So.

The guys (being Kyle and Billy, and by extension April, and they might've gotten Jeremy on the bandwagon) want to move the collective body of Last Rate Service ... to Austin. And Aaron is caught up in quite a pickle because he doesn't know what he wants to do, and he's pissed off because when Billy and Kyle were talking seriously of quitting the band (Billy actually did for a while), Aaron was still there--he told Jeremy that he wasn't going to quit even if they were down two members--and now his opinion carries no weight. And you know the kicker? They want to move by January. They used to be saying in a year and half, but now Kyle and April's lease is up in January, and they've decided that they need to move the band to Austin. Plus, whenever Aaron was talking to Kyle about it (he said that he couldn't really do that for another two years--ie, whenever I graduate ...), April piped in and said that the band needed to get out of Abilene before two years.

That one hurt. I know that they have no idea that Aaron was referring to when I would graduate from college, but it still hurt. I don't know. In all honesty, I don't want him to move to Austin, simply because I can't make the four-hour drive to Austin by myself every weekend. And there's no way I'm transferring schools; I'm staying at HSU. But the fact of the matter also stands that I want him to live his life however he wants to live it, and if he indeed moved to Austin, I wouldn't leave him or anything--I wouldn't think he was choosing the band over me or some such--I would just be incredibly sad because I'd get to see him even less than I already do. But I've told him over and again, if the only thing you're worried about is me leaving you because you move, you don't have to worry; I'm not going to do that. But it's more complicated than that. He's in a bind because he's torn between the two biggest things in his life.

I dunno. I guess some girls (a lot, actually) would get pissy if their boyfriends even considered a band to be on the same level as them. Consider this: He honestly wouldn't be the person he is today because of his band. I might never have met him if he hadn't started that band with Jeremy; that's what started bringing him to Abilene on a regular basis. It is his hope, his dream. Music is his life. I understand perfectly. I actually feel pretty important because I pull as much weight as it--he really doesn't want to leave me behind. Last night he was looking at acoustic guitars on Musician's Friend so that he could learn how to play guitar and do his own musical act. Without the rest of the band. That is how much he doesn't want to leave me behind.

But then again, that band is his hope, his dream, his life. He wants to make a living playing music. I understand; I feel the same way. And they want to pick up and move four hours away, with or without him. That hurts. That is one hell of a decision to make.

I don't know. It's kind of my business, but I also realize that it is his decision, and in the end I'll support him either way. There's no entirely happy outcome--it'll be bittersweet either way. At this point I'm still hoping that this is just a pipe dream that will blow over like it has every other time before (they've been saying that they're going to move to Austin ... pretty much since the band started).

That's another thing. That's kind of what I'm hoping for. Aaron and Jerm have always said that they're going to move to Austin, but they still haven't--and after he started dating me, Aaron began fervently wishing that they didn't move yet, because he didn't want to have to make that call. He doesn't want to go without me. And I can't move anywhere until after I'm out of school ... which will be, at the earliest, another two years from now. Two and a half years, more likely than not, unless I started taking summer classes--

And when I told him that I could do that, that I could probably take summer classes and graduate early, he told me not to rush myself because of him. He was like, "You're too damn start; don't waste it on me. Stay in school as long as you can." And I thought, I wouldn't call it wasting if it was because of you, but I do agree with the don't-rush thing. I'm still pretty scared of the so-called "real world." Pretty much all of my life that I can remember up until this point, I have been in school--from public school to college. And whenever I graduate I'll be pushed out into the world at large, and everything I've ever known (school) will suddenly be replaced by something else. I still think that that's a rather unfair transition. =P Oh well. All I know about the post-school future at this point is that I want to be with Aaron, and if that means moving to Austin, then so be it. Unless, I suppose, they decide to move to Austin this January and he stays behind for me ...

I don't know. I really don't. Once again, I guess that it isn't ultimately my call, but it still worries me--mostly because Aaron's worried, and I tend to feel what he does. I guess just ... pray. I don't know what for, because God's pretty flexible and can work whether he goes to Austin or stays here, but just pray. January's still pretty far away. We have time to figure this thing out ...

All the old times come rushing back.

