Letters.

I love getting letters in the mail. It very rarely happens but when it does, it freaking makes my week. I am a very sentimental person. I keep stuff. I make scrapbooks. Hell, I'm currently working in four different scrapbooks. I just love to keep little things to look back on and think about on days that it seems like there is just no joy to be had.

I have been thinking about composing some letters to people recently. I'm thinking about just letting my emotions pour out to people, beyond this blog that no one reads. I have been thinking how wonderful it would be to have everyone in my life know just how much they mean to me. I never want to think about this, but if something terrible were to happen, would the people that are closets to me know just how much of an impact that had upon my life?

So there has now officially been another project added to me already lengthy summer to-do list. I want to compose letters to everyone that has impacted me, just to let them know that at some point in their life, their presence and their advice has helped someone. Sometimes, that little piece of gratification is all someone needs to feel like their time here has been well spent.

------
On a different note. There is not a day that goes by that I don't consider dropping out of college and going to find my career in culinary arts. However, I know I'm good at PR. I'm good at what I do and I need to get my degree. But I dream so often of that little bakery or coffee shop I want to run one day...


dreams...

It's Killing Me, Killing You

"I know I've been stupid and don't have a reason, but I'm trying not to ruin the one thing I believe in. You. It's killing me, killing you."

I have officially fallen to pieces. I had a dream about a month ago that I was a glass doll knocked from a shelf and shattered. I just played it off as a weird dream caused by eating something weird before bed. Little did I know I would feel exactly like that doll a month later. Broken, in pieces, on the floor.

I feel like so much is piling on me that I cannot control anything. Even down to small tasks like changing out laundry or folding clothes takes me hours to even muster the energy to complete. I've let myself and my relationships fall apart. I've hurt the one thing that has ever been truly good and stable in my life. I cannot even live with myself right now. I hate everything and everything I have done.

I need to fix a lot about myself if I ever want to have the future I daydream about. I need to take charge and also let go and let God lead me on the correct path. I need to handle things one at a time and slowly but surely tackle my to-do lists in my self improvement journal so that I can be there person he deserves. I need to be better. If not just for him, then for myself. I need to find my life again. I need to find myself. I've gotten lost along the way and everything has crumbled on top of me. I feel like a candy wrapper in the bottom of a trash can. Empty of everything sweet and good, just forgotten about and buried under everything else.

From this moment on I believe this blog will serve as my place to vent about my problems. I need a place to go to just type without thinking what it sounds like, who will be reading it, and why I am up at 2 am doing it in the first place. I just need a break. I need some time to set things right. I am hoping by tomorrow night I can start to feel better and get back to stable so I can be there for him and help him feel better. I hate seeing the hurt in his eyes. I hate seeing him anything but happy. I would give up anything and everything just for the chance to see him smile and laugh again. To be so carefree and in love like we used to be. I need that. He needs that. But he needs things from me first in order to feel that way.


I will stop at nothing to give him what he needs. I love him and need him and know I can beat this. We can beat this.

She Never Compromises, Loves Babies and Surprises...

I've had a rough day. Simply put. Highly understated. Today has sucked sucked sucked sucked.

But I'm not going to rant about that here.

I was playing on my phone the other day and was trying to think of a ringtone that would be my basic, go-to. One I could keep on there for ages and never change and it would still be relevant and people would be like, "oh that's katie's phone."

In other words..I was really really bored.

I tried to think of a song that always described me. I went through every song on my ipod, in my itunes library, and on my pandora stations and honestly could not think of a single one that really fit me that would always be relevant.

Then I remembered Meet Virginia.

I love this song because it talks about how off-beat and quirky and a little crazy this woman is, but the man singing the song loves her and can't get enough of her. He states all the odd things she does and how they all make up a piece of her that he loves.

I think that song fits pretty well to my description and also to how Shaun loves me. I can be a little crazy at times and moody and weird and yet, miraculously, he still loves me. He is the one person I can make a joke about a Pokemon training montage and instead of rolling his eyes and thinking I'm weird, he loves me for it. I couldn't ask for a more perfect man. He loves me for who I am and helps me feel truly comfortable in my own skin. I love him so much for that and can only hope I do the same for him.

I'm so glad I found my fellow dork. :)

Love in All Forms

Last night was easily one of the greatest nights I've ever had.

