A little less Titus.

Loving someone doesn't mean you have to love everything they do every second of life. Being best friends with someone doesn't mean that you have to want to talk to them every second and that you can't ever be annoyed with them or sometimes hate the people they associate with. Being a family isn't about never disagreeing or making mistakes.


It's about something so much bigger. Well, actually, I take that back. It's about something smaller.


It's about the way they smell; it's about recognizing that smell and knowing that when you smell it, you're home and you're safe and you've made it. It's about the way they shape the letter "u" and how you'd recognize that handwriting anywhere. It's about that smirk they wear when they are composing some sort of witty retort to what you're saying long before you've finished saying it. It's about hats. It's about misty-eyed laugher. It's about their fear of thunderstorms. It's about the dinner discussions. It's about Mondays. It's about cyber-stalking; it's about real-life stalking. It's about Legally Blonde the Musical. It's about how they have so many books that they can't even sleep on their own bed. It's about fake emails and bunheads and The Boy Book. It's about shouting "Drop dead!" too much. It's about singing "First Day of My Life" in a big crowd of people. It's about having secrets. It's about helping clean up the messes you've made together. It's about hair ruffles.


It's about the way they shape their words and the way your hearts beat together like a song and knowing that even though they might bother you sometimes or make you feel immensely jealous or incredibly small, that that doesn't matter at all. 


XXX.
All my love,
Addy

Come closer. Stand next to me. Hold my hand. Open your arms a little wider. And don't forget me. Please. Because we won't be forever young.

This is not a post.

Well, guess what. My words don't work. I keep thinking the words, "neon cats," and I don't know why. Neon cats.

Also, apparently 16-17 year old honors track students don't know what "prose" is. Neon cats.

Technically, it's still summer, so technically I can still pull the whole "sunglasses-instead-of-eye-make-up" number, right? Neon cats.

Happy school. I'm going to throw up soon. Neon cats.

I mustache you a question. Neon cats.

All my love,

Addy

...neon cats?

Let's be honest, this post will be gone by morning, probably.

Do you have any idea how long it has taken us to get here? Almost two years.


Two years of shoes smelling like fire, looking god-like in beanies, holding hands in the back seat. That's two years of fighting and making up. Two years of almosts (but nots), and maybes (but nots). Two years of Scott Pilgrim and sarcasm and going dancing and no gray area concerning how many buttons ought to be buttoned and concerts and being teased about my age. That's two years of sometimes saying "I love you" but never knowing what that actually means. Two years of awkward high fives, two years of weekends in the basement, two years of being helplessly unpredictable. Two years of Trax tickets, of thrift stores, of being replaced by girls who play video games. That's two years of haircuts and talking to voicemails and Beatles songs and falling in love with other people. Two years of immense angst and anxiety. Two years of never understanding each other, of jokes about never dating each other, of fifth-grade-esque flirting tactics. Two years of magic cookies.


So when he kissed me, I felt a million things: fear, relief, love, lust, euphoria, exhaustion... but it all paled in comparison to the immense and overwhelming feeling of "FINALLY." I stopped worrying about chapstick or what to do with my lips and let myself drown in the finally. After two years of breaking sentences with "I don't know," we were kissing.


And it was tainted with meaning and perfection and what I believe is called "love" - real love, maybe, not platonic, "I love you, friend" love. It was everything we should've said (but didn't) and wanted to do (but didn't) and thought would happen (but didn't).


And, yes. I'm scared of the future. I'm scared of how the right thing is still very rarely said. But I'm still shake-y knee-ed and shallow breathe-y and drowning in the finally, and sometimes, that's just fine, I think. Because that moment, that moment that lasted somewhere between thirty seconds and thirty years, it made two years look like nothing, even though they were everything. Because they gave us one moment of everything-ness and nothing-ness, and in it, two years seemed to erupt into flames, shooting higher and higher until they slipped through the hole in the ozone and fell into place shouting, "FINALLY."


Finally (inhale).
Finally (exhale).
Finally (remember to breathe).
Finally (forget about everything).


I almost want to say that in that moment, we were infinite, but I feel like that's dumb. 


Actually, whatever: In that moment, we were infinite.


Math problems.
All my love,
Addy

It doesn't matter; we're wilderness girls.

"Why can't I have a simple life?"
-my friend, on... everything.


"Amen."
-me, in regards to a comment made regarding simplicity in life.


I am nothing if not an impressive liar, especially when it comes to lying to myself. But lately, I can't decide if my skills are diminishing or the lies themselves are getting a little too large to swallow.


