can you believe it? i certainly can't! jessie has a new blog!

http://jessie-lian.blogspot.com/

I'll give this whimsical notions blog a week before I make it private!

documentation of the thoughts of a girl one week before she graduates.

All I can think is, "Woah. How did I get here?"

When I look at the freshmen, all I see is myself. When I look at the sixth graders, all I see is myself. I see myself in the 500 hallway four years ago, a head shorter than everyone else and heavily self-conscious of how I walked, I see myself obsessing ("obsessing" is the equivalent of screaming for five minutes while wildly flailing my arms around) over cute little keychains and stuffed animals from the store at H-mart. I see myself being all wide-eyed and innocent, unaware of what a "boner" was and confused about the logistics of high school, the secrets of how to get by without breaking anything.

And then I look at all the pictures I've taken and I see how old I suddenly look, and it takes me by surprise when I realize- I'm not that girl anymore. I'm four years older and counting. I dress differently, I laugh differently, I talk differently, I write differently. I do different things and have different friends and priorities. I don't want to be a journalist or major in English or something liberal artsy anymore. And I'm comfortable with myself- quite a change.

And it surprises me every time to see all the changes and to see how much I've aged, but I think this shock has hit the hardest, because I can spend long minutes just lying on my bed and staring out the window, recalling when I had rollerbladed down that road, and bicycled down that road, and scraped my knee and my hand. And I can wake up in the morning with a deep pang in my stomach and heart, because I can suddenly smell the new-blanket, air-conditioned smell of those Shocco rooms, and to think that this is what I'm leaving and never coming back to in the same way- it just hurts a bit. It hurts a bit to know that I'm saying goodbye to myself, and all I came with.

I don't quite know how to handle it, because I know there's nothing I can do to pause time. But at the same time, the excitement is still crazily bubbling out of me when I think of COLLEGE and all the new things it'll bring.. the people and food and freedom! I still don't know how I got here, to this point I thought I'd never reach. But here I am, going into the most ambiguous future (they never tell you what happens in college). But then, to know that the only place to go after college is the place where my parents are currently at... oh boy.

But at this point, with all these confused emotions and such apparent changes in my life, the constant things are the things that are nice and comfortable, that I'm holding on to in this crazy transition. God. It took me a while to realize it, but through all this, from seventh grade until now, the one crazily constant thing has been Him. He still loves me the same, regardless of pre-puberty or post. He's still the one who I learn time and time again will always be there for me when everyone else is gone, when everything seems hopeless. His words to me are still the same; the Scripture still holds so much power; I am still in love with Him.

And it's comforting that at least some part of my life will still be there when I leave Johns Creek, when my friends leave for college, when childhood leaves me and memories begin to become forgotten. At least God's still here.

HI.

IS ANYONE STILL HERE?

I don't expect an answer.

I just miss this, that's all, especially after reading so many of my past posts...

is it time to restart another blog (this would be perhaps my fourth or fifth one) to illustrate the coming of a new age, or to recontinue this one?!

rejection feels so real

I guess it's just one of those things that you see at first sight and immediately lust after. Like the romance in chick flicks or the overpriced car or the laid-back life in France. Those things that you see and want and are silly enough to reach after. In childish hopes. Thinking that you would be that exception to everything everyone's ever said to you, that you would prove all the "you can't!"s wrong. I guess it's like watching the romantic scenes fold out in front of your eyes on the screen and saying, "Hm, I'm going to go look for a perfect boy myself and I won't settle for anything less!" then getting your heart broken upon realizing that hey, that type of stuff doesn't exist. Or seeing the red flashy car and deciding that you'll go get it upon realizing that it's just not possible to get a promotion in your 30,000 salary job in which all the employers around you are getting laid off and put on the streets. Or saying "hey, I'm going to go live in France next year," then getting there and realizing that one, you're out of money and two, you're out of luck; the weather's miserable and the people are miserable and it's nothing like the shows or the books. It's like stepping on campus and believing for a second that you could be studying in that library, walking down the streets of New York, playing frisbee on that perfectly trimmed lawn... then suddenly understanding that you do not not not fall under the small 19% of the entire freaking world. That it was just a dream and just a dream and just a dream, and that dreams pass and are soon forgotten. A distant memory. And that it's still okay, because dreams end and life moves on, and the world keeps turning, and there's still people in the world who have no money and have not even a slimmer of hope for college education. And that in the real world, I'll get where I get, wherever I belong, and dreams fade... it's like realizing Santa was never real, then accepting it as a fact, even though it's all you believed in for the first six years of your life.

