Overclocked

I have relevance!

I feel a little funny, not posting on this thing in so long. I keep telling myself that I’ll go back through everything I’ve put down here, prune out the awkward crap that I managed to throw down here when I was…What, 19? 20? But I never get around to it, and the only time I go out of my way to type is when I feel anxious about putting something down into words that I don’t think the people around me would understand – or hell, even to help me understand. It gives me a mental snapshot to look at when I’m older, balder, and (hopefully) wiser.

I’m thinking neuropsychology. The problem with this train of thought as far as career choices go is that it would require another 6 – 8 years of college on my part. 6-8 years of education, essays, and hard work on my brain meats. It would mean being in debt, a lot of it, and the possibility of being stuck in Maryland for even longer. But it pays well, it’ll mean that I help people – even if it’s indirectly with research – and it’s something to be proud of. Gunning through two more semesters at CSM will be quick, and I’m officially worked up over just figuring out which college I should pick out. The three big ones are U of M, St. Mary’s College, and Hood College – there are a few others on the fringe, but to be fair, unless I get a metric shitload of stuff paid for? Including room, board, food, and potential internships? Going to New York or New Jersey’s for my advanced education seems a little unlikely. But the big question is, what now? What do I look for? I’m pretty sure I’ll have to wait until January to bust out the FAFSA, but which one will give me the best education for the money put in? Should I go out of my way to fly the coop, or should I try and stick with something local?

I wonder if things would be different if I did; I’m not too sure they will be. I’ve lived with my family for 24 years of my life, and very little has changed in the grand scheme of things: I work, I piss away my money on school, my truck, video games, and cards. I’m alone, and sometimes it doesn’t bother me at all; other times, it makes me feel a range of emotions from amused, to frustrated, to sad. I think it’s fair to say that I’m not sure if I’m ready for a relationship now when I have so little of a social life and even less free time to allow for myself, but it doesn’t make me want one any less.

Christ, I’m talking about wanting a relationship amidst angst-ridden pages of growing frustration – you’d think that was a theme when it came to this blog. I really dislike that.

Still, I’m going to cut things off here before I get too far ahead – it’ll give me an incentive to throw another long-overdue post on this thing (I hope!).

I’m sitting in school, again. I’ve just grinded through Social Science Club, and I’ve finished a test for Marine Biology that I thought would be easy to knock out (It wasn’t – I’m expecting a B out of it, much to my growing frustration. Yes, I’m trying to increase my GPA). So now I’m sitting here, in CSM’s library, trying to figure out how to kill time for over two hours.

I can’t kill time like I’ve used to. Megatokyo? That guy has a kid now, and doesn’t update as often – I’m all caught up. 8-Bit Theatre? Nuklearpower already finished that series up, and I’ve read it already. Part of me wants to just go home, call off of school for the rest of the day and spend it playing bass. It’s bad enough that I have to wake up at 5am to be at work by 6am, but one class has already been cancelled and I just don’t want to be here until next Tuesday.

Miss Dee is a nice woman, and I like how she teaches. I mean, granted, she has an older-generational sort of perspective on things: championing social security, pointing out the veritable hell that our lives will be, how little of a mark we’ll make, how children need to be brought up with a mother and a father. Stubborn, set in her ways, unwilling to consider alternatives. In some ways it’s encouraging; in others, it’s a little frustrating.

There are no tests in that class, only projects. One problem is, these projects are still a little vague as far as the due date – and it isn’t as if we drive over these concepts at home. I have one other person who I need to work with as far as a manual for people regarding ‘old age and death’, and how to get by on it. Another problem for another project is a little more critical as far as I’m concerned: I’m to make a sort of plan as to how much money I plan to make over the next 30 – 40 years based upon my career choice, and figure out the expenditures to determine my “Lifetime worth”.

The problem is that I really don’t have a career choice.

Seriously. Figuring out what I want to do with my life has been at the top of my ‘to-do’ list since I was in high school, but I’ve yet to come across a career goal that didn’t have some sort of painful, glaring issues. It seems like everyone and their mother is gunning for a Psychology degree; culinary school was out of the question as soon as I discovered that it requires food made on a timed schedule.

And of course, Astronomy involved physics – which in high school made me less enthusiastic, but now (especially with the Kepler satellite’s discoveries!) seems more appealing. But if I went for Astronomy, I’d have to spend another year or so in CSM just to go for a physical science degree!

