I just read a post over at Storked! titled, "What would you do with an extra hour?" Chrissy is a single mom in Jersey, and I love her blog not because of the mom factor (although I've been reading since JD was a tiny baby, and I think he is an adorably cute kid!), but because she has a job I'm after. However, she and I are very different, and so, friends, I'd just like to think about the things I get to do with my hours that are all my own. Yup, maybe I'm gloating, but right now, I'm in this time of my life and I know it's a selfish one. What, really, do you have to worry about in college besides yourself? YOUR grades, YOUR friends, YOUR accommodations. Soon (hopefully..), I'll have a husband who will change that, and a job that will change that, and kids that will change it more. So, things that I absolutely love doing:

• I LOVE my library routine on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I realize I've spoken about it tons, but I want to remember it, because next semester I won't have it. I go to the library after my 8:00 class, when it's still and quiet and only serious studiers or people who got the early classes have crept from bed. I hide out on the third floor in a comfy chair with a large coffee and blog. Occasionally I do homework, but really this is my morning time to get everything together for the long day ahead (and it's a long one). It's all for me.
• I love taking long showers. I do this rarely, because so many times I'm on a time crunch- shower before church, shower before meeting friends, shower before Janie comes down, shower after working out. But every now and then I just have a pocket of time that I choose to fill with showering and I can shave and deep condition and exfoliate and let the water work out the knots in my shoulders. I can blow-dry and straighten and moisturize. Mmmmmm.
• I love watching Grey's Anatomy. Enough said.
• Sleep! I WILL sleep in m/w/f, thankyouverymuch. No, I won't meet you for lunch at eleven or on the quad at ten or for coffee (okay, I do meet people sometimes). But mostly, I just enjoy sleeping. Especially on Fridays. Sadly, I am still very sleep deprived. But I'm not alone: College freshmen everywhere skimp on sleep. Drats. I will get better. I will.
• Facebooking, blogging, chatting. All those online things that fuel my generation.
• Reading. Oh, I am revamping my love of reading. Thank you, Gorgas Library!

What do you indulge in? If you can't think of something, shame on you!

running.

What is it about this place that makes it so much harder? Why does it seem so much more evident, when I am sure that I am having the time of my life? What are these feelings, and why now?

It's raw pain. Grief. Honesty. It's remembering things I worked so hard to forget because I have to tell it all over again. I have to clue people in; I have to explain. And forgetting had become so easy, something that became part of my everyday routine. Lori made it easier to pretend that there was never anyone else. But there is and there was, and here I am faced with her face again and again as I tell my story, and talk about how it felt, and am forced to deal with how it still feels.

Having this best friend who directs these questions at me, who looks me in the eye and demands to know why I'm doing what I'm doing and why I'm who I am doesn't make it any easier. I've been running for years, afraid of what my happen if I slowed down to take a breath, and I've realized now that once you slow, it's very hard to get going again. Once you tell it and uncover all of those repressed memories, it's hard to shove them back into the back of your mind and go about your business.

It's hard when she should have been celebrating half a century, but I was simply documenting what I remembered of her 42nd year.

It's hard when I have a friend whose relationship with her mother makes me so jealous that I'm certain the desire in my heart will never lose it's wanting, it's aching.

It's hard when I long to call her and discuss these feelings, and how I'm growing up, and how it's scary.

It's hard when I just miss her. And why do i? Why was it so much easier before I came here? I suppose it's a plethora of reasons: this new time period in my life, all of these news friends for whom I must give explanation after explanation, the relationships of other people and their parents thrust in my face. And it's not their faults; it's my fault for letting it get to me, for pushing it down all of these years, for refusing to talk about it, and this is what happens. My heart hardens, and I am certain nobody will ever understand. Nobody's been here; nobody knows what it feels like to want someone so badly that it consumes your thoughts, filling them with what-ifs and could-have-beens and maybe-one-days. I'm sure someone does.

Someone does, right? Anyone? Does anyone understand that feeling? Does anyone run? I've been running for so long, and I have a feeling that if I don't slow down soon and handle this, it's going to take over my life and ruin relationships and step in before I can start to build anything worth having.

things that have changed about me since college, and why i'm hating today.

