I have apparently moved primarily to a new blog, to focus on real-world things.
I've been writing more, but unfortunately little of it is fictional and the parts that are are not using original works/characters as their basis.
I've been getting a lot of requests.

"You remember when we used to do that?"

It felt like he had been her big brother forever, but she still remembered feeling stupid, times that he seemed so avoidant of all their practices that she loved so much - traditions that made her feel content and comfortable, wanted and safe.

She had to admit "no," but it didn't matter if she could barely recall it.
What mattered was that that bond had come back, and maybe things were okay.
-----------------

I need to write more than bits and pieces again.

Happy 2011

They say if you hold on to something, you must still care about it and aren't over not having it anymore.
There are things I think about close to daily, because I want to remember to be grateful - is it really that unacceptable to hold on to something that you've lost, just to remind yourself how wonderful your life is without it weighing you down?

2010, you gave me more than any other year ever has.

Yes, I am alive.

I am a writer - I know it, and people have told me - and of course I know the most important rule of being a writer: a writer must write.

But then of course that silly little thing called life gets in the way.
My final year of undergraduate is set to wrap up in just over a semester, and my applications for graduate school are in the works. I have spent the past semester learning things I never even thought to ask about, and discovering that I actually am quite capable of handling myself in the academic world.

I also have just about hit five months with my boyfriend, who has been one of my best friends for four years.
I'm not sure how to organize my thoughts on this. I'm tired, sick, and full of stress, but the strange thing is that even though life keeps bearing down on me, I am happy.

I don't know how it happened, but I grew up to be quite the romantic - odd, considering how I was when I was a little girl. And of course with romance comes the jarring ride up and down and back and forth through this turn or that drop.

Over the past few years I've been through more relationships than I likely should have.
I spent a huge portion of the time being "the other woman" in one relationship - which honestly and admittedly was the only one I really felt attached to. I had the displeasure of being with a boy who was unfortunately highly emotionally abusive. I've had some relationships that were good, but not quite romantic enough. At least I made wonderful friends out of those.

It is not to say that we are defined completely by a relationship. I don't need any man or woman or otherwise to tell me who or what I am - something that indeed has caused my self-esteem to wither in the past, with someone who thought he had the authority to decide my personality for me, even though he was constantly wrong.
However, we are a reflection of the people we love, and in turn we learn things about ourselves.

Since Sean, I've been mellowing out somewhat. Granted, I still am a bit volatile and likely a bit selfish, but I don't think I've ever been with someone before who would rather keep me happy than be right, or drop everything when I need him.
I feel loved, and cared for.
I feel like I'm growing, and I think I like what I'm growing into.

All my life I've been the bud of an artist and thinker. I've had the passion and the interest, but never the means. It takes more than passion, just as it takes more than knowledge. You can know every word in the dictionary and be able to command English, but it doesn't necessarily make you a writer.
I can discuss protofeminism in eighteenth century literature, or read through middle English. I can write a story or a poem, and draw new characters. But that basic ability does not necessarily denote an emotional maturity, an empathetic ability that takes a thought, feeling, emotion, and makes it something almost tangible.
I think I've searched for that most of my life, and maybe I'm coming close.

Despite the fact that this ma not be so coherent, and perhaps I should stop writing at 1AM while barely awake, I think I feel content.
Sometimes you just need to share something, in whatever way you can. It doesn't always mean that it can be written.
It may not always be able to be explained.
But sometimes there are those things you just need to say, regardless of how well it's done.

Dear You

What are you doing now, at what place?
Are you at a place where this sky continues into?