Fuck my life. =( Why is it that my plans can so suddenly shift? At one point, the military seemed a viable option; now, I’m considering gunning for a doctorate in Astronomy – which pays crap for money, and would involve my being in debt for the vast majority of my life. So I need to find a happy medium – a fulfilling job that can pay the bills.

Only now I’m on a timeline, and I have to blame myself. =\ God, I just have to suck it up and get ready for another rough day.

Meh. I’m sitting here, quietly regretting that I put my bass back into my truck. I’m in CSM’s library, slowly watching the clock tick away until my class at 5:45. Blah.

Recent events – er, well, today was the first day of Speech & Debate club for this semester. It went well – I’m running for President, and I feel that I’ll be getting ahead of Lisa, although it seems she’ll be Vice-President one way or the other. Despite how a certain someone would feel about that, it doesn’t bother me – as long as she doesn’t dump any sort of drama on my doorstep, and she does her job, I think I can manage.

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood has been my most recent distraction, despite the intense fuck-up it had over its Campaign – and yes, Brotherhood has a clusterfuck in regards to its Story Mode. Between the ending and Subject 16′s most recent entry, I wanted to send Ubisoft a very strong-worded letter. Thankfully, their multiplayer’s made up for that…For now.

Damn it, Ubisoft – keep it together!

I have an old English teacher that I’ve mentioned in my older blogs – Mr. Kane. He lives around where I live, and we bump into one another on occasion at my work. The things we talk about are often political – he’s an English teacher, and a damned good one at that, but he’s also very politically-minded. I’m a Libertarian by default; Mr. Kane claims he’s a Conservatarian, but to be fair, I’ve yet to see anything in his postings that deviate from the Conservative point of view. This means that while we often agree wholeheartedly in regards to the solution to the fiscal and economic state our government is in, it also means that we occasionally disagree as far as the steps that the Government should take as far as society and religion.

Abortion is an example; Mr. Kane believes that abortion is murder, while I believe it’s scraping a mass of cells off of the uterus lining. But that I can understand – we disagree as to when an embryo should be considered a human life, and therefore sanctified. He believes it’s potentially a human, and should be treated as such from the moment of conception; me, I believe that a human embryo should be put on par with a human life within the second trimester, when it’s capable of feeling pain and has the capacity for thought.

Some of what he puts down is really insightful – it’s why I’ve been keeping an eye on it – and I really do like him as a teacher. Other things are…Well, to me, questionable (Twilight and Harry Potter books being discouraged because of…Demonic possession?). Between putting an honest effort into practicing my bass and the upcoming semester – of which I’m very much looking forward to – I haven’t gone out of my way to post in his journal entries my own “Dissenting opinion”. It’s one of those things on my to-do list; not because I want to go out of my way to disagree with some people (Which would normally make sense, with me!), but because I respect him enough to be honest with my opinion.

..And just to get it out of the way, women should have freedom over their own bodies (Which means yes to abortion and prostitution), homosexuals should be allowed to marry in states that OK it and fight in our military (The military already has a code of conduct in place to keep the stereotypically flamboyant from being stereotypical and flamboyant). Yes, established religion has a tendency to be hypocritical depending on the local political arena, and many of our founding fathers were Deists – i.e., people who believed in a God but did not believe that he interfered with mortal affairs. Some questioned Jesus’ divinity, others embraced it in that time; but that doesn’t make this nation a Christian nation – and even if it was at that time, that aspect of our country has changed with the times. We are a melting pot – a country where Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Atheists, and any citizen within can practice any religion they want, or none at all. That doesn’t make us a Christian nation – but it does make us a nation of freedom, something I find vastly preferable.

Aaaand I’m ranting. =x I need sleep. Night!

For the first time in almost a month, I’ve had time to sit down and think; so much time, in fact, that I barely know what to do with myself. I had kept quiet since the 27th because a certain someone tried to put both a peace order hearing and a report of non-consensual sex on my lap – not because I was worried, but because I had taken my time to gather evidence to the contrary. The end result is that I walked into the peace order hearing with 28 pages of evidence and two affidavits in hand, and she didn’t even show up. Case dismissed; also, after showing the detective who was invesitgating the – okay, I’ll say it -rape report my evidence, he sighed, looked me in the eye, and said, “You know, when I see something like this happen, I want to charge the female for filing a false report. Half of the time, it’s a woman who cheats on her boyfriend and doesn’t want to get caught.”

Yep. He pretty much nailed this instance on the head.

