years go by

All I ever wanted was for you to care. The closest thing I got was insincere.

This has to change.

I don't know what happened to my memory. I went to so many amazing shows, I had so many great times, had so many good nights with important people..and I am so disconnected from all of them. I don't remember so many nights, I don't remember most of what happened this past year. And to be honest, if I hadn't subcomed to being miserable it probably would of been the best year of my life. It would of been the best year of my entire life. I had everything I wanted, I just needed a better personality.

This has to change. I am never going to feel regret again.

...

I wish I had left when I was ready. Because now I'm not so ready.

Always

I miss everything. I miss things I didn't even ever think I'd miss. I miss things I don't feel like I should have to miss, they got away too fast. I'm so happy with how things are right now, but it doesn't mean they'll ever compare to some of the past. I miss such random situations. I miss last year's beach trips and screaming at the top of our lungs on the dragon ride and singing vanessa carlton on late nights drives home and dinner after the sunset on the beach with a community cup. I miss when Algernon was our little secret and their shows were nothing but all of us traveling to ridiculous places to see them and sing our hearts out and smile at each other and have big group hugs afterwards. I miss driving up to Newark after school my senior year just to sit at the diner with Melissa and Tyler and how n one meant as much to me as them. I miss Melissa Stafford when she was my best friend in the entire world, when people would see one of us and automatically wonder where the other was. I miss baking cakes and decorating Harvey's car for "christ day". I miss random acts of kindness and leaving cute post it notes on stranger's cars. I miss spending every weekend in winter '07 at the grange and hearing my name in every direction. I miss when my gas light was always on, but it "doesn't mean anything". I miss driving all the way to Pittsburgh to see Jesse Lacey play. I miss sitting in McDonalds parking lots until 1 am just talking about anything. I miss driving up onto Tyler's lawn in the ice to get his drums for yet another show. I miss leaving shows to go eat cheese fries at the diner. I miss afterschool homework sessions that turn into days spent drinking hot chocolate playing cards. I miss the winter shows in Jersey, always being the only girl, driving my boys to all their shows and freezing my feet off but never feeling more content. I miss ubf. I miss driving all the way to connecticut with Garrett and surf and tappanzee bridge and getting stuck in a foot of snow in my mom's trailblazer and how awesome we were for getting it out. I miss making a bed on Dara's floor and watching horribly made horror movies all night while eating pretzels and cream cheese and never stopping laughing. I miss Alex Souders and how he'd hold my hand when we were at Africa and I was scared. I miss new york trips where we get followed by bums and fall over on the subway and "events of epic proportions". I miss devil's road trips every weekend last fall. I miss when Fair Hill was such a huge part of our life, our other little secret. I miss driving around PA trying to get lost, listening to the early november. I miss when Tyler would call me and wake me up every single morning yelling about random things or leaving ridiculous voicemails. I miss when every fucking got along, and driving around in circles with Andrew B, Nick, and Melissa singing Soco. I miss
i miss
i miss
i miss

003.

Thursday was my birthday dinner. I was feeling a little bummed out about it because some people couldn't come, I was comparing it to last year, etc. But that night ended up being perfectly fine. Actually pretty damn wonderful. Some how, out of the blue, I've felt more comfortable in my own skin and that's lead to me feeling more talkative, outgoing, I really don't know..I just feel a whole lot more comfortable around certain people and it's created a lot more enjoyment in just little situations. Anyways, I waited for Stace to get off work, then went up to meet everyone that WAS coming at the Eagle Diner around 6:30. It was us, Andrew, Drew, Zoe, Tyler, Nick and Kapa. I got some ridiculous presents (Some weird vinyl from Andrew, A dark magic card from Drew, some receipts from Nick, and a dollar from Zoe) and a drawing from Tyler of course. I told him by the time we're not friends anymore my wall will be completely full of them. We ate, talked, Tyler ate some cheese fries with sugar on them, and we left a few hours later. We took some trunk pictures because I love them and then headed towards Main St. I've realized lately my life mostly consists of loitering in various locations no matter where I'm at/who I'm with, but I'm not complaining. We basically hung out around Main the rest of the night. We attempted to play hide and seek but got bored pretty quick, Nick and me thought we saw a ghost. Like legitimately. Then we sat outside Peace a Pizza all night, taking pictures, I made Tyler teach me how to skate board, and I had a lotlotlot of fun. Oh and Andrew almost got beat up by some guy who was obsessed with Youtube. After everyone left, I took Andrew home and me and Stacy just drove around, got a burrito, got a cute voicemail from Kelsey, Lizzy, and Ashley, had a techno dance party, and I turned 19 after midnight and got a zillion texts. My friends R00L.

