Unattainable

I'd always had an affinity for sitting in unusual spots.

I remember as a child, leaning over the arm of the couch, staring at the popcorn ceiling of my childhood home and imagining, by some design or other, that I had the ability to walk up there, right side up in an upside down world. Not much has changed in the years that have passed, and even now I sit with my legs flung over the arm of the chair, doing my homework in the world of my own design.

My least favorite question in the world was the be asked what I wanted. What do you want for Christmas? For my birthday? For dinner? With the exception of the last (if only at some times) those questions frustrate me to no end.

The things that I want are unattainable.

Perhaps muse-like, perhaps self-deprecating and depressing, but there are no real worldly possessions that I want, that I feel the need to obtain and call my own. Sure, I am human. As a young adult of the 21st century, of course there are times where I want nothing more than a new phone of the finest technology, which will surely be obsolete within the next 6 months. But I didn't need it. I didn't truly want anything at all.

The things I yearn for are the feelings, the memories of times gone past. Things that can't or won't ever come back.

More than anything I wanted to walk through the park of my childhood, in a state far away, on a crisp January evening. Listening to my iPod as I strolled around the lake, through the miniature wildlife reserve. No matter where I was in the park, I could always see my house, just across the street. I spent hours in this park, running or walking my dogs or simply musing about life. What I want most is to be back at that park, able to walk through any day that I pleased.

I spent much of my childhood here, imagining what my life would be.

Never did I imagine what would actually happen. Never did I imagine that the other things I yearned for would come true...and then the illusion could be shattered.

I want the memories from back then back. But there's more. I want the feelings back. I want to go back to the night of my first kiss. The adventure of the night, all culminating back at his house, how we huddled together in his bed for warmth, how he, a boy I hardly knew, held me close as we talked about our lives telling one another anything the other wanted to know. The tension that was felt until quietly, slowly our lips came together, sweet at first, then suddenly full of passion and a hunger to be closer and closer. You didn't even know you were my first.

I want to go back to the night of that dance, when I made a fool of myself and had no regrets, and you were with me every step of the way. For the first time in my entire life, I felt completely free, like everything in the world was finally set in place. When I first realized how much I truly cared about you and I started to believe that maybe, possibly we could actually last.

I want to go back to the night of the movie, when you held me close as I cried before we walked into the theatre. How you fell asleep in my lap and the only thing keeping me awake was running my fingers through your hair. And how we went back home and I truly gave you my full trust. Something that has been accomplished by so few people.

And most importantly, I want to go back to the last night. To change what I said, to force you to talk. For us to come to an understanding. For the closure to be there. Instead of me leaving, crying, and in a panic because I didn't understand what had happened. To me not talking to you for nearly a week. And when we finally did, everything was gone. Including my heart.

I want all of that back. I both want to relive those memories, to go back to those times, but also to erase them completely from my memory. I want to move on from these times, to find someone else who will make new memories with me, who will make me feel even better than even you accomplished. And I want to feel like you're not the only person in the world.

I want to go back to those times as a kid when I imagined I could walk on the popcorn ceiling from my spot on the arm of the leather couch. To all those strolls through the park of my youth, where I didn't know the pain that came along with your dreams coming true. Before I knew the pain of your dreams turning out to be a nightmare.

I want you.

But what I want is unattainable.

So I give them the basic answers: "I don't want anything. I don't need anything. Yes, really." And I go on through life, without a thing in the world because I had what I wanted, there was once a time where I truly desired nothing, and then it all was gone.

I wish I'd known what had been happening at the time.

And I wish I knew why I still write about it. Even to this day.

Do I write in order to justify my not explaining my thoughts to you in the first place?

Do I write in hopes that someday I'll look back at it all and laugh at what a foolish girl I am?

That maybe, one day, you'll be reading this and things will come rushing back and you'll be mine again? It's foolish, and I know that life doesn't work this way. And sometimes what we want, isn't always what we need.

I don't know. I wish I did. I wish I knew why I felt this way, why writing is the only way I can cope, and how I'm supposed to move on because I obviously meant so little to you. A hard concept to believe.