Been reading those "Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul" books before I go to bed (so sue me ... I have two that I got in jr high, and I've been bored =P). They actually just made me remember all over again all the heartbreak I've been through over the last few years of my life, probably because I used to read those when I was younger and I felt bad over stupid boys. I dunno. There has been a whole lot of heartbreak over the years.

1. First big crush: James. A guy in my rec tennis class. It was almost your stereotypical junior high crush (I was in seventh grade at the time): Older (he was an eighth-grader), distant, cool, exotic (his parents were Chinese, I think), best player in the class ... whatever. He was also a jerk to my friends and, later, to me, although that was in a more roundabout way. Broke my heart. I cried over him all summer and a little bit into the next year, because I still saw him every now and then at school. Man ... I was so obsessed with him. In retrospect I can't blame him for freaking out. It was probably pretty creepy. =P Junior high kids don't handle crushes very well; they verge on obsession. Oops.

2. Next big crush: Paul, part 1--I think. I think this happened at the beginning of the 8th grade year. I had a crush on Lyka's older brother because he would kind of hang out with us whenever I was over. Once again, older, exotic, distant ... best friend's older brother. =P You know. I was obsessed for a while, but then it was replaced by--

3. Michael. Poor boy, I probably scared the crap out of him when he found out I had a crush on him, because it was so out of the blue. It was the first time that I'd liked someone my own age. I thought he was the shiz because he was a smart kid like me, although in retrospect, we are completely different people now. I can say that because I got over him by about that summer, we both still went to the same school, we eventually just became friends/acquaintances again ... as a matter of fact, one day after a Calculus test senior year, I forgot that I needed a ride home after 5th period, and all my friends left me when I was finishing my test. So I went and stood in the atrium at the front of the school and wondered what I was going to do. Turns out another one of the girls in Calculus needed a ride home, so we were commiserating for a while, and then Michael came out (he'd finished after us) and I was like, "Heeeey, Michael ... wanna give me a ride home?" =P In that way that I've done to all my friends at some point or another; I definitely didn't like him anymore at this point. He, being a nice guy, took me and the other girl home. That definitely cemented his position on the "one of the genuinely good people at Wylie" list. When I got home, I called Lyka, because I thought it was funny how I would've killed for such an opportunity in 8th grade, but now I was just like, Oh, yeah, Michael's a good kid. Funny how things work out. =P

4. Paul, part 2. I started liking Paul again when we actually got to high school, because once again, he would come over and talk to us at football games and stuff. Wasn't hard for all the old emotion to come rushing back, especially for a hormonal fifteen-year-old. But then I found out that he already had a crush on someone his own age, and I was crushed. Got over it, yeah, but not without writing depressing unrequited-love poetry first.

5. David. Ah, David. I think that I had a tiny crush on him much longer than I would've admitted, but I knew that he used to have a crush on a girl his own age earlier in the year, so I didn't think I even had a chance. Then he started walking with me around school when he didn't have to, and we were both in the same band (SkaSkank Redemption), and after the FCA Talent Show he gave me a ride over to Taco Bueno, where we met up with the rest of the band. Then he paid for my dinner. That should've been clue enough right there, but I decided that he was just being nice and that I didn't actually like him, at which point Lyka promptly replied that I was in denial. "Denial isn't just a river in Egypt, Emily!" I heard that so much over the next couple of days. And then on Wednesday he asked me out. =P I guess she was right.

I'm not gonna lie, I floated all the way home. And at church that night. And for the next two months. And then he started doing badly in PreCal, so his parents grounded him--for two weeks, or until he brought his grades up. We never really talked on the phone, just at/after school, and because he was grounded he wasn't allowed to drive me home for two weeks, as I recall--so I pretty much didn't hear from him for two weeks. And then, the first day that he took me home again after all that time, he took the short way home (he usually took the longer way to have more time together)--I should've known then that something was up. He'd seemed kind of distant and worried. Whenever we got to my house, Alyssa went inside and as I was getting my stuff out of the trunk he was like, "Emily, I have something to tell you ... while we were apart, my feelings for you changed." That's all I remember, and I still remember that part word-for-word--"my feelings for you changed." I started sobbing the wail of the brokenhearted, uncontrollably, and sat down in my driveway. Then I threw up (I have a tendency to do that when I'm extremely nervous/scared/upset/what have you). David went inside and got my dad--I'll give him that much; the boy wasn't an asshole--who picked me up and got my stuff and helped me inside. And I just cried into his arms for I don't know how long.

