The Next Step

[hereistonewbeginnings]

is it weird that I hung out with my ex on what would have been our 7 month anniversary.. and I didn't realize it.. until now?

I mean.. that's good.. right? haha.

[hereistonewbeginnings]

it sucks realizing that once you're gone, there won't really be any reason for you to come back... and that it will officially be the end to something that was once great.

[fusels-s]

[hereistonewbeginnings]

I think I'm one of few people in this world who desperately wants to fall OUT OF love.

and quickly.

[lovequotesrus]

[hereistonewbeginnings]

I feel like I'm going to vomit.

[p-i-n-k-d-a-i-sy]

[hereistonewbeginnings]

I keep looking for the silver lining.. but it's getting harder and harder to find these days.

Life is rough.. hashtag first world problems, whatever.. I'm grateful for everything I have. I really and truly am, and I feel selfish for feeling down, or upset by things that I'm losing when I can eat at any time, any day, I have clean water and a roof to sleep under. I'm making money, I have friends, a family, parents who are still together.. etc etc etc.

I'm having a hard time right now though. I'm working, and trying to pick up everything being thrown at me-- and it's not coming as easily as I thought it would. I feel like a disappointment.. again. I haven't been sleeping well, or eating right, my mind is a cloud of thoughts, wonderments and worries..

My extended family is falling apart, and I know how badly it's eating away at my father, and how badly it's eating away at me. Things just seem to continue to slip from my grasp, and I'm scared of what I'll lose next.

In the last few months I've been suspended from school, broken up with, slowly losing one of my best friends, dealing with family tension and now I don't know if I'll ever see my grandfather again because the only way his witch of a sister would begin to get her claws out of our business was if he cut ties with him, and it got ugly.. very ugly.. and I know it sounds completely stupid and selfish and spoiled, but because of it we lost the summer home too. The home that has been in my family's name for many decades, and has been in my father's name for at least the last twenty or so years. Michiana. My safe haven. The one place I always felt at ease, and could relax. Anyone who knows me well knows how much that house means to me, but more importantly to my family.

I'm starting to feel like I shouldn't be here.. like I should just go back to Chicago. What's for me here? A job I keep screwing up with? Housemates who are probably going to get annoyed with me if they aren't already? The school that I'm not even attending right now? I just feel like a reject.

Hi, I'm Katie. Welcome to my brain. 

[hereistonewbeginnings]

Remember when I said that I might never see my grandfather again?

...that possibility is even greater now. 

My heart is completely shattered.

[hereistonewbeginnings]

in other news a boy just called me gorgeous :3 a boy that I actually know, and who isn't just trying to be creepy.

I think that's the first time a guy who isn't related to me, and actually knows me, has ever told me I'm anything other than "cute" or "adorable".

anxiety gone. he's so sweet.

la la la la la. back to packing :3 

[hereistonewbeginnings]

So tonight.

The boy that I've liked since my Senior year of high school met my parents and my oldest brother DJ (with whom he chit chatted about the military with, since he's shipping off to the Navy and my brother is a Marine) and played with my dog, and then tried to kiss me.

Really?

The day before I leave. You're going to try to kiss me. 12 hours before I'm supposed to leave.

Showering me with compliments, being cute, and silly and listening to me rant about stupid things. THE DAY BEFORE I LEAVE.

I'm sorry, I'm moving 5 hours away. And in 7 months, you're shipping off to god knows where. I've known you for three years, and you chose NOW to try to kiss me? After you know that I've spent my summer heartbroken, and finally at a time when I'm really starting to get over it to the best of my ability.

I don't regret turning away.

The timing was all off. 

[hereistonewbeginnings]

Sitting in the back of my parents car on our way home from dinner with my grandfather silently crying... I just got the most horrible feeling as I hugged him that I might never see him again. He handed me money, wouldn't let me refuse it and said "Just remember me while you're spending it"

[hereistonewbeginnings]

I was gonna go to bed like an hour ago.. but found myself thinking with this face instead.

What is my life.

[hereistonewbeginnings]

Wow.

Summer is almost over.

Within the next 84 hours or so.. I'll be leaving for Oxford.

and I am ecstatic. Really. Moving into my house, living with my friends, working at Kofenya, being back in a place that's mine, and I feel appreciated. I get tingles just thinking about it.

