Delicacy.

Life is so delicate. Each small part that fans into the entire bloom can be manipulated by the smallest breeze. Mood, setting, character, theme, plot. The wind blows by and the pen changes course.

Twenty two years. It's only but a quarter of the life that is still yet to be lived.

More and more, I find myself marveling at my surroundings and pathways. What gets me most are the changing people, the groups of players that filter in and out of each chapter. Some beginning to fade away like images in a distant mirage, and others calmly planted as their own oasis. No matter which they are, each one has still tread across my being. Their presence has forever altered the composition of the landscape. The trace of a footprint here, a word drawn in the sand there, the undeniable marks of a struggle somewhere in the distance. They themselves blur into the heat of oblivion as I continue to wander, but I'll never stop stumbling upon their tracks.

As I wander, they all see me on a different set. My costume is changed, the tone of the script altered, the theme is all blown to who the fuck knows what. I stand in front of them all as Carly, but a different version. My oasises have watched me shed my skin time and time again, even if they didn't know it. But the others…

George Tingo. He lived behind me from second grade all the way to high school. We used to make my barbies have sex, pull them apart, then bury them in my side yard. Frightening how children can conjure such a beautiful metaphor.

Lauren Kehoe. She was my best friend in 5th grade. We were both in the ugliest, most awkward stages of our lives. We felt outcasted, but had not the maturity or sight to realize it. Yet the deep recesses of human nature caused misery to seek company.

Tom Lodge. We dated for six years. It started at 13, and for a girl that feels as deeply as I do, falling in love when you can barely even spell the word is a dangerous gambit. We grew around each other, but not within each other.

Kristin Palladino. A best friend for all of middle school, some of high school. By ninth grade, you couldn't think of one boy she hadn't made out with or let feel her up. We used to find her parents sex toys and photos in the basement. I heard she just got out of rehab.

There are so many countless others. These four stick in my mind for right now, and they aren't even people that I met during the most defining years of my life. Those are still too fresh. They haven't receded into the fragmented melt of my past.

In the present, I can only be thankful. As I struggle to fit into my own skin, the ones I am surrounded with now are a blessing. As I've said before, growing up is fucking hard. But the sand trudges lighter if you're surrounded by good traveling companions.

For right now, I've got those.

Passion.

I once had an established journalist tell me this:

"I just do my work. I don't do it like: 'I don't feel like writing… or, I feel like it.' It's crap. Thats kids stuff."

That statement resounded within me. It took me back to all of the times when I felt blocked, when my flow would come out in clumps and pieces instead of a coherent stream. I thought to myself… in those moments, I just didn't feel it. Does that mean I don't have this in me?

"It's a skill, a profession, a craft. As a freelance writer, you just can't afford to have writers block."

A skill. No doubt I've got a little more then the average citizen, but is that enough? Not at all.

"If you don't feel a passion for it, it's just gonna be words on a page."

Passion. Passion isn't just the key, its the ring that holds all of the keys.

But what is it that I'm passionate about, is the question. Finding a niche is going to be one of those keys in the set that determines whether I can turn my writing into something profitable. And it has to be something that other people will give a shit about, too. I can't keep writing dumbass, descriptive prose about my emotional exploits, thats for damn sure.

Do you look for certain causes, subjects, emotional cues? Or do you not look at all, because it will just find you?

All questions that are awaiting to be answered, because there is a comforting end to that first statement:

"...Thats kid stuff."

Cause after all, I guess I am just a kid still.

And while I'd like to end on that note, I feel the need to share this quotation by the wonderful Mr. Paul Wilkes:

"Your writing evolves probably like your philosophy of life. It gets simpler and simpler if you allow it to. You don't try to be fancy, you don't try to knock the socks off of everyone with this one."

Let Go.

Growing up is fucking hard. Its all going by in such a blur. Twenty-two, where did that come from? When did I get here?

The points that have led me up to Mitch, my bottom barrel's brother, grabbing me by the face and saying:

"Carly. It's Chris. Chris. You need to let it go."

Where did they go?

It's so hard to be honest with yourself. If I look at myself in an honest light, what I see in the bags underneath my eyes isn't as flattering as the stage lighting of what you want to see.

My synapses are aroused right now. I'm sitting on the back of my porch, staring at the light of the setting sun wrapping itself around the long leaf pines of Carolina. They're swaying ever so gently. They are beautiful.

And you know something else? I suppose I am beautiful, too.

When you begin to see yourself in that honest light... it's all there. But is it harder to accept the flaws or perfections? I'm not quite sure. Both of them come with a bittersweet taste.

I need to let it go.

"Carly, you're a fantastic girl. He thinks the world of you. But he does not love you that way."

I can feel myself breaking free. Breaking into this new life that is building around me, untangling chains and beginning to clasp new ones. It's frightening. But the kind of fear that makes your adrenaline flow so air light through your veins that your senses are heightened and you are aware.

On my back porch, in the dusk of a southern sunset, I am aware. My self is beginning to kick in, ever so slowly. Am I an ego, or an id? It all depends on the moment.

"It's never gonna happen. You know this."

