In Anatomy today Jacob brought up the fact that Monica was using her Xanga again, and I suggested that we should bring it back.  So this is my lame attempt at it.  You should go read his, because I'm sure it's a lot more interesting, and all that there seems to be on mine is whining about being with boys I shouldn't have dated.  It's annoying.  But I guess I can change that now.  If Jacob writes an awesome blog, then I will too; though I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty boring.

So howdy Xanga, how have you been?  :)

I've been sucked back in...as if I didn't know this would happen.  But honestly, it has been better.  Well, I say that now.  It could change.  But lately, I've been happy.  Happier than I thought I could be.  So now I'm left to wonder when this will end, when things will change, when I'll have to give up this happy state and return to the dumps in which I've been quietly residing for so long.  I know one day my turn will be over, and sadness will swoop back down and take me.  But right now...today...I'm savoring the peace and happiness.  These feelings are pretty much indescribable, and yet it's simply a joy to experience them, sort through them, examine them.  I'd like to bottle them up and store them in a safe place so I can take them out and have them on a really bad day, so I'll be able to remember a time when I was at peace with the world and happy with my place in it. 

Choices arise...I'm really not sure which path to follow.  Time will help me decide.  Right now, I'm scared and naive and idealistic.  But with time, I'll be more sure, I hope.  I'm really just grateful for all of this.  It's hard to explain...it's hard when I'm making this public and I'm not sure who will come across my words.  But I just want to thank Heathus for the experience.  That's the least I can do.

I've been seeing him and talking to him for I guess about a week now.  It was alright in the beginning, but now it's the same as it was last time.  He doesn't talk to me, he doesn't return my texts or calls.  And I'm sitting with my phone everyday, wondering.

I can't believe it's happening all over again.  I can't believe I fell for it!  The worst part is that I still had feelings for him after all that time.  But now I see how it's going to be.  I can't do this anymore.  I've seen too many good movies to believe that the one I'm supposed to be with is someone who treats me this way.  I was ready to accept it, but not now.  Where's my Mr. Darcy, dammit?  Where's my Prince Charming?  I'll find him, I know.  But first I have to get out of this...god, it's not even a relationship.  But whatever it is, I'm done.

He's back.  After five months, he's started talking to me again.  After taking off to California without letting me know, after failing to return my texts and calls, after leaving me alone to wonder what the hell happened, he's back now, wanting to be with me.

He called while I was on the first date I had ventured upon since he had stopped talking to me.  Just as I had finally, really, actually started with this "moving on" business...he called me.  I'm sitting at the table with this guy that I don't even know, this guy who likes me for no reason, who stares at me in class and wanted to go out with me, and my ex that hasn't spoken to me in five months is calling me.

I didn't answer.  I can imagine into what expression my face contorted when I saw his name on the screen of my cell, because immediately my sister asked, "Is it Ryan?"  And I just nodded numbly and tried not to look at Andrew.  I made my phone shut up and laughed it off, explaining that he probably just had the wrong number or something.

Then he texted me.  He wanted me to call him soon since he was home from California.

WTF.  I never knew he was in California.  All I knew was that five months ago our relationship had slowly deteriorated because he refused to talk to me.  He didn't want me.  He dropped me.  And now he's telling me he wants to talk to me?  Son of a bitch.  I didn't answer.

Andrew and I and my sister and her boyfriend went to a movie and I tried to forget about what had happened.  I turned my phone off and enjoyed the comedy, although the truth is that I didn't feel comfortable with Andrew.  It seemed as if anytime I laughed, he would, as if trying to prove that we thought the same things were funny, that we had stuff in common.  But really, we had never talked to each other much.  And sitting with him in that theatre didn't change things.  We didn't hold hands.  We barely touched.  Eventually he leaned over enough so our shoulders were grazing.  But that was it.  And I didn't mind.

When we got out of the movie I turned my phone on to see that Ryan had called again.  And I couldn't help but wonder what the hell could be so important that he would call again after I had ignored his first call and text.

So I answered the text, wanting to know why he wanted to talk to me.  He said since he had been gone for a long time he wanted to know how I was doing.  I told him I was just living.  He replied by saying he lived closer to me now.  I didn't care.  But he wanted to see me the next day so we could talk.

Sensibly, I would have said no.  But of course I said yes.  Why did I say yes?  Why did I say yes?  I shouldn't have even been talking to him.  I was on a date with someone.  And my sister and her boyfriend and my older sister were all giving me a hard time about talking to him, wanting to know what he was saying.  So what the hell was doing?

There's no hiding it.  I had never gotten over him.  We had only dated for a month in the summer and for some reason I had fallen head over heels into deep shit that apparently was still smelling five months later.  And due to my silly yet strong belief in fate, I couldn't ignore the fact that he had interrupted a date, not to mention the only date I had gone on after dumping him.  Maybe this had happened for a reason.  Maybe I was never able to forget him because I wasn't supposed to.

But why would fate or Heathus or God or Zeus or whatever it is bring me back to someone who had hurt me so badly?  Am I supposed to give him a second chance, or is this some kind of sick test to see whether I can avoid getting treated like crap again?  If it's the latter, I'm failing miserably.  Because no matter how mad I ever was at him, when he looks at me with those fucking pretty eyes I can't do a damn thing to save myself.  There's just something about him that totally disarms me.  Something in the way he moves attracts me like no other lover.  (Thank you George.  Or should I be thanking Patti?)

