I Guess What I'm Trying To Say Is, I Can't Write A Short Blog

Reality. You can see it coming from a mile away, but it still shocks the crap out of you when it arrives.
It's like having a weird relative. They come in unexpectedly, without anouncement. You're standing there, getting bread and mayo out of the fridge, about to make up a sandwich, when all of a sudden you close the door and there they are. Staring at you with those big, beady eyes.
So you and your relative stand there awkwardly for five minutes, until you finally (FINALLY) think of something to say. "Hi, I didn't hear you come in." Another awkward pause, because they probably don't know how to respond to that. "So... You want a sandwich??" Then they nod and you make them some food.
And there's really nothing you can do about it. I mean, you can't tell them to leave. They're family. And they didn't actually do anything wrong. They're just THERE, and you know you won't be able to get rid of them for hours. You two will sit on your couch and have small talk for the rest of the day. And God help you if you try to do anything else.
Well, that's what happened to me in the last few days. Reality came to me like a huge, freezing gust of wind, just as I was falling asleep, and now I can't stop thinking about it. But I guess I'm okay with everything, because even though this wake-up call is sudden, it's all fairly good things.
Reality Check # 1. I am not as awesome as I pretend to be, but I'm also not as much of a loser as I seem to think I am.
I was writing up a profile for myself on a website the other day and I realized that what I put down wasn't necessarily true. I mean, it was, but it felt like I was leaving parts out. Like I was only talking about half of me.
I wrote that I love reading, and I do it all the time, and that Webster's Dictionary is practically glued to my hand. I wrote that I like to take really long walks by myself and daydream. I like learning things. I like talking personally to my teachers.
I wrote that I am a complete nerd.
Which, granted, is sort of true since I do actually enjoy all of these things. But, I don't know, that's not really me. The image I just painted is a picture of a sweet, little bookworm girl, who dreams of settling down one day with a husband and has only two friends in the whole wide world.
I am not that girl. I am nowhere near that girl. That girl and I would probably not be very good friends.
But then how do I describe myself? Awesome? I am a fantastic writer (I think so, anyway) and I don't feel the need to have anyone's approval, except God's. I have overcome depression and fears that threatened to suck me down into a pit blacker than sin, and I still cling to the sun. I have a ton of friends who are all totally epic and entertaining, and I love hanging out with them.
But that's not an accurate description, either.
It's not that I don't know who I am. I am fully aware of exactly who I am underneath it all, but finding some way of communicating that person, in a lighter form, is proving rather difficult. I don't know which side I am, or which figure everyone sees.
I can hear M&Ms being pored into a bowl from all the way on the other side of the house, upstairs. I talk to myself when I write--like, I seriously say the words out loud as I'm typing them down. When I'm home alone, I like to sing songs to myself at the top of my lungs. I eat a lot of raman noodles (too much to be healthy).
And deep down--so very, very deep--past the skin and the heartbeats and the lies, I feel so dangerously guilty about everything.
Reality Check #2. I am not as unpopular as I think I am.
When I was fifteen, I had exactly one friend. It wasn't that I was a horrible person or anti-social or anything. On the contrary, I was a sweetheart, always smiling and thanking people. Everybody liked me (well, mostly everybody). I just never went out of my way to make friends.
I didn't think it would be a good idea to have a bunch of people around me, because I was planning on leaving for Chicago when I went to college. And I was definitely going to Chicago for college. I thought it would be terribly painful to make a bunch of friends, get close to a bunch of people, only to leave them.
And then I turned sixteen. That school semester, I joined two writing classes; one an actual class, the other a teacherless group. The one class was really fun and I liked it a lot. I laughed and talked to the people there (even had a crush on one of them for about a month), but I knew once it ended, it would end. Maybe I'd meet them again someday, and I did eventually, but only with casual conversation. I wouldn't know anything about their life.
The second group of people, my writing group, are the ones who changed my life. I've actually already written a blog about them, so you can read my gushings there, if you want, but this isn't necessarily about them, specifically.
I want you to fully understand where I'm coming from when I say "They changed my life." Ever since I was twelve years old, I knew I would become a writer. It wasn't that I had any talent, because I had none. I was almost dyslexic. I hated spelling. I loved reading books, but I could not put a sentence together. I couldn't even spell "decide" correctly.
But one day, I looked up a list of professions online and tried out every one of them, doing test-runs and researching them. But I always found something flawed in the idea of me living my life in any of those jobs. "Writer" was about to the end of the list, just before "yodeler" and "zoologist". Not exactly a brilliant, eye-opening moment--nothing as dramatic as suddenly waking from a dream, writing it all down and having that become a World's Best Seller.
But I decided to stick with it anyway. I'd eliminated all the other possibilities. Besides, I reasoned, if I could do enough research and planning, I'm sure I could get the hang of it in no time! Writing words! Doesn't seem so hard!
Boy, was I in for a shock. Let's just say I spent an uncountable number of hours looking up what makes writers great, and how to put a sentence together, and how to make a world, and how to create a story. I've been reading books and blogs and websites about this stuff for years.
