No. 5

     The first boy that I loved lived down the street from me. He hardly knew my name, but I'd watch him walk down to the bus stop every morning from my bedroom window.  I could never tell anyone what I felt for him. I'd just write in my diary over and over again, "I love ________. I love ________. I love ________." My best friend found my diary when she went digging through my closet looking for an old CD that I had buried. I walked in on her staring at a page where I had played MASH and all four choices for my husband were his name. I immediately grabbed the journal from her, and as much as she pleaded that she knew nothing, I couldn't believe her. She must have not been the best of friends because somehow another girl in our circle had found out. It wouldn't have killed me that two of my friends knew who I had a crush on, what stabbed my back was when he found out. He said, "Ew, she's weird." We were only kids and he was right, I was weird, but I could never look at him after that. He moved away the next school year and I never saw him again.
     I met the second boy in my 6th period class. He sat next to me because our last names were right next to each other. I don't really remember much about him. I can't remember our jokes, his voice, I can barely even make out his face in my mind. But I loved him. That's all I remember. As with the last, I kept my secret from him. But instead of telling none of my friends, I told all of them. My mistake. At the end of the year, I thought it was a good time to come clean about my feelings for him. I told my friend to tell him that I liked him and he responded with, "Yeah, I know. One of her friends told me awhile ago." I never found out what friend told. But it didn't matter because he was interested in another friend. He works at Party City now. He helped my mom find something and I walked up to them not realizing that it was him until I read his name tag. He didn't even recognize me.
     I loved the third boy because he put a smile on my face even when it didn't deserve to be there. He'd never leave me without telling me he loved me, but I just smiled and nodded because I didn't know what I was feeling yet. "Why don't you ever tell me that you love me back?" he demanded. I stayed silent on the phone. "Just tell me you love me!!" I could feel the tears filling my eyes. I knew that I loved him, but something was stopping me from saying it out loud.  I love you, I whispered as we hung up the phone. If you've read my other blog posts, you know how this one ends. We're still friends, but the tension is very apparent.
     I don't even love Number 4, romantically at least. I could never be in love with someone who loses motivation at the sight of a deadline. Someone who doesn't even meet you half way, where you're forced to give them your 110% so they don't slip through the cracks. Someone who promises to do something and then let's you down every time. You give him more chances because you think, "I'm sure he'll do it this time," knowing that this'll all fall into the same routine. But you care for him. And you love him because he makes you feel needed, like you're worth something. And although I am not in love with him, he's still has a spot in my heart. It just saddens me that he isn't able to see the great talent and potential he has to succeed and go further in his life. I only hope for the best for him.
     It only took about half an hour in one night to write everything up to this point. Now, I've spent hours of days of weeks trying to put my love for 5 into words. I'd type something up and abruptly stop mid-sentence because I knew it wasn't right. I'd delete an hour's work and tell myself, "I'm sure I'll finish this tomorrow." The next day, I'd end up sitting and staring at the computer screen watching the cursor blink hoping that this paragraph would write itself before realizing it was almost 3 am and inevitably falling asleep leaving this post unfinished once again. It's day 17 since I started writing this post and I'm getting tired of logging on every night trying to finish something that cannot be finished. 5 doesn't exist. Not yet. This is why I cannot write about him.

"What's in New York?" they ask.

