Saturday, March 30, 2013

Dear due dates,

Writing essays is fun! You get to:
Visit your close friend in Seattle.
Watch Downton Abbey.
Find things to laugh at on YouTube.
Spend time catching up with your roommates.
Make good food.
Babysit adorable children.
Drink caffeine.
Go to bed early.
Research various facts about the world and remember how little you know about it.
See more close girl friends.
Not think about.....

ohcrap.

That's due Monday?

Gotta go.......

Friday, March 29, 2013

Dear hazy,

I don't have much to report on today. Mostly because I don't have an opinion today.

For example: I love Dr. Pepper. IAnd I drank some today, but am still not coherent enough to write my essay. So now I'm not sure how I feel towards my favorite soda.

I have to write up my whole senior capstone project in the next week. I better find an opinion soon. Sleep first, then conquer the world.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Dear nurture,

I have lots of thoughts, but not many things to say, about the definition and practice of marriage.

The only thing I'd like to acknowledge at this time is that kids need mommies.

I love my mommy. She taught me that you need to get up each morning ready to fight whatever battles are thrown at you.

I still need her. And I'm 20 years and 11 months and 1 day old.

Dear doorway,

You know that feeling when you finally remember what you came into your bedroom for, before you stood in the doorway for 5 minutes?

That's how I feel right now.

It's a great feel to feel.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Dear life,

So I spend forever writing this post about myself and Seattle and what makes me happy.

And then I get on facebook and people are talking about Christ's last week and about opinions on gay marriage.

I feel selfish. There are other things in the world to be focusing on.

Dear Passions,

This:


is my best friend and her husband. Her husband is also in the friend loop, but I needed you to first understand the significance of the female in the picture. 

The Walkers live in Seattle. But actually it's not Seattle proper at all. It's pretty far away. I would know. I went to visit them this weekend. 

Yes, that's right. I'm a real adult and I take flights all by myself in the middle of the semester to visit my married friends. Despite my immaturity of rebelling from the piles of homework I have, I feel very proud of that fact.

__________


I spent a percentage of my weekend with this as my view of the world. I wasn't a third wheel. I didn't get tired of driving (mostly because Washington is SO pretty). I was simply happy.

For example: we played card games. 
Chris is the middle.
He won.
Obviously.
;)

There is something magical about friendship that allows you to not do anything and be completely at ease. There is also something magical about friendship that never lets you run out of conversation. And lets you be yourself.

__________



Erika lives in the cutest town ever. 
There are antique stores lining the street. We wandered.

I love the trend right now of liking olden things. 
But I don't really understand it. 
I mean, the bird cage is cute. I basically planned out the interior design of my entire future home on this trip. Beach house living room. Bird room as little girl's room.

But I guess it seems kinda silly from one perspective:
Birds should be free, not caged.
And we shouldn't have to sell nature.

I do, however, like that we feel this need to preserve the old. Our past is important. It made us who we are.
And besides, I am a girl. And I will always be a girl. And I like being a girl.
And I'm going to act girly and like girly things.
Because I want to.
Everyone has their passions and opinions. I couldn't keep up with Chris all weekend because he has this amazing ability to know everything there is to know about every car driving down the road. (ok not literally, but you get the idea.) And I think it's awesome. Because it makes me feel like it's ok to like being cute.
And even crafty.
And sometimes that's impractical. If I move to Thailand, don't expect me to have cute fingernails. They are going to be short and filled with dirt.
But for now, I'm ok liking things that make me feel like a women.
Appreciating calligraphy, for example:

and string:

(and photography and blogging, while I'm at it)

__________


 There is something about traveling, to me, that is sacred. I guess the only way I can describe it here would be that it's my passion. I like doing it right. I like feeling that rush that you get when you do something you love. I love the learning that comes from it. 
(p.s. expensive passions are not recommended)
I get a high from learning.

So I asked if we could go downtown.

Cuz sometimes I also get a high from meeting people I could only meet where I am at that moment. 
aka Seattle had some cool cultural things.
Like Asians.

We also found this guy, who was painting this MASSIVE mural all by himself. The need inside me to talk to him overruled my usually-timid-to-talk-to-strangers self.
He told us the boy in the mural was supposed to be an Idaho farm boy who feared the war in front of him, but was valiant to serve his country.
Deep.

And this kid. 
Adorable.
I love how it could have been from a different time or place but to me, it was my here and now.

We found some other cool things. 
Like the Souk, reflective of my Jerusalem experience.
And the original Starbucks. 
I love this picture because I don't even care about it at all.
But it's one of those things you HAVE to take a picture of.
And you are laughing to yourself as you do.
Silly Americans.

