and ziggy marley played on his radio...
I'm trying to be as incredibly happy as I can, and not focus on reality. But is this reality? Am I really just dreaming?
..why is it that when everything else in my life has to go wrong, something I truly, truly hope for starts to go right? Is this some sort of compensation for what's sucking?
To explain:
The night before last, I got into a huge fight with my mom. Huge. Full scale screaming-- my throat is still sore (though that could also be from last night, which I will get to). I kept telling her to go away. That's all I would say, over and over. "Go away, go away, go away. I don't want to talk about this. I don't want to fight. Go away, go away!" She didn't listen. I called my grandma and asked her to come get me. My mom called my grandma and told her she would not allow my grandma to come get me. So I said, "Fine; I'll leave myself." She said, "If you take one foot out that door, I'm calling the cops." I did step. She did call. So I was lectured by a cop for an hour.
Then my grandma did convince my mom to let her take me. Then I stayed at my grandma's all day yesterday and just vegged. Luckily, I did not have school yesterday or today.
I came home yesterday; I told my mom I would not talk to her about the fight. That was my boundary. I went in my room, and I wrote in purple marker on a piece of notebook paper:
"THE TOP THREE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS I COULD DO FOR MYSELF:
1. BELIEVE IN ME (...so I will love me.)
2. EMBRACE CHANGE (...so I will live.)
3. REACH OUT (...so I will learn.)"
I hung it on my wall.
Maybe that was a magic action. Maybe that's what's helping me turn around some things in my life. Maybe that self-help book and CD, The Secret? Yeah, maybe it's right. If I think positive, if I envision in my head what I hope for and I just dream and dream and believe, then it can come. If I think negative things will happen, they will happen.
Maybe it's also completely wrong. But I don't want to think that, because at least most of this is working out. This thing called life. Most. I wish it could be more.
I'll keep wishing it could be more.
- - -
Last night, after lying on a bed and watching a movie with my mom, it became time to go pick Brandon up from practice. For the past couple days now, I've been thinking about talking to Jordi-- yes, that guy I had a crush on around Homecoming. I still have a crush on him. All that's changed is that it's a bigger crush than before. Well anyway, I was thinking about talking to him about helping me raise Brandon's confidence on the field. Jordi's very nice and funny towards my brother, kind of takes him under his wing and that stuff.
In the car, my mom mentioned that she was thinking of asking Jordi to give Brandon a ride to his game (which is today). I said I'd ask, since I wanted to talk to him anyway. I found Jordi; we joked a little, and then he started to walk away.
I forced myself to blurt out: "Jordi, got a sec?"
He replied, "Yeah" and turned around. I said, "Listen, you.. well, please don't feel obligated or anything, but my mom and I were wondering if you could give Brandon a ride to the game tomorrow? My mom doesn't really feel like driving all the way out to Hillsboro an hour early and then having to drive back and get ready and stuff."
"Well I can make sure he has a ride. I don't know if I'm driving, but if I'm not, my 'rents are, so I could probably work it out with them."
"That'd be great, thanks."
"Yeah, no problem. Follow me to my car and let me get your guys' number."
So Brandon went and got his stuff, while I followed Jordi to his car. I knew he wanted Brandon's cell phone number, so I don't know why I followed him, because I don't know my brother's cell number from memory. So I just said what else I wanted to say:
"Hey, Jordi. I also wanted to say that I just really appreciate how nice you've been to my brother and--"
"Why wouldn't I be nice to your brother?" he interrupted, and I was startled because I hadn't finished the long spiel I had practiced in my head all day.
"I-I-I.. I would never think-- I have no reason to believe you wouldn't be," I struggled out, and he chuckled.
"Yeah, I like the little guy."
Brandon arrived then, and gave his number to Jordi. Afterwards some more joking ensued, while Jordi said he would call some time the next day, maybe even that night. "How late would you be up?" he asked. And I joked, not realizing how literal this would become, "2 A.M." He said "I'll be up 'til 2" at the exact time I said my "2 A.M."
Then we said our goodbyes, laughing.
I went home and we ate dinner. Then I went and laid in the master bedroom, on the comfy bed, where I was watching a movie with my mom earlier. Brandon turned on a different movie, The Underworld, and I had seen it already so I fell asleep.
At exactly 12:28, my mother started shaking me awake like she was having a heart attack. I was wrong: it was just a spaz attack.
"Jordi's texting you! Jordi's texting you! He texted Brandon and asked for your number and now he's texting you!"