He came down after work and brought me Italian food, which I had been craving for days. He also went out of his way to pick up a bottle of wine for us too even though he hates wine. We sat outside on the balcony and just enjoyed the warm weather and each other's company as we ate. He made the usual dorky jokes that I fell in love with him for and he made me feel so pampered and loved. He really went out of his way to show me how he felt. He really made me feel special.

Dinner was great and romantic. He rubbed my feet as we talked about our days and our future together, and we just relaxed. I loved that side of us. I loved just sitting there, fully focusing on each other, and just sharing a moment together.

Later on we piled up in bed and set our fantasy teams, exchanged some smack talk, watched an episode of one of our new shows and played a little pokemon. As I laid there I thought about how I loved this part more than the romantic dinner and wine. This was the real us. Piled up with our electronics being super dorky but still madly in love with each other.

Any couple can get dressed up and go out to some dimly lit restaurant and have the greatest night ever. But it takes a couple that truly, deeply loves each other and wants their relationship to thrive to just lie around in bed together being complete dorks after that romantic dinner and feel fully comfortable and still madly in love.

I'm so glad we're the dorks that we are. :) I wouldn't have it any other way.

Its 3AM and I Must Be Lonely

I keep having nightmares. I don't know why, but I do. I keep having this image over and over again of this figure taking him away from me, and just laughing. It almost seems as if it is rubbing it in my face that it was so easy to steal him away. Like he was never committed to me in the first place.

It terrifies me.


However, amongst the nightmares, I did have one dream I adored. I wanted it to go on forever. I wanted it to be real. I wanted to wake up and see him there, and see the rings, and see everything I saw in that dream. I saw white, and blue, and his smile, and flowers, and cake, and his hand holding mine, and him shaking my father's hand. It wasn't a steady flow of events, but more like snapshots of moments in my head. I heard his laugh and saw his friends. I saw his smile as he kissed me and then I woke up......alone.

I'm so tired of being haunted by my dreams and then slapped in the face by reality.

All I Ever Wanted.

I haven't written anything in awhile simply because I have been busy and feeling uninspired to write anything other than papers about ethics in the studies of mass media. But hey, that's the life of a college student for you.

This weekend something terrible happened. I'm not going to go into juicy details, but just know that I had never felt so betrayed and hurt in all my life. He is the one man I have ever fully, completely trusted; and he betrayed me and that trust. I had never been so angry with him. So hurt. So...ashamed.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to hit him and throw things. I actually did some of those things and in retrospect, he still deserved it. He betrayed me. He played me for a fool. He made me feel like I wasn't enough. Like I wasn't good enough. Like he needed more than just me. Or worse, like he wanted someone else and didn't want me at all.

I did what I normally do with arguments happen. I shut down. I have a really long history of severe panic attacks and since I have been off my anti-depressant and anti-anxiety meds for a little over a year now, I didn't really want to risk it. I stepped away from the argument. I sent him to his apartment and I went to dinner with my best friend. She always knows how to fix things. She always knows what to say to either inspire me to fix things or how to just get my mind off of things in general. She is always there for me. I love her for that.

I spilled my guts to her. I told her everything that had happened and she naturally took my side. She wanted to get revenge. She wanted me to never talk to him again. She wanted me to move on. She wanted me to be done with the rat.

She then saw how hearing that killed me. She saw the pain I felt at the mere thought of never seeing his eyes light up again. Or never seeing his smile. Or hearing his laugh. Or getting one of his incredible hugs. She saw that pain, and changed her tune. She told me to do whatever my heart was telling me to do, but warned me against falling for the same thing I have fallen for time and time again.

I drove around for a bit after that dinner. I needed time to think to myself. I remembered a story my mom told me when I was little. My dad had done something similar and I she recalled how badly it hurt her and ruined her trust in him. I asked her why she bothered to stay with him, and she replied, "Because your father is a stupid, stupid man. But I love that stupid, stupid man. And love, real honest love, love that is supposed to happen, can make it through anything."

That was the one thing that made up my mind.

The only reason I felt so hurt was because I fully and completely trusted him with everything I was. I'm usually not that trusting, but there was something about him that I just knew would never hurt me. I knew that in order to trust someone that much, I had to love him an immense amount.