Alyssa had a softball game that night. I went for a while, feeling--and I'm not being dramatic--completely numb. I don't remember much except that my mom took me home about halfway through because I was having such a hard time not crying. I barely ate dinner that night. I don't know how I slept. I probably cried myself to sleep; I don't remember. The next day wasn't much better.

And every time I saw him at school--and at band practice--it just drove another stake deeper into my heart. I was convinced that I was too afraid of getting hurt again to ever like somebody else, because at that point it didn't seem like I could ever like someone else.

But gradually I moved on. We became friends again, even if a large part of me still liked him, and I think because I was so determined to be friends we did become just that. It wasn't until a full year later that I realized I didn't have a crush on him anymore, and I really was just friends. He's still a cool guy. At this point the months and years I have known him as a friend far outweighs any time I have known him as a boyfriend, so we're cool. I guess this story ends kind of happily after all. But spring of sophomore year led to--

6. Andrew, Sam, and Kyle (not Kyle Perkins). Andrew was the boy I met at, of all places, the Justo Lamas concert (a Spanish class field trip) in San Angelo and who asked me for my number. We had the same area code, so we'd talk on the phone for a while off and on ... he called out of the blue a couple of years ago on the fourth of July, and we talked for a while, but at that point I didn't really have a crush on him anymore. Sam was (and is) trombone player for a ska band in the Metroplex. He's a year older than me. I met him at the Catch 22 show at the Door in April of 2005. He protected me from the mosh pit (should've known then what was coming). At the end of the night there was an exchange of phone numbers, and we started talking, mostly online but sometimes on the phone, just about every day. I had a stubborn crush on him that persisted until I realized that I liked him more for the attention he was giving me than for him as a person ... but I didn't realize that until at least the end of that summer, probably later. It caused me a lot of grief in the meantime. Finally, Kyle is someone you probably know. I liked him for about two weeks after we played a show that he set up at ColdStone. There was definitely some flirting going on that night. Actually, make that a lot of flirting. I thought he was so exotic and punk rock and ... man. He also got his last girlfriend pregnant (or so she claimed). Oops. Kind of glad that didn't go anywhere. It's funny though, because the crush burned out quickly and we were just friends, and we still are. He's always come up to me at shows and said what's up and given me a hug, long after any intrigue on either of our parts faded away. It was muchly appreciated.

7. I think I went without really liking someone until spring of junior year--then it was Randall. I realized at State UIL that I had a really big crush on him. Nothing ever came of it, though, and it faded out of the picture by about halfway through summer.

8. Gustav. Oh, Gustav. I almost forgot about him.

His real name was David. He was from North Carolina. I met him on the WorldChangers mission trip in Louisiana and was convinced that it was destiny or something because he was the only person outside of my family who I have ever met who ran up to people he didn't know and shouted "Caaaaaw!" at them. He was so strange. I thought it was fantastic. He kind of got adopted into our crew of ten kids from our church, and he ended up hanging out with us a lot over the course of the week. On the last night, he was hanging out with a group of us from Wylie, and we were hiding from the Curfew Gestapo behind our building ... and we didn't get caught! It was awesome. But after that he left. We still talked on MySpace for a while, but gradually we both moved on--him faster than me, apparently, because by December he had a girlfriend in North Carolina. I can't blame him; it never would've worked. I wasn't crushed, but it still hurt. But then--

In January I e-mailed Aaron back and forth a few times ... and I'd always had kind of a crush on him, because, once again, he was foreign and exotic and punk rock and extremely cute (okay, freakin hot, but that's beside the point =P). I know for a fact that there was one show where I was pretty much the only girl, and I was standing down front with all the boys, and they all threw their arms around each other's shoulders ... and Aaron threw his around mine. :D! I did a dance of joy in my head. And the rest of that show I kept falling down so he would pick me up. Oh, tee hee. Tee hee hee hee ... hee. =)

At the end of February we started e-mailing each other every day, and I realized that I definitely had a crush on him (it happened when Philip said "You know, if he e-mails you that much, he probably has a crush on you," and I went, "sooo?"--in that 'heck yes!' voice). The intrigue grew from there, until ... you all know the rest of that story. ;)

I thought I was in love a thousand times before--tragic, unrequited, incredibly romantic to my fifteen-year-old-mind love. But fact of the matter is that every day I find out another shade to it. Love, as I have been discovering, isn't being obsessed with somebody--it's ... a lot more than that. I couldn't explain it.

