I'm twelve and I don't even care.

Do you remember where you were when *spoiler alert* Sirius died?  I was in my bed, basically devouring that entire book because I was desperate to know (because J.K. Rowling had hinted at a huge death), and when it hit, I had to turn back a couple of pages and re-read because I couldn't believe what had happened.  That morning I had awoken crazy early, something I never did because - shockingly - I'm not a morning person, but I was waiting for the Amazon box with my book in it that would be delivered on my doorstep, and I couldn't wait.  Once it came, I just sat in my room the whole day, without music, and with fruit snacks and Root Beer alongside me, and I just read and read and read.

I didn't discover Harry Potter when all of you did.  I remember that it was becoming really popular, but my mom had this attitude of it being too easy, and too frivolous, and so I sort of adopted that attitude as well.  I finally started reading it because I was babysitting these two boys that lived across the street, and every night they liked to read a chapter as they were going to bed.  I was pretty enchanted from the start, as I think it's pretty clear everyone was, and I was lucky enough to get into it once the first four books in the series had been written.

After that it was the same waiting game: checking her website religiously, hoping for any clues or secrets.  I still remember her hint at a new teacher who was as sweet as a bee.  I remember deciphering the artwork that was released - what were all of the candles?  What did they mean?

And then it happened time, after time.  Waiting for Book Six.  And then the last one.  And I cried because it was ending.  How strange, right?

I'm reminded of all of this because my niece Hannah has begun reading the books.  She's on the fourth one now, and we've been watching the movies.  It's fun to see her imagination start moving with the characters, and it's exciting to relive the introductions of plotlines and revelations alongside her.  It makes me sad, too, that she'll never know the fun of living in that moment when the magic is happening.

I don't understand why I feel so much sorrow in that, but I do.  I wish I could take her back with me, and have her in my room with me so that we can cry together over our favorite character dying too soon.  How wonderful would it be to sit and discuss all of the intricate details together?  And then how fun would it be to move to other novels?  There's such a peace I find in literature, and I sincerely hope that I can always be surrounded by individuals who don't just appreciate, but who crave books in the way that I do.  I need to share that with someone else.

Meanwhile, I love being able to go back and feel like a little kid again when talking about this world that doesn't even exist.  I love that I can bond with her over it.  And I can't wait to introduce my own kids to it someday.

Besides, don't you sort of still wake up some mornings and hope your Hogwarts letter is coming?

the countdown is on.

In 55 hours, That Which Will Consume Me commences.  It will be 18 days of stress and chaos and aching feet and protein bars shoved down my throat in between appointments and lots and lots of jeans piled into my arms.

Pray for me.

The light at the end of the tunnel is filled with a hefty paycheck and 4 days in Lake Powell.

If I survive.

news.

Nordstrom announced a full-line for Manhattan.  Coming to you and Columbus Circle (PERFECT LOCATION) in the year 2018.

Ugh.

It's not soon enough.

I need something NEXT year.

Friendsies, I think I'm gonna have to bail from this state soon.  My bf is having a baby, and I hate the thought of leaving her and future Jennifer the Second, and I would miss this house and its inhabitants oh so much, and the 8 minute door-to-door commute is pretty blissful, and holy cow Tina Christensen is my favorite boss in the world, and what would I do without Amy.

But this state is suffocating me a little.  And I know this is the longest build-up to a move in history, but I need to be held accountable to it, and what creates more accountability than a blog that may or may not have editing/deleting features?

Really though.  DC OR BUST.

{and the only place that would take precedence over the District is the City.  of course.}

OMG

YOU GUYS.  SURI CRUISE IS BLAIR WALDORF.

No, really.

Her parents are getting divorced.  She's got impeccable fashion at such a young age.  She's a fierce brunette with a love of headbands and tights.  Her dad will eventually one day admit his desire to be with a beautiful male model instead of Katie Holmes.

This is real life.