We didn't go home til after 2 am, and since I can never go right to sleep I stayed up til almost 6 when I had to wake up for nyc at ten. Never ever ever go to the city after 4 hours of sleep. Stace and me took forever to get ready, so we drove up to Hamilton NJ around 12, took the train from there to the city, and got to the city a little before 3. We didn't really have plans other than the mewithoutYou show, so we attempted to find pizza and have a picnic. We ended up walking for like an hour and a half and the planned turned into getting food at the Lyric Diner. I have no idea where I've heard about that place, but I have and it was pretty good. After that we just continued walking. We realized we had no directions to the venue and ended up just finding it based on my obvious AMAZING sense of direction. It was so strange. We found a "private community" that was one of the weirdest things I've ever see, met the cutest old man ever, I got hit on by some really really creepy dude, and we went into a few thrift shops. So. Much. Walking. We went to the show around 7 and sat in line. When we finally got in the venue I was pleasantly surprised that it was a lot smaller than I thought it would be and there was no barrier :D There was one girl between us and the stage and she ended up leaving so we were right in the front. It couldn't have gotten any better. The show was absolutely amazing, that band can not let me down. It was a lot of fun, I wouldn't have rather done anything else than dance to my favorite band on my birthday. I got a really cute shirt too. The show ended around 12:40 and we had to catch the last train back to Jersey at 1:40. We wondered around and eventually found the right subway to take us back to Penn Station and we ended up finding everything/getting there at the perfect time. We got back to the car around 3:15 and headed home. There was some really good songs on the regular radio, and then I came more close than I ever have to falling asleep while driving. We got home are 5:30 while the sun was rising.

Again, I got like no sleep because I didn't fall asleep til like 6 and then we had plans with Brittany the next day at 10. Luckily I had enough time to get ready and Brittany got here, we got Stacy, and headed up to Philly for the first day of punk rock flea market. I don't think I've ever been as tired as I was this day/night. After walking around nyc all day, we walked more than i ever have in philly. The flea market was pretty lame, so we met up with Brandon and Stevie and decided to walk into the city and get iced coffee. After that we went to Rittenhouse and just layed around talking and hanging out for awhile. This is another time when my loitering was very apparent. Around 5 we all realized we were really hungy so we decided to get some "za"' aka pizza. My car was still up by the starlight ballroom so us girls walked back to it to get it. We drove to Brandon's in south Phila to park it there, and then we all talked up to south st for dinner. We sat in the "secret pizza spot" and hung real hard. Some how talk of the movie Hotel For Dogs came up, so our night kind of revolved around renting it. We went back to get Stevie's car and then drove to get the movie. We went home and watched it. I don't really remember it or anything around this time because I was so unbelievably tired I got super moody and just wanted to go to bed. Of course that didn't happen. Ed came over and eventually we decided to whip out the Ouija board. It started pouring and was honestly like a monsoon outside, there was more lightning that I've ever seen. It made it so much more creepier. Ed had me crying in laughter the rest of the night, "Dude if I get possessed, fuck you." The Ouija board was intense, I'll never know if anyone was moving it or not. It spelled out Brandon's initials. Then the boys told us stories about past Ouija board expieriences that were terrifying. Ed got drunk, hit on Stacy, and yelled at Brandon about killing cockroaches. "dude, cockroaches are people too." We sat around and talked and went to bed around 4 am, just to wake up at 9 for the second day of the flea market.

We went around 11, said by to the boys, it was pretty much a bummer again, and then we went to Ihop...which was delicious. Brittany and me discovered our mutual love of baked beans, and we left Phila around 2. We had plans to go to Baltimore to see Toby Foster but we were all so tired it kind of fell apart. Brittany came over for awhile, and we took really needed showers, talked, and laughed about Henry Rollins in a potato sack. I think that was the first time I realized we've actually gotten really close. I'm glad that girl's become such a big part of my life. She left around 8 and then I went over to Zoe's. We weren't there long but after being with the same people all weekend, seeing everyone else felt so good. It also reassured me again that I'm more comfortable around everyone than ever. I love my friends so, so much. I get the feeling it's going to be hard leaving once again. After everyone left there, I took Andrew home, and went over to Tyler's. Kapa was there for awhile, and I hung out just talking til after 1 in the morning. Driving home there was a strange person walking over Summit bridge in the pitch black. Scarriest shit ever.

