Summary

Oh hai.

I know once again it's been a while. But really this time...well we're just gonna have to wait and see to be honest. I suppose I could rewind and go over all the new occurrences in my life, but to be completely honest there aren't too many. Graphic Design consumes most of my life and running SP takes up most of the rest. I don't have too much free time in the evenings as I spend about 23 hours a week in class and my weekends are largely taken up with weddings and visiting Jordan. Time has been moving quickly, but if I'm honest with myself, I'd rather it not. As all my friends fold their lives into neat packages of grad school, job interviews and internships I am left behind, doomed to Athens for another year of what I have a quasi-hate relationship with: school. But then I realize that I'm lucky, because I've spent so much time in college in bad situations and being upset and trying to rebuild myself that I haven't done nearly what I wanted to do.

I ran across some things over the weekend that brought me back to high school and early college hardcore. It's times like these when I really realize how much has changed. Meeting up with Caitlyn again (see above awesome photo, what a gorgeous WOW-playing vixen lol) was an unexpected and interesting occurrence. What struck me most (even though I can't honestly say I've ever really known her well since we've only met maybe twice) is how different we both are from how we were freshman year. We've done a lot of growing up.

But then there's part of me that remembers that I never really gave myself the liberty of having a childhood. At parties I hung out with the adults, I didn't allow myself to be bubbly and giggly and stupid like all the other little kids, and almost punished myself inside when I did. I can remember a specific time when this happened, and it makes me sad to think about it. I suppose I can't really take back time, I can't regain a childhood that I didn't allow myself to have, but it's starting to make me resist any further form of growing up. Everything is moving so fast, I'm not sure if I'm ready for any of it.

Remembering who I was a few years ago is a bittersweet exercise, but ultimately a good one. I'm not sure I was ready for everything that got thrown at me there at the end of high school, and certainly not for college. I fell behind the pack mending myself as everyone else moved on. Since then I've been so caught up in one difficult situation after another, this year has really been my first opportunity to breathe. Looking back I realize that over the past few years I've allowed other people to pick away and who I was, who I wanted to be. Some aspects of this were for the better; I am better now because of them, others took away things I wanted in myself. I see my extra time in school as a final opportunity to make right with myself all of these things I feel inside.

I want to be the bright eyed girl with lofty goals, ready to take on the world.
I want to be fearless.
I want to have friends (yeah, I have about two right now).
I want to be respected not just as SP, but as a fine artist as well.

I want to be that girl who wanders around Knoxville like it's New York City, buys vintage clothes, takes tons of experimental self portraits and spends all Saturday afternoon making art on the living room floor. THAT is who I am. I care not to hear anyone's challenges on this one.

You know how sometimes you can have a million conversations with a person and then suddenly one stands out in your mind and it stays there forever? I have so many of those tucked away in my personal file cabinet. They are all extremely important and meaningful to me in their own way. I won't share them here. But this weekend I had one that I suppose I'll partially disclose here for your reading pleasure. This weekend was my formal and honestly I probably put less thought than usual into what I was going to wear and how everything was going to be. I spent less time on my hair and didn't really do any further beauty preparations before the day of.

And I felt so pretty and I honestly can't tell you the last time I felt that way. I was almost scared that it was going to go away and I might never feel this way again, at least for a long time. Sure I've got Jordan handing me the sincerest of compliments on the regular, and I love and believe in each and every one. But at the end of the day that's just how he feels about me, not how I feel. If I could bottle that feeling and have it with me every day I think I could do anything. I want back what was taken from me and is rightfully mine. It's my turn to get it.

Oh blog, you've got me crying again. Who needs therapy when you've got a keyboard. I've got an 8am, and I should definitely not be awake right now.