I'm not over it. I'm not over boys that I loved forever ago or boys I loved last week. I'm not over boys I loved yesterday morning. I'm not over things people said to me back in school. I'm not over thinking sad stuff and I'm not over those strangers who arrived at my house. I'm not over getting hurt by people who weren't supposed to do just that. Hurt me, I mean. You probably know how that goes. 


I'm not over being lonely. That's an oxymoron, almost. You can't just be over loneliness. It can leave for just a moment, but loneliness isn't an acute disease. For two moments, people can sit with you and hold you and allow your heartbeats to write songs, but it always ends the same way. You get stuck again.


I get stuck again. I'm not over loneliness, because not only is it an oxymoron, it's a paradox. 


As soon as you get un-lonely, you get lonely all over again and you get it even worse than you had it before because then you start to remember when you weren't lonely and how perfect that was and how it felt to toss boulders into a pond with a person who knew you long before everyone else did, but it doesn't really matter, does it? Because even if it's only for a moment or even by accident or by default, the truth is this: Everyone leaves you in the end.


"The Mourning Paper"
All my love,
Addy

"Happy birthday, Harry!"

When did this happen to me?


I started crying at 12:01 last night. You know that old eighties song by Alphaville? It's called "Forever Young" and I cried when it came on just past midnight last night.


I love birthdays. I mean, who doesn't? They remind me of how good I've got it - how wonderful my parents are, even when they are mad at me. How many good people exist in real life: The barista bought my lunch today simply because it's my birthday; my fashion board director spent hours helping me find something perfect to wear tonight; my mom spent way too much money on me; an entire train car sang "Happy Birthday" to me on Thursday night; my neighbor brought me a beautiful cake; I'm discovering birthday wishes via the internet; people I haven't heard from in years are calling and making me cry even more... It's a little overwhelming, actually.


I find so much pleasure in material things, too - I'll admit to that. I love new bedding for my new room and gorgeous new shoes and this most beautiful black blazer.


It does seem fitting that I spent the last few moments of my year with the same people who have been in my life for quite some time, doing the same things we have done together for as long as I like to remember. It seems fitting that I spent it with people who wished me a happy birthday a year ago today. It's good to know that some things never change - that Kyle Somer will always be too awkward and too cute and that Matt will always pay more attention to his guitar than to me and that Avery will always have a book in her bag.


But I'm so scared. And so overwhelmed. I don't know when I got this old and I can't believe how much changed in just 365 days and I can't believe how much is changing right at this exact moment. I don't even believe that we moved into my house six years ago to the day.


Of course, I don't want time to pause and not live my at all life or anything, but guess who doesn't deal with change all that well? Me, that's who. Yours truly.


I can't believe how everything and nothing can be changing simultaneously. I can't believe how time can be moving in both fast-forward and slow-motion at the exact same second.


When did this happen to me?


Cheers, my friends. Thanks for being with me even when I am crazy and all full of badness. This is for you, from me, on my birthday. Because I wouldn't be me without you.


Don't taunt the flowers (they can't defend themselves).
All my love,
Addy

Please pick the cobwebs off my woolen sweater.

Turns out, all I needed was "a little caffeine and perspective" because things are fine now. Actually, that's a lie. Things are not fine now. Things are not fine because there are still "FOR SALE" signs that could send me into a panic and life is still having its choices made by a flipping coin.


I could sit here and write about my thoughts on the beauty of tartmongers and "Trouble," but I think I'll just let you read a poem instead. Because I'm writing again, and that's a relief. I'm scared to share this, because no one reads my poetry, but now you are. Oh.

This Ain't Fiction, Folks

He asked me if I ever wrote fiction.

I said that I did because I thought

that I did. So it wasn't really a lie.

But the truth is that I'm afraid

of the devastating "Write What You Know" ideology.

So afraid, that my fiction

becomes mere fact.

It's all tainted with my insides and

the peanut shells in my pockets and

the cockroaches on the baseboards of the summer house.

My fiction is just the facts.

About how the toe-headed,

helplessly adorable

Methodist

likes my best friend better than me

because she's beautiful.

And a better poet than me.

My fiction is about how I spend my vacations:

seeing plays by British playwrights,

and eating Pad Thai,

while watching Swiss-German movies,

drinking American sodas.

Because this is America, my friends.

We are nothing more than a 

conglomeration of the rest of the universe.

This universal conglomeration

doesn't even have an official language.

But if it doesn't even have

an official language,

then why are people yelling from political pulpits

about if people cross our

magic-marker-ed borders, they ought to

learn our language? Bonjour?

