into this.
With your airplane parts.
Move forward.
And repeat after me with your heart:
I no longer need you to fuck me as hard as I hated myself.
Make love to me
like you know I am better than the worst thing I ever did.
Go slow.
I’m new to this,
but I have seen nearly every city from a rooftop
without jumping.
I have realized that the moon
did not have to be full for us to love it.
That we are not tragedies
stranded here beneath it.
That if our hearts
really broke
every time we fell from love
I’d be able to offer you confetti by now.
But hearts don’t break, y’all,
they bruise and get better.
We were never tragedies.
We were emergencies.
You call 9 – 1 – 1.
Tell them I’m havin’ a fantastic time.

I'll tell them/my religion's you

It's been awhile since I updated this ol' thing. I always come here, wanting to write, and end up departing without accomplishing much. Let's see what we can do.

After 7 years of college, I will officially be graduating in December 2012. I am suffering from an even more extreme case of senioritis and am desperately trying to stay motivated to finish out these last two semesters. Looking back, I do regret not being more involved in the "college life". Sure I've partied, etc., but I just barely attended my first (pre-season) Aggie basketball game a few months ago and my first Aggie hockey game shortly after that. I loved the school spirit at those events, and wondered if I have missed out on something. Perhaps before I graduate, I will need to attend a football game and become a True Aggie. And then take a well-deserved break from academics.

Work has improved, for now. The past 6(ish) months have literally been hell and I have had many hysterical crying sessions while driving home. Unless you have experienced it, there is no way someone can understand the stress, anxiety, pain, anger, frustration, and fear that comes with working in residential treatment. The excitement and joy of seeing small progresses and (eventual) graduations of clients are short and too far between. Since the removal of a particularly nightmare-ish client, work has become more tolerable. Unfortunately, I have become so jaded, I am counting the minutes until all hell breaks out once again.

I am really proud of myself for accomplishing a few small goals I made for myself. I officially paid off two credit cards and, with the arrival of my tax return, will be able to pay off my other two. Then I will be completely credit card debt-free! It's something that I keep saying is going to happen and I keep failing to do for too long now. I will, for the first time, only have the financial responsibilities of rent/utilities, car payment, and my phone bill (I'm ignoring my student loans for now lol). My paychecks have suddenly become a lot more fun to receive! Getting my finances more manageable is also opening up the possibility of maybe getting a different job. I have been looking a few postings down in SLC for possible social work jobs, and have even been debating the idea of going back to bartending. I still have a lot of options to weigh and decide what is best for me.

A huge goal for this year is to lose all the weight I have gained working at Uinta. I hate that high stress = crappy eating. And I have to accept the fact that I have managed to gain about 70 pounds in the last year and 5 months. I am still working out what works best for me and how I am going to do it, but I am excited to start taking care of myself again. I think I deserve it.

I love my family (2 weddings and 2 new babies on the way!) and friends, and am so ridiculously in love with K. Our relationship is the best that it has been in years and has become something I am very proud of. Don't tell K., but I have been spending guilty hours looking at wedding blogs and pictures and fantasizing about when we'll be able to get married someday :D

We are currently in the process of planning an epic week-long road trip to Vancouver/Seattle/Portland in March (we'll be on the road for my birthday!) and I am sooooooo ridiculously excited for it. I don't get to travel much because of work and school and I am anxious to have a mini-vacation and to see some amazing places I have only heard about. Details to come soon :)

As I lay against your body/that will one day let you down.

3 years ago today, my grandfather passed away. I would have never expected how much I actually think about him, now that he is gone. The smallest things remind me of him: a dollar bill, an airplane passing overhead, the smell of wood. He truly was an amazing man and I regret everyday that I was neglected the opportunity to get to know him and that I never realized the true value of getting to know him. Now that he is gone, I cherish every memory, every connection I have to that man.

Today you were far away,
and I didn't ask you why.
What could I say?
I was far away.
You just walked away,
and I just watched you.
What could I say?

