Nora

Lucy got me started talking about this and I don't really know how to put it into paragraph form.

Something like: has anyone else been feeling a little strange? Not all of the time. Not most of the time. But sometimes. With us. It's good to be back and it's good to be together and it's nice, it's all nice, and then every now and then it shakes a little and for maybe half a second it isn't nice at all: it's awkward. And these spots, they're so tiny I'm not even sure anyone else notices them at all. But I do, and they twinge a bit, and I've been thinking.

How are we? I don't know. Good, sometimes, I think. For a few people who pretty much have gone their own directions and lived their own lives without the rest of us, for a year, an entire year, I think we've done pretty remarkably well. And it's good to be back. It is so, so good to be back.

But.

There's this feeling of discomfort that slips over me, sometimes. During the awkward moments, few and far between as they are, and sometimes during moments which aren't awkward at all, which are in fact completely un-awkward because they're so old and familiar.

I'm not so sure how I feel about the old and familiar. God only knows that's been my mainstay for a long time; the familiar is something I've always been a fan of. And in that sense it's good to go back, back to the old places and the old people -- because I love those places, I love those people, and no one was sadder than me to leave them. God knows. Only . . . it's a strain, sometimes. Being back. Because along with the old places and the old people are old ways. And those ways were good. They were. But I'm feeling a little weird, I guess, about how we kind of automatically return to them. You know?

When I went to college no one knew where I was in relation to other people. No one had any context for me. So I made my own, kind of. A lot of it was the same as it was at home -- basic me -- but some of it wasn't. And when a year happens, especially a year spent 600 miles away with people you've never met before in a living situation you've never encountered, etc., etc., you're going to change some. Maybe not a lot -- or maybe a lot. But change happens.

And then you come home, home to the old and familiar and beloved, and it's amazing. It's beautiful. The only thing is, though, a lot of the time I feel like it's an easy return back to the old context. Out of habit, nostalgia, comfort level, whatever. Like it's easier for everybody to just be where we've always been.

Here's what's on my mind: I'm not sure I'm down with that. I'm not sure how much I want to, by returning to old people and old places, return to an old context or old habits or old ways of relating to each other just because they were how things always worked before.

It's scary. We're back again and we're people who have loved each other for a long time, and have also spent a long time experiencing important things the others don't know about, a lot of redefinition and history and things have happened. I know they have. We have changed. And how are we, such familiar old friends, supposed to accept that into our worldview and acknowledge that and stay together without awkwardness? It's easier, maybe, to sortakinda pretend a year didn't go by.

But it's not last summer anymore. It's this summer, with these people, and I know I love them because I've known them and I've loved them for a long time, and that hasn't changed, but I also know there is a lot I have missed. And -- that's okay. As long as we take that into account, put it out into the air, that's okay. Because even if I can't get back to the you from last year, there's a new you. And I want to know her, too.

I went to LJ a little while ago and the homepage said:

Writer's Block
What admirable qualities attract you to your friends? What glues your relationships together?

So. Let's talk.
Are you with me?

edited to add: if, btw, you don't feel the same way -- if any of this is just a personal issue of mine or even just a hallucination -- that's very very okay too. Tell me so! This is just where I'm coming from, and what it's like inside my head right now.

I find myself wanting to start writing in this again (and sometimes I do), and then I realize I'd rather write it in my actual physical journal.

I really like that.

No slur intended against the public internet type of journal, or the people who use them. I've just spent a substantial portion of my sentient life (as far as I'm concerned, sentient life starts somewhere around 8th grade) only able to write, really, when I knew there was an audience. And I still struggle with that. But at least I've begun to write more for my own eyes and own sake.

A lot of things seem to be conspiring, these days, to show me how I used to be and how I am. It's a little terrifying, but kind of neat.

it changes you, a little. already in this short amount of time it changes you. me.

you do the normal things. you don't sit in a room alone or anything (though I'm doing that right now - but I've been trying to be with people mostly). you don't put your life on hold. you're supposed to keep going, eat and sleep and laugh and exist as usual. and you should.

the phone is heavy, though, and a lot more than peripheral. you keep the music down. you don't take a shower. it's always in arm's length, always in earshot. you eat and laugh and exist but your voice is always ready to be warm, calm, and interested. your hands are always ready to hold the phone. your lungs are always ready to breathe deeply and calmly. you are ready to care, ready to dial the hospital, ready to be a lifeline.

if someone on campus has a crisis -- if they're depressed, if they need birth control, if they need to find out how to get an abortion, if they need advice about a friend, if they've been raped, if anything -- and they want to find a way out, they talk to you. tonight, they talk to you.

