#mlbwriting

ASSIGNMENT: USING ONLY OTHER PUBLISHED QUOTES, CREATE SOMETHING OF YOUR OWN.

"Michelle, ma belle"

  It's been a long time

Now I'm coming back home

I've been away now

Oh how, I've been alone

  Is there anybody going to listen to my story

All about the girl who came to stay?

She's the kind of girl you want so much

It makes you sorry

Still, you don't regret a single day

  I sat on the rug, biding my time, drinking her wine

We talked until two and then she said, "It's time for bed"

  If I needed someone to love

You're the one that I'd be thinking of

  I told a girl that my prospects were good

And she said baby, "It's understood”

  Do what you want to do

And go where you're going to

  Take your time, don't hurry

  Say the word and you'll be free

  Carve your number on my wall

And maybe you will get a call from me

If I needed someone

  When I call you up

Your line's engaged

I have had enough

So act your age

We have lost the time

That was so hard to find

And I will lose my mind

If you won't see me

  Why, tell me why, did you not treat me right?

Love has a nasty habit of disappearing overnight

  The other day I saw you

As I walked along the road

But when I saw him with you

I could feel my future fold

It's so easy for a girl like you to lie

  Let this be a sermon

I mean everything I've said

Baby, I'm determined

  In my life I love you more

the day that I will no longer be jealous when I see my guy talking to a girl, or my friend choosing another friend over me, or my parents commending my sister rather than me. and I mean this in the most general sense. I fantasize about some glorious day where the sun is shining and the air is clean, and crisp and suddenly I no longer care. I no longer feel obligated to do or say things out of guilt. I no longer find myself worrying about why things occur the way they do. I no longer overanalyze those things. I no longer get offended by simple critiques or requests, and just do them. 

but I've come to terms recently with the fact that this isn't going to be a glorious day in the future when I out of the blue decide to cut the negativity out of my life and move forward with whatever's left...this is an uphill climb that I have to work at consistently in order to achieve the peace of mind that I yearn for. I hate this. I wish it wasn't like this. and thus, it is. 

so it goes.

Today was a great day. A plain, old, great day.

(Aside from some bullshit)...it was quite possibly one of my favorite days of summer and I know that tomorrow will be just as great, if not better, at Lolla.

I feel a lot better now than at this time last year...but in very few ways a little more apprehensive.

A little more apprehensive because I've witnessed first hand, how things can go from seemingly great, to tearing at the seams, to shattered. And I don't want to experience it again. And I don't wish for anyone I know or care about to experience the pain that brought me. 

However, and more importantly, I feel a lot better. I feel secure in Iowa City. I have my friends. I have my home there. I have established my niche, all that's left is to get to work. I am more comfortable with who I am today than ever before...my bossy HBOC days of senior year included. I feel like I am expressing myself best now and I am the truest form of me. And because of these things-- because I am the most comfortable with myself NOW as I've ever been, I also feel the most fearless. The most willing to choose the path less taken. The most willing to take a risk. The most willing to wade out into deeper water...because this time I know that I can swim alone if I need to.

I am happy with things. Genuinely happy. I don't want this feeling to end--ever. I can't wait until the day I feel like this feeling is permanently instilled into my heart and soul (if that day will ever come). And if that day DOES ever come-- it will be the best day of my life.

As things progress, continue to grow and blossom, and flourish in amazing ways, that only means that with every passing minute-- there is more to lose.

My anxiety has not broken out of the tight restraints I hold it in in a few months until today, and I was a little scared by the outcome.

I do not want to lose this foundation that has been built upon for some time now because it truly contains the upmost amount of my love in it. I fear it will break me-- yet at the same time, I am confident if it were to become weak-- I'd rise above it, quickly.

Nonetheless, my intentions are to keep my eye on the prize. To maintain focus. To actually DO my THING. Do what I do best. That is when things seem to fall into place...that's when I feel happiest, most at ease, and the least anxiety ridden. I want to be able to stay determined and focused on my personal goals, while maintaining the wonderful relationships I have...the relationships that I never want to end.

Prior to my junior year of high school, I had heard of Wilco and knew a few of their more popular radio hits, but never really even put them on the waiting list of my music radar. I just didn't understand the beauty of their work. Didn't appreciate it. Junior year, the wonderful (wonderful in the past, but I'd like to make it clear that this human being is pretty damn awful now...) Mr. Q came around.

We bonded over Wilco, the tone of Jeff Tweedy's sweet, distinct voice, the lyrics, the history of the band and troubles they had with their record label, and all the other bullshit nonsensical stuff that comes along with that...

I'm not sure why I randomly recalled this this morning as I was drinking coffee on my deck, nevertheless, I had a sort of flashback to lying on my stomach in my house in San Antonio. I was barely three years old and my favorite past time besides reading (yes, I started reading at age three) was to work on puzzles. I had two favorites: 1. my "Madeline by the Seine" puzzle 2. my map of the United States puzzle. I knew where every state was and how to spell each one by the time I was three. I don't even fucking know how that is possible, but it's true, and I know it was when I was three because my sister wasn't around yet. I remembered reciting how to spell Pennsylvania to my mom because that's where all of my cousins and my Poppy lived, and I constantly wanted to go there because I thought flying was scary, but mostly fun.

This led me to remember being at my Great Aunt Bette's house in Waxahachie, TX. Her house was not what my parents used to call a "kid friendly house." Everything in it was worth an incredible amount of money, was from a secluded, ornate shop in a foreign country, and was breakable. I loved it though. I would pretend that the masks they had hanging on their wall from Africa would talk to me, and I'd play with the Russian nesting dolls, and I'd sit in front of this massive standing globe that they had in the den. I'd spin it slowly and feel the grooves of the mountain ranges and deserts that were imprinted onto the globe. I'd try and read the different country names and I'd stretch my fingers out from where we lived to the different places to see how far away they were. I was in awe that the world was such a big place and that I knew so little about it.