What Danica Knows

"Danica, what do you think about when you fall asleep?" asked my friend a couple weeks ago during one of our therapy sessions.

"I think about good memories," she answered. Which isn't what I do, isn't what I did at all, but now I've realized the magic of that.

It's the end of the school year. There's only one day left, and not everybody is going to go tomorrow because it's like today. Today was pretty much the last day, actually, the last semi-normal day and the last day of half my classes.

We spent lunch signing yearbooks and I go through mine wanting to cry, and with the rain that's falling outside I'd be okay. "Why is it raining on the last day?" cried August. "Like, what the freak?"

But I think it's because the sky is crying too. After all, we're the ones who put sunshine in it.

Like, way to be all selfish there. But I really believe that of me and my group of friends. At least that's where the sunshine in my sky comes in, especially during the storms I bring about. Because then there's a rainbow, and it's the prettiest miracle there ever was.

But that miracle is ending. I've spent two years with these friends but next year is freshman year of high school and 5 times the people there are now and I'm just so afraid of losing people and having them lose me and it's just this emptiness inside of me that refuses to believe this is happening.

"I'm going to wake up one day in the middle of the summer and it'll hit me," I said on the way to get my yearbook today. But that'll be the big hammer hitting. Right now it's kind of like little knives, and my heart is being torn to pieces.


There are rain splatters on my yearbook because I was reading it in the rain. I took millions of pictures of the tree that my friends and I sit under. But they might as well be tears because that's how I feel right now. I feel so sad. This year is over.

But then ... then I think about all the amazing things we've been through. So what if the future isn't so bright? At least I've lived a fairy tale this magical and it even came with a happy ending. Now that that's ending, I can close the book, but that's not to say I'm not going to go back to it.

Because I am. A lot. So far, these past two years are my favorite book.

Just Friends

Orqua nudges me as we walk together, right after I elbow her because the boy she likes is walking right next to us. "You have no reason to nudge me!" I cry, even though there are slight reasons. Like that we're friends and you have to nudge your friend and wink even though she doesn't like anybody.

And then one of my old crushes walks me to the soccer field and I haven't talked to him in forever, but it feels nice because we're just friends and I'm not freaking out about him, just happy he's staying by my side and we're talking and laughing.

And Georgie brings more good news that she might move somewhere even closer to me, and I know things will work out and we're going to stay friends no matter if she moves to a different state.


Literally rides by on his bike and I call out to him. Georgie's crush comes over and talks with me and includes me in their inside jokes and I realize I have guy friends, too.

And there's a journal I pass around with my girl friends--Kahler, Nash, August, Danica, Souri, Georgie, Vanessa, Orqua, Tangorine ... all of them. And they're all talking about how it's so sad it's the end of the year and we're gonna miss each other.

Georgie and I were talking on the phone the other day and we have realized that we are going to miss each other but right now you have to stop and enjoy the moment because no matter what my mom says, friendships are worth fighting for.

Capture the Sunshine

NOTE: These aren't my mountains. :(

This morning Georgie and I were having another day of standing there in semi-awkward silence wondering what to do with ourselves and the words that were apparently just going to have issues coming out of our mouths. "Wanna go out in the hall?" she asked, for no particular reason.

So I followed her out there ready to write in my journal but then we went to the window and the sun was rising over this little town and you could see it streaming through the mountains to light up a particular swathe* of trees.

*Don't mind me. I must've eaten a dictionary or something.

It was gorgeous, and she pulled out her camera to capture it. And that ended in us taking more pictures of my pen balancing skills, our shadows, people's legs {by accident} and ... it was nice. That kind of nice when you're super tired and you just woke from one of the best dreams ever and want to go back to sleep and live in that world instead ... but realize that this one is fine, too.

'Cause today at lunch I really played soccer for the first time in a while and didn't give up and walk away like I did yesterday. I didn't care when I didn't get the ball, and I didn't care when I did. I just had fun either way, which was ... fun, for a change. 

