This Part is for Her

Weeks ago, I went back to the city I was sad in for two years. I was terrified to set foot on that red Cedar soil, especially knowing I would be seeing people who knew me back then. But, much to my naïve surprise, although the city was the same (minus a few new fast food conglomerates) the people had changed. They had grown as I had even though I expected much less for them. How terribly cruel of me to write these people off as two dimensional when I knew them when I was only living myself in one shade of misty gray.

I missed so much while I was being so sad. Years later, the same stage is serving new girls who will cry like me, lose their virginity like me, regret like me, fall in love like me and that is beautiful. As I drove through the canyon roads that kept me alive when no one was there or I had pushed them out, I stopped and sat by a lake full of ducks and mirrored trees.

I let the rain sprinkle glitter in my hair and thought how terribly sad it was that I was so hollow in such a beautiful place. How sad that the soft and caring breeze that always sneaks through these evergreens felt only like it was pushing me down. The lovely town drove me away with its own hands. My brain and the chemicals that live there turned the red rocks to flame until I ran back home to my blue mountains to cool my scorched hands. But how lovely to have been back and finally see the beauty there. How lovely to go back as me, embracing the sad little girl and holding her hand as we both wind through those leafy, canyon cliffs.

My photo

self perception and cookie dough

There was an errant spot of ice cream on the tiled kitchen floor from the prior week spent laughing and drinking cheap wine around the kitchen island.

They had sat on the floor passing a spoon back and forth, an ordinary couple with ordinary scars and ordinary hearts beating close together. She watched as he raised the spoon to his mouth and a small teardrop of creamy sugar landed between his legs. The wine made him goofy and he dared her to write a poem about this moment.

"Write about how good being drunk feels and how for some reason, the kitchen floor is made for drunk asses," he slurred, aiming the spoon down his throat. "A sonnet to the kitchen floor." They laughed and nearly choked on all the ice cream. Soon they laid their heads on the tile, staring across at each other, the drip between them already drying.

"I like that you have tattoos because it proves you are tough. You're artistic and driven and sexy and alive," he breathed across to her, letting the words settle onto her collar bone.

"Stop it," she said, picking the words off and sprinkling them back across his chest. He caught her wrist and held it tight against his neck.

"You are. And you always show the world exactly what's inside. There's nothing hidden with you. You're point blank, bulletproof, made of eyeliner and rose petals." He paused and his sleepy-drunk eyes were half smiling as he tried to pull her back into focus. "What do you want to do for your birthday next week? Have any plans in mind?"

She hadn't planned at all; she knew where she would end up. That next week, she watched her black tears land on the ice cream drop and wake the moisture in it back up. The sobbing couldn't stop, no matter if she scrunched her eyes shut, if she opened them wider and let the air snuff it out, if she tried to think of better moments on the kitchen floor.

But now, two hours into twenty three, already feeling the hangover pressing against the base of her spine, she spread herself alone against the cruel, cool, tile. She's so afraid of being alone, so afraid of being called a fraud, so afraid of her hair dye and eyeliner flowing down the sink at the end of each night. She's terrified her words will never help another sixteen year old girl who is thinking of ending it all just to have some damn peace. That everything that has hurt her and made her bleed from her kneecaps and her thighs and her nose are the only thing inside her. That every unkind word was right all along.

The kitchen floor is the best place for drunk people. It's the perfect place for ice cream stains and for watching the delicious secrets of the world crumble around you like cookie dough with too much flour added. It's the perfect place to pick yourself back up, tuck your own secrets away, and stumble into the bathtub.

via *

to build a home

My room was shaped like a physical heart and painted bright red with navy blue trim and a blue door. I had a huge British flag on the wall by my bed, a Sweeney Todd poster, and a map of the underground that I'd use to plan my runaways to England when I couldn't sleep at night. When I was about 12 I put a picture of Gerard Butler as The Phantom of the Opera above my bed and that stayed there until I was 23. I found it charming, but none of the boys who came into my room felt the same.

In my bed, I wrote the largest part of my novel. I started this blog and met you beautiful people and fell in love with your words. I did midnight homework assignments and memorized monologue after monologue in high school. In my little twin size bed, I sobbed after reading Looking for Alaska and The Book Thief for the first time when I was fifteen and sixteen. I cried when I reread them, always making sure to finish them in the same bed where they both began. I loved words in that bed.

