I guess we'll see what happens when the summer ends.

This morning, after about an hour of sleep, Melissa dropped me off at the train station. We hugged and cried, and I honestly didn't expect those tears at all. But I love my best friend more than anything in the world. And I truly know, no matter how awesome and fun and ridiculous and life changing this trip will (probably) be, it's going to be so hard without her by my side.




We've come such a long way.

I'm currently on a bus on the way to DC. Where I'll walk a mile to the greyhound station and leave for a 20 hour ride to Lexington, Kentucky. Oh, life.

003.

"Spring forward, fall back down. I'm trying not to wonder where you are."

The one thing that has remained constant the past 7 months is me reaching for something that was last fall. I'm not sure what exactly. When I realized how right traveling was going to be for me, being in the city, being so close with Stacy that it honestly scared me, feeling a lot of feelings for the first time. But looking back, I always go back to missing that time. When at the time, it didn't even feel very significant.

Maybe it's just because those were the months were I started to meet the person I am now.

In a little over 24 hours, I'll be walking from Chrystina's apartment in South Philly to 30th street station and getting on a bus. 24 hours later I'll be in Lexington, Kentucky meeting up with Carey. That night, I'll be staying at a stranger's house in Chicago just to wake up and keep driving across the country. Sometime next week I'll be living in Seattle, Washington. I can't really rap my mind around how big of an adventure this is. And it feels like it's been so long since I felt that free, traveling, no worries feeling. And as scared as I am, I'm so ready. It's always right.

Seasons change.

Maybe we know too much to be happy all the time.
We know more than everyone else.
I've always said that, but it's making more sense than usual right now.


I can't sleep.
But I can sleep more than most.


I'm spending my last weekend home with my best friend, in Philadelphia, with music and drunk kids.
Nothing could be more right.
Well maybe not nothing, but almost.

Bloodlust.

I've been working on a really long entry, documenting everything that's happened since the last time I really wrote. Maybe I'll post it at some point, or maybe I'll keep it as a draft. Looking back there's only a few things that really truly matter. I need to get those out now.

Sunday night I saw Kid Dynamite. My knee still hurts too much to put any weight on it, the muscles in my upper arms are either pulled or something is sprained, my lip is really fucked up. Being in a sea of people's sweat, not eating and walking in and out of such drastically different temperatures fucked with my immune system and I caught whatever was going around at TIH, I've been in bed the past 2 days. It was and is still, all worth it. I have never had that much fun during a band's set before. I don't think seeing any other band has ever meant as much. They were the first band who's reunion meant so, so much to me, being that they've been one of my favorite bands for quite some time now. Their set was so long, and they played so many songs. I spent so much time in the air crowd surfing and stage diving, and I never do that. Guys just kept picking me up and throwing me into the crowd and I sung my heart out to the songs that have meant so much in making me who I've become. So many WHOA'S, so many smiling faces. I'll never forget getting Chrystina's text message while I was in Kentucky, gasping, running outside and calling Andrew in tears. And it really lived up to everything it was supposed to be. It was all surreal and afterwards I left and walked straight to my car alone because I was so overwhelmed that I knew I couldn't talk to anyone.

The weekend of TIH 2010, definitely ruled. That might be an understatement.

However I haven't felt 100% like myself lately, the happiness I've felt all summer hasn't totally been there. I know it'll come back, but it's been a struggle getting through without it. So many things have been coming together, things that are honestly a little mind blowing. It makes too much sense and no sense all at once.

I've been missing something lately as well. It's been so fucking present. Just looming overhead. I don't know if it's a specific person, or just a feeling. The feeling of really, truly being cared for. I've been totally fine with out it, and I always believe that if you're waiting for it- it won't come. But I just feel this total absence and my mind wanders and it hasn't been good. I keep thinking about memories I thought I was done thinking about. This, combined with being totally scared and hesitant to leave in a few days has, for lack of better words, left me feeling totally fucked up. It's a little much to handle and I feel a little lost. A little overwhelmed.

I know soon enough I'll be on the bus on a 14 hour ride to Kentucky, and once I cross enough state lines, I'll be back and I'll feel totally fine.
That's really all it takes for me. A little distance and unfamiliarity. That and time. Time, time, time.


"I'm knocking on your window, please let me, please let me in."