I mumbled "good joke" and rolled over. She ripped the covers off and I sat up to find my brother with my phone, texting something to Jordi as if he were me.
I tried to backtrack and figure out what was going on, and then took the phone and texted Jordi back. It was just chit-chat for a while, but I was so slow at texting-- augh, it was so embarrassing and I felt so lame. But I laughed at his texts, and he was patient.
He texted me:
"so y were u so thankful 4 me bein nice 2 ur bro? r ppl mean 2 him @all?"
I texted back:
"I was thankful b-cuz my family's going thru a really rough time rite now, & I watch my bro hurting -- his confidence is especially low in LAX games" (LAX = lacrosse)
"& you've bcome a great inspiring role model 2 him, & 2 me as well"
he texted:
"Is thr smthin i cld do 2 hlp? i cld take hm 2 n frm practise 4 u guys n other stuff whtevr u need ill do my best 2 help. if u need 2 talk 2 i'm here. 4 u and Jr. Pirate" (Jordi has this thing about pirates, and calls Brandon his Jr. Pirate, hehe)
I texted:
"Really? Jordi, u r so wonderful! Thanku. Talking is very helpful"
he texted:
"I like talkin... haha. r u busy 2morrow round ten?"
And here I swear my heart was beating so fast he would have heard it should be have been talking over the phone. Jordi? Wanted to do something with me?
I texted:
"AM or PM? haha"
he texted:
"AM. i have 2 put this basket 2gether 4 a silent auction. and the theme i have 2 do is summer. so I was hopin that u n Brandini cld come 2 target n help me out?"
I texted (here, I guess I felt lucky-- hell, it WAS the 20th now, and my horoscope said this time is prime for flirting):
"So i get 2 b in charge of bikini wear & ur in charge of beach balls? ;)"
I guess this really got his attention, because instead of texting, he called!
I answered and we talked and we laughed and we flirted. It was nonsensical, small talk, nothing deep and profound, but I was so giddy and happy. I probably made a fool out of myself a bunch of times, but whatever. I felt good. We talked up to 2:45 A.M. So I had a conversation going with the guy I've been literally dreaming about for a total of 2 hours and 15 minutes. And it was.. so great.
Until... he talked about Tawna. A girl he's dating. I like Tawna. She's nice, I guess. I used to talk to her a lot in gradeschool. At least, I think I did? But I know I was jealous of her when she dated the boy I loved at that time, too, and now I was incredibly jealous. But I was cheerful, and I said I was happy for him. Maybe he picked up on a down undertone in my voice or something though, because then he said he was gonna try going to sleep and he'd call us in the morning to arrange going to Target.
So this is what I'm trying to push out of my head. Tawna. I want to respect them both. I don't want to become jealous and pushy.
So I'm really just trying to not think at all about her, to ignore it, to just be myself and act on impulse. I'm not going to be religiously praying for them to break up and I'm not going to sabotage them, but I'm not going to lie: it would be something in my favor if they did break up. So I'll just do that light sort of wishy-washy dreaming. Where I ignore reality and just envision the positive things I want-- where I listen to that book, The Secret. I won't worry about how it'll happen and I'll just keep the thought of catching Jordi's interest in my mind.
I feel it could work. Not betting my life on it, but I was certainly not thinking about how I would get to talk and hang with Jordi, I was thinking about what it could be like -- and guess what! Now I've experienced what it's like. Because that's what I focused on.
I feel it could work. It could. A girl can dream, and I did just that when I closed my eyes for sleep.
- - -
So I woke up at 9 A.M.; this was both really nice and really sucky. Nice: I woke up in time for Jordi's phone call. Sucky: Had to leave my dream with Jordi in it behind instead.
THIS IS WHERE YOU LAUGH AT ME
THIS IS WHERE YOU SHUT UP
This is where I continue:
I gave him shitty directions to our house, so he had to call when he was lost, but soon after we hung up he got here in his little blue 81 Honda that we could barely fit in. We went shopping. We laughed. I flirted at Target a tiny bit.
Then we got back in the car-- and it would be repetetive to keep saying "we joked and laughed," because we did this the entire time. So just keep this in mind.