I just hope her "Dan phase" is someone like Maddox Jolie-Pitt.  And I bet she ends up marrying the future progeny of William and Kate.  Or a Beckham.  Of course.

kick in the pants.

I've needed one.

Because I'm annoyed with the way things are right now.  I'm annoyed with how things have turned out over the last little while and it annoys me to realize that all I can do is just keep living and having faith.

It's annoying.

Especially because I can't stay a melancholy mess for too long.  It started with my little kick into gear a couple of weeks ago.  And then, because of a silly little song tonight, I want to be alive again.

I'm sick of being frustrated with the stagnation I experience here.  There's nothing I can do right now about the state in which I live, so I'm just going to embrace it and move forward and hope that I can learn a few things in preparation for moving away from this place.  And I need to remember that I love my family dearly, and someday I won't get to live in the same house with all of them, next to a perfect pool, playing with my nieces during my spare hours.

So tomorrow I'm going to try to get my large butt out of bed and to the gym and back to living.  Because holy hell I'm turning 25 this year, and even if I'm not going to meet a man here, I might as well have a rocking body just because.

But really though.  I'm not going to tell you what the song is, because it's a little embarrassing, but it reminds me how lovely my life could be.  I just need to revel in the promise of inspiration, and live with a little more hope.

Because it's going to happen.

aaaaaaand ending awkward entry.

how to lose.

Have you heard the new Rush album?  It's pretty amazing.  It's what I was hoping it would be.  It's different than what I imagined.  It's poignant and yet straight forward and even a little sad.  I can't stop listening to The Garden.  I've always loved songs like 2112 and La Villa Strangiato and The Spirit of Radio and their old things, but this is my favorite.  It's got me nostalgic and content and, as it is, a little sad. I would hate to see this be their last album, but if it is, I can see why this is the final song on that final album.  It seems like the right exit, if that's indeed what it is.

Miss Utah was tonight.  I couldn't go last year because I couldn't face everyone and explain all of the reasons why I dropped out of Miss Nevada.  There wasn't a right exit for me, because every time I tried to go back to a state pageant, something got in the way.  I wanted to decide on my own terms, and in some ways I did, but I also wanted something desperately that was never really in my cards.  It's difficult to go back, because you want to think that there's a legacy, but when you have hundreds of former girls and only a couple of winners, you feel a little lost in the crowd and very insignificant.  And when you're remembered as the girl who had a tendency to lose, it's even harder.  There really is nothing quite like losing.

You try your best, or sometimes you don't.  You put yourself out there.  You let everyone critique how you move your arms when you walk and how you laugh on stage and how far into your eyelid you take your eyeliner.  Your toe nails are judged by polish and shape and amount seen in each shoe.  And that's just the audience.  Sometimes you really suck it up.  You turn into someone else, someone you don't recognize, and you let your hopes consume you.  Sometimes you forget your piece and fumble your way through it, making that poor Rachmaninoff a total hot mess.  I'm looking at you, Jen Gulbrandsen - Miss Utah State Fair 2007.  Sometimes you go into the competition with so much pressure on yourself because the expectation to be what you were at seventeen is so great.

And most times you lose.  Well, I did, at least.

Sometimes you do your very best.  Sure, maybe you say something a little dorky in your interview, or you have a little blip in your talent, or you don't walk quite as well as you did the night before, but it's still pretty damn good.  All of those things are proof of your humanity, because you can't always be perfect.  But regardless, you do what you went to do, and you know it was your best, and the audience knows, and hell, a couple of judges might even be right there with you.

And you lose.

No matter what, you seem to just lose.

It sucks.  It sucks because it sticks with you.  You'll always go back and want to be involved, and you'll see that group of former Miss Utah's and you'll feel a little twinge of pain because you're not one of them.  You'll still criticize yourself and your performance from four years ago.  You might even go so far as to wish you had chosen differently.

But that's kind of losing, too.

