at the beginning

Thursday night I sat on the phone and finally broke up with Chris. Those orange blossoms I was smelling only months ago? They've wilted, and in their place has grown a desire to be free to find a complement to me, not necessarily romantically. I want to explore and enjoy the things that make me happy...I want to pursue my education and my career with the same passion that I used to have before I tied myself down to another person. And if I find someone with whom I find a connection and I feel like exploring that? Well...such is my decision and my right as well.
It isn't that I don't love Chris; however, I feel like the all-consuming love I had for him before blurred my vision so I couldn't see all of the not-so-pleasant truths about our relationship: I lost myself, just when I had found myself again. Coming to school has been an important step in regaining and retaining that wonderful person I found beneath the surface, and I won't let anybody ever take her away again.
I've also developed some interesting and fulfilling new friendships, even in the last two weeks. I went through formal sorority recruitment and finally joined Delta Zeta! Hooray, I'm a DZ! By pledging, I've gained more than 20 new sisters and deepened several friendships. I am surrounded by the love and support of good, beautiful people who I absolutely love in return. Again, this was a point of contention between Chris and me - he just couldn't see why I would feel so drawn to join a system that he only sees as "socially inadequate" and obsessed with partying. He'll never realize how wrong he is until he stops replacing observation with his own misconceptions.
Beyond that, McKenzie and Rob came back on-campus this semester and have taken Model UN back under their collective wing. I admit, I was a little leery of McKenzie shortly after I met her face-to-face. She's very focused, both on her school and on the direction she thinks Model UN should go, and she has it in her mind to be President next fall. I have heard nothing but bad things about her from Amanda and Jane; the thing is, though, I met Kenzie before I met anybody else at OWU. First her, then Andrew. And they complain about those two, where I've found two of the most amazing friendships. I absolutely love Kenzie, and I know that it's going to become a civil war in MUN toward the end - McKenzie and me v. Amanda, Jane and Elizabeth, and who knows where the other cards will fall.
We'll get through.
And that, as they say, is just the beginning.

The Secret's In The Telling

I feel comfortable enough opening up to you here. Well, that's probably because this is my sanctuary and you haven't been given leave to enter. Of course, I give you leave. You can come and see and dissect the pieces of my life if ever you get the urge...But you don't even know about this, do you?
No...and that's why I'm comfortable enough. Maybe one day I'll be comfortable enough to show you what's been written.
But not today.
Today is for truth, the truth I am too afraid to tell you face to face. As open as I am, I fear that at some point you may already have encountered it, even if it was cleverly disguised as something else. But we know each other...we understand each other. At least...we used to.
I fell in love with you five years ago - right about this time of year, in fact. Oh, I knew that I loved you before that and absolutely regardless, but until that point I figured it was rather like admiration or maybe the way I loved my youth leader or my dad - I even told you that, right? Let's just say, though, that my heart never pounded with attraction when I saw my dad first thing in the morning. I may be crazy, but I've never fallen that far.
Damn it. Even now I'm trying to go back and edit so that maybe it won't seem so bad...but I need to do this, and I need to be honest with myself.
Memories fly through my brain at odd times, whenever something happens or is said to remind me of you. Whenever I hear the music you like...whenever I watch the movies you told me about (which is often)...In fact, every time I write in my journal I remember that I never loved to write so much before I met you. I never thought that I had talent before you. I remember the first time we met...random afternoons just staying and talking to you...short little snippets of conversation in the middle of the day.
I remember calling you on a snow day - oh, do you remember who was with me? She was so angry by the end of that conversation. I know because while I was there I talked about doing it for probably an hour or more before I finally got up the nerve to do it.
There's more, so much more...how much do you remember? I know you remember, but most times I wonder if I'm the only one dwelling on the past. Now I can say that I'm not, because the other member of our little trio junior year misses you too...misses us.
That's the other big secret. I miss you. I wish that you were there to tell me that things are going to be okay, to assure me that somewhere in this world there is someone besides my family who actually cares what happens to me. And I wish I could be there to show you the same, because I do. I care about you far more than just about anybody else in my life. It makes me miserable to know you're hurting...
...which is how I get through the excuses most times. Everybody can understand sympathy; what lives inside me, however, nobody can.
Except maybe you.
Я вас люблю.

auld lang syne

Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind... Or something like that.

Yes, it's 2007, a new year, and already the second day. Gee. I never would have realized that had I not chosen that exact moment to look at the clock on the screen. All days have become one day, one continuous cycle of wake, sleep, and do it all again.

Except for one: January 4.

That's right, Thursday. Nothing particularly special about this Thursday, above all others, save for the fact that I may finally - finally - get some of the answers I have been looking for. I thought perhaps I would get one or two when I went to the choir concert two weeks ago...but to no avail. I should have known that the one person I longed most to speak with would be closed off and more than unavailable for anything substantial.

I did, however, get something. Just the briefest indication that I was not imagining things, but right now I'll take that as a sign from above (or below) that I am not insane when I imagine that things are not as they seem, and have not been for quite some time.

I don't know what to do...but hopefully, when Thursday comes and goes I will figure it out.