My graduation speech (so far)

To my fellow graduates, their families, teachers, and friends:

I am standing before you today, like so many others, a proud member of Midland High School's graduating class of 2010. We never thought this day would come.

When I learned that I was to deliver this speech to all of you, my stomach did so many somersaults it almost made it to the Olympics. And I'm a (former) gymnast, so I do know what I'm talking about there. What do people want to hear? What do I know that could possibly be of any use to my fellow seniors, should I impart it unto them?

We came here four years ago with the same mindset that we left the eighth grade yet - we are young and invincible and nothing is finite. If a grenade falls on your head Wiley coyote-style, you can peel yourself up off the ground and keep walking like nothing has happened.

We leave here today with the knowledge that nothing is infinite. Rather the opposite - things are finite to within such a small amount of time that in a split second, your life can change drastically, and maybe even forever. I haven't been around for long enough to know about the forever part, but I'll get back to you in 80 years or so.

I won't tell you that that's why you should live your life to the fullest, because you've heard that so many times it probably makes you nauseous. I will tell you that because so much is finite, and because everything can change in a second, that our greatest glory comes not from never falling, but from rising each time we fall.

If I had the privileged of time travel, there are things in my past, as in everybody's, that I would love the opportunity to undo, or to have undone unto me. I would change the past, but I would not change the person I have become. But are they really separate entities? Or are they so critically connected that in changing one split second of the past, the future would change forever?

I've pondered this often this year, and this is what I've come up with: we weave a tangled web, and connections are so intricate and complex that maybe they shouldn't be messed with. If changing the past means also changing the future, possibly even dramatically, then maybe that's the reason I, like all of you (I'm guessing) don't have the option of time travel. And maybe, for ethical reasons, we never should. Because maybe happily ever after isn't really something we should focus on as much as happy right now. Which, today, I believe we all are.

Congratulations everyone.


>That's all I have so far. I really like the part about the happy ending - maybe someday I should be so lucky as to get one of my own. Cheers.

Where'd you go? I miss you so

Senior moments of the day so far:

1.) I was told today that I have the privilege (?!?!) of writing the graduation speech for my class. WTF *%&#&$?!?!? Every once in awhile there are those curveballs that you don’t see coming but they somehow hit you right between the eyes? Yeah, that was me. I think I stood there with my mouth open until the chic next to me had to physically shut it. Whoops. Fail. So now I’m here asking you readers, whoever you may be: I need suggestions (or someone to write the whole thing out for me) – I’ll take either. Help!

2.) Sent in my deposit today for Washington University at St. Louis. Class of 2014 here I come!


People who live in glass houses....

Sooooo this whole blogging thing is getting old, and I'm pretty sure that anyone who is spending time reading about the life of an 18 year-old girl is (a) a pedophile, or (b) has zero life or (c) a combination of the above. But people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, and I'm actually bored by my own life, so here goes yet another pointless post.

I got my graduation cap and gown today and no lie, it makes me look like Hermoine from Harry Potter, for those (few) of you who are unfamiliar with popular culture (stop blogging and go watch tv, fools). I love the idea of being draped in black polyester in the sun sweating to death in the white dress that I'm supposed to be wearing. Who came up with the idea of white for graduations anyway? Same with weddings - I mean, who do these brides think they're fooling?? And even if they are, you know after their wedding night they'll never be able to get away with white again. Haha - I crack myself up.

Mom made me go visit my sister today - I still can't stand going. We brought flowers (Mom goes every week and brings roses - I want to tell her that Katherine liked lilacs better, but I think that there's absolutely nothing I would gain by doing that - do you?) I hate that my stomach still reels every time I go, but I'm not sure that's something that will ever change - I've just learned never to eat before I go. Silver lining - so rare.


Peace

The beginning of the end

Hot chocolate. Colbie Caillat. Snow falling gently, blanketing the ground in april.

Wait - WHAT??

That's right, folks. It's the end of April and it looks like Christmas outside right now. Fluffy white snow is blanketing the ground, and I feel like I should probably be hanging Christmas lights right now instead of staring wistfully at the new skirt my mom and I picked out the other day that I'm supposed to wear for senior breakfast next month. Which leaves me with sort of a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. I've never been big on endings, and even though I'm looking forward to college and all, I feel a little strange with the idea of leaving this all behind.

