Everything in Transit

with the desire to just hurt your feelings. 

The homestretch is nearing, as is a holiday. Despite the stress and the shitty weeks you might have had, there is hope and clarity to be found in those moments when you lay awake wondering what your day will bring, and whether or not you should start praying for it to be over.

Tonight is a night to breathe and realize that you’ve made it to this moment for a reason. If you’ve ever had a real childhood, chances are you’ve shaken hands with Death and felt the firm grip of his fingers. Tonight is a night to thank yourself for yanking your hand away, and instead embracing that which becomes the present.

Tonight is a night for Bon Iver and Diet Peach Iced Tea, and reminding yourself that while your ass might not be a size 4 at least it’s keeping you warm while you sit and fill in your study quizzes.

Tonight is a night to dream of the perfect holidays you never had and remember the good ones that still make you smile. Tonight is the night in which you stay up not dreading your morning exam or biting your nails over bad paychecks, but instead to watch the weather rage on outside from underneath your cotton sheets, hoping for a snow day and cup of hot chocolate.

Tonight is a night to breathe.  

-Understanding friends
-Employment
-Family
-New, clean clothes
-Winter Break 

In 25 days I will no longer be a teenager. I will finally be twenty years old.

In many ways this is exciting for me, as I feel like my given age will finally catch up to how old I feel emotionally and mentally. I haven’t honestly felt like a teen or a child in the past two years, and being in college has only solidified my status as a young adult with greater worries and concerns. I’ll readily admit that not everything in my life is serious and careful - I love being in school and not having to pay rent, utilities, and heavier bills. I like being carefree and making decisions on a whim. I enjoy Pixie Sticks and coloring books just as much as I enjoy Mad Men and Kafka. I’m getting older and wiser, but I’m still young with much to learn and embrace and figure out through experience.

With all this being said and with my birthday quickly approaching I still, however, don’t quite feel the need to make a big deal out of it. Some people make a great parade out of leaving behind their teenage years, but for me I don’t feel it necessary to bring a whole lot of pomp and circumstance into it. Why celebrate the end of something I haven’t really identified with or felt in forever? I’m not saying that I won’t do anything nice or special on my birthday - I’ll sleep in, go to my class, do my research, go out with a small group of friends, and have a good day and night. I don’t want or need a big party; I just want to enjoy my family, my friends, and myself as I finally (hopefully) get that great sense of relief I’ve been wanting in having my external age catch up with my internal thoughts and feelings.

That relief and contentment would be enough of a birthday present in itself.

I’m can’t wait for March 22nd to get here.  

Hi my name is Lauren, and occasionally I feel much too young to look so serious. I have major plans for my future and while the gravity sometimes overwhelms me I feel like I’m on the right track. I spend at least 50% of my time daydreaming and the other 50% devoted to books, school, research, and work. I love my friends dearly and would do just about anything I could to be there for them. I like spending time with intellectuals and poets. I think sweaters and scarves are the greatest pieces of clothing ever invented. Road trips and days spent outside stir my soul and bring me much contentment. Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Jack’s Mannequin, Fleet Foxes, City And Colour, and Angus and Julia Stone. My nails are always painted and my aviators are usually nearby. I consume too much caffeine and I rarely get enough sleep. I’m incredibly critical of most everything I write, especially now as I’ve been battling severe cases of writer’s block. My life is busy and many times seems stressful, but most days I’d rather be running toward something that simply sitting there with nothing to hold my focus. I love school and firmly believe that being on-campus has heightened my overall state of happiness. I have the tendency to become super emotional. I feel things more deeply than many other people I know, and while my heart feels like it’s frequently tearing I wouldn’t honestly want any of that to change. 

Writing down what I know about myself has always been important for me.
I will never be the girl who loses herself, or loses sight of what matters for my existence. 

1.) Maybe my memory is skewed, but it seems like you swear more now than you ever did before, and I don’t like it. I know I drop my share of bombs, but I’m uncomfortable when every other word coming out of your mouth is “f**k” and “shit” and “bitch.” 

2.) I appreciate you for not freaking out when I talked to you about feeling disinterested by school, but I wish you would’ve been able to reciprocate a little bit more.

3.) I miss our friendship, and I regret not spending time with you this week.

4.) You’re making wonderful choices, and I honestly believe that leaving Mizzou was the best decision you’ve ever made for yourself. I can truly say that I’m proud of you. 

5.) This last song post is for you.

This past weekend I was going through old notebooks that I wrote in while I was in high school. They stayed hidden under my bed for years, and it appears as though they have not been snooped through. I’ve decided to revisit my past and post a few choice entries, with the intent of giving you all a taste of what High School Lauren thought about.

Warning: These could become super angsty.

