An echo from another time, another place.

Sometimes (all the time) I think about what I will forget. 

I'm really bothered by the idea that I go throughout full days, living my life, and then weeks from now or maybe even just days, I won't remember 90% of what I did today. 
This action. Right here. My fingers on these keys and the way head itches and the way I'm looking at the room trying to think of what to type... I won't remember it. 
And I think about this all the time. 
I'm obsessed with what I will forget. 
I know on Tuesday I woke up, took a caffeine pill, went to spinning, came home, showered, and made a smoothie. But I don't remember if waking up was hard that day or what we did in spinning or what exactly was in that smoothie. I don't remember what it tasted like or if my muscles relaxed instantly in the shower or if I was relieved to be able to lay down finally after class. 
I remember my life in snap shots, as I think most of us do. And it bothers me. 

But then there are weeks like this last one. 
And days like today. 
Where I realize that it's sometimes better to not remember every detail. 

I hope that on my death bed I won't be bothered by the fact that I don't remember what I did on the 11th of May when I was 14, though that bothers me slightly now. 
But instead I hope I'll remember the important parts. 
I hope I will remember watching a close friend marry the love of her life
I hope I remember the first time I read Harry Potter and how much it made me want to write. 
And then the movie premiers I went to with my friends. 
The nights spent with a best friend in the Fred Myers parking lot. 
Winco runs at 3 in the morning. 
Singing (and sometimes talking to friends instead) in a choir. 
The time a friend brought me mini Saltines and general conference talks because my heart hurt.

I hope I remember that one time I bought 30 pounds of chocolate and watched Boy Meets World for 4 hours instead of doing homework so that a friend wouldn't be alone. 

I hope I remember that my 90% of my life was forgotten in a haze of the mundane. And I hope I finally come to terms with that and realize that it's okay.
I hope I accept that forgotten 90% as just a bunch of stepping stones to the next big memory. Things that don't actually matter all that much leading to the things I'll never be able to forget.

And I hope I remember that my life was beautiful. 
Because it is. 

Some Writing.

I wanted to return to you. 
As I closed my eyes I pictured everything I could remember about you. Your hair. Your smile. The shirt you were wearing. The way you smelled. Your arms around me. Your laugh. 
I pictured everything until you were almost there. Just almost within reach… 
I wanted to grab your hand. I wanted to follow you into warmth of my mind. I wanted you to lead me through the narrow hallways and the too small rooms and the places with no light. I wanted to walk through the movie theaters full of my memories and I wanted you to close my eyes when it got to the bad parts. 
I wanted to watch you walk. I wanted to walk after you, a few steps behind. I wanted to let you wander on your own but then I wanted to find you later sitting in a stairwell with a friend, laughing and telling stories. I wanted to walk up and sit with you and say nothing. 
I wanted to think you were real. 
And then it got to the point where I couldn’t figure out how you’re not. I’m infinitely clever but I do not believe I could have created the way you smelled or the way your hair fell on your forehead. If I created you, then I would know your story; you wouldn’t be so fascinating. Your laugh wouldn’t have mesmerized me. You couldn't have said, touched, thought things that I never considered before. You’d be just another part of me that I already knew. 
So I wanted to follow you. 
I wanted to know who you were and how you got in to my mind. I needed to know what trapped you there, both because I wanted to let you free and because I needed to know how to reinforce it.
But mostly I wanted to return to you. 
To fall asleep and find you over and over again.

you were supposed to keep the disease between you and me.

I have a memory of something that never happened.
Blood splattered on tile and someone, anyone, crying, kneeling in it.
Me, behind them, arms around the shoulders, shifting razors away slowly so that they won't notice.
Bandaging them up. Telling them it's going to be okay.
And I've had this memory for as long as I can remember.
And it's never happened.
Maybe I dreamed it once. Maybe I have heared one too many suicide threats that my mind built a memory out of the fear they brought.
Maybe I just need to save you.

Endings

If even for a second someone starts talking about school this week I am first to jump up and list off all of the homework I have to do over this Thanksgiving break. Which is a lot. While working full time. While trying to fit in friends that are home for break. While dealing with car problems. While making time for family. It's extremely overwhelming.

Seriously. I've had no less than four panic attacks about it already. And have I even started the three papers I have to do this week? Of course not. Which means I have three papers to do within the next three days. Joy. 

I often get just so... overwhelmed. I get so hung up on all of these little things that I am stressing about and life just seems awful when I do that. 

But today... This Thanksgiving I am so extremely grateful that things end. 

I know that sounds weird. But it's the truth. 

I am SO grateful that in the next three weeks, after five papers, one workshop, one revision, four finals, and a lot of crying.... it will all be over. This extremely busy semester will just be done. 

I am so grateful that even though this year started off terrible and my dad broke his hip and then had to get his kidney removed because of cancer and it was SCARY... it ended. And my dad is fine and the surgeries are over and the fear is gone and everything is fine now that that's done. 

I am so grateful that after 17 days of self torture, I finished a book. 

