A Clean Slate.

Today, I stayed home and went through my desk, which is coincidentally where I'm sitting typing this all out right now. For years this desk has been my dumping ground of sorts, for anything and everything without a place. Textbooks, other books, random papers, trinkets. You get the idea. Never once in the four years that I've had this desk have I used it for its real purpose: work. Well, writing. So here I am.

Like I said, I cleaned it out. I hadn't really sat down and done so since the day Graham "disappeared" back in the fall of 2010. I opened all the doors and cabinets and drawers in it and pulled everything out, setting it on the floor in front of me. In three hours, I read through journal after journal, paper after paper of things I'd written, most going back to seventh and eighth grade. A couple as far back as sixth. The most recent was from freshman year, my creative writing class. Out of everything I had held onto, everything I'd written from my past that at one time meant a great deal to me, I filled two trashbags to the brim, one being so full that it very nearly fell apart. All that's left is a relatively thin folder of things from my fangirl days, my creative writing class work, the six word memoir contest entries from junior year, a few other pieces, some photos, and my university acceptance letters. Everything else I had no use for anymore. I mean, some of what I threw out I'd already typed up some time ago, so I have it on my laptop. But most of the other parts of it were things I had no reason to hang on to anymore. They were all things from when I was with Graham, starting from my guilt during the first summer of TIP all the way through my suicidal phase during the break-up. And as I was reading through it all, wondering why I still had it, I remembered what I'd been thinking the last time I had done so three years ago: I thought he was coming back. I thought that if I got rid of him from my desk, and thus my life, then he'd never "come home" (I actually wrote that in them; how embarrassing). I thought that if he did take me back, I'd want to have the writing and memories associated with our past together. Well, he's gone. Been gone for almost three years now. We had good and bad times, but it's over. I laughed at a LOT of what I wrote today, more out of embarrassment and shame than humor, but it was laughter nonetheless. Then I threw it in the trashbag. That part of my life was just that: a part. A relatively small part. I stopped letting it dictate things I did a long time ago, and it's time to get rid of it all (sans the rose stained glass piece his mom made because it's just too pretty). I'll track down the box my mom has somewhere of the stuff from us together (what I never got to burning) and get rid of all that, too.

Which in a way brings me to TJ. Like I said before, we're together through the summer, but that's it. No long distance. And that means a closing of that chapter in our lives. Yes, he's my high school sweetheart, so I'm naturally going to keep quite a bit of the things he's given me over the years, but it'll stay here in Florida. When I go to college, it's time to move on. I'm not the girl I was when we met four years ago; I'm not the same girl from when we got together two and half years back. And he's certainly not the same ROTC kid from freshman and sophomore year. We've grown and changed, and now it's off to our separate universities, separate cities. It's over. If we find our way back to each other in the years and years to come, then I'll say it's fate, but I don't know that right now. All I know is that now is not our time.

Segway to Ian. Clearly "now" isn't our time either. Not long distance. We'll see what happens if and when we bump into each other on campus. Maybe we'll start over. Maybe we'll just be friends. Or maybe we won't be anything at all. In any case, anything can happen, but we both have to be open to that, which means putting aside the past. By putting aside the past (unfortunately, the good as well as the bad), only then can we go forward.

What's important here is nothing is set in stone right now. As my mother likes to keep reminding me, I could end up in a halo from a car wreck and be unable to attend Rochester in the fall. Any number of things could happen to compromise the parts of the future that I think are fairly certain. Something that took a ridiculously long time for me to figure out, accept, and put into practice is to always keep an open mind about everything. I can't possibly know all there is about every little thing before I try it, so why judge it? Why live my life in a box of ideas that were parented into me when this is my life now? For the first time, I can make whatever decision I want and not have to worry about repercussions [that involve my parents (I'm fully aware of what's legal and what's not)]. However, that also means that I can't blame my parents for how I think or what I do anymore (like I really could before). Because, as I said, it is my life. I'm fully accountable for what happens in it now. I'm lucky to have the chance at a clean slate; maybe this time I'll scribe something worthwhile.

11 weeks before move-in day, so I'm in this wish-washy period before being an official undergraduate but just after graduating high school. Nothing to do, relatively no commitments. Kinda breaks my heart and decreases my sanity to know this is my first summer in 5 years without any kind of academic program where I get to leave for awhile. So I'm home for 77 more days with only Netflix and online shopping to comfort me. But I am done with high school, and this was only a high school memoir, so that means TTFN: Ta Ta For Now. I'll be taking a break from blogging for the remainder of the summer, so check out my links up top there. Very active on Tumblr and Twitter. But "Story of a Girl" ends here.

It's been real, guys. Over 3,000 views. Heartache, heartbreak, insanity, pain, happiness, growth, strength, failure, and a whole four years (okay really three years worth of posts) of everything in between. I bid thee adieu.

Love always,
Caitlyn

"Young Volcanoes"

 When Fall Out Boy came off hiatus, I was in tears of ecstasy. And then they released a few songs, and the last of the original three (first was "Light 'Em Up" and the second was "The Phoenix") was "Young Volcanoes." It's the perfect summer song about being young and free. So with this summer being my last before college and the 18th anniversary of my birth (happy being legal to me today), the lyrics inspired me to write an ekphrastic poem. For you guys to "get" the poem, I'll post the lyrics first, and then the poem.