February 20, 2007

I don’t want a house when I grow up - I want a library. Or a Barnes & Noble. But really, I’d just be happy with a library. There would be comfy chairs and couches on every single floor, and every wall would be covered with rows upon rows of beautiful books. I would read every single day, and every novel/biography/textbook/piece of literature I could ever hope to get my hands on would be there at my disposal. I wouldn’t need to go to school - I could teach myself, and after reading all of those books and opening my eyes to what the authors had to offer I bet I would be smart enough to get into Harvard, and go on to become the most successful person that ever attended my high school. My intelligence would never be questioned, as I would have read more books and understood more subjects and ideas than anyone else residing in the city. What I wouldn’t give for my own gigantic personal library… 

Boy, did I dream big…

May 5, 2009

He sat on the edge of the bed, gazing down at the floor.

It was 3:00 in the morning. He should have been sleeping just as peacefully as she was, but the stillness and silence had been keeping him awake. He enjoyed pretending that this apartment belonged to him, that the sleeping sweetheart lying just a few feet away belonged to him, too. He lifted his head and turned to the woman in the bed, and smiled at her still form. 

He wanted to stay; he wanted to live this moment forever. 

But he knew it couldn’t happen; he had other people waiting for him at home. He had responsibilities and a corporate job to worry over. These nights, this passion, the time spent with this darling mistress - these things would not last forever, and he knew that his decision to leave now would hurt less later.

He stood up quietly, picking his jeans up off the floor and dressing himself for the long walk home. He briefly thought of waking her and telling her he was leaving, but quickly changed his mind. As he reached for the door, he took one last look around the room and over at her. She was everything he had wanted, and yet she was everything that he would never have.

As he made his way along the dark city street, he heard the sound of a window opening, and of his name being called. He wanted to look back, wanted to run back to her bed. But for him the fairy tale was over. Reality would have to do for now.

This was a very brief piece I wrote with the intent of using it for one of my projects in my English literature class. I do not remember what I ended up supplementing in its place, but for whatever reason I decided not to turn this in to my professor. I think I just wanted to keep this for myself.  

October 16, 2008

You have ruined me.

I hope your new lover treats you like shit. I wish I could strangle you - I wish I could make you feel as goddamn awful as I feel right now. 

When did you decide that I was no longer good enough for you? What made you feel entitled to just throw away everything we had? When did you come to the conclusion that sleeping with some meaningless, stupid whore in Arizona was so much better than being faithful to me? Does she/did she even know I exist? Did you ever think about me when you were fucking her? Did you ever think about being honest with me?

I really hope you die. I don’t care how that sounds - you broke my heart and you did it in the worst possible way. I’ve been laying in bed sobbing over you. I haven’t had the strength to leave my house for the past two days because of you. I’ve been completely broken by you, and you don’t give a damn at all. You disgust me. I did everything for you. I never strayed from you. I made sacrifices for you, and I loved you with everything that I had. Did that not mean anything to you? Did I honestly not mean anything to you?

I loved you. All I wanted was for you to love me back.
Why couldn’t you have kept loving me back? 

I wrote this three days after I found out that Brian had been cheating on me. I didn’t go to school for two days, and only went that day because I couldn’t keep telling my mom that I was sick, and I was too hurt and upset to tell her what happened. Even to this day I don’t think she’s aware of what happened. 

I never sent this to him. Part of me hoped that he would one day feel guilty and horrible about what he’d done, and would come cowering back filled with apologies. The other part of me was afraid that he wouldn’t even care, and that idea hurt just as badly. 

I don’t want to say anything more about this right now.

Last night I had an awful dream that came incredibly close to ruining my sense of security. It seemed to real and serious that I woke up expecting to deal with the aftermath, only to remember that it didn’t actually happen, and that I was just shaken and tired.

In this nightmare I was hanging out with Danielle and Ally when I got a call from some person named “Ella,” whose name and number I did not recognize but was for whatever reason programmed into my phone. I decided to answer, and the woman on the other end of the phone told me I should look into changing my plans for the summer because a professor from the university had been shot. I remember being shocked and I remembered we discussed it for a little while longer, and that she said something about tightening my personal security because this campus wasn’t safe. We disconnected, and I began to feel panicky and worried. Dream Lauren immediately started thinking about not having a car for the summer and about not being able to outrun a gunman, and it was all getting incredibly heavy and anxious when my alarm went off, and the Beatles brought be back to consciousness.

I got out of the shower expecting to find an email telling me about the death of the unnamed professor and about where/when the shooting took place. It took me another minute to remember that it only happened in a bad dream. I don’t know where my subconscious gets some of this stuff, but it really throws me off and leaves me unsettled when those sorts of images and themes appear in my sleep. Nightmares like those make me grateful for insomnia.