So to my girls who lost tonight, those who I know, and those who I do not: it sucks.  You'll always carry it with you.  You'll be frustrated and sometimes sad and when you're older and past it, you'll wonder what your life would have been like if that lottery had gone differently and if a judge had ranked you one spot higher.  You'll obsess over what they might have ranked you and you'll be mad and you'll rage and then you'll cry some more, because tears actually do help you feel better.

There's a line in The Garden, that final song off Rush's new album where Geddy Lee sings, The measure of a life is the measure of love and respect...a garden to nurture and protect.


All of these things that I've done, the choices that I've made, and the many times that I've lost have given me empathy and humility and the right kind of pain that I think has made me a better person.  A person who can try her best, perhaps even the very best that could ever be for that person.  A person who has these infinite hopes, and who feels sorrow when it doesn't pan out.  A person who can grieve.  Because a person who can grieve can feel joy, and once you've grieved, you can remember the friendships created in the midst of the sorrow, and suddenly those friendships become loving ones.  And then maybe you can be the person who cultivates such a garden of that lifetime of love and respect that it necessitates protecting.

So feel some sorrow, and eat a cheeseburger, and know that you're your own worst critic, and then feel joy in the person you're growing into.  One with scars and bruises and patches all over her heart, but one who gave everything, and one who tried, and one who walked out of the refinery with fire in her eyes.  Talk about the right exit.

how to disappear completely.

There's something about Radiohead that makes me feel simultaneously calm and wound, where I'm perfectly fine to sit and contemplate while needing to buzz around fixing everything.  I doubt that makes any remote sense, but it's the only way I can describe how Thom's voice makes me feel.

Today a girl came in to buy two pairs of shoes and two shirts, and then had lunch in the restaurant as a part of her "Wish" with that notable organization.  And I looked at her beautiful, fuzzy head, and the joy on her face when she opened the shoe boxes, and I was ashamed.

Later I almost had a panic attack.  There wasn't anyone around to help, and I had an appointment, and suddenly we were that kind of busy that creates panic in me, and there were items all over the desk, and for a minute I thought I was going to just walk away and say "best of luck, y'all.  I'm gonna go get a soda."

Not eating is bad.  Eating too much is bad.  One time I couldn't gain any weight for whatever reason, and my body began to crave all of the disgusting and terrible things that would hopefully put weight back on me.  And now that I've normalized back to a reasonable sized person, I'd really like for my body to eschew all of that carbonation and processed junk.

Not everyone agrees with me, but I really love[d] the movie Inception.  I love Leo, and I want to marry JGL, and I'm friends with someone who looks like Tom Hardy, and Hans Zimmer is genius.  I have cravings to watch things, like old episodes of Gilmore Girls.  Or Inception.  Constantly.  And I never do.  You know that moment when suddenly he wakes up, and he looks around at everyone involved?  The music is quiet, and it gradually builds, and the cellos create this really gorgeous basis for a significant melody.  Everyone is knowing and confident, and a little scared at what has just happened (if we're to believe Nolan's world and reality), and it's this consistent crescendo to the realization that everything came together and it worked.

"Were you born in 1992?  Oh my goodness you're young!"  "Why?  How old are you?"  "24"  "Oh, that's not THAT old!"

Contentment is either a blessing, or a curse, and I haven't yet decided which.  I doubt I ever will.  But it would be nice to one day look around and think, my goodness.  I'm healthy.  I have a working body.  My mind is clear.  I can work.  I'm surrounded by beautiful music and art and literature and people.  I am young, but am nearing the age where I'm beginning to have a little wisdom and experience, even if only a morsel.

Though, don't you sometimes wish you could wake up and take a look around at your life and feel that awe of that moment when everything came together, and it worked, and you can't even believe it?

wheel.

Obviously I've been absent, and it's probably because I don't have much to say right now.  At least not much to say openly to all of you.  Truthfully, I'm feeling really down, and for the first time I don't feel like explaining it to anyone or perhaps even myself.  The last month has been a bit hazy, and I think I need some time to move past something.

