you were not the same after that.

man what a way to finish out the summer. john mayer with my two best friends. i cant think of a better way to end things. but alas here i am in knoxville again. every time i cross the henley street bridge taking the back way into campus and see the entire city stretched out before me i cant believe im back here again. im not sure how to feel about it anymore. what i feel is not excitement or happiness, but its not necessarily sadness either. i think its something like a quiet resolve and understanding that this is the way things are now and now i must continue.

after a week here i find myself only moderately moved in. ive spent the downtime returning to my favorite pastime of facebook stalking, cooking and eating way too much food, thinking about jordan and watching the same episode of the hills over and over again on mtv (those bitches are like so immature). i spent three wasted nights at the foothills of the smokey mountains in the lovely mountain town of pigeon forge aka redneck vegas. i briefly considered suicide or other forms of escape, but decided that learning a few sorority cheers (or a hundred) might be more beneficial than ending my life. i interviewed with bill, the wedding photog i met with back in december, i have the job and though it may be a struggle at times to make it home when i want to, it seems much more like an optimal situation than i was originally thinking.

so this is it. rush starts today and school begins on wednesday. i am not at all ready for this. im much more content here this year than i was last year. i know someone loves me somewhere even though hes not here, and my friendship with kelley continues to thrive despite the distance. these are things i can always count on, and its the things you can always count on that matter. its the things you can always count on that keep you going. im living in a condominium paradise, so perhaps i have no excuses as to why i shouldnt be happy this year. im sure ill find some way to complain my way through it.

this summer was great. it wasnt great in an explosive crazy laughter good times kinda way like some summers of the past have been. and it wasnt great in a melancholy wrapping up things final closure kinda way like last summer. this summer was emotionally brutal in the bet and worst ways. it was an add and drop kind of summer. i added in the things that mattered most to me, and dropped the things that may have been holding me back. perhaps ive discovered the loveliness of the word no.

im not a big fan of making people mad at me or making people upset with me. this makes no my greatest enemy, for the word no tends to piss people off. but i suppose sometimes no is the best thing you can do. sometimes you cant move forward until you release the weight of all that extra baggage youre carrying along at your side. thats just what i needed to do. i needed to get rid of the things that were holding me down. coming back home brought me so much joy, but it also reintroduced characters of the past that i would have rather not encountered. i faced them all one by one, and in my own way catered to each individual, i told them no.

perhaps sometimes you must love yourself before you can love anyone else.

and perhaps to love yourself you have to rid yourself of your demons.

and perhaps ridding yourself of demons means saying no.

so to all the facebook stalkers. the college kids tucking themselves into little apartments in the city. the friends ive left behind and even those aforementioned demons. i bid you all a wonderful sophomore year.

we have only today. let us begin.