Ted Hugh's Poem on Sylvia's Death.

I don't want to die. Die is too strong of a word because then I would cease to exist and that wouldn't work because eventually, I am sure I will want to exist again. But right now, that death feeling is what is living inside of me and eating me from the bottom of the soles of my feet right into my aching brain. I don't want to die but I have this odd desire not to live right now either.

I have no purpose at the moment. I'm just writing this blog that is entirely for my own processing of the world, which is entirely static at this moment. So I am just writing about my inner psychosis which only brings to light things that I would prefer to leave buried in my repression. And then I do some homework which feels like I am just going through the motions, without reason or passion or desire to further my learning. I guess the best analogy I have right now is that I am treading water.

After a while of treading water, you get fucking tired. Fucking tired of doing something so mindless and fucking tired of having nothing to occupy your wandering mind but the fact that your life really fucking sucks at the moment. That's the point I've hit.

I'm not waving but drowning. And actually, I'm not really waving at all. I want to wave but right now, I don't know how because I am just too fucking tired wallowing in my own sorrow to make myself wallow less and get my hands above water.

...I don't know where I am to go from here. I am not sure how plotting my course will save me from myself and the life I've created. I do know, however, that writing all of this has to be inspiration to swim to some floatation device.

Back to December.

The new Taylor Swift single out, Back to December, is all about regret. She loses someone that is important to her, a fact she realizes only after he is no longer a part of her life. That old adage, you don't know what you have until its gone, rings in one's ears as they listen to this ballad.

Most of the time, I know who I need in my life. I don't think it's a sixth sense or anything. I just think that I am so picky about who I really care about that there is no reason should I be trying to hold onto extraneous people or situations. When I first heard the song, it reminded me of someone I had been seeing and where I first felt the heart string tug surprised me. Did I miss what we had or is T.Swift trying to turn me into some sort of sap? The momentary lapse in mental footing passed and I could return to the logic of the situation: we weren't right for one another. The way I handled the whole shindig is beyond inexcusable but at the very crux of my immature behavior was the undeniable notion that, no, that wasn't meant to be.

But then there are other people and I swear to God everyday that if I never saw them again, I would be a much healthier and happier person. So I keep telling myself that, rehearsing the lines when people ask if I've seen them, and try to convince my stubborn self that I really don't need them in my life. There are so many reasons why I shouldn't care and why they shouldn't care about me (another vestige of my immaturity at its finest) but there is nothing I can do to make myself give up having them in my life.

I think having a time line on life here is also impelling me to freak out about the end note, a phenomena I experienced full force this summer post CLOC. And while I know that the friendships that matter in life will actually span states, years, divorces, whatever, it is still hard to come to terms with the fact that next year, this time, this life here will be continuing while I am off starting a new adventure. And maybe, just maybe, I need to figure out who really matters before the time comes to put that to the test.

My Own Craziness.

I watched an episode of House tonight where the patient kept a blog detailing every aspect of her life. The reason she started the blog, she explained, was because it was easier to share her feelings and thoughts when there wasn't a face attached. She asked Dr. Chase what his conversations were like with Cameron before they broke up...Was it just where they would go to dinner or how their days were or was it something meaningful? Later in the episode, her husband accused the blog of becoming like a performance and that his wife was writing to please her audience of readers.

I felt this strange mix of emotions for this fictional dying woman. And then I felt a strange mix of emotions for my dear blog here. I suppose that it is pretty apparent that I don't write about specifics here. You never really get a daily dose in the life or a complete anecdote of an incident. All of this is analysis, the story has been stripped to the morals and the themes and then bolstered with paragraphs of wordy diatribes that further obscure the details of the event that made me sit down and write. This approach to writing is nothing new and is a hallmark of many of my sophomore attempts to write a short story or memoir for creative writing class. I love details and deep thoughts but I cannot bring myself to detail an event or tell a reader what exactly happened. Perhaps I am preventing myself from being my own Holden Caulfield, the unreliable narrator English teachers warned me about in high school.