But no longer.  I cut my sorrow out tonight and got back on the horse and did some writing and fulfilled some duties and I'm just going to be looking to what can come in the future.  There could be some really great things, and while I'm far more sad about this guy than I can really admit, there's not much more that can be done in that regard.

It's all quite cyclical, of course, and for me the key is just to acknowledge what I'm feeling so I can find a way to be happier.  I'm still not really certain what the solution may be in this case, but I'm going to simply have a little bit of faith and hope that it'll figure itself out.

And if it doesn't?  Well, at least we still have snow cones.

Elena/Katherine/Doppleganger/blah blah bob loblah.

A few days ago I was organizing something when I heard a man's voice holler out to me.  I'm not entirely sure that I was organizing something, but knowing how I am at work about anything being present on the cash wrap at all (especially during this current period of drought), I assume I was putting stuff away or making sure the pens were all facing the same way or pushing the hangers all to the same side or making sure that nothing was present at all on the computer screen (yes, I'm aware that I have a problem).  Anyway, point is some dude yells, "hey Nelly Furtado!"  I ran over and he said, "hey... it worked!  My wife needs your help."  I sort of stared at him for a second and he added, "my buddy and I said you look like Nelly Furtado and it seemed like the best thing to call out since I don't know your actual name."

This happens to me ALL THE TIME.  Except there are a few different people I get quite frequently.  Like two-times-a-week-frequently.

So without further introduction: Who I Supposedly Look Like.

My freshman year we were all obsessed with One Tree Hill, and one day a girl (I can't remember who...maybe Maclaine?) said, "Jen...you actually look a lot like her!" and it never really ended.  From time to time a teenage girl who's into OTH will tell me I look like her.

Nelly Furtado.  This began freshman year, as well, when one of my boyfriend's friends upon meeting me in person said, "oh you're right - she totally looks like Nelly Furtado."  Probably the most common celebrity look-a-like that I get.  She even has a wonky eye like I do.

This started last summer, mostly from random customers at work, and I'm fine with it because I'm pretty sure Courtney Cox has the fountain of youth in her kitchen.

I've never thought that I look like Amanda Peet, but this is the one that men mention the most.  A few months back, a certain fellow kept going on and on about how he thought he was watching me in the movie 2012.  And I got a little chuckle when an ex-boyfriend who sorta broke my heart tweeted about how she's perfection.

And finally, for the love of everything that is beautiful and good in this world - STOP COMPARING ME TO KRISTEN STEWART!  It only happens occasionally, but when it does it causes my blood to burn and boil and my head to ache and God to kill a puppy.  The most recent time was a month ago when I was sitting in the hospital bed, coming out of my anesthesia following my surgery and the nurse said, "has anyone told you that you look like Kristen Stewart?"  I would have punched her in the nose, but I felt like I had an elephant sitting on my chest and couldn't even breathe enough to nod.

So really.  STOP.  I do not look like this hot mess.

Never-Brushes-Her-Hair is not amused, and neither am I.

So what say you, friends?  

.

by the way, Whitney M. Tanner is coming home.

I think the Universe is granting me some wonderful luck at last.

.

There are some good stories I could tell about my Memorial Day.  Like how I fought the entire day to get to zeroes at work (thank you, enormous returns).  Or how I had the WORST waxing experience OF MY LIFE.  Or even how I passed out the second my niece fell asleep in her bed at 7:58 p.m.  I'm grateful for those who have gone before, but is it selfish of me to associate the ending of my previous relationships with Memorial Day?  After all, they've all ended right around this day.  It's become a holiday for me to remember all of the things that went wrong.  And it's been a death of some sort.