When Michael broke my heart, I slid down against my wall near the door and sobbed for hours. I laid myself out across the floor and listened to The Killers and let myself scream, keeping the music pounding against the heartbeat walls. I was sitting against my bed trying to get my tears under control when I got a text that my best friend's father died that same day. Suddenly my best friend, who was always the boy I should have kissed, had a broken heart bigger than my own and I didn't know what to do except to sit on my floor in my red room.

When I left for college and found that the new world I was a part of down at that campus was made of pain and burning between my thighs, I came home and barricaded myself in my room, laying on the floor with a pillow under my head and a blanket over both myself and the heating vent. I fell asleep in that little pod of warmth until my friends thought I'd killed myself and knocked against my window to make sure I was still breathing.

I almost kissed that best friend on my front porch. I did kiss the boy who watched the stars and ached for me to wish for him. I kissed him on the driveway and then turned my cheek against his lips when we stood on the front porch after I told him I was going to college and couldn't see myself dating someone who was 16 as I entered college. In that same driveway two years later, I told the boy who'd eaten my heart and then spat it up in my face to never contact me again. Then I burned him off of my skin in my bathtub, sitting in the dark water alone.

R walked me to my back door in the snow and we walked back and forth between my fence and that door five times, trading the final kiss goodnight before I finally went inside. I raced to the front door and watched him sitting in his car in the driveway before he motioned me back out. He pinned me against the garage door and we kissed with the stars watching. That night my red room seemed even darker while my blood thickened in my veins with new romance.

I had sleepovers with Niki and midnight slurpees while we watched shitty movies on Netflix that we both pretended not to like even though we both cried at the end and were clearly invested. We woke up early together and drove away from my house in the misty morning air. After all day play practice, I came home and passed out on the couch with hot chocolate slowly cooling on the coffee table next to long forgotten math homework.

After my parents divorced when I was seven, my mom woke me early one morning to tell me we had a new house to go to. She said it had a playhouse in the backyard, which turned out to be a wasp infested shed. But there was a jetted tub in her master bathroom and I spent hours each night sitting in that tub pretending to be a Mermaid waiting for my prince. Our first night in the new house, I had a coughing fit that is still unexplained that lasted for four hours. Once we got to the doctor's the coughing stopped and they sent us back home, where I crawled right back into that tub. The house was already where my lungs needed to be to feel calm.

I passed from first to sixth grade in what felt like minutes and then had my first day of Junior high. I wore stupid heels and had blisters for weeks after that first day. I promised myself I wouldn't do the same thing for high school and forgot that promise three years later as I reached into my closet for heels I felt made me look ready for high school. There were spots of blood on my carpet from popping blisters.

I stared at my gold graduation robe in the mirror on the morning I'd be graduating High School. My red room was so bright that day. The heels I wore did not leave blisters and I cried thinking I'd only have three more months in that room until I moved away. Then it would only be Christmas breaks and summers. I held out my hands and touched the walls before my dad honked to tell me he was here to take me to graduate.

Once when I was eight, I was so furious at my mother that I left a muddy handprint on the wall. Instead of getting mad at me, I came out the next morning and saw that she had painted flowers around the hand and framed it. Yesterday I had to say goodbye to my childhood home, riddled with my handprints and my memories. I sat in my empty room by myself weeping as I could hear the new owners already beginning the remodel. As I left, they handed me a few more boxes of pictures that had been forgotten. And just like that, I said goodbye to 16 years.

peaches and planes

Her hands were always so soft, like
peach fuzz warm from the afternoon sun
in springtime.

The twenty rings spread across her ten
slender fingers tap dance along the pages
of the book she holds.

The planes are all meant to crash, she says
as she lets her brain march through the sands
of Mexico.

Here coke and lime is warm next to her,
condensation spreading as she questions why
life does little more than hurt.

via *

pour me a drink and pour your eyes over me.

You've always been the dangerous one. First I was your secret, your play thing, your high school taste. I was a risk you took, a risk to your cool factor, the image you'd molded of yourself as a bad boy, the streetwise one. If I was such a secret, doesn't that make me the dangerous one? I know you more than you'd like me to. But you never stayed away.

Your hair was always long, but even longer now. You moved closer to me and I breathed you in: the smoke, the liquor, the past. Fogged up windows, hushed breath, so much history. And years later I still feel your hands, the first hands. 

I was hazy quickly. You called it forward action, I called it liquid luck. I watched you from my booth, I pressed myself agains the wall, I let my eyes bubble up the length of my straw until I saw you looking back. 

That band is loud.

That band is shit.