So, now that she’s out of my life and some other person’s problem, I’m now faced with what feels like a big, empty space: I’ve already filled out my FAFSA and submitted it, and I’ve taken some time to catch up on Assassin’s Creed. Sure, I need to split some wood, and do a few household chores – probably play some bass, while I’m at it. But before, I had some huge, overwhelming goal to accomplish; now, I can’t help but feel a need to find something new to focus my energy on. Or maybe I should just shut up and play bass.

Yep, sounds good to me. =)

I feel numb now, for reasons that I clearly understand. Once the anesthetic wears off, I’ll be feeling a broken heart – but I have a feeling that I’ve become a much stronger person because of it.

Throughout the day, I was worried about Brandy – not talking for a week, not typing for a week, not seeing her in five days; I felt…Frustrated, as my blog posts before make obvious. So me, I get up the nerve to go to her house, just on the off-chance that I’d see her. “To hell with her parents,” I thought, “I’ll be the bigger man and be true to my feelings; they’ll respect me for that, and if they don’t, they can’t hurt her any more than they already have been.”

So I drive to her house, in the middle of a blizzard. I went there once before – when, much like today, I couldn’t wait to see her anymore. I told her that I was on my way, I picked her up, and we drove/parked for maybe ten minutes. Kissing, holding hands, whispering how much we’ve missed each other. After that, she started shaking, saying “Tom, I need to go home. I need to go home.” She lied to her mom about who it was, saying it was someone who owed her money, to stay out of trouble. I drove up, seeing her dad smoking out front, parked my truck, and walked out there. Her mom opened the door, and asked who it was.

“My name is Tom MacDonald. I’m in love with your daughter, and she’s in love with me.”

Her mom then begins screaming at me, shouting at me. Saying I was the one who was harassing her – a comment I replied to with pointing out that it’s not harassment if it’s mutual – and threatening to shoot me. I told her mom that I was under the impression that she knew that we were in love – that she was the one who had blocked us at the school. She replies very loudly that it was Brandy and her fiance. She stomps back into the house, and her father quietly explains that Brandy doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore, that she’s engaged, and that I should leave their family alone. “Sir, I’d believe that if I heard it from her. No disrespect intended.” So, he calls her out – and she steps out, phone in hand (The one I had been trying to call without success for a week or so), and meekly says that she’s talking to her boyfriend. She asked me what I was doing there, that I shouldn’t be there. “I haven’t heard from you at all in a week, and I was worried about you” I said.

Her mother comes out, with her hand stuffed into her coat pocket – I’ll assume it’s a gun, although it could’ve been a stapler for all I knew – and asks Brandy if she had told me that her mother knew about us; Brandy shook her head and replied that she had never told me that. Her father looked at her and told her to tell me that she didn’t want anything to do with me. Without missing a beat, she looked me dead in the eye and repeated what her father had told her to say.

I remember straightening my back, looking into the eyes that I had fallen for, and telling her father, “That’s all I needed to hear.” She slunk back inside, her mother continuing to shout at me, calling me simple, delusional, idiot – I had stopped listening to her, stopped caring for the idle threats she threw at me. Her father told me that I should leave their family alone; I remember swallowing my pride, keeping what dignity I had, and replied, “I will. Thank you for your time.” Her mother continued screaming at my back as I walked to my truck. I was numb as I drove to the gas station and got a subway sandwich (Big Philly Cheesesteak. x.x Nom nom). I was numb as I slowly drove home, feeling betrayed in a way that I was unfamiliar with. I’m still numb, even now as I get ready to get food with Frankie that’s more for his friends than myself.

I don’t regret falling in love, any more than I regret confronting Brandy and her parents. It’s taught me that I have more courage and integrity than I’ve ever known I’ve had in me. It’s shown me how loyal, and devoted I can be; that it took the woman who has lied to myself and everyone around her telling me that I mean nothing to her for me to give up on her. It’s shown me that I’m a good person, and that I won’t know regret in my life because of it. It’s shown me that I’m honorable, and strong – strong enough to know that I did the right thing today, and strong enough to keep my faith in humanity.

I hope she finds these things in the life she’s chosen. She won’t be able to learn them from me.

Thanks for the memories.

