Tonight

I moved into my new place almost two weeks ago.  If you remember correctly, I was so excited to get back and be in my place once more.  Everything was great.  I got to see my sorority sisters first and spend an entire week with them.  We had a great time laughing and catching up.

Last weekend, everyone else on campus started moving in.  We had an entire weekend to ourselves, no responsibilities, no worries.  Except, in true super model fashion, I got so sick.  I could barely move, ridden with fever, and absolutely miserable.  I spent the entire weekend asleep in bed.  I missed the first weekend going out.  I missed the excitement and the fun.  I missed getting to see everyone.  I missed so much.

I wanted to come to school so badly.  To be back in my place with my people.  To be carefree and lively.  To buckle down and learn.  To test myself and grow.  To live and love and laugh.

Instead, I was ill.  Instead, I was stuck in bed while all of my friends did the things that I had wanted so very badly to do.  Don't get me wrong; they took care of me and made sure that I was alive.  But I wasn't alive.  Not really.  I was dreaming and hoping from behind my medically induced sleep.  Dreaming and hoping that this year would be the best.  That I would be well by the next day.  That I would live and love and laugh and find everything that I need... this week.

Not to be melodramatic, but I didn't.  Not this week.  This week I was still recovering.  This week I was simply a student, going to class.  I saw a few of my friends, but not as many as I would have liked.  This week I was boring, which is something that I never like to be.

So things are going to be changing around here.  My immune system is almost at 100%.  I feel pretty healthy and most of my illness is out of my body.  Things are going to be more fun.  More lively.  Things are going to be how I wanted and still want them to be.





Tonight, I'm going out.

Leaving on that Midnight Train

You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place, I told him, like you'll not only miss the people you love, but you'll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you'll never be this way again.

Azar Nafisi

38677

Every time I have to leave a place,  I am faced with a sense of sadness.  I have been feeling that sadness for a few days now as I had to suffer through my always-hard-to-say-but-this-time-was-the-worst goodbyes.  However now with my goodbyes said and my bags packed, I am starting to get excited.

I am so ready to be back in my place again.

There is something so great about Oxford.  38677 has a certain magic that I have never found elsewhere.  A feeling in the air that comes with the beauty and history of the place combined with the youth and the exuberance of the people there.  There is an excitement in Oxford: one that does not cease when football season is over; one that cannot be quenched with the last leaf to fall or the ever-rare falling snow; one that begins every morning and ends every night without anyone noticing the transition; one that is alive in every heart, whether they are in the place or not.

The best part about Oxford is that no matter when you leave or however long you are gone, you can always come back home to Oxford.  There will always be a place for you.

Please Don't Go -- Come Back When You Can

One of the best parts of coming home is the people that I come home to.  I didn't have these friends for my whole life, but they have been there for the parts that matter.  Because they matter.

Changing scenery is always an adjustment.  Leaving home is hard to do, but leaving Oxford is just as worse.  And going from place to place takes a toll on my heart.  Each time, though, my friends make the move with me.  Wherever I am and however long it has been since I have spoken to them, it feels like no time has passed.

I was so scared leaving home last summer because I was afraid that the next time I came home I wouldn't have my friends.  I was scared that we would change and it wouldn't make sense anymore.  Well, we did change.  We don't think the same ways anymore and we have done our fair share of growing up.  But what matters is that we matter to each other.  We haven't let the distance get to us.

I will miss them this year.

So here is to the memories that we will make -- with and without each other.

When you fell, you fell towards me.

When you crashed in the clouds, you found me.

Oh, please don't go.

Your big dream is crashing down and out your door.

Wake up and dream once more...

If all you wanted was me, I'd give you nothing less.

Come back when you can.

Until we are back in each others' arms, we will always have Barcelona.

Battle Studies

Some battles are not meant to be fought, because in the long run, they are not meant to be won.


Friendships are these fights.  They are not meant to be fought.  In my earlier, more erratic years, I used to think that confrontation was the way to solve problems.  In some cases, it is.  But with friendship, I have learned to give it a little space.  If, after the space, the problem is still there, then it must be confronted.  However in most of the cases in my life, time heals wounds.

It is easy to want to solve things right away.  To want to talk about the real issue.  To get down to business.  But you don't know what it happening on the other end.  That one question may not feel like just a question; to the person on the other side, it may just as well be a loaded gun.  In times of trouble, take a deep breath.  Sit back, relax, gather your thoughts, and reconvene at a better time.

Tonight was a reconvening, in both senses of the word.  In the first of the night, a break was necessary.  A white flag had to be flown, if only for the night.  In the second, a friendship was saved.  The last time my friend and I spoke, we were tense.  The last conversation we had had the potential to the be the last conversation we would ever have.  But we took a break.  We spoke tonight and the friendship was salvaged.  We remembered everything that made us friends in the first place, and it took the place of what was trying to tear us apart.


It's true what they say: you win some, you lose some.  Unfortunately, sometimes friendships are those that are lost.  But only initially are they won.  When you battle with your friends, no one comes out as a winner.  Everyone loses because, when it comes to friendship, there is no such thing as a fair fight.


So love a little bit more.  Because when it comes down to it, it is kind of all we have.

Please Mr. Postman

In today's day and age, people call, text, tweet, and have conversations wall-to-wall.  Oftentimes nothing is really said.  It is in shorthand.  Abbreviations and acronyms.  Jokes.  Funny sayings.  HTML content.  Links to videos or other clever posts.  It is hardly ever words or real feelings.  Just idle chatter.

There is something so sweet about a handwritten letter.

The sentiment is still there.  You can say real things and mean them without having to feel like it is in an inappropriate way.  Letters are meant for words.  And to see it handwritten!  It is so personal even when it isn't trying to be.

I could sit, day in and day out, and write letters.  I don't mind waiting for the postman to come.  I love receiving letters.  I love knowing that, even in the age of technology, we haven't outgrown letters.  We are not too obsessed with the here-and-now yet to have let them slip from our hands.  The times may have changed, but this hasn't.  Not yet.



So here I sit, waiting for the mail to come...

Hidden Secrets