The House That Built Me

So much strange stuff has been going on in my life lately. I feel as though I am losing control of everything around me and I just want something stable to hold on to.

My parents are selling my house.

It's not like they're moving across the country or even across the state, they're moving probably 30 minutes away from where we live now. But that's not the point.

I'm used to driving home from school and knowing exactly where I am going and exactly how to get there. I turn right on to Lake Forest and know that I will pass McKinney Boyd on my left, a seven eleven on my right, go past the stop sign, drive down the curving road with all the beautiful trees, see the Kroger that I used to walk to with my best friends on my left, and then turn left, right, right, left and be at my house. My cute one story small red house with the big red truck in the drive way. When I arrive here I know that Christian and Kristina are right down the street and remember all the times that we would walk to Winniford park. I see my old best friends house right next door and remember all the times I would walk over there and ask her if she wanted to come play outside. I see the kids playing in the street and remember when that used to be me and my parents had house limits that I couldn't pass. I remember walking my dogs down the road. I remember the times Tiffany would wait out front at 6 in the morning to pick me up for practice and I would make her wait every single day no matter how hard I tried to be on time.

And then I go inside and I remember when the room that is the guest room now used to be my room and Christian and I hung out there for the very first time and played the Series of Unfortunate Events board game. I remember playing Polly Pockets on the floor with Cierra. I remember having my hermit crabs and being afraid to even touch them because I thought they would pinch me. I remember moving rooms to the room that is currently mine and being so excited about the paint on the walls and my new furniture. I remember getting ready for MORP freshman year in there and having my room be such a mess and not wanting my date to see it. I remember having sleepovers with all of my friends in my room and telling them to be quiet because my room connects to my parents bathroom. I remember making the collage on my wall and being so thankful for all of my amazing friends. I remember falling asleep on the phone with boys I liked or my best friends during the late summer nights. My bathroom reminds me of the times that I would walk in and my dog was scared so he would hide between the wall and my toilet and just lay there and sleep. My living room reminds me of my surprise 16th birthday party where I made so many memories with so many good friends and those same friends helped me work through my first heart break. My kitchen reminds me of the times that Kristina would walk home with me after riding the bus home when school got out at 4:15 and we would make dinner and laugh and joke. It reminds me of every single night when I would feed my dogs and they would bark at each other and never shut up or eat until hours later. My dining room reminds me of getting ready for prom and my graduation party. My front entrance reminds me of all the times that I would be gone for so long and come home and just be so happy to be there. It reminds me of the first time I came home from college and the last time I came home from camp. The office reminds me of the days that I didn't have a laptop and my friends and I would sit on the computer and write stupid things on each other's MySpace about me's or I would waste my days in the summer taking stupid surveys and talking on the phone with Haleigh.

My house is not about location. It's about the memories. I grew up in that house. It's close to all of my friends and it holds so many good memories for me. I know that everything will be okay and that I will be able to build new memories in this new house and have an opportunity to grow, but I don't want to leave the past behind. I don't want to have to drive 30 minutes to go see Jessica or Tiffany or Christian or Kristina. I want to be able to walk to Cameron's house and see him when he gets back from his mission in a year. I want to know my route when driving back from school. I want to be able to explain every stain on the carpet and chip in the paint. I want to be sitting in my living room and have a flashback of a time that I was in that same spot that makes my heart clench with sadness because the moment is gone but laugh because I am so happy that it happened. I don't want someone new coming in to my room and my house and my life and covering up my old memories with their new ones. I just want at least one thing in my life to stay the same.

Feelings

It's been a while since the last time I sat down and actually wrote out my feelings. Partially because I feel as though I have no time in the day any more and partially because for a while I felt lost. Quite honestly, I don't know how I feel. I wish this meant I was numb, but rather I have so many emotions flowing through me all at once that I cannot seem to process just one. I am feeling everything at once and I don't know how to handle this any more. Holding all of these feelings in is starting to get to me, so I guess this is my effort to share my private thoughts with the people who care enough to read this post.

I feel happy. So happy with all of the new opportunities arising in my life every day. Whether that be my job at Camp Longhorn this summer or the many new friends I am making here at OU, I am so happy that new things are coming into my life. I am happy that I know who my true friends are and I have people like Brooke or Becca or Melody to go to and share my deepest secrets with. I am happy that my friends back home are doing well and finding their paths and figuring out their lives and experiencing new things and finding people that they love. I am happy that I am blessed with so many wonderful opportunities and people in my life.