I lost that which has buried my heart until now
And noticed it for the first time
The fact that you had been supporting me this much
The fact that you had been giving me smiles this much

The price of having lost it is way too preposterously great
And I desperately reach out my hands and struggle to recover it, but-
It slips by just like the wind; it looks like I'll reach it but I don't

My chest is tightened by loneliness and despair
And my heart seems to break
But your smile that remains in my memories
Always encourages me

Let's return to that time again
I'm sure that we'll be all right this time
I'll always laugh by your side

What are you doing now, at what place?
Are you at a place where this sky continues into?
Will you be there with a smile like always?
Now I simply keep wishing for that...
- "Dear You - Vocal -"; Higurashi no Naku Koro ni

I loved you.
For three years.
Unquestioningly. When you were gone I missed you, and times like the disastrous relationship with Mark, you were the one I wanted back all along.

When you came back, I was here. This time though... I don't think I can do it. Hopefully you won't come back at all, but... if you do? It's just too late. I'm too good to be the consolation prize after all of this. After the day I've had, trying to fix all the damage she has done, without your interference.
I'll miss you. I'll miss your smile and the way you laughed.
I'll miss your drawings and the beautiful messages you wrote me.

The days without you stretched on as if they would never end, and the nights with you were amazing.
Let her go away, and leave the memory untarnished.

She can try to ruin it all. She can try to say all of these things, and post my photos online. She can change your online accounts to call me names.
But she can never touch what we had, whether it was sincere or not.
It felt sincere, and that's what matters.

Somewhere, someday... I hope we're reborn again, and can be friends without the complications.
Some day, in another life, I want to meet you.
You always said "If only I'd met you first."

I'll be in the video store, looking for J-horror movies, and run into the cute Filipino boy who seems to know everything.
I'll laugh as he points out something horrifyingly graphic and details the "best" scenes, and we'll decide to get coffee because we like the same games and shows. It will be that instant connection all over again.

I've come this far and worked this hard.
I'd like to believe it will mean something someday.

But for now, dear you, it's time to say goodbye again.
See you, Space Cowboy?

Forever and Always

”If you're looking for love in a looking glass world,
it's pretty hard to find"
- "Mother of Pearl," Roxy Music

“You should run away and just come here. Be with me.” The words were standard fare for her and, really, she did know logically that she was kidding around. Still, the more she said it, the more she actually pictured it.

“I wish,” he said – the softness in his voice seemed so against his character. She loved him that way.

Love is a tricky thing, you see.

Everyone talks about that ideal love.
The love where you only want their happiness. And that happiness makes you happy.
That kind of selfless love that everyone seems to think is supposed to be default. Everyone begins with “if you really loved him...” when complications happen, or when love strikes unrequited, tearing out a piece of our hearts. Everyone expects that the high road is really on level ground with all other options, and that it only takes one small extra step.

Ideal never quite equals real, however.
Everyone wants the one they love to be happy, but they want to be the source of that happiness. It is the selfish way of being selfless, and the desire to provide true meaning and love to another.
It is also what most people find themselves trapped with.

Sometimes she found herself trying to blur the lines between the two. Justifying why it could work both ways. She was looking for her happy ending and – though sometimes it seemed more a pleasant daydream than any sort of plausible reality – she felt she was getting closer and closer to it every day. She had grown older, and matured. So much about her had changed. But nothing about her feelings for him had.
There was meaning in that, and she wanted to make sure that meaning wouldn’t go to waste.
Some how. Somehow she would find a way.


She wondered what it would be like. She wondered how it would feel to step on to the train, meeting him downtown. They would walk along Granville, with uncharacteristic sunshine lighting the sidewalk, holding hands like they had wanted to do for years.
Breakfast at a French café and a detailed search through any comic book shops they came across. With their luck, rain would break out after they left, but she would have her girlish polka-dotted umbrella, and they could make it work between the two of them.
She wondered how it would feel to love him there. Next to her. Within reach.
She wondered how it would feel for them to be normal.

Instead, there she was, rolling over on her bed, facing the computer screen. He was quiet on the other end, but it was okay. There were times when just having him there – or “there,” really – meant just as much as having a conversation. It was the feeling of his presence and the awareness of his existence in the same space as hers that filled her heart and made her believe that it could really be okay in the end. She heard him typing, being, existing, and she smiled tiredly.

“I love you.”

(I really do)