And the best part was how I had little muttered conversations with Fortune whom I haven't talked to in a while. Since he's a soccer pro I ended up sprinting for the soccer ball but danged it into the fence, and now I have a scrape on my foot. But it's cool having this green and red polka dot band-aid from Danica. {The last one was at the assembly.} And then I got to talk to Fortune some more on the way to Science. I hate it when my friends don't talk to me for long periods of time and it's nice to fix that.

During lunch and Science I talked a lot with August and Danica, too, as well as Nash and Souri and Kahler and Blaund and ... it was awesome.

So ... that's my story of today. Like how my dream included talking and laughing with Seattle and Stephen and Fortune on the bus and it happened in real life, which just goes to show that dreams come true.

When You Try Your Best But Don't Succeed

The title line is from Coldplay's Fix You, which happens to be one of my favorite songs. Just in case, you know, you want to stalk me even more than the info I've already given you. Which would be creepy, but not like there's stuff I HAVEN'T said here.

Anyway, it's basically how I've been feeling lately. Like I'll wait for a reply to the millions of letters I've sent in the past month and get none. Or wish I could talk to Fortune more, only never get to because I don't know why {it's probably me}.

It was like in PE today. You're all probably very familiar with the concept of me using PE to make me happy. First it was with wallyball volleyball, and me and my picking teams of the people who never get picked {except by me, another one of those who never get picked} and having fun no matter how much we lost by {which was a lot}. Then it was bowling and not letting nostalgia take me over. Then it was running far and fast and next to people, and Greni and Reta thanked me for that today after band, too. Which was cool and unexpected, because people usually don't notice what I do, especially lately.

{Unless it's being a jerk.}

So today we played handball, which is majorly confusing and would've been fun if I had not been tired from watching a movie in French yesterday and one in English today {right before PE} and running around some more and generally not having a good start to the day. My team for handball included one of my good friends Venni Laukner and this one quiet girl whom I hardly get a chance to talk to, and Orqua. It's hard to explain handball. Anyway, we were up against Kahler, August, Danica and Hillary, who all happen to be sports pros who beat the crap out of us no matter how hard we tried.

Which was pretty hard, especially near the end. I'm not good at sports, but at least I try! I'm sure everyone else on my team was trying too, but what I hate is when people split groups into their friends the sports pros and leave all the unwanted, last-picked people to fend for themselves. 

Sometimes I feel like all my friends are secretly plotting against me too, like "Let's pretend that everything is okay only we'll secretly glance at each other and say things behind her back because she's so weird." Or, "What a weirdo."

And I was playing soccer today but I ended up walking away again. I seem to do that a lot as of late.

But sometimes you don't really give up. You just go on, and see if someone takes the time to catch up to you {you have to walk slow sometimes}. 

So today I was going on, and even though I felt like crying instead I sat by a tree with Vanessa and we sat next to each other in the sunshine on the grass and just read our own separate books. "I'm sorry I wasn't very exciting," she said when we hugged to leave.

"That's okay. Sometimes I like to just sit and read. You know, get out of this world."

And it's true. I needed that break. Because I actually worked on my math test and got to read some more and then Seattle was talking and laughing with me and making fun at the way I say "Mmmmmmm" when I'm trying to get my hands to high-five Kyle the right way, only he wasn't making fun of me because he sort of blushed and was all like "I wasn't," when I accused him {not that harshly FYI}. And I know he never rides the bus on Thursday afternoons but he was there, and even when he left I felt a little bit better, because he probably knew he'd be picked up too, but he came on the bus to talk just like I did yesterday when I knew I'd be picked up.

So ... there are things like that, and I realize I've kind of been sitting around waiting for something to happen. When maybe I should get up and go someplace where something will.

More Evidence

I've been thinking about it, because this is the time of the year when I am stuck enough to realize what is happening and what has happened ... in this past year, the one lesson I've really learned is how to hope. Oh, and how to cope, but that comes with hoping, dunnit?