Honesty. Maturity. Objectivity. All the small aches that conjure growing pains. Glass across the skin before your new one sets in.

Home.

A few weeks ago, I found myself in my old stomping grounds of Delran, New Jersey. A quite Philadelphia suburb, where ten minutes west takes you into dilapidated row homes and crumbling strip malls and ten minutes east sprawls you into rolling fields of corn and cows. A bizarre mix of ghetto and country, where the wife-beater, chain wearing boys used the word "yo" and "dawg" every other word while raising their confederate flags.

It's my childhood, that place. My developmental years. I drove up there in the midst of a breakdown of epic proportions, even for me. Crying half of the eight hour drive, wanting to scream for a quarter, and in a dull trance for the rest. I drove up there a blob of anxiety and depression, and was thinking:

"This is just how I am. I've always been a mess, I'll always be a damn mess."

But then, I saw old friends and photographs.

Seeing old friends is always good. There are so many things that slip your mind, that you forget into the depths of those holes that you put into your brain. It's just like Adam Wisnuski used to say:

"I bet we did so much cool shit that we can't even remember."

(And that was in high school.)

Back then, we laughed about it, cause you could remember almost all of it, but the concept was funny… but now, it's not just a concept. When you sit and reminisce with those you grew up with, you realize… holy shit, those moments are really falling through. All of those things that occurred when we were just forming. The events that have shaped your personality and molded your spirit. The ones where you didn't think twice and you rarely ever questioned.

At least, those were most of my experiences for me. And when we did question… well, fuck. You definitely shouldn't of been doin' it then.

I looked around at the faces of my youth and thought…. yes. This is what has helped me to where I am today. I am who I am partly because of these people, right back when. Characters in my story, and wonderful ones at that. It made me realize that what this blog could potentially be, is a rough writing of chapters. Chapters in a life that is beginning to form. A life that has already been clipped into so many distinct parts, people, and phases.

I mean, the cycle of life is just a series of cycles, after all.

Stuck.

At first, I thought of my last entry as a writers warning as to why you shouldn't jot something down in the heat of an emotion. You need to let an incident sink in and revel about it for awhile before you can actually tell it straight. I reread it and thought… oh fucking god. Did I really write that, thinking that it was only fear holding me and him back? That it has nothing to do with the fact that one: he's an asshole and two: he treats me like shit?

And the answer is yes, I did write it thinking that way. And while I feel mortified and fuckin' foolish, really all that it is is an artifact of my soul. The way that I felt is now tangible. That small piece of me has been spilled out into the universe, and will forever exist in its small moment of being.

At this point now, I would have written something completely different, because the way I feel is completely different. So many stories to be told from only one prompt, and the chapters are written in a feeling.

The ability for life and its scenarios to change so drastically and quickly never ceases to amaze me…………………

And you know what else isn't ceasing to amaze me right now? The fact that when I was driving in my damn car, I was having all of these wonderful sentences write themselves out in my head and I was thinking "Yess! Go home and write it down! Yo' in da ZONE."

And now as I'm actually trying to, my words will not form. Everything that I'm writing and did just write feels so forced its disgusting me. I have a problem with blockage, with flow. My rhythm is off, and I wasn't expecting this because I am feeling something so deeply right now. I have no idea what it is, just an emotion that brings tears to the rim of my eyes but doesn't spill them, and makes the mound of dirty clothing in the corner of my room beautiful. How the fuck do I harness this emotion? I want to make another artifact, damnit.

I guess sometimes I forget that I'm going through this beginning-of-life crisis. But not right now. Right now, it's time for a good song and staring at the candlelight on my wall. I might even shed a few tears. Go ahead, judge me.

Give and Take.

My heart hurts.

I read through some old journal entries and realized that I've always been struggling with this. Since day one I have struggled with how I feel about him. I still don't know where to go.

Can you think of the four worst days of your life? Cause one of mine is today, the day I realize that I am too scared to love the man that I love.

You don't know too much about me yet, but one of the most defining things in my life right now are the ways that I feel about someone. That wasn't a typo. My feelings are so plural that even within them they have plurality.

Its driving me crazy.

There is one solid fact to it all - that I love him. Unconditionally. With all flaws, faults, and fuck ups. We've got a history that is so convoluted that the smartest genetically engineered rat in history couldn't find the end of the maze. But that doesn't matter. We both helped concrete those walls, and I understand why each brick was laid.

I've known him four years. He's gone from:
Fuck buddy
Crush
Study partner
Worst asshole alive
Immature fuck
Best friend
Mortal enemy
Backstabber
Partner in crime
Forbidden lover
Unrequited lover
Someone I want to destroy
Someone I want to cherish

All within four years.

Those aren't necessarily in order, and sometimes they overlapped… but right now, he's one thing:

Frightening.

I went to jot down a journal article and flipped through some old ones. I read the text that bled of anguish. When I really started falling in love with him, he was my best friend in the world and I didn't understand what I was feeling nor did I want to feel whatever it was. I spend lines trying to rationalize that what is going on is just a side effect of loneliness. Even two years ago, I didn't want to give in.