I finally got to sleep for once, slept into one, went to do some medical insurance shit with my mom, and got invited over to Kapa's for a "pool party". Hung out over there with Andrew, Tyler, Drew, Amy, Zoe, and Maddie all night. I had a lot of fun. I guess there's not much to say, but people swam for awhile and then we just hung out in the basement all night. These kids are kind of my favorites.

I'm feeling pretty happy, more good times are on the way. Thank god. I've been doing things every day, and its not stopping. I couldn't be more glad about that. Bring more on.

002.

Saturday was 4th of July, and I'm pretty sure it's the best fourth of July I've ever had. Or at least the most fun out of any I remember. Brittany and me were supposed to go see Trash Talk/Leftover Crack in Philly but when we get to get our tickets they were all out. Brandon went back to get them the next day and they still didn't have any, which ended up being really good because Trash Talk dropped and I wasn't trying to pay $15 just for LC. I ended up going over to Garrett's for a bbq. I went and bought some soda and stuff and went over around 5, hung out with him, Bill, Amy, Drew, Zoe, Yost, and Carucci til Brittany finally got there around 6:30. Kyle, Andrew, Tyler, Sam, some girl named Jess, and Kapa all showed up at some point too. Yost set off fireworks way too close to us and I'm surprised Garrett's backyard didn't go up in flames. Weird chocolate colored stuff came out of the chair I was pushing Andrew out of and I don't remember the last time I laughed that hard. I was soo happy to see Tyler again, I didn't realize how much I missed him. Having him spot me across the hard and come up to hug me saying "MY BABY" washed away all my fears of him having changed like Andrew had me completely convinced of. After the boys spent awhile moshing around huge fireworks to Metallica everyone decided to head towards main st to watch fireworks. Tyler mentioned something about climbing on a roof to watch them so while everyone else drove to watch them, me, him, and Brittany went to Main St and climbed on the roof of Piece of Pizza and watched the fireworks together. I honestly wouldn't have wanted to spent that time anywhere else with anyone else. Getting onto the roof was one of the most ridiculous things I have ever experienced, as well as getting down. "I GOT SOMETHING WET ON ME." We were so dirty afterwards but that resulted in hilarious jokes about soap made to remove roof. "Excuse me, do you have any soap that removes roof?" Brittany and me went into Dunkin Donuts to wash our knees, then everyone met up again and sat around outside for awhile. It was the best night I've had in a while.

Sunday I worked 1-11. It was a fucking long day after not working for a month, but thats $120 for one day and it was a authentic Jewish wedding so it was kind of interesting. They had strange food, had to have sex in one of the rooms there, and did the horrah and threw people around in chairs. My legs have never been so soar from standing before though. Also, I asked my manager how to go about fixing my paychecks and she said she'd just put me down for 8 hours, which is more than I was short hahah.

Monday was Hop Along, Queen Ansleis in Baltimore. Waited all day for Stacy to get back from NY, picked her up, went and met up with Brittany, realized we forgot directions so I called Andrew to get me some. Turns out he was directly across from us at a different light with Tom so we all pulled into Wawa and got directions off of Tom's Iphone. The fact that they were right there and we ran into TOM was hilarious in itself. Stacy turned on Coke Bust in celebration. Hahah, that's all a ridiculous inside joke..but it was so perfect. We went to Dunkin Donuts for iced coffee, which we HAVE to stop doing on an empty stomach and then headed towards B-more. Not before Brittany got a call telling us there's been tons of random stabbings and shootings for gang initiations all week by the harbor, that was awesome. We took our lives into our own hands and went anyways. Stacy starting freaking out and I remember laughing for a good ten minutes straight right after we got on 95, but I have no idea at what. We got to Baltimore pretty quickly saw "Potty Hill" and all had to pee really bad. Our directions didn't exist, so we peed at a random Mcdonalds (Hot Spot), and then I drove in circles where ever I felt like I should turn and eventually found the house the show was at. It was kind of awkward the way house shows are sometimes, but we watched the first band/people and it was hot as hell so we sat on a crib outside for awhile petting a cat and talking to a little black boy who I think's name was Bathwater. Although when we asked him his name he said "nothing" and when we asked his age he said "not", then he hissed at Brittany. Another little black girl walked by and told me shes "seen my face before". I saw Jalune and got really awkward, watched a little of PS Eliot, it was really good then Hop Along played, we got to the front, and she was real good too. She just only played one old song, which kind of sucked. Afterwards, we had no idea how to get home so again..I drove around in random ways I felt right about and eventually ended up where we needed to be. We stopped at a rest stop and got muffins and got home around 2 am.