So here's more evidence--it's raining right now. Well, not all that hard, but the ground is still wet and there are little drops on my windows and it smells fabulous outside. It's been raining all night and it was raining all yesterday. The funny thing is ... last week it was snowing. And before that it was snow, snow, snow, all year long.

I get really frustrated at the snow. Especially the stuff we had last week. Like, shouldn't it rain? Just like one degree hotter and it would be my favorite weather. But NOOOOOOO, weather had to be stupid. But luckily, I live in a state where the weather loves to change and be random and all that. Actually, that's unlucky. Because this whole year with its November {or probably even October} snow that lasted on the ground until March, I've been hanging on to the wish and hope that it's going to rain and rain all day long and I'll be happy again. 


'Cause who can't be happy given an umbrella and a lamppost? 

So it's kind of another little proof that if you hope, you just have to wait for all the rest of the fake-hopers to drop off before you get what you want. 'Cause I find that life doesn't like to give to the undeserving. {Haha, those of you who didn't participate in the dance!}

Okay, I'm going to stop using parentheses and talk about the dance again. 'Cause it was really fun, and really great, and it made me really happy. One of these days I will kidnap the video from Tangorine and August and Greni's mother and everybody else who filmed it after I interrogated them and made them. Actually, that's only in the case of the first two. But still.

It's nice to know that some things you wish do come true, you just have to be a little patient. Like how {yes, yes} the people who quit the dance got showed that it can be really cool. And I did get a reluctant "Yeah, you guys were awesome," from the one senator who didn't participate *coughcoughnonamesherecoiugh*.

So I guess I'll just be quiet now, and listen to the rain. (:

And I'm Home

There was something about today that made me feel beautiful. Not like in the physical way ... but in the mental way. Wherever you pinpoint where your feelings come from, I was warm and soft inside, like a baby blanket. And man, are those things soft.

This afternoon from 1 to 5, I was at my school decorating a section of the main hallway for school spirit. It comes from being a representative for my grade, and it was ... really awesome, actually.

I got there and it was snowing, and there was a crowd inside from the basketball game that was going on. I looked around feeling a little lost, but then I saw Georgie! What a great first person, right? We collided and then I saw Kahler and waved at her from her position on top of the stairs. She ran down and we all walked to the hallway to figure out what was going on. We got some paint and went down to the student body office (more like a supply closet actually) to get some poster paper.

Then we set to work. The main hallway was split in half--our grades got the west side of the hallway, most of which was actually trophy cases, which was not cool. Thus, we set to work decorating the columns that were on the hallway too. 

We made three column posters that took a while. Soon afterwards Fortune showed up, which meant that we had more people and thus, more fun. I think we're all neat freaks, but we still had tons of adventures dipping our arms in red paint (except for the one boy, weirdly) and stamping them all over the paper, adding one that rose above the rest carrying a spirit bowl. Then we had one that we painted camouflage all over (I SPELLED THAT RIGHT!!!!!!). 

I love mixing paint. Usually I hate painting because I suck at it, but today it was super fun. First, there was brown and green, which Fortune was surprisingly good at blobbing the brown-green paint in a way that looked like epic camouflage. After we finished that poster came a picture of our school mascot decked out in army-wear (our theme is the armed forces) and ... well, I just can't describe how much fun I had.

It's not like we talked that much, except about whether or not my gray mixing needed more white, or how red and brown is a nasty color combination thanks to August deeming it "bloody poo." But it ... it was just nice to spend four hours with friends working on things I'm going to walk past and feel proud of.

You know how they say home is where your heart lives? (At least they think they do.) Well, today has made me realize that for these past two years, this school and these friends has and have been my home. And no matter where I go after, they're gonna stay that way. :)

Hearts

Well, happy Valentine's Day! 

I'm not sure if it deserves the exclamation point or not. Today's been an interesting day, and I guess I could start by telling you about it.