I understand that college isn't as big a change as it's sometimes made out to be. Everyone comes back home soon enough, and whatever friendships stick will stick, and whatever doesn't just wasn't really meant to be anyway. But I wonder at myself a little bit right now. Do I really like it here so much, or do I just like it more now that I know I'm leaving soon? And I also wonder (with the benefit of hindsight being 20/20 and all) who I would be today and how I would be different without a past so full of random trials that I sometimes wonder if there's a hex on me (ok, that's overly dramatic but you get the point). I wish there was an alternate dimension where I could see who I would be with a different past, and then choose which life want. How cool would that be?

The snow puts me in a pensive mood I guess. I'll try for something lighter next time.

epic (in every sense of the word)

Today I'm sorry to report that I have (almost) no news on the Lauren front. I fully intended to have at least something, but right about now, all anyone has is incriminating photos of me from last night. It's almost like a bad version of "texts from last night", but maybe that's an overstatement and I'm just being paranoid.

Last night, I managed the tried-and-true-climb-out-the-window-while-your-parents-are-sleeping trick and went to pick up a friend so we could hit up Carter's party. His parents went out of town for the weekend (I mean, they practically asked for it - no one's parents leave them unattended from ages 15-whenever they move out without knowing what will go down if they do). He went all-out balls-to-the-wall on this one: his parents are loaded so they have an indoor pool and hot tub in the basement already, but this one was complete with an ice luge, 2 kegs, and a band (I guess his older brother helped out on this one). It was one hot mess. Let me just say that 6 shots of vodka and Bombay sapphire might look really cool in an ice luge, but they don't look quite as cool later on. Get the picture?

I also somehow managed to wake up soaking wet in Carter's bed at 4 a.m. - whoops. I vaguely remember playing an epic game of civil war and then dancing, and I'm guessing I either fell in the pool, got thrown in the pool, or took a bath in the melted ice luge. Either way, I'll be working to get the gin smell out of my hair for a week. Coach will love it. I almost care.

Later.

best of what's around

It's mid-afternoon on a Sunday and I'm sitting at my computer pretending to start my homework. I have a cup of tea and I'm listening to Dave Matthew's "Best of..." album on repeat (hence the title of this blog), and I'm just thinking. Graduation is coming up in less than two months, and, though I don't think I'll miss my school and I'm looking forward to the next four years of my life (U. Michigan 2014 baby, yeah!), I feel like so much has happened to me that it merits at least a little reflection. So as follows are 5 things that I learned in high school. Someday when I get close to graduating from college, I plan on looking back on these things and seeing if they still hold true. It's an odd project per-say, but one that I think could be cool (assuming I remember this blog in 4 years). Here goes:

1.) Someday you will be the one that has to look in the mirror and be able to live with yourself. Bear that in mind when you want to treat someone badly, even if you know they deserve it.
2.) Running away from problems may not solve them, and it isn't easier than facing them, but sometimes it's just how you do things.
3.) It's ok to miss people.
4.) If everyone in the world threw their problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, they would grab their own right back
5.) pools and booze don't mix (but they're so much fun) - fun fact from this past summer.

I'll come up with some better, less shallow ones soon.

My life as an informed person

So it's 11 o'clock and I'm sitting in Lauren's room at the hospital pretending to be the super friend that I am and waiting for the night sitter to come in so I can go home. Yeah - she has a sitter because she has this awesome tendency to try to escape from her bed - predictable, right? She's still pretty hopped up on morphine (or something), so she keeps trying to tell me stories and keeps getting them ridiculously messed up, or so I think. Who knows - maybe she really did hook up with Carter in the bathroom in the library basement at school. I mean, who's judging, right.