I surprised myself when I only applied to one college. A college 2,000 miles away from anyone I knew. I saw "New York," and couldn't have hit that APPLY button any faster.
Why? I don't know. All I know is that I lay in my bed for hours at night and wonder, "What the hell am I gonna do in New York?"
I have no idea what I'm doing. And as much as I love to nag friends to "exercise daily" or "plan accordingly," I must confess that I do not practice what I preach. Nothing I plan works out in my favor. Nothing. I have literally been riding the waves for as long as I could remember.
When I was in 5th grade, I wanted to be a pharmacist. Why? I don't fucking know.
When I was in the 6th grade, I wanted to be an interior designer. I was redecorating my room at the time and thought I knew enough from magazines and TV shows to create a beautiful room. I was wrong.
When I was in the 7th grade, I wanted to become a crime scene investigator. I started watching CSI: Miami and CSI: New York and thought that solving mystery murders was my calling because I was so good at the game Clue as a child (I'm not anymore, if you were wondering). It only took motherfucking 5 years to figure out that syringes and DNA testing was not the shit I thought it was.
When I was a freshman in high school, I wanted to become an Oscar award winning actress. WHAT THE FUCK????????? And yes, that dream is still very much alive. How am I gonna get there? You guessed it; I don't fucking know. This is one of those things that I tell myself I'm going to do at some point and hope I pull through.
What do I wanna do now, you ask? I wanna become an aerospace engineer. And don't be stupid, I don't wanna go into space, I just wanna make the spacecraft that takes people into space. But I know what you're thinking for the 26,485th time: what the fuck. I like space, okay? Because you know what's so fucking amazing about space? It's a mystery to everyone. It's literally (not literally) a big, fat question mark. That's me. I'm a big, fat, walking, talking, breathing, fangirling question mark. And I can't believe I let myself cry about this for so many nights. It's only taken my whole life to realize that we're all huge ass question marks. People will try to deceive you and make you think that they are a period or even an exclamation point, but I'm going to tell you right now that they are probably the biggest fucking question mark you've ever seen. Everyone is riding the waves. It all just depends on whether you're riding on a boogie board or a ship. It's gonna be smoother for some than others. But you just gotta remember that we're all gonna make it to shore at some point.
So, I guess you could say I'm "yoloing" this whole moving to NYC thing. And that's okay. It's just another tidal wave closer to my final destination.

Did you know when you're in space the skin on your feet starts to flake off because you longer have use to them, so your skin starts to soften and peel off? Is that not the nastiest thing you've ever heard? It's so fucking cool!

i don't know how to give her the help she needs

We sat on her king size bed in the blue room at the back of the house. Or at least, thats how I remembered it. It's been over 10 years now and all the memories have blurred together. I used to lie on that bed in all my vulnerable times. I can only remember the little things from that room. When I was about 5 years old, she woke me up in the middle of the night to open my presents Christmas morning. My face lit up to all the gifts that Santa had given me. I unwrapped my first gift and it was a Rugrats movie that I remember watching over and over again after that night. I opened the next and it was a Teddy Graham's Play-Doh set that I would end up eating because I didn't know any better. And then she told me to go back to sleep before opening my biggest present. I ran to her room to prepare for sleep. I bumped into the closet door and it flew open. Wrapping paper fell out. I must have been smarter for my age (or not?) because I remember immediately realizing that the wrapping paper that had fallen out of her closet was the same wrapping paper that Santa had just used. She walked in on me sobbing and holding the wrapping paper. I knew she knew that I knew. I looked up at her and screamed, "WHY DO YOU HAVE THE SAME WRAPPING PAPER AS SANTA?!" Of course, in this moment of any parents' life, you have to make a decision whether to tell your child the truth or lie to them. She would never lie to me. But sometimes I wish she did because I sat in her bed crying all of Christmas morning not giving a care in the world about my present that I still had to open. But she held me the whole time, humming songs in my ear that I wish I remembered.

~

He and I are parasites. We take and take, but never give back. We got her a new sweater. Is that enough? We got her the lipstick she's been wanting. Is that enough? We got her a dozen red roses. Is that enough?
No, it's not. It'll never be enough.
But how do you repay the woman who has given you the world?
The stress consumes her. It eats her alive. I hate it when she's angry. She's not careful with things. She breaks a mug a friend gave me and yells at me for crying. "Don't you dare cry!" She doesn't mean it, she's just stressed.
Then she gets frustrated when I cry harder. She starts throwing things everywhere and breaking more things. "The house is a mess, the house is a mess! You guys should just make more of a mess everyday like this!" The house isn't a mess. She doesn't mean it, she's just stressed.
She goes upstairs and watches TV as he and I clean the house. She comes down to an almost spotless house and makes a mess again, throwing things everywhere. "Make more messes, make more messes. Do this everyday!" She doesnt mean it, shes just stressed.
And then she runs upstairs and paces back and forth in the hallway. "I might as well die. Someone kill me. Someone kill me now!" She doesn't mean it, she's just stressed.
But now she sits on my queen sized bed in my lilac room at the front of the house, sobbing as I hold her tight and hum songs in her ear that she'll never remember. But I cannot help her.
I owe her the world.
But I can give her nothing.