For a brief period of time, I felt like I had everything I could ever need. And now everything is out of my grasp, not mine to have.

Unattainable.

About a Person

There’s a saying that blazes like wildfire across the social media blogging sites of this century, in which teenagers more concerned with the affairs of the world, or of art, rather than celebrity gossip, which states “It’s funny how someone who was once a stranger can mean the world to you.”

True also is the inverse.

It’s funny how someone who once meant the world to you is now a stranger.

Hey stranger. I miss you stranger. Dear stranger, why don’t we talk anymore? Can’t you see how much I still love you stranger? Stranger, what happened? I still care stranger. You still mean the world to me stranger.

The first time we met, I thought you arrogant, cocky and rude. It’s all true. First impressions are almost always right surprisingly. But what changed was the way that I understood that arrogance, the cockiness, and the humor, which made you rude. Stranger, you were a stranger once but I soon learned differently.

You told me a secret once, of why you looked so different. It was something I hadn’t noticed, mostly because I pay little attention to the physicality. I’m more concerned of what makes a person who they are. You shared your secret of why you looked so different, how half of your face was blank, didn’t feel or see a thing. You swore me to secrecy back then, a promise I intended to keep. I held your face in my hands with that secret, placed my cheek against the blank slate, and just held it, feeling what you could not.

You became a stranger, and suddenly that secret could not be contained by me.

It was the dark humor that first connected to me. The fact that, on these social media blogging sites of the century, you posted dark images, of dead dictators of days gone by, of murders in gruesome detail, of the beautiful, which was surrounded in the darkness. It’s a trait that few people share, finding the beautiful in the diseased, in the dark. Most people flee from the darkness. I’d always searched for it. I thought you had too.

It turns out you were the darkness.

There’s a certain feeling of closeness, which you share with very few people. In which you feel, from the very first moment you get to know them, that you can be completely yourself with them. Like you have nothing to fear, no reason to feel awkward, that the whole world is your oyster and you are invincible whenever that person is beside you. I came to you once, so sad, so totally full of a sadness I could not explain, and without having to, you wrapped me in your arms, held me close, and told me enough jokes until the pain went away. Until it was so far away that I forgot what had made me sad in the first place.

Since you’ve left, that pain has come back, and it is insurmountable, impossible to describe.

You held me tight all those times, and I got too used to it. I got to used to the feeling of you, the thin material of your white shirt, the scar on your stomach from battles of years past, the scruff on your cheeks, the strength of your arms, and the stiffness of your hair as my fingers stroked through it. Hardest to forget was the scent which completely entrapped me, pulled me in, made it something that no one else can compare it to. Even now, stranger, when I see you, that scent is impossible to ignore.

You have no trouble ignoring me however.

It is funny how someone can make such a full circle transition. You were once a stranger, and then suddenly I knew you better than I’d known anyone in my entire life. I knew you more than I would care to know anyone else I will ever meet. And, in the blink of an eye, something changed. The eyes that had once been bright when they looked at me, filled with the adventurous soul of a twenty-something, turned dark and distant. Those eyes don’t even look at her with that same spirit.

You are a stranger to me now.

And part of me is of the belief that you’re a stranger to yourself now.

It’s impossible to get to the heart of a person. To be able to use the so few words available in the English language, only a mere few million, to accurately describe a person inside and out. Physically, it’s quite simple to do, to note the scratch on your cheek from when you let me shave your face, and how the blood bubbled slowly, and made a trail like a singular tear down the cheek, a line of scarlet marring the perfection of white skin. The way your glasses, thick and black, always had that fingerprint across the left lens that would never quite go away because you would always use your middle finger to push them back onto the tall bridge of your slightly crooked nose.

But, like I said, I’ve never been one for the physical.

