Like Me

On top

Like cream on sugar sprinkled over honey

Like the breeze over desert heat and sand

On top

Like silk on skin on cotton

Like the hot sliver of water over the cold

On top

Like yes over no and maybe

Like a wrong over right over wrong again

On top

Like her hands over yours

Like your hands over hers

But between

Like me and you between air and earth

Like me never so beneath, but never on top

Between

Like yes, no, and maybe

Like me

Beneath

Like me beneath her above you

Like me under your eyes

Beneath

Like my memory hiding behind hers

Like me in the back of your mind.

Beneath

Like me.

Like me.

Fear

I am a firm believer in mistakes, but I am afraid that someday I will make one that I cannot come back from. That is a fear that I resent. I want to live without fear. Living without fear would be living free.

The Fall

I let go.

I expected the fall to last a lifetime, but it ended quickly like a book you wish you could never finish. I had built it up in my mind to be something it turned out not to be, but you never know what you want until you have already made the leap. Midair seems to give us a clarity that the view from the top could only supply a hint of.

The stationary things around me blurred by, while right in front of me I could see my world as clear as a globe in my hands. My fingers traced the curves of the land, and my feet flew useless above me. The speeding air entered without breathing as my eyes were forced open. Lost tears rolled up my cheeks.

Flying through a sense of vertigo was directing me in a formless way. The end would be destiny if I hadn’t chosen the beginning, but with decision come both dead ends and sharp turns. I knew, but did not expect the outcome.

The fall gave me life. The fall left me laying alone in the end without a sign of return. The fall was everything.

Well, I’m graduating on time. It certainly will not be the best grade of my life, but beggers can’t be choosers.

The meeting was preeeetty rough. He started the conversation by saying he didn’t want to have the conversation with me. That’s a sure fire sign that bad things are about to happen. My tear ducts started acting up while he told me I could either graduate with a C (ugly letter unless it’s refering to my C2 = fluency in Spanish rating in Europe), or I could spend the summer working on it and graduate officially in the fall. I chose graduating now, and he explained to me that as a “friend” he would have told me to do the same thing. He said the project did not reflect my four years at school, nor did it reflect who I am as a person. He said it was not a failure, and its biggest flaws were matters of not having enough time. I was warned before studying abroad in Spain that it would be this way, but I am stubborn. Oops.

I cried… more confidently than normal I suppose, but I cried nonetheless. It was embarrassing, but unavoidable. He said he understood and had been through similar situations in his life of academia. The moment that got me was when he looked at me in all seriousness and said, “you shouldn’t feel bad. This project is not a reflection of the work I know you can do. You have accomplished something here, and you should be proud”… and then he called me one of the international experts on Calle 13.

So, this giant project on identity and music has made me go mad, made me cry, and has made me realize that my own identity is a mystery to me. I don’t think those were my school’s intentions, but fuck it. I’M GRADUATING!

Petrified

Today my life weighs on a touchy balance. On one side there is the bright, fluffy, good, while on the other side we have the dark, brooding, evil. Obviously, and naturally,based off of laws of gravity, balance, weight, blah blah sciencey terms blah, when something is added to a side, it slowly moves said side downward. The side that hits the ground is the side that wins!

There have already been a few plays made in this game. Mind you, it is 6am.

1. I live in a house where the girls don't physically know how to socialize outside of the ungodly hours of the night. 2. My roommate, who meanders in around 4:45am doesn't physically know how to enter a room without making every noise known to man. 3. There was no toilet paper because my housemates have too many friends who use it all at the ungodly hours of the night. 4. My witty friends flipped my microwave upside down, and I wasn't about to flip the beast just to make some cheap ass oatmeal. 5. I had to be at work at 5:45am... good thing I got a great wakeup call an hour beforehand.

