21)

If the people you love the most tell you enough times that you can't do something, you will inevitably start to believe it.  That is the current predicament I find myself in.  I can't even fathom explaining how much this hurts.  On a daily basis, I find myself questioning the one constant source of support I have had my entire life.  My family has always been there for me.  They have always loved me unconditionally, but now....  I just don't feel like that anymore.  I know they still love me, nothing can convince me otherwise.   However, is the support still there?  No, is the resounding answer I find I have to face.  My sister, the one person in the entire world who knows all my secrets, the one I go to when I am in trouble first, she has basically told me that she won't be there for me if I move to Tucson.  I hate this!  Why do I have to chose between letting her down and letting myself down?  She is so concerned with preventing me from feeling like I have failed when the Tucson move doesn't end well--which it probably won't because I'm not sure how compatible Adam and I will be as roommates.  Why then, through all of this concern, can't she see that if I don't do this, I will have already have failed horribly.  She may have forgotten, but I have already experienced this feeling of utter failure and acceptance of what I have to settle for.  My senior year of high school, I was accepted to the school of my dreams, Whittier--a liberal arts college in California.  My family told me there was no way I could go.  I felt like my heart had shattered.  My friends were my support system at that time.  They were outraged that my family had let me down, allowed me to believe that I wasn't good enough.  Actually Amber and her little brother, you know the one I am in love with, were the most vocal and pissed about it.  They encouraged me to try and do it anyways, but I had already accepted it as impossible.  They haven't forgotten that moment.  I haven't forgotten that moment, that feeling of utter and complete loneliness and failure.  It is something that sticks with you.  So now, with that feeling in mind and my newly acquired sense of self-sufficientcy--however brutally misguided it may be--I am determined to make this move work.  I will get a place with Adam.  I will get my degree and go to a great graduate school.  I will find at least one job.  I will be able to pay all my bills on time...or really close to on time.  I will succeed.  I will do whatever it takes to make this work...within reason, at least...I won't sell a kidney or any other part of me...don't worry about that.  I will keep my damned dignity!
 
This will work! 

I will not fail!

Thank you for letting me get that off my chest...

20

You know what's really funny?  I have been thinking that I was getting over you know who, but now I am kind of thinking that was a vicious lie I've been telling myself.  Sure, it's been a while since I cried myself to sleep over him, but that's not really a fair judge.  I go through these phases where I start to think I can basically purge him from my consciousness.  LIES!  It is so not true.  I love him and because of that fact, he will always be in my heart and on some part of my mind.  I realize that I just need to get to a place where I can ignore that part of my mind and maybe shrink the acreage down a bit.  I remember that I used to say that I was broken all the time, well now I am on the mend.  For the most part, I can look at a picture of him and my stomach is no longer tied in painful knots and my heart rate remains steady.  There are still those days when the part of him that is always on  my mind is going for some expansion of mental territory and I am right back where I was.  However, I can be happy for him now that he is in a new relationship.  I truly hope he is happy.  I am past the point where I want him to be miserable like I was.  I have been talking to pretty much all of my friends about it.  Caylin and I had a really good sisters talk on Tuesday about me and him.  Even she thinks that he really did love me and all the crap that happened after was mostly in response to my having hurt him.  Rachel and I had a fantastic talk about it last night as well.  She doesn't really know him--never met him, in fact--but she knows me and even she could see that I still love him.  I do hope that one day I will be able to, at the very least, kiss him--mmmmm....he has deliciously kissable lips.

Yet another reason I love my little talks with Rachel is because she is my only other virgin friend I can actually have in depth sex talks with.  I don't harbor any romantic notions about having to be in love with the guy I give my virginity to.  I do have to feel like I trust him and that we care about each other.  That's all.  I get that sex is a big deal, especially for women because we are taking the most risk every time we decide to have sex.  The guys don't have to worry about getting pregnant and derailing their entire lives.  Sure, if they are responsible, they will do everything in their power to become a responsible and loving father to that child and help take of and raise it.  I am not saying that the guy should drop every thing he has ever wanted, marry the girl he knocked up and live a very likely miserable existence.  I don't think that a pregnancy between and unwed couple has to result in a marriage.  A child should not be the reason two people get married!  It will not be a happy marriage and that kid is going to probably get really messed up psychologically.  I think the pregnancy period should act as a sort of dry run for a marriage.  If the two people in question do love each other and they can survive the emotional roller coaster that is a woman's hormones during pregnancy and the birth of their child...and they still love each other, then they should think about getting married.  It should not be one of those, "Hey, I'm pregnant.' 'Well then I guess we should get married." things.

