NO SLEEP

Stayed up until the sun rose hashing out the details of my short story, which is not a piece of fiction at all. I guess I will chock it up to being sick and feeling experimental, it did not work out, I have never felt more frustrated about a piece of writing. I appreciate this frustration, maybe it will make me work harder from now on. Lately I've been realizing I don't really put enough effort into anything, and I want to change that.

Things have been going smoothly, exceptionally, I am finding my niche, my place. I worry that it is going to my head, this fitting in so comfortably. I don't want to fizzle out at a young age, I don't want to start assuming I have got it all figured out, I don't ever, ever want to stop learning.

There are lots of things a brewing, or so it seems, and I am feeling excited/timid and completely unsure, and for the last few months I have felt so sure about everything, this slight uneasiness is both a comfort and a worry. A real test to my new zenitude.

HEY GUYS

Thanks for putting me in your pockets.

SLEEP?

After a certain point, sleeping seems silly. I am missing my cuz-a-muffins and I am excited to see a few of them shortly (even though only for a day each). I can not stop writing about my family, and I suppose that when I really decide to write something, something big, it will be about them, in some way or another. I've written about them since I was little, I remember doing a project in 3rd grade and writing about my awesome cousin Sydney who was a mountain biker and Windsor, and Ezra. There are other people whom I love now as well, I hope to someday intertwine all my loves, and be intertwined as well. I like learning things about people.
My cousins are slowly, but surely building their ideal lives and this makes me so happy and a little hopeful for myself. I told Kai "I think this is our year, as a whole Welchy group." Not that it is not without its hiccups, but this year is full of potential, more than other years have been. We are all so the same, we are all so different, a Welchy puzzle of sorts. I know I am proud, too proud, to be a part of this strange group. In some ways I wish that we could all go out and conquer the world together, but we are always in different life stages, in different places, and it is probably best that we keep our distance.

I feel like I have lost a week due to sickness, I feel like I am not doing as well as I should in school, in life, but I think it is ok. I think most things are always ok, as long as you don't allow them to get bigger than you. I've got goals, I am just not sure what they are yet. I trust they will manifest themselves eventually, as long as I keep myself moving in some sort of direction. Happy? It's a new thing I've been learning. I am talking non-sense (as usual). I must pretend to sleep or write, something productive.

THIS

There are things that are undeniably Welch, things that we talk about without talking about, things that make my mother cry, and me cry by association. After Daddy died: lately I've been feeling this out, thinking about what it meant for all my Aunts and Uncles, my mother, Grandma. I can see just how they became who they are, and I want to tell them this, but I can't (though maybe I just did). And this is something that you can really only understand by growing up Welch, and it is something that brings them all together, but also keeps them all apart. Some things are too sad to understand, but I try to understand it the best I can. And I know it is sad, but it also helps me see that this family was built on love from the beginning, has always been about love, and this is what has built me, strong and flimsy as I may be. Our love is big and awkward, and we don't quite no how to wield it properly. It frustrates us, but also makes us the happiest, most loving sort of people you will ever find. I know that this will keep us all together, and I carry the Welch name with a heavy, gentle pride.

"we're all so many people," which is just the problem, or just the solution, the fact that I can reorganize my heart, brain, words so many times is confusing, the way different versions of me have been broken beyond recognition. I do not want to remember her, I want him to forget her altogether, she was sad and weak. I want to be able to trust that I am charming enough to keep someone in my pocket. I do not trust this. I do trust that being in love will make me flimsy. And yet, it is what I want right now, I am as ready as I will ever be, right now is the best time for me to break, I have years to recover, and so many things to help pick me up.

I could not handle your sadness then, and I can not handle it now. I wish I could give you some sort of pure joy, something that has no cynicism attached to it, nothing but love. You are so sad, and I can not fix that, and I just have to trust that you will figure it out. I can not waste my time on sadness anymore, it makes me crazy, it makes me skinny, it makes me habitually tired. I am full of life now, I am full of possibilities.

This is all a part of the learning, the unlearning, the relearning, and it is not just because I am young and lost, but because I am this and I will be doing this forever, or at least for a very long time. It excites me, as most things do, and being sad does not put a damper on this, it is all just a part of the process, a part of living, though not THE LIVING itself. Things are much simpler and complex than you think they are. And today, I love everyone with my sadness, and I mean JUST THAT, I am taking my sadness, my tiny aches and pains to try my best to understand everyone's sadness, both collectively and separately.