That band gets better the more you drink.

You slid into my booth again and I slid my hand across your back, down your leg. Your hand found my thigh. Don't let them see. Maybe this isn't such a game after all. 

I'm told your eyes were on me when you sang. I know I was staring right at you. You were eating me alive. Everything burned, like guitar strings against calloused fingers. 

As we left, there you stood smoking. Or talking. It didn't matter. I grabbed your face. I kissed you like I knew I would. I couldn't even tell you why. 

I can only write about you with an elevated heart rate. With bass lines piercing the silence. When I dance in a dark room all alone. Maybe it's because I only feel you when my heart is racing and my nerve endings feel alive and tingling. You are the dangerous boy, after all. You make me feel dangerous. 

via *

a sonnet for the road

These streets that twist and turn in front of my
rearview like I left you that night last spring-
twisted in your sheets, heart breaking, a ring
without a hand to hold its diamond high-
lead me down the same road, the same old sky.
But now my car is empty and I sing
our love song in silence, my lips that cling
to the last taste of you and our last sigh.
The suitcase skyline holds me here although
I try to pack your smell under my bras
and travel size shampoo. But I can't drive
away, can't seem to drive your scent below.
The wheel circles round all of my faux pas.
Without you here all I can do is drive.

via *

i am nothing without pretend

It's amazing how crushing you still feel on top of me,

even if it really was only once that your body weight

pressed into mine, made mine
 inconsequential.

This was the real first time, with love

and all that. A dorm room, plastered with childhood

and that beer pong smell. I only smelt turquoise and 

baby teeth.

We were babies swinging from monkey bars,
hanging by our chests and swinging
from our middles, eyes locking on
different points.

Fumbling for what was trying to come naturally, but
only as time wore onward would
we learn was only natural for
 one of us.

Even when we reached connection, you
pushed as deep as a needle inside of me,
my arms gave out from under me and
you faltered.

We moved independently together,
moths circling the same flame before death,
my right wing caught fire first, your left
burning just as quickly.

I still have burns and scars on my arm,
blisters and boils grow where they touch me.
Staying alone lets me stay with you, pretending
you wanted me. 

Via *

Inspired by:

fossil fuels

I wrote this for my creative writing class to experiment with minimalist fiction. I'm pretty excited for how it turned out. Enjoy, loves.

Fossil Fuels

My father bought me a book to handle the divorce. It was a silly book about dinosaurs divorcing. They said crying was ok. Don’t blame yourself. I thought the dinosaurs were lucky because they were dead. Their moms weren’t crying anymore. The book got heavy in my hands suddenly. That’s when the coughing started.

I hated watching my mother cry. I hate when my father yelled. That made us all cry. I thought the divorce would mean less yelling, which meant less tears. The first night in our new house there was yelling but my father wasn’t there. My mother was yelling at God. She was crying at God. The tears in my throat cried themselves sick. They made me sick. The cough carried on with no explanation.

I lied to you earlier. My father was in the house the whole time because he was everywhere. He was my coughing fit. He was the God my mom was cursing. He was my sister’s loud music shaking our new walls. He didn’t buy me that book, though. But he was the dinosaur my book was about. He was dead but everywhere. He was fossil fuels filling our lungs.

My cough lasted for four hours. My mom couldn’t see well enough to drive. She was crying. My sister drove. She had her permit, I think. When we got to the hospital, I read a different book. The dolls weren’t coping with divorce. They were coping with shots. But I was shot too. Shot with surprise. When the doctor came in the coughing stopped. The doctor was a man. He hugged me. I don’t know why I remember that. I made it up. Nobody hugged me. The books hugged me. The fossil fuels hugged me. My dad didn’t hug me.

When we got home the bathtub flooded and my cough came back. My ribs hugged my lungs. They shot them. I was seven and I was getting a divorce from my own two lungs.

via *

fall back

i felt the fall air today
for the first time this year.
summer set,
fall tiptoed in through
the back door,
softly,
almost unnoticed.

she brushed past the kitchen,
she strayed down the stairs,
she gussied up in the mirror in the hall.

she didn't knock as she
pushed in sideways through
my bedroom door,
barely clearing the crack.

i sighed in my sleep,
briefly stirring as she
kissed my forehead
and held my hand.

"everything is starting again,
my love. everything will change.
everything will grow as
the leaves drift down to sleep
on loamy, grassy beds.
the pieces will fall back into place,

your heart will heal and mend,
as the summer sun will end."

i smiled at her speech,
the kindness in her eyes.
"don't take too long, dear fall,
to bring my pieces back to me.
my bed is cold.
i don't want to feel the
winter chill
without his hand."