He has changed so much from the time before. He treats me like I'm the only one in the world for him. He compliments me, he tells me how he feels, he takes care of me when I need him, he loves me, he cherishes me, and he works with me on any problem we might have instead of getting mad and leaving. He is truly, honestly trying. Therefore, I know he loves me. I can see it in the way he looks at me. When he looks at me like that, I feel like I'm the only woman on the face of this earth and I feel invincible. I feel like I could do anything I wanted to when he looks at me like that.

I know things are going to be hard sometimes. I know things aren't always going to be perfect and happy. But I also know that love is both the good and the bad. For better or for worse. You take them both and grow as a couple through that. And I know that with him, I am completely willing to do that. He is the love of my life and I want nothing more than to wake up one morning when I'm 80 and see him there with me. He always makes me smile. He always brightens my day. He always makes me feel loved and happy. He will be my only one. He is it. The one. My everything.

I'm still on eggshells about the situation that happened. But he has been trying to prove himself to me over the past two days and he really has. I just need this to keep up and I need to know that it will never happen again. I need to know that I can have faith and trust in him again.


I need to know that I'll get my happily ever after with the one man I want it more than anything in the world with.

I Get A Funky High From A Yellow Sun

I wish the real world would just stop hassling me....

It is kinda funny sitting here on my bed in an empty apartment, 100 miles away from home and any type of "comfort zone," thinking about my childhood. I guess it was relatively normal. Nothing really strange happened. Nothing too tragic. I had some obscure family issues, but other than those minor setbacks, I guess I had a typical childhood.

So this arouses the question in me: If my childhood was so normal, why is my adulthood so strange?

It feels weird to be 21. It feels weird to be almost done with college. It feels weird to be thinking about grad schools and careers. It feels weird to be thinking about marriage and kids. It feels weird to know that one day, I'll be old.

I remember being 6 and playing in the yard with my father's dog, Reebok. She was an older St. Bernard and was blind in one eye and completely deaf. I asked my father how old she was, and he said that in human years, she was 16. He said in dog years that's almost 100. I remember being so amazed that something could be 16 years old. I thought that was just the oldest thing in the world to me. I looked at the graying muzzle and hazy eyes of my father's best friend, and vowed to never turn 16 if that's what it looked like.
Two days later, Reebok had a massive doggy stroke and had to be put down.
Cue the first time I ever saw my father cry.

I was so blindsided by my first experience with death. There was something about it that confused me, yet there was also something about it that struck up a morbid fascination inside of me. I wanted to learn more about it. I wanted to be around it. I needed to know how this death thing worked and why it had to happen.

I found myself asking friends and family members what death meant to them. Some answered with it meant they got to go to heaven. Some answered with it meant they got to go on a little vacation and would see everyone again someday. Some answered with it meant they no longer got to see everyone, but they could always watch them and guide them along the right path.
They all sugar coated the hell out of death for me.

I was an innocent little 6 year old, asking questions most 50 year olds weren't even brave enough to ask.

What is death? What happens when we die? What does death mean?

Is death the ending or just the beginning? How are we so sure of an afterlife? We are told to blindly believe in the faith of Jesus Christ and a "heaven" (or some other form of an afterlife. i.e. purgatory or hell), but does anyone really have solid, scientific proof of there being an eternal life after death?

The open-endedness of those questions scares the bejeezus out of me.

I've experienced more death in the past 6 months of my life than I have in the past 21 years of life combined. It seemed to be almost a domino effect. I've heard of people who have been married for long periods of time passing away within days of each other simply because of old age and the alleged love story ending of how they couldn't bear to live without their significant other, but this is getting ridiculous.  Is my family really that closely related that one death has the power to trigger more?

Or do triggers on guns have the power?

I've always understood natural deaths. I've never understood suicides though. How can one person be so miserable that they want to leave this world behind? Do they not take joy in sunny days? Warm showers after work? Coffee? Books? Fantasy sports leagues? Anything? Can one person be so truly, deeply miserable that honestly not a single thing on this entire planet makes them happy? Do we, as humans, really have the ability to feel that intensely?
....I guess we do.

I'd never commit suicide. Just let me state that. This is in no way a suicide related post. (I hate messes, therefore its just not a smart option.) But lately I have been thinking a lot about death. I have had nightmares at least once a night and in each one someone else from my life dies. It started off small, with just a pet hamster I had when I was eight. Then a friend. Then a distant relative. Then my boss. Then my older brother. Then....who knows. I've been too terrified by these dreams to sleep anymore. They come to me almost like visions of the future....and it really bothers me.