You know, and this is going to sound incredibly cheesy--all those times before I was looking for love. One day I told God that I would let him send someone my way and stop worrying about it. Well, I didn't actually stop worrying about it--actively trying to find a crush--until my senior year, and then ... love found me. And I never could've called it. =) Not in a thousand years.

Dude.

I think that I saw Stormy (Aaron's ex-girlfriend ... the crazy one) at the gas station yesterday. It caught me completely off guard. In all fairness, I didn't get a really good look at her and I haven't actually seen her in person before (just MySpace pictures), but it really did look like her. There were a couple things that seemed off, so it might've been someone else, but yeah. It was weird. I wasn't filled with hate, but I was like, if it was her ... then that would've been the first time she'd really seen me, too. A year later. A year later, and me and Aaron are still together. I can't deny it, I'm a woman and I am trying to prove something--namely, yes, we're still together, and we're still happy. You have not won. =P

But, like I said, I don't know if it was actually her or not. I keep saying that I'm just waiting for the blog on her MySpace that says "hey, I saw my ex-boyfriend and his girlfriend the other day." Note that she couldn't say "new" girlfriend because me and Aaron and have been dating for over a year. =P I win. Or something.

Things I have learned at the library

1. There are a lot of books at the library. Seems like an understatement, but I don't think you get a firm grasp of just how many books there are until you stop looking for just the ones you want and start putting up every book that needs to be reshelved. Then, when you stop and think about it, you realize how many people's hopes and dreams line the shelves--I'm an author myself, and I can't even imagine any of my stuff getting published, let alone people actually reading it. There are a lot of dreams tied up in all those books.

2. Everyone has something to say about everything. Go to any section screaming for advice--weddings, marriages, divorces, adolescence, child raising, being sexually satisified (in your marriage or otherwise), health, weight loss, religion, philosophy, politics, theories of government (and those are just the ones I thought of off the top of my head)--and there are five thousand different people who all have something to say about why they have finally gotten it right where thosuands of others have failed. After looking at several books, I came to the conclusion (realization?) that pretty much, you just have to wing it. I don't think anyone really knows what they're doing, and if you do, then you probably need to place yourself somewhere where you don't know what's going on. Take marriage. Man, the idea of that can be pretty freakin scary--I'm supposed to pick only one person to spend the rest of my life with, and I have to make it withstand work, home, friends, not friends, maybe school, children, parents, siblings, in-laws, and not even mentioning the everyday pressures of life? That seems like a sucky choice to force somebody to make; but at the same time, it's like it's something that you have to do. And you better not screw it up, buddy. Everyone has their own opinion on how to make it work.

But after reading a couple of books (sorry, I get bored when I'm straightening shelves for two hours), I realized: All I can do is wing it. Yes, I want to get married, but not for the reason I listed above (which is how I used to view the whole marriage thing, once upon a time). It's kind of like--well, I gave up on the quasi-marriage idea that I used to hold on to, and now it seems more like something you do because you actually want to spend the rest of your life with someone, not because you just have to suck it up and pick somebody as a rite of passage or something. (I should probably add: This is only my personal view of it; I doubt that everybody thinks the same way I do. So this ramble is all highly personalized to me.) So ... yeah. Still want to get married. A lot of pressure is off, because it's more like, I want to spend the rest of my life with this person--isn't marriage how you formally go about doing that? So yes.

3. Did I mention that there are a lot of books in the library? ...

Actually, that's about it ... yeah.