These are minor tipping events that I try not to think of as signs as to what the rest of the day will be like. In fact, I pray they are not because today there are two actually important events that will drastically change the history of my life, and thus the weight of that damn balance. The first is the Real Madrid vs. Barcelona game (alright, admittedly, this might not DRASTICALLY change my life... but it is effing important). Barcelona crushed me last week by losing in overtime, and I was personally offended. How could my boys do that to me when I needed to believe so badly that I could overcome Madrid in some aspect of my life? Today they must redeem themselves, and thus put a big, beautiful, maroon and blue weight on the side of good.

The other, and actually life changing event is my senior thesis advisor meeting. I am PETRIFIED that he will tell me my work is simply not good enough for me to graduate on time. I will cry like a baby (sorry, Joyce, I don't think I know how to cry "confidently"), and beg for him to let me pass, even if ever so slightly. I even dreampt up begging speeches in my head last night. Of course, you never say quite the powerful things you mean to once you're in the situation... All I can do is hope harder than I ever have in my whole freaking life that someone takes pity on me.

My hopes are high, buy my gut is down somewhere near my ankles. We'll see how this goes. Vamo Barça!

Guilt

I feel guilty. I really do feel guilty about everything no matter how hard I try not to. Let's take a look shall we?

I feel guilty about writing this post when I should be totally focused on my senior thesis revisions. I feel guilty about not caring about said thesis as much as I should. I feel guilty about my loss of enthusiasm for school. I feel guilty about studying abroad in Spain. I feel guilty about the way I spent my time in Spain. I feel guilty about not watching the news as much as I should. I feel guilty about not knowing about what happens in the world. I feel guilty about watching more movies than reading. I feel guilty reading for fun because I should be reading about more important things. I feel guilty about eating chips. I feel guilty about loving ice cream. I feel guilty about not eating veggies every day. I feel guilty drinking Coca-Cola when it's such a bad company. I feel guilty after drinking a bottle of beer. I feel guilty about eating what I do when there are people who can't eat at all. I feel guilty about buying things because I already have enough. I feel guilty for not helping people as much as I should. I feel guilty for taking things for granted. I feel guilty for leaving my family. I feel guilty for getting angry. I feel guilty for losing myself in my emotions. I feel guilty for being lazy. I feel guilty for accepting so much help. I feel guilty for not challenging myself enough. I feel guilty for letting people down. I feel guilty for trashing the environment. I feel guilty for using so much electricity and water. I feel guilty for buying music. I feel guilty for wanting to escape. I feel guilty for not having a better job. I feel guilty for not working out when I work at a gym. I feel guilty when I don't understand something in Spanish because I'm supposed to be fluent. I feel guilty when I say I'm fluent.

This list doesn't really stop. No wonder I have found three white hairs in my head.

Friend Failure

Lately I cannot help but feel self-centered. Have I always been this way?

I want to be a good friend, but when I spread myself across so many friendship lines, it becomes impossible to choose who I will spend my time with. Who do I disappoint this evening? Whose party do I miss today? Sometimes I want to do so many things so badly that I say yes without thinking about the fact that I will have to eventually say no to some of them. I lose myself in good intentions, and then get burnt for it later. I feel like I'm constantly losing friends, but I don't know how to hold on to them all at once.

And then there's the travel. I have never felt so passionate about anything the way I have about travel, but it causes so many complications. My family and friends see it as abandonment, and I am struck by the guilt of leaving people behind. I disappear into new worlds, but I never forget the one I came from. I am not patriotic, but that is not a reflection on the people that I care about in the states. I want to live in new places, but that does not mean I want to live without the people I love. Am I being too greedy? Am I letting go of the best relationships I have? I don't mean to, but is leaving going to make my friends regret my frienship?

Once these feelings overwhelm me I sink into a rut of apathy. I ignore responsabilities and all activities in general, hoping to render my mind blank. I lose my passion for anything and fall into a funk that I struggle to reemerge from. I feel lost in the big world that is only so big because I made it that way. I have corrupted my own existence. I have gotten myself lost by not taking the directions given to me. This is the result of my greed.

So, what do I do? How can I fix what I have so quickly destroyed? How can I ever make up for my absences? Will staying be the only way to show I care? We only have one shot at life, and I feel like I'm ruining it.