4/6

In case anyone's wondering:

Richmond was a noticeably thin envelope, who's arrival was announced with way more ceremony than I would have liked. At the word waitlisted, I matter-of-factly slid the paper back in and cheerfully quipped, "Guess God's got somewhere better." I looked up. My parents looked like someone had died. My father put a silent hand on my shoulder.

Boston was an envelope we had all forgotten about. Even at my protests about my unfinished application, they both gathered around the computer chair. I had to repeat the word didn't about 3 more times than I would have liked before they slowly walked away.

U.V.A. was an online admissions account that had been created, logged into, and viewed without my knowledge. My parents had known for hours, and my father delivered the news waitlisted with the grave quietness of a presidential assassination. Then later that night, he came downstairs to congratulate me on getting waitlisted from such a "competitive" university, and said I should be very "proud". Today I listened to my friend rattle on about going to Accepted Students Day, and how she might as well go there because "the hangover food is better." I smiled and congratulated her.

I don't care about JMU. Their websites are too unsophisticated to waste time figuring out. I know I'll get in anyway, and my parents will tell me to be proud, and I won't be because I could have slept through every class this year and still gotten in.

All I have left is William and Mary and Stanford, so I think I'm just going to buy some chocolate pudding and several movies on Thursday.

Maybe if I wasn't the one who was so matter-of-fact about it, who got over it in twenty minutes...
and I was the one to act disappointed and shocked and the one to bring it up gravely four more times that day....

... I wouldn't be so quick to cheerfully protest my fine-ness, and I wouldn't have to wait until everyone was downstairs, whispering, before I let myself shed a tear.

March 17th

Once in their life, I think everyone receives a phone call that makes their heart stop just a bit the next dozen times their phone rings, makes them look at phone calls in a way in which nothing will ever undo.

For me, that call came on March 17th, 2013.

I was asleep, still dreaming away the last blissful hour before I got up for church. The How I Met Your Mother theme song jolted me into unpleasant consciousness and sent me stumbling to my dresser to see a very unexpected contact illuminating the screen. Immediately I knew something wasn't right.

The seconds after I answered knocked my sleepiness clean out of me and took my breath with it as my friend, in the most broken voice I'd ever heard a human being emit, told me what had just happened. The next twenty minutes are a blur. I think I said some things. I have no idea if they made any difference. I don't know if anything does at that moment.

My parents process shock very differently than I do. My mother responds the way she might if I was telling her that the dog had ruined the expensive carpet: with extreme disbelief, as if I was playing some cruel joke. My father responds the way I might if I got to school on the day of a huge test or project and then realized I'd forgotten to do everything I needed for my final grade: like somehow he forgot to do something that might have prevented whatever it was that happened. Neither of their reactions ever give me any comfort. Sitting on their bed and holding their hands as we whispered prayers was terrifying because I felt like the strongest one in the room.

School made me angry as everyone offered their theories and I sat there trying not to yell that they weren't there to hear the broken voice and how dare they act as if they knew anything. Then I would get angry at myself for thinking that the fact that I was called somehow made me better. As if it would change anything that I knew before they did.

For days, I avoided looking at the corner of my bedroom I'd stared at while on the phone. For weeks, my heart would jump into my throat when I heard my ringtone. For months, the permanence of the whole thing was a weight I couldn't remove. And worse when it began to fade was the realization that there were others who would never be able to remove it.

I'll never stop praying, but there are some things that even prayer cannot undo, and that hurts.

So I'm sorry that I didn't get excited about the color green or shamrocks today, but when I see the date I keep remembering when I stared at the same number on my phone 365 mornings ago and told myself to remember it.

As the years move on, these questions take shape-

are you getting stronger, or is time shifting weight?

No one expects you to understand,

just to live what little life your mended heart can.

Dear American Dream,

I couldn't care less about you.

I have no desire to attend an almost-Ivy-League college if it becomes my answer to whether countless hours of staying up and running my brain ragged were worth it. Nowhere inside my being is there an urge to climb the corporate ladder only to sit in a cubicle and kill trees with a printer all day.

I want adventure. I want to get my shoes muddy every time I do something new, to desperately scrape up money to take flights to southern France, to pack a suitcase in ten minutes for an impromptu drive out to amusement parks on the Canadian border, to take a roadtrip in my pajamas once every month or two.

Today, I hardly thought once about my less-than-passing grade in AP Calculus, nor did I set aside a proper amount of time to finish my AP Lit paper that's due next class... and you know what.
I can't remember the last time I was so happy to be alive...

Dear Prom Date,

I just want to keep saying that. :}

Thanks for making me blush in front of a crowd of people and then taking me out for a milkshake to cool down my face. It didn't work.