Tuesday we were all supposed to go see Hop Along again in Philly but decided it wasn't really worth it since she didn't play many songs we knew. I made plans with Zoe for later that night but sat around all day and ended up going up to Newark around 8:30. Met up with Andrew, Garrett, Carucci, Buff, Tyler, and Kapa. Garrett left, Tyler disappeared, and then me and Andrew went for a walk. Ran into Zoe, Maddie, and Drew and then me, Andrew, and Drew went to Little Caesar's. Went back to Main St and ended up sitting around Switch for awhile. I just felt like star gazing. I was in a bitchy mood, but was content with where I was at. Eventually people left, Buff decided we know each other well enough to hug, and me, andrew, drew, amy, zoe, maddie, and kyle all went back to Zoe's to tyedye. We ended up not tyedying and just hung out. Andrew decided to tell us he had no dick, hit on Zoe, and talk about how perfect he is hahah. I was obsessed with the lil pup at da house, and we took macbook pictures. It was an alright night.

Today Stace and me went to the beach. It was spontaneous and a pretty good time. She picked me up around 1, we talked for awhile, and then sang Nana Grizol all the way to Dewey. I didn't have a beach towel and she grabbed two for some reason, so it was meant to be. Things like that explain our friendship. "Tes, have I ever seen your feet before? They don't seem familiar." Hahaha we stayed til around 6, went and got Pizza, sang Wingnut at the top of our lungs, found a badass dock, drove to Target in Dover, and then got home around 8. I love my best friend.

The next few days are going to be amazing, I can't wait. July is fully living up to it's expectations. Well, mostly.

Because it only hits me at times like this.

I've been searching for happiness for what feels like my whole life now. But I can tell you the last time I truly felt it, and that was March 2008. Of course I've been happy since then, just not for an extended period of time. Now it's specific nights, for the weekend, etc. But because I remember how I left back then, I have a standard. It's the "I love my life so much it feels like my heart is going to burst right out of my chest if I smile any harder" feeling. I've been searching for it again since I lost it, and I supposed I'll never truly stop until I have it again..even if I never have it again. What's catching me off guard is that I now find myself missing the past that I wasn't even happy during. Things are good now because I'm closer with the friends I have those memories with, things are good now because I'm seeing this whole new world unwrapping in front of me of whats to come. But I'm having the sudden thoughts that things are going to be different, well obviously, but what I had the past year was good. It wasn't everything I wanted, but it was good and now it's ending and I'm not sure if I wanted it to so quickly. I've lived here almost 3 years. The first year was a story of it's own, it shaped me into who I was to become. It changed who I was my entire life and It'll always be there as one of the best years of my life. But the last two, the last two are when my life really started. I think back to everything that's happened and I can't help but miss each and every memory. I've experienced so much, and even the times I wasn't happy I've begun to miss. In less than two months, things change, and although I never plan on losing this, change is inevitable. Maybe I'm just a little scared. I don't want to give up those nights sitting behind the merch table at the grange where everyone knows my name, I don't want to give up random phone calls from Tyler to come over, I don't want to give up sitting at Dunking Donuts all night with Andrew and Garrett, I don't want to give up driving all my boys to all our shows, I don't want to give up driving these streets I'm sick of every weekend. Things are constantly changing, and it's taking a toll on my heart. 2 years of my life has gone by so fast. The past year has gone by so fast. I don't want to let anything slip by anymore. I want to make sure I tell everyone I love them enough, I want to go to every show, and I never miss out on a night worth remembering. I don't want to waste one second. If I'm going to look back and miss everything, I want it to be worth remembering. I suppose, then again the times I'm missing now weren't even the highest points to me but missing them is hurting so, so bad. Each and every person that's come into my life the past 3 years has given me things to look back on. Now I'm thinking back to the recent past and I want nothing more than to go back and relive it. I don't want to lose any of these people. Not one.

001.

The last three days have been bueno. Tonights my first night not doing anything since I've been home, I hope it's one of the only nights like so.