The ironic part of thinking about death so much is that its literally killing me. I'm exhausted from the lack of sleep, delirious, and cannot focus on anything longer than ten minutes.

I'm honestly worried about myself.

Something's gotta change. And soon.

I'm hoping that blogging about this and getting the thoughts out of my system might help. I know its a morbid post and not the funnest read, but it helps me. Besides, this is why I started this blog in the first place. Inner growth and personal identification. So I got it out of my system and just downed three tylenol pm....so let's hit the lights and see how this goes...

Family

A family is a beautiful thing...
and you never know that until you find yourself without one.

I wasn't raised like a normal kid. I wasn't always wanted by my parents. I was tossed around among relatives, put into homes, that kinda thing. Once my parents figured out they actually wanted me and decided to raise me in their house, they took new jobs that forced them to be away all the time.

I honestly cannot remember the last time my entire family has been in the same house together for longer than two days.

Maybe that's for the best. I don't know.

As I have gotten older I have learned to cope with never having my parents around. I moved off to college and never really thought twice about it. I just figured it was normal to get the ocassional post card from some random city from my mother and the gifts from odd foreign countries from my father. I never thought it was strange that I would go home to an empty house on the weekends just to get away from school and neither one of them would be there to welcome me home with a smile and a hug.

A part of me has always longed for a big family, brothers, sisters, loving parents, maybe a few fun pets around. Instead I was content with consistently absent parents, a half brother that lives 600 miles away and a cat that only wants me around for feeding time.

I guess we're just not the "family" type.

I guess that's why I'm so nervous around other people's families.

Tonight I had dinner with Shaun's family and the whole time I absolutely loved it. How warm and welcoming they all are, how happy they all seem. Sure I know life gets stressful for them, and bad things happen, but it seems like they have such a strong family bond that those bad things really don't matter. I sat at the table, eating a dinner his mom lovingly prepared for us, and just looked at Shaun. He looked so happy and so at ease just sitting there, surrounded by the people that love him the most and I kinda envied him a bit. He had this beautiful family that loved him and was always there for him, and I had nothing. I had an usually empty apartment, lonely long nights, and the occassional phone call from my mother to tell me how much she dislikes me. I wanted what he has.

He assured me at the end of the night that his family loves me and that I am always welcome back there anytime I want to come by. What little did he know is that I never wanted to leave. Not just because he was there; but because there was a family there that made me feel welcome and loved and like I had a home.

I hope for such an amazing family one day.

Have I Told You Lately...

Have you ever had a song that just hits you out of nowhere and you have to sit down and think...wow....that's perfect?

I have two now.

I was tuned into a pandora country station (don't judge me, I've been a little homesick and this helps) and the song Crazy Girl by Eli Young Band came on. Normally I don't pay much attention to my pandora, its just background noise so my apartment isn't so deafeningly quiet all the time. However, there was something about this song that made me sit down and just listen.

It blew me away.

Shaun was in town this weekend and we had a small fight. Our first really bad one since we got back together. Things were said, implications were made, and tears were shed. All during a car ride home from dinner with my parents. I think the most hurtful part of the entire argument wasn't the fact that Shaun was upset, it was the fact he was upset and I didn't notice it until he mentioned it. I want nothing more in this life than for him to be happy and smiling the adorable smile I love so much to see on him. The fact that I did something to take that smile away killed me inside. I had no idea how to react. I felt like the worst girlfriend in the entire world and wondered why on earth someone has completely perfect as him was even wasting his time with a screw up like myself. I apologized profusely and just wanted things to go back to like they were before the fight. I wanted us to be happy and enjoy what little time we actually get together. Shaun has no idea how much I treasure the weekends I get with him.

We got back to my place and I felt so uneasy. I just knew this was the beginning of the end with us. I couldn't go through that again. I couldn't stand the thought of losing him when things had been so perfect. I was there, in my room, about to break down and lose it, when he did something he's never done while fighting. I was in my usual flurry of cleaning off my desks (I clean when I feel nervous or uneasy, its a weird trait of mine) and he walked over to me, took whatever I had out of my hands, and wrapped me in his arms. He just held me for the longest time. What he did next I'll never in my life forget.

He pulled away slightly and looked me dead on with those beautiful coffee-brown eyes of his and said, "I'm sorry we fought and I'm sorry for the things I said. I just want you to know that nothing will change how I feel about you and nothing will ever make me leave you again. You're all I want."