When we got to the school, to drop off the silent auction things, the teacher we were supposed to give it to, Mrs. Steffeck, was on lunch. So Brandon and Jordi opened the little foam kid's lacrosse sticks they found for the basket and played in the hallway. This is where Jordi flirted with me-- hitting my but with the lacrosse stick everytime I passed or bent over to pick up the ball they dropped. Key Club was at the school, and they were painting the office, and Jordi and I are in Key Club (when we remember to go to meetings), so we knew the people there. We talked with them, and then they got pizza, and Jordi and Brandon were like "We're SO there." So I talked to Jessica while everyone else ate-- I really didn't feel like eating. Too nervous, and not very hungry for pizza anyway. I sipped my 7Up and browsed through my camera with Jessica, flirting discreetly (or not so discreetly, depending on how in tune to those kind of things people are) with Jordi across the lunch table from me by saying aloud things like, "There's the picture you could definitely blackmail me with." "Heather will not let me delete this one." "My dad would kill me if he saw this." Things like that. So naturally, curiosity captured the Leo (Jordi), and he meandered over to sit next to me when the person who was sitting next to me got up, and he demanded he see these pictures of me.
This I would consider lots of flirting, since most of them were of my breasts in a pretty dress from Winter Formal (pictures which my friend Heather took, and a couple had her co-starring in them), or the sand-breasts-- the ones I made at the beach this Spring Break. At the Winter Formal pictures, he laughed and said, "Hey, I didn't say you could take pictures of me that night." And at the sand-breasts thing, he said, "Yep, those're nice." I said, "They better be if I'm to consider myself an artist." We talked a little about art, which led to the upcoming art show, and I mentioned I wanted to find time to work on something for that. He asked me what I might do, and I said, "Probably a detailed pencil portrait and then some representative watercolor piece." He said, "Who'd the portrait be of?" I flirted, "Maybe a lacrosse player." And he said, "Do me," and I laughed because I'm a pervert and he smiled. I told him he'd either have to hold still really long or give me a real good picture of him, and he told me to bring my camera to the game tonight. I said I just might.
After they ate, Jordi and Brandon continued to pass the ball back and forth with the lacrosse sticks, but soon Jordi was more interested in either a) shooting the ball into a garbage can, b) shooting the ball at me, or c) tapping my butt with the stick.
Then Mrs. Steffeck came, finally, though I admit I was also a little sad that my time with Jordi was ending, and yet we still had fun.
It's just.. I guess it's been a really great day, and with the guy I've liked all school year.
I want to keep this feeling of happiness, and of hope.
..why is it that when everything else in my life has to go wrong, something I truly, truly hope for starts to go right? Is this some sort of compensation for what's sucking?
To explain:
The night before last, I got into a huge fight with my mom. Huge. Full scale screaming-- my throat is still sore (though that could also be from last night, which I will get to). I kept telling her to go away. That's all I would say, over and over. "Go away, go away, go away. I don't want to talk about this. I don't want to fight. Go away, go away!" She didn't listen. I called my grandma and asked her to come get me. My mom called my grandma and told her she would not allow my grandma to come get me. So I said, "Fine; I'll leave myself." She said, "If you take one foot out that door, I'm calling the cops." I did step. She did call. So I was lectured by a cop for an hour.
Then my grandma did convince my mom to let her take me. Then I stayed at my grandma's all day yesterday and just vegged. Luckily, I did not have school yesterday or today.
I came home yesterday; I told my mom I would not talk to her about the fight. That was my boundary. I went in my room, and I wrote in purple marker on a piece of notebook paper:
"THE TOP THREE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS I COULD DO FOR MYSELF:
1. BELIEVE IN ME (...so I will love me.)
2. EMBRACE CHANGE (...so I will live.)
3. REACH OUT (...so I will learn.)"
I hung it on my wall.
Maybe that was a magic action. Maybe that's what's helping me turn around some things in my life. Maybe that self-help book and CD, The Secret? Yeah, maybe it's right. If I think positive, if I envision in my head what I hope for and I just dream and dream and believe, then it can come. If I think negative things will happen, they will happen.
Maybe it's also completely wrong. But I don't want to think that, because at least most of this is working out. This thing called life. Most. I wish it could be more.
I'll keep wishing it could be more.
- - -
Last night, after lying on a bed and watching a movie with my mom, it became time to go pick Brandon up from practice. For the past couple days now, I've been thinking about talking to Jordi-- yes, that guy I had a crush on around Homecoming. I still have a crush on him. All that's changed is that it's a bigger crush than before. Well anyway, I was thinking about talking to him about helping me raise Brandon's confidence on the field. Jordi's very nice and funny towards my brother, kind of takes him under his wing and that stuff.
