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.