The difficult part of this is understanding what makes a person who they are. Words don’t do the human condition any justice. How can one simply describe the way a person makes you feel? How they can make you feel, for the first time, like someone else in the world exists who is like you, who understands your own soul? How the soul of another can align so singularly with your own? The little quirks about them, the fact that they’re arrogant, that the fact that they are rude, are a part of what makes them who they are. And things like this are impossible to describe because it isn’t the way in which they show how rude they are, but more the way in how their personality changes in certain situations. It’s impossible to describe how a person can be making jokes at the expense of a whole group of people one moment, sitting in a drive thru, and then the next moment be ordering kindly, using “please” and “thank you” because of a girl he’d once offended years before.

People are impossible.

Stranger, you are impossible to describe. Impossible to grasp. And impossible to forget. And I wish, with all of my heart, that at some point in this crazy life, our souls will align again, and you will no longer be referred to as stranger.

But words have still not determined what the future will bring, and will not until it is over.

I'm on a Roller Coaster That Only Goes Up.

There's this really amazing author named John Green.

John is kind of one of those everyday, inspirational people. He could really be anyone, and is in fact an average husband, brother, son, and father. He trolls the internet looking for LOL's and spends his days video blogging with his brother.

Together, the two of them have created a save haven of sorts on the internet for kids, from 8 to 80 to enjoy and embrace their nerdiness. Their videos have taught many life lessons, as they examine what it's like to grow up and live in today's society when you don't care only about the latest celebrity gossip. They're two average people, but together they've basically changed a big part of the weird.

John is a best-selling author of half a dozen books. While he writes for the so-called "young adult" crowd, he writes some of the most inspirational words I think I've ever read. In his latest novel, called The Fault in Our Stars, he crafts a story around two almost adults who both have terminal cancer. The characters are very at ease with their condition, have come to accept it as a part of who they are, and refuse to stop living despite the very disease which threatens to end them.

At one point in the novel, one of the main characters, Augustus Waters, tells the girl, Hazel that he is "on a roller coaster that only goes up".

Inspirational.

And I can't help but think that this is the way I want to live my life. There's been a lot of shit going on in my life in the last year, as you're well aware of my dear readers. My own battle with my father's cancer and his untimely death, being forced to move 400 miles away from home to a place where I knew practically no one, the trials and tribulations of trying to make friends (let alone the RIGHT KIND of friends), and the constant struggle with school.

My life has been one challenge after another since August 9th, 2011. But there hasn't been a single day that goes by and I don't marvel at how far me and my entire family have come.

It still amazes me that it's almost been a year now, when it used to be that each passing day and week was a huge challenge.

But at the same time, I'm not happy with the way I've been living my life.

When I moved to California, I had no idea who I wanted to be. I'd just come out of years of depression just months before and hadn't been able to be myself in my first college.... I was in the process of rediscovering exactly who I was, to try and get back to the Chelsea that existed in high school, my crazy, zany self.

I didn't accept a lot about myself: For years I'd been tormented by others about my Disney obsession and my nerdiness. In my old hometown, it wasn't acceptable. Disney was for children. To be a nerd was to be a social outcast. Not to mention I didn't believe in anything, so strange from my highly religious town.

I was different and I didn't accept that.

Since moving to California, however, I've managed to not only accept it but embrace it. I found a group of friends who understands my obsessions, who I can feel at ease with, and who will always be at my side no matter what.

But when summer started, I went back to work, and they went home, things started changing. I started getting confused about who I was again.

There are times that I worry that I'm not a whole person. That maybe I have some sort of social disorder or something and that it's apparent to everyone but myself. Because social situations aren't exactly my strongest point. I can't make conversation, I can't deal with large amounts of people and feel like if I only know one person, I have to hang onto them. It sucks major time. Words can't express how much I fret about that. Or that maybe I too have cancer, but I'm too stubborn and scared to look into it.

So while trying to rerediscover myself (and obviously find people I was comfortable being the real me with) I made some social mistakes along the way. My social anxiety has caused me to lie about a few details in my life without thinking, maybe to make myself seem cooler or fit in or to see what people will say. It's that social outcast I was in my hometown coming out again, thinking that I'll never be a "cool" kid no matter how hard I try. Like I even care anymore.