Tuesday I went up to my work to try and get my money, since my last two paychecks have been short but of course no one that could help me was there. I work on sunday, so I'll flip out about it then. I was in a horrible mood during the afternoon, but went home and waited for Stacy to get off work. I went over to her house, we decided to do badass things so we went in search of waterguns/balloons, googley eye stickers, and iced coffee of course. That few hours out consisted of way too much iced coffee, I thought my heart was gonna explode. We ended up in Newark at Dunkin' Donuts where Garrett kept texting me from outside and I ignored him of course. Sike, just didn't see him :\. It started raining so our eyes kind of got put on hold although we got some good ones down Main St. I love my best friend, that night was so simple but I was laughing for almost all of it. "Nana Gr" cards, Writing letters to Kevin/Paul, "Never got the hang of that college thing...that's why I'm a construction worker" "PAUL. THERES PAUL. THAT'S PAUL B. PAAAUUULLL!" "Wave at people like this......I feel like Michael Jackson" "Is it too soon to joke about that?" We went home around midnight and watched Pink Couch Session videos and felt like shit from too much caffeine, and laid in bed til 3:30 in the morning talking. Although I was doing all the talking, freaking out about loving a boy who is just a friend.

ftWednesday we woke up around 11, well Stacy woke up and then I woke up to her talking to me about her feet. We got ready, went by my house, then to pick up Brittany and sang Taylor Swift. When we left Brittany's I was moving my hand weird out the window with out realizing it and this truck with two guys waved as they went by and then when they were in front of us, started coping what I was doing with my hand. They kept going the same was as us and doing whatever we did. It was fucking hilarious/scary. We got to Philly around 3, found good parking, got lunch/dinner at Cosi, and it was fucking hot outside but at least not raining like we thought. We met up with Brandon, Stevie, and Tara at Rittenhouse and hung out there for awhile. During that time Bradon decided to tell me how much he knows about me and then the random Ethiopian dude came around. This random black guy with a hard to understand accent came up to us and apparently had been talking to them earlier. The conversation was so ridiculous I didn't know whether to fall down laughing or be scared. Thank God Stevie was there, or else I'm sure it would of been awkard since we was really the only one that was keeping a conversation with the guy. I only got about every other word but there was a lot of "ALLAH ALLAH ALLAH", but then he said he was a Christian..so who knows hahah. We saw a blind dog run into a tree and our entire group said awww in unison. Stevie had to go home to clean his room so the rest of us walked down to AKA records so Brit and me could get our Trash Talk tickets, which I'm really glad they were out of since they dropped the show and the tickets were $15 and I wasn't trying to pay that much for just Leftover Crack. After that we lost Tara and gained Dave and went to Logan Fountain and sat around there with our feet in the water talking about our cover band we're gonna make. "Khaki's Cut Short" is all I'm going to say. "Alrighta" We are so funny :) we met up with Stevie again and then drove to West Philly to attempt to sneak into Algernon's show at some tavern. We sat outside for a few hours. Brandon and Dave played some game that I don't understand, Stevie talked about his friend's tattoo that I then saw on b9 later which was fucking weird, some black guy walked by and said to us, "HEY YA'LL..ALL YA'LL..SOME MOTHA FUCKAS NEED TO DIE." I'm glad we weren't those mother fuckers, sir. We got into the show, because again, we're badasses. It was fun. Afterwards I found out Stevie was ex-braindead vocalist Stevie and started mentally freaking out and then we peaced out. It was such a fun day, I'm so excited for my Philly life.

Yesterday Drew texted me telling me to come hang out on Main St. So I picked up Andrew and went up there. Sat around Brew Haha with Those two, Garrett, and Bill for awhile. Then Nick came and the rest of the night was spent sitting in various places on or around Main Street. Nights with just me and my boys are my favorites though, I'm always so content. I would do that every night if I got texts like that every night. Only eating the red skittles, "hey, has everyone ever told you that you look like the guy from twilight?", Obama works at Mayflower, Nick and Andrew always kissing. Since my sunroof doesn't feel like closing, we had to bust a mission and cover it somehow when it started raining. Nick and me tried to force it closed but it wasn't having it. So Garrett became my knight in shinning armor and bought trash bags and tape and covered the roof so at least me/my car wouldnt end up soaked if I kept raining. :) Hung out til around 11:30, then took Garrett and Andrew home. I lovelovelovelovelovelovloevleovleolveolveol my friends. I want to see these people every day from now until I move. I can never get enough.