It's 2:36. Happy First Day of College.

I'm not entirely sure what causes a person to realize that they are in college. Several factors of my evening have led me to believe that it doesn't really matter what I feel, college sneaks up on you and pounces. It's kind of mental, and trippy. Like drugs.

Speaking of illegal things, my evening was interesting. And no, I didn't do anything illegal. Like, actually, I was kind of a big loser this evening. The majority of the floor decided to go out to "the ghetto" which is basically just the student neighborhood, and seriously, they told me there was a party at basically every house. While I knew that it was going to be like that, I wasn't so sure I was quite ready to head out there for my first night of college. And yes, I became that girl who sits in her dorm and doesn't go out to party, just because I've, truthfully, NEVER in my entire life been to any sort of party. It's my first night of college, I'm sorry that I am not quite prepared for that much change. I hung out with Norman, and talked to my two best friends. I got a little more emotional about all of the changes than I thought that I would, but it happens I guess. So, I"m busy being emotional and wearing sweats and a hoodie because our room is CHILLY TO THE MAX. And then my one roommate comes back, who in fact, does not drink, but she brought her two drunken friends and our one slightly not very drunk friend who lives down the hall into our room. Before I knew it, I had a random boy telling me he needed to stay in my room for awhile so that he could sober up, and then he was lounging on the end of my bed, and the girl from down the hall was adamantly telling me about how awesome it was that she found a mini gummy bear in her package of fruit snacks.

While I do not intend to drink at college, pretty much anywhere I go on campus it's readily available to me. It's a little bit absurd for my brain to grasp this concept. However, it's not the end of the world that things are different. It's just like, the fact that I need to find where I fit here. What things I can do, what people will understand what I'm going through or what I believe and will try to figure out how I roll and do similar things as me. It shouldn't be all that hard, it may just take some time.

Time feels painful, and it feels confusing.
But it's okay. I think I'm actually really going to like it here.

No Need to Say Goodbye.

It's nearly one in the morning and neither me or my roommate is asleep. We haven't been bonding, we've been having our own separate time. But the general consensus would lead me to believe that neither of us really wants to go to sleep. Not so much because we don't want to sleep, but because we don't want to wake up and realize that we're in this place, without the people we love. We're recreating ourselves, and we're feeling the pain of new things interfering with our old ways, and the pain of missing people. We're hearing about things going on at home without us. We're finding the fortune cookie fortune we packed from our best friend, or a note tucked into our FRIENDS dvds. We're feeling the same mutual togetherness and aloneness that comes with being here in this new place. In this new environment.

We don't want to fall asleep and wake up to realize these really are our lives now. But it's inevitable. Even if we cry, even if we don't sleep, the morning is still going to come. And we're not going to be any less here. And the people we love aren't going to be any less NOT here.

But, after skyping several people, contacting via various technology with other people, and fighting with one of my best friends for the first time, over the phone nonetheless..today feels full, and probably can't do much more for me.

I think it's time to go sleep.
And I feel like the morning may greet me.

Cliche. But Necessary.

i have the best friends in the entire world.

and so our lives begin in confusion. and the more we try to understand, the more we realize that the understanding is not as important as the love.

Everybody, Everybody wants to be loved.

I feel like everything about right now doesn't make sense. The indescribable feeling of wanting to cry everyday when I wake up, and fluctuating between that feeling and a feeling of excitement, and a feeling of missing people who I am still with, and a feeling of long distance with people and distances only getting longer as I go.

I have so many feelings and I'm not sure what to do with any of them. Writing seems about like the last thing I should be doing, but like I've realized this week, some things you just can't push your way through. You have to stop and breathe and remember that even though it feels like this whirlwind of change and emotions is going to rip at your soul forever, it's really only a couple of weeks, and things will mostly adjust the way they're supposed to. And I'll be home in October, which is really not that far away.

But, sometimes, the worst feelings I have are the ones that tell me it doesn't matter if I'll be back in October. Like, my life is going to move on to Dayton and I'll have new separate things there. However, the lives here will also move on without me. I don't even know what I'm supposed to do. To be honest, there's nothing I can do. Life's just happening all around me, and I don't have a choice except to just live it.

