I can be honest under starry night skies.

Sometime between here and there, I forgot who I was and became who I am.
And I keep thinking my name should stick, but somehow it doesn't seem to fit as well as it did.
Maybe that's because this is the end, or a kind of end.

It's also a beginning, though.

Because that's what all this is about, really. Endings and beginnings and the middles in-between those two things. Maybe it's a little about tops and bottoms and how nice his bottom is and how I wish he'd stop staring at my top.

And somewhere from when I decided to be T.S. Wilde and I forgot who I actually was, I became this person stuck between the two. I don't even care anymore. I'm graduating. I'm graduating from all the things that have seemed to always bother me and at the end of this, I might burn a few things. I might burn my journal, because I know at the end of this, I'm not going to be that person anymore. It's never going to be the same.

I accidentally became this.

Maybe that was my goal all along, was to get to this point where I don't know who I quite am anymore and where I think my older brother's friend is cute and where I'm not actually sure what my heart wants, but I can talk to my soul a lot easier. Maybe that was the whole point of this, because I know I said that this was about becoming my version of infinite, but somehow with the pretty words and the no-fucks-givens, I've ended up becoming something completely different.

I'm glad I'm moving out in August so I can figure myself out a lot better.

Though if we're being honest here, I'm not sure I'll ever achieve self-actualization. I don't think anyone does though, not even Princess Mia, despite what Meg Cabot wants me to believe.

I used to play the violin and I'm glad I don't anymore. Ask me a few questions and you'll discover I used to do a lot of things that most people wish they could do. Trust me. They're not all they're cracked up to be.

But here's one last confession before I get real and tell you who I really am: I hated my wind post. And I know I got eleven comments on it, and I know everyone thinks it's fantastic, but if I'm being real, that post came from me sitting on a mountain on a particularly windy day in March because I needed to get away and I'd rather just forget all about it. I still love the wind, though.

And I know I said that was the last, but I'm a liar, and here's another thing: I really want a cute boy who likes to write as much as I do to talk to me over the summer. Please? I know this is desperate, but really. I'll buy you Starbucks or take you to that new grilled cheese place that has fantastic tomato-basil soup or attempt to just make you laugh.

I guess I should just shut up and spell it out for you.

P.S. I now own 1,874 books. My mom says I have a problem. Maybe I do, since I bought 18 books in the past month. I don't mind, though.

Give me some music like the duke used to play.

"Sometimes I think you don't trust me."

"That's because I don't."

"Why not? I want you to trust me."

"I don't trust anybody."

Which is so cliché, might I add, and I'll never really forgive myself for saying something like that. But I had to say it, because when it's the truth, sometimes -- cliché be damned -- you've just got to say it. And I don't think you really got that I was serious, but I was. I really have no idea how it happened, but somehow, I've ended up with trust issues.

Maybe it was from her telling me who I was and I started hating her a bit. Or maybe it was from his promises and how he never kept them. Maybe it was even from him never listening to me and when he finally wanted to, I couldn't believe him long enough to stop choking on the words.

Somehow I've got bitterness growing in creeping vines all through my body and I never even saw it planted.

 

Back it up and do it again.

I remember I used to put a pillowcase over my head whenever I cried when I was little, because even then, I knew if people knew I wasn't strong enough not to cry, I'd get eaten alive.
And I remember being so proud of myself anytime I got hurt and didn't cry. And I remember not being able to cry and how suddenly that wasn't a good thing. I remember not crying for over six years.

I remember not going to the doctor for over six years, and how, when I finally went, there were all these potential problems I'd had no idea about and that suddenly there were all these surgeries I could have.
I remember hating the hospital and the nurses and not hating that one nurse, but finding out later that was because she was a children's nurse and one of the nicest ladies in the building.
I remember the needles and discovering my veins are very, very, very bad for IVs, and how doctors and nurses don't like dealing with my veins.

I remember when the jokes about the meds were just that. I remember when I used to think my family was normal and it wasn't until later that I learned how weird my family was.
I remember when I learned he was going to therapy and I still don't know why. I remember asking him about it and him telling me, "You don't need to know, there's no way you'll ever be in a place as dark as I was." and how badly I wanted to slap him and him not getting why I was so mad afterwards.
I remember the awful year with that lady who shall not be mentioned and my mom's mental breakdowns that followed.