Something was supposed to happen this week, but I couldn't bear the thought of yet another ending at Memorial Day, and certainly not something related to California (as they all have been... it is entirely creepy).  One day I'll document each out for you and you'll see why it's almost haunting, and at the very least is eery.  So yes, I couldn't face another ending to add to the pile, so I ended it sooner.  Luckily I'm recovering better than expected.

While there are so many endings at this time, it's also promise of a beginning, too.  I continue to have hope for what I might encounter in the future, even if much of it is so uncertain.  Because we have to find a way to move past those things that we've lost.  How else can we expect to survive?  Right?

good morning.

good morning... my thoughts on leaving are back on the table.  I thought you should know.  and maybe powerful actions or powerful feelings will keep me from going.  good morning... why did you do it?  I couldn't sleep; I knew you were gone.  more loving is all I was after, but you couldn't give it, so I'm moving on.


I'm folding my hand.

swing.

I try to avoid thinking this, because it makes facing the next day a little more difficult than it should be, but tonight is one of those nights where I'd like to go back in time a few years.

little updates.

I did a photo shoot with my friend Kurt, which was really entertaining, really freezing, and really awkward to look at.  I'm just not a model.  There were a few photos that I didn't look entirely embarrassing in though, so I figured I'd update a few things on my layout here.  Not a huge change or anything, just a way to freshen up a little.

Oh, and here's where you can find more of Kurt's work.

people.

there is only going to be one more season of Gossip Girl.  tonight was the season finale, and well, let's just say that all of the character assassination across the board actually made me quite happy, because it now makes most of my predictions almost entirely likely.

So I now present to you how Gossip Girl is going to end, not only in the way that would make me happiest, but in the way that would be truly epic.

Chuck and Blair get married and have world domination from the Upper East Side.  Bunnies hop, chicks chirp, birds sing, and everyone bows down to the perfection.

Jenny comes back to take over Waldorf designs.  She still wears shoe polish on her eyes.

Nate and Lola end because Lola is annoying.  

Nate and Jenny have googly eyes again which makes me happier than ever.  My second favorite coupling that almost happened, but unfortunately the shoe polish got in the way.  No longer.

Dan writes his books and they end up all Devil Wears Prada or Nanny Diaries where people enjoy reading it, but in the end they don't really care if those people are bitchy simply because it's fun.

Dan isn't totally alone.  He has his disgusting hair.

Lily and Bart end up with no children liking them.

Eric meets up with them in the Hampton's talking about his new life there as a bartender, still attending high school.

Rufus does something.  No one cares.

Finally, Serena ends up on the streets as a prostitute. All is well.

restlessness.

The feeling of restlessness is now turning into an ache.  I ache to be in a city, in an urban environment.  I ache to be around people who are constantly moving, who are using the metro or a subway to get there, and who only stop to eat but at least each meal is a great gathering.  I ache to be surrounded by strangers who do the most interesting things, even just when commuting to work.  I ache to be near the Met and the MoMA and Park Avenue.  At this point, I even ache to just be living at the upper 90s and Broadway.  I don't even care.  I just need to be able to go to work, and to go take class from Darcy Kistler after work, and to spend my days off writing in the park.  I ache to be on my own, meeting an entirely new group of people, forging my pathway independent of anyone who knew me before.

I mean it when I say ache.  My heart literally hurts for it.  I don't know how it happened, but I am an urban, city girl and my body and my mind need to be there to find the balance I'm seeking.

on discipline and trust of the female persuasion.

Every once in a while I have a dream about Laura McLean, or about Yoshie Akimoto, and often they end up in the same dream.  They're usually pushing me at the barre or at the piano or they're at my place of work telling me to sell more and be the best and keep pushing even though my feet hurt and my fingers are tired.

It's a little bit strange, but it's also a little bit comforting because when I need that extra boost to really move forward through the pain and frustration, they are the ones that somehow get me moving, even after all these years.  I haven't seen Ms. McLean since I was seventeen years old, haven't even trained under her since I was thirteen.  The last time I worked with Yoshie was five years ago.  And yet these women have this remarkable influence in the person I've become and continue becoming, regardless of the time and the distance.