To top it all off, I found out that I will not be going to Scotland in the Spring which just plain sucks.

Yet somehow I'm getting through it.

This most recent news however, has had me making weird changes in my life. Scotland was my last "out" that I was supposed to have before starting quote-on-quote "real life". But now that I'm not going, I've started thinking about the future.

In my hometown I never made real connections because I was too concerned about getting out and moving on with my life. I started doing that here, missing out on things because I would be getting out.

But now I'm staying.

I'm staying at Disney. Eventually I'll move up from working rides to being the person that designs them. I want an actual career here. And I'm going to have to stay in California in order to fulfill that dream.

Which means I can start settling.

It's a weird feeling, knowing that you're not gonna move away from a place for a long time. To not be afraid of making connections because you won't have to say good bye in a few months or years. I can start an actual life here.

And that's just weird.

I've never been able to do that before. It's just kind of happening now and it's a strange feeling. I'm not really too sure how i feel about it either.

But I'm learning, slowly but surely, that I have to make due with what I have. There are some things in life that I have control over, that I'm able to change and bend to my will.

But sometimes Fate has a different view on things and will have her way.

I'm accepting that. And I want to make a better life for myself. I want to be able to be happy no matter what obstacles are thrown my life. I'm going to take advantage of every opportunity and start living in the day and not in the foresight.

I'm on a roller coaster that only goes up.

You Should Forgive Me Because of Reasons

Ummm...hi there.

Hey guise.

I bet you're, uh, kind of mad at me. Because my last post was two months ago and it promised (after my month long break from posting) that I'd post more often.

So I guess I kind of lied.

Needless to say, that life has kind of been hectic lately.

I mean, since I talked to you last I started work. That's a whole lot of fun. I work at Winnie the Pooh and Fantasmic! I love it. Sadly, however, I was Seasonal so I haven't worked in a month. Luckily, though, I go back on Sunday. I missed it lots.

School is over this week, which is really scary. Right now, I've finished all but one of my finals (which isn't until Thursday) and I'm kind of freaking out because I keep thinking that 2 years ago I was graduating high school and in 2 years I'll be graduating college.

It's trippy.

On Saturday I'm moving to an apartment off campus, which is also really frightening because that means I'm, like, facing the real world of rent and cooking food and stuff. That scares me like no other.

Is this what growing up is like?

One minute you're sitting in your high school Econ class, going home to a cooked meal, and laundry done for you. And the next minute you're working 2 jobs, taking 24 units in college and paying rent? It's like we're kids and as soon as we blink, bam, we're adults with real lives.

It's not cool.

Words can't describe how much I wish I could go home this summer. True, I get to stay here and work at Disneyland. But there's just something about being able to go home and do nothing for three whole months. To be close to all of my friends and family and not have a care in the world.

And yet here I am. I'm not complaining. Just commenting.

I don't like growing up.

There's still no news of a boy in any part of my future. It took me up until a few weeks ago, but I finally gave up the boy that I've liked for quite some time. There truly was nothing real between us and I just couldn't bear my heart the pain of trying for naught any more.

It's sad because I'm at the age where I'm just about officially the only person I know who doesn't have a significant other. And it really sucks because then there's nights like tonight, where all my friends are with their people...and I'm left writing this blog post because I literally have nothing else to do.

That sucks. It sucks a lot.

Maybe. Maybe some point in the future.

Maybe not.

We'll just have to wait and see I guess. Just wait and see what comes with the future.

In other news...well, there really is no other news.

Still going to Scotland next Spring. In fact, I bought my plane ticket already.

Still loving my sorority.

Still living life as its thrown at me. A day at a time, I suppose. My amount of writing creatively is minimal, but hopefully I can bust something out this summer. This last semester was the final one of my GE's so now all I have left are Creative Writing and History courses.

So things should be getting a bit more creative around here. Who knows?

The fact that I'm writing this is a miracle.

Anyways, it's 11PM. I've been up since 7AM. I should probably be going to bed at some point in time soon.