so you live. you stay calm. you don't wreck yourself thinking of the responsibility because nobody needs a wreck; they need you. you keep an eye on your mood. you don't listen to the sad songs and you don't cry. there are priorities, and for once you feeling and you reacting is not one of them.

so for that reason and a lot of others you don't stress about what will you do and how will it be. you trust yourself. at this point there is no extra studying that will help, no one you can ask. it's you, and you can do it, because you have to do it, because you want to do it, because you're going to do it. because now when there are actually stakes is when you have to have confidence in your ability and in yourself.

you have to.

it's good. it is good. it's enough to make anybody live healthy. or as healthy as you can be with a phone burning a hole into your side.

this he scribbles on a perfume note:
if I'm not here
then you're not here

Forgetting about livejournals == my curse. Among my curses. It's been a while. Everything happens.

I haven't written in a while. I think, though.

Hm.

I think I'm failing comparative religions, but my other grades are As and a B and it's second semester senior year and I don't care.

Bard occasionally sparkles on the horizon and occasionally looms. Rather, departure from here looms, arrival there sparkles. Reconciling the two = not so easy. Mostly I'm sitting here biding my time (that makes me sound so evil).

Remy.

Weirdest match ever.

I got in.

They want me.

BARD COLLEGE WANTS ME TO ATTEND THEIR SCHOOL
oh jesus god. :)

Fuck this wild attempt to stay sane
and speak words with smooth and liquid ends.
I don't remember how to write run-on
sentences, see, but
here's a secret: I am more
than bones and I would rather write with pens.
Don't think I mean
blood, instead of stoic static limbs:
I'm talking
guts and bile and
everything ugly and real in me.
I'm giving the grit in my teeth,
the dirt in my nails,
'cause guess what?
I am terrified that I will fool myself
into thinking my poetry can
summarize
life in beautiful, austere but evocative
lines that paraphrase the world
while glancing down
with benign and elegant smiles.
Come down and fraternize
with your dirty-faced origins. Shake hands.
There is ash in my mouth and on
this teeth-clenched poem;
I think
I love it anyhow.

I do not enjoy the public sphere.

I dream, instead, of privacy and kept secrets and easier poetry and no questions asked. The latest in a long line of things that mark current Nora but not former Nora.

Am I growing or regressing?

Fucking idiots.

What are you playing at?

Tonight was a lot of fun - The Mouse That Roared with some of my favorite people, met Paige's church friend Nathan, played Dare or Dare (XD) at Paige's house with my folks and Bennett, whom it was good to spend more time with . . . general coolness. Except it's just occuring to me I was mean to some of the people I love. And right now I'm feeling mean. I will restrain my meanness.

Or at least make a concerted attempt thereto.

And, a year ago today I was with: red Paige and Chris, Marieke, blonde Paige, Lucy and George, Arwen and senior Zach. It was a long time ago.

It's been a good day - a nice evening, thanks to Paige and ArwenandFuandPaige, and a lovelynice night. Thanks to Jeff.

A really, really lovelynice night. Ridiculous or inappropriate or incorrect or unusual or whatthefuckever as it was or might conceivably be to anyone else.

I'm good. And I'm going to stay good.

There are some things I am not ready to hear. Don't assume that taking care of other people is my only priority - as much as I would like it to be. I can't really help anyone unless I myself am okay. ...That's a lie, actually, a lie I'd like to believe. Because I know I can do and have done just as much for people while I'm a wreck; I know my humanity and my usefulness are not contingent upon my mental health. And that angers me, you know, that unsettles me, because I need an excuse to look after my own sanity and that one doesn't work. Something is wrong if I feel guilty and think I sound selfish for saying watching out for other people is not the only thing I care about. Like some sort of half-assed altruist. I like seeming altruistic more than I like seeming human, but I can't outrun the latter. Least of all now.

I can't fix it all. Sometimes I don't want to try. Sometimes I want to fucking run.

I'm an optimist and I'm good at ignoring my thoughts and I'm skilled at autopilot and I think acting normal in public simplifies things. And if you stop asking about something, if you assume I'm past it, then probably I'll stop talking about it. But

here's an admission:

I'm not as think as you okay I am.

(And, lol, on that note: I'm really fucking sick of alcohol.)

That's all I got for now.

A hard night.

Tears and conversations and realities and emails and bittersweet everything and it's not good, no, things aren't good and won't be for a good long while-

but it's okay.

I feel shaky and newborn today. With very red eyes and very cold fingers.

It's going to be alright, really.

A good evening, and a bad night.

With bittersweet fucking sprinkles all through it.