As I'm sitting here, I'm having a revelation. I've found a way to get bogged down in all of this stuff with Lauren and Carter and gymnastics and how things are the old here-today-gone-tomorrow cliche that I realize that I don't pay any attention to my surroundings. For instance - I'm watching the news right now (sound off because I'm not dealing with Houdini again) and I had no idea that there was a mine explosion in West Virginia and that people died. The only reason I know now is because CNN happened to be on. So I'm making a pact to become a more informed person with a broader world view. Stay tuned. (Or don't. I don't really care).

stuck in a rut

Today Lauren finally moved from the hospital to a rehab place nearby. I went to visit her in the new place and it was soooooo strange. Her roommate had a stroke or something (he's old - like 80s or something) and just seems like an invalid and I sort of feel like he would have been better off if the stroke (?) just killed him off. I mean, who wants to live like that? Even if he recovers, what kind of life could he possibly have?

Lauren seems excited-ish about leaving the hospital. She's still on anti-seizure meds, which she says make her sick and I was also sitting with her last night when she told the nurse that she was nauseous because she hadn't taken her depression medication and that's what happens when she doesn't take them on time. I didn't even know she was on depression meds - fmylife.com. Some friend.

I'll try to get an attitude adjustment before next time, I swear.

I Still Miss You

I had this dream last night, and Katherine was there, which is strange because until now, she's never actually appeared in one of my dreams. I mean, don't get me wrong, there isn't a single day that goes by that I don't think of her and there are about a zillion songs that remind me of her, including the ones she loved, the ones she hated, and the ones we used to listen to in her car when she picked me up from school sometimes, but to my surprise, I've never had a dream, good or bad, about her. I guess that's easier in a way because people have a way of always appearing so clearly in dreams, even when in real life you feel like you're starting to forget their faces. I'm not sure whether her making an appearance while I'm in a semi-conscious state (just like Lauren right now - irony?) would finally put me over the edge or not - I've been waiting a long time for that, but I get the feeling that I'm the type of person that would have a hard time putting myself back together if I fell apart, so maybe holding it together despite everything is better?? Really, I couldn't tell you.

Give a little bit

So in case none of you can read dates and/or do math, this is my first post in quite awhile. I mean, I figured I should wait to post anything until my head stopped spinning, what with all that happened to Lauren with the car accident, and all the stares and questions at school, and the constant what-if games I keep playing with myself and all. It's been about 2 weeks since I learned about her car crash, and since then, I feel like I'm living a double life - a before and an after. I'm here and I'm waiting for them to merge back together, but so far they haven't and it feels like it's been so long but it hasn't. Every day at school and at practice I get this strange sense that I'm watching myself and I'm watching my life unfold on a TV screen or in a movie or something and it's like watching those god-awful horror movies where you just want to scream at the dumb bitch not to open the garage door and go out by herself (scream, anyone? worst horror movie EVER) but you can't and you just watch her do it, and that's how I feel every time I watch my own life play out in front of me.

I am so cliche tonight

I guess this is my first post since Lauren's accident a week ago. She's still in the ICU (she came off the ventilator yesterday), which is technically families only but the doctors keep letting me breach protocol (and I think her parents are telling them I'm a cousin or "my brother's nephew's half sister twice removed" or something along those lines), so long story short I'm allowed to visit (which means that I have to - fail). I would actually do anything to not visit, but I feel trapped and everyone expects me to because we're friends, and they have no idea how much a resent her. And I get this clenching feeling in my stomach every time someone asks me how Lauren is doing or how I'm holding up, and it makes me constantly want to puke all over the godforsaken green industrial carpet in all of the classrooms at school.

I have never been good at expressing my feelings. After Katherine "died" last year, my parents tried to make me go to counseling but I dug my heels in so hard that they finally quit. Now I'm watching and I feel like everyone around me is disappearing and I've decided that people shouldn't get attached to one another because it can only end badly.

I am so not creative today

Epic fail - I'm sitting on the couch watching the winter olympics right now and I'm so tired I can't even move. I've spent the last 3 days sitting in the ICU with Lauren, who's completely incoherent and just sleeps all the time. The doctor wouldn't use the term "coma" because she definitely was trying not to freak me out (because I wasn't already freaking out obviously).

One summer when she was in college, my sister volunteered in the ICU. She used to say that people call it the vegetable garden. I can feel my stomach turning every time I remember her saying that.

I don't know

There are, on occasion, those moments when you know that your life has changed forever. Mine came at 6:54 tonight after I left Joey's basketball game and was on my way home to slog through another thrilling 50 pages of the Merchant of Venice - worst fucking book ever. Emily was riding shotgun, and since I've recently turned over a new leaf and decided not to text while driving, I made her open it and when she said it was from Carter, I almost told her not to read it, but she never gave me a chance. "Hey do you know anything about Lauren's accident? I think it was pretty bad".

