I sit here with my mind swirling, reeling. The past two days of my simple little Jen-life have been filled with nothing but nonstop internal examination, thought, and currently unanswerable questions. Have I mentioned that I'm only two decades old?

I need a song lyric right now. Wednesday I made two major decisions, one of which I'm confident in, though slightly saddened by (my sanity will thank me later), and the other I question every day when I look around me. Sure I like my solitude, but sometimes I think this is a little extreme. I really only sleep here, do my homework here. It's like a library with a semi-private bathroom and fold-out (albeit comfortable) cot. I feel as though I've become disconnected and cut off, not allowed to be part of the cool kid's club anymore, and I want to go to a place where there's always someone to talk to. I wish I was in Hallandale right this instant, with my lavendar carpet and tail-wagging, yellow, furry doggy. Instead, I'm holed up in a 8' x 6' rectangle of plastered and painted concrete wishing for. Yeah.

Thursday brought really good news: after seeing my fluids professor, looking over my final, and finding some things that were actually correct and marked wrong, it turns out that I actually earned an A in the class; he's submitting a grade change and my GPA's going up a little more. That felt really good.

Friday was...well, it was definitely Friday. Went to dinner (at Roasters, the home of the amazing basket of bread) with roommates and boys from upstairs. (All I want him to do is call) It was fine, and when we got back, K and I left for Carroltown (sp?), which is about 40 minutes southwest of here, for a CCF retreat. Great conversation throughout the ride (have I mentioned how happy I am that she's back? Because it's like part of me is here again). The theme of the retreat was weddings/sex/love (but mostly just marriage) -- while it may seem a little early to be talking about stuff like that in campus ministry, it's really not when you look around and think of all the people who seem to not be able to get a diploma without a rock (and I'm not just talking about girls here). I'm very, very glad I went since it challenged me to think about things that I have been questioning, wondering, worrying ... things like where I want to be in ten years. In trying to draw a picture of where I want to be a decade from now, I was stuck on one year from now, what I feel like I need to do to be a happy person for the next twelve months, let alone the next 50 months.

I am my own person, right? So why do I need to be so concerned about someone else's life just because we're "dating"? That's society, social morrays, convention. No, it's emotion. No, it's courtesy. No. So what is it? Why do I wobble between wanting to put one other's needs in front of my own (thereby making me content), and wanting to completely ignore one person in order to so completely define myself as my own being. Why am I so easily distracted by conversation? I crave conversation about the metaphysical, the nonsensical, the unanswerable, the intriguing, about God. (yet I'm solitary for most of my days and weeks...?) I need to be challenged. I need my thoughts to be put to the test, to clash with someone else's, to find a way to defend my ideas, and in so doing find out who I am. (lofty goals?) But I'm not seeking that, not getting that, feeling bored in my own skull, feeling lazy and unexercised. And this weekend was a breath of fresh air for that (smell the whiff of a can of fresh tennis balls being opened), and a sad reminder of how little I ever talk to people anymore. One of my favorite things about coming to college in those first few months was the incredible array of randomness I was met with -- the vast diversity in conversations, thoughts, beliefs, looks, people. And so now I want that again, that aspect of first semester freshman year, when everything was new, exciting, and novel.

I feel as though I'm bursting at my seams. I need something (what?) to pour myself into, to empty, a forest to get lost in, an ocean to cross. I want a challenge (and not just numbers on a page, thank you GT) to who I am. A quote from this weekend comes to mind, "I love you exactly the way you are but I love you too much to let you stay that way."

Aaaaaaaaaa

After the sessions this morning (and my inability to draw a complete "picture of your life in 10 years..." with anything except rambling, confused words and the words "what are my HEART'S DESIRES/WANTS/DREAMS/PASSIONS??" written very large in cesia (fuschia-like) crayon.), we played boys vs girls flamingo football, which was great to watch (I was going to play, but had to leave early). I don't know if we won or not...

This evening, A, her sister, and I went to Philip's to see the US Figure Stating Championships (the women's final). It was incredible. Michelle Kwan won, and rightly so. She has this power about her, and in her skating, that puts the entire arena in baited breath. Each push off of her skate seems to be thought-out and purposeful, her arms appear to hold fragile crystal as the gently follow her around the rink. And her jumps. Man, those jumps. Powerful, purposeful, confident, distinct, no-fail. The audience stood and clapped through the last 30 seconds of her program, and when she was done, she was crying (I must admit, a few droplets might have rolled down my cheeks too) and mouthing the words "thank you, thank you" over and over to her beaming fans. Whew, what a night.

I need to go to sleep now, and prepare for a less thoughtful day tomorrow.

Goodnight silent world.

my solitude is my savior
except for when i'm with you and
you are my everything and
i never want to be alone ever

but
always you leave and
i am left again with this shell and
needing to be filled with your eyes and
the feeling of your lips and arms and
your words and
your smiles

then
i am scared that you and
i are.
what, exactly?

"you are so lucky to have so many people to love, and to be loved by. I'm just a random person, who happens to have an across your blog back in the day, and occasionally I stop by to follow up..you're like a roller coast with your ups and downs..but you're never short of interesting.