I started pretty okay. I'm wearing a striped shirt that's kind of a mix between a dress and a shirt. The sleeves are stripey and long and the whole thing reminds me of Taylor Swift, but I botch it by rolling up the sleeves to elbow like I do with all long ones, and not being very graceful. Or tall. I'm not Taylor Swift, and my hair was actually perfectly straight this morning. Which was kind of a blessing.

I went to my first class, where I TA for my old English/Utah Studies teacher. She's interesting, but today I felt like part of the class as I made announcements, chatted with the students, and wrote odes with them. Well, I wrote one, and stuck it on the door. It's not as funny as my teacher says it should be, but it's sentimental and a little bit quirky and that's what I was going for. It's an ode to her classroom and all of its ... homeliness. It's like a home to everybody because sometimes we like it and sometimes we hate it, but as I wrote in my poem, it's somewhere to return to. 

Anyway, I liked the poem part. Then I went and took a quiz in my next class, which was kind of funny and surprisingly not hard. Since I finished first I got two extra credit points, and then I left for the assembly. I got to sit in between Georgie and Danica and was chosen to be a spirit leader for my age group, but somehow I ended up having tears in my eyes. Maybe it was the fact that I searched for people I didn't see in the crowd. Maybe it was the fact that I was embarrassed. Or maybe it was the fact that I was just plain annoying and annoyed.

Guh.

Then I went to French and tried not to cry. We wrote valentines for our partners in French, so I wrote one for mine. It had all the general thank-you for helping me learn French and do activities stuff, and also some notes like I like your shoes, you're quick and quirky and smart. I smiled when I passed it to her and she gave me hers, and I tucked it into my backpack without reading.

The funniest thing happened during French. It was one of those strange highlights of my day, and I wrote it down because I don't want to forget it. It was like a precious gift. While we were writing valentines we got out our French dictionaries and I was dejectedly flipping through mine when lo and behold I stopped when I saw something on the word avalanche.


Someone had written, above it, the word strawberry, naming one of Owl City's songs. I almost laughed out loud and a smile broke out across my face. Skimming through the dictionary I found others:

lonely lullaby
shooting star
adam young

And I was so amazed that somebody knew those beautiful songs and had written them there and I'd gotten that dictionary. It was nice. And the perfect Valentine's day gift, as I didn't get any. {Other than a note from August and, I guess, bread from Kahler.}

Oh. That and the card from my partner in French, which said I was smart and I thought fast, and other stuff I have yet to decipher. It means a lot to me that people I hardly even know do something sweet. 

So that's my hearts day story. Like how I felt depressed again in Science and nearly broke down crying but decided to join Danica and Nash and other people in their group to make a mobile. Danica agreed heartily when I leaned into her and said "I want stars on mine."

And I taught Danica and Nash how to do their calculations for Force Effort and Distance Resistance and things like that, which I didn't have to do. Maybe I shouldn't have, but I did, because I felt like making someone smile.

If I can't at least someone else should be able to!

Crowded

Storytelling is a huge part of conversations.

"I was so glad I got lost in a crowd," says Seattle. I open a door for him and some of my other friends, so I'm not looking at him as I say "You're glad you got lost in a crowd?"

He was talking about something sort of unimportant, but I realize it has a deeper meaning, now that I'm through with the day. I finished writing the cast of characters in my life on this blog, and Danica's one of my best friends, yet I haven't talked to her at all today.

Never mind. I said "Hi," to her in the computer lab this morning, but that doesn't really count as she didn't say anything back, because my shoulder-to-shoulder pretend-it's-a-hug was too quick and I was gone, walking fast.

Still, though. Last year when I had all my problems about finding my place among friends, somehow I had time to find out that she was one of my best ones. We write locker letters {AKA a better term for letters-to-someone-who-you-see-every-day} and we pass a notebook back and forth ... I even helped Nash plan her surprise birthday party a two months ago, where Nash, Georgie, & Tangorine helped me come up with the tune for a song I wrote and sing it as a birthday gift to Danica. 