Sorry, that was an uber tangent I wasn't intending to follow.  Well...here is another one, though smaller.

Another thing Rach and I talked about last night was that one of our old super close friends has said that love is the most selfish thing you can do and that you do it because it makes you feel good.  BULLSHIT!!  Love is the most unselfish thing in the world, at least the version of it I believe in is.  In my version, you are willing to let the other person go if you think that's what is best for them and you don't hold onto them just because they make you feel good.  My version doesn't mean that you live your life for another person, but it does mean that the other person is a big factor in your decisions.  In my version, you think about what the other person wants when you go shopping for groceries.  I remember in one of my conversations with him, he asked me if he should re-up in the Army.  He said that he wouldn't do it if I didn't want him to, which was really sweet of him to think of me when he was trying to make this huge decision.  I told him that he should do it if it would be what would make him happy because that was all I really wanted.  If he was happy than so was I.  I know that sounds like a horribly stupid cliche, but that is what it felt like.  I think that is love.  When you are tied to the other person and you want them to be happy because if they are happy than you can be too.  I, of course, didn't want him to re-up because I wanted him with me, but I also didn't want to be the reason he didn't do something that he really wanted to do because I knew that if we were to have had a long term relationship, that would have lead to it's death.  I loved him enough to be away from him for a longer time than necessary and he loved me enough to include my feelings in his decision--which inevitably landed on the side of not re-upping *insert heart leaping for joy*.  I still want to kiss him for that.  Who am I kidding?  I just want to kiss him. ;-)

Ok, now we are going to cover some territory I don't think we have before.  I am tired of my virginity!  That is not to say that I will just give it up to the next guy I see.  I would, however, be willing to sleep with Ben or him, or even John, who you were never introduced to before and he isn't even remotely in the picture now, but the boy was a walking turn on nonetheless.  Now then, Ben and I have this silly plan that after I get all settled down in Tucson and we both get some money, we will meet in Vegas for a weekend and the only rule is that we are not allowed to get married.  There was no rule, however, that we couldn't sleep together.  Don't get me wrong, that would not be the point of this weekend get together and I am kind of doubting that it will actually happen anyways, but if we do end up meeting in Vegas and we do end up sleeping together, well than so be it.  I seriously doubt it will be something I regret.  I do trust him and I do care about him, it isn't even remotely love, but I think it would be nice and he knows I am a virgin so I am sure he would be careful not to like murder me, metaphorically speaking.  Sleeping with the love of my life would be another awesome plan to put into action, obviously not while he is in another relationship.  Now, with him, I know he would take care of me...I think he would be a lot of fun.  Rach and I were talking about it last night and we both decided that after we have sex for the first time, we are probably going to go through a sexual revolution of some kind that will include a personality change and I think we will probably be more comfortable in our own skin.  It is an exciting prospect.

Well...I guess it is pretty obvious where my mind has been lately...

...hehehehe. ;-)

19)

Prepare yourself now...this is going to be a rant post...

GRRRRRRR!!!!!  I am getting really pissed at U of A.  They sent me a letter telling me that they have yet to receive my transcripts from SCC.  BULLSHIT!  I have sent them twice.  On the My UA page, which I use to check the status of my application, it said that my transcripts were received April 12, 2010 and that they were being processed.  When I called yesterday, however, they had no record of that happening and the guy I talked to the second time I called said that there was no way they would still be processing those ones.  They are apparently working on processing applications sent May 17, 2010.  I was told to call back in a week and a half.  This is total bullshit!  I am officially worried about attending U of A if this is how they handle their business!  Either the people in the Admissions office need to get together with the people who handle the My UA page or they need to pull their heads out of their asses and actually help me out and give me some damn information!  Two choices.  Either way would work for me.

On another stressful note, I got a photo radar ticket last week.  This time it wasn't for speeding though.  Apparently, I turned on a red.  I maintain that the light was still yellow when I turned.  Hopefully, it doesn't go through, but I seriously doubt it.  My luck is non-existent so it definitely went through and it will come in the mail two weeks after the incident.  This makes it even worse!  That means that my parents are going to get this frelling ticket right before they leave for California!  What a great way to kick off that vacation!!!  I am terrified about what they will do when they get it!!!  I would love to intercept it, but I work during the day and my mom works from home and always gets the mail.  She is going to get it.  I am going to be grounded.  They will take away Franny.  They are going to be soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo mad at me!  I hate disappointing them and that is exactly what I am going to be doing...again.  I feel like a total crumb!  Had I just gone down Shea instead of Scottsdale, this wouldn't have ever happened, but NO!  I was dumb.  i shouldn't have turned and now I am going to have to pay for it.  My parents are going to KILL me!  I am so screwed!  I am going to be freaking out until the shit hits the fan.  I will continue to cross my fingers that it never comes, but it will and I will be screwed.  It's hard to think positive when you know it just won't work out for you in the end.  I don't have that kind of luck.