Until we meet again.

Chelsea

Dinosaur Apologies and Rants About Reality

Guys, it's been a month. I know what you're thinking.

"Who does this chick think she is? Dropping us like an old toy in the dirt and walking away for a month. Oh, now it's 1AM and now she thinks she can come back to us. No. NO!"

Well, uhm...yeah.

Look, I can explain. I've been super mondo busy. You have no idea. For the first time in almost 2 years, I actually have a life again and it was basically killing me for a good month. Now that most everything is over with, I can finally breathe. I thought about you, bloggy, I really did.

Sorry, people. I love you.

Here's this picture of a dinosaur to prove it:

See now. Doesn't that make it a little bit better?

Well, I tried.

Anyways.... I keep trying to remember what's happened in the past month and it's simply SO MUCH that I don't even know where to begin. Heck, I don't even remember what was going down last month. *Consults old posts* Ok, not much.

So...let's go in semi sequential order.

Sorority: Welp, I'm officially in a sorority. It sounds weird to say. I'm so used to the term having such a huge negative connotation back at home and the fact that I'm in a REALLY COOL sorority out here is a little strange. Like, not at all what I imagined. And it's pretty cool in it's own way. It's something I have to get used to, and we all know Chelsea reacts terribly to change.

But I like it. I really do. Heck, I like it enough that I'm going to have to wake up at 9AM tomorrow morning to hang out with them.

School: Ok, so a few things have changed with this since we last talked. I think. Well, ok, I just consulted the blog and apparently I told you that I added a major. Cool beans, cool beans.

HOWEVER, I don't think I told you that I'm going to Scotland next Spring (instead of a semester at sea). Pumped? You betcha. Especially because Brave comes out this summer and she's Scottish AND has red hair. We're practically twins already.

Job: My life got pretty awesome all of a sudden a couple of weeks ago. The time came for me to reapply to Disney. I'm like "whatever, cool, I get to wait another 6 months to reapply again". Within 12 hours of submitting an application, I walked out of Disney with a job. Yeah. It happened just like that. It's pretty fantastic and I don't want to say much else here. But I'm super excited you have no idea.

Writing: Not much has happened. I got the coolest rejection letter ever (where the agent said that she would totally take me if she hadn't already filled her quota). And then a few other boring rejection letters. I feel like this is going to be the year for me.

General: It was my birthday last week. Yayyyyy.

Relationships: Yup, still single.

However, I've decided that it's probably best for me to get over the guy I've been crazy about since I moved to California. It's hard, but I was tired of fooling myself. There was nothing there between us. I knew it all along. I thought that because we liked the same things that something, anything might happen. But it won't, and I have to accept that.

I yearn for something real.

I've been in that internal battle lately. I've been watching several of my friends going after each other and other people, looking for someone. Sometimes it's anyone. They get too crazy about people that it obviously isn't going to work with. They have nothing between them. But they build it up in their minds and it becomes something that appears in a reality all it's own. What's worse is they deny it when there is something there with a person. Something that could turn into every thing.

I want to know what it is for something to be real. I want it to appear out of nowhere. I want to know that the other person feels the same way that I do. For there to be something pure and real between us that can't be denied.

I have a bad habit of falling for the people that nothing will ever happen with. Either they live too far away or they're just impossibilities. And when they like me, I've done nothing but flee. I need to fix this.

I just want reality. Is that too much to ask?

I ranted on. I apologize for that. It's just the side affect of 3 cups of coffee and daylight savings time. I do crazy things.

(Plus, this blog has never been known for keeping on topic.)

I think that that's all for tonight, kiddos. Enjoy your 1 less hour of sleep (unless you live in Arizona or Hawaii). I'll try to be back in sometime less than a month.

Chelsea

Life Moves Pretty Fast. (If you don't stop and look around every once in a while, you could miss it)

Life has it's ups and downs. I've learned that over the past....well, long while.

Yesterday it was 6 months since it happened.

So much has happened. I've hashed and rehashed this a million times. This week, however, has been particularly eventful.