So at sixteen, I figured I knew at least the basics about how to be a writer. But the thing is, I didn't. I didn't have enough connections with people. I didn't have enough personality. I realized that I hadn't grown a single day past my first attempt to put words on paper.
I was a square.
I was a box and everybody else was a circle. They all knew how to draw a picture in someone else's head and how to speak with words I'd never heard before. They could think sideways.
And I wanted to be like them.
So I made friends. I made all of them my friends. I purposefully went out of my way, worked as hard as I could, rode my bike five miles in the rain, to meet with them. To share with them. I promised myself that as long as they still wanted me around, I would always be around. Writing is the most important thing in the world to me, and if I want to be any good at it, I need to be ready for anything they've got planned.
Which is why I never have any plans for myself (except maybe the long-term stuff).
And you know something?? They like me. They really like me. They're not pitying me as much as I sometimes believe they are. They're not talking bad about me behind my back (at least, I hope not). They want to hang out with me and get to know me.
And that's a really, really good feeling, to know that the people you love, love you back.
Reality Check #3. I am not going to college in Chicago.
For years (years and years and years), I had planned to go to Chicago for college. That was my dream. Period. It was perfect, because I hate driving and there is a lot of public transportation in Chicago. I plan on living there when I get out of college, for at least a good number of years, so if I went to school there then I'd already have good connections and roots there.
And I love Chicago. I am in love with Chicgo. Everytime I even think of Chicago, I get all breezy and happy and my heart starts fluttering like a moron. I feel so stupid when I'm there, but it's the only place I'd want to be. The buildings that kiss the sky, the streets that are everywhere, the noise of the constant traffic. No man could ever compare.
It just feels so beautiful, and no one else in the world agrees with me. You're all looking at your computer screen, thinking, "Is she insane??" But, you know, nothing is perfect until you fall in love with it.
I went up there to look at a college that I really liked. I pored over the names and profiles of good schoold that are in the middle of the city. Even though my best friend, who was supposed to go with me to college, decided to wait and not go for a few years yet, I still wanted it so badly.
But then I took my SATs.
It's not that I'm stupid or was sick that day or am just really bad at taking tests. I actually did get a good result from the SATs, better than I expected and better than I'd ever gotten on a standardized test before. Just not good enough for any of the colleges I wanted to go to, in Chicago.
I remember reading my scores online, wondering what it all meant, when Mom leaned over my shoulder and explained it. "You got pretty good scores," she told me. "But, honey, I don't think you can get into that college with those."
I sat there, staring at the computer, for about ten minutes straight after she left. All the deadlines for applications in my schools were about a week away. Too late to take it again. And even if I did, I knew I would not get any better on my score.
So I turned off the computer, went upstairs into our bathroom, and cried my heart out on the floor. I guess I was setting my hopes too high, and when you reach for the sky and miss, it's an awfully long way to fall.
But, of course, like every night that is followed by the dawn, something amazing happened. Something I'm pretty sure God had a hand in. The next morning, I deleted my accounts and connections with those other colleges and started looking into someplace local. And guess what? I didn't feel bad about it at all. I didn't miss those colleges. I didn't suddenly burst into tears when I thought about them or burn my stomach up with self-loathing about why I didn't get a better score.
I was fine with it. I was over it. And now I was moving on.
It was the most surprising thing I'd ever experienced. I LOVED those schools! All my hopes and dreams hung on the idea of attending them. They were perfect! But after that first night of shock and depression, it was like I didn't WANT them anymore.
I just got accepted into a college here in town. And I was really, really happy about it, too. I will always miss Chicago, and I'm still planning on living there someday, just not for college.
Reality Check #4. Everything is really hard right now, but in five years, it'll just be a memory.
And memories can't hurt you unless you let them. Time heals all wounds, or so they tell me. I'm hoping against hope that it'll dull things a little, at least. Not necessarily school-wise, but home-wise. I seem to always have some sort of problem with my siblings or with my sleeping patterns or with my loniness vs. unsociable behavior.
I am just a teenager and right now everything feels like it's the end of the world. But, see, I know that, and yet, I can't seem to stop myself from hating every second of it. Because every second feels like forever. I get so lost in the monotony of it all and forget how very busy I really am.
But one day, it won't be like this. I simply have to keep reminding myself that nothing lasts forever. Sometimes, that's a comfort and other times it's terrifying. After school and scholerships and boyfriends, my life will finally begin.
One day, I'll have a tiny, little apartment in the middle of Chicago. I'll have a mattress on the floor as my bedroom and three cabinets on the far side that I'll call my kitchen. No food in the fridge, no clean clothes, no time to work on appearances. All I'll have is a computer to write entire worlds in and a wall completely covered in snippets of paper--stories and quotes and pictures of random chaos.
It might sound horrid to you, might sound like a prison to you, but to me, it sounds like home. There's nothing else I want more than that apartment. My own space, however small. My castle. My temple. My dream life.
Reality is not always such a bitch. Sometimes, that quirky cousin isn't such a bad person after all, and maybe it is possible to carry on a conversation with small talk.