But I'm also terrified.. of messing up and not getting back in second semester, of messing up and not being able to pay my way, of fucking up friendships, of seeing someone who I haven't spoken to in months who used to mean a lot to me (and upon trying to talk to said person being ignored), of falling into a lull and getting lazy, of disappointing my family, friends, and myself AGAIN.. 

At the end of the day, I always just feel like another scared little girl trying to find her way in the big bad world.

[hereistonewbeginnings]

Le Ouch.

So I've been having this pain in my chest, within the last week or so. Not in a "oh woe is me" way, haha, like actual random pangs that go though my chest, and it'll get tight. It's super weird, and I don't like it. But it's not painful to the point where it's stopping me from daily activities or anything. It's just weird.

[hereistonewbeginnings]

This summer

has been really freaking hard. I've had fun, and I appreciate every laugh and every smile I've had, but this won't go down as one of my favorite summers.

My grandfather loses it more and more each day.. hour.. minute... he's a completely different person from the one I knew when I was a little girl. He was my Cyrus Jones. I thought he'd live forever. I just can't stand watching him fade, and watching his so called family taking advantage of him and using him. It's completely heart wrenching. Throw my brother and his stupidity and compulsive lying into the mix, and now its catastrophe.

I feel like a whiney pre-teen, but it feels like my parents don't listen to me or have time for me anymore. Moreso my Dad than my Mom, and I get it.. he's got a LOT on his mind, but that doesn't mean I don't either, or that my Mom doesn't. We're both getting fed up with it, with constantly being put on the back burner. It's not fair. I don't need his attention 100% of the time, and neither does she, but it would be nice to have a conversation without it turning into something about him and work or him and his god awful sister or what his stupid brothers did. I want him to vent to us, and to de-stress, but it would be nice if in-between we could do the same. 

Then there's of course my whole school situation and feeling like a waste of space. I don't feel like I'm cut out for college. Shit, there are some days when I don't feel cut out for life and I just sit there and wonder when it's going to end. Not in a morbid way, but just that I don't feel like I've made any difference in the world, or ever will. I'm too dumb or too lazy or too invisible. Idk. I'm hoping this semester will be good for me.. but even hope can only get me so far.

and then there's that situation where on top of everything else, my mind comes back to the same thing at the end of the day. The range of emotions when thinking about said subject are numerous and vast. Anger, frustration, hurt, fear, excitement, hope, sadness, wonderment, and physical pain. I can't wrap my mind around how people work. I just want answers to all of these questions that I have about why things happen and what goes on in people's minds, and I can never seem to find the answer either because it's incomprehensible to me, or because they lie. 

I sound like a train wreck of a person, and sometimes I'll admit I can be, but I'm actually happy. I'm not a sad person, despite thinking I am sometimes. I know I can throw a smile on for just about any situation, and I know that even in my darkest times I can be the light for someone else. 

Every day is a new day down a winding road, and as much as I enjoy a good surprise, I just really wish I had SOME idea of what was to come.

[hereistonewbeginnings]

So I have this friend.

and I used to like him.. a lot. My senior year of high school, we were super flirtatious, but neither of us took any further steps. We knew it was pointless because we never hung out outside of school, and we were graduating.

Flirtatious texting presumed from there on and off, and ever since I came home this summer I've been talking to him a lot, and we've hung out a few times with other friends that I don't normally see.

I'm really comfortable around him, he's a good friend and I enjoy talking to him. Tonight at a friend's house, it was just chill and natural, and I had fun. It was like being at school or being with the group that I usually hang out with.

But when he had his arm around me, and when we hugged, or he picked me up my mind went somewhere else.

I liked it, and I guess I still have some sort of feelings for him.. but it's just that I don't want to hurt him.  Frankly, I'm not over my last boyfriend, and if anything were to become of my friend and I.. right now I feel like it would be for the wrong reasons. Not to mention that in a month I'll be going back to Ohio.. and he'll be going back to Minnesota.. and distance and I apparently just don't get along very well.

And I don't want to start a friendship with my ex by having gone off and done something stupid. I don't know if he would care, but part of me feels like he would, and I wouldn't want to hurt him either.

Regardless I had fun tonight, and I'm really excited to see Weston tomorrow and just never let him go. I miss that kid so much more than I ever thought I would, and his hugs always feel like they can fix anything. I wouldn't be surprised if I started crying haha. 

goodnight <3.