I remember when my mom left my family for awhile. I thought she was never coming back and I remember being so scared that it was all my fault.
I remember when my dad scared me so bad I cried and wouldn't look at him for awhile and how sometimes I still flinch.
I remember a few weeks later when my friends told me they loved my parents. I remember smiling and not saying anything.

I remember when the shaking started and the doctor telling me it wasn't a problem. And wondering how my world vibrating could not be a problem, but not arguing because he went to medical school and I didn't.
And I remember not knowing which hand was left and which was right because I wrote with both, until my kindergarten teacher yelled at me for always coloring with both hands. I remember not arguing with her, either, because she was an adult.

I remember when I stopped believing in adults and when I suddenly turned seventeen and in just a year I'd be one of them.
I remember that terrifying me, almost as much as college does and almost as much as being patronized angers me now.

I remember every word to Shania Twain's, "Man, I Feel Like A Woman" because when I was five, I used to dance and sing to that every day and I'd belt it whenever it came on the radio.
I remember when I never doubted God and how I always thought he was so lonely, so whenever I prayed, I'd ask him to bless himself before anyone else. I still think he's pretty lonely.

Mostly though, I remember sneaking out just to sit outside, before he got caught sneaking outside and my dad started paying attention.
And I remember when I thought everyone spoke to the stars.

Staring wide-eyed at the destruction we've left.

Don't tell someone about someday, because somedays are painful.

Somedays are what get people killed. Someday I'll be happy. What if someday never comes? Somedays are unreliable, because you'll never know when they'll back out. Somedays always have their fingers crossed behind their back, even when they promise that they don't.

Don't believe in somedays, because they're liars.

You want to rely on somedays? I hope for your sake, you aren't suicidal. I hope for the sake of your somedays, you don't have a plan.

Someday I'll be pretty. 
Someday I'll be smart.
Someday it'll get better.

I hate somedays.

You wanna know how to save someone's life? Really?
Don't talk about somedays.

Talk about nowdays. Ask how they are, and listen. Not just vaguely smile and wait for the scripted reply. Really listen. You want to know how they are? Do you really? They don't believe that you actually do. Every "How are you" is a death sentence weighing down on their emotions. Every fake smile is a slap to their nighttime fears.

Somedays are what they cling to, because no one seems to care what their nowdays are really about.

He talks about somedays and it hurts me, because I know he just keeps hoping for it to get better. He keeps waiting, waiting, waiting.
"Someday when I get back on my meds" 
"Someday when I have more money"
"Someday when you love me back"
And he always finishes it with, "I'll be happier."

I hate those somedays.

I don't talk about his somedays. I don't tell him he's right. I don't tell him how to make those somedays happen. I ask him about his nowdays, I tell him about my nowdays, I tell him about my pastdays. And it makes him smile.

He is happy without those somedays.

You wanna know how to save someone's life?

Don't ever tell them, "Someday you might be able to handle it."

There are worse flowers to be named after.

He told that girl her eyes were beautiful and it made her happier than she's been in a long time. Maybe because the other boy used to tell her all the time, or maybe because everyone stopped noticing.

He collects knives and dated that girl who used to cut herself, but somehow they were happy. She ended it though, maybe because he was as sharp as his knives and she was tired of bleeding, or maybe because she didn't want him to get covered in her blood.

He said that girl was an open flame and everyone else was dripping gas. But then she said that girl was as cold as ice and anyone who touched her would get frostbite. Maybe they both just think that girl is better off alone, but she finds herself unable to pull away. That girl is just too selfish.

That girl has been told she is lots of things. Metaphorically and literally.
She gets told she is fire, ice, winter, snow; she gets told she is Love, of all things. (That girl likes that one best of all.)

She is named after flowers and called after harmful things, with no one remembering why until they're lying on the ground with a bullet in their gut.

That girl is called things she does not believe she fits. Labels and stereotypes that fall at her feet in a heaping pile, waiting for her to don their titles. That girl does not feel identified in the slightest. She is without a species and she feels alone, but there is comfort in that. There is comfort in her loneliness, because she knows though she does not fit, she it still loved.

Somehow that girl has found places to squish into, between the cracks. Maybe that's what makes her happiest of all, or maybe it just makes her smile.

And when she smiles,

it lights up her whole face.