14 August 2013

Today is the kind of day I miss you. There’s a briskness in the air that would’ve had us running to the car to take a drive anywhere; there was something about driving to the middle of nowhere that appealed to us and I think it’s the thing I miss most about NJ as a whole. By pure coincidence, it made me think of this photo we took together and when I looked at the date on it, I was a little stunned to see it was taken on August 14th, 2008. I guess maybe it’s just the date I think of you most on. Maybe I’m a little bit crazy (well, we already knew that).

I don’t miss high school, but I miss the experiences of high school. I miss the friends, the fun, the endless possibilities for the future. I miss 1 am frisbee in the high school parking lot, late night Wendy’s runs with a car packed with our friends, walking through rainstorms for fun, the pool parties, the carefully thought-out photo shoots that never ended up as good as we *knew* they would, the impromptu trips to the beach, the desperation to find something fun to do in suburbia, etc. I don’t have contact with most people from high school and my friends now are all married or engaged. They’re moving on and starting their families. Why am I not? Why am I holding on to something that’s passed me by?

I’ve come a long way since high school and I don’t miss where I was mentally back then. I’ve learned who I am and how to accept that. I guess I wish I could just relive the times with my current understanding of life. Doesn’t everyone? Don’t we all wish we could go back and make the wrongs right? It’s silly and unfeasible, but it’s the strongest desire I have.

My world doesn’t make sense the way I hoped it would by now. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m happy in life right now; I’m so incredibly blessed and I’m thankful every day for it. There’s just this part of me that chases the past. I don’t think it’ll ever go away, either. It comes around this time of year, when the school year is about to begin and the weather starts getting cooler. Everything elicits a bittersweet memory — the puffy white clouds, the breeze, the smell in the air — and it makes me want to jump in a car and drive to New Hope. It makes me long for the days I could show up at my best friend’s house and just walk in her front door like I lived there. Little things like that which I can’t have back. It’s silly, I know.

It’s funny because I started this blog in hopes that it would bring me closure. I’m realizing now closure is a farce. We never get over things, we just tuck them away and try to write over them with new garbage. We don’t forget the past, even if the present is wonderful. The past is what makes the present what it is and it’s silly to think otherwise. Every person who has been in my life, whether it be for years or for hours, has made me exactly who I am right now. I don’t want to forget that. I don’t want to have closure. I’ll think of the past and I’ll smile and my heart will hurt a little, but that’s just a wonderful part of being alive.

9 February (Day 28)

photograph of my apartment window, overlooking the Hudson River and NJ

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Moments in the snow that I can’t forget:

• I was 6 and we got this huge amount of snow. I’m talking, it was up to my 6-year-old shoulders. I don’t know why it stands out in my mind, but I just remember that first day after the snow had finally stopped. My dad, my brother, and I went out and built a crappy-looking snowman. My mom had hot chocolate waiting for us when we came in. I wore one of those stupid snowsuits that takes two people to get you out of it. My mom insisted I wear these ridiculous mittens. Everyone knows mittens suck; you can’t do anything with them on! So I’d keep ripping them off and my hands would freeze. My mom, watching from the family room window would open the front door and yell at me.
• Another blizzard hit when I was 10. I was in middle school and the town was so small, we didn’t have school busses. I walked home with a friend that lived around the corner and the snow built up after shoveling the sidewalks was well above our heads. We made up this whole crazy adventure based on the fact that we couldn’t see anything but snow, the ground below us, and the sky.
• I was a senior in high school and I got sick, so they obtained permission from my mom and I got into my car to go home. It had been snowing all morning, so the roads were packed with snow. I was the only person on the road. I had already had my license for a year, so I wasn’t a new driver, but it was the first time I had driven on more than an inch of snow. It was incredible the way the branches looked as I drove by. I don’t know, I can’t describe it in words. I’d need a full entry to even try.