i kind of, right now, just want to cry, but feel like it might be impossible since my contacts are dry and stuck hard to my eyes and my tear ducts just aren't being cooperative. so instead, i will feel suffocated inside; shriveled and whiney and strange and hurt and happy and confused and longing to get out. instead, i will force my emotions out through words instead of tears. i feel this mix of hope and joy for what's to come, but sadness for what could happen with negative repercussions, with ireparable consequences that i'm not sure i'm ready to face, you know?

life is really incredible, how it swishes and sways and just when you think you've got it cornered, it pulls the ol' one-two and bam you're in the next chapter trying to figure out who stole the cookie who pulled the trigger.

to think of what impact others have on your life without their knowing it, without their realizing that they made me smile, laugh, feel just a little of the stress relieved. and, reciprically, it's nice to think about the positive effect that's possible to have in other's people's lives, that just one smile in passing on the street can make all the world of difference to just one person without your ever knowing. That's my life's tribute to my late Grandpa Jerry, who was one of my biggest heros, -- to smile. He always taught me, "Jennifer, it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile. That's proven." And so I smile. And am thankful to the incredible people in my life who don't even know how much i value them.

i really need a hug. right. now. any takers?

oh, world. goodnight's all i got.

I'm so confused!

This harkens back to the days of Hawaiin shirts vs. drunken tom-foolery. Of sincere hatred and aggravating lust. Only this time, it's not so filled with blame and contradiction; this time it's my own problem of mental weariness.

"So will you come home, sweet angel? You're leaving me alone."

I question my thoughts' sincerity as opposed to stress-induced emotional "turmoil," my desire to do bad things opposed to my urgent need to break from routine and blasei days.

"I wanted so badly/Somebody other than me/Staring back at me/But you were gone."

(it's a Counting Crows sort of night)

I just want a break from myself, from everything so that I can feel free and understand for once and for all what it is that I want here. More? No more? Sigh. I miss having choice, waaay back in the day. There's really no good answer here, huh?

Pour over me, wash over me
Wipe away the stained streaks
that reak of another boy's smell
his fingers and arms and tousled hair
Tear away these recurring sparks
that remind me of his touch, his feel
his excitement.
(It's not him, it's me
and my wandering thoughts
my hopeful heart for something more
with what I already have
(longing))
Force recognition into my veins
make me realize that kitchens
and hallways and stairs can't
work with comforters and homes.

Sigh.

"Oh, it seems night endlessly begins and ends/After all the dreaming I come home again."

aaaaaaaa i hate want!

Talking to Kristy and Jody is the best therapy in the world. They make me feel like I actually know what I want out of life.

I think I've decided that I'm no longer going to apply to grad school; we'll see how that info digests over the next few days before I tell my recommenders. I talked to Biffy about this tonight, too, and she made me feel more comfortable with the idea. I'm still going to take the GRE in two weeks (the scores are good for a few years, and I figure I'd do best on it now, while I'm "brushed up" on math and stuff). And I'm still going to fret, and question my decisions and my heart and my mind every day. Ten times a day. But it's going to be okay, because my friends are awesome and we all understand that the college senior is probably the most talkative (about questions with no real answers), driven, yet confused person you'll encounter.

Job, here I come. If only I knew where it was that I was going.

My recommendation of the week: The Postal Service

Goodnight, world. I need to get better about this whole "sleep" thing, it's becoming foreign to me...

Dear Jen's Blog,

I want to apologize for my absense of late. Ok, of a long, long time. The guilt associated with your subsequent neglect has finally caught up to me (plus K and I spent a long time on the floor, a topic I'd like to address next, listening to really good, though-inspiring music) and I feel the desire to purge my brain. Woof. First, though, about the floor. It's a way-underutilized space whose value should be reconsidered in this day and age of technology that requires desk space. I really like the feeling of connecting with someone over a threadbare rug, throwing peals of giggles back and forth over the crumb-scattered floor. Slouching, with legs splayed and backs slumped. Floors were made for friendship.

This week has been a tumult of emotions. I feel like that phrase is very cliched in my life (maybe it just runs through my mind frequently, "Today is a tumult of emotions."). Anyway, I've had four interviews for potential j-o-b's and I have another tomorrow (which is why I should have been asleep 3 hours ago. Sigh.). How can I offer my skills to employers when I don't even know what I want to do with them?? How can I sell myself to the man to make a quick buck without knowing that the role will be emotionally fulfilling, mentally challenging, and not dirty. You know, against my morals (the environment, yo. "Think green") -- it kind of feels like a degree in mechanical engineer equates to a degree is promoting all the negative aspects of American culture and life that I don't like, namely, mass production of needless goods that multiply the waste filling landfills everyday, nonetheless optimizing these processes...I feel like I have to search especially hard to find a company that is willing to hire a ME to do something other than find new ways to harm the environment. It's one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, to move on from the dreams I've always had and realize that dreams change. I have been fortunate (or not?) until now by having a pretty straightforward, clear sense of self and purpose and where I wanted to see myself in 5-10 years.

Now, though, as realism is slamming into dreams and function and structure, I feel like I'm fighting to not drown in the man's world (I'm not talking sexist here, you should know what I mean by "the man") and struggling to remind myself to follow my dreams, they can take me anywhere I long to be because only if I truly aspire to something great will that something great happen. I've been brainwashed my whole life, just like every other public-school child, except that I actually bought every piece of encouraging wisdom that was fed to me. I'm a hopeless optimist who eagerly, hungrily digested as much positive thought that I could during my twelve years filled with support. And now that I'm really really really THINKING things through, I'm having trouble separating what my heart and mind truly desire from what I've been trained to desire from what I feel like I'm not supposed to desire (whether that's because I can't "sell out" must have "right motivations" have to "protect environment" help "those less fortunate" please "don't leave us stranded" follow "your hopes" just "listen to your heart" and don't forget "about your family"). It doesn't help that I'm interested in and intrigued by so many different things.

You know?

So we'll see where it goes from here. Job? Grad school? Peace Corp? Any insightful thoughts are very much welcomed. Even if they aren't so insightful. :)

Oh, something exciting happened today: I got nominated by ODK for Ms. Georgia Tech. Woot.

Goodnight, World. Tonight's wish is for solace. Maybe, for understanding swirling thoughts.

I was looking through old posts and found these quotes I had posted after reading John Irving's A Widow for One Year, and thought they were particularly applicable again now:

"There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in."
--Graham Greene, in The Power and the Glory

"What greater thing is there for two human souls, than to feel that they are joined for life--to strengthen each other in all labor, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting?" --George Eliot, in Adam Bede

"But who can distinguish between falling in love and imagining falling in love? Even genuinely falling in love is an act of the imagination." --Irving

"He distrusted her affection; and what loneliness is more lonely than distrust?" --Eliot, in Middlemarch

"There is no intolerance in America that compares to the peculiarly American intolerance for lack of success." --Irving