Yep, merry christmas. :3 Nothing terribly special – felt bummed for a good part of the day, but my older cousin, Jackie, made my day when she managed to put $50 in a puzzle box and wrap it in about a dozen layers of different wrapping paper. Seriously, it was the best 20 minutes I’ve had in almost a week. =)

Nothing new on my end – since I didn’t work today, I’m completely ignorant of my schedule for tomorrow. So~ here’s hoping I don’t have to wake up at 6; but the people at my work would make sure I was well aware of the time if it was early, and they know I’ll be giving them a phone call in the morning. :3 No news from you-know-who, and I’m pretty sure I’d be going a little crazy if I didn’t have Ash to vent to. =x Soooo…Thanks again, Ash. I mean, I still feel like I’m climbing up the walls, but as long as I’m not actually following through with it, I’m good.

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood…I haven’t played multiplayer, yet; but the story mode feels a lot like Assassin’s Creed 2.5. It’s mostly the same with a few new twists involved, the whole Desmond-Lucy relationship is still a little disappointing as far as romance goes, and the story itself has been pretty ‘wtf’ worthy (But in a good way!). Mostly just deepening the story between the characters – but I like it. =D And that’s my second big Christmas present, right between the puzzle box and a hoodie that makes me feel like a walking advertisement!

..Oh, I didn’t get straight A’s. =( I got a B in American Government and – shock and awe – English and Composition. Which seriously, seriously blows my mind. =( But considering I have that teacher again next semester, I’ll poke her about it when I can. In either case, my GPA’s spiked up, and I plan on doing it again. =) God, the next semester starts in just a few short weeks. And I planned on visiting Brandy right before that – I don’t know whether I should follow through with the plans and request the partial-week off, or if I should wait until I get the thumbs-up from her. =( Meh. I need to request the time off at least two weeks in advance, and I’ll be selling Magic cards just in time to do everything. It’s going to be a tight month – but I think I’ll manage. =)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KucV8renOfI

Oddly enough, this song has been stuck in my head. =B Go figure, auto-tuning the news can actually be catchy on occasion. Granted, politically, I don’t agree with everything in the news that’s being auto-tuned…But damn, it’s fun to listen to.

Don’t leave me swinging in the wind until November.  I am here; I am not going away. =)

I hate to dwell on the negative aspects of my life, and there really aren’t a whole lot of them – I live at home with a family that loves me, I work with people who don’t stress me out (every day), I’ve registered for classes again and I’ve finally been doing great in them – it took me a few years to be able to say that. But heartache has been attacking me in ways that I’m just not accustomed to; it feels as if I’m dragging my feet just to accomplish anything. My new game – a game that I’ve been enthusiastic and excited for, for several months – is still in the Gamestop bag it came in beside me. I have no enthusiasm to play it, or anything. I’ve finished watching the last few episodes of the 5th season of Dexter – still hasn’t phased me. I still haven’t taken photos of Magic: the Gathering cards I plan on selling. The house is empty, and I know I need to get firewood tonight, but I just don’t want to. I’m tired but I don’t want to sleep; I know I should eat something, but I’m not hungry. My heart’s heavy, and it feels worse now that it seems I can’t do anything to help. I feel useless. I feel as if I’m bound and gagged, because I’ve been cut off from every way of seeing her. I guess that’s the cruel nature of romantics: be with the one you love, and she’ll give you the drive to topple mountains; be without her, and wither. I’m feeling withered right now.

I feel like a broken record right now, going on and on about a woman I can’t even see now. I can’t even tell her that she doesn’t need her parents to go away – that loans and grants and financial aid would be more than enough. But this is the most prominent part of my life, right now; this, of all things, is the part I want to remember. It isn’t that she doesn’t feel for me as I do for her – I’ve seen the look in her beautiful eyes and felt her lips against mine too, too often for me to consider that. She once told me that she feels a void when I’m not there with her, just as I feel an almost unbearable aching in my heart. Maybe that’s what hurts the most – knowing that she’s hurting like I am, but not knowing what to do about it. Should I go there, toss small stones at her window like all of the other sappy romantics do in every chick flick? How would I know which window? Where would I hide my damned squeaky truck? How could I expect her to run away with me, when she shakes like a leaf at the mere thought of being caught with me? The need to see her and hold her has been outweighing my tendency to avoid trouble. If she found a way to tell me to go ahead, I would gladly do so; but without her to encourage me, I worry that they’ll hurt her to try and stop her from wanting to see me. That’s the only thing that I can consider worse than not seeing her: taking something away from her that she wants. That’s the only thing keeping me here for now. I don’t know for how long, though.