"winter was lonely and long,
spring was all pastels,
garish and sad.
summer was rash and hollow,
full of reminders and regret.
but i, my love, i blow the
leaves about, clear the dust
from strained and aching eyes.

fall is your shelter,
fall will bring you peace,
fall makes it all fall back,
the puzzle in your head and heart
finally solved.

sleep now, dear heart,
and do not dread the cold.
until your heart is back in his hand,
my hand won't leave your side."

as i slept
she brushed my hair,
sang me mountain hymns of
sprites and kings,
lionhearts and their maidens.

i dreamt of my lionheart,
our chilly days past
and future, falling into place
in her crisp gaze.

welcome fall.

via *

Thanks Triple-A Travis

My weekend in a picture.
via *

I took another drive this weekend, but I wasn't alone. It was quite an event leading up to this drive. What a wonderful Friday.

I went back to dear old Davis to see the annual Night of Shakespeare. I was incredibly excited to see the show since I've been coaching some of the kids this last week. They were amazing! They knew the text, they knew the emotion, they knew Shakespeare. Breath was being given to these characters from the souls of these teenagers and I was breathing it in like a drug. I love seeing Shakespeare performed well. Luckily, so does my theater teacher. Holla.

I went with Niki and Ally and when we got to the show, our dear old friend Christine and Tucker came in! Tucker and I have this thing where we always end up on Tumblr or Facebook at three in the morning talking about music and boys. He's for real the best and it was so great to finally be real life friends instead of just internet friends. After the show ended, Niki, Ally, Tucker, and I went to Ihop so I could wade in a vat of red velvet pancakes and hashbrowns while we talked about our romantic lives, or lack thereof, and reminisce about the past. The conversation continued into the Walmart, Allison's grandma's garage, and then finally in my car in the Davis High parking lot.

The minutes fled quickly that night with the windows down and the slow September breeze fanning us gently as we laughed and remembered. A lot of topics were covered, Tucker got to kiss a girl for the first time (sup Tucker.), and eventually Niki and Ally drifted on home leaving Tucker and I for more conversation... and a dead car battery. WHOOPS. But it was cool because I had amazing company, a few year's worth of stories to share, and Travis from AAA. It took a whopping three seconds for him to fix my battery and then to be told "don't turn the car off for 20 minutes." Deal, Travis. Deal. I hijacked Tucker and our drive up the mountain began.

I turned each street with ease, years of driving this path under my belt. I drove where I always go when Ogden Canyon is too far, but home is too close. I've driven this route crying, laughing, singing, smiling. Tonight I drove it thinking and sharing music with a wonderful friend. I asked his advice about my life, he asked me opinions of his personality (TUCKER GIRL YOU FABULOUS) and we shared melancholy melodies in the night. When I finally took Tucker home, everything felt easier and settled. The drive was cathartic, the conversation better. I love talking. I love listening. I love learning and sharing. Hearing different opinions about the happenings in your life will never not be helpful, just as that sentence will never not be dreadful. Or accurate.

I got into bed at 4 in the morning feeling so exhausted but so hopeful and buzzing with good vibes. It's nice to lay in bed at night, especially that late and still find yourself giggling about what happened that night, the people you ran into, the people you ignored, the memories you shared. Nostalgia is like a drug. I guess it's just up to you if you make it a happy drug, or a debilitating one.

Postcards from Home: 1

I've wanted to talk about how much I love my little hometown for a long time. So when Natalia from Elan the Blog talked about doing a series of posts about her favorite spots in her hometown, I was inspired to put my little project into action. I love Kaysville so much and no matter how big city my dreams are, this little haven will always be my hometown. It's everyone's hometown; it's even called Utah's hometown, which I would agree with. Out of every city in Utah I have visited, nothing feels more welcome and historic and lovely than my little K-Town.

To start with my spotlights of some of my favorite places here, I knew exactly where I wanted to talk about first. It is the center of Main Street in Kaysville and a place I have loved forever.

I love our little theater. It costs $2 on weeknights and $3 on the weekend. It shows movies a few months after they have been running on the big screens at the main theaters. They come here for their last gasp before DVDs plop into the nearest Redbox or pop into your Netflix instant watch. I know the owners of this theater through all of the theater I did in High School and I love catching people I know when they take my ticket or scoop my popcorn into a bag for me. It is the quintessential small town hang out. Everyone knows everyone, everyone smiles at each other. 