When Rome's in ruins, we are the lions
Free of the coliseums
In poison places, we are anti-venom
We're the beginning of the end

Tonight the foxes hunt the hounds
It's all over now before it has begun
We've already won

We are wild, we are like young volcanoes
We are wild, Americana, exotica
Do you wanna feel a little beautiful baby?
Yeah!

Come on make it easy, say I never mattered
Run it up the flagpole
We will teach you how to make boys next door
Out of assholes

Tonight the foxes hunt the hounds
It's all over now before it has begun
We've already won

We are wild, we are like young volcanoes
We are wild, Americana, exotica
Do you wanna feel a little beautiful baby?
Yeah!

We are wild, we are like young volcanoes
We are wild, Americana, exotica
Do you wanna feel a little beautiful baby?
Yeah!

 And poem...

"Speak of love,

            of heartbreak.

Everlasting joy.

Endless pain.

            Duality.

We are free, wild;

            lions escaped from the Roman coliseums.

You are my end,

            it’s all over now,

            but only because

            we’ve already won.

We are the prize for the other.

Like young volcanoes,

            erupting too early

            with passion,

            love.

Make me feel a little beautiful, baby.

But you?

You’re the “boy-next-door”

            created from asshole.

This was over before it

            really all began.

And like young volcanoes,

            we are unstable,

            our  explosive lava hot

 with anger and hard feelings.

So pretend I was nothing,

            say I never mattered,

            anything to make it easy.

Not that you deserve it.

Americana Exotica.

            A species of butterfly,

            new to be.

            Indescribable.

            Just fly.

We really are wild animals,

            doing only what feels

            right in the moment;

            instincts.

That’s how we survive.

You said last night

            you felt you were going backwards.

            You’re right.

This is all backwards.

Tonight, the foxes hunt the hounds,

            not the other way around.

Guess normal’s just

            not our style.

But this is just beginning.

Only the beginning."

Graduation and Growing Up

Yep. I graduated high school. Couldn't be happier to be done with the place. Granted I still have to go and pick up my final transcripts in a week or so, but at that point I'll be 100% finished with Gulf High.

During last week, and most of this one, I've become more and more obsessed with Dexter, America's favorite serial killer. Figures I'd get into it just as the final season premiers at the end of this month, but it's ust something to keep me occupied while the weather is finicky. Once the sun comes out I'll be outside tanning and reading. Might as well take advantage of Florida while I have the chance.

I would've been blogging more, but my laptop has been on the fritz for awhile, probably broken, and my knowing that once I get the money from Florida PrePaid I'll be buying a Macbook doesn't really motivate me to do anything about it. I'll make this post, clean up what I do and don't need from this computer, and then once I buy the new one I'll have the PeachMac transfer everything over. Quite simple, if you ask me. Definitely worth the $100.

I'll be 18 soon (actually in 2 days and 4 hours), and with "official adulthood" comes perks. Like getting a tattoo without a notary and parental permission. My idea? The new Fall Out Boy "Young Volcanoes" logo, sans the "FOB" in the middle, on my ribs. We are wild, right? I wrote a poem about it awhile back. Not sure if I ever posted it. Might post the poem, along with the lyrics that inspired it, one of these days. If my laptop stops being a bitch.

Some updates. A couple of weeks ago, I went out with TJ and Chels to see Hangover 3. It was always Chelsi's and my thing to go see the movies together, and with this being the final installment, we had to go, and TJ wanted to see it anyway. Following the showing, TJ brought up the idea that we go drinking afterwards, and so Chelsi called her boyfriend (who is over 21) and we all went over to his place to meet up with his friends. We got there around 10 or 11, and before TJ and I left at 3AM, I had one of the best nights of my high school career. Drinking, yes. More importantly, "Ring of Fire," and while I was pretty much winning, everyone else had some degree of nudity, and I commented on one of the girls complaining on how being naked was different for girls. She responded with, "Easy for you to say, you have all your clothes on!" So naturally, with my integrity challenged, I proceeded to get stark naked, earning their respect, and TJ's. If that's any nod towards what college will be like, I can't wait.

Oh yeah, and TJ and I are a couple again. Weird right? I'd done a lot of thinking, and after we had the talk about trying to seriously work on things, I didn't really give him the chance to actually try. I was tired. And that's when Ian came in, combined with my Rochester visit. I didn't see myself with TJ anymore, especially in the future, and I didn't want to string him along, plus staying with him at that point would've hurt Ian too. So I broke up with him. Fast forward 2 months, Ian's gone, and we're hooking up, and TJ can't stop telling me how much he loves me and wants to get back together. So I say, "Let's see where the summer goes." If I'm being completely and totally honest, I know that I don't want to do long distance. Not in high school, not over the summer, and certainly not in college. I can't, and I won't. If it's meant to be with him and I, then it'll happen. We'll keep getting pulled together somehow or other. But as far as right now is concerned, I'm going to enjoy my summer with my high school sweetheart. Do all the things with him that we had planned to do our last summer before going our separate ways, like the beach and hanging out and going to a concert here or there and maybe even seeing him off to Chicago. But it's going to end once I move in. I know that, and I hope I made it clear to him, too. It's not personal, our eventual, final break-up; it just has to happen. At least we'll have one last amazing summer, no strings attached. That's all that matters.

I'm off, I guess. I'm glad to end my non-conventional high school experience a little more conventionally, with sun and friends and a summer romance. The last four years have shaped me in ways I'll never forget, some for the better and others not so much. But I am the way I am. How I deal with it from here is on me now.