It might be time for another haircut.

My hair has grown out quite a bit this past year. It's been through a lot. It grew its first centimeter at our first national competition where we won, not third, not second, but thirteenth place. It was an inch longer when I first found out Zayn had left One Direction and thought I would never get over the heartbreak. It grew an inch and a half for my first and only prom where I cried hours before the dance because I hated my dress and I was going alone. It had reached 2 inches when I graduated high school where I waved goodbye to my teachers one last time and realized that I wouldn't be able to relate to movies about high school anymore. It had grown a good 4 inches when I went to my last One Direction concert ever where I sobbed knowing this would be the last time I'd see them perform WMYB. It was finally touching my chest when I went to Stoddard Park where I met my biggest idol, Casey Neistat, and was able to tell him how much his videos meant to me. It was long enough for me to put it in a pony without pieces falling out for my 18th birthday where it finally sank in that I'd be moving to New York in 3 weeks. I was able to properly flip my hair when I met Fall Out Boy and Pete Wentz squeezed my waist when D aggressively told them we LOVED their music. No. 3 was able to brush through it like he used to when he gave me a hug at the last party of the summer where I blacked out for the first time and woke up the next morning faced down next to my bed. It didn't look stupid in a bun when I got on the plane that'd move me 2000 miles away from home. I accidentally dunked my hair in a Solo cup full of beer at my first frat party where I learned that you should never touch the jungle juice. It got drenched in fake blood when I decided to be a vampire for Halloween and learned that just being buzzed at a frat party isn't gonna cut it; turn up harder, even if it means filling a water bottle with vodka to drink in the Uber. I curled it for the first time in months when I watched the loml walk out of our last anthropology class without saying a word or ever noticing me. I put it up in a chignon when I was interviewed to become a student ambassador where I was rejected hours later. It constantly got caught in my hot pink Mickey ears when DAM MAD reunited in the new year at Disneyland. I wanted to pull my hair out when I saw my semester grades and had seen that I was .08 under the GPA requirement to keep my scholarship. It was in a top knot after having not washed it for several days when I realized that when your best friends get boyfriends, you'll only ever be second best in their eyes. I realized for the first time that your hair can freeze given that it's cold enough outside during my first blizzard in years. My hair had grown a prime 7 inches when we got our first snow day of the semester and I realized I had the best suite mates ever while playing a game of spoons. Must've only grown a millimeter when I wanted to take back that last statement because my roommate is the most disgusting person I have ever met. My hair stuck to my sticky and sweaty skin while my friends and I danced the night away at the trashiest bar in town. It had reached 9 inches when the loml posted in our class's Facebook page that he was selling books that I so happen to need for next semester. I was sure to soak my hair in perfume when I met up with him to buy the books where we had the most basic conversation ever and the last thing spoken was "see ya around." Spoiler: I never saw him around after that. My hair stuck to my cheeks when I cried myself to sleep one night when I realized I gained 17 pounds since I started college. I straightened my hair for no reason when I interviewed to become a student ambassador AGAIN, and was rejected AGAIN. My hair was in a pony for most of the week that I was moving out and was crying in between folding clothes at the thought of being without my suite mates for 4 months. My hair was caught in my glasses when I hugged each suite mate goodbye for the summer. It was a filthy grease ball when I got my final grades and jumped for joy because I had made a .8 improvement with my GPA and wasn't on probation for my scholarship anymore. I had finally washed it before getting on the plane to my first trip to Rome. It was 10 inches grown when it blew in the wind while we were throwing coins into the Trevi Fountain where I realized that I never wanted to come home, despite missing my parents like crazy. It was a kinky mess when I finally got home to hug my dogs after not seeing them for 4 months. I had gotten some hair in my mouth when I took my first sip of Brew Tea in a long time and looked back on my past year. I measured my hair today. It's grown 10 and a half inches since I cut it last February. But recounting on everything that's happened since then, it seems that my hair isn't the only thing that's grown.

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.

your love was toxic, and so was my hair.

He brushed my hair hard and rough, pulling at my scalp as if he was trying to rip away what was left of me. I was young and vulnerable. I wanted to live the love story I saw on TV for so many years. All I wanted was to be loved.


One time, I playfully took his phone and he yelled, "Come back here, you piece of shit!" I frowned and returned the phone. He held me tight and combed through my hair and apologized for being so rude.