Talk about falling apart....

I almost lost it right then and there. I teared up and latched onto him like he was the last life raft on the Titanic. He knows just what to say to make my heart melt and to make me fall head over heels in love with him again and again.

This was a turning point for us. Instead of getting mad and just walking away and taking time apart, we stayed together. We talked things out and we made up and moved on. Everything felt amazing and it honestly felt like we were invincible. We may still have small fights here and there; every couple does. However, it will never be as bad as it was before and it might even bring us closer together in the long run. It was our greatest victory together.

Anyways, as I was cleaning tonight this "Crazy Girl" song came on and from the first chord, I listened. Suddenly, there I was, sitting on the edge of my bed alone in my room, tearing up to the lyrics in a song as I pictured Shaun's sweet face as he told me he was never leaving again.

He's the most wonderful thing I've ever been blessed with.

"We're gonna do what lovers do and we're gonna have a fight or two, but I ain't ever changing my mind."

The Life of a Humpty Dumpty.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's horses and all the king's men could never put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

It has been said that the actual identity of Humpty Dumpty has never been revealed. In the 15th century it was a common term used to describe someone who was obese. Then, also in the later part of the 15th century, it was believe Humpty Dumpty was a great cannon that was used during the English war. In modern terms it has been personified as a clumsy, egg-shaped person that should probably forego sitting on tall walls.

Either way, I've been classified as a Humpty Dumpty...and someone is putting me back together again.

I have never been very lucky in love. I've always had flaws that the other person could not overlook or something had gone terribly awry that ended up shattering my heart into a million pieces. I fell madly in "love" with the typical boy next door when I was in high school. (I'm using love in quotation marks because honestly, I doubt that it was really true love. True love won't need quotation marks.) He appeared to be a good guy, and my parents loved him. He played poker with my dad, helped my mom in the garden, and treated me well. He would always come over a little early to talk to them while I was finishing getting ready to go out. They liked that. It showed he wanted to be a part of our family and not just use me and then leave me.
We dated for a few years and then, after I graduated from high school, he popped the question. I was completely unaware he was anywhere close to doing that, and felt almost trapped into it. There it was, sitting on my dinner plate (I had gotten up from a dinner out to use the restroom and he placed it on my plate while I was gone) and there he was...staring at me from across the table. He didn't do the whole one knee thing (which I was really wanting but wasn't thinking about at the time. Looking back now that should have told me he wasn't really into it.) and he never fully said "will you marry me." He just simply smiled at me and said "what do you say?" I couldn't say no...it was all right there and we had a 45 minute car ride home. So I did what any woman who is faced with a 2 carat precision cut diamond and a man in a suit would say. I said yes.

He was thrilled. I didn't eat dinner. He never noticed. Everything was great, people were happy. I was on top of my metaphorical wall, precariously balanced, waiting to topple over the edge.

We went about our normal lives after the engagement. It was like nothing had changed. I was still moving off to college in the fall and now I was sporting something blindingly brilliant on my left hand. Too bad that same shine wasn't in my heart.

Something had been going on with him, but I couldn't tell what it was. He got angry really easily at the smallest of things. He would throw things. He would punch holes in things. And eventually, he started doing that to me. It was easy to hide the bruises at first. I could always say we were out riding four wheelers and I hit a branch or something. No big deal. However, the night he broke my arm was the worst. There was no way to explain why my bruises fit his hand perfectly. There was no explaining why we were in a house when I "fell" and he tried to grab me to help me. It was the night my mother sat me down and begged me, if he was the one hurting me, to leave.

I couldn't. It had gotten too bad and I was too afraid of losing the one man I had been with for several years when I was about to move 100 miles away. I was too foolish to say no more. Fortunately, just a month later that relationship took a terrible turn. I came home one weekend from college to find him with my best friend, in his bedroom (the one I helped decorate mind you), going at it like two rabbits. I was too shocked to do anything. I laid the ring on the counter and walked calmly out the door. I drove myself home and that's where I piled all his things up, took them down to the woods, and lit them on fire. I remember sitting there, in the chilly September air, watching every bit of the last three years of my life literally go up in smoke. I remember crouching barefoot on the cold earth, hugging myself for not only warmth but to hold myself together, and crying. My mother eventually came out there and sat with me. It was the first time she ever really just held me. We had always had a rocky relationship, but that night something changed between us. We became women who had both been scorned by men. We became sisters. We became one force, united by heartbreak. She sat there with me for hours that night, not saying a word. She just held me and let me cry.

