July Fourth

Kay tonight is good. I feel at home for the first time since I arrived.

ANYway.

Working out at seven every morning doesn't actually leave you more energy the rest of the day if you stay up until three every night. In case anyone was wondering.

Fireworks, man. Fireworks.

My parents have handled our disposition toward school so brilliantly. I started struggling in fourth grade to understand why I just couldn't make myself do what everyone else seemed to find so simple, and I started struggling with really fully deeply hating myself because of that around seventh grade. I came through that with the ability to understand how I learn and how people learn and the ability to view the system critically and think of ways to change it because my siblings and I have had such an immense amount of trouble succeeding within that system. And throughout this ongoing twenty+ year ordeal, my mother in particular has been so strong in her belief in our worth as humans and in her own critical view of the school system, and the fact that we two can now have these important conversations about this is something that makes me feel sure that the whole struggle has been absolutely worth it. And I'm going to be able to give my kids that much more support and perspective if they are thrust into this same system.

I cannot write anything at all. I've written maybe one good piece of work since I've been home, and that is because I'm subconsciously emotionally prepping for a massive (and obviously super profound and poignant and significant (sorry, I'm reading Dave Eggers)) outpouring of self-reflection about my year at Lawrence and my place in the feminism and writing worlds (they're still separate worlds for me and that feels weird as hell) and how I view myself in the context of romantic relationships and close friendships and how I see the line between those two things (also love vs. in love) and how I'm just now coming into my own and how I've been saying that since last March and how I know what I want to do after college and where I want to start and how I'm prepared to slap myself into shape (in regard to organization and planning and self-management and motivation) and how I'm sure I want kids now and how my relationship with my body and my voice and music in general has changed and how my sexuality is rather fluid but also pretty fixed at the moment and how I feel about my family and why we learn the way we learn and our place in our community financially and academically and racially and how I've started reading again and. Yeah. It'll be big and cathartic and insanely invigorating.

Summer is good. I still don't have a job or money for another year at Lawrence. But I feel good. I feel really good.

This was accidentally a little bit of a novel but literally just wait until I actually write about these things.
Also, I'm listening to fucking Yellowcard's new album and I haven't decided how I feel about it, but for real. Yellowcard is secretly not-so-secretly my longest-standing guilty (not guilty at all oops) pleasure.