My first field trip was to this theater in the first grade. We watched Doug the Movie and afterward we all got a little piece of film reel to take home with us. I remember how amazing it was to hold the film up toward the light and see the images printed there, not quite understanding that THIS was what I just watched on the screen, that all of the pieces of film revolved at warp speed to create a seamless moving picture. We got free popcorn courtesy of the popcorn shop right next door, and we were warned about the dangers of bringing outside food into a movie theater. It was enthralling. 

In the lobby of the theater, they keep a sort of display of old film equipment and their concession stand is the only theater concessions stand in the world where buying popcorn doesn't feel like spending enough money to buy gas. It tastes better too, but maybe that's because the air is right. The people are right. This old theater is right.

I've had family adventures here, date nights from heaven and from hell. I've even come here alone many times (mostly while Gatsby was playing) and sat alone in the back of the small theater to watch my favorites for the 7th time. It's ten minutes from my house and so full of memories and community love. That's the real reason I keep coming back. It's a Kaysville tradition, just like having the entire audience say "EWWWWWWW" during the classic 80s commercial about keeping the theater clean that features the disgusting shoe stepping in gum after failing to keep his trash neat and tidy and off of the theater floor. Ironically, the floor of the Kaysville theater seems to be constantly covered in popcorn. I love it. 

Some people have home theaters in their houses. My home theater is down the block. 

Flashback: December

The wall of steam pushed against me as hard as you did the moment I came through the door. In your ice box apartment you stood in a towel, dripping on the floor, laughing as you pulled me close. The droplets of water kissed my nose as you kissed my neck. You untied the bow around my waist. You undid my buttons. I slid my coat off and slid onto the couch as you stepped into the kitchen turning back over your shoulder toward me, a half moon smile lighting across your face. Your smile was turquoise that night. It illuminated me.

The music cradled my back as I laid across the love seat, aptly named. Hand in hand on that seat we fought off zombies and doubts. I fed you soup when you were ill, you rubbed my back as I cried. I confessed my shame to your open arms and confessed my love tucked into your chest. Our first date ran long on that seat; our last night cut short. I couldn't see how it would all end as I lay there that night, rocking with the music waiting for my moon to rise again.

You turned the corner again, this time in tight jeans, shirt slung across your back. I could taste the memory forming on my lips, sliding through my spine, stored in the memory card in my brain. You were perfect that night. Your eyebrow rose as you crossed in front of me into the bathroom. I had a perfect view of your flexing back as you brushed your teeth and mussed your hair. With your hands pressed straight into the sink, your shoulder blades kissed, your skin tugged tight. I could see us across the country, hidden away from it all, years from now. I loved you hard and fast in that instant.

I see you so clearly that night on the love seat. I'm still on that love seat, waiting for the new moon to pull back into my sky.

via Tumblr

Shades of September

September skies are coming in so beautifully in her first week, aren't they? I love them. She's giving us some beautiful watercolor skies.

I have a special place in my heart for the special shade of orange that comes in September. It peeks through the shades at around six every night. My happiest memory is bathed in that light and I still feel warm when the skies ignite into those orange fields. 

I love how sunsets change throughout the year. I love the light blue spring nights, the vibrant violet summers, the golden honey falls, and the bright pink and clear blue winters. I want to live in the sunset. I'd chase it forever. 

Flashback: January

The waiter leaves the water on the table and we both turn to watch the condensation run down the glass. Another testament to your goodness, this is my favorite restaurant. My favorite dishes. My favorite city. The only favorite you have is me, and suddenly I'm not delivering anymore. I watch the condensation spilling off the glass in silence and you watch me, waiting for me to spill.

Your hand reaches out for mine across the table. Your fingertips barely touch my nail beds, resting like feathers on top of newly erupted grass. I glance into your eyes, your eyes radiating love and honesty. My eyes give you nothing. I've become an actress in my own life, unable to remember her motivation or her lines.

The last dish comes as I gratefully jolt my hand back from the table. I can smile at the waiter, but not at you. I hear you beginning to speak, but it's all mumbles and colors flying in one ear and straight out the other. You don't deserve this. All you ever did was try.

I tried too, until I didn't. I don't know when it happened, but suddenly I didn't see you anymore. I didn't see much of anything, really.