Thanks for always opening the car door, no matter how many times I try to dart in it by myself.

Thanks for making me think something was about to happen every time I went to the bathroom, or you left the room, or I turned around. You are a punk.

Thanks for not waiting until the morning of April 5th to show up at my doorstep with a dress. I would have hated you.

Thanks for inviting my whole family to the improv show and thinking I wouldn't notice them all in the back.

But seriously. Thanks for telling my dad. He likes stuff like that.

Thanks for being the first of those three guys to ask, and consequently being the guy that got all the "Awwwww"s from every girl in the audience.

Thanks for planning cool stuff like this.

Today was pretty cool thanks to you.

Guess now it's official,

can't back out :}

Dear Telephone,

I've always wished you could be one of those deliciously 1960's things with the cord that I could twist between my fingers as I paced the bedroom with my whole hand gripped around a huge receiver that covered the entire side of my face and captured every murmur and giggle I made.

But alas, a scratched and clunky Android smartphone will have to do.

However, I'll forgive your mediocre appearance because you simply make one so incredibly brave! How do you manage it?
Nevertheless, you're so soothing on emotionally-charged days and nights where the main thing needed is a nice long ramble. Because you know as well as I do that like-minded weirdos are always filled to the rim with fears, and your ever-listening luminescent rectangle is exactly what we need to straighten out the tangles of our thoughts.

So thank you ever so much for your patience while we stumble over the awkward limitations of the human language to get to the simplest of points. It really does make us brave.

Let's do it again sometime, shall we?

Dear Wednesdays At Panera,

I love that moment in the coffee shop. As you sit beside the window and see your friend enter through the sunlit glass doors. When they're looking around for you, blissfully unaware of your whereabouts as you quietly observe. I think it's when they're the most genuine. In that moment, their only aim is to find you in the crowd. To see your face amongst the sea of unfamiliar ones. But you don't wave. You don't call their name across the shop and break the quiet murmur of jazz music and hushed conversation. You just watch the silhouette of their jacket and their wandering eyes, safe to drink them in to your heart's content until their eyes slowly swivel across the tables and then widen in glad recognition when they see you.

I love those moments.

Things That Freak Me Out

When I'm in a car that's turning left and there's a car coming on the other side of the road

When I'm opening my drawers to get jeans and I remember that I never put my clothes in the dryer

When people start to tell me something and then stop

When I wave at someone from afar as they're talking to someone and they say something to the person beside them after they wave and it looks like they're saying something about me

"Wait, no one told you?"

Not knowing whether or not the tea I'm about to sip will burn my tongue

"You don't want to know."

*your password is incorrect*

Long silences with someone I don't like very much

Long silences with someone I want very much to like me

Seeing someone after a long time and not knowing if we're still friends

Waiting for a cast list to come out

"Catch"

"Can I ask you a question?"

When someone takes a deep breath before telling me something

Whenever someone leans towards me

Dear Davis,

I am typing this on your laptop and you're currently staring at me with an expression that is a mix of bewilderment, annoyance, and something that's utterly charming. I'm sorry to do this to you, but you did ask for it. You can't just bring things up to tantalize me and then not tell me what you mean. So this is the only way I can think of to get back at you.

My position on the very edge of the chair is rather uncomfortable, but you refuse to stop watching me type, so I have to shield the laptop from your view.

I know the library is supposed to foster productivity, but so far it's only fostered daydreaming. It's all your fault.

Also: cinnamon buns.

Green Plastic Disc

There is something so childlike and freeing about flying down a slope of white powder, not caring about how the freezing spray is making your face look, not caring about how girly your shriek sounds, not caring about what awkward body parts are going to hit the drifts in what kind of pile with those around you.

You can't just not love sledding. The most dignified of people look like complete fools when they're sledding. It's the best.

And there's a moment at the bottom of the hill, before you make the thigh-aching trek back up the hill, before you even wobble to your feet to brush the powder from your coat, where you're just laying there after the limb-flailing landing. You give your breath a minute to settle and just enjoy the childlike exhilaration. Maybe you stare at the newly forming constellations, or your frosty ghost of a breath in the air, or at your friend's pink-nosed and grinning face. But in that breathlessly blissful moment, there's just nothing to worry about.

It's just perfect.

That's why I jump up and down in front of the windows and beg everyone around me to go outside in the snow. You can't just not go sledding.

A Public Service Announcement

So apparently everyone thought that the last post was about Stanford....

*coughs* Oops. This is awkward.

I don't know those things until April! Sorry for scaring everybody. I'll just come right out and say it when something like that happens.

The last post is about something way cooler than education. Just to clear that up. ;)