Months went by and things got better. I refused to date anyone for the simple fact that my heart needed time to heal. I had fallen. I was lying there on the floor, cracked, and waiting to be pieced back together again.

I then met A.

A was wonderful. He was everything I needed at that moment in my life, a little over a year after the last heartbreak. He found some super glue and carefully put me back together again. Little did I know he was only doing that so he could shatter me even worse than before.

He was a decent guy. Not the best, but my friends seemed to like him and I enjoyed his company. Looking back now he was a little shallow and too fratty for my liking. He never got my nerdy jokes and rarely drove down from Hoover to see me. I was blind to that at the time though. I had finally fallen in "love" again. I was back on my wall.

Everything was going well, I thought. Then the first push came. I drove to his apartment one night and before I could even get fully through the door he said those words no one ever wants to hear, "we need to talk." I knew right then to just leave, but for some reason, I stayed. He told me he had met up with his ex and he still had feelings for her and did not find it to be fair to be with me while he still loved her, even though we had been together for months at this point. I calmly said that I understood and that I respected him for telling me and not just cheating on me like my last relationship had. I then gathered my things and left. I cried the entire way home and laid in bed for three days. I didn't eat, I didn't sleep. I just laid there and cried and wondered what was so wrong with me that no one could ever love me.

I went on a week long vacation and while I was there A called. He was in tears, and begging me to get back together with him. I said I would see him when I returned home, and to not call me again to let me think about things. As soon as I got off the plane in Birmingham I drove to his place and fell into his arms. Things were okay, he had his mind made up. We were going to be okay!

We got back together and everything was wonderful and very honeymoon-like. We were so much in "love."
Fast forward three weeks.

I was lying in bed on a Saturday morning. I was heading out that morning to go home to see my parents for the weekend and was getting some extra sleep before the long drive. My phone rang and it was A. I knew it was unlike him to be awake so early without there being something wrong so I answered. The first words he said shoved me over the wall again. "my ex is pregnant."

"Yeah.....I'm gonna have to call you back."

I hung up. Made some coffee. And let my brain, still foggy from sleep, process what he just said. Apparently, while we were planning on working things out but not technically together yet, he slept with her. I asked him if he had done so before we got back together, and he said no. Therefore, either this is the freaking immaculate conception and they're giving birth to the second coming of Jesus......or he's a lying bastard.
I took a sip of my coffee and decided its the latter.

I called him back and asked him again what was going on. He told me he had slept with her and that she had taken three pregnancy tests and they all came back positive. He then asked me, teary eyed, what we were going to do. I simply stated that "we" aren't going to do anything and that I'm going to live my life and he's going to either marry her or pay child support for the next 18 years. I then hung up, logged onto tmobile to block his number, grabbed my bags, and hit the road.

I've never talked to him since.
She had twins.......and they're ugly.

(Moral of the story here kiddos is: If you cheat on your girlfriend and get someone pregnant, your kids will be ugly and probably be as stupid as their whore of a mother.)

Humpty Dumpty cracked all over again. This time, she was in a million tiny shards. Some pieces were so small, they were just dust, and blew away in the wind. Humpty Dumpty knew she would never in her life ever feel completely whole again.

I went on and dated casually, but nothing serious. I focused on school and work and moving into my new apartment. I focused on graduation parties and dance recitals and nights out by the lake. I focused on re-reading all the Harry Potters for the 9th time. I even focused on math classes. I focused on everything but the fact that two weeks after we broke up they got married, that his wife had tried adding me on facebook several times, and that they looked so stinking happy together. I focused on finding my pieces and some extra strength super glue.

Then, something happened.

