*must commit to written expression of self*

Tomorrow is my last day of school in Lakewood... I can't even believe it's happening to me. I've watched so many of the people I love leave, without ever being able to understand and grasp how it feels. I feel like there's the large amount of pressure upon me to do it right and say what should be said because this is it. This is what people look back on... ugh, the girl thinks too much forcing her to mess shit up. Thus, I refuse to recap, reflect, and experience the deep trap that is "the end". Nothing has to end the boy says, and he is right. I need to listen to him more. No worries.

So, today I recieved the Bell award for English. This is really amazing to me... especially since it always seemed like my English teachers hated me. I guess it just goes to show that I'm not so shitty with words all the time, despite my inability to express things like my overly talented friends. I don't even know what I'm trying to say. It's wierd to get a recognition like that... I'm happy... but it's just yet another thing to confuse me in my future aspirations.

Everything feels so strange. I just finished my final assignment for high school... it feels good, don't get me wrong... but it's so much the end to everything conventional.

Sometimes I have this strange outlook on my life, at least as far as my relationships and what not go. I have my conventional childhood. The friends that I met along the way, in middle school mostly, that will forever be the people they were then. They hold me in this feeling of nostalgia and typical life... routine fun, planned entertainment. It will always be like the days of arranging rides to the movie and going to someone's birthday party. Don't get me wrong, my place in that is very clear and I don't hate it, but it amazes me that somethings will never change. Life boils down to getting things done, and getting them done well.. and having your countless "best friends" there the whole time.

I had to go outside of that convention and I found an entirely different feeling. The friends I found didn't have the storybook childhood like me, and I was a minority for once with my seemingly peaceful past. Drama came in a new form, instead of drama over petty shit, it's drama over the world's woes and a constant life of disfunction. No one knows what they're doing til they get there and the best times are had with the littlest devotion to thought and only whim and trust in the company you're keeping. The scenery always changing, the turbulence a part of the norm and the stories of intense love and hate never cease.

Between these two seemingly alternate universes, I stand. What I've learned is I'm not alone in the middle, and my closet friends are standing with me right there. They'll take me to the world they're most comfortable with but they'll willingly sample the other. I am so blessed to have happy-medium friends...

Graduation marks the end of the conventional, and it's weird because the opposite world has given me so much experience in these last days of high school. I've moved on in so many capacities, but I'm standing still at this very moment. I can do this... I have to :)

Argh, seems to me I've babbled about that without making sense to anyone but myself... but that's the way it's got to be. It works for me.

In the theme of conventional, I suppose I should look forward to the coming days. I'm feverishly (okay not really... but it's cool to say) preparing for prom which happens to be on friday. SCARY! I'll be the one in the fuscia dress... getting pictures taken... riding in a limo... dancing the night away... oi. I'm moreso anxious about after prom camping, which if all goes wellllll will be a blast. I have food and great people to go with... and it will be good. Can you tell this is a self-pep-talk? I WILL HAVE FUN.

Ahhh so much... let's go....

sleep first I guess.

Ah, how the essence of avoidance is held within these clearly presented pages of internet space... and my lack of visably visiting them.

I am sorry for not reflecting on these quickly diminishing days of the experiences I've come to know so well... it's so hard, and it's so much easier for me to just ignore the need to do it. Alas, I've found the necessity again and here I am.

The days are dwindling down... and I have just completed my participation in shows at Lakewood High School. Sometimes I feel so utterly exposed in such instances, and I really let myself out there for that day. I am happy with the way my last circle went, it was heartbreaking but in the same time I said what I wanted to say and I was there. I've found an inner peace with Barnstormers and it's drastic impact on my life, it's absolutely euphoric.

It was weird for me because I didn't spend my Sunday in tears like I have so many times before. I didn't get more than a wince of the pain of endings... and you'd think I'd feel it. Don't get me wrong I was sad. I still am sad. I still haven't grasped it fully... I have a feeling the banquet will get me but... my thoughts were so easily occupied on Sunday. So easily filled, it amazes me. I'm struggling to understand it. To truly grasp these emotions that take up enough room to combat all the sadness from the one thing I loved most in high school ending.

Knot in my stomach, lump in my throat. Fuck me for that. I wish my brain would feel better... magically fix itself from the doom it seems so wonderfully prepared for. I'm so lost about "love" and I just wish it was something I could not worry about like I have avoided it so grandly in the past. I don't know what the deal is. Truly.

From my horoscope last week: "This is heaven," said the woman. When a surprised Krishna Das asked what she meant, she replied, "Heaven is any place where one's needs can be met." My wish for you this week, Libra, is that you be as open-minded as she was about where heaven might reside for you.

I just wanted to remember that. Barnstormers was my heaven. I am blessed to have experienced every moment I was able to have it in my life.

"It's crazy shit. All of that. It always is" (not related to Barnstormers)