These two women made me reach my limits, and more often than I liked I felt a lot of shame in their presence knowing that I hadn't achieved what I was capable of.  When they have such intense faith in your abilities, and you screw around or let the practice waste away or ignore the task set before you, you can't help but feel as though you've disappointed those who believe in you most.  But in those times when I had a break through, when they guided me to create something of value, I felt such a genuine love and connection with them that I can only describe as motherly. 

Some of my fondest memories are sitting at the piano in Yoshie's front room, angled slightly toward her as she would tell me an anecdote from her youth, or as she would discuss the gospel of Jesus Christ with me in musical terms, or as she would complain about how much the democrats were ruining this country.  We would talk politics and life, and during some of my more difficult moments in my teen years she would let my eyes well with tears while she discussed my parents, and then she would tell me to move past it by putting my faith in God and in the piano.  And to stop crying because there was Bach to be played.  

I have no doubt that the difficulty I had in high school is directly related to Yoshie's absence from my life.

Ms. McLean quite literally yelled at me more often, perhaps more than anyone else.  Yelling at my feet and my arms and my fingers and my tush and my knees, but not the kind of yell that hurts.  Instead she yelled at their temporary inadequacy, yelling reminders of potential not quite formed.  I will always remember this one evening in the mid-winter that changed the way I viewed how I worked.  I couldn't tell you which year it was, or which day of the week, but I can tell you that I was feeling so inadequate and aimless and lost.  Looking back I think it's pretty clear that my family's instability was starting to take a toll on my emotional health, and I probably should have been working with someone even at twelve years old, because I remember feeling a complete slump in every area of my life.  I had plateaued and couldn't find my way out of the hole.  I had been such a strong dancer, and quickly, and then suddenly I wasn't improving and I was frustrated.  More than anything else, Ms McLean wasn't yelling like she once did.  Somehow I found a way to talk to her, and express how every single class left me wanting and a little empty, and that I was no longer feeling motivated or pushed to improve.  The next day she let me take the upper level class with the girls who were five and six years older than me, an evening that helped me realize what I could be capable of.  I worked harder than I'd worked in a class for a long time.  All I wanted was to prove to Ms. McLean that I deserved to be in there, and that I was deserving of a little yelling again.  To this day I quite literally remember the adagio we did at the barre - the ENTIRE exercise, to the point of feeling the pain in my arms and shoulders from pushing that barre so hard in order to make my attitude higher and my bevel more pronounced in my pointe shoes.

The first time I ever sat down and had a conversation with Erika was in my house in Provo.  I was sitting on Grandma's red velvet couch and she was sitting on that stiff-backed chair that had needlepoint work on it, and she explained the benefit of competing at the national teen pageant.  What started as a director-titleholder relationship evolved bit by bit each year.  Back then, 7 years ago, I didn't want to disappoint her because of how much she was investing in the person that I was presenting myself as.  There came a time when I didn't want to disappoint her because I wanted to be like her.  And now I don't want to disappoint her because she may know me better than anyone, and therefore she knows who I can be.  Even scarier, she knows that I know who I should be.  To not live up to that would be so painful for me, and it wouldn't matter if she knew what I was doing or not.  Just the simple fact that Erika would expect more is enough for me to second guess some decisions I might make.  She may not have been the one sitting at a nearby piano or wearing teaching ballet heels, but she's been the one to ensure that the discipline and perseverance I learned in those arenas have transfered to the individual I am.  She was never afraid to tell me when I did wrong, like that one time in June 2007 after I'd had a meltdown after talent.  And I hope that I've learned from those experiences, and her love and support have given me the chance to rectify wrongs and be better.