How can I give up the freedom of my life to fall in love again? All I want is to be able to make decisions solely for myself. I'm only 22 years old for christ's sake. I want to move and live and breathe everything into my life possible, and how do you do that with someone else to consider?

Oh god. What the hell am I giving up, and what am I gaining?

And how would I explain it to my friends. Would they ever look at me the same, knowing that two years ago, when he was dating one of my best friend's and she started claiming I was in love with him, that she was right? I was an accidental, emotionally backstabbing bitch.

Not that any of this matters, because neither of us are going to do a damn thing about it for now.

Maybe I'll tell this whole story one day. But for now, nobody has even looked at this blog. But if you have, remember that scribble at the bottom of my first entry? He is the bottom of my barrel.

How am I struggling with my writing when such interesting subject matter just threw itself at my feet anyway?

Click.

I think I must really be losing my mind. Two nights in a row, just pure recklessness. The stage, scripts, and characters are different beasts, but the theme dominates.

Let me ask you, have you ever roamed downtown alleys at 5 in the morning with a homeless man you just met?

Worse yet, have you ever had your heart broken and mended at the same time?

The life I live. One night, I'm almost a crime show and the next, Nicholas Sparks is drowning me under the sands of the hourglass in the days of our lives.

Click. Wonder what channel I'll appear on tomorrow?

Or should I say, 5 hours from now, because tomorrow is already today.

The First.

I've always played with the idea of doing this, starting a blog. But, I always thought… yeah, great, go ahead. You can join the 1,000,000 other people that are doing it.

But right now, I need an outlet.

You see, I'm in the process of questioning my sanity.

There is everything normal about me and nothing normal about me at the same time. I'm just your average 22 year old, post-college graduate. I'll be sucking rent money from my parents for the next year, working my waitressing job, and taking an unpaid internship starting in August. Baby steps into being a real-life, functioning human being; at least thats my extremely loose laid plan.

But now I'm wondering about that whole functioning part.

Heres the thing: I tend to go off the deep end. I conjure up this mild case of mania, where my thoughts start going in so many directions at once that I cannot even process half of them. My mind works faster then my brain can. Coming along with these is the pressure. Pressure that builds up in the back of my skull and thumps on my spinal cord until I'm wincing in pain and just want to lay down.

What, in the god damn, fuck.

I see things in a series of frames during this mild mania. Every scene in front of me is just a moving picture. Details that have been set into motion. Lines, colors, and matter as moving artwork. My vision refocuses and I see things through a veil of abstract beauty. The way a dandelion sways in the breeze will break my breath, and the way a power line cuts black into a clear blue sky will skip my heart.

Before, I'd be able to capture these images into words by punching my keyboard in a withdrawn trance. But lately… I'm blocked. I cannot find a way to put into words any of the things that I'm feeling. I feel such deep anguish, passion, love, happiness, fear, sorrow, excitement, curiosity. They are so vibrant in my mind, pulsating their colors so bright that I need to refocus my vision, yet the words escape me. They swarm through my right and left hemispheres and crawl down my cavities so that they are jumbled at the gate… but then, thats all they are. Jumble.

I'm scared I've lost my talent. My writing has left the building in a THC stupor.

And this is a problem, because that internship I spoke of, is for a fucking magazine.

Now here I am, joining the hordes in hopes to write through this thing. Maybe seek some validation, whether it be good or bad. Maybe seek some advice, because I know we've probably all been sucked somewhere similar to my black hole.

Since I'm new to this, I'll tell you what - underneath is the last thing I wrote while in that withdrawn, fucked up trance. Maybe then you can decide whether you'll find me interesting enough to take ten minutes to read me every once in awhile. (Keep in mind how rough it is)::::

it's hard to know where to start when your mind isn't in tact. mild mania isn't the best condition to facilitate sound decision making, but it can be used as a catalyst if you find the right trigger. for now, it's him. someone who has seen and experienced me clawing at the bottom of the barrel until the tips of my fingers almost begin to bleed, yet the pain always catches and leaves me to sitting back up against the side to stare content up into a bright blue sky. he was someone who judged me for it, but never thought less, because it all made sense. he was in that same barrel, and sometimes we toasted to the wine that could be our sanity. that clarification to float us up to the brim until the blue sky was no longer a thing merely seen as a cut out but as a whole that you could step into. we sat looking for ourselves, but nobody knew that while you sat at the bottom. only in those small moments when the elixir of enlightenment would rise you above into that sky so you could look down upon yourself, small with your arms hugging your knees, leaning an exhausted mind against the hard oak, thinking yourself into irrationality.

crazy, or what? stressed out hypochondriac, or legitimate manic? maybe somewhere between the two, but always on that fine line of - it could happen. don't make too false of a move, cause its sitting in your spinal fluid, waiting to seep out.

in love, or not? truly driven by the fates, or a lonely addiction? again, maybe somewhere between the two, but always driven onward by the age old question - what would happen? don't ever get close to finding out, though, because there are too many doors in that hallway.

and now here i am. ever since i was born i've been on a cusp, and still there i sit. perpetually between the light and the dark. twirling between greatness and disappointment. on the side of my barrel, clawing to gazing.

So, anyone want to hear more?