I'm putting my heart in Chicago now and if I don't make that one I might have to be a little bit more depressed. But for now, I'll just have to finish the rest of my college applications and study for finals and go to Lifetime because my house is in a really downtrodden mood. My dad's sighing and my mom's sighing and they're both telling me to change my essay and look over my resume one more time. And I think I'd rather be running, and hey, that would make two trips to Lifetime in one week, which means I'm progressing in my exercise plans.

college:

thursday.

5 pm, EST.

my inbox.

my future.

dead fish on Bell Road

Bell Road has had a lot of visitors lately:
forest friends, animal spirits,

baby deers and peeved possums,
chipmunks on chases and sedated squirrels;

lying distanced as friends- a sleepover of sorts
with their insides spilled out as if they had
said too many emotional things for the night,

and their hearts had
simply and sentimentally

burst.

Today I saw a dead fish on Bell Road,

as if it had wanted to join the ranks of forest friends

because it thought the ocean was too cold.

(i'm not kidding though, there's a lot of roadkill on bell road and today i did see a fish on the road. it was bizarre). yeah i need to work on my poetry writing but i'll think about it later; we can just call this one a sortof-poem--

things that give me a strange feeling

-when it sounds like it's raining outside, but it's only the wind blowing and the leaves scratching the window panes

-when you search your name (or your friend's name) on google and see the lives of other people with the same name, and how those people have grown into someone successful. and wondering if that person could be you.

-going through the entirety of monday believing it was tuesday (then realizing that it actually is tuesday, what the heck?)

-going 60 mph on a 45 mph road and seeing a policeman on the side of the street

-waking up from a dream and realizing that the radio talkshow host is talking about the same thing that you dreamed about

-listening to a voicemail from eons ago and thinking that it was from today because it's still applicable

-meeting someone who's basically the same as your best friend, or ex

-watching a dog chase its freaking tail

-meeting someone and believing for a genuine second that he has no flaws (this hasn't happened yet but i'd imagine it'd give me a strange feeling)

bittersweet poetry

the soul, is what we likened to.

its flight to the moon and back again

and its pit stops in pink pastures and

stuffy autos on martian philadelphia.

and the heart, is what we avoided.

awkward look-aways in the craters

a thousand confirmations in the savanna grass

and in the car, which passed.

so the trip was short.

back on earth,

i don't remember anything except

that i swear it happened.

that wasn't supposed to make any sense to you; it was just for my own reflection. cryptic messages, let's go. anyways, i started this joint private blog with a friend of mine, where we record every single day and all of our feelings and etc. it's wonderful. but that means i'm ditching this blog for the infinitieth time. heh.

a brief death note

I can write about death all I want, read about it in every book I open. But no matter how much I try to reach into the depths of those five letters, no matter how much I research about it in encyclopedias, no matter how many grievous poems I read or obituaries I look up or discussions I have with my friends, I will never actually feel that pain until it happens, to me. It's like that scene from Good Will Hunting.

Sean: So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, "once more unto the breach dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. And look at you... I don't see an intelligent, confident man... I see a cocky, scared shitless kid. But you're a genius Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my fucking life apart. You're an orphan right? [Will nods]

Sean: You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally... I don't give a shit about all that, because you know what, I can't learn anything from you, I can't read in some fuckin' book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I'm fascinated. I'm in. But you don't want to do that do you sport? You're terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief.

So I'm going to stop acting as if I know you, as if I know your intentions. I'm going to stop criticizing in my head, thinking of all the things you should be doing, and start to listen, to sympathize instead. Because what do I know? I've never felt so utterly depressed that I decided to hide a knife in my drawer to make me feel alive. I don't know what it means to be traumatized by a broken family or a death of a close friend. It's all so unreal, all so distant, all so separate from this safe little bubble that I've been so fortunate to stay inside. Sure, I hear stories. But what do I know?

I'll tell you what I do understand though, and that's that any one of you could leave me at any second. That even though death hasn't happened in my life yet, it's going to. That none of us are going to stay here forever, that there's no guarantee that we're all going to make it to college and beyond. So here's to some loving, that absolutely everyone deserves. It's not worth it to be mean.

our calling to the world

If your neighbor's house was burning, you'd go and try to help, wouldn't you?

Or if you saw a kid stuck under a car, you'd try to get him out from under, wouldn't you?

My sentiments exactly.