I am so grateful that even though I got hit by a car and I didn't get my new car for a month because of repairs, the repairs are done. (mostly... just gotta take it in one more time!) 

I am so grateful today that all of the stresses, terribly classes, bad relationships, horrible heartbreaks, numbing fear, huge projects, periods of lost faith.... End. 

Today I'm full of gratitude. 

Today I know things are going to be okay. Because all bad things end eventually. 

20,000 words.

I'm 20,000 words in with my latest novel and as I reach the halfway mark I feel half empty. 
Not fully. Just almost half empty. Like all I have in me is words and I threw 20,000 of them at a blank screen and left them there, leaving their places empty inside of me.
I'm 20,000 words in with my latest novel and I feel like the most real parts of me have been hidden underneath those 20,000 words and now they're unearthed. 
Like all of that anxiety and self hatred and those dreams and hopes and plans and repressed memories and all that love was always there but buried underneath 20,000 words. Just waiting for me to find it. 
I'm 20,000 words in with my latest novel and I feel alone.
Like for the last year there have been voices in my head telling me a story and now I'm 30,000 words away from putting them completely on paper, giving them a home, and they won't be here anymore. 
I'm 20,000 words in with my latest novel and I have spent so much time already forming and creating and planning these people and this world and everything about them that I have forgotten who I am. I am 20,000 words closer to realizing that I've never known who I am without these made up people.
And I don't know how to handle the real world. 

For now.

It's midnight on a school night and I'm staying up to write a post because I'm a 21 year old college student who doesn't know what she's doing.

Being 21 sorta feels like being blindfolded and shoved in a group of people who are all walking in different directions and having to pick one.
There's people all around me moving quickly and there's people moving very very slow and there's people who are walking in circles and there's people who are screaming at the top of their lungs as they go and... and it's like a constant buzz. A constant slew of directions to take and people to follow and advice being thrown at me.
And I have no idea where I'm going.
I just have a blindfold on and I'm just sorta walking.
I wish I had some sort of advice or words of knowledge or just something to pull from this and share with you.
I wish I could say that walking blindfolded is okay and everyone is doing it and you'll figure it out one day.
But uh, I'm walking blindfolded. So for all I know, I'm about to walk off a cliff.

For now, I thiiiink it's okay. I think most everyone is doing it. And I think you'll figure it out one day.
If not, I'll meet you at the bottom of that cliff.
But I guess, at least you're walking. Right?

Smiling in Winco (and why you should do it)

The other week, I went to Winco and there was this lady pushing a cart. A little girl next to her, whom I assume was her daughter, reached up to take her hand. She grabbed it for a moment and the mom shook it off, looking extremely miserable. The little girl just looked up at her and looked so, SO sad while her mom just continued walking, not even looking down at her.
And after months of feeling pretty okay and happy and like I have control of my life, I felt like the world was so much sadder than I ever thought it was before.
I walked through Winco after that just hoping I'd see a happy face there. And, I mean, it's Winco, not Disneyland, so I wasn't expecting pure joy or anything like that. But maybe just a small smile after finding the perfect bananas or a slight laugh when the person you just passed made a joke about the meat or just... something. I just needed something to show me that the world wasn't so sad.
And I didn't get that. Instead I saw couples yelling at each other over which oatmeal to get and husband and wife walking ten feet away from each other and grown men making fun of their teenage sons who kept begging them to not do this is public. 
By the time I got back to my car, I was so sad it was hard for me to breathe. And I know that sounds ridiculous but I'm also the girl who cried during The Incredibles once, so it's not like it takes a lot to push me over the edge.
And since then, I haven't really figured out how to forget about this. 
It's like, I'm there one second having this great time with my great friends, and the next second my mind is like, "No wait Maren remember Winco?" and suddenly my heart hurts.
There's just so much sadness in the world that I can't fix and I don't know how to just accept that. With my ridiculous and constant need to help people and give advice and make sure people are happy, I don't know how to deal when I can't do it all.
And then it hit me. 
I'm one of those people. 
While I'm walking through Winco looking for a smiling face, I'm not smiling. If there was someone else walking through Winco right then noticing all the sad things I was noticing and praying to see one happy person, I wasn't that person for them. I was just another sad face. 
And maybe this is what they mean when they talk about the domino effect.
Maybe all we need to change is ourselves. Maybe I don't actually need to fix everything, maybe I just need to be that one smiling face for the other people out there like me. (Except I'm starting to think I'm just insane, I dunno.) 
But really. Maybe that's it.
Maybe if you just smile you'll make someone else smile and then you're not the only one in the room smiling. 

I guess... I guess I don't know if this is what I really learned from this, or at all what I was supposed to learn. I've figured out a few other things about myself because of this too, actually. And I don't know which thing I learned was "right" or anything. But I'm just going to put this out there because if I go to Winco and you see me there, I want you to know that I need you to smile at me so that I don't feel consumed with all the sadness in the world for a week after.
That's all.