In the car, my mom mentioned that she was thinking of asking Jordi to give Brandon a ride to his game (which is today). I said I'd ask, since I wanted to talk to him anyway. I found Jordi; we joked a little, and then he started to walk away.
I forced myself to blurt out: "Jordi, got a sec?"
He replied, "Yeah" and turned around. I said, "Listen, you.. well, please don't feel obligated or anything, but my mom and I were wondering if you could give Brandon a ride to the game tomorrow? My mom doesn't really feel like driving all the way out to Hillsboro an hour early and then having to drive back and get ready and stuff."
"Well I can make sure he has a ride. I don't know if I'm driving, but if I'm not, my 'rents are, so I could probably work it out with them."
"That'd be great, thanks."
"Yeah, no problem. Follow me to my car and let me get your guys' number."
So Brandon went and got his stuff, while I followed Jordi to his car. I knew he wanted Brandon's cell phone number, so I don't know why I followed him, because I don't know my brother's cell number from memory. So I just said what else I wanted to say:
"Hey, Jordi. I also wanted to say that I just really appreciate how nice you've been to my brother and--"
"Why wouldn't I be nice to your brother?" he interrupted, and I was startled because I hadn't finished the long spiel I had practiced in my head all day.
"I-I-I.. I would never think-- I have no reason to believe you wouldn't be," I struggled out, and he chuckled.
"Yeah, I like the little guy."
Brandon arrived then, and gave his number to Jordi. Afterwards some more joking ensued, while Jordi said he would call some time the next day, maybe even that night. "How late would you be up?" he asked. And I joked, not realizing how literal this would become, "2 A.M." He said "I'll be up 'til 2" at the exact time I said my "2 A.M."
Then we said our goodbyes, laughing.
I went home and we ate dinner. Then I went and laid in the master bedroom, on the comfy bed, where I was watching a movie with my mom earlier. Brandon turned on a different movie, The Underworld, and I had seen it already so I fell asleep.
At exactly 12:28, my mother started shaking me awake like she was having a heart attack. I was wrong: it was just a spaz attack.
"Jordi's texting you! Jordi's texting you! He texted Brandon and asked for your number and now he's texting you!"
I mumbled "good joke" and rolled over. She ripped the covers off and I sat up to find my brother with my phone, texting something to Jordi as if he were me.
I tried to backtrack and figure out what was going on, and then took the phone and texted Jordi back. It was just chit-chat for a while, but I was so slow at texting-- augh, it was so embarrassing and I felt so lame. But I laughed at his texts, and he was patient.
He texted me:
"so y were u so thankful 4 me bein nice 2 ur bro? r ppl mean 2 him @all?"
I texted back:
"I was thankful b-cuz my family's going thru a really rough time rite now, & I watch my bro hurting -- his confidence is especially low in LAX games" (LAX = lacrosse)
"& you've bcome a great inspiring role model 2 him, & 2 me as well"
he texted:
"Is thr smthin i cld do 2 hlp? i cld take hm 2 n frm practise 4 u guys n other stuff whtevr u need ill do my best 2 help. if u need 2 talk 2 i'm here. 4 u and Jr. Pirate" (Jordi has this thing about pirates, and calls Brandon his Jr. Pirate, hehe)
I texted:
"Really? Jordi, u r so wonderful! Thanku. Talking is very helpful"
he texted:
"I like talkin... haha. r u busy 2morrow round ten?"
And here I swear my heart was beating so fast he would have heard it should be have been talking over the phone. Jordi? Wanted to do something with me?
I texted:
"AM or PM? haha"
he texted:
"AM. i have 2 put this basket 2gether 4 a silent auction. and the theme i have 2 do is summer. so I was hopin that u n Brandini cld come 2 target n help me out?"
I texted (here, I guess I felt lucky-- hell, it WAS the 20th now, and my horoscope said this time is prime for flirting):
"So i get 2 b in charge of bikini wear & ur in charge of beach balls? ;)"
I guess this really got his attention, because instead of texting, he called!
I answered and we talked and we laughed and we flirted. It was nonsensical, small talk, nothing deep and profound, but I was so giddy and happy. I probably made a fool out of myself a bunch of times, but whatever. I felt good. We talked up to 2:45 A.M. So I had a conversation going with the guy I've been literally dreaming about for a total of 2 hours and 15 minutes. And it was.. so great.