As one of my best friends pointed out to me, mostly, I just don't like knowing. She reminded me how well I will adjust and how I probably won't have any trouble making friends or finding where I belong...I don't like all of the unknowns. I don't like not knowing what's going on in North Canton, I don't like not knowing what classes I'm taking, or not knowing what I'm doing with my life. Or knowing who I'm going to get to stay friends with when I leave, or knowing who the friends I'm going to make at school are going to be. There's so incredibly many unknowns and I just don't even know what else I don't know and it makes me crazy. But she reminded me that that is life.

And soon, very soon, I venture into this unknown that very quickly is becoming my life.
Which, as my roommates have told me, might be a little cramped.

Today, I'm Julie.

I started this blog the day after school ended. When I reached a certain point, I had to stop writing it because I didn't know what I was supposed to say from where I stopped. It seemed pretty overwhelming then, and it kind of still is. But I think I might need to do this. I'm going to try.

"i feel somewhat like i am lacking in the eloquence lately, but i feel i absolutely must write something because my brain feels burst-worthy.

today was my first day of summer, but also, today was the beginning of the rest of my life. (i mean, technically, every day is the first day of the rest of your life, but that's besides the point) but, at the same time, the rest of my life doesn't even have labels on it yet. it's like when parents make treasure maps for their kids. there's no footprints yet. you just have to make up your own path and hope to goodness there's some type of treasure at the end..even when you have to put it there yourself. but either way, you're still the one charting the journey.

i imagine that's a lot what life's like. but up until now i'm not entirely sure i was really living life. from kindergarten until now, life has been about all of the charted things. it's been about the things my parents tell me to do. it's been about needing their signatures on everything, and always needing their permission. and given, i've had plenty of time roaming the streets of north canton and choosing my different activities along the way. true, i had the space to choose my own life and do my own things. but until this year, i'm not so sure i really knew who i was. i spent all this time just looking for things to establish who i am. and where has it gotten me? i'm not entirely sure, to be honest. i have discovered my passions and my likes and dislikes. i have worked too hard trying to achieve things to get me to farther points in my life, and here i am, directly before i continue to those farther things. and i don't really know where life is going to take me.

along with that uncertainty of the path lying before me, i already stated this, but i'm not really sure who i am, or who i'm going to become. over the past few weeks i've been trying to figure out how i got to where i am. i've been trying to process what makes me the way i am, and what has shaped me along the way. and i could talk about all the different things that i have always thought make me a certain way. like, all of the different parts i've played in shows and plays over the past few years. or the way i have three siblings and have spent time in all of their shadows. i could talk about stupid things that i've done and the way i sometimes walk into walls or talk to myself. i could talk about how i spent the last three years watching people leave and feeling like i was losing part of myself. and then spending time after that doubting myself and losing confidence and being a little bit of a closet emo kid. but, to be honest, i could list all of those things that have happened to me and still not have even gotten close to the epitome of what makes me who i am. while i think it may be difficult to ever really define how a person becomes the person that they are...i guess there's two things that i have been observing as my defining factors. one, the people in my life. and two, the way these people have influenced me and the way that i choose to accept and react to their influences.

so, the people in my life."

And that's where I stopped. It was nearly 3 months ago, and maybe some of the people that I may see on a regular basis are no longer still in my life as much, but not tons has changed. I leave for college in a week. And maybe my perspective has changed a lot this summer. Some new people have come into my life that I wouldn't trade for a single thing. But, mostly, I'm the same. Just three months older. And my opinion is still the same.

The people in my life. I wish I could name names and explain how each of them is important to me and everything, but I'm not so sure that I can do that. Because, unfortunately and fortunately, the way that I am about people and how they are important to me is so complex. Literally, almost every person I meet in my life has some sort of lesson I am supposed to learn from them; if I started listing them and trying to explain, I don't think I would ever be able to finish. But there's some things I must write about.

