shape shifters

So here I am, and now I am used to it here. I always fight so hard not to become used to it, but it always happens anyways. I guess my survival and adaptation skills must be keen.

I have enjoyed this break. I enjoyed talking in the car, and frozen streams, and cattail wars, and late night jiggin' by the lake, and champagnes, and yes even cornfields. I enjoyed feeling like I belonged, when I did feel that way, and I enjoyed even the bittersweet remembering that I never do belong anywhere. I realized that I am a plan maker... that I make interesting things happen. That it isnt true that I like routine, as I once thought. I like random happenings with unpredictable people who are almost predictably there for me. I love being the leader, but behind the scenes. It wasnt so much that I got a chance to do that this break, but that I remembered how I used to do it. I remembered something that I was good at socially, there are so few things. I dont know why I dont naturally think of questions whilst a person is talking, or even things to say, I am a very inquisitive person by nature. I think mayhaps I am trying to store every word the person says into my memory and I am connecting it to past memory. The same in class as I am learning new things. I come up with questions far later and I usually like to make my own guess as to what the answer might be before asking. I guess I dont question what I take the person to be saying as facts or try to find out more facts necessarily, instead I try to appreciate what those facts might mean. At any rate, I am an akward little bug socially.

This break has also presented me with the chance to slow down and grieve, as well as to get used to the idea of a future without Omaha. I love this place. I always have. But the people who made this place what I loved are dispersing, and the people who I wish to avoid at all costs are still here and have no intentions of ever leaving. I think the most pressing reason to get out of here is this secret tug at my heart telling me to stay, saying to give my family another chance. But, I must away or I will always stay. Now is the time. All of my peers seem to beginning to feel it. The need to stay away from the nest for a little while whilst we train for flight. Will I ever fly really? Or will she always weigh me down? Her voice is in my head; it is a part of my voice. I owe her everything, and yet I feel no gratitude towards her. It is a strange part of life indeed. Not that life isnt always a transition with no actual introduction or conclusion, but it seems to me more and more that this is a time in which I can cling to nothing. My faith comes and goes as does my confidence. I love my friends and then I hate them. I am excited for the future so much that I cannot wait but then I cower in the corner and attempt to push it away.

I finished reading "The Phantom of the Opera" last night. It was especially interesting to me since Raoul was the same age as I am. His love story ended well... as the book would lead you to believe... I certainly hope so. I hope that there are some "happily ever afters" left in the "real" world. I feel in my heart that there must be, no matter how rare they have become. Maybe I cant have one, but it would be enough hope for me if I knew that there was somebody who could. That has always been my problem. I see love as a force, an external thing as well as an internal thing. I invite it in and I care for it and I make it grow. It isnt that I am in love with love, but it is that I have faith in love rather than people. And I "know" that if somebody experienced love as I do, they would never be able to stop loving because the roots would be too deep. But, I guess it doesnt matter. I didnt see something coming. All the times I cried thinking Evan might stop loving me, that our love might end, I never expected him to leave me and still love me. I hadnt done anythign unforgivable, he promised that I never would. He hadnt stopped loving me, he promised he never would. I suppose one could argue that he hasnt even left me in many senses of the word. What promise did he break then? That we would always be together? That was no more or less true a year ago than it is now. Who knows forever? I dont think Evan even believes in it like I do, or at least he has always reminded me that he can make no promises for after death. So I am left knowing very little to do differently "next time". You can never know if a person will stay, will keep their promises, even they can rarely know, it is a matter of faith. Do I have that kind of faith? I always have without meaning to, just as in God. I believe in people, a few of them, I believe in love, I believe in God... even when I dont want to. I dont know where I am going with this, except to say that I have grieved more deeply and more independently in these past few weeks, than in the past few months. Sometimes I think it cannot be good for my health for my heart to hurt so much. Most of the time it hurts too much to cry. I usually only cry out of self-pity, to be honest.

Things dont make much sense. That is the only conclusion I keep coming back to.

I look forward to returning to Cornell, even though honestly I dont really think it exists, it was all a dream. Just as I cannot believe I was ever engaged, that I might have been married as well as graduating in a year or so. I dont really believe that Evan ever loved me, I had only just begun to believe when he dumped me. It is alot easier for me to believe in love existing within myself than within someone else. I see no reason anyone should ever seek out my presence, or feel affection towards me, or in any other way have any kind of positive reaction to my existence. I must find somebody like myself, as Shannon is, only in male form. I begin to doubt though. I begin to see my future as bleak. I will end up married and divorced or never married at all. My job will barely get me by. My kids, if kids there are, will hate me. I probably will end up in a mental hospital for some period of time and then on the street. I have come so close to breaking so many times. I am not strong, just stubborn. I am not sane, just determined not to be insane.

That is all. I am sorry. I am sorry for all of the apologies this year. I am sorry that you feel the need, maybe even the obligation, to remain my friend past the point where you enjoy any benefits from it. I am sorry that you feel sorry for me and therefore keep me around, maybe even think you love me. I am sorry that I can't believe that you do despite everything. I do love you though. I do.