It was a normal busy day at work. People were moving out and I was inspecting the vacant apartments. It was the end of July and about 100 degrees outside. I was dying and felt disgusting from everyone's nasty apartments. (seriously, does no one CLEAN anymore?) I was about to do my last apartment for the day and was going over in my head for the 100,000th time what drastic measures I would go to to get a drink and a shower. I entered this last apartment to find someone still in it. The sounds of Back to the Future met me as I walked through the door and a very shocked looking guy laid on the sofa. He sat up as soon as he saw me and I quickly stumbled over an explanation as to way I was barging into his apartment unannounced. He was cute in just a white tshirt and shorts. His body was a great height, not too tall but not too short, and it complimented his lean build. He had dark hair and coffee-brown eyes and a smile that immediately struck me. I stood there in front of this adorable guy, silently cursing myself for looking like a hot mess. He looked like he didn't mind it though. He was the first person to be nice to me that day. He smiled at me as he offered me a drink and a seat, but I declined and started inspecting the two rooms that had been vacated. I could normally get a move out inspection knocked out in three minutes, but on this one, I worked a little slower. I took my time to write everything out, and not just put check marks like I had on the other ones from that day. I went in to inspect the living room and the guy stepped outside. I sneaked glances at him through the kitchen window as he stood there, completely at ease, doing something on his phone. A fleeting thought of kissing him flashed through my head. I could feel myself blushing and immediately finished up the inspection and left. For the next few days I cursed myself for not getting his name or number.

Weeks passed by without any sight of the boy. Then, one day, he entered the office when I was the only one there. He was moving out that weekend and needed someone to do his inspection. I saw this as my chance and ran with it. I promised to do his inspection for him and that he just needed to come back up to the office that weekend and I would be waiting on him. I wasn't on the schedule for that saturday, but I swapped with someone. I also went out and bought a new dress, and took extra time on my hair that morning. I prepared all of his paperwork as soon as I entered the office and waited for him to show up. When he finally did, chills covered my arms. This was my final chance. It was now or never.

I did his move out inspection and joked around with him and his roommates. He was charming, witty, and slightly mean with his comments.....just what I liked. He kept me on my toes, and left me wanting more. I finished his room inspection and he turned in his keys....

Two days later we had our first date and I was on top of the highest wall in the land.

Things were wonderful, but the timing felt off. He had moved back home and I was swamped with work and school. We were both stressed and things just weren't clicking...Humpty Dumpty shook, but didn't fall. We decided to take a break and see where things went from there.

Months later, my birthday rolls around. The boy came to my costume party dressed as team rocket, and I was a pikachu and my other friend was ash. The boy took me to my room, got on his knees, and with the most serious look I've ever seen in his eyes, told me how he felt about me. He was essentially stealing me away, just like our costumes. At that moment I knew, he was it for me. He would never let me fall over that edge. And if something in my life happened that pushed me, he would be at the bottom to catch me.

My life as a Humpty Dumpty has been rough. There have been high walls and there have been hard falls. There have been moments where I swore I would never know what true "love" really is. I would never know what it felt like to be able to say I "loved" someone without using quotation marks. I swore that I would always be in pieces.

I can honestly say right now that I have never felt so whole in my entire life....

and I am wholly in love with him.

That boy put me back together, polished off the cracks, and made me better than ever.

I don't know what I'd do without him.

A Kind Word Costs Nothing

I don't understand people sometimes.

We're an odd group of mammals, us humans. We are so co-dependant that our mental, physical, and emotional well being relies on the actions and reactions of others in our species. If we feel put off, or let down at any time, it could trigger an immense chain of reactions in our brains that could eventually lead to our demise. Maybe not an immediate demise (unless we're talking about suicide) but a long, drawn out suffering.

I still remember the first time anyone ever hurt my feelings...

I was an awkward kid. Heck, I still am. But back in first grade I had the biggest crush on a boy that will go by the initial of J. I thought he was just the bee's knees and could be king of my mountain any day. I was always nice to him. I gave him my chocolate milk at lunch, and shared crayons with him. I let him out to the playground before me and always laughed at his jokes and silly faces. One day, my best friend B told J that I liked him. He then looked at me from across the lunch table, screwed up his face in the most disgusted look ever, and ran off screaming into the hallway claiming he didn't want my girl cooties.

I went home crying and stayed home from school the next two days.

I eventually returned to school and went back to my normal routine of coloring, napping, and being the pretentious line leader every day for the best behavior. However, something changed. I stopped being so nice to J. Instead, I tormented him, I exiled him from my lunch group and I refused him any chocolate milk too. That poor kid missed out on chocolate milk, the greatest thing to ever grace the food pyramid, because he hurt my feelings...

Fast forward 12 years.