This summer I met a girl who has become literally one of the best friends I've ever had. At LEAD, I met her and we got to know each other's hearts. And while sometimes this makes it hard to go back to our lives and get to know each other not in the context of an amazing retreat, we've managed. Between her being in Europe for 10 days directly following our meeting and us not being able to talk, to two weekend spent together in our respective towns, and a plethora of late night phone conversations, I've learned that what I love about true and real friendship is that..the details don't really matter. The day you met or the things you've done together don't matter all that much. What matters is the way you can be there for each other, no matter the circumstances. The way it doesn't matter that much if you're there together in person, but rather that you care about what's going on, even when you can't be there. But most importantly, is knowing that when you miss them, you don't have to worry if they miss you too. It's a mutually given.

This summer has been kind of weird with my friends who are still here, though. If I ever decided to regret things, I may have regretted the way some things turned out in friendships this summer. But I don't regret, I believe things happen for certain reasons, no matter how much sometimes they might irritate you, or make you cry, or even just make you happy. All of those feelings have purpose.

Some of the people that I had not spent that much time with before this summer suddenly appeared in my life a lot more this summer. I became conscious of the fact that friendship isn't about the exact moment that you became friends, or even the moments where you can say 'oh I'm so glad we did this or that together' but rather the moment when you look back and say, 'I don't know when we became friends, but I don't know what I would do if we weren't, or I don't know why we weren't friends sooner.' There were people this summer that needed me who had never needed me before. There are people now who I know will miss me when I go to school that if you had asked me three months ago if they would miss me when I left, I might've responded with a 'maybe' or a 'sure?'. But now some things are different.

Another thing that has been very weird and changing this summer are the people who were very prevalent in my life who suddenly this summer, weren't so much. Sometimes when I look back on the summer, I don't really know what happened. In the cases of some of them, it was a matter of not living very close together. In the case of others, it was a matter of them suddenly not caring so much if we hung out. In the cases of even some others, we just don't know what happened. We could point fingers at our schedules which were busier this summer. We could point fingers at the bad communication of both ends. We could point fingers at each other, but that really gets us nowhere either. I guess the thing that I want people that I haven't seen as much this summer to know is the mere fact that I really have missed you. I'm sorry we haven't seen each other as much, and it really doesn't mean you mean less to me than the people I have seen. Honestly, the only difference is that circumstances worked out better in other cases. I really am sorry, and I really do care about each and every one of you.

And this idea is important when we think about going to college. Like, we can't talk to everyone from high school ALL THE TIME, and we can't see everyone when we're home for our breaks. But that doesn't mean we weren't important to each other while we were here. It doesn't mean that we don't care what's going on in each others' lives anymore. It only means that we're in different places, and circumstances change. People change. But the past doesn't. And it's okay to look back and appreciate it. Or even to look back and be glad it changed. But doing all that doesn't change it. And it is and always will be a part of us. We can't erase it, and as so many people go to college I feel like they try to change it. Don't fight that part of you, let it take a part of who you are and claim it. It will show people at college part of who you truly always will be: your childhood. The place or places you grew up. The people you knew and the people who changed you. The people you changed.

I honestly wish that I could tell every person who has changed me and affected me the exact way that they have. But, I think what I know the most this summer, especially after looking back at this that I started to write at the beginning of summer, when college was looming 6 day ahead, is that becoming is a funny concept. The way people affect us, and the way we CHOOSE to be affected are all varying. It's different with every person we meet, and everything that we do. We can't know who we're becoming because we can't know exactly what we're going to do every day of our lives, or all the people we're going to meet and have change us. Everyday is part of who we are becoming, and who we already are. It's not so much about who you become, but rather who you ARE. If we focus so much on what's coming, on the person who is existing as the us in the future, we miss out on the wonderful person we already are. The biggest things to me this summer are that I have to appreciate people how they are, and appreciate things the way they are because life is pretty wonderful as it is. The future holds more people, and more events, and more new days being the person we are destined to be in that day alone. So, it's not a matter of who we are going to become, but rather, who we are choosing to be right this very instant.

We can only become the person we are supposed to be in the future if we are being the person we are supposed to be right now.

Thank you. To everyone who has been my friend so far. To everyone who has learned how to appreciate me in each day of who I am, rather than what I have been, or by what I have done. It's never been a matter of what I do, or who I've been, but a matter of me. Right now.