How close am I to losing you?

Tonight you just close your eyes,
and I just watch you
slip away.

How close am I to losing you?

Hey, are you awake?
Yeah, I'm right here.
Well can I ask you about today?

How close am I to losing you?
How close am I to losing?

Laying here, listening to the rain and thunder outside the window. The fan blowing lazy air over my sweaty, sticky skin. My hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, and clad in the barest of essentials.

It's nights like these that make me want to be an artist, a musician, a poet. I want to create beautiful things and have beautiful people appreciate them. It makes me want to make love in the dark and have someone trace their fingers across the ink etched into my skin. It makes me want to live in a little flat in a busy city and have a little bartending job and a yellow kitchen.

Tonight/you just close your eyes

And I just/watch you

Slip away.

I don't believe/in anything.

Sometimes I mean to update this blog more. But I'm not 100% sure anyone reads it. So then I don't. But I'm in the mood to write, so here I am.

School starts 1 week from today. I experienced the extreme disappointment and heartbreak of not getting into the program that I have been working on getting into for 6 years. The night I found out I got rejected was a pretty horrible night for me. I felt the weight of years of school and the thousands of dollars of debt crash down on me and I cried for hours. I cried for the disappointment of hard work down the drain. I cried for the frustration of being tossed through every stupid hoop and ring you possibly could by Utah State University. I cried for the anger of the professors who I sought help from for years and was brushed off hundreds of times. I cried for the panic of not having a back up plan. I cried for failing.

Luckily for me, I had been working on a Sociology minor and, after frantic research, found out that I only have 7 classes I have to take to graduate with a Sociology major instead. So I dropped all my classes, registered for new ones, and will (fingers crossed) graduate with 8 years of college in May 2012. I just need to drag my ass into three different offices to get my change of matriculation form signed. I'm not quite sure what I'll say to the head of the Social Work department when I go in to have her sign. "I played all your bullshit games and didn't get into the program, so I'm switching majors? Oh, and by the way, you've been the WORST academic advisor ever?"

On the work front, I have now been at my job for officially 1 year and 2 months and a week. I can't believe it's been that long. The past year has flown by so fast. I love most of my coworkers and 40% of the time enjoy the clients that I work with. I'm planning on staying there for at least the next school year and then will evaluate what I'm doing once I graduate. I just gotta figure out how to stop bringing work home with me. In the year that I have worked there, I have gained almost 60 pounds. High stress job (constantly worrying about girls running away, killing themselves, or trying to beat the shit out of me) equals high stress eating.

Someday I'll figure out the balance.

Another semester come and gone. Probably one of the worst I've had. I kind of gave up half way through, failed out of a class (the ONE class that has kept me from graduating for years now), bullshitted my way through my other two classes. And for some reason I really don't care. I've been going to college for almost 6 1/2 years now and I am *tired*. By the time I graduate, I could have gotten two master's degrees. I have several friends who graduated this weekend and I can't help but be insanely jealous. I'm so frustrated with going deeper and deeper and deeper into debt, while at the same time losing my drive and passion to graduate. I have worked full time since I was 16 years old. Have always been the one to work extra shifts, weekends, holidays, overtime, whatever was asked of me. And at 23, the thought of having a good 50+ years of full time work ahead of me makes me want to break down. I've been on one trip, because I'm working all the time and putting all my money towards paying the bills I've been paying for myself since I was 16.

*sigh*

I just need a break. A break from work, a break from school, a break from being responsible.

Starting another semester in a few hours. I've pretty much lost all the drive I have for school. People who started college after me have all been posting about this being their last semester of undergrad school, etc. and I can't help but be so unbearably jealous.

I should have graduated 3 years ago.

I'm ready to be done.

I'm grateful for my opportunity to go to school and that I can get an education.

But I'm ready to be done. Just a little break. I am tired of being a student.