A.M.

The house is cool, but I'm bathed in a warm glow that encircles me in the form of a comforter. How aptly named. To dare to face the uncertainty that is the world, I need to leave this comfort that is my lowly bed. For the blissful moments I know nothing but my own breathing and the intricate stitching of the pillowcase, this is my own private world. The gentle rays of sunshine peek through the windows and witness the calmness I inhabit, warming my face and hands, the only things which lack the perfect shelter of the covers. As I bury myself deeper in the dimness underneath, my mind is conscious only to the notions that my deepest, inner soul will allow. And so I breathe deeply and fully, and let my mind play through these perfect moments, where I am warm and safe and loved.

My eyelids begin to release their grip on each other, and the once gentle rays become reminders. We're here! they announce. My limbs stretch and explore the warmth under the sheets. My thoughts still cling tightly to these faint memories, with which my feelings of bliss are so closely knit. My toes curl, my fingers stretch to the ends of the pillows, and slowly, my eyes take in the small wonders that will become insignificant once I leave this moment.

My limbs curl back in and hover next to my body, my only protection as the reality of Earth sinks through and soaks my thoughts. I try desperately to snatch the last fragments of the feelings of which I had captive just seconds before, but the rays become more patiently insistent.

My toes are the first to start the hesitant venture from the covers....

....Good morning. 

Oh You,

I can hardly wait for our encounter. However far away it may be, I eagerly anticipate the moment when the distance between ourselves and our adventures has been shortened until we are right in the middle of them, laughing as if no time at all is the same as forever, and both have passed in our absence.

Until then, as your nightly encounters with Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson, and the gang play out, I hope you seek out some new ventures to pursue. My introspective moments under the branches make me think of you and the song I have yet to pen about street corners and salads. New music and wonderings keep me occupied, but I worry about you, and I hope you'll find my newest ideas interesting. Maybe even inspiring.
Pale watercolors are impossible for me to master. The bright explosion of the colors just draws me in and I can't help myself when a brilliant streak glides onto the paper when I meant for it to be subdued. Maybe you'll have better luck than I. Anything is possible. I hope you have exceptional skill at imagery and personification...and that you're not afraid of heights.

Until then, comrade. I know you can't see me, but I'm there. 

Love,
Equally,
Awkwardly,
Great

Interrupted Boredom

Today, the same-ness of my situation became unbearable.

The same smell of chlorine in my hair, the same sound of a million bickering cousins, the same heavy stickiness on my face of eyeliner that wasn't mine, the same taste of Mexican food that I secretly hated, and so forth.

Luckily, I encountered a grandmotherly force that prodded through my melancholy stubborness.

Instead of honoring my pledge to spend the day in morose drudgery, I was forced to give my pride a proverbial kick in the teeth and allow my 21-year-old, electra-pumping, cap-wearing, mouth-farting partner-in-crime of a cousin step in and drag me out of my fog of pure and undiluted hatred for the planet and everyone in it.

In retrospect, a much better decision.

Instead of decaying on a couch alone, I spent the afternoon choking on Vietnamese spring rolls and immersing myself in my first Barnes and Noble of 3+ years. I read a children's book about a pole, written by Steven Colbert, and became fascinated by the creative writing excercizes found in The 3AM Epiphany. I pretended to read a 2013 weekly planner while really eavesdropping on the intense discussion between an extremely overweight latino and a longhaired, gangly 30-year-old, both of whom knew more about drones and motherships than most of us ever will.

Thank you ever so much, cousin. This is why you exist. For those of us with lives so interesting they get annoyingly stupid. Ironically enough, you make them seem boring. So thanks.

Home Again

And just like that, here I am in Ripon, CA again. Swimming in my uncle's luxury pool and having my cousins do my eyeliner and introduce me to their attractive friends, who all wonder why I'm not Asian.

It's great to be home.

And yet I was crying into the pillows last night, hoping I wouldn't wake my bedmates. Why is that?

 Maybe this isn't my only home after all.

The Next 3 Days

I seem to be into movie titles lately. I'm losing my originality. Ick.

Anyways. The next 3 days are the ones leading up to that horrible moment when I'll say goodbye to everything that's familiar and close to me and depart into the great unknown with little to no hope of return. 

I wish I could say that's an exaggeration.

As the time gets wound tighter and tighter together, precious moments I have failed to grasp one last time are slipping between my fingertips one by one. Faces are trying to fade, and I'm trying to recall them to my memory before they're gone. Each time I see a place, or a person, I can't help but wonder if it's the last time. If I need to stand still a moment longer, etch every detail into my mind and savor the memories I have with this street corner, this building, this close friend. And each time, the helpless, frightened feeling in the pit of my soul grows heavier and heavier. 

People ask me if I'm ready to go, but I don't get why something like this could be getting easier as I get closer. 

It's just becoming more impossible. 

How am I supposed to do this? 

There's no way I can do this. 

Dear Mom,

May I just say, I fully under-appreciated your coolness.

Oh, sure, I didn't think you one of those embarrassing moms who says awkward stuff in front of my friends, or overbearing moms who locks their daughter in the house at the first sign of her having a social life. But seeing as this recent situation is entirely new, I had no idea how you'd react. I decided that anticipating a worst-case scenario reaction was most realistic because, well, better safe than sorry. 

Surprisingly though, you exceeded even my better expectations. 

Is that sad? I feel ashamed now for even having those expectations, but the honest truth is that I had no practical frame of reference off which to compare, so this was a new set of faces and voice tones to scrutinize for a hint of a reaction. But then, it wasn't. All the old ones were there, just in a new context. It was the greatest sigh of relief imaginable, and the best part was that I knew I could trust you. I know how burdening my mini crises can be, but you were completely at ease with just keeping it between us, which was possibly the thing that meant the most. 

I know you read this, too, so you'll excuse me if I don't want to seem entirely uncool and keep this relatively short. 

I love you, Mommy.

A Battle of Epic Proportions

My feelings towards this photo? Well. 

Let's just say, dear Coree, it was an honor to do pillow warfare with you.

The Turning Point

There's a strange feeling in the knowledge that one moment in your life 

has forever changed it.

The way you answer certain questions.

The way you look at certain things. Certain people.

The way you feel about something you were so sure you'd been set in stone about.

You can't take the moment back. 

You can't even change it.

You can't alter it, so that it fits snugly on the mannequin of expectations you had so carefully designed for it. 

It's already happened, and you're still not even sure if it was real.

And the funny thing is, you'd always laughed and waited for the day when you could confidently announce that the moment wasn't all it was cracked up to be. But then it happened. 

And there's nothing to announce.

In fact, every time you try and shrug it off, as you know you're supposed to, the tiny foothold it has in your memory replays itself, and something inside you does a wobbly somersault of.....of.....

What? 

A blender full of loud and overpowering emotions that war against each other and threaten to overwhelm your entire being as they spin and collide against each other. 

That's what.

What are you supposed to do with that? 

Dear One-Man Choir,

Never stop marching to the beat of your own drum.

It's good for the world to have a little more music in it every now and then. Thanks for bringing your own. You teach others, like me, to step out and even contribute their own tune to the symphony. I wish everyone could have a bit of you in them. 

So here's God's gift to you. 

It's called Today.

Use it well. 

Dear Never-Ending Math Equation,

Your answer is beginning to reveal itself, so at the very least, it's possible that you are solvable.

Though I must say, I didn't see that twist in the equation coming.

You've now provided me with a whole new set of algorithms to complete. 

Sincerely,

Newly Stumped