Now you're probably thinking I'm a bit psycho, and you are even most likely a bit disturbed by this post..but heh...you're an awesome person. stay that way."
-- posted by nick 12/30/03 in reponse to my 12/01/03 post

well, nick, if you happen to read this, I don't think you're psycho at all (in fact, I would consider my self quite a random-weblog reader myself :) ). In a way, I think that anyone who writes a weblog hopes that in some way they reach someone. Not necessarily pull at their heartstrings, but just know that someone out their in this huge wide world is listening. err, reading. It makes the whole idea of 5 billion people less scary. So thanks for posting -- I think it means more to me in ways I couldn't even explain more than you'd ever know :)

And yea, it seems like the topics of my blog might get repetetive ... that's just my mind, I guess. Still stuck on the same ol' same ol'. I think I might kind of like it that way, for now.

Goodnight again, world. Only this time you seem a lot smaller and more comforting.

There have been many times in the past three weeks in which I have felt the urge, the need, to write. To purge my wondering, wistful, sometimes hateful mind onto something solid -- something that can make me accountable to my own emotions, something that can serve to remind me of my own history, and something that can allow me to sort through what I am. And yet, everytime, I stopped. Dial up was too slow. My mom was using the computer. I was tired. I didn't want my parents to "catch" me writing in my blog, giving them reason to think there was something wrong. Or maybe I'm just lazy and paranoid. In any case, all of those moments of insight/frustration/joy will forever be deprived their right to an entry and instead will be trivialized into what this tired brain can remember now, days, hours, and smiles later.

The beginning of my time at home was characterized by fraying relations with my parents. Prior to returning to wonderful Hallandale Beach (City motto: "The City of Choice"), I was looking forward to spending lots of my time with my older genetic donors; instead, I spent the majority of my time by myself doing family things -- I put up the tree, decorated it, and decorated the rest of the house by myself. This made me especially depressed because never in my life have we ever not done the tree together, as a family. I tried and tried to orchestrate family time (I even helped clean just so we could all hang out in the same room! :) ), but my dad had to work and my mom had to...well, I don't really know. Play computer games, maybe?

My dad is really unhealthy. Whenever I'm home, I try to get him to exercise with me, but then after he does (I got him to go bike riding for a whopping 5 minutes) he complains and complains about aching, and always uses his excuse of "my back/feet/shoulders hurt too much" to get out of helping my mom with cleaning, dishes, cooking, walking the dog. It's ridiculous -- he doesn't do anything! It's not fair to my mom, but she doesn't seem to mind. I know that I definitely don't ever want to be with someone like that. My mom got on my nerves, too, though...sitting around so much by myself gave me lots of time to think, though, which was a good thing (mostly).

I thought about the future, and the possibility of a future with someone else in it. Sandi (my 11-year-old yellow lab that I've had since she was 6 weeks old) made me think that I'll never need anyone else to make me happy. With an object to pour my unconditional love into at all hours of the day, who needs a human partner? I love my dog so much, and now I miss her so much. I'm really scared that this was my last Christmas with her (since she's so old and is already on lots of medication). My grandma is also sick. I wonder if this is my last Christmas with her too...whenever I leave someone who's wedged in my heart for an extended period time, I always think very morbid and disturbing thoughts, playing the whatif game -- that's exactly what happened with my other grandma, when I left for fall semester 2002, little did I know that I would never again see her until she was cold in a sealed casket preparing to join my grandfather in a mausoleum. Everything must come to an end; live life with no regrets and all, but .... are my parents happy? I want to be happy, not just settled. I want ... I don't know where I'm going with this anymore, or that I was ever going anywhere with this... this paragraph has to end, just like days months and lives.

My dad and I talked about religion (and my still newly-found religious beliefs), as did my uncle and I. Neither of them believe in God (a God of any kind), and both questioned me for a long time. It was strange. I can't even think what to say about it. It's hard to defend yourself to a person who has always been the epitome of truth and the rock of answers; someone whose judging eyes can burn holes in you.

Why is it that emotions can seem so real, so overwhelming clear in your head and yet you have no way to comprehend them, roll them over with your tongue to taste their meaning? Anyway, enough of this nonsensical post.

I like school. I'm happy with what the semester holds in the academic department for me. I love learning about mechanical engineering, but I know in my heart of hearts that I'm never going to be a mechanical engineer. I've slowly been parting from the image of myself as little Susie engineer, and moved towards accepting the fact that I really can't get this whole love for the environment and zoology out of my heart and mind. It's about time I start making decisions with my heart I guess.

As the famous (or at least, should be, in my mind :) ) Alex Ortiz once said to me in one of our great conversations from Homestead, "What's your greatest passion in life? What are you doing to follow it?"

Well Alex, you're right. I know I need to just go be a zoologist in a zoo, make friends with smelly rhinos and lorakeets, and keep my B.S. M.E. where it should be: in a frame on a wall in my house.

Goodnight world, from a bleary-eyed little girl still finding her place in your great expanse.

"I want to make you happy in the future. I never want to hurt you again," he said, with a gentle stroke of the first few strands of hair touching her face.

"It's all in the distant past," she replied, trying to tell him the emotion of eight months with her eyes.

"I love you."