I love all of you, right here, right now. My best friends, my good friends, my acquaintances, the people I've only just met, the people I've lost. The person I am right. now, Today, is a product of all of you.

I have became. I am becoming. I will only continue to become.

Today, and most likely everyday, I'm just Julie. And all of you will always get to claim a part of that.

Maybe I'm Not the Only One.

I have so much I want to say.

Every time I tried, the words came out all wrong
the pierced hearts, the strained voices, keep singing our same song.
Whispering notes that greet your life hello,
All the things worth knowing, it seems you no longer need to know.
Every broken promise laying weakly at your feet,
every part of you that you may have never desired to meet.
Never quite feeling like you knew who to be,
never quite knowing the answer to, 'is that really me?'.
The tears refusing to flow from your eyes,
the numbness no longer a disguise.
Pulling back at the reigns as life shifts into gear,
the future always looming right ahead, drawing near.
But what is nearness when two minutes from now is soon,
what is nearness when your heart feels it has run out of room?
Always making space, always stretching out,
always learning anew what love seems to be about.
Love is pure and never boasts,
love is knowing who needs you the most.
But what is love when you feel alone?
What is the point of love if it is all you own?
Own your patience, own your fears,
pulling back, reset the gear.
For what is happiness without unhappiness to precede it?
What is being alone without love to redeem it?
What are words when feelings have lost their sound?
What is flying when your feet haven't left the ground?
What is a goodbye without the good?
What is helping if you don't do all you could?
What are questions without answers to follow suit?
What is a tree if it has no roots?

Plant your roots, then change the gear,
Let the sky shine bright as your saddle rears,
Fly away into the sun,
Maybe you're not the only one.

I keep trying and trying.

I have no idea what I'm talking about. I've started this blog at least 4 different times, and every time I come back to it and edit the draft, I give it a different name and rewrite a good couple of paragraphs that, apparently, later are not sufficient to express what I want and/or need to express.

But I think maybe that concept in itself is exactly what is drowning me right now. The fact that nothing I can say or do is sufficient in expressing what I need to say, and what I need to feel. My life is very much existing up inside my brain right now, and it's making it much harder to convey to the world and my friends and everyone who is NOT in my head what's going on up there.

Things keep changing. And while I've never been someone who's super into change, I think I've never really been against it. It's just a fact of life. And if we fight it, or try to feel things against the current, we are only hurting ourselves. It's just not necessary to make ourselves feel that way.

Oddly enough, at the beginning of this summer, it's not that I had particular expectations for it, but I knew that it was going to be extremely interesting and I hoped for certain things to happen and certain people to stay in my life, and maybe certain people to bow out of my life. Everything that I wanted for this summer now seems pretty futile. The wants of life outweigh the things that actually happen to us. And if we never admit this to ourselves, we will spend so much wasted time..which might as well render our hearts to be broken.

But this summer has changed so many things..and it's not that I tried to keep them from changing. I think for one of the first times in my life, I let changes just happen. And still, I felt many things, and maybe at times I didn't like the way they turned out, but change is inevitable and I feel more complete than I did when I started summer. I've blogged about a lot of the things I've done this summer, and the places I've gone, but when I think about this summer, neither of those is all that important to me. I'm not going to say that the things I did this summer don't matter, but it's like this...the things I've done, they were important, but not essential. I will only continue to do as time goes on. And if I'm lucky, those future doings will be even better than the past things (of right now). Also, this summer is not defined by the places I went. I differentiate each in an odd way. Steubenville, New Jersey, Dayton, Maryland, and Pittsburgh. But it's not about those places. It's not about the things I did in each of those places, but rather it is about the people I met and the people I already knew and how all of them changed my life. And yes, I know, I was bitter earlier about how you shouldn't say things change your life, but it's the short way of saying my perspective changed and now my life is better BECAUSE of this change. It's about the people in my life, because when it comes down to it, the people in my life ARE my life..and the person that I am is largely an effect of them coming into my life and being in my life and maybe even leaving my life. I cannot be more grateful for the friends I have had over the years, the friends I will hopefully have in the future, and the friends I have right now. Maybe I'll even get to keep some of them forever. Who can tell?

But words are exhausting me.