There are also moments when you can feel your heart pounding in your throat and taste copper in your mouth. When I texted Carter back and told him I hadn't heard anything, he called me and told me that it was on the news earlier. Why the hell is a news station allowed to release names? Carter told me that he was pretty sure that she'd been med-lifted to Detroit and that the news had said she had "life-threatening injuries". Now I'm sitting at my computer looking at the local news station website where there's a short article (of course it doesn't give any names because that would be too fucking useful - it only says a 17 year-old girl) because I don't know what else to do. My parents are in the kitchen whispering together about how the news can't legally release her name and whatever else, and they keep asking me if I should call someone to get the real story, and I'm sitting here calmly (I think) but I swear I'm screaming.

What if

I am one of those people who always makes up scenarios in my head of things that will never happen. In some of these scenarios I imagine my funeral. I wonder who would come. I wonder if my brothers and sisters would stand there silently making amends for all the times that they were nasty to me (sitting grounded in your room for 10+ hours a day really messes with your head, because I'm positive that would never happen). My aunts and uncles would be there, and my cousins. My older brother might even drag his ass home from wherever in the world he's kicking it and come to say goodbye. His wife would be there, and Lauren. Maybe Carter would be there and think about the girl who he never had. I can blog-dream I guess, right?

All the kids from the gymnastics center would be there. They might shake their heads and say "that Payson was something", and want to cry, but they wouldn't. My obituary would be in the back page with the others, and I would want the song "When I Look to the Sky" by train to somehow be a part of it because I've always thought of that as a fitting funeral song. I always imagine that I would be buried in the same cemetery as my grandpa, but that doesn't make any sense since that was in Chicago. And I imagine how the seasons would pass, and that as they did, I would rise and fall in everyone's mind like a tide.

Disturbia (maybe?)

So with the vast amounts of time that I've been spending holed up in my room in light of my recent run-in with the law (or my mother, if I'm being less dramatic), I've decided to finally assemble this star-gazing kit that I think I got from my birthday when I was about 7 (6? 8? who cares, is what you're really thinking right now). Weird, right? I just decided that maybe I'll be a backyard astronomer. I finally managed to put together the telescope, which is actually pretty neat now that I'm no longer looking at my own massive black-hole (yeah - I did forget to take the protective film off, don't judge). The kit comes with these pretty neat constellation-finders that go over the end of the telescope. There's one for each season and another for general use (I'm guessing this is why the kit says "for ages 6 and above")? The keyword was "backyard" in the aforementioned phrase "backyard astronomer".

So like any grounded (read: bored-off-their-ass) person would do, I put the "autumn" constellation-finder over the end of the telescope and proceeded to find the Andromeda and Pisces constellations (maybe)? I'm getting a kick out of this stuff, really. When I was little, I once heard that you could use the stars like a map, so I asked my dad how to do it. He started in about how you had to pick a star (North Star, I think), and had to know where other stars were and what their altitude should have been, and then you had to measure the angles, draw imaginary lines, and so on and so forth. When he turned and saw my face, he laughed. "Exactly," he said. "Never leave home without your GPS".

I'm thinking about it now, and it doesn't really seem so hard. Just head to the place where all those lines cross and hope for the best.

Jailbreak

I'm writing this post from my room where I have been banished for the next several years of my life because my mother is a twit and I think I might be a druggie. Except when people think of druggies I'm guessing it's more along the lines of coke-heads and people who cook crystal meth in their basements out of Nyquil or whatever, so maybe I'm just flattering myself.

It all started last week when my back started bothering me again. My buddy Nick who works out with the guys at the gym's dad is a physical therapist, so I did a few things I'm not proud of at Lauren's party last weekend (and when that didn't "work", I borrowed seventy bucks from my mom - more on that in a minute) so I could pay him to score me some cortisone. Now I just have to find some way to inject it without becoming a paraplegic which, given my recent luck, would probably happen. I would rather just take the time off, but I don't like to lose. And I usually do, except in the gym, so I can't just let it go.