Anyway, I met him the next day even though I was on another double date.  I didn't think it was going to take very long, but it did.  In the beginning, all I wanted was an explanation.  And then he had to keep asking if I still had feelings for him and wanting to know if we could try again.  So I stayed too long at the park, and even worse, I enjoyed it.  Because he was still making me laugh and still making me feel a way I couldn't with anyone else.  I got in trouble when I got home because one of my sisters told my mom where I had gone.  But honestly, I didn't really mind.  I was just glad I had gotten to see Ryan again.  Andrew didn't even seem to mind that I had gone.  If he did, he hid it well.  When he left he gave me a long hug and I can't even try to tell you how much I wanted it to feel right so I could focus on someone else.  I tried so hard to sink in and enjoy it.  But I just couldn't.

The next day was Christmas Eve and my sister's boyfriend and Andrew came over again.  And I was texting Ryan during most of the date.  We had agreed--or rather, I had decided--that we would just be friends during the period that I was grounded and then when I was allowed to see him again we could try to be more.  I had explained to him that frankly I was nervous about getting into another relationship with him since he had hurt me last time.  But he kept insisting that he hadn't meant to and that it wouldn't happen again since now he was home for good.  Still, I wasn't sure.  He called me that night and we only talked for a little while before he said he was going to call his mom to ask what he should do about the chest pains he had been having all day.  He said he'd call me after talked to her, but I didn't hear from him again that night.  I was pissed, as you can imagine.  Had he seriously faked a heart attack just to get off the phone with me?

The next day was Christmas, so I decided to let it slide and forgive him.  I texted him a Merry Xmas and asked if he felt any better.  He said he was in the hospital.  You can imagine how bad I felt when he said that.  But anyway, somehow I got permission from my mom to go visit him since his family was out of town and he didn't have anyone there for him on Christmas.  It was good to see him, even though he was attached to all these machines and the doctors still hadn't found out what was wrong with him.  I couldn't stay long and my sister was with me, but I really was grateful that I had been able to see him and make him feel better on what must have been an awful Christmas.

But now it's getting harder and harder to be without him.  I keep texting him but I'm trying to keep it limited because I don't want to get too attached like I did last time.  And what's really making it hard is seeing everyone else with their boyfriends and girlfriends.  I know it's stupid, but the truth is that it depresses me because I don't get to be with the one I want.  My family hates him and I'm too scared to tell my friends that he's back.  I don't like to imagine what they'd think of me if they knew.  It's just...incredibly stressful to have these feelings for someone and have no support from anyone else.

And now I'm talking to him on the phone and Andrew is texting me, wanting to hang out tomorrow.  This whole situation is just miserable.

So this is the last day of summer '08.  And I have to say that it's been one pretty god damn weird summer.

Work definitely took up most of my time.  And work introduced me to my current boyfriend, who I should not be dating because he is so horribly wrong for me.  But since that's the way my life seems to go, always, always, I can't get enough of the fucker.  I miss him all the damn time.  It's gross.  Maybe if he hadn't mysteriously stopped talking to me I'd have the balls to dump him so I could try to move on.  But then when he finally does start talking to me I feel guilty for wanting to leave, and he's got all these excuses, and I've got all these doubts, and he says he'll call me later and it's another week before we interact again.  My ego thinks I'm too fabulous to be treated this way, my sensibility thinks it's all keeping me humble, and and my naivete is so in love with him that I have to wait for him.  I'm wrapped around his finger and that's that.

Work also was the location of a very strange and scary incident that happened to me at the beginning of the summer, one of those things that you never think actually happens till it happens to you out of nowhere and realize that the world is still a big scary place with real bad guys in it.  Well, it was an experience.  Very strange to have police officers calling the house wanting to talk to you.  I don't really like it.  Unless it's Jim Gordon.  Then come on over, darling, we have a lot to discuss.

My sister's gone off to college, and though it hasn't really sunk in quite yet, it'll be weird in a while.  Poof, gone, out of the house, smell ya later.  In a positive light it finally convinced my parents to buy me a car and get me my license.  Me, driving a car.  Driving around.  In a car.  Me.  It doesn't make sense.  It's just strange.

Cross Country's been weird for a lot of reasons, one being that I'm now one of the oldest kids there.  My fourth year doing it, and to tell the truth I'm getting kind of tired of it.  We had our first meet yesterday and on the way there I felt kind of silly sitting on the bus with a bunch of high school girls.  I've never felt that way before, like I'd outgrown it all, even though I'm still in high school like everyone else.  It might have something to do with the fact that I'm dating a 20-year old and dealing with all this "grown-up" stuff that's come about because of that, but...I don't know.  I just felt too old, like I was fooling myself and everyone else on the team.

I watched I'm Not There last night, the biopic about Bob Dylan with all those actors portraying different parts of his life.  I found it incredibly depressing.  The whole time I was watching it I felt trapped by the ironic fact that I don't really have these defined boundaries of what makes me me.  And these actors, they're playing these black-and-white versions of Bob Dylan, like they already know everything about him, and what makes him up and everything that's inside of him.  And I was like, Well fuck, I'd like to know everything about me.  I'd like to know what makes me me, what makes me different from the next boring bastard, why I should think of myself differently than the lady walking her dog outside my house or the dude who dropped my mail off this afternoon or even my friends.  Because all I see now is a stupid 17-year-old girl who always makes the wrong choices and has all these great plans but never carries them out and knows the way life should be but can't seem to do a damn thing about it.  I'd like to be more, but so does everyone else.  When you don't have school to worry about you have a lot of time to think about that kind of crap, and that's also made up a good bit of my summer, trying to find the answer to the big things and the little things and It All.  It get frustrating.  It gets scary.  And it gets better and better.

So goodbye summer of '08, get the hell out of here so I can look back on you and smile and cry and laugh because you were so god damn weird.