He used to text me at night and tell me about the parties he went to. "I met a girl and I think she likes me." I said, "That's great, hun. Seal the deal!" Seal the deal–I didn't want him to know I was talking about myself.


"Don't forget to bring gloves. If you fall, the ice is cold." He didn't bring gloves. I brought extras because I knew he wouldn't. I sat down and took off my gloves to tighten my skates. He made me laugh so hard that I forgot everything and hit the floor. I looked down to see that I wasn't wearing gloves. My hands laid on the frigid, melting ice. I looked up at him and saw the spare gloves I had brought for him dangling by his sides. He didn't offer to help. I got up by myself.


He told me about the girl he liked and his face lit up. He said she was beautiful and her laugh made his day. I saw a gleam in his eyes as he talked about her and wished he would do that for me.


He compared me to other girls. If I wore a color he didn't like, he'd tell me to never wear the color again. He ran his fingers through my hair and threatened to never talk to me again if I ever cut it. He lowered my self-esteem and I let him, so I could please him, so he would love me.


He used to force me to tell him I loved him, even when I convinced myself that didn't. Every night, we'd get into an argument about why I refused to say it. I let him win, and told him I loved him before hanging up and crying myself to sleep.


He forgot to call sometimes, and I stared at the phone all night until I fell asleep. When he'd call, he'd say, "I have to go, I need to talk to her." Her–she became more important than I. He'd stop anything he was doing for her. He'd stop me mid-sentence to answer her call and tell me to "hold on" and I'd wait half an hour before hanging up. I waited hours, until he finally remembered to call me back and apologize for keeping me on hold for so long. "It's alri...""Hold on, she's calling again." I wanted to stop talking to him because I saw what he was doing to me and I didn't want to hurt anymore.


"I don't want to be friends anymore. You drag me down."
 

"What are you talking about? Everyone loves me. It's an honor to be my friend. You should be thankful that I call you at all."


"You're right, I'm sorry."


"It's okay, I love you."


Each time, I believed him. I love you. I would try to tear down the walls so I could leave, but every time he said those three words, the walls would rebuild themselves.


I remember the first time I said "I love you" and really meant it. A week later, he broke my heart. "Abby, I think we should just be friends. Is that okay?" mhmm. I cried into the same pillow that was all too familiar with my tears. He didn't hear me cry; he just asked me for the answers to the test I had taken in English.


I came to school with red, puffy eyes. I claimed that I was sick. People believed me. My best friend at the time didn't. She said, "Why do you still hang around him?"


Because I love him. "Because I don't want to ruin our friendship."


"Oh, sweetheart, can't you see? Your friendship is long gone."


I got home and jumped in the shower to cry. I didn't want my parents to know that the boy who brought me my favorite roses would use the thorns to stab at my heart. I couldn't figure out if I was crying because my friend was right or because I didn't know how to walk away.


I got home from practice one day and checked Instagram. I saw a picture of him with a new girl. I ran upstairs to the bathroom and almost cut all my hair. The one thing he loved about me, the thing he'd use to comfort me with, I wanted to get rid of it. I dropped the scissors and watched myself cry. I went to my room, locked the door. I stared at myself for hours as sad love songs played on repeat. I stroked my hair trying to recreate the feeling I got when his fingers massaged my scalp. I looked over to the gloves he wore at the ice rink. Why didn't he help me up? I had fallen and he just watched as I got up on my own.


I watched his smile grow wider and brighter with every day, as my tears came down faster and harder. I saw him become a better, happier person without me and I knew I had to let him go. He wasn't going to help me up. All he did was push me down. And just like that night at the ice rink, I wanted him to watch me rise again and I couldn't do that while I waited for him on the cold, hard floor. I reached high above my head, looking for anything to grab. I waved my arms around until I felt something smooth and cold.


I grabbed the scissors and I cut my hair.


I recently cut my hair and it reminded me of the last time I was at the salon.. two years ago–yikes. I remember coming home after that hair cut and writing this and I thought it was finally a good time to post it publicly. 

Although I don't feel anything towards this boy anymore, I thought I would share this because I remember how hurt I was. When I first read it, I was almost disgusted, but I'd like to applaud my 15 year old self for writing it all down. A lot of this is very exaggerated because I used to be (still am) such an over dramatic person, and at the time, all the feelings were amplified. 

Okay, ew, I'm explaining myself too much. Who cares when I wrote it or why I wrote? I already know it sucks. It's been posted. YOLO