Until... he talked about Tawna. A girl he's dating. I like Tawna. She's nice, I guess. I used to talk to her a lot in gradeschool. At least, I think I did? But I know I was jealous of her when she dated the boy I loved at that time, too, and now I was incredibly jealous. But I was cheerful, and I said I was happy for him. Maybe he picked up on a down undertone in my voice or something though, because then he said he was gonna try going to sleep and he'd call us in the morning to arrange going to Target.
So this is what I'm trying to push out of my head. Tawna. I want to respect them both. I don't want to become jealous and pushy.
So I'm really just trying to not think at all about her, to ignore it, to just be myself and act on impulse. I'm not going to be religiously praying for them to break up and I'm not going to sabotage them, but I'm not going to lie: it would be something in my favor if they did break up. So I'll just do that light sort of wishy-washy dreaming. Where I ignore reality and just envision the positive things I want-- where I listen to that book, The Secret. I won't worry about how it'll happen and I'll just keep the thought of catching Jordi's interest in my mind.
I feel it could work. Not betting my life on it, but I was certainly not thinking about how I would get to talk and hang with Jordi, I was thinking about what it could be like -- and guess what! Now I've experienced what it's like. Because that's what I focused on.
I feel it could work. It could. A girl can dream, and I did just that when I closed my eyes for sleep.
- - -
So I woke up at 9 A.M.; this was both really nice and really sucky. Nice: I woke up in time for Jordi's phone call. Sucky: Had to leave my dream with Jordi in it behind instead.
THIS IS WHERE YOU LAUGH AT ME
THIS IS WHERE YOU SHUT UP
This is where I continue:
I gave him shitty directions to our house, so he had to call when he was lost, but soon after we hung up he got here in his little blue 81 Honda that we could barely fit in. We went shopping. We laughed. I flirted at Target a tiny bit.
Then we got back in the car-- and it would be repetetive to keep saying "we joked and laughed," because we did this the entire time. So just keep this in mind.
When we got to the school, to drop off the silent auction things, the teacher we were supposed to give it to, Mrs. Steffeck, was on lunch. So Brandon and Jordi opened the little foam kid's lacrosse sticks they found for the basket and played in the hallway. This is where Jordi flirted with me-- hitting my but with the lacrosse stick everytime I passed or bent over to pick up the ball they dropped. Key Club was at the school, and they were painting the office, and Jordi and I are in Key Club (when we remember to go to meetings), so we knew the people there. We talked with them, and then they got pizza, and Jordi and Brandon were like "We're SO there." So I talked to Jessica while everyone else ate-- I really didn't feel like eating. Too nervous, and not very hungry for pizza anyway. I sipped my 7Up and browsed through my camera with Jessica, flirting discreetly (or not so discreetly, depending on how in tune to those kind of things people are) with Jordi across the lunch table from me by saying aloud things like, "There's the picture you could definitely blackmail me with." "Heather will not let me delete this one." "My dad would kill me if he saw this." Things like that. So naturally, curiosity captured the Leo (Jordi), and he meandered over to sit next to me when the person who was sitting next to me got up, and he demanded he see these pictures of me.
This I would consider lots of flirting, since most of them were of my breasts in a pretty dress from Winter Formal (pictures which my friend Heather took, and a couple had her co-starring in them), or the sand-breasts-- the ones I made at the beach this Spring Break. At the Winter Formal pictures, he laughed and said, "Hey, I didn't say you could take pictures of me that night." And at the sand-breasts thing, he said, "Yep, those're nice." I said, "They better be if I'm to consider myself an artist." We talked a little about art, which led to the upcoming art show, and I mentioned I wanted to find time to work on something for that. He asked me what I might do, and I said, "Probably a detailed pencil portrait and then some representative watercolor piece." He said, "Who'd the portrait be of?" I flirted, "Maybe a lacrosse player." And he said, "Do me," and I laughed because I'm a pervert and he smiled. I told him he'd either have to hold still really long or give me a real good picture of him, and he told me to bring my camera to the game tonight. I said I just might.
After they ate, Jordi and Brandon continued to pass the ball back and forth with the lacrosse sticks, but soon Jordi was more interested in either a) shooting the ball into a garbage can, b) shooting the ball at me, or c) tapping my butt with the stick.
Then Mrs. Steffeck came, finally, though I admit I was also a little sad that my time with Jordi was ending, and yet we still had fun.
It's just.. I guess it's been a really great day, and with the guy I've liked all school year.
I want to keep this feeling of happiness, and of hope.