Yours until my parents get that ticket,
K

18

I think I may actually be moving on finally!  I can finally look at a picture of him and not feel physical pain!  I can hear his name and not cringe because my stomach is tied in knots.  I can even talk about him!  Do you have any idea how incredibly happy this makes me?!  I may be a little more free from him now.  We will see what happens when I next see him.  Maybe all this will go away and I will be right back to where I was, but, for now, I am proud of my progress!  I am even being really nice to his best friend, Nate, who reminds me of him a bunch.  Nate and I had this thing where we were both horrible to each other and neither of us knew why exactly.  We had a talk about it one day while we were drinking and discovered that neither of us hated the other, much to our collective surprise.  We even joked with each other for the rest of the night.  Oh!  The best part was that we talked a little about his best friend and how I couldn't hate him even if I tried and how it wasn't just because that was his personality and everyone did it, it went deeper.  Who knows maybe one day I will tell Nate that I love his best friend...doubtful, but hey at least one of them will know.

I am still waiting to hear back from U of A.  It's a wee bit infuriating and stressful--and by "wee bit" I mean "pull your hair out".  I need them to send my acceptance letter and let me know if they will be giving me some financial aid so that I can plan ahead.  I need to get back to the apartment complex I will be living in and let them know what my income will be.  I also need to find a job down there.  Moving is so stressful!!!!!  At least I have a couch now!  That is exciting!  It has the worst fabric I have ever seen, but that is what they made slip covers for.  I also have two white end tables.  I want to make them into an art project of some kind.  I definitely want to paint them!  I am thinking of doing the legs in black and then maybe have all my friends write on the top in a bunch of different colors little memories and stories about us or maybe just doing a splatter pain design in a bunch of fun colors.  All I know for sure is that I will be putting a glass top on them to protect them.  I think we are going to get some bean bags and hopefully a love seat for the living room.  We still need dinning room furniture, which kind of sucks because that gets pretty expensive.  I just really hope that we can get into this place because I love it!!

OOOO....Beans was in town last week!  I love her!  We went out pretty much every night.  She had us go to this bar called the British Open Pub--guess what the theme of the place was.  It was a fantastic bar!  There were four military people in there when we walked in--delicious--they also had pool and darts, plus they make a great Vodka and Cranberry.  I had so much fun that night.  We went to see "The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo" which is an amazing and intense Swedish movie that I highly recommend.  We played Apples to Apples at 5 and Diner.  We also played Apples to Apples at Amber's boyfriend's apartment--by the way, I think I have been really good about him, I have only been mean to him when he is being an ass.  I decided that I have to go visit Katie (Beans) and her brother, David, sometime so they can show me around.  David said he loves to play tour guide so he will take me to Monterey and Big Sur.  I will have to start saving for this adventure!

In other news, I am once again talking to Ben.  He seems to be doing better, but he is still super lonely over there in Colorado.  I feel bad for him, but he isn't actually doing anything about it, so I can't give too much sympathy.  However, we did make a tentative plan to meet in Vegas after I get all settled and have some money down in Tucson.  I told him we weren't allowed to get married though.  Just thought I should cover some of the bases during the preliminary conversations about this trip.  I really hope we actually go on this trip though!  I will be very sad if it doesn't happen.  I don't know why, but Ben and I always end up working the topic of sex into our conversations.  We joke about it subtly.  We haven't ever just come out and said that we were ever going to have sex...I kind of doubt we will, have sex that is.  I'll be the first to admit that I do enjoy talking about it jokingly with him.  It's fun and it makes me feel a bit more feminine.  Hey, I'm 21 years old, I am allowed to talk about sex if I want with whomever I want.  Plus, I have been very good.  I haven't even been kissed in over a year--goodness, that's depressing.  I am still a virgin, which, ps, is getting kind of old already.  It's not like I am waiting for Mr. Right or for marriage, but I am waiting for someone who is worth it.  I have to know that it isn't just a one night stand.  I want to wake up in the morning and have him still be there...that would be nice.  I know it isn't going to be perfect and that the chances are that it won't even be that much fun, but, hey, you've got to start somewhere.  I don't regret being a virgin because the first time is important and painful and scary and forever.  It's not like you can get your virginity back.  (wow, that wasn't where I was expecting that paragraph to go.  oh well)

I guess that's all for today.  Have a lovely time of it all!  Till next time, don't do anything I wouldn't do.  ;-)