I think I just realized that Aaron is still a real person.

He's on the far right, in the red shirt. This is the first--and only--picture of him on tour that I have seen thus far (it was taken by April and posted on her MySpace). Granted, it's from the very first day, which is why everyone is so clean-shaven and still somewhat cheerful-looking--and yes, that's Billy Spears in a miniskirt and fishnets. A sight I wish I would never have seen. =P

But all the same. All of a sudden I realized that Aaron is still a real person or something. Do you know how long it's been since I've seen him? Memorial Day--May 26th, I believe--was the last time I was in Ranger. Actually, I saw him again the day after that, the 27th, whenever he and Jeremy came to Abilene for last-minute tour shopping, but I didn't really get any private time with him then because he came with someone else. Plus, there was a storm rolling in that night, so the rain kind of curtailed hanging out.

I think that I've survived so far by not thinking about it, because all of a sudden a fresh wave of missing him like crazy has washed over me. I was doing okay in not thinking about it. Now I'm going crazy all over again. =(

Several things.

One: I have passed the "crazy" bump, I believe--in other words, I'm not going crazy about Aaron being gone anymore. They're officially halfway done with tour, or close to being halfway done (within the next day or two), so every step is a step closer to home from here on out ... so yeah. He's still gonna be gone for the next two/two and half weeks, but I think I'll be okay. =P Clearly I made it through this past week even though I didn't think I could. I think we're gonna be alright. =P

Two: ... got to thinking again, and I realized that about half the time I plan my life based on security--you know, get a job working as a youth minister or something, settle down, whatever--and the other half of the time I snap out of it and realize that, right now, I'm only planning on doing that because I seek security. NOT, and it should be noted, because I feel that that's what God is calling me to do. The thing here is that the strongest call I feel right now is to somehow be a minister to the punks. I want to be in music. I feel a calling there right now. And I don't mean "a calling in music" like being a music minister or something ... I mean the nitty-gritty, life on the road, meeting people and showing them (as Nina and her hubby did for LRS) that "Christian" does not equal "asshole." But you can't make a living out of that.

Maybe I'm too obssessed with the idea of finding a career and settling into it right now. I don't think I'm being called to any kind of conventional career, at least not for now ... I guess there's no telling about the future. But then again, I reckon that it kind of makes sense, because since when have I ever been conventional? =P Seriously, though. It's kind of terrifying. It's like a leap into the unknown, and I'm not even there yet (or close to being at that point of decision). At this point, alls I know is that I'm going to finish college and figure it out from there.

I guess, when I think about it, that God doesn't seem to call people to things that they feel comfortable doing. If I stayed in my comfort zone all the time, where would I be? ... I'd probably still be my old misguided-legalistic self, halfway normal (I say halfway because I've never been completely "normal"), definitely not punk, definitely not as open and genuine as I am nowadays. I've come a long way to be this open with people, I think. If I had stayed in my comfort zone--if my world had never inexplicably, for utterly no reason, collapsed on itself--I would still be living in my little shell, my self-made chains, crammed into a spiritual prison cell that I thought was the whole world. I would definitely not be the Emily I am today--I know that for sure. My life has changed too much.

So ... I reckon that all I can do is embrace it, and make that leap when the time comes.

That also kind of throws out my plans of getting married right after college (yes, shoot me ... or roll your eyes at me ... that's what I've been thinking about a lot lately). Which is pretty scary, because that's something that, at this point, I definitely want to do. Buuuuuuut ... God kind of works on his own timing, I reckon. Keeps us on our toes or something. I guess that's not to say that that definitely throws out the idea of getting married or summat; I think that it means, more, that I'm throwing out all my plans and embracing the fact that I really have no idea what God has planned for me. It means that I'm throwing out all my neatly-structured plans and embracing the fact I really have no idea about the future--even further, that the future doesn't functionally exist, that all I have is Now. Today. The present. Life is lived in the moment, you know ... dag. Dag. Dag. ... that's all I can say. I think I just had a minor revelation.

Dag. That kills the wedding lust (it's been running rampant lately, I'll admit it ... but just to you, Ana, since you're probably the only person reading this =P). The wedding lust is very strongly tied in to my plans for a neat and tidy little life that I already have planned out in my head. But life doesn't follow yer plans ... you can't cram it into a tidy square and put it into your day planner. Life kind of happense to you, not the other way around.

That's it. Time for the "Life Won't Wait" tattoo. =P

(On tattoos: I think I decided that some day I'm going to get "Don't let 'em take it all away" on the back of my right arm ... AKA my open-defiance,-screw-you-I'm-going-to-live song by Mustard Plug. =P)

Dang. Well, I guess that God has to give me a kick in the pants from time to time and go, "Hey, you! I didn't call you to live a life of security! You knew when you signed up for this bidness that I got different things in store for you. Just wing it. You should know that by now." =P Goodness. That God guy. He's too clever (and full of incredible smartitude ... things like that). =P

Yep. You just witnessed a minor revelation/reminder in action. Interesting how that works out.

I miss Aaron. =(

It's only been a week since the last time I saw him, but I miss him so much that my heart physically hurts. My memories have become three-dimensional (I don't know how to explain that other than I miss him so much that my memories have taken on a real quality; it's unusual). Since Friday I've felt like I would go absolutely crazy if I didn't see him the next day, but that doesn't change the fact that I won't get to see him until June 23 or 24 at the absolute earliest (that's assuming that they don't get any extra dates and go ahead and come back). Somehow I manage to keep going. I was looking at all the pictures of him in my phone last night, and I was almost floored by the fact that he exists in real life, not just the phone. I miss him so much. =( I can't watch couples; it hurts too much. All I can think about is Aaron. I have become, even more than I already was, unsympathetic to other people's relationship problems in my own head, because I'm like ... "oh no, you only get to see your boyfriend twice a week? I won't get to see mine for a month." And it's not like I can go visit him. He's in a different place every day. =( I wish that I could've gone, but I know that I couldn't have, but what's really unfair to me is that April got to go on tour and I didn't. Because the number-one reason I planned on not being able to go anyway was because no girlfriends were supposed to be allowed. Oops. Funny how that works out. But at least Aaron's having a good time, and I'm happy for him; I just wish that I was there with him ... =(

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.