While some writers reserve their strangely analytical thought processes to remain in print format, I've earned myself the title of "delver". It's a hat I don't think I should wear as proudly as I do. I love to think aloud with people and to ask questions to get them to a revelation or myself to one. I like to think that there is a reason for everything and that that reason is influenced by a multitude of other nitty gritty things that I should be able to piece together. But this exploratory process is only done well with best friends...the kinds that doesn't judge you or look at you like your crazy, they may call you out but never tell you to stop the madness. So, yes, dying fictional patient who writes a blog but didn't die, my last conversation with my ex-nothing was indeed meaningful.

As for the writing for an audience thing, this is my Off Off Off Off Off Broadway in corn pasture Iowa way of sharing my thoughts. If I am writing solely to shed myself of the burden of my pent up psychosis, I type in this word document that is merely a collection of free writes. I pound out a page of thoughts, unfiltered words and cruise through pains and joys and whatever else told me to open that damn file. Speaking of which, I think my subconscious agrees that this should have been a free write because I have accidentally opened Word about five times since I started writing this.

I'm not sure what this entry says about me or what this blog as a whole says about me as a member of the blogging society. I'm also not sure what mind boggling thoughts are keeping me from falling asleep right now but I do know, beyond reasonable doubt that blogging is just boggling with the l moved.

Bangs, Baubles and Bumpers.

The woman who changes her hair is ready to change her life

- Coco Chanel

The night before we all left CLOC, my friend Brynn decided to cut her bangs. Embracing the wonderful state of limbo Brynny was about to find herself in as she reentered reality, measures were taken to show that she was indeed ready to face the changes ahead. Sometimes when we are faced with the possibility of change in our lives, an uncontrollable approaching switch in routine, we decide to change something that we are in control of. It's as if the process we fear the most is less scary if we are in control of some aspect of it. Brynn entered into a world of unknowns and fill in the blanks with positively fierce bangs. On a side note, for all of you non-CLOC kids, Brynn faced this monumental change with total and utter grace. She never once said that she was sure of anything but it never seemed life there was something she couldn't handle if it came her way. Brynn's strength and courage throughout the season and especially on this subject was one that I admired greatly. I hope the best for her and can't imagine anything less for such a wonderful human being.

My version of the hair transformation (I've beaten this mop up over the past months) was to clean the Batmobile inside and out. The thing that takes the most abuse and that I love so much never really gets my tender love and care. Today, impelled by some long dormant inner conscience, I decided to clean my car. If you know me and that janky mobile at all, you know the extent of this process and what a feat it was for me to clean of my own free will. With each cleaning measure it became more clear that if I could clean the Batmobile I could handle anything next year was to bring. The car, coming with me to Cincinnati for the first time, is a clean slate...she's still got all of the dents of my adolescence, the scarpes of my careless summer adventures but now she's all TLC's (with toothbrush cleaned wheels even) and ready for new shenanigans. I have no idea what's to come next year...I have no idea what I want to do as a career...I'm toying with about 800 bad ideas for both scenarios and all I know is that Brynn's bangs, my clean car and Coco Chanel say that anything is possible.

A Number.

I've decided that age is a very transient phenomenon. Our state of mind, our capacity to handle stress and change, our emotional responses to scenarios, all defining markers of a certain age, change drastically in every day life. There are so many times when I feel as though every fiber of my being is trying to be another age. I always feel so defined by my age and yet I hardly ever act 19. I suppose there are moments when I am embodying what it means to be a 19 year old, going off for her sophomore year of college but I hardly ever think to myself "You are being such a 19 year old right now." I can be five years old or twelve or fourty-two or really anywhere in between.

Age is a mental state. When you watch your best friend leave and feel alone, scared, sad and just overall want to throw a tempertantrum to get them back, you are 5 again. You're back to a time when screaming and crying either got you what you wanted or kept you amused until you forgot what hurt you and found somewhere else to focus your attention. When you send text messages to a friend in the room about another friend in the room, you are 14 again. You're back to a time when you are judgy just for the sake of being so and you are insecure enough to pick on everyone to make sure that you weren't the one getting picked on. When you're leaving childhood home and feeling a pang of lose, you are 18 again. You're back to a time when the real world was just some fantastical place that you wanted so desperately to be a part of only to realize that growing up meant leaving things and people behind.

