Dear Em,

The girl you see is not beautiful. She is not clever, nor loved, nor enviable. She is a lonely, desolate demon who is ITCHING to destroy you. You know what she really looks like? In the corner of your mind?

She's on a hospital bed, wearing one of those disgusting, filthy gowns that ties loosely enough in the back to reveal bruised and mottled skin. Her hair is lank and damp and looks like dishwater, and falling out all over the place because she doesn't have enough nutrition to have healthy, sleek hair that grows. Her eyes are sunk in her face, a face with no life and the skin stretched too tightly over brittle bones, so that it looks like an old, translucent sheet of wax paper that yellowed over time. Her lips are chapped and taunt over her teeth, and her mouth leads to a bleeding, fiery throat with a never-ending ache, caused by puking up so much. She is not beautifully fragile— she is disgustingly broken and twisted, like a dry twig ready to be thrown in the fire. Her hands are bony and dry, cracking between the knuckles. She is ready to die and she beckons to you. She wants to die. She would love for you to die, too. There is no snowstorm here. Only dead and rotting leaves from a long-gone autumn, waiting to decompose. Everyone who looks at her shudders, because she cries out to them all day long, not for help but for pity, not for food but for thin air, that rasps through her lungs and she suffers through another day, still waiting to die and become... nothing. She cries out that she is overlooked and only in her weakness will she be recognized, but it's a lie. She eats nothing and is yet never satiated.

Doesn't that sound enchanting? Oh, wait, no— it sounds like hell.

Lost and Found

So, in Orr's AP Lit class, we did these free-write things. And one time, I wrote something about The Great Gatsby, and he kept it, and all I got was a photocopied version back. I found it today in my desk drawer.

"There is a gap in human nature that rests uneasily between the things a person knows and what they only have the power to imagine. It is deep, wide, and fretful— many extraordinary and unfortunate men have allowed themselves to fall, subconsciously, into its blanketed jaws. It is a state at which one becomes fully aware of what he possesses, and what he does not. Of what lies as a necessity, and what presents itself as a means of life within its appearance of necessity, that captures a mans soul and hunts him as prey, making him shift restlessly and seek, in most cases, eternally. Here, in this ravine, a man may become oblivious, even ignorant, and is bound hand and foot to lie in this hole until satisfaction does, or perhaps sadder still, does not, arrive.

If such a man stuck in this gap there ever was, he would be called Gatsby. His face would be pleasant, but somehow, dry. For his mind would be beyond whomever he was with, or wherever he was— he would be a man with a purpose that could never be fulfilled, for how does one close the intangible rift between the throes of ravaging desire and the dissatisfaction of material surplus?

[There is no man truly living who would contend to believe he has no purpose. Even those sunken in the depths of their gap have the most torturous destiny to be reconciled. So it somewhat stands to reason that those who overcome will save their life, while those who let themselves be overcome, will lose it.]

Perhaps it is unnecessary to single out one man versus another when discussing human nature in detail. However, it is imperative to agree that, like Gatsby, there will always be those who extract, who exhale, who emphasize and enlarge every aspect or the soul to the point where the very air around them cackles and snaps with a melancholy, sweet, electric vitality, that can and should remain forever a mystery to the average soul.

This exemplary personality is created within the gap. It sets a man apart, raises him above the social standard to the point of vast admiration, but leaves him very desolate, very hungry, and very lonely. He has given up his free will to it, and there alone, until the end, he shall suffer."

When I reread it, it's very broken. My thoughts don't connect at all, and it really doesn't make sense. I wonder what I was thinking when I wrote it.

A Much Needed Update

What a crazy-busy week! I can't believe it's already July, with the 4th over and celebrated, Lauren come and gone, and the future staring me close in the face. I remember when graduation seemed so far away, and now... well, time flies, right? I need to send in my final transcripts to Carolina before the 15th and finish picking out my courses. Orientation is in exactly one week! I've found myself thinking about college more and more, realizing how prepared/unprepared I am, how things are going to change, and how I'm really not the same person that I thought I was, and how I'm going to be a different person all over again in the course of a few short years. Because really, what's four years out of the average 82-year life span? Hardly anything.

Being with Lauren these past few days has taught me a few things, surprisingly. It's funny how much you can learn from a person who's been your best friend since you were four, because you begin to take for granted that you already know everything about them, about yourself, and about life. And yet, somehow, the relationship teaches you new things in the strangest ways. I've realized that my love language is not physical touch like I thought it was— when I am irritated or tired, I do not like it when people are extremely close to me or touching me. I want my personal space, haha. I also found out that I like to lead people; if I know the directions or the how-to's, I have no problem leading people who don't know. I like being able to take care of people. And then a few things were made even more clear—like the fact that I am extremely impatient, or that I don't always feel the need to be rushing around doing something, or that I am independent. I also discovered that I love my group of friends. I am grateful for who they are and how they interact. They are great.

There seems to be so much hanging in the balance, these days. I feel like I need to keep gathering myself together, gathering myself together, and yet simultaneously spreading myself apart. I want to go into college a whole person, without strings and without pieces missing, but at the same time I don't. I want this summer to spread myself out, to give and explore, but when that happens you don't always get everything back. In a sense, I feel like giving sets me up for inevitable failure. I'm learning to be okay with not making everything work. The only thing that I can find beautiful about being broken is the fact that there is only one way left to go: up and up. Giving is like working a muscle and getting into shape. You have to stretch it to make it work. You have to push it to its breaking point to burn the excess. And when life throws those little uphill moments, you have a set the pace, grit your teeth, and take another step.

Am I willing to work? Am I going to keep giving? And, perhaps more importantly, can I evenly and impartially weigh the consequences of keeping that one string extended? Yes. Yes. No.

The thing about making decisions is that you have to make them on the fly. Magically seeing into the future isn't an option, and given the choice, I really wouldn't want it anyways. In the wake of it all, I trust. Mhmm.