First/Second to Last

I'm going to type more this year.

Even if it's short and in incomplete sentences.

Today is my first day of class. This is probably the last push of the last hill in my career as a professional student.

This is the 27th first day of class I've ever had and I feel good at it. I've mastered the art of the first day outfit. I know where I like to sit in a classroom. And I know how to ride the waves of a silent classroom in the 10 minutes before the teacher shows up.

I don't want this to be the second to last time I do this. I want it to go on. Because I think that I'm pretty good at first days of school. And at this point in my life, I'm clinging to the things I'm good at. Tightly.

NYE

New Years Eve is terribly unoriginal, don't you think? The whole world's traditions are essentially the same and with every January 1st that rolls around, I find myself in the same delightful funk of confusion. Yeah, I'm excited about the New Year, and the unpredictability that comes with 12 new months is about as exciting as a packet of new Sharpies, but then there's the other side of the coin that bites me in my pale, arguably out of shape butt every time. The panic part. The reminiscent part. The how did that year just happen so quickly part. The I'm twenty freaking two and I'm certainly confused about everything part. The five…. four…. three…. two…. one…. HELP! part. 

Maybe that's why I love it. It gives people like me (your friendly neighborhood downer) a day to just consider everything-- the past, present and future all in one night where we're allowed to ask friends and family annoying questions like "what are your biggest fears about this coming year" and "if you could change one thing about this past year, what would it be?" without being kicked out the room. 

There were changes in the format of my usual New Years Eve this year. I've lost track of how many years running I've spent the night with my sister and my best friend, Casey, and our respective parents but this was definitely the first in a long while that our entire families haven't rung in the New Year together, clanging pots and pans in the street at midnight and making fun of Dick Clark's post-stroke speech impediments. Kaitlin, Casey and I (with an added bonus of one Kristin Larson) still managed to grab dinner before heading all of our separate ways, but somewhere between accidentally shaving only one leg in the shower getting ready for the evening and then after dinner, wishing Casey well on the rest of her evening with her boyfriend as we all loaded into separate cars, I felt a nudge of change in the beginning of a year that is about to blow the roof off of what I even think the word 'change' is capable of. 

Spending the rest of the night at a glittery party, in a room full of mostly strangers and a glass of red wine in my hand, some would argue that this was my first adult New Years. The party, much like the year that it was anticipating, felt uncomfortable in an appropriate way. Unfamiliar and new. Uncharted and forced. Like it was the next step in a progression of who I should be or something. The tradition, the conveniency and the pots and pans weren't completely thrown away, but this year, they were all put on a shelf like a memory or a snapshot in a picture frame, replaced with me wearing a little bit too much eyeliner and being the girl at the party that no one really knew. 

I can't help but think that there will be more of this soon. I'm graduating. And I don't even know what that really means yet, but it's happening soon and it's happening this year.

2014

graduate
say goodbye

blog more
read more
yoga
run…

job job job job

more red lipstick
dancing harder
caring a little less
stability

date
dates
kiss a boy
make goals
meet goals
date goalie

surprises, given and received

more fat, less sugar

a rent check

less sarcasm
take less offense

redefine expectations
embrace uncertainty

take more pictures with clicks instead of taps

allow emotion
allow disappointment

paint a wall
skinny dip
cry in public
dinner parties, one for old friends, one for new friends



(In case you were curious about last year.)

Big dumps.

2014 is scaring me.

I know that there have been parts of 2013 that we haven't talked about and also parts that haven't even happened yet, but right now, today, alone in the kitchen, I'm eating macaroni and cheese and thinking about 2014.

Not only does the number 14 just seem so ominous to me, but there is this very specific visual image that pops into my head every time I think about this coming year. I picture me (in illustrated, cartoon version-- for some reason, any visual in my head is always illustrated. My brain default is in drawings apparently) standing on a big white room with nothing around me except for my two, blue and yellow, rolling, Costco suitcases that I've used my entire collegiate career and I'm just waiting. For what, I don't know. Seconds later, a big dump truck comes and drops tons of heavy sand on my suitcases and me. The weird part is that I'm not really mad or scared about it. I just kind of stand there half confused, half expecting it. And then when that truck is finished dumping everything, another one is right behind it. And then another one and another one and another one.

