Note to self: A letter to my rebelious stage

Dear Me,

Do you remember that rule? The one that said to never date anyone with hair longer than yours? Let me tell you now it is a good rule to follow, and the boy you break it for isn't worth your broken heart. The boy before him isn't either and don't get me started on the boy before them. And let me tell you, anyone who cheats on you isn't worth your tears. But when he makes out with your best friend it is worth being angry.

Be angry with him, and be angry with her, but forgive. Forgive them for your love, and forgive them for your hate, and forgive them for not noticing either. And forgive your mother.

I know you think that hating her is justified, think she doesn't care because she got sick and left you, but she didn't. She got sick and you left her. And you broke her heart just like she broke yours. So forgive her when she says those things and forgive her when she can't. Forgive her, and forgive the doctors and please, for both our sakes, forgive yourself.

You may not think that matters either but trust me. It is going to break you and you are never going to be the same, so don't go down that road. Forgive yourslef and move on.

Love,
Me.

P.S. Go eat something. You look the same when you weigh 90 pounds as you do when you weigh 130 and that will just make you bitter when you finally get healthy so stop being stupid and eat your lunch.

Things I am Missing: A List of 10 Things I Wish I Still Had

1. The spray painted walls of my old bedroom.
2. The friendship of someone whose birthday I forgot last week.
3. A first period to skip.
4. The bottom half of my right lung.
5. My gaul bladder.
6. The chance to tell the good sir how important his feedback was.
7. Being able to see the ocean for the first time.
8. A car that could drive to the ocean at any minute.
9. My favorite atheist.
10. The innocence of not knowing what it feels like to miss a part of yourself.

 “Anyway, it doesn't matter how much, how often, or how closely you keep an eye on things because you can't control it. Sometimes things and people just go. Just like that.”  - Cecelia Ahern

I want to be what you want

I didn't expect him to be what he was. He showed up as quickly as a summer rain storm and soaked every inch of my life in his love. And now trying to forget that I love him seems as pointless as trying to pour the rain back into the clouds once it starts falling down. My kisses are pulled towards him like lightning, attracted to him as he stands there, tall and alone in the middle of his world and every time we touch it is thunder in my ears.

But I have spent so much time writing about him that I think I forgot, he isn't a metaphor.

He isn't a metaphor or a simile, a hyperbole or a cliche. He isn't a diagram or a chart or an outline. And he sure as hell isn't a pretty poem that I can write and be done with.

He isn't the thunder or the rain, he is a boy who, despite everything, I love.

He is a boy who says I know him better than anyone alive, who is my longest standing friendship (if you discount the girl who barely knows me any more), and I can't ever see him again.

A few months ago, I said I couldn't imagine life with out him and now here I am, having broken more hearts than I thought I would when I started. I didn't think he would break my heart, but every word he said about long term, and more, and love, broke my hear into smaller and smaller pieces because I knew I couldn't give that to him no matter how badly I wanted.

I couldn't be the girl he needs me to be for him, and so I wanted him to not want me. I tried telling him how all I wanted was for him to give me what I wanted for six months and then pretend it never happened and let me marry someone else.I told him he should just be okay with me using him, because I was selfish and that was all I could give him. I said over and over,

I can't be what you want.

I can't be what you want.

I can't be what you want.

I can't be what you want.

I can't be what you want.

I can't be what you want.

I can't be what you want.

I can't be what you want.

I can't be what you want.

I can't be what you want.

I can't be what you want.

I can't be what you want.

I told him and told him, not sure if I wanted him to be what I wanted or if I just wanted him to hate me as much as I hated myself for it. It would make it so much easier to leave, knowing I wasn't coming back if I could just make him hate me.

It wasn't working though, he was so damn determined to keep loving me, until he wasn't. 

I won't be what you want.

And he finally believed me, finally gave up and accepted that I was no good for him. And I realized no matter how bad I was for him, I wanted to be everything he wanted me to be.  It was too late though, he realized I was right and pulled his hand out of mine and I think he knew when we said goodbye we weren't going to see each other again. And I don't think I have ever felt lonelier than I did in the second he pulled his hand away.

He pulled away and took the boy I love and he took all the rain, thunder, lightning, all the cliche and metaphor, all the cute rhymes and half finished lyrics, and left me to realized that he was all of that and more that I never even realized. And I am just a silly girl who can only write after midnight when I realize that him leaving was why I have those stupid nightmares and I can't ever be what he wanted.

