A Year From Now, Part One.

Sometimes, I feel like you're part of my imagination because you're so far out of my reach. I tick off weeks, months even, between visits from you. We are the masters at unsubstantial conversation, and we never channel our feelings for each other into anything productive. They're a dream.

But most of the time, I feel like you're part of my imagination because I never imagined feeling like this toward someone. My lack of control is absolutely terrifying. Maybe I should question this more. Maybe I even should've given up a long time ago. I just can't help it when you're so you.. I could never give up on you. Call me crazy, but I have a strange feeling that we just haven't begun yet. All I hope for is that we can ever begin.

Yet a beginning always implies an ending, and that's a heartbreaking rule by which we all must live. But Joe, we defy the odds every day. Let's be the exception.

 You're a dream to me.

Memorial.

When I got to school today, the first thing I heard in the parking lot was a high-pitched wail. Emilee, a girl in my fourth hour, was sobbing in the arms of one of her friends. I went to first hour to find Mrs. Mann teary-eyed and shaking. At first, I didn't know the two were related. Jokingly, I said to Khala, "Is the world ending today?" But then, Mrs. Mann came into class and told us what happened: Cam Taylor died. Cam Taylor, the kid who dressed up as Mario last friday, was dead. Cam Taylor had a seizure in his sleep and he is dead.

I barely knew him. I saw him all the time, though, and I know that his death in itself won't truly have a long-term effect on my life. I can't miss him because he was never a part of me like he was to Chris or Emilee or all of the kids from St. Pats. But I started thinking about how I never saw that boy without a big group of friends or a smile on his face. That Mario outfit he wore was the last outfit he would ever wear to school. (He probably would've liked to go out that way, though, given the choice. Silly.) Just like me, just like all of us, he was dealing with his own problems with his friends and love life. He was stressing out about the future just like us. He had dreams. He would have been a successful, happy man. A father, maybe even a grandfather. Now, because of a birth complication and bad timing, he'll never be any of those things.


Eventually, sometimes soon and sometimes not, everyone I know is going to die. Dying isn't just for old people or sick people or other people. People my age, high school seniors at the crossroads of their lives, die, and it's not always expected. One day, you could be tired from morning cross country practice. You could decide to take a nap, and a nearly forgotten congenital heart defect could strike you dead by the afternoon. You could live with seizures all your life with a smile on your face, but one comes in your sleep, and suddenly, it's fatal. Yo could be driving down the road with your friends and collide with another car, killing you instantly. You could go in for surgery expecting no complications and never wake up from the operating table. You could be Cam. Tre. Kris. Matt. James.

I look at my mom and wonder when I'll be crying by her tombstone. Or will she be crying by mine? Khala wants to be a nurse. Raven wants to teach. Will they get to do it? Will I ever be a mother? I think of my dad. I think of my dad's cigarettes. Is that what'll take him? Or will it be something much more sudden, more unexpected? It's sickening. Life is sickening. Life is too precious to waste yet too fragile to live. How can something so beautiful be such a disturbing, heart-wrenching paradox?

Right now, everyone is crying. Kids from all grades and social groups are mourning over the loss of this person because it's fresh and bleeding and new. And they should. The world lost a wonderful human being, so full of potential and so very good. They look at his pictures and write on his facebook wall. They say what's on their mind, personal feelings about him that Cam may or may not have already known. They'll see his picture for years to come and think about all the times they had, the times they would've had, and the times they'll never have. Eventually, even if they don't stop hurting, they'll be wrapped up in life again. It'll sweep them up because no one person can stop the ever-present passage of time; it drags you along kicking and screaming if you refuse to go. Eventually, these people who knew him at his worst and his best and his last will tell their children about a boy I played soccer with in high school. He's frozen here at North, and there's nothing we can do about it. As we all grow and change, we'll always see his goofy eighteen-year-old grin because we'll never know what his nineteen-year-old grin looks like.