My senior year in high school was the next time I had a class with J. He no longer went to my high school but we did have a community college art class together when we were seniors doing some extra credit work. We had seen each other around campus, but we never really spoke. One day after class, I was packing up my books to leave for the day. I saw him drop his notebook and papers scattered like leaves in the wind. I walked a few feet over to help him get the pesky ones that slid underneath the bookcase when our re-connection happened. It wasn't one of those movie scenes where we grab the same sheet of paper and our eyes lock and we sheepishly smile at each other and then we're oddly interrupted by his bogus best friend yelling about a fight on the quad. No, it was just me, giving him a piece of paper, and him, looking at me, and smiling. We got to talking on our walk to our next class and became better friends throughout the last few weeks of our high school career. On the next to last day of school, I finally got the nerve to ask him something I had been wondering for 12 years: what was so wrong with me that made him run, screaming in terror, down the primary colored hallways of our youth?

I could tell by the feigned look of confusion on his face the he knew exactly what I was talking about. I admitted that it had often bothered me that I didn't know his true reason from running away from me so many years before. He simply explained that, well, for one, he was terrified of getting cooties at that age and was sure it was the first grader's form of AIDS and two, he didn't like girls at all. Not then, not now, not ever.

I was the first person J came out to, but I wasn't the first to know. Apparently, at his high school, he was constantly bullied for his sexual orientation. He was outcasted and overall shunned from everyone he knew. He had to hide who he truly was on the inside, in order to keep his world together on the outside. He was in a constant state of sorrow and torment and I could see it in his eyes that one day, things would break. Over that summer I convinced J to come out to his parents. I convinced him that out of everyone in this world, they would be the most loving and understanding ones to tell. One night, as I waited in his driveway, he came running out of his house, bag in hand, and tears in his eyes....I was wrong. He was kicked out of his house and was running off to live with his boyfriend who was older and had his own place. I kindly comforted him and assured him everything was going to be perfectly fine as I drove my heartbroken best friend to the last place I would ever see him. I made him promise me he would be okay as he left my car, and I watched him enter the apartment in my rearview mirror as I drove off into the dusk.

Four days later I was lying a carton of chocolate milk on his freshly dug grave. J had gone to that apartment, found the spare key, entered the living room, and shot himself with a gun he had hidden in his bag. His boyfriend was the first on the scene, arriving just twenty minutes after I dropped him off.

Humans are strange creatures, so desperately needing the approval of others in our species...and if we fail to receive that approval, we're drastically emotional. So let this be a reminder to you, that no matter if you make a disgusted face, or call someone a mean name, or bully someone relentlessly because they're different from you....there will be a reaction. They might bottle it up for years and let it just be a small memory from their foolish childhood, or it might be the last thing they're ever thinking of....

Be kind. Spread peace.

You're always in my heart J. I hope there are fountains of chocolate milk in heaven.

-Katie

I Go Blind

Hello world,

     I believe that every first blog post always feels like an introduction on the first day of school. You know the feeling, the awkward standing in front of a classroom full of snobby kids that you know are secretly judging you as you stutter over your own name and what you wanted to be when you "grew up." So here it goes...

Hi, my name is Katie Hall and I'm from a tiny town called Vinemont, Alabama. I grew up here on a secluded farm-like setting and drove about twenty minutes to school every day of my K-12 career. I maintained excellent grades throughout school and participated in many riveting and social skill developing after school activities such as marching band and drama club. I was on the color guard, in the symphonic band, jazz band, and pit orchestra. In case you haven't been able to tell already, I'm a huge nerd. 

I graduated and moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama to a school more known for its football abilities than its academics. A school that pays their head coach more than my entire department of professors combined and multiplied by six. (We know our priorities here people, and that's beating the snot out of Auburn and Florida *cought*Tebow for criesman *cough*)

So here it goes, the first intro piece:

I have been urged to start blogging again by several of my friends, family, and professors. After turning in what I assumed was a well-written paper to a public relations professor before spring break, he called me into his office for a meeting. He sat me down and asked me very seriously why I was not in the journalism field. I answered very jokingly that it was because I enjoy eating and having a roof over my head at night and they don't pay journalists enough to have those "luxuries." He then urged me to start writing every day just to see how it works. He knows I have been struggling with some personal identification problems lately and he wants to see if this will help. I appreciate his concern but highly doubt that my personal musings will turn me into the next Carrie Bradshaw....

but then again, you never know.