Maybe it's because we changed semesters, 'cause we used to have three classes together and now one of them's gone, and I hardly ever see her in those classes anyway. It just feels like such a distance, and it isn't just Danica.

Let me tell you something about my lunch group. We're basically a group of about ten or so friends, boys and girls. Last year it developed itself. We're not all good friends within each other, but we know each other's names and we're sort of mutual acquaintances. I know everybody in my lunch group better than that though, especially after my encounters with them this year. However ... I'm losing connections as I build them. It seems you can only hold onto so many things at a time before you have to drop some, and it's a while before you find the time to pick it up again.

Lately I find myself in the hallways with Georgie, who I'm never going to lose connections to because even though we only share two classes now, we always make the most of every time we see each other, because being best friends, you know when someone's missing you. Not everybody feels that, though, and I can tell that I'm growing farther apart from people like Danica and Nash every time I spend my lunch with August, Vanessa, Orqua, or Tangorine.

It's crazy. This year wasn't as bad as last year when I didn't know any of these people well at all, but it's still such a crowd. Sometimes you feel envious of the little groups of four or five people in our grade who are all best friends and somehow manage to stick together and be, you know, perfect.

But there was a time at the library when I was about seven. I lost hold of my mom and sisters and they were gone, and I was lost in a crowd and it was one of the worst feelings I'd ever had.

The trouble is, those were strangers, at the library. 

How come I worry over a crowd of friends?

Walking Fast

I love walking fast, and I do.

Walking fast says so many things. It can say you're in a hurry, to go or to leave. It can say you're walking away from something you really want to leave behind, or a place you really want to get. It can say you're just walking to stop thinking from other things, or walking the least possible so you don't have to think about it.

I walk fast for all these reasons sometimes. Some here, some there, all of them eventually.

Today was one of those walk fast days. 

Walking fast to the bus stop, breathing into my coat because of the bad air quality. Walking fast because I'm excited for another day of school that I started off on the right side of the bed {like yesterday. Not like last week. That was the wrong side}. 

Walking fast to get on the bus because it's warm in there and cold outside even through my coat.

Walking fast down the hallway because Fortune and his friends are talking about computer games and I don't want them to see me almost laughing and rolling my eyes {even though they do anyway}.

Walking fast to the library to help Tangerine meet up with Danica in the computer lab so they can print off some homework for History.

Walking fast after TA'ing {where I did absolutely nothing} to History, because I'm wondering if I can catch Fortune before he gets to computer programming, so that I can hand him the pomegranate seeds I saved last night just for him, 'cause I know he likes them. {But I don't pass him.}

Walking fast to French because I pass Seattle and I'm walking away the thought of what he saw--girl in coat, frown of concentrated thoughts, hands in pockets, fast feet, hair flying. Oh, but there was a slow down when I saw Fortune, but then again I was too late in getting out the pomegranate seeds, which are still in my backpack as I type this.

Walking fast to lunch, because I stop thinking when I walk fast and it's nice to go up the stairs and face my friends that way. I hate entering into a group. It's simpler and easier to start with people coming to me rather than me coming to them.

I walk fast to catch up to Vanessa and Fortune, who lead the way to the practice rooms. They're occupied, says August. Georgie joins us and we all stand in a circle talking and laughing and I realize that I really like this, and that's why I slow down and I'm almost the last one to leave for the final class period of the day.

Walking fast when the final class period lets out, 'cause I have to turn in my homework and everyone's already out the door.

Walking fast to catch up to August, and having a short conversation before she slows down and I speed up past Seattle, walking and not thinking much. {Haha. I do admit I was wondering if the time the door opened behind me was him.}

Fortune ends up beside me as the bus comes up, and he delays looking for a seat and ends up across from me. He, me, and August have a conversation the bus ride through, and it's nice talking to friends.

Walking fast home, 'cause I'm thinking I miss school already and my friends and Seattle and maybe, if I walk really fast, I'll get to tomorrow soon.