3.4

3/4/16
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Sometimes when you've reached the bottom, all you can do is look up through the blue. You can wonder at this new perspective, how your view has changed, how you have changed since settling here on the sand. You can think of the work it will take to get back up to where there's air. You can be just a little afraid, a little wary, that you might run out of the air you have.

But you are there and you have to have all synapses firing and focus given to the tasks at hand amid the wonder and the shifting and the work and the fear.

And then you (albeit slowly) rise.

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Texts

10/16/14
Just in case you're one of those friends who worry about me: This is NOT fiction-y. It is fictional. I had the premise pop up in my head while riding the bus today.  :)
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So, this is my number!
Awesome! Wanna meet up at the cafeteria?
Be there in five
...
So, had a cool idea for story. Wanna hear it?
DUR. Promise I won't steal it
[redacted: examples of blatant nerdery]
[redacted: equally blatant example of nerdery]
...
You gonna be at the cafe at 12?
Yep. Usual table.
Awesome.
Ugh, wish those two would stop making eyes at other.
I know, right? Ha ha we're texting to each other and we're in the same room
RIGHT? What's with these losers
They're not losers.
Nah, but WE ARE
FOR SURE
...
Ugh this homework is getting me down
You can do it! Kick its butt!
Why is grad coming so fast
We're just time traveling that's all
...
So you should date [name redacted]
Why? Does he like me?
I dunno. Probably
What about [name redacted]?
It'd never work
...
Did you get me the homework?
Yep. I'm in the lobby
Be right down
...
Merry Christmas!!
MERRY CHRISTMAS
And a happy new year
Everything going well at home?
Well, my parents are still my parents so there's that
I'm sorry. You should move
With whose money?
Oh right.
...
Can I borrow your truck?
For what?
Oh, you know, stuff
Let's talk. Twenty minutes, student center?
Yeah let's do that
...
Did you ever date [name redacted]?
Nah not my type
REALLY? you two would have been PERFECT
turns out he had a girlfriend the whole time
oh. sorry about that. you okay?
 a bit disappointed but yeah
how about [name redacted]?
what
...
congrats on graduating! dinner? usual place?
pick me up?
of course. meet in central campus
great. on my way
...
Let's have dinner
Really? How? We're not in the same time zone
Well there's always skype
right
also I was quoting sherlock
what
...
happy birthday
thanks!
i hope you're destroying your enemies one by one
of course I am
...
got a boyfriend yet?
well the creepy construction worker outside my apartment leered at me
if he doesn't date you maybe he'll use you for a skin jacket
that's gross
right? some people don't appreciate the skin aesthetic. well, when it's in jackets ;)
ew. :P how's your comic coming along
fine. I should email it to you
do so. i'm so bored
...
thought of you today. hope you're doing well.
yep. doing just fine!
...
whatcha up to?
oh you know same old same old
...
how's it going?
good. you?
good
...
...
...
...
...
hey! thought of you today. I hope you're doing well!
whose number is this
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Back to The...

11-2-12

Fiction.
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Did I get transported back in time? Did someone conk me over the head with something heavy? Steal me away in the TARDIS? Fly backwards around the Earth? Use a Time-Turner?

I mean, he says hello to me and I do some dorky little wave and immediately feel self-conscious. It's not as bad as Harry asking Cho to the Yule Ball in one long unintelligible sentence. Or George McFly saying 'density' instead of 'destiny.'

It wasn't bad at all, you know. It's not like how I felt in high school--I can talk to him, I can make jokes, etc., It's not like I blush every time I see him. I don't, which is a relief. It's just...I feel stupid and I feel obvious and I feel invisible and I feel nothing will ever happen, just like all the other times.

But he still said hello to me. He didn't have to, you know.

But, seriously, though, what happened? Did someone stuff me in a Delorean?
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Chick Flicks

2-23-12

For your consideration:
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"So you really think you're like the girls in chick flicks?" he asked. "Do you have a terminal illness? Are you a shoppaholic? Do you own a lap dog? Are you blonde?"

That was just a little unfair to blondes, but, still, she could envision his point--and she could see how ridiculous it sounded, when framed like that. "Hmm."

"I just don't see the comparison. Maybe don't watch chick flicks."

Not watching chick flicks wouldn't solve the problem. Wouldn't make the world with its unfair expectations and prejudices just disappear, an idea that was hard to articulate, slippery to pin down. "It's not just chick flicks, you know."

"But you're not like the girls in chick flicks," he persisted. He got that serious look in his eyes, the one he usually tried to hide because everyone expected him to be the jokester, the chill dude, the unflappable guy no matter what.

"No, I'm not," she agreed. "No one is." Or, at least, she wasn't. Wasn't spontaneous or crazy, wasn't immediately everyone's best friend, wasn't the one to jump into a pool without checking the depth first. Falling head over heels did not come naturally to her, probably would never come naturally to her.

Still, she wanted to know what a true all-nighter was like, except that she knew she couldn't function productively that late and knew sleep was better. She wanted to know what it was like to be spontaneous, except that she liked being punctual and planned. She wanted to do things and go places and be more, except that she was afraid that she wouldn't be competent, that she would get lost, that she wouldn't measure up.

"You don't have to be. Just be you and everything will work out."

Just be herself? Society had never seemed to accept those who thought before speaking into their midst, especially if those thinkers were women. If she'd lived back in some other era and was the self she was now, she would probably have had a worse time of it, so she smiled--what type of smile, she wasn't sure--and said, "Maybe you're right."

However, unless future experience proved him right, she'd still have her doubts as to the statement's veracity.
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Dusty Dreams

2-21-12

Fiction, maybe with tinges of fiction-y.
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The dreams were dusty, and that was her fault.

She'd neglected them, you see, and dreams don't do well when neglected.

Oh, she'd thought about them from time to time, wondered how she could have forgotten them, tucked away as they were on her library's shelves. They were dusty because she hadn't been able to continue seeing them mishandled by the world. Pages dog-eared and ripped, water stained, or, worse, scribbled on by people with the skill of an illiterate two-year-old. So she'd hid them and then tried to forget them.

She'd tried to pretend that the dreams didn't exist, trudged through what others said that she should do and be, ignoring the tugging on her mind and on her heart. Some days, the dreams and how they'd been treated hurt too much, even when she hoped beyond hope that one day, somehow, maybe even one of them would turn out to be real.

And now they were dusty.

Fortunately, the dreams didn't have to stay that way, a fact that she had been supremely glad to learn.
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