So maybe age is a relapse into former mental states ingrained in you. Maybe its just you, the you now, deciding that the best way to handle what you are facing is to return to some familiar way of dealing. And perhaps, age is an addition formula. Each year adds to you and who you will become.

In each 19 year old, there is a five year old and a twelve year old and all those years in between.

Almost Like Being in Love.

As months and shows come to pass here at CLOC, this delusional way of life sets further into our psyche and habits. What at first seemed like an impossibly hectic schedule has become second nature to us. The friends we've made within the confines of this company have effortlessly become as close to us as those friends we've known exponentially longer. I think that by condensing a process that most of us know to take many more days than what we're given here makes the reality created here consume us far quicker and with an increased emotional intensity unmatched by any I've been a part of. We find ourselves receding deeper and deeper into the realm of CLOCadoon, a mysterious land that exists only for 9 shows, because trying to handle the facts of the real world on top of the stressors here feels impossible in the moment.

But reality has a strange way of rearing its head even in the recluse of CLOCadoon. It's funny how it works. I'm thinking about how much I wish I had a coffeemaker here and then I think about having one in my apartment next year, apartment with no furnishing, classes I need books for, friends who think I am dead...And down comes the carefully built Jenga tower protecting my fictional reality here. CLOC is just a summer and when I get out of here, I'm back in my real life, the life I've been utterly neglecting here in favor of emotional stability.

As the Jenga facade crumbles, one starts to question the newly exposed fantastical reality. The rosy colored CLOC glasses get removed, I don my all too real jade specs and objectively look at CLOCadoon as one would a travel brochure. I see me being unmistakably myself and being friends with people who are really and truly friends I value outside and inside of fictional lands.

I feel confronted with the fact that CLOCadoon will disappear into the mist and fog but the lessons I've learned and the people I've become close to will always be a part of my real world.

Every chapter of life, place you've lived, school you've been to, is its own mysterious land that arises only for a certain period of time. It will disappear and the people involved might fade with it but what matters is that it happened and served to change you and your 'real world'.

Punctuated Thus.

I made a very bold statement today. It went something like, “I am truly myself here” and just as soon as the words fell so effortlessly from my lips I started to weigh the gravity of the sentence. What does it mean to be truly one’s self? What does it feel like to know, entirely, who you are? Is knowing who you are meaning that you feel comfortable with the unknowns of your life and of your personality or is knowing being entirely sure? Do I know when I am truly myself or is that a case made by those around me?

As these questions swirled in my conscience, I started to think about all of the other times I’ve said that phrase. Each time was in a different scenario, in a different time of my life, in a different place entirely and I was almost entirely different every single time but each time I said, with certainty mind you, that I was myself.

I think that admitting that you are truly yourself at certain points in your life is a way to tabulate the portions of yourself that you have become comfortable with and have enough confidence to admit that you appreciate about who you are. Each of the times I said I was myself came as a marked decision that I was comfortable in the skin I was wearing at that moment. This year alone, I’ve said that loaded statement four times. The first time was at the beginning of the school year as I became friends with the CCM girls. That time, I was myself, the artist. The next time was when I became very close to two friends and considered them my best friends. That time, I was myself, feeling, emotional, dramatic. The third time, I was changing my major and accepting the fact that I care too much and am too weak to ever make it in the world of theater or stage management. That time, I was myself, the empathetic and unsure. This time, I am being goofy and five and not trying to hide any of my oddities to please people who are older than me. I am myself, the responsible child.

So each time we make the claim that we are entirely ourselves, we should consider ourselves self confident, if only for even that moment. Because for one small sentence, we are saying that we are proud to be living the life we are, exactly how we are. We human beings change, along with most other things in this world, and therefore the proclamation is saying that in this moment, this me is who I want to be and I am beautiful for it.

I can say the afore said because of the people I have met here at CLOC and how wonderful the entire company has been to work with. There is no reason I feel as though I need to be anyone other than who I am at this very point in my life. That is the greatest gift I can ask for from any group of people and artists.