Magical day

I went and saw Aaron yesterday ... well, really, I went on Sunday and spent the night at his parents' house and came back for work yesterday. It's so much easier than having to drive back to Abilene, plus I get to see him an extra day. Plus I get to see him in his jammies and secretly take pictures of him while he's sleeping. =P That's a secret, because he was completely passed out when I took a picture of him. ;)

Anyway. The only downside is that the longer I hang out with him, the more I get used to him physically being there, and the harder it is to say goodbye. =( I didn't cry either time where I only got to see him for a day. Every time I spend the night I bawl all the way to Eastland when I leave his house. (But he's on to me now, he calls so that I'll feel better and I won't cry ... cleverpants. =P)

But I had a good time. It was another one of those magical days. On Sunday we just sat around, and at one point we tried to go swimming (that pool was freaking cold!), and we watched a lot of TV ... oh, and had steak and baked potatoes for dinner. It was amazing. And before dinner we went to WalMart and bought Dr Pepper, steak sauce, and a pair of shorts. He looks really good in shorts. I hope he's not self-conscious or anything ...

Later we stayed up until 2 or 2:30 (that's when I went to bed, anyway; he said he didn't fall asleep for another hour after that) and woke up at around 9:30 before promptly going back to sleep til 11. Or at least he went back to sleep til 11 and I sat around until he woke up. That was when I took the picture of him on my phone. Tee hee. =P But after that we just sat around for a while, and eventually we got up and got dressed (well, I got dressed, but he likes to sit around in his pajama pants) and ate lunch and watched "3:10 to Yuma." Awesome movie, you should all watch it. But after that I had to leave and come back to Abilene because I had work at 5. :(

But it's okay ... I'm going to see him this Sunday/Monday, too, but I have Monday off because it's Memorial Day. So I get to see him for two whole days. =) Then again, it's the last time I'll get to see him for around a month, because on May 30th he's going on tour ... =( I'm sad that I won't get to see him for that long, but you know, I'm really happy that he's getting to go. I wish that I could, too, but it isn't possible. Maybe one day I will.

I dunno. But it's worth it to watch him follow his dream. That's what I always want to tell him, because he knows that I'm going to be sad and miss him too much for words, but I also want him to know that I'm happy that he gets to follow his dream ...

Yeah. Just, yeah.

I was doing good.

I have, for the most part, stopped caring about Stormy by now. She has left Aaron (and me, I guess) alone for long enough that my flaming anger has subsided into mostly apathy. I can actually look at her MySpace page without my blood pressure skyrocketing, which is a start. It'd probably be worse if I ever actually saw her in person, but that's probably not going to happen, so I'm not going to worry about it.

The closest I've ever come is seeing her little sister and couple of guys walking down the side of the highway in Ranger once. We were in Aaron's car; we had just dropped his sister off at their mom's friend's house and were pulling back onto Loop 254 when Aaron pulled over to the shoulder of the road. I didn't even realize what was happening at first. Then I saw these three kids walking, and I was like, Oh, he probably knows them. He chatted with them for a couple minutes before we pulled back on the highway and went on our way again ... it was then that he was like, "I would've offered them a ride, but that was Stormy's little sister." And I was just quiet for a moment. About all I could say was, "Oh." Stormy's little sister had been in on the whole plot of last summer wherein they created a fake MySpace page and sent me an e-mail insinuating that Aaron had been cheating on me with some nonexistent girl (the e-mail was something to the effect of "So, how long have you and Aaron been dating? Because some stuff kind of happened at the beginning of summer and ... well, he's messing with one of our heads, and I just want to know whose!" But with worse grammar, spelling, and punctuation). Lucky for all of us involved, I knew that Aaron wasn't cheating on me (but I was pretty darn confused and upset about the source of the e-mail, because at the time I didn't know that Stormy and her sister had created a fake MySpace; I thought it was some random crazy girl). When I found out who had sent me the e-mail I cursed a blue streak. Up and down. For several days. I was pissed off. I already didn't like her (it's that jealous streak inherent in women), but this new turn of events really gave me a reason to hate her. And hate her I did. Like I said, I couldn't even look at her MySpace page without my blood pressure skyrocketing. Then, fast forward to last semester (Fall 08), when I'm walking to concert band one day and Aaron calls me to tell me that she keyed his car. And he knew that she did it because she was sort of kind of with one of his friends at the time, and the guy saw her do it. That really pissed me off (and prompted the infamous declaration "I'll kick her f-ckin -ss!", here bleeped for the kiddies). I was not happy. Here she said on her MySpace that she was absolutely in love with Handsome-Face-Number-569, but for some reason she couldn't let go of Aaron enough to stop messing with him.