My family gave out Christmas gifts early – mostly because I had told them that I didn’t want anything for Christmas but tuition for college. Things are going to be a struggle, between school, work, gas, and – infinitely more important – visiting to South Carolina. I know that I’ll have to cancel bass lessons unless I can somehow get more money, and I’ll have to sell every Magic: the Gathering card that I own. It’s worth that much to me. But of course, my family’s hardheaded as all hell and I love them for it – my dad and my sister go out and buy me Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood despite how adamantly I told my mom before that I’d end up selling any Christmas gift she gave me to get by. But now that they hand it over to me, and my sister’s expression when she says that we can play a two-player game other than Gears of War 2 or Left 4 Dead 2, and I don’t think I have the heart to do it. “It’s the thought that counts” as people receiving gifts tend to say, and the fact that they’ve gone out of their way during tight times to give me something that they know I’ll like really touches me. They’re doing what they can to make me happy, and I’m going to have to do what I can to make them proud of me. It’s going to be the hardest year of my life, 2011, and I feel like I’m ready for whatever it has to throw at me. My family can be the biggest pain in the world, but they’ve stood behind me in everything I’ve ever done and helped me through the times where I didn’t know how I could.

I’ve been trying to call Brandy over the past couple of days, getting nothing but voicemail – a few minutes ago, I tried calling her. An older gentleman picks up the phone – I ask where Brandy is, and his response is, “Is this Tom?” I say yes – I’m not about to lie to whoever it is on the other line, even if it is her father. He says, “She’s quite busy at the moment.” And then there’s nothing but silence on the other line. I asked if he was her father, but I take it he hung up on me because there wasn’t any answer after that. And I’m really scared for her right now – I don’t know what she’s going through, and I don’t know how to reach her. I don’t know who that older gentleman was, but this cat-and-mouse bullcrap is getting old. She’s an adult, not some high school girl that needs to be kept prisoner by her family. And I don’t know whether or not I should call and confront the man who tells me she’s “busy” or if I should just wait for Brandy to make her next move. I’m not worried about myself – I’ve more than enough on my end to show that we’re both consenting adults. I’m only worried that I might end up hurting her when I’m trying to help her.

It’s going to be a rough Christmas.

I’d be apologetic over not posting as much, but that’s kind of par for the course as far as this blog goes. I post when I feel like putting something down that I remember – and looking back on the five years that this thing has been chugging along, the things that I had considered relevant then seem almost laughable now. The only relevant things I’ve managed to put down have been complaints about life, immature little anecdotes and things that were just embarrassing enough to go back and delete. I’d like to think that I’ll do this blog more for my benefit than anyone else’s, or just to pass the time.

I think the most important thing to put down right now is that I’m in love. Nothing like some trivial internet romance or some crush that passes given time; this is a sensation that has been, without a doubt, the single most powerful emotion of my life. I write this, not because I expect to forget this feeling, but because I’m quietly hoping that I’ll look back on this post and relate to a feeling that doesn’t fade.

Her name is Brandy. She’s shorter than I am – no surprise there – but she somehow manages to always fit perfectly in my arms. Her eyes are so beautiful, gold-haloed iris’ that I could get lost in for hours. Her lips are soft; everything about her is soft, but she’s strong. But she’s more than gorgeous – she’s smart, she’s funny, she’s stubborn. She can study music like I can study words, and she has that critical, teasing sense of humor that I’ve been slowly endeared to. She doesn’t think she’s special, but I can’t go a single day without thinking about how lucky I am to be loved by her.  She’s scared to death of her family – of what they can do to her – but as far as I’m concerned she’s brave beyond words for having the courage to tell her mother how she feels about me.

She was the president of the Speech and Debate club – I had run against her and lost, if only because I didn’t like the idea of someone getting a position by default. She was attracted to me, but I didn’t know it at the time – I was a little irked at not getting the VP position at the time, I guess. We saw more of each other, spoke more. I sat next to her during a few cookie bake-offs, stealing glances her way on occasion. I picked on her about the cookies – they were as hard as rocks, although she insisted that they were premade and that she could make epic cookies from scratch. One night, after IHOP shenanigans with Ash (An awesome friend. =3), we were sitting under the parking lot lights, our bodies nestled comfortably together. Listening to classical music, talking about the club, the debate. She told me that she was considered in a relationship with someone – that she intended to break up with him after she left for South Carolina. She wanted to be honest with me, as we kept warm against one another, and I still adore her for that today.

And then a police car rolled up. And then I realized that it looked like she was going down on me. x.x We give him our ID’s, he hands it back after a while, and he goes on his merry way. We pull up next to my truck, we say our goodbyes, and before I leave I hesitated – I wanted to hug her, I wanted her to know that the time was special to me somehow. I leaned in to hug her, and she turned her head to face mine with lips parted. I could taste her breath, and I was like a deer caught in the headlights.