I feel betrayed. Recently someone that I consider a very good friend just dropped out of my life. At first it seemed as though she was strictly avoiding me and being friendly to my other good friends. I was confused and hurt, but this has happened a few times before so I decided to just let her have her space. Eventually, as time went on I began to be concerned and wanted to know what I had done to offend her. I Am the type of person that genuinely cares when I upset someone that I care about and if you actually mean something to me I will go to make a pretty great effort to fix the problem. When I asked her what was going on at first I received no response and when I persisted I ended up getting a lot of what I have no other word for than sass. Basically, now this person won't speak to me or any of my friends, has completely cut us out of her life, and is saying that God blessed her by getting rid of us. Now, if she doesn't want to be my friend I completely understand. Everyone has their own reasons for doing things whether you like it or not. But saying that The Lord blessed you by disbanding a friendship is offensive on many levels to me. First of all, our God is a loving God that would not want anyone to hurt, and quite frankly this situation is a stab in the back and to the heart to me. But not only that, my friends and I have done nothing to her. If she wants to move on, fine. But making us seem like bad people is just very hurtful to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say she's a bad person. I don't agree with her actions and am very upset by the bay I have been treated, but she was my friend for a reason. As much as I say I'm done with that friendship right now, in the bottom of my heart I know if she needed me I would be there, and hopefully she knows that too.

I feel enlightened. I could go on for days about this one so I'm going to cut it down to two of my main points.
ONE: I go to The University of Oklahoma. I am 18 years old. I am out on my own at a beautiful school and am blessed with amazing friends. I am so very lucky to be here. I chose this college and never have I bee happier about a choice that I have made. I love where I am, I love who I am surrounded with, and I am so so very lucky.
TWO: I have a soul that seeks and craves and longs for adventure. That is why I am attracted to the people who aren't the best for me. That is why when someone shows me their favorite spot in a new city I feel so happy and so alive. That is why I love driving around the town with the windows rolled down and the wind blowing through my hair singing along to a song playing as high as it can with my best friend at 3 in the morning. That is why when someone says they want to go on an adventure I feel my soul set on fire. That is why I have trouble focusing, I never want to miss out on new opportunities. That is why I am always striving to find someone that can make me feel so alive. There's a part of my soul deep down that longs for someone who will explore with me, challenge me, and be content with aimless wandering.

While I feel so many more things, after getting this out of my system I am finally tired and content and able to sleep. Sometimes just letting it all out is the best therapy of all.

Forever in my Heart

These past few days have been rough. Thursday evening I got a call from my parents telling me that my first dog passed the night before. Now I have known many people whose pets die and never quite understood why they were so upset, "it's just a dog" I would think. But now I have a whole new perspective on the matter. Dakota was not just a dog, he was family.

I remember when we first got him. My aunt and uncle used to live a few streets over from me and walked me back to my house one day after I spent the day playing with my cousins. I walked into my house a mere six years old and got attacked by the cutest, most excited, and fluffiest puppy I had ever seen. Before that day I had never been so excited. From that day until this past Wednesday, Dakota had been there for every major event in my life. The day I got Diabetes I came home and had my puppy waiting for me to hug on and make me feel better. The day I made the High School dance team I came home and laid with my dog on the floor and pet him and let him lick my face because I was the only one who ever would. The day I graduated high school he sat on the floor with me as I opened all of my gifts from friends and family. They day I came home from my last time of ever being able to go to Camp Sweeney he was there to greet me. The day I moved out of my home he was there to say goodbye to me. I have so many amazing memories with this dog in my life and now knowing that I won't make any more breaks my heart.

I will always remember you laying in my bathroom wedged between the wall and the toilet because you were scared of the rain. I will remember the way your paws sounded as they dragged across the wood floors. I'll remember the way you would bark at Casey (my other dog) every time we gave you both food in your bowls. I will remember how excited you would sometimes get and jump around the house even though you were old and could barely walk sometimes.