And then you find the Space Needle and you're like 
"I don't really care about this either."
But it's beautiful, in a concrete jungle kind of way.
So you take a picture. Period.

We also found some funny things.
Like oxymorons. 
And Asians who drive forklifts like cars.

_________



Anyway:
Traveling and relationships are my favorite. So to say it was a good weekend is an understatement.

:)

-chloémichelle



Thursday, March 14, 2013

Dear acceptance,

I'm really bad at hurting people.

And it's a problem. I think I'm the most non-confrontational person I've ever met outside my family. I rarely speak my mind when I know it's different than the person I'm talking to. It takes so much energy for me to bring up issues I have in my relationships, that most of the time I just avoid it. I would rather curl up in fetal position and bawl my eyes out then have to offend someone by what I said.

I've stopped blogging. Because my ex-boyfriend told me that my blog was.......cheesy, for lack of better words. I was heart broken. Not because I was offended, but because i thought that continuing in the way I was would be a slap in the face to him. Now that I knew he didn't like it, proceeding as normal was just like saying I didn't care about what he felt. So I just stopped.

My world kinda got flipped upside down last night. I had a mini-epiphany that all people hurt everyone. I'm depressed. I thought the world was a better place than that.

But there is still the tiniest shred of hope inside me that maybe the man i marry will want me enough to try not to hurt me either. And part of me thinks that that means I'm being ignorant. That life doesn't work like that.

But I don't know. And the reality is that I probably won't know for a while, maybe not even til I'm married. The reality is that life takes some work: that I am imperfect and probably hurt people all the time and its something I have to work through just like everyone else. The reality is that all people make mistakes.

I think last night was so shocking because it was the first time I accepted that maybe I'd be dealing with people who intend to hurt me for the rest of my life. That not even true love and real commitment could exempt me from that. And that, my friends, is a horrible thought to think when it's the first time you think it.

-Me

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Dear Andy Worhol,

It's one of THOSE days.

One of those days you are happy for no reason.
One of those days you don't know why you are.
One of those days you try to understand.
One of those days you just don't get life.

But today is one of those days you don't exactly care.

One of those days you are happy to be alive.
One of those days ok with just doing...this.
One of those days with up moods and down moods.
One of those days you are grateful.

Sarah and I found this quote in the MOA the other day and geeked out over it. It's cool to think that maybe someday we can figure out how to live life. She and I certainly spend a lot of time trying. Hoping we are successful. And that is something that (probably because I'm a psych major) I am not ashamed of. And that I'm glad she understands.

Thank you Andy Worhol, for putting words to a day I cannot. I hope to make you proud.
-Chloé Michelle


Dear Deer,


I saw a deer on my run today.

I was surprised. And excited. You are pretty, deer.

I called animal control. They didn't pick up.

I am reading Life of Pi so I was all in-touch with nature and I wanted them to come pick you up and take you away to a safer place than south campus bustling with cars and such that could be disastrous to your well-being cuz sometimes I almost hit people and I even expect them walking out on to the street. But no one expects you. And you are much faster than the students.

DON'T DIE, DEER!

Friday, March 1, 2013

Dear Hope,

Hello, hope. I hope you are doing well. Here are my reflections about your life, in response to a few experiences I've seen in the last two weeks with a couple of my close girl friends. Please go to them. And comfort them. We all need you.
-Chloe Michelle


He probably had no idea, but I wished he could hold me that night.
At the seeming brink of all things horrible. 
He wasn't the problem. I was the problem. I wanted it too badly.
But I couldn't admit that. I just had to lie there, hating the situation.
Trying not to hate life, even though I did.
And yet I still thought that his arms around me would cure everything.
That some how that small act could change everything.
And it probably could have.
Because all I needed was the empty feeling that his removal of love had impressed upon me to be gone.
To be filled again.
The feeling that he has a chunk of my heart, along with the chunk of his I once had.
That he took back.
And it's not like I'll die. Or that I didn't survive without that part before I met him.
But just that I wanted it so badly that it doesn't make sense for it to be gone.
Because I expected a future.
Forever or a few more months or the weekend.
At least one more time. There was this expectation in the future.
One more day I get to see him. One more day to have things the same.
Now I am just…here.
In this moment.
And I realize that the thing I miss the most is hope.
And that maybe we cling to that most in life.
Hope that tomorrow will be better than today. 
Hope that the good will stay.
So I carry on. Doing my best. Trying desperately to cling to anything that will bring me that belief again. 
Any hope for hope.