I kissed her. It’s safe to say that she made the first move – after being alone for as long as I had, I didn’t even consider that she wanted me to. It left me breathless – and me, like the dumbass I am, just -had- to explain afterward that I had only planned on hugging her. She said sorry – I told her not to dare be sorry, and kissed her again.

I could go on to explain what happened over the next week or so – introducing her to my family, and explaining as to what those sounds were the next day (Stupid, stupid bed). We kissed under parking lot lights for what felt like an eternity, and I held her like I didn’t know when I could hold her again.

She accepted a proposal from the guy she planned on breaking up with on Thanksgiving. She avoided typing to me for days after, and I didn’t find out until after the weekend. That next Tuesday, she confronted me – and we talked. She never wanted to get married, and her parents were there when he proposed. Her parents would take everything from her – South Carolina, her home, her jeep, her phone. She told me that she didn’t love him – that she loved me, and told me it wasn’t fair to ask me to wait until she got away and got her life straightened out. I took her hand in mine, and heard her light breaths with each soft kiss I pressed to her fingers. I told her I’d wait for as long as she needed me to – that I loved her. I tasted her lips against mine, and she said she was sorry. I asked her to be direct with me from then on – she promised me that she would.

Later the next day, she told her mother that she wasn’t in love with her fiance, that she was in love with me. I say this first, because I now think that this is one of the bravest things she’s ever done, and I adore her for it. Her mother’s response was to block my number from her phone (that her parents own..), force her to block my Facebook account, and she went to the school to tell them that I was harassing her daughter. Bear in mind that my communication was cut off – I called her from my sister’s phone, and I got a mumble in response before being hung up on. I had no idea what had happened – I was under the impression that she had chosen her fiance over me, and that she didn’t want to speak to me again.

I was crushed. It’s hard to describe, now that it’s over: the things that I enjoyed seemed stale. I couldn’t get her off of my mind, even after drinking 18 beers one night at Hula’s – a bar with live entertainment – I had broken down and cried (I don’t remember it – or the second half of that night. I paid for it terribly the day after, though x.x). It didn’t make sense to me – I think that’s what bothered me the most, that I couldn’t just write her off as being crazy. That I couldn’t let her go, even if I tried. I saw her a week later, when I had dressed up for debate. She looked out the window whenever I seemed to look her way, and I just tried to focus on my debate and my rebuttal – I think it made me sound angry, and I was nearly shouting by the end of my speech.

We were both on AIM, one night – it was the only medium that wasn’t blocked, but I didn’t think she wanted anything to do with me – she didn’t think I wanted anything to do with her. It’s funny – we started posting our statuses, and then we started realizing that we were reading our statuses. We started typing, again – I found out that her mom had found out, that she had told her. I told her that I still loved her – how could I not, when she wasn’t the one who wanted us apart? Things were a little terse in school – there were students who her parents had talked to, to keep an eye on her, however insane that is. But when we sat in the back seat of Ash’s car, and I looked into her eyes, and I felt her lips against mine again…Things felt right, for the first time in a week and a half. She had been up front with me – she always had.

I’m sure I’ll go on about our adventures, soon enough. I have to wake up bright and early for work in the morning – but it’s important that I get things up to date here, if not anywhere else. She’s going to South Carolina in January, and I have every intention of following her there. A week out of every month, at first – and when I get my associate’s here, I’ll be with her as much as I can to make up for lost time. After everything we’ve been through over the past two months, I would follow her to China and back if I had to. I wish I could show her that her parents can’t take anything away from her, anymore – not even South Carolina, although my path there involves a student loan and more debt than I care to admit.

Brandy, I wish I knew how to take that fear away from you, to protect you from the people who have been as much jailers as they have been parents. When I’m without you, there’s a heaviness to my heart that makes me ache in ways I’ve never thought possible. I think about you every day, from when I wake up to the chill of an empty bed to when I close my eyes and curl my arms around my pillow. I need you in my life, and I miss you with a quiet intensity even now. You’ve made me happier than I’ve felt in years in the span of mere months, and I can’t help but feel a conviction that if we could survive these past few months, we could survive anything together. I still need to hear you play the piano. I still need to try those cookies that I’m still skeptical about (;p). I still need to explore every inch of your body. I still need to make you pancakes. I still need you to tease me a little when I make a mistake (..But only a little). I still need to hold your hand. I still love you. I love you.

I love you.