So, my mom - I asked her for seventy bucks so I could get a new dress for a mixer that our gym has every year to get rich whoevers to pony up the dough so the roof doesn't collapse or whatever. Then I borrowed a dress from Lauren for the party and used the seventy bucks to get nick to score the goods instead BUT apparently Lauren's mother isn't stupid and told my mom at the mixer how cute I looked in Lauren's dress. Ooop. My mom asked where her money was and I told her it fell out of my gymbag somewhere. She proceeded to ground me for lying to her. If only she knew.

Hey, Jealousy

This morning when I got to school, my car was on fire. Like, really. The engine was smoking. Carter, who was in the senior lot when I pulled up, had to put it out with the remainders of a can of red bull. Not that he'll really miss it since he'll be asleep 15 minutes into first period anyway. When we lifted up the hood of my car, there was the remainder of a bird's nest, all charred and disintegrating. I felt guilty - poor dumb shit bird had no idea what was coming. Apparently the engine of my '97 outback subaru does not serve as "Home tweet home" (my neighbor painted that slogan on her birdhouse - birds can't read, moron). When I called my Dad, he reamed me out for setting my car on fire - he probably thinks I was smoking up before classes and that's how it started. I'm positive he doesn't believe my bird story. Or much else that comes out of my mouth. "If you don't expect too much from me, you might not be let down".

When I got to homeroom, Lauren hounded me with questions about Carter - apparently she saw us in the parking lot trying to salvage my car, and apparently she's obsessed with him. I'd love to say this was new, but I'm pretty sure it's more along the lines of every-time-she-talks-all-I-hear-is-incessant-buzzing and I just never knew about it. I told her he asked me about my plans for this weekend (he didn't), but I told him I had a meet so not much was up with me. Maybe I'll get lucky though - my back keeps doing this weird twinge-thing, so I'm really hoping that will somehow blow up before Saturday.

Here's to hoping. More later.

My Buried Life

Last night, I spent an undisclosed amount of time watching MTV's Buried Life where these 2 guys crashed a wedding. Real, Owen Wilson, invitations-are-for-pussies style crashed a wedding. It made my think about what I would love to do if there weren't huge barriers (gymnastics, money, school) in the way. Here's what I have so far:

1.) Travel to some really obscure places with a ton of history (the entire Middle East comes to mind right now)
2.) Drive/bike/run across the United States (find some way to see this place)
3.) Find a way to not feel guilty about, or afraid of wanting to quit a sport I love and hate which defines me and constrains me to no end.
4.) Not disappoint my parents.
5.) See the Taj Mahal. I told everyone I had because my brother got married in India to a Sikh woman who he met in college. He really got married in a Unitarian Church to a girl from Maine. I even downloaded pictures of places I "saw" while I was in India and showed them off at school. I have mastered the art of bullshitting.
6.) Learn to dance. Like, really. Not in a drunken stupor.
7.) Stop being so scared. Of everything: people, the future, car crashes, not getting a job, people disappearing, committment, boys. But I sometimes wonder if fear is what keeps people on their game. I think I'll come back to this one when I have more answers.
8.) Run a marathon
9.) Ride a horse in Yosemite National Park. It just seems cool.
10.) Leave nothin less than something that says "I was here"

degree-of-difficulty 9.8

4:56 PM. I'm sitting on the floor outside the gym waiting for everyone to get it together and get back to practice for another hour and a half. Spent the last hour trying to master a standing back tuck, which basically involves no hands-on-the-ground and is massacring my back - probably because I can't land it worth a crap. Regionals are in a few weeks, so hopefully I will get this down or break something before then that won't let me compete. Preferably the latter. Ask me if it's necessary that I can do this back tuck. Not at all - I'm already ranked number one on the floor (and the bars. and the vault). Ask me if I'm doing it so that Lauren no longer has any doubt about which of us is the better gymnast. I plead the 5th. And she never should have to begin with.

I'm playing this move and this routine and this sport up because I know I should let her have it because she cares more. I wonder why I feel the need to take it away from her - I mean, we're friends, so I should be happy to let her have the glory. But I won't because degree-of-difficulty 9.8 is what makes me, well, me. Without it, I'm not sure what people see.

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