1:22

There is SO, SO much to say right now. So much to remember, so much to talk about.
But I can't even begin to get it out. Soon.
Tonight was absolutely amazing. The whole weekend ruled.
I feel so nostalgic already, I'm feeling unbelievably strange.
Things have been coming together in the oddest ways lately, and I've been missing something.
I don't know what to make of any of it.

I leave very, very soon.

I'm missing things I never missed before.

I can't wait for the dead of winter, laying in the dark listening to nothing but Joy Division.

002.

I'm better off alone, not having people (to get attached to, to be dependent on, to love and adore and respect and care about) just saves it when you start to lose them. Whether they drift away, they change or something happens that makes you or them have to let go or push the other away. It's not worth it when you start to miss people and the way things were. When you're reaching for a friendship that just isn't there anymore and there's no control in whether it ever will be again. I don't hang out with a lot of people that used to "important anymore". Most of that's by choice. I don't miss the group of friends I had last summer, I love the people I'm close with now. But there are those few important friendships that are killing me to think about. It's the 3 people I always said were the most important, the 3 I said I would never let go of. And I look around and they're just no where to be found. I've had one of the best summers of my life, up until a few days ago I couldn't break this content feeling. I've been the happiest I ever have been in my entire life. But I feel it slipping away and when I'm not totally content is when I notice their absences and remain in a total loss about what the answers are.

I went camping with Melissa and Brett the other night. Having my car back makes things a lot easier. The camping trip was hectic and full of bugs and bites and scary noises and fires that wouldn't stay burning. It defines our friendship. The next morning though, we finally did find somewhere we could swim. It was wonderful, that and chasing wild turkeys (we think?) and sitting in the sun in Bethlehem and the drive home with the windows down on backroads, I did feel fine.







I think I have an ear infection. I've never had one before and I really can't handle being sick right now. I move to Seattle in 18 days. I have way too much else to deal with between now and then.

Mainly shaking any unhappiness floating around my mind and getting back to the person I found in May and the one who's spent this summer "feeling indestructible, aimlessly alive". I can do it, I know it now.

((()))

Thunderstorm, finally.
I just feel like hiding under my covers, but hey I've got my car keys back.
Maybe I'll do something stupid.

TH/ALL

"There are many places to call home. This van, your arms or anywhere I find to be alone. People are like vines and not like stone. We're surprised to look back and see how much we've grown. Well by now we have learned better than to try and hold our tongues. Because if we are too careful, the best songs are left unsung. We push words of past and passion through our tiny soot filled lungs. Four track tape machines, oh it's only just begun."

001.

I can't believe it's already the second day of August.

So my fears were proven wrong, I can't seem to easily rid the mindset they seemed to put me in though. I need to go right back to feeling as free as I have the past few months. It'll come, I'm just kind of moody today. Little noises seem to irritate me easily. I'm also not one for small talk the past few days. I can feel myself when I get in those moods, I respond with ha's, mm's and little "tttss" sounds. I just want to be in my own little head.

Friday night I went to a party in Newark with Melissa, Ashley and her boyfriend. It was definitely interesting. Fire breathing and thigns. Only later to end up a some bro's house for a bit too. He had puppies though! Which he said "they've been kicked plenty of times", which re-affirmed my dislike for people like that. There was also a cry fest with my best friend, I want that girl to realize she has the world...soon enough.

Saturday morning I went to Philly with Melissa, her sister, sister's boyfriend Andrew and their cousin Caroline. I got really good falafel from a place called Saad's in West Philly. Lizzy picked me up and I spent the next 4 hours, literally 4 hours, in Ikea with her and stayed over in NJ to help her move the next day.

I'm currently in Brooklyn still, we've been here since yesterday afternoon. I literally put almost her entire room together myself (bed frame, dressers, couch). And putting together Ikea furniture is not an easy task. We got Foodswings and sat on the roof looking at the city lights until 2 am though, drinking sparkling cider. I love more than anything the way it never fully gets dark in cities. The sky is always that familiar purple.

I'm very expectant of the next few weeks flying by. And while I'm excited to get to the end of the month, I'm nervous that I'm going to be surprised when it's here sooner than I expect and I run out of time to do everything I need or want to. Oh well, everything will work out how it should.

I leave in just a little over 3 weeks. 23 days.

"And if my heart just stops, keep me alive for a minute. I wanna know if a curtain drops."