this now

I don't know why, but I feel like I haven't posted in an eternity. It honestly has felt like an eternity from when I last really posted (aside from the quick, nothingness post at Kelsey's). Wow. It's insane. So, basically, I've kind of changed. Not drastically, no, but I admit to a slight difference now. Just slight.. and I can't really put my finger on it.
I suppose I should do some sort of, um, catching up/ filling in sort of deal here. Basically these past few days... or rather..Thursday night and all of Friday and I suppose a bit of today, have been, well, just really weird. They have been the epitome of the whole teenager struggle. Are these years the best years of our lives? Or are they the worst? Back and forth back and forth.. I won't go into detail, but I'll relate a bit of the 'back-and-forth-ness' here.

One second I'm totally free, an independent person, completely in control of myself. I'm a marionette that has been cut at the strings. Though literally held to earth by gravity, I am above it all. I feel like nothing is constraining me; now I can fly. I'm me. I’m free.

The next I'm a 3 year old, completely incapable of anything. I have no power, no being. I have nowhere to look but up, because I’m so small and insignificant. I cannot look anywhere, do anything; I am completely immobilized… Incarcerated.

Back and forth… back and forth.

So, Thursday. I hung out with my friends after school; we watched a movie (Crossing the Bridge) and ate popcorn. After it was over, we went to Coffee Booth, where I immersed myself in my mocha and the conversation, really not caring about anything. It was a simple outing, a group of people hanging out watching a movie and then going to a coffee shop some Thursday night, but it meant something. It meant not worrying, it meant I was just a normal (let’s not go into the definition of normal right now..) teenager. Anyways, we were ushered out at closing time, and I then proceeded to the library. It’s odd—I never usually go in there, but for the second day in a row I found myself meandering around the shelves and shelves of books. I somehow found myself next to photography and art history; I shrugged- this was agreeable. I attempted to do homework (and actually got some done), but then glanced at my watch.. time to go to the concert. It was a concert by Old Man Shattered, a Christian band, apparently. Well, no. Actually not apparently. I would have actually not known they were had I not been informed of that. I mean, the lead singer looks, well, there’s really only one word to describe him: emo. He has longish black hair (obviously dyed) and also several tattoos on his skin-and-bones arms. K, so I called my friend whom I was meeting, and he said to meet him at Starbucks. And that was certainly alright with me… I, while waiting, bought my favorite beverage ever. Yep, you guessed it, a Grande White Mocha. I sort of bought it on impulse, and started greedily gulping it down without thinking. So my friend lopes up closely followed by two very unique-looking people, a girl and a guy.

Okay, I just realized this is boring me. Let’s cut to the chase. Enough describing unimportant details. Basically I went to the concert; there were a surprising amount of people there. And it was surprisingly loud. As well as surprisingly dangerous… I also felt surprisingly at ease. I felt at ease in the essentially mosh-pit-esque atmosphere. Sweet, sweet coffee churning in my belly, deafening music piercing my brain, sweat trickling down my face as well as all the others in the room. As I jumped and waved my hands and rammed into body after body, I rather felt I was a completely different person.. or maybe that I was completely myself. In any case, the details of this whole situation were not important; it was just the whole feeling that was. The ‘I’m completely unconfined feeling.’ And, really, it was amazing. Almost as amazing as I felt speeding home, averaging, oh.. 70? And windows down and music up up up. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt less stressed ever before. Maybe it was the ridiculous amounts of caffeine surging through my body, but I felt as if I were shining as bright as the billions upon billions of stars above me in the chilly air. I absentmindedly tapped my fingers upon the wheel and turned the music even louder.

But then… Friday. I now know why we don’t have Friday’s off… so that everyone stays sane. I really do not feel like going into details, but basically I was at the hospital for a while with my mother, brother, and sister. My brother has yet another ear infection and must inevitably undergo surgery. My mom was not in a good mood for whatever reason. I got home. I went running. Kels and I came back. I talked to my parents on the phone multiple times and grew very upset at rules that I, as of yet, do not understand. I got fed up and hung up. I broke the phone. Completely helpless and defeated, as well as slightly emotionally unstable, I drove to Kelsey’s. There we watched Mon Oncle. It is absolutely the craziest movie I have ever seen. We popped in the DVD, hopped onto the waterbed, and 2 hours later I was much different from the berated, beat-up girl I was on the phone at my house. All I can say is French slapstick is certainly very beneficial sometimes. I want to grow up to be a mix of, well, many different people (me now, CS, J-Scott and J-Borg, as well as other great cartoonists, my aunt Lina, my Opa, Ms. B, and now, the uncle from Mon Oncle. Also other people, but…). Anyway, then we ate quesadillas, chilled a bit, and I went home, a calmer but different person. A person with resolve. A resolve to not freak out and over-react at stupid (yes, stupid) rules. I may not agree with a lot of what my parents do, nor understand yet why they do some things, but I resolved to act like a civilized human being.

And surprisingly, from yesterday, new things have stemmed from all of this. I came home and had a conversation with my dad, person to person. Well, it really was father to daughter, but we both made an effort to listen. And we heard each other. We both won’t budge (we are, after all, very, very different people)… but we both listened.

I guess I’m just going to have to take the back and forth. I mean, what else can I do but keep on living my life? After a surprisingly short time, these years will be behind, far behind. They will exist only as faint whisps of memory, sketches. And when they are past, will I be sad or happy? Who knows? At times, I’m sure, I will feel quite happy… but then again, I will, I’m sure, miss these years, miss what I cannot ever grasp again—the whole teenager thing.

Sigh. Enough of this. “I grow old… I grow old.” – Eliot. I’m just going to live, live in the present, the only thing really real. Now. Ha. I was just jolted with a very strange reminiscent memory of sitting in art class in 5th or 6th grade, and we were having a very philosophical conversation about time, about how ‘now’ is never really attainable, because ‘now’ is always changing. Hm. Well, back to my thought: I will simply be. In the present. I’ll drink white mochas, I’ll speed, I’ll hang out with friends, I’ll pour over dusty, ponderous books, I’ll put graphite to the crisp white paper of my sketchbook, I’ll chill with my bro, I’ll cry, and I’ll smile.

“I grow old… I grow old.” – Eliot.