Thankfully because the visual in my head isn't the most realistic, It's not like I have to watch myself get suffocated like that scene with the corn in that movie with Harrison Ford. I think it's called Witness… Anyway. I'm fine. I just am constantly being dumped on. And that is 2014 so far. Which doesn't make 2014 sound very fun.

This post is meant to be a very rare and very special peak into the very rare and very special mind of Julia Patton.

Today's Schedule:

Woke up

Took mom to work

Came home

Took a bath

Watched a movie 

Watched a movie

Took a nap

Ate a slice of cold, leftover pizza

Typing this post from bed

Still wearing pajamas from this morning that I put back on after aforementioned bath 

Considering putting on flip flops to go to Del Taco for a bean and cheese burrito

There is a solid 78% chance I won't though.

Am I living the life of:

A) a newborn baby

B) an unemployed college aged male (possibly with a very real addiction to pot)

C) the happiest form of a Julia ever

D) both A and C

Thanks.

Oh me oh my.

I miss this. I miss sitting down and spilling it all. Typing and laughing to myself, but feeling like I'm laughing with you all too.

Do you ever have those kinds of friends that you are so, so close with and then through life, things change (the way life has a way of way too easily pulling off) and then it's like a Wednesday and you're in line at Starbucks you see something that reminds you of that person? So, you want to text them, but you wonder if in the time between way back when you were friends and now, this very moment, at Starbucks, you've somehow changed the truth of what your friendship once was-- you've polished it and put it on the top shelf of the trophy case-- and you feel like sending a text would be so random and weird and embarrassing. And, I mean, worst, worst, case scenario, they probably deleted your number from their phone. 'Sorry, who is this? Sorry-- I got a new phone and all of my contacts got deleted.' Ugh. I can't even... So you don't text them to tell them about the thing you just saw that made you think of them-- something you would have done impulsively a while ago.

About 75% of the time I don't send that text. But then 25% of the time, I do. And I don't think there has been one time that I've regretted sending that text.

Today, I'm sending that text.

Hi.

It's me.

It's been a while.

But I saw something today at Starbucks that reminded me of you.

Hi

I know, I know, I know.

I've missed you guys a lot too.

Every day I don't blog, I get a little angrier with myself knowing that in a few years, when I look back at this time and there is a big, huge, sinkhole of information on the fall quarter of my senior year, I'll be kicking myself. But, truth be told, I'm kind of freaking a little bit out about my life right now. There are huge changes that are happening every day when it comes to my personal life, or my classes, or my senior project, or the fact that my imaginary mental life goal line for maybe the last 10 years (that is the end of college) is fast approaching and all of that has been very hard for me to handle. The other day, I was in the car talking to my friends and I said something like "Next year, on my birthday, we need to..." and then it suddenly hit me that next year, on my birthday, 'we need to' isn't really a thing anymore. And so I started waling in dismay. Which changed nothing. Who the heck knows where I'll be in a year? (In case you're curious, the short list of contenders in my mind happen to be New York, LA, Somewhere in Maine, Paris, or unemployed in a tent in my parents back yard) (Some of those are based in reality, while some, clearly, are not.) Anyway, I feel like I've been blogging less because maybe the things that I am blogging about are 'lasts' and it makes me sad. Actually, delete that part in the last sentence where I say 'I feel like' and 'maybe' and replace them with 'I definitely have' and 'for sure.'

I've been falsely keeping myself distracted with overcast thoughts about my future with many things, but mainly these things:

Allegiant- the third in the Divergent Series of books by Veronica Roth. It all ended with Allegiant. I mean... the ending... I'm not going to ruin in... but woah. Didn't see it coming. Put me in a complete tailspin for a good 48 hours.

Running- I mentioned this before (I feel like I'm not really on top of my creative writing groove) but I've been pretending to like running for the last two months. I thought surely by now I'd be totally into it. But I'm so not. I'm going to keep doing it because I keep telling myself it has to be making some sort of difference (although I'm not convinced) but I don't have to like it.

Napping- what's new?

Homeland- this show is so good. It's the kind of good that makes you talk out loud to the TV screen and the characters when you're watching it alone in a room.

And then also- Turning my space heater on the 'oscillator' setting and just going to town for a few hours. Back and forth. Back and forth. This might come off as cocky, but I'm a pretty good starer.

No, but seriously about that whole Paris thing. Why the hell not? The only French word I know is 'Cronut' but I could pick it up pretty quickly, right? What are your guys' thoughts?