You pay while I stare at your neck, remembering warmer nights in the late fall haze that have smoldered down into a match trying hard to blow itself out. You keep cupping your hands around it, hoping it will hold on. Until one night, I purse my lips, guide your hands away, and blow it out myself.

via Tumblr

wasted daylight

Water color clouds bleed across

the azure page as your

thought inch up my spine

like ink.

The ghost of your fingertips

brush past my wrist,

down my palm,

nesting on my nail beds.

Do you remember?

Wasted days

sitting in twisted sheets,

sipping scalding coffee,

mussing my hair,

mapping your back

with eager hands 

exploring

learning

yearning.

The daytime 

sparks and scalds our skins.

so we stay in.

Huddled in each other,

until the moon called me home.

She wears your face now,

obscured by clouds,

she's made brighter,

as you made me. 

Irony, no?

Wasted time, enjoyed,

was not wasted.

I still waste daylight with 

you by my side. 

EmJ

via WeHeartIt

Based on this <3

september orange

A gasp of sunlight pulls through

the September orange coating the walls,

curling with the winds and rains

of an approaching storm.

The eloquence of your heartbeat

grows stifled and changed,

enumerating your fears,

encapsulating them,

dragging you down.

A moment of grace deflowered by regret.

A breath of tomorrow exhaled by desire,

inhaled by reality.

Em

via Tumblr

Good Old Days

"I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them."

Remember when that line was on the finale of The Office? Huge nope nope nope to the heart.

It's so interesting to listen to people in different stages of their lives talk about the good old days. In High School when I cried about a boy my mom would tell me that in college or in five years from now I wouldn't even think about these little problems. JOKES ON YOU I still think about all of it. All. Of. It.

Then in my first two years of college a lot of huge events came up that seemed like the end of the world. And guess what? I got over it. I don't remember the process of getting over certain events. I remember feeling horribly low and then suddenly being ok. The healing process was natural and now everything is just a dull memory that only surfaces sometimes.

I've always found it funny when people talk about "the good old days." Some people consider that to be high school. Some people consider that to be college. Everyone gets the college speech when they leave for their first year. "These are going to be the best years of your life blah blah lifelong friends blah blah experiences blah." What's interesting is that everyone I'm close with had a HORRIBLE first few years of college, myself included. I think part of that is because the experiences we had in High School were so powerfully amazing. We got lucky there, guys. Advanced theater for life.

But what really are the good old days?

One of my best friends moved to Arizona for college. She was home for Christmas and summer and I even got to visit her a few months back. But now her parents have moved to Arizona and we don't know when we will see each other again. The friendship is strong but sadly so is distance.

Last night was the last night the four of us friends were able to have together. As we climbed into my car from Mary's house it felt just like senior year. Only that was four years ago. FOUR YEARS AGO. What have I done with my life in four years? A lot, I know. But I feel the same. I feel different too. Growing up is weird.

Looking supreme at all ages. Niki made this swell collage.

At dinner we reminisced about the first times we all met, awkward school dances, first loves, first heartbreaks, starting college together but apart, and the eventual future unfurling before us. I love reminiscing but it always leaves a little lump at the back of my throat. I'm sad to grow up. I'm sad to move on. I'm sad to make new friends. The thought of not having some of these people that are in my life right now in my life in five years kills me.

But even through the fear and the anticipation there is so much excitement in my soul for the future. I'm moving to Salt Lake so so soon if all goes to plan. I'll be done with dental assisting school in about a month and a half! I get to start my English degree in about 6 months! I get to live on my own again! I get to meet new people and chance new dreams.

I do wish I knew when the good old days were so that I could pay more attention to them while I am in them. I should have cherished so many more of the times I had in the past but that's a little moot now. I have the opportunity now to cherish all of the moments ahead of me.

You really just have to remind yourself that even in the days that feel wasted or the times that feel as though nothing big is happening in your life there are little moments to cherish and remember. Little insignificant things are honestly the sweetest memories I hold in my heart. Graduating high school was amazing but watching the sun rise with my best friends the morning after is much more important. Being able to play Regan in King Lear was amazing but waking up every morning with my dog lying next to me is even more vivid. These small things are the most amazing gifts to cherish.

There is no such thing as the good old days, unless you let there be such a thing as that. Every day is a golden afternoon that should be cherished. You should love each chapter of your life just as much as the last. Sure they are all different; some are harder than others and some are more eventful but without that chapter, the book would be incomplete.

Don't let your days become the good old days without you being aware of it. Be ever present in your life and love every great and terrible, beautiful, moment in it.

John Green, continually nailing it.