I haven't updated in QUITE SOME TIME over here, have I?

Well, I have a new blog, updated DAILY, and I think you should check it out. Because I'm funny. Kinda. If you catch me at the right time of day.

So here's a link:

Durvy.Com

Please come have a looksie! :)

I've never like the phrase "life can change in an instant". I don't think it's a very accurate statement to make.

Granted, there are some situations in which it does hold true. The instant someone close to you dies, for example, inherently and irrevocably changes your life in an instant.

Life instead changes in a series of related instances. Getting a college acceptance letter only changes your life when you accept their offer of admittance; one moment cannot happen without the other.

It is never one isolated instant or choice or moment or flashpoint. Life goes by quickly, but only because we never realize the instant that all of those instances finally add up. When you accept a college offer of admission, you are never really cognitive of all the tiny, seemingly insignificant decisions and moments that make that instant possible. You never think about the choice to apply to the school, or the meeting with the counselor that persuaded you to do so. You never think about the friend that talked the school up before the counselor, and you never think about that time you studied for that physics test and did okay enough to get the grade that earned you the letter in your hand. You just never think about it.

You never think about the slow build up of ill will, or that time you didn't stay for dinner though you should have. You never think about the moment the last real conversation you ever had ended. You never think about the instant you locked eyes and you knew that this was the way it had to be. You never think about the instant you got your last phone call. You only ever think about the moment that you realized you didn't love the person in front of you anymore. So you think that your life changed in an instant. You think that it all happened in a split second, when in reality it's been forever and a day in the making.

You never realize that the instant when your best friend becomes the hole in your heart instead of the filling is really made up of eternity. You only remember that moment. And you cry because you're life just changed in an instant. And you cry because your life can be changed in an instant.

"And can I please get my toast without butter?"

"Yeah... besides you already missed your chance for butter, honey!"

*awkward silence*

This year, as with every year, I have a lot to be thankful for.

(I can't even tell you, Internet, how much has happened in the past few months! I'm going to try eventually, and I'm going to fail, becuase no amount of space or metaphors or hand-crafted strings of words and phrases and commas will ever be adequate. It will never satisfy the hole in my heart. One of these days I'll sit down and get it all out. The mist and fog and hate and brutal love. The excitement and fallling and headrushes. And let's just say this: when the heart is involved, in the good and the bad, it all comes out in moron, for better or for worse...)

Usually, I turn into a sap. I map out long, flowery passages packed full of love and mushyness. It's my speciality, turning on the holiday mush.

And to some extent, I will always do that. I will always be eternally grateful for the people an things and events in my life. I will always be in awe of the perfectness and completeness that is brought on by those so near and dear to my heart. I will always have something cutesy and corney to say, and I will never apologize for this particular trait.

I have a lot to be Thankful for. I have a wonderful and supportive family (however batshit crazy they may be), and loving friends that I can never get enough of. Even in this turbulent time of haze and silence, I know that there is a lot of love there, even if it's hard to see at this particular moment. I have lots of exciting and fabulous new people in my life (a boy included!) and I have been very fortunate. More fortuante than most, in every sense of the word.

So I'll take this opportunity to say all of this, in a simplified word, used to describe the complex nature of the human condition: Thank You. I love all of you very much, and I thank you for that. For the memories and the continuing good times. For the beauty and reverence, for the warm hugs and chilly nights, and most of all, for the opportunity to love all of you like I do. I'm thankful for you, my friends, my family, my chosen family, my roommates (with the haze!), the boy, the sisters, both real and imagined... You are the good fortune.

And I thank you for that.

I'm lost and I don't know how to get home.

And not physcially this time. I'm almost always lost when driving, walking, and wandering.

But I always get home. I'm not so sure about this. And it scares me. More than being angry or hurt or sad. I'm scared.

I'm not afraid of much, but this tops the list. I've always been afraid of the dark.

I can't read maps, and I can't really tell time. I know I should learn to...

I just want to be home already.

"Hey, you know you're pants are unbuttoned."

"...um, yeah. That's the style!"

"..."

"Street cred."

"Right. Street cred."

So I came home with my sweatshirt on backwards.

That's exciting.

So I'm a secretary.

It's kinda nice having a life outside of school.

It rained today.

That seemed appropriate.

There is a sort of cleansing in the rain. You don't know it until it stops, but the calm of the earth and the wind, and the clear, cold skies lend themselves to the first inspiration I've had in a long time.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll look back at this day and laugh, or look back and cry. Not bawl or weep, but more mist. A glint in the eye. A glint in the earth. A thoughtfulness and fullness.

Just like after the rain.

I wonder if I've made the right choices. But I know that there's no going back, so the answer is always the same: yep, I sure did.

Bitch.

It's a new step, even for me, who takes new steps as an unauthorized challenge. New steps are child's play at this point.

Except for this one.

I lost something today. Something big and small and unseen all at the same time. And I'm okay with that.

But it still makes me mist up. Like the sky after a storm.

So here it goes: The Big Goodbye. The one that means something.

And this one, this one caught me unprepared. Just as the rain did. Unprepared and a little scared. But not scared that I'd be struck by lightening of deafened by thunder. Scared that I'd miss it. Miss the beauty of the storm.

I'm good at appreciating the calm and cold and beauty of the aftermath. But here I am, for the first time possibly ever, wondering if I missed appreciating the raging wrath and beauty of the storm.

So here I am, years after my initial preparations began. ( 10th grade, for those of you keeping score... )

So here it is. Here I am. It came so soon. So fast. Gone so fucking fast.

I love ...

There are two types of families: the one you're born into, and the one that you choose.

I've been thinking a lot about this lately. I went to Michigan last week to visit my extended family and I've spent the last summer/lifetime with the ones I was born with. They drive me crazy. Every last one of them. But I love time fiercely. Intensely. To the point of fault.

I don't have a perfect family. I know that. I also know that no one actually has a "perfect" family. My mother is an alcoholic and has said some horrible things to me. My father is demanding and expects nothing less than perfection. My sister is hard to get close to, even to this day, after a lifetime of bonding. My little brother and sister... well, I just don't spend enough time with them, period.

But you know, I love them. And they love me, no matter what, no matter what I say or do, what what I don't do. They'll always be there, even if I don't ask them to be. Even if I don't want them to be.

It's taken me a long time to accept that. And I still go through periods where I think I don't. But I do. I do. They're perfect for me. Well, there is room for improvement, in all parties, including myself. But there is room for improvement in everything.

I have a wonderful chosen 'family'. I can spend hours lost, talking, finding, laughing, and loving. It's pretty incredible. I'm lucky. I spent over a month away from them, and we fall right back into place, as if we all went to bed, and just woke up the next morning, feet away from each other. I'm lucky. An that's not the extent of it! It goes beyond just those few people, and I can't even begin to name everyone... or put them in picture in this tiny spec of space in the vast, ever-changing world. So you'll have to take my word for it when I say that the People below are a pathetically small sampling of the people and memories that mean the most to me... you get the picture.

Most people spend a lifetime looking for just one family, and I have already found two.

I'm moving out of my house, for good (well, at least for now... never say never!) on Friday. The day after tomorrow. It's really weird.

But you know, I'll never forget that there are two types of families. And I'm blessed enough to have both.

(This is about to be huge and I'm not cutting it... I'm making a point.)















Pretty amazing, huh?

So here's not to goodbye, but hello.