So on Tuesday I was looking through my class schedule for the next few years and how many classes I would need each semester to graduate on time. Then I noticed a giant hole in my schedule. I had a major and a minor. But I have so many credits, that I could technically graduate a semester early.

No way in hell I was going to do that, again, though.

So I took a second look to see how many more credits it would be to make my minor into a major. Only 4 more classes?! Game! So in a matter of minutes, I switched to a Creative Writing and History double major. It's really kind of exciting because, I mean, now I might have an actually semi useful degree in there.

Then again a few nights ago, my roommate had announced she was rushing for a sorority. Having grown up practically down the street from the #1 party school in the nation, I've been dead set against being in one. But she persuaded me to tag along to an event, still closed minded.

Then they mentioned Harry Potter. And I was taken. They're absolutely nothing like my party school neighbors. So I'm going to be rushing for a sorority this semester. Kind of exciting actually. It might give me a chance to not be totally alone for the next 2 years, because that's how it's been seeming.

I don't need to remind y'all that it's Forever Alone Month. This year, more than any other year, it's been really upsetting. My biggest fear is being alone, in any respect. And now I live so far away from my family and friends and I have so few people here that I'm having to face this head on and it's freaking me out. Big time. All I want is to have someone to always hang out with. I got nothing.

So far, my Not-New-Years-Resolution-Resolution has been failing miserably. I had a very excellent chance a little over a week ago to actually put a foot forward and make things happen. To be even the slightest bit forward. And I couldn't even do that.

Honestly, I don't have much more to report on. It's taken me 2 hours to write this as it is. I promise I'll be more interesting soon.

Chelsea

Social Cues.

I've been pondering this thought quite a bit over the last 48 or so hours.

We're all these people, trying to get to know and meet other people like ourselves. Find our niche, so to speak.

Many of you know that I fit a few different niches. For most of my life growing up (junior high and high school) I was always a part of the theatre niche. The vast majority of my friends were always with me in my theatre classes and every play.

While that was going on, I had a semi-separate school life where I met some fabulously awesome friends who I'm very close with. We're all smart and had the same upper division classes together throughout all of junior high and the friendship continued in high school.

Then there's my Disney life that wedged in there. I've met some really awesome people.

With each of them I'm a different type of person. I always knew who to be with whom. And I always had somebody to be with.

But then I came so far away from everything that I know, and came into programs that didn't involve 24/7 communication with the same people and no multiple classes with the same like-people.

I freaked.

We all know I've had major trouble making friends and whatever.

Lately I've taken to accepting my being a nerd. Not the dorky, math intelligent, has a gargle laugh, can encode websites nerd. But the "hey, I like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings and 80's movies and being intelligent and reading" nerd. And I'm cool with that. The difficult part, however, is we're a dying race. And i've been somewhat secluded to this traditional idea of lonely nerd.

I usually eat at the school cafeteria alone. And as I was doing so the other day, another lonely girl came up to me. This was the kind of nerd that is the math and website nerd. She sat next to me as I was finishing up and tried to talk to me.

Quick as a wink, I was gone.

I'm a walking contradiction. Here is this girl that's obviously in the same kind of boat that I am. Social cues told me to reach out to her and see what we make of it.

I didn't listen.

I realized that while I might consider myself a form of nerd, I'm not this kind. In fact I'm a bit stuck up. Social situations have never put me in these shoes before. And while I was aware that social courtesy intended for me to be one way, I completely disregarded it.

And I still have my other alternative lives at home--theatre, upper division, and Disney.

The purpose of my last book was for my main character to choose one facet of her person that she could be the rest of her life. The three of them blended within her. She could be all of them, one of them, or none of them. Her choice altered the course of her life.

But I'm facing a problem where the facets of my own personality are blending together or fading away.

I have no social cues for where I am now. I don't know who I am now.

Am I one? Or am I many? Should I hang with that traditional nerd in my shoes or make different friends?

All I can do is take a stab in the dark and hope that it's right.

Chelsea