I have taken to staying out of the past, that dark sad thing. I've been dipping my toes in the past lately, playing on its' beaches, seeing if it will have me, and if I will be able to survive it. I am not sure when exactly the change occurred, but it did. I am not that person, that sad, desperate, in love with everything person. I think that I miss her a little bit sometimes. I call her back from time to time, (but that isn't the right way to say it, it implies that I have some sort of control, and I do not).

Joanna Newsom is my favorite, because she is saying it, she is saying what I am always trying to say, but can never say. I wrestle and gnaw on my words, but we never find the proper way to explain each other.

"I don't belong to anyone
my hearts as heavy as an oil drum.
I don't want to be alone,
my hearts as yellow as an ear of corn,
and I have torn my soul apart, from
pulling artlessly with fool commands."

I am sick as a dawg, and I want to know I mean something to someone somewhere (and I do know this, but am not satisfied), and I am tired, but not sleeping, and I am a little sad for no reason. There are days like this. Most days are not like this. Most days I don't even put much thought into how I am feeling at all, which I think just means that I am happy.

I collect things, feelings, and I can store them here and there, I can forget about them for a while, but I can not seem to ever get rid of them altogether. I find them accidentally, when thinking about something, when hearing a song, when talking about something I had forgotten about. I suppose that these are my secrets, even though they aren't really secrets, rather things I can not explain. These are the things that I keep, and keep to myself. I have confidence, that it will all work out, all the glitches and the deep, hollow, sadness that sometimes overwhelms me, there is some point to it. I feel disposable, most of the time, and maybe that is where the sadness comes from. I don't trust to be held on to.

So yes, I am sad, some days, some daze. But mostly I am happy, not elated (that is too overwhelming), but true blue sort of happiness that goes along with living, if you find yourself a good pace. I am waiting for things to get shaken, though I feel like I can handle it. I feel like I have finally managed to establish myself, even if only for myself and for no one else. I've been hating my selfishness a little less, some selfishness is appropriate, seeing as you have to live your whole life with yourself, you mine as well try to make sure you are enjoying it.

Ok, I have to go try to figure out I have to relieve the pressure building in my head, so that I can actually sleep.

I am falling out of touch with my seasons. I hope that mama n will forgive me for now. Being home alone has become my new favorite thing. I am aching for a change, and I've always sensed that this place is not perfect for me, but almost perfect. Not quite pure enough put not impure enough either. I think next year will be different, know it will be different, surrounded by pretty little houses, closer to the side of this city that has my heart, both in people and in general spirit. For the first time ever, I am really annoyed with school, I have other things I want to be doing, learning music, writing, writing, writing and these things seems infinitely more important to my well-being than other things. I know that I love school, but I am just forgetting a little bit.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love Only Skin? 16 minutes of awe. I am wondering if this love for Joanna Newsom is bordering obsession. I think it is good for me. Something to work towards. I usually allow myself to fall short, but I am tired of doing that, I want to challenge myself. To do things that are not easy, and to do them BETTER.

Unfortunately, this attitude is not applying to school, hence it being 12:30 and me not having bothered to start studying for my midterm tomorrow. How do you study for a language test anyways?

You don't.

SICK DAZE

I have been cooped up in bed for the last two days, some flu has gotten a hold of me. Being sick makes me anxious, though on days when I am feeling fine I don't do much of anything anyways. I don't trust that I will feel tip-top tomorrow, but I need to go to class, I have tests and things to prepare for. I am out of chapstick, it's all gone MIA and I am biting my poor lips until they bleed and covering them in lipgloss so that I look kinda like death but with really shiny lips. I am feeling so impatient, so anxious, nervous about not finding a subletter, deciding, despite it's financial repercussions that I will move to MKE either way because it is what my summer needs, what I need most definitely. A tight group of interwoven friends, all who are always working on their various creative endeavors, I need that kind of motivation, I need that kind of family for a while. I have never been more excited for a summer.

And, of course, there are other things.

I know this is mundane, but I needed to write, even if it was no good.