I wanted to dye my hair pink when I was seven years old. I feel pretty certain all little girls go through that phase where they want their hair to look like the rainbow and be more exciting than all the other kids’ hair, but none of my friends wanted to completely change their hair color so I was oddball out of the group. I begged my mum for pink hair dye and explained to her that having pink hair would make the coolest child in my class, but she didn’t buy my explanation or the dye. She said that it would look crazy and that my teachers would send me straight home if I walked into class with hair like that. I told her I didn’t mind being sent home; she reiterated that I would look ridiculous in public and stifled any further requests. She thinks that no one can honestly pull off bright, non-traditional hair colors; I don’t think she’s ever seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

***

I’ve heard people say that they prefer working with numbers over writing papers because, from their perspective, numbers make more sense and they’re the same no matter where you go. I’ve always prefer working with words. I don’t care that phrases and statements get misconstrued and I don’t care if specific meanings get lost in translation: spoken language is beautiful, even when it’s hurtful. 

***

I get scared by the idea of one day having children. This fear is not so much caused by the concerns about income and honestly having the time, patience, and dedication to raise a child as it is not wanting to bring a child into a world where they will one day know as much pain as they know love. I hate watching my friends cry and get upset because someone either broke their heart, hurt their feelings, or caused them any sort of physical or emotional pain. I’m not sure if I could handle watching my children get chewed up and kicked around. I tried my hardest to make sure my parents remained unaware of some of the pain I experienced, but I don’t think I could bear it if my future children felt like they needed to hide their sufferings and their trials from me. I wouldn’t want them to put up walls the way I did. I wouldn’t want them to put up walls the way I sometimes do now.

I will let my children have pink hair if they want it. 

1.) I am completely apathetic about almost everything surrounding academia right now. I don’t like saying this but unfortunately it’s true. If it wasn’t for my ever-constant concern about letters and grades I think I would have fully checked out about a week ago; now I’m just gradually pulling away from this semester, losing a little bit more regard for it with each passing day.

2.) I’m not going to be ready to take the GRE in August. This makes me want to cry.

3.) Once a week I think about what my life would have been like if I had just stuck with my original, disapproved-of plans and gone to Europe for a year after high school. I would never deny that great and beautiful things have happened to me since I’ve started college, but I needed to get away then, and I still need to get out of this city now. I want to talk with more people whose accents aren’t the product of a Midwestern upbringing. 

and I’m thinking about turning in for the evening.

For the past two weeks I’ve become tired easily and have felt as though I could honestly go to bed around 11:00 each night. The Lauren of last year would have been wide awake at that hour, still going strong after a second or third burst of energy. The Lauren of this month is a sleepy lady who possesses a great desire to go to bed earlier and sleep in late. I’m not sure how I feel about the Lauren of this month.

Maybe the lessened caffeine intake has completely and finally hit me, leaving me a little bit disabled and a lot more tired. Maybe my body has finally been able to relax after enduring an incredibly stressful and work-heavy Spring semester. Perhaps my body is just been worn out.

*Gasp* Maybe my insomnia is finally taking a hike. 

I doubt it’s the latter, as even when I’m completely exhausted I still have issues with attaining a proper night’s rest. But something has physiologically shifted, and though not being able to completely figure it out leaves me puzzled I suppose I’ll just roll with it for now.

This blog might just be renamed “Musings of a Narcoleptic” if this keeps up. 

I will fall asleep knowing that I do not have to wake up and finish homework, reread an essay, study, or edit a paper. I have been temporarily freed of academic concern, and I love the idea of being able to wake up in the morning and go to work without having to worry about anything for classes. I can rest easy and even take a Tylenol PM without having to fret over allotted hours of sleep.

Essentially, I get to sleep well tonight.
This is such a great treat for the start of my summer.

There are always things I want to say that have been the product of anger, frustration, and general confusion. I always hesitate to write something that revolves around those feelings because I believe in waiting until I can calm down and thoroughly think things through before sharing my thoughts with the person who caused me to feel that way. There are so many messages I have been tempted to type out and send to people who have brought on these feelings for me. I don’t want to send them out of annoyance or give these people the idea that I’m trying to put them in some sort of place; I just want them to know how I feel and how their words made me feel. Sometimes the feelings have been strong enough to lead me to actually send these messages and doing so has allowed me to have civil exchanges with those who receive my thoughts. I really only like confrontation when I know the person I’m confronting can be as rational and thoughtful as I try to be when expressing myself. I suppose the main reason I haven’t sent the other messages centered around frustration, anger, or confusion is because I know that other person will overreact and blow everything out of proportion. I like discussions, not screaming matches. 

At the end of the day I want people to understand how their words and sentiments affect me. I don’t think I can adequately do that though as there are a number of people who would feel they were being called out when that’s not what I wish to do at all. I’m trying to share something, not start a childish, high school fight.