Annie

Dear Nelson,

So many blogs this week said it was the end of Dick, it was the end of Phyllis, the end of Gene but this isn't the end of Annie because that is who I am. When this all started you told us to make up a name and to write as someone else but I didn't.

I wrote with my name, and I might regret it.

Now the summer is over though, and everyone else is moving on. moving out. their real name is out there and they are done playing with this pretend. and I am stuck.

Tomorrow life changes for everyone else. My dad starts his new job, the babies go to school, and even my older sister and her husband are starting a new semester at UVU. Even you are starting over with a new class of creative writing students. Not me though.

Tomorrow I am going to wake up at 5:48 and get in the car to drive to work with out brushing my teeth, just like I have every other day since I graduated. I am not moving out, I am not moving on, I am staying.

The world is moving and shifting around me like it thinks I am its axis and I don't know how to stop it or where I will go next.

So for now, I will stay where I have always been. I will sit here and be Annie, and no one will notice, and Nelson, I want you to know a few things before you go.

I want you to know that you play favorites, and I wanted to be one of them so f-ing bad but I wasn't and I would hate you for that if I didn't think you were so great.

And I want you o know that T.S. Wilde is my best friend and we fought a lot this year, and really it wasn't her fault, I was just jealous of her writing.

And I want you to know, she is jealous of mine too, but I didn't know that until a few weeks ago.

And I want you to know, I finished writing a novel. You are the first person I have told because I am not sure it is good enough, and I want you to know that I dedicated it to you even though I promised a lot of people it would be their name on that first page if I ever got published.

I want you to know that "To Nelson, thanks for helping me find Paris" is going to be written in little black letters on that first page. And I really mean it because I was stuck on chapter 18 for almost a year and then you read a poem on our first day of class and I went home and wrote for the first time in months.

I don't know why I want you to know all of that, but I do. and if you read this you will know but I am not sure you will. Either way, thanks.

Annie.

Dear God, I just want to remember

I wrote it on my hand last night,
praying, please lord, let me remember
Then I washed it away with my tears before the sun came up again,
and now I am not sure what it was.

I remember that it sounded like music and the truth and
 that it made me feel better,
and I remember that I want it more than anything else.

But those lines I drew with ink across the lines God drew with his hand,
they didn't last,
even though I thought they were indistructable.

And every week he writes me, and says,
"dear daughter,
you shouldn't have tried to keep that much happiness to yourself."

And I remember that God made me forget that he loves me too,
and hope that maybe,
when I die I can remember them both saying it.

Even The End Of The World Has A Silver Lining

Don't forget, the flowers in the hospital are beautiful and the sun is still behind those clouds, darling.

Dear Michael Aaron Benjamin Hunter

Don't sass me boy, I know Ben isn't really your name. I think maybe it was more of who you really were all along though, so get over it.

I hate you today. And I mean I really hate you, like I hate my mother.

I hate you because I can't remember your birthday even though I know it is in September and I know that last year I made you a cake and ate it by myself, wishing you were sitting next to me. And I hate you because I hate Skype and the fact that it opens every time I start up my computer, and I hate you because I would just uninstall it if it weren't for you.

I hate you because you never really wanted to run away to Niagara Falls, and because you were serious when you offered last November.

I hate you because you always knew more about Star Trek than I did and because you were on my side when it came to Pluto. And I hate you because I did not give a shit if Pluto was a planet or not before you but Heather and I still fight about it some times. I hate you because I was still friends with Ben a month ago and now I am not. I didn't delete him, so I know you did it.


I hate you because I was sitting in the dark last night trying to think of the last time I ate a full meal, and I don't think it was in the last week. I hate you because you promised you wouldn't let me get bad again and I hate you because you told me you weren't good at keeping promises.

I hate you because I get excited every time I see the stars.

I hate you because you were always better at plotting revenge and thunder is God playing drums and yelling is only good if you are yelling about love. I hate you for all of that.

I hate you for everything tonight. For fireworks, and parades, and puppies, and I hate you for loving my writing most of all because I still don't think I am as good at it as I was when you were around.

And I hate you because you will never know how much loving you made me hate you.

Sincerly,
The girl with the red hair.
P.S. I hate you for that too.