NOTE: If you are not comfortable with me being a selfish, bitchy, self-pitying ingrate, I would not suggest reading this.
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As opposed to
a) having to tell each of you individually and feeling a huge lump at the back of my throat every time
b) sitting in my room unfit for human company (even over aim) and doing absolutely no work
c) both…
… I am going to BLOG about the storm cloud of epic proportions raining miserably useless hundred-dollar-bills on my greasy head.
If you’ve been talking to me at all over the past couple weeks, you will have heard of my too-good-to-be-true plans for February involing a certain member of the opposite sex. Well, this time around, it really IS too good to be true; numerous complications have made it entirely impossible for me to see him before summer.
For those of you that are, like me, mathematically challenged, that is SIX MONTHS. Twenty-four weeks. Around one-hundred and eighty-three days. 4, 392 hours. 263, 520 minutes. 15, 811, 200 seconds. In Kari-Time, that translates to, well, infinity.
And when he does come? Well, two weeks would be lovely. If by some miracle we can manage three (I highly doubt it), my joy will reach unparalleled proportions. But that’s, what, 14 out of 365 days of the year? 21/365 if we are blessed by some gratifying higher power?
I’m not even sure that’s the worst part. What is, then, you ask?
Knowing I can do nothing about it other than WAIT. At which I, frankly, suck.
Of course I expected my little Christmas miracle to make this long-distance matter quite a bit harder. And of course you SHOULDN’T have expected not to hear me complain about it.
I am grateful for all the good things in my life. A beautiful “bond family”, members of whom have never deserted me despite my many, MANY shortcomings (this post being one of them). A mindblowingly understanding father who keeps stealing my stuffed animals and pretending to twist the heads off those given to me by Tyler (at least he doesn’t insist on e-pepper spray). The love of the ages, bestowed upon me, a mere, unremarkable fourteen-year-old. An opportunity for a, well, good education. Presumably. Which I am pissing away by- big surprise- whining about it.
So why, why, why am I sitting here wasting my time and rotting away in my misery? Who knows? Human. Flawed. Undeserving of the 12031893948190283018 blessings I have. That isn’t stopping me, though. I sit here armed with a large container of water, a pack of gum, and a popsicle stick that previously held ice cream, waiting for some kind of apocalypse. My life is amazing. But it doesn’t feel like mine.
It was not half this difficult before, when I did not know what I was missing. But how do you go back to drinking crappy refrigerator beer after your lips have touched the world’s finest wine? Stale Milky Way bars vs truffles overflowing with soft, warm caramel? (Okay, let me now make a mental note to resist the urge to run downstairs and raid the box of chocolate cookies.)
I digress.
Those few hours I spent with Tyler on that unbelievably cold December weekend were more than just the physical consummation (by this, I do NOT mean sex) of an excruciatingly long and unfulfilled relationship. I expected magic. What I got was life.
I cannot remember ever having felt that… alive. Or at least, alive in the way that I was at that point in time. And after the first four grueling months of freshman year, laden with the typical adolescent apathy, “why-do-I-exist” questions, and mundane daily life where I felt like I was viewing the world through third person; well.
I should be the good, grateful, responsible girl my life deserves. I should stop wanting what I don’t have, what I can’t have. I should instead what I DO have. Love, opportunity, unparalleled friends and family.
Key word? Should.
So why is the only constant thought in my head a question, the kind that prompts me to throw away everything I have? Why is that dark little devil dancing the cha-cha on my left shoulder taking up such a big part of my mind?
Stop living for others and start living for yourself.
Oh yeah? Well what if the only time I feel alive is when I’m with someone miles and miles away? What if there are too many obligations for me to throw away everything I and those that love me have worked for in order to follow a baseless, impossible whim?
Regardless of all the above- and that little devil- I will sit, I will wait, and I will take it. Simply because that is what I have always done, in the end. The good thing. The right thing. Thanks, Mom. Seriously.
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