Life is life.

Have you ever wanted something so badly- and it was completely in your control- but couldn't do it? I have. I do it every day. I so badly want to live this year with no regrets. I love the sport of gymnastics. It's deep, deep within me and will never leave me but I'm hanging up my leotard in not very long. I cry when I think about it.

I don't cry because of what I haven't done, but because of what I have done. I treasure my time on the gymnastics team. I wasn't really good enough to deserve this and I feel like it's a gift every day. But I am holding myself back from what I know I'm capable of and it's more than frustrating. I hate myself sometimes. I think: if I died, wouldn't that just solve the problem? Wouldn't I just not have to worry about this and the question of whether I'm strong enough to overcome my fears would never have to be answered.

It sounds so dramatic. It is. We're talking about a sport here, and not even at the elite level. But my pride is involved and that's very important to me. I don't sit here and entertain the idea of suicide; I'm way to rational for that. But I do think sometimes, if I die I wouldn't have to worry about it at all. Then of course, I'd be dead. So that's no good either.

Maybe I need a therapist. Maybe I need a psychologist. Maybe I just need a fucking blog.

I feel ridiculous right now. My friend got diagnosed with cancer when she was my age. She beat it. I'm talking about death (willful death?) because of embarrassment, pride and a fucking recreational sport. Perspective is everything, isn't it?

Pretty much nothing I've written makes sense right now. I don't really care. I need thoughts to just flow out so I don't have them rattling around in my brain.

A fight; every day, a fight to know who will win
Pulled once a way and back again
Ripped and broken, lying painful in the sun
Still but sobbing, heaving as night comes

Phoenix stirring, after thrashing and dying
Rising slowly, pulling up from lying
Stiff and jerking, fighting light and flying
But rising nonetheless, never stop trying

One day it will come; soon, it will come
Work will pay off and light will shine
Smiling, sparkling, gleaming some
Standing, alive and proud. My time.

"This is bullshit. At some point you just have to grab the bull by the horns." True dat.

Crappy Weather

I got so spoiled in the last few days. It was warm and sunny; sometimes the wind was a little strong, but it didn't matter because as long as I stayed out of the shade, I was warm. It is FREEZING outside right now. It's too bad I spent all morning after I got back from working out sleeping because it seems like a perfect time to pop in a movie and nap. Except I am not tired. And I want to read more of my book. And if I sleep now, I will definitely not sleep tonight. Ugh, I hate getting my sleeping patterns all off.

Anyway, in other news, school is almost over. I have two finals. One is a take-home and the other is Thursday. I am completely unconcerned with these finals and I'm sure everyone I've talked to lately is going crazy because I've been bored out of my mind. I've watched more movies in the past two weeks than I've watched all year probably. I started with The Fall; the most visually appealing movie I've probably ever seen. Set in the 1920s or 30s, it follows a little Romanian girl staying in the hospital with a broken arm. She meets a young man who does movie stunts. Both are in the hospital because of falling from tall objects. The little girl fell from an orange (?) tree in an orchard where she works with her family. The man fell from a railroad bridge while working on a movie. The man tells the little girl a story while they are both in the hospital. The scenes that depict the story are breathtaking. Even though the movie is 2 hours and 45 minutes long, I LOVE it.

I also watched Religulous and Jesus Camp, both favorites of mine. Then I watched The Invention of Lying which was the dumbest movie I've seen in a long time and completely not worth the time. Now I'm going to watch The Bucket List. I hope it's good!

Return of the Blogger!

I'm just finishing up a creative writing class this semester and it has really inspired me to write a lot more than I have in the past. I've also written a lot more papers in the last two years than I ever have before.

I used to think that writing was my sister's thing so I stayed away from it...only occasionally writing in private and never finishing anything I started. Lately, however, I've been feeling more and more motivated to just put my thoughts on paper. Sometimes I'll be on my way to class or driving around running errands and I just get an overwhelming urge to put my feelings into words or describe what I'm seeing. I'm still embarrassed by my writing...especially anything fiction. I'm actually writing a novel, but I don't plan on doing anything with it. I just want to say I wrote one. I mean, lots of people write, but I'd love to write a full-length novel.

Anyway, I think another outlet can be a blog. I'm planning on traveling a lot this summer and it'd be really fun to document that in a blog. I'll also be taking the camera that bought from Aaron. It's funny...I had the same camera and my dad has one too. But during my crazy freshman year it got ruined when my drunken roommate (over 6 ft tall!) raised it over her head and threw it to the ground. Being drunk myself, I didn't even stop her or ask her to buy me a new one. Anyway, I was camera-less for several years until I finally got a cheap-ish but cute teal one from Wal-mart. It is a fine camera for parties and family pictures, but it's terrible for close-up nature shots that I love to take. So I sold it to my sister for $50 and bought my brother's old one for $20. A good deal. Seeing as I just bought a laptop, I expect I'll be able to upload and share the pictures easier this summer too. I hope that even if no one reads it, I'll have it to look back on.

Well I took Talya home with me this weekend. I've been looking forward to doing this for awhile, but I had to work hard to convince my dad to let it happen. I love my house even though it's small; I love my dog and my yard and my family. I don't love Waterloo, but I do love many things there. I tell Talya about my life growing up all the time and I really just wanted to show her all the places I am always trying to explain.

It was so relaxing to go home and just talk. Just sit in the sun and get tan while talking to my parents and to Talya. I really did get quite a lot tanner which makes me happy, but I also loved spending time with my parents. I wonder when that happened for me. I often get annoyed when talking with my mom or dad for the same reasons every child gets irritated with their parents, but I've found that the past two times I've been home to visit I truly enjoyed just having a conversation with either or both of my parents. It's such a nice feeling...I'm proud to have this kind of relationship with my parents.

Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures. I really wished I had. My dog was being especially cute this weekend.

There was only one downside. My car broke...so now I'm vehicle-less. Although my mom took me to Wal-mart for a quick fix in a bike. I hope I won't be using that ALL year though!

No Picture Post

I don't have anything new or interesting to write today. I can tell you about my day yesterday though. I went to Core and did Body Attack at 5:30. Betty was teaching, and she is one of my very favorite teachers, although I think I might like Jamie a little better. Betty is very inspirational though. I hope I look like her when I'm in my 40s. Seriously.

Then I came home, showered and fixed my hair. As I was making breakfast and cleaning up the kitchen a little, I noticed that our recycling was overflowing. Like literally nothing else could fit. So I decided to add taking the recycling to my agenda for the day. Then I realized that I needed to go to Wal-mart because we were running out of dish soap, dishwasher soap, toilet paper and paper towels. I've been trying to pay cash for everything lately because I have a lot of it, and it helps me to save money if I use it for essentials. Less of it is wasted on non-essentials that way. Plus it really helps me remember to look for the best quality for the lowest price. However, I'm not a total cheapskate. I like to buy things that cost what they're worth. And I don't like things that fail in the quality department. So I looked closely at what I was buying and I think I got basically the best stuff for the best price. I also bought dryer sheets.

After I got home I had an apple and peanut butter. As I was eating that Talya called and asked if I wanted to help her stuff envelopes. Since I don't have a job at the moment (PLEASE LET ME GET THE CORE JOB!) I had nothing better to do so I went over to the office to help her. Then B-Rod called to ask if I could take her grocery shopping. I thought that wouldn't take long, but it took over an hour. She was very slow...but so am I, so I'm not complaining too much. Plus she gave me $30 last week when I helped her take her stuff to storage. I thought that was really nice of her. After that Talya called again and told me to bring B-Rod back to the office with me if she wanted to, but I had already dropped her off so I just went back alone.

Talya and I finished stuffing envelopes and then went over to my house to make chicken/mushroom/tomato stew stuff. We also tried to make a list of all the foods we're going to make this summer and next year. We want to plan menus so that we won't be tempted to go out or spend extra money. I'm looking forward to this because it seems so adult. :) It was kind of hard to think of healthy meals though, because we want to make REAL meals and not just like...I don't know, omelets and banana burritos. Those are for the days when there's no leftovers for lunch. So if anybody reads this and can think of good, healthy food we can make, I'd appreciate it. It has to taste good though. Talya wants to be able to cook good-tasting food for Keith when they get married. And I want to eat good-tasting food because I don't like eating stuff that tastes bad.

After we finished eating we went for a walk towards downtown. We went to the farmer's market, the Co-op, this little store called Vortex and another little shop with a name I can't remember. As we were walking I suggested we make a point to do something outside every day that it's nice this summer. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the outside and I wish I had a pet so I could have more excuses to go outdoors. Hopefully I'll take Cheyenne here for a visit for a few days.

Anyway, Talya had to take a test this morning so she went back home after our walk and I came back and went to bed. I don't know why I was so tired, but I actually went to bed before 8:00. It was crazy. And then I woke up wideawake at 3:30 this morning. I would like to wake up closer to 4:30 next time though. I normally get up at 4:45, so that's a little closer to my schedule. If I could have only known last year that I was going to wake up so early in the summer I would have thought I was nuts!

Re-Try

I tried to post this the other day, but I guess I put too many pictures in or something? I'm not sure. Anyway, I went home this weekend and got sunburned which hardly ever happens and really makes me sad. But oh well. I did spend all day Saturday outside. I took quite a few pictures. Some of flowers but a lot of Cheyenne too. I'll post a couple of my favorites. I'm a little irritated that some are a little blurry, but Cheyenne moves WAY too fast for my camera! Hopefully I can afford a nice camera sometime. I really enjoy taking action shots. Maybe I'll even get to take gymnastics pictures sometimes.

Cheyenne is so crazy, this is her rolling around upsidedown. Usually I have a really hard time getting her to look at the camera, but I guess I just snapped the picture at the right time in this one.

This one isn't really that good, but she was at least looking sort of towards the camera. And she's smiling, as much as dogs smile I suppose.

I LOVE lilacs. My mom has a row of bushes all along our backyard and they smell so pretty. I also love them because they usually bloom just before my birthday. They're a little late this year. Normally they bloom about two weeks before my birthday but this year they are only just a week before. I'm glad I came home to see them though.

Done with Finals, and Random Musings

Well I finished that essay last night! Whew! And I also finished my final this afternoon. I don't think I did so well on it, but at least it's over, right? My estimated grades for this semester are mostly Bs, definitely no Cs, and perhaps an A or two. My GPA should be above a 3.0 anyway. I'm hoping for at least some B+s if I don't get any As in there.

Now, some more random stuff:

I bought some flip-flops awhile ago that are the most comfortable thing I have ever owned in footwear. I HATE when my feet get hot, so sandals are my thing, and flip-flops are basically the only type of sandal I will wear. So anyway, I do have some issues with Old Navy flip-flops and any with a foam sole because I wear them so long and so hard that they smoosh down to basically nothing after a month or so! That is NOT good for the feet. My heels especially start to hurt. So anyway, I bought these flip-flops. You may have heard of Chacos? Well they are EXPENSIVE ($50 for the cheapest ones!) but they are so so so worth it. At first I got a brown pair. I own a lot of brown clothing.

But then I realized, my school's colors are BLACK and gold. So I bought a pair of black ones.

So I spent $100 on FLIP FLOPS! That is SOO not me. But I love my Chacos! :)

Also, putting me in a happy mood, I just got $85 for selling my books back. That almost covers the shoes, huh?