I knew things would change about me once I came to college. I was moving out, moving on, moving up. I had the chance to do things the way I wanted to, even if those things were simply choosing what cereals to buy or how to fold my t-shirts. No longer was I forced to bend to the ways of my home (although I doubt Lori would have stood with a whipping cane, forcing me to fold t-shirts any particular way), but I now have the freedom to experiment, to draw conclusions, to change. I can do things in the way I think is best. Given, these are small, minuscule, trivial, even, parts of life. And some of these things have simply come about; before, there was no need for the things that I now must have. But, on to the list.

• I drink coffee regularly. More so, I crave coffee the way alcoholics must long for a shot of whiskey. I demand it on rainy days, cold days, i-only-got-three-hours-of-sleep days, and especially rainy, cold, i-only-got-three-hours-of-sleep days, but mostly, all days. Ironically, I used to see it as an occasional treat that I didn't really even like all that much, and I would go for some sort of fancy concoction. I do really adore a white chocolate mocha these days, but a tall, large, bold coffee with skim and sweet n low will work just fine, thank you.
• I'm a studier. I've never been one who had to study, or felt that desire to "oh my god, i have to be the best at every, single thing," and thus, my life never really warranted too much studying. (Although read any of 2009's posts from January through May, and my anatomy-induced whining will tell you different). However, now, I have come to love the library, and often retreat there between classes to do some not-extremely-pressing studying.
• I care much less about my appearance. This could be the new friends I have who don't care either, the sleep deprivation, the fact that I am always going somewhere, and I was already supposed to be there ten minutes ago, or a combination of these, but I am super happy to throw on sweats and throw my hair up and forgo makeup, just because, um, that's not all that important.
• I eat healthier, but, in the same breath,
• I eat a TON of sweets.
• I am so much less attached to my phone. This is a funny one, because you would think I would become more attached to it, with so many people that I care about so much farther away from me. But, I find myself leaving it for hours in the room or not really caring when it dies. It's possibly because I am so often with most of the people that would text or call anyway. I am also much less likely to respond to you these days, just because I'm too on-the-move to constantly be texting, and it's takes away from my focus on the people I'm with. This, my friends, is a good thing.
• I carry a backpack (I stopped doing that in the tenth grade).
• I get so much less sleep. Internet, I am so sleep-deprived. I am not alone, though. Uh-oh.
• I have black fingernails. TAKE THAT, NANCY AND ADA!
• I, supposedly, talk differently. I say, "drats," and also, my voice has changed. I don't even know about that one.
• I drive a lot less.
• I did find that the most important food to me is cereal. I love, love, love cereal. I will forgo toilet paper in favor of Oatmeal Squares. Not kidding.
• Oh, and how I fold my t-shirts.

And, why I hate today: (in list format! a whole list full of HATE! lucky you, you reader, you!)

• It's raining.
• Not only is it raining, but it's monsooning in a very tropical-stormy way.
• It's monsooning in such a tropical-stormy way that it turned my umbrella inside out. Yeah. That happens in real life.
• That happened today. This morning. Before my coffee.
• It's cold. This makes the monsooning rain even more difficult to stand and induces shivering that can be misidentified as seizing, not to mention the inside-out umbrella-wrangling. Oh what a joy I must have been a watch as I fled to the library.
• I only had three hours of sleep last night. Yup. Three. The number babies can count to before they can even say the word banana. Less fingers than are on one hand. I feel like if I get a number of hours of sleep that would also be an appropriate pizza slice serving, I have failed. Three falls into this category, folks.
• In addition to the sleep and the rain and the cold, I had class. At 8. All the way across campus.
• I wore flip-flops today and,
• I don't have a rain jacket with a hood. (Allow me to mention that the desire to steal my roommate's was very large, but I fought it in a good Samaritan way and went with a measly sweatshirt.)
• I have history tonight. And the outlook of my getting a nap before then seems so small because I have a paper due.
• AND i found out I have a test on Thursday. Couldn't he have told us last Thursday? That man, I swear.
• At this point, I have coffee breath, and no gum.
• I also have class in 53 minutes.

One thing I love about today? This wonderful routine of mine, with coffee and a muffin and a blog or two. Really, quite wonderful indeed. Plus, it's supposed to be sunny tomorrow.

This is what I remember,

from your last birthday.

I remember that Nana cooked enchiladas because you asked for them.

I remember you were wearing jeans, keds, and a red and white checked sleeveless shirt.

I remember standing on the stairs, and how you had your head leaned back on the chair, and how we were talking, and you turned and smiled at me.

That's all I remember because it was eight years ago, and I didn't know I was supposed to be savoring it so. But they're lovely memories.

Happy Birthday.