Sometime soon I'm going to start writing publicly about what happened in the early spring of 2010, but until then I will just say that Leslie Tanner had the inspiration to be the person who checked up on me, who offered the advice over dinner, and who gave me the encouragement to see a doctor about finding my way back to being the person that these other women have helped me to be.  Not only did she birth girls who I consider to be sisters (and one of whom who is the most wonderful best friend I could have), but she is an extraordinary friend who I know I can count on.

Finally, I don't know how well you know my own mother, but she is a fighter.  Last night we went to my niece's dance recital and I felt such overwhelming gratitude for the woman who gave me life, who fostered my innate talent, who found such remarkable teachers to harness that talent, who put me in that teen pageant that changed my life.  She never let me quit, even when I begged and begged.  She drove me everywhere, and she put up with my whining and crying, and she encouraged me to be the best.  She had the vision to put me with individuals who understood foundational principles in education and the arts, and these women who have had motherly influence over me were a part of my existence because my own mother chose them.

God has blessed me with extraordinary women in my life.  Women who work every day, with monetary compensation or not, who produce amazing results in their careers and their families and in how they serve outside their homes.  I'm not sure if my experience is all that normal, this entire situation where I have so many women to look to as mother-figures, but I couldn't be more grateful that I do indeed have such a blessing.

It's no secret that I want desperately to be a mother.  Partially because I've had this weird pull toward playing with and tending to little children, even as a child myself.  Mostly because I want to have the opportunity to teach what these women have taught me.  My associations of motherly affection with all of them are surely culturally influenced, as the "Mother model" or paradigm in my brain connects a woman pushing me to be my best with my own mom, but I don't see it as a bad thing at all.  Indeed, I am more grateful for the moments when these women have pointed out my mistakes, and provided the tools to make them triumphs.  It's very spiritual, and perhaps one day we'll have more proof of why it feels so spiritual, but right now I'm not going to worry about why I feel such love and gratitude.

Instead I'm just going to say thank you for being the women I trust.

ending.

There is this really freaky thing that happens to me every single year, at this time of year.  WITHOUT FAIL.

A relationship (or sometimes a not-relationship relationship in which a person might not be prepared to commit) ends, and I'm stuck watching Grey's Anatomy crying over my sad, pathetic existence and how I'd prefer to be Izzy getting married or someone getting shot or Lexie getting kissed by Jackson or Derek being sucked out of the airplane.

Really though.  It's getting really ridiculous.

Ridiculous in the sense that every person I've cared for ends up outside of my life once the month of May ends and ridiculous in the sense that I have watched EVERY SINGLE EPISODE OF GREY'S ANATOMY EVER MADE.

It's obvious already that this little thing I'm writing is going to end up back on the cutting room floor when I come to my senses, but for right now I'm going to write it and let it be, because there's nothing else that will help me at this hour.

You've probably figured this out, but I'm better in larger groups of people.  With dancing or singing or writing and sharing details.  Not having to look you in the eye or see your responses to what I'm doing or saying or performing is preferred.  It means I can be open without seeing singular reaction.  You're a collective sort of you, therefore it's relatively safe.  I was that way as a kid when singing, I was that way when I was 12 each time I had to play that piano, and I'm that way as an adult when having to work through pain.

Sometimes life is so insanely hard.  We have to disappoint people who disappoint us and we're all just sad and hurt and disappointed and apparently I'm a bullet who ended up not hitting someone which ironically hurts me more than you.

Stick with me for a moment.

I'm a good person.  I care about people.  I want them to be happy and content and successful.  I work hard to keep people feeling good about themselves, and I do my very best to always be genuine.  So when I have to make the hard decision that breaks my heart, even when I know it might break someone else's, know it's not done out of malice.  It's done because I care too much to let bad feelings grow.

I'll be fine.  I've been here before.  3 years ago.  2 years ago.  I got through it then.  I'll get through it now.  But it feels different this time.  And I hate that.

Can someone find a way to bring Whitney home please?

just call me the bullet.

maybe I'm not up for being a victim of love, and all my resistance will never be distance enough.