But you know what? Nothing's happened since then, and, a year and a month (just about) after me and Aaron first started dating, I don't think that I'm going to lose him anytime soon. So I realized just now that I just don't care anymore. She's not an issue. I think I finally realized that she's not a threat, and since she hasn't done anything to try and hurt anyone I love (the number-one way to get on my bad side) in a very long time, I stopped caring. Granted, if she started messing with him again I'd put firecrackers in her mailbox in a heartbeat. (Well, Ana knows I'm all talk and no game, so I'd at least want to put firecrackers in her mailbox really bad. =P)

Granted, when I looked at her old blogs (so sue me! Jealous women feel this inescapable need to investigate) and saw really old comments left by Aaron, it still hurt. A lot. But I also realize that that has absolutely no bearing on the present, so I haven't worried about it. I'm pretty sure that I've got him and I'll have him for a while. ;) Not too worried about that. So ... yeah. I guess time heals all wounds or something. Or people just stop caring after a while.

Oh, the rampant jealousy.

I am rampantly jealous of people who actually get to see their boyfriends on a regular basis. For a while there I was okay, he lived in Abilene, I could turn my jealousies to other matters (you're always jealous about something, or at least I am--it just might be something small); but then he moved back, and then I think I became twice as jealous as before. It doesn't help that the person (people) I'm most jealous of are getting married at the end of this year. That really just ups the jealousy ante; then I'm just like, "Oh, well, isn't that grand and magnificent. Some of us still have three more years of college before we can even consider such a thing ..." And even then I haven't told anyone besides Aaron and Ana (and, I think, Michelle) that I'm pretty sure I'm going to marry him someday. I don't even want to bring that up to anybody, because (1) They can think it if they want to, but I won't tell 'em, and (2) Somebody's going to go off on the "pray for a nice Christian boy" tangent and I'm just going to get angry again. That is my biggest pet peeve, even more annoying than people who complain about not getting to see their boyfriend for only one night out of the week (hold on ... I've done that before ... dangit). I usually just keep my mouth shut, because people mean well (they're just trying to say "find someone with the same values as yourself," more or less, I think). But I don't want to tell anybody for risk that I'll get some dead-serious face and, "But he isn't Christian."

So what? I haven't sat here and prayed my whole life for God to send me some Christian Prince Charming on a white horse; as a matter of fact, I've never had a list. Not for years, in any event. I gave that up years ago and I said, "Okay, God, I'm going to wait for you to bring me somebody ..." And you know what? I think that he has. So there.

... and this whole rant sprang up just from the rampant jealousy. The point here is, I'm insanely jealous of people (which kills me double, because it's not like I hate them; as a matter of fact, I'm quite happy that they're getting married), and it's driving me insane. I can't even see my boyfriend but once a week, and here in about two weeks I'm not going to get to see him for a month. A month. Four weeks. It's not that I'm afraid I'm going to lose him in that time, or that I'm going to start liking someone else or something, I'm just going to miss him. A lot. And then he might be gone for another month or even two after that; but I won't even find that out til the end of June.

He leaves May 30th. He gets back at the end of June--when exactly, I'm not sure. And after that they might go on a Texas tour and maybe even head off to the West Coast for another monthlong tour. And then he's going to get back, he won't have any money, I'll be holding down a job and I won't really have time to go see him ... that's what I worry about.

I miss him. I miss him so much. I at least get to see him on Sunday, and then the week after that; but then he's going to be gone for a month, and I'll hardly even get to talk to him on the phone because of roaming charges (the East Coast!), and I'll [hopefully] get a letter every once in a while, and maybe every now and then I'll be lucky and get an e-mail.

A month. Four weeks. It doesn't seem so long when you look at it, but when you're living it--when you're counting down the days for it to be over--it seems like eternity. It's even worse when you have to watch everyone else in happy-couple-land all fawning over each other and not having to know how much it hurts to be apart so much ...

I'm not dead yet

So ... start work tomorrow. Exciting. Dropping my car off to get the leak in the transmission fixed today. VERY EXCITING (it's been leaking for almost a year now). Trying to figure out my work schedule so I can go see Aaron sometime ... not as exciting, but getting to see Aaron is, so I guess that works. =P Going to see everyone at Wild Wings this afternoon. Definitely exciting ...