Even though I was not there to say goodbye to you, and I have so many regrets about that, I will always love you and always remember you. I wish my spring break could have been just one week earlier so I could have gotten my proper goodbye. I wish I could have been there during the day when you started feeling sick so you didn't have to suffer for that long. I just wish I could have been there. But you will be forever in my heart.

"It's the oldest story in the world. One day you're seventeen and planning for someday, and then, quietly, without you ever really noticing, someday is today, and that someday is yesterday and this is your life."
-Nathan Scott, One Tree Hill

Lose Yourself

It seems like before I knew it, all the years had gone by. So don't waste a single moment, only attempting to slow down time. Cause it wasn't planned to be a life where everyone just plays to stay alive. Everyone seems to think they're right, but they don't know nothing beyond the outside

So, lose yourself, to save a life. And hold on close, to call the memory mine. And leave that phase of all on top on your own, and meet the real you finally find the place, that I call home.

Beyond the memories we make, it's more than just some candles and a lake. There's more than just a man, that's keeping this place alive. It's the love we share woven deep within a campers eyes. It's more than most could think, that's why we're the only ones that cry.

So, lose yourself, to save a life. And hold on close, and I'll call the memory mine. And leave that phase you'll lie on top of your own. Meet the real you finally, find a place, that I call home.

Where are the words to describe this place, in the lyrics of a song or a smile on a face, come together while you can and sing tonight we'll be standing hand in hand.

Where are the words to describe this place, in the lyrics of a song or a smile on a face, come together while you can and sing tonight we'll be standing hand in hand.

So lose yourself, to save a life. And hold on close. And I'll call the memory mine. And  leave that phase where you lie on top on your own, and meet the real you finally, find a place, that I call home.

-Tim Hollis

unwanted;mistake;blessing

My whole life I've always had this belief that the worst feeling someone could possibly have is the feeling of being unwanted. It really is a horrible feeling. Like when your parents say "I'm so disappointed I don't even want to look at you right now." How do you respond to that? What can you say? My whole body freezes up in that moment and I feel so incredibly guilty and ashamed that I have no words. Or when the cute boy you go to school with doesn't think you're pretty enough to go to the movies with this Friday night. Suddenly any compliment anyone has ever given you is thrown out the window and you feel absolutely worthless. "If I'm not good enough for him why would any other boy give me the time of day? I'm repulsive." Or even when your best friend suddenly finds a new best friend or a boy friend and you just need a girls weekend to laugh and cry about all of your problems but she already has plans and you have no one to turn to.

So you have this belief that these feelings, the feelings of not being good enough and not being wanted, those are the lowest of the low. It can't get any worse than this. But then something happens, or maybe it's multiple things all piled on top of each other, but you suddenly realize there is something much worse than this. The feeling of being a mistake.

Like when you start making an overwhelming amount of mistakes because you're just trying to find yourself and you have never been in this situation before and you just don't know what to do and every move you make pushes you farther and farther under water and all you want to do is come up for air and you look to your parents as the life float that will take you back to shore but then suddenly they blame themselves and say that they way they raised you was a mistake and you lose all strength to hold on to that float because the people that are supposed to be there for you cheering you on through thick and thin have given up and you let go and just sink under, with no strength to fight anymore.

Or when you sleep with your boyfriend because he is your first love and you think he loves you too but then it happens and he treats you like shit and won't fight for you or even meet your parents and make himself seem like he's worth it and then uses the excuse of you not being able to talk to him for two days as a reason to break up with you the day after your 16th birthday and tell you that he has feelings for your best friend. And suddenly you feel as though you were not good enough for him to stick around, he got what he wanted from you and now he's on to the next one and if you had just stayed true to what you know was right you wouldn't be feeling this way right now. And you wouldn't still be so messed up two and a half years down the road wondering why you still can't get them to stay and why everything has to be so uncomfortable and why you aren't even good enough to say hello to in passing and you just feel as though everyone looks at you as a big mistake that they wish they could take back and you try to tell yourself that they are the mistake and you deserve better but you just can't actually bring yourself to believe that and you feel so lost and confused and just wish that you could take it all back and be a blessing instead of a mistake.

In life there are only four kinds of girls:
The girl who played with fire.
The girl who opened Pandora's Box.
The girl who gave Adam the apple.
And the girl whose best friend stole her boyfriend.
-Candace Bushnell, The Carrie Diaries.