I'm not a woman of faith, but he was a man of it. And for him, I hope he found exactly what he expected. If he did, I hope that he sees how loved he was. Because Cam was loved, by so many and so much.

Comfortable.

There are a few things that I would like to address, and none of them are remotely related to one another.

Firstly, nothing irritates me more than people who cannot take a compliment. If I think you're witty or pretty or have a nice smile and tell you, thank me and move on. I'm sorry if you think that I'm inaccurate. It irritates me, but it also saddens me that you don't believe me. 

As I listened to Mr. Foster tell the story of his parents today, one that begun with, "Well, my parents were - how do I put this nicely - stoners. They were hardcore stoners," I thought about how he's probably one of the most entertaining teachers I've ever seen. And I began to think about all the teachers I've had in high school.

Freshman year, Mrs. Utley stands out the most. I cannot believe it was three years ago that she was my teacher. She earned my respect very fast in an intense, slightly fearful way. I still owe her for all that she taught me: aside from a strong foundation in Latin, Mrs. Utley taught me English grammar. That's what scared me the most about high school. I entered into Honors English without knowing what a direct object was, and, to this day, I have no idea how I passed the admissions test. Yet somehow, on the very first day, she gave us an English grammar review, and suddenly, English made complete sense to me. It was genuinely like magic.

Then we moved onto Sophomore year. I have one word: Thoma. That man is my hero. He should be everyone's hero. Never in my life have I met a teacher that I wanted to impress more than that man. I wanted him to be proud of me. I tried excessively hard in that class just for a, "Good job, Haley." Actually, I tried excessively hard in that class because I thought he deserved a good grade from me. When I was having problems with Cameron, he went out of his way to respect my decisions but advise me. Finally, when Cameron and I broke up, he talked to me about it all the time just to make sure I was okay. I wasn't okay, but he made me want to be okay. No paragraphs on this blog will ever do that man justice because Mr. Thoma is an incredible teacher and an incredible person.

And now, I look at my English class and think about Dr. Allen. I've never met anyone with a spirit quite like hers. She's got the humor of a teenager but the analytical skills of a scholar. Actually, she's a bit of both. She makes me unafraid to speak my opinions in class. She makes me feel like I understand the metaphors and symbolism she sees. She even shares my love of dogs. I've always felt the need to be on edge and overly-proper in English classes, but with her, it's nice to just be myself. That  class feels like a family, and Dr. Allen is a wonderfully quirky woman.

This year, I start my day with Mrs. Mann. Out of everyone on this list, I think that Mrs. Mann has impacted my life the most. When Mrs. Utley left, I was devastated. I almost wanted to drop Latin because I did not think anyone was going to replace her. Then comes Mrs. Mann, silly, philosophical, laid-back Mrs. Mann. I fell in love with Latin. Honestly, she's more than a teacher to me. I feel like I could talk to her about absolutely anything. Her lessons don't just stop at Latin: discussions with her have made me a better student and person. She's the most selfless, humble person I've ever met, and if her husband is half the teacher that she is, I can see why everyone looks up to him so much. If I could be anything when I get older, I hope I'm like her. She's just up there with Thoma on the list of the greatest people I've ever known.

Damn, I'm a senior now. How am I supposed to leave this place? It's so comfortable. I can't imagine my life anywhere else.

But maybe that's the exact reason why I have to leave, and that breaks my heart.

Well hello.

This is my starting over.

I had a blog once. I had a blog for a long time, actually. I started it when I was eleven years old, and I kept it until just recently. Technically speaking, that old blog still exists, but it's private now. It's sealed away where I can only reach it if I go searching for it. I shared everything on that blog. I shared even things I shouldn't share on that blog.

But you see, it's time I grew up. The memories of the past don't need forgotten, but they need to be separate from me. I need to become someone other than who I was, and this is just one small step in my trying to get there.

Hope to see you again soon.