Yep. So ... I'm still alive. And everybody's getting married, and Ana's having more crazy mishaps in Dallas without me, and I talked to Lyka for the first time in a while today. Not much has happened other than that.

Just sos ya know.

Everything sucks.

So I just found out that the one day I get to see Aaron in possibly the next two weeks, he has to work. Can't get off. Not his fault; I'm not mad at him at all. I'm incredibly sad because first I realized that I couldn't see him Sunday/Monday (realized Sunday is Mother's Day--probably going to be in Weatherford), and then I was like, okay, I'll see him all day Friday. Come to find out that he's got to work til close on Friday, and I have to leave Ranger by 9 (because 1, I have to leave that early to stay awake on the drive home, and 2, I told Caitlyn I'd do something with her for her birthday, and I hardly ever get to hang out with her anymore ...). So that gives me ... three hours to see him. Three freaking hours. 168 hours in the week, and I actually get to see him for three. Is a day too much to ask for? Is six freaking hours too much to ask for? What about four? Anything more than three. I don't know the last time I only got to see him for only three hours. It kills me. I wait all week watching people snuggle on the couches downstairs with their in-town boyfriends who they get to see whenever they want, and then I come to find out that I only get to see my boyfriend for three hours out of possibly two weeks ...

And it's just compounded by the fact that this is my last weekend before I start a new job. This is probably one of the last chances I'm going to have to get to see him for any extended period of time ... granted, I don't know for sure, because I haven't found out my work schedule yet. I do only work 20 hours a week. The question is just when ... I'd rather work three six- to seven-hour days and have the other four off than work four hours a day over five days ...

Maybe I'm too picky. I don't know. I don't know. I just want to get to see Aaron.

All of this added on to the fact that it's right before he leaves on tour. This would be the time when I'm trying to cram in the most time with him, before I don't get to see him for one or two or maybe even three months ... but no, things keep going wrong, my plans keep falling through, I'm left here staring at my schedule like it's a house of cards that's just been knocked over by a draft. Not to mention that he doesn't have any money to come see me, and understandably so; and by the time he actually does have money to come to Abilene, it'll be time for him to go on tour, and then I won't see him for God knows how long ... =(

I can't go by at two tomorrow; I'll already be in Dallas. The only way this would work would be if we picked you up and took you with us when you got off work, and I could have you back in Eastland by the time you needed to go to work on Friday. It just won't work. It's not your fault. This weekend is just so complicated. But it's my last chance to go visit you for any lengthy period of time, and I don't even have that. Everything sucks.

Blahdy blah blah.

So the whole leaving the church thing. You think that it doesn't still hurt me? I know that something's wrong. I can feel that something is a little off. But the rest of us are just trying to pick up the pieces and go on with our lives. I love you like family still--I respect your decision to leave--I would still run up and hug you on the street--but we can't all leave.

Maybe you're right. Maybe I'll change my mind when something happens to me. But I've already decided that I don't know what's going on, so the only people I'm going to trust are in my immediate family. My dad sat me down and gave me the straight dope as he knew it, and I trust him. I'm not saying that anyone in particular is a liar; I think more than anything that there are a thousand stories floating around, and nobody is really sure what's going on. I honestly think that you mean the best. But I don't know what's going on, and I really do feel as if God has called me to stay at this church, and so I cannot leave like rats fleeing a sinking ship.

In a few years I will probably be gone anyway, in all honesty. I have the wanderlust. When I get out of college, I think that I'll wander for a while before I figure out what exactly what I want to do. So it goes like that: Get married, probably, and then wander with him for a while until I figure something out, or God tells me Stage 2 of the plan. I don't know. Stage 1, as far as I know, is to go to Hardin-Simmons and finish my theology degree, and after that I'm not sure what's going to happen.

But while I have felt that something is wrong, and I kind of placed my finger on it--we've been torn apart, we're trying to pick up the pieces, I think that there have been wounds placed on my heart that might never heal--and we're just missing that fire that we used to have. It's hard to figure out what exactly is wrong. Whatever it is, the lethargy has taken over me, too, and it can be hard to fight on Wednesdays ...