If we don't even have a real-life language,

then why am I being yelled at,

in English,

to Write What I Know? Bonjour?

Sometimes, I get all worked up,

and I just have to pause.

And remind myself that talking

is really only singing, singing, singing.

It's just singing, singing, singing,

on the same note,

with a few syncopated accidentals

for punctuation (flat)

All I know is that I want to fly,

but I don't have silky wings,

like the bats,

or the hallow bone structure

found in birds of flight.

And all I know is that,

at the end of the day,

I don't really know anything at all.

Not for sure.

Not for real.

But I am you.

And I am us.

And we are everything -- everywhere.

We are the playground children.

We are the obsessive-compulsive mother,
checking the locks once,
twice,
three times,
afraid for the babies.
We are the starving artists,
we are the lost songs,
we are novels upon paperback novels,
shelved in public libraries.
We are the Shakespeare plays nobody performs anymore.
We are the B-list.
We are the drop-outs and graduates,
we are the honey-mooning lovers and divorcees.
We are antithesis.


So hold my and become a part of it.
Love me, and become it.


And if you can't be a part of it --
if you can't be it,
stop reading.
Because if you can't be a part of it --
if you can't be it,
then you're not ready for stuff yet.


But I hope -- I ache, even --
to know that you're still reading.
Because what I'm writing,
right now,
ain't what I know.
It's just what I feel.


It ain't fiction, folks.


It's just the facts.


Forever, I hope.
All my love,
Addy

Henry VIII had eight wives.

...What? Me?

William and friends.

I'm leaving. I packed Kaitlyn's rose sweater, forty-five dollars, and my yoga mat. I didn't pack my cell phone.


I'm leaving because I can't even breathe around here and I'm getting anxiety about the most incredibly inane matters and I need to go and collect a little more air and calm down before I break my fingers from grabbing for breath.*


I'll be back Wednesday.


Cheers.
All my love,
Addy


*Don't accredit me with that great "because grabbing for breath is breaking my fingers." It's a Buddy Wakefield line.

Mega-hero and stuff.

My mom: Put on theses gloves while you paint.
Me: I can't. Gloves give me anxiety.
My mom: Why?
Me: Because they encapsulate my hands.


Time zones keep the sun up.
All my love,
Addy

Pools of boiling wax.

Sometimes I want to go "home" but I don't really know what "home" is. But I guess that home can be created anywhere. Because when I think about "coming home" I don't think of my literal house; it's more about the people and the details.


This is home. I don't care what anyone else thinks about these people that I have or the way that we live or dress, because this is my home. This is where I have memories and a past.


This is home. This is the place where I grew up and fell in love and it's the place of free Thursday summer concerts. This is my family and my sisters and dinner with my parents. This is Matt Davis and the neighborhood boys and boy-stalking. This is wasting too much time and watching too many eighties movies. 


This is home. This is where I can sit in dollar movie theaters and make ridiculous cards. This is the quiet of the nights in the wintertime and the relief of spring. This is my cousins on the Fourth of July. This is seeing Katie at Orange Leaf and spending millions of dollars at Hawaiian Ice. This is Kaitlyn's sweater with a hole in the shoulder.


This is home. This is Avery's cat cookies and Katie showing up in my bedroom before work. This is the time we dyed Emily's hair blue in my basement bathroom. This is yoga class with and Ms. Luse. This is feminism with Sierra and rides home in Matt's three-doored van. This is paying Zack to go out of his way for me.


This is home. This is holding hands and crying every day and dancing in parking lots and writing poetry. This is my library and these are my future-professors-of-America friends and this is my bed and my quilt and my bookshelf. This is being witty with Avery. This is reading books far too late at night.


This is home, folks. This is knowing that there will always be enough air to breathe.


We watch things on the VCR.
All my love,
Addy

Surprise! You're adopted! Love, Avery and Addy.

The following is a list of things that are difficult and/or awkward to do in a darkened movie theater:
1.) Scrawl notes.
2.) Be cute.
3.) Cuddle.
4.) Carry on a flirtation.
5.) Concentrate on the movie.


And any attempts at numbers one and five grow futile when the perpetrator of numbers two through four is sitting right near by and smelling all nice and kissable.


Plus also, numbers one through five prove to be real-life impossible when you get notes passed from down the row referencing this cat video.


But I suppose that dollar movie theaters were made for seeing how boys smell and passing notes down the row.


Terribly embarrassing.
All my love,
Addy