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't love anybody any less for leaving, and I don't love anybody any less for staying. This whole situation just hurts. :( And unfortunately, it's such that I don't think I'll ever quite figure it out. But life goes on whether I want it to or not ... might as well jump aboard for the ride.

Yep.

Feeling contemplative

Doesn't really matter what I write, Ana's the only person who might read this. Or Aaron if I pointed him in this direction. Right now I think that I'm the only person reading these entires though. That's perfectly fine by me.

And this entry isn't as dramatic as it sounds, really. I'm just feeling contemplative. Hence the title, I reckon.

Yep. All the old youth group stuff. You know what? I wish that things could be the same as they were before, sure, but I've moved on. I've had to. I still miss everybody. I still miss Shawn. I miss jumping off chairs and having insane worship and maintaining the status quo or whatever--but that's all I was doing after he left; I was maintaining the status quo, trying to comply with some standard of "acceptable-to-Emily Christian" in my head. Only recently has anything even made sense. I don't know why this still hurts so much ...

Maybe that's just it. I know I'm bitter. I should stop dancing around it and post what I mean. Things didn't go the way I wanted them to, and I've never quite gotten over it, I don't think. But then I force myself to pull myself up by my own bootstraps, so to speak, and move on, and swallow things as they are and stop complaining. Not to say things right now are bad; I'm not trashing my church at all. I still love it. I'm just saying ... if I feel any bitterness at all towards people who left, it is my fault, and it is for that reason: I made myself "get over it" and stay, and I--being human--expect everyone to be exactly like me.

So I just pick people apart in my mind. I pick apart philosophies, theologies, how they live--and does it make me any happier? No. I still have a lot of confusion right now. I'm also jealous of people because, once again, my boyfriend lives an hour away, I probably won't finish school for another three years, I don't know what I'm going to do after that, I desperately want to spend the rest of my life with him and I'm jealous of people who are already engaged, for that reason ...

And I read people's blogs on Christianity, about how they live their life, and I pick them apart. What right do I have to do that? I am not God; I can't see a person's heart. Their relationship with God is none of my business anyway, it's between them and God. Maybe part of me is jealous because I'm not perfect. I guess that would make sense. But that's not exactly what I mean ... I just see other people sometimes, and they seem so perfect, and I realize how imperfect I am, and then I get jealous.

I am not a "super Christian" (I almost hate the term super Christian, it seems like it's been overused by people trying to actively not look like "super Christians" or something ...); I am a person. I forget that sometimes. I have to remind myself that I am God's, that there is no way to quantify relationship so you can't compare two different relationships ... there is no such thing as relationship points.

I think I'm feeling philosophical today.

Life is life. Life is for living. I was not put on Earth to try and be a "good Christian." It just so happens that I choose to follow God ... I am part of his new covenant under Jesus Christ; I have been taken from System 1, the world, trying to measure up to standards and living with this constant image of myself in my mind, and placed in System 2, Life, freedom, accepting my identity from Christ--and not having to try to break out of System 1, because this is grace, this is mercy, this is not justice and it is not logical ...

Guess stuff makes more sense in that light. I have to remind myself of that or I go crazy and start trying to live up to standards again ...

God has called me. I know he has. I might be living in a cheap apartment and touring the country nine months out of the year (I'm pretty sure I'd be happy that way ...); I might be recording the culture and the people and the places I encounter, be it through writing or drawing, and that might be how I make a living. Maybe I will become a youth minister someday (I'm not sure; I think that thought originally crossed my mind because it seemed like a secure job for a theology degree ... but I have not been called to security); maybe it will just happen in an odd, roundabout sort of way. I think that God has called me to wander. At least for a while. At least for my first few years out of college. I want to grow up, and finish school, and at some point marry Aaron, and wander with him, because I have been called out to speak to the punks ... that sounds so odd when I put in writing ... but it's true.

That's what I am; maybe God had a hand in making me a punk. Maybe he just let me develop on my own, and this is how I turned out--either way, I wouldn't change a thing. But I know that he called me once, and every time I try to figure out what I'm going to do when I graduate, I feel that calling more strongly than ever. That's not to say that I might not settle down later in life, because you never know what's going to happen. But I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.