(which is not to indicate that everything has been come to but which is to suggest crossing with penchants intact and the face advertising that.)*

January. I was ready to be moving forward. I felt surprising disdain toward most of Romanticism, but Fem Theory lit up my week with something I can only describe as fire. I met a girl and figured I could tie up my loose ends with a few conversations. Some dramatic words: "I wouldn't be good for you." "...I don't care." Holding hands took everything in me.

February. 'Girlfriend' was what we decided. The Yule Ball was cute and awkward, and we didn't dance and it wasn't a bad thing. Romanticism became less irritating and more toxic. My dorm became less irritating and more home. In Fem Theory I burned. I stopped writing without realizing it.

March. I ditched the toxicity as much as I could. I humiliated myself in front a a professor I realized I didn't care much about. ACDA was a good thing. I let her kiss me, finally. I had no idea how to pay for spring term and that scared me.

April. I went to Chicago for spring break and was overjoyed to see people I love. I almost cried in the car and felt weird and exhausted when I came back. We watched Hannibal and it was beautiful and terrifying and I felt safe. I had my old friend back, for sure. 

May. Music and Gender suddenly felt like everything I had ever wanted to read or learn or be. One day in Cantala almost pushed me to tears. A friend told me to see a counselor. I dropped a class. Bjorklunden was weird and I was a little too honest, and dishonest, both by separate omissions, in a text. For the first time, I felt that sick fear of the 'We Need to Talk' Talk. It sat in my gut for hours after we turned the light out. I hated realizing it mattered. At least it wasn't just me, I thought. I took a risk and decided to room with three other people.

June. I turned in a disappointment of a paper in my literature class. I bought jeans and didn't hate them. I worked graduation. I didn't know how to say goodbye to more people. The suspenders barely fit my apparently very short frame, but I felt at home in them and a button down. I was relieved that the year was over, but summer hung in the air like smoke from a nearby fire.

July. I wrote good work I was proud of. Vacation Bible School was maybe the best thing for me. I spent a long time on the phone blushing and ignoring my feelings. A necklace and a letter came in the mail for six months, and I conveniently didn't realize what it meant. What it would mean. I was glad to have my own room.

August. I collected my writing for publishing and didn't follow through, again. Oklahoma reminded me how much I love music and how much pride and shame sit in my lap with my cello. I reread gross letters and texts and still didn't realize the continuity problems. I played the race card, apparently, and it was a mistake. I spent a lot of time with Grandma. 

September. I had three new roommates and I was very excited. 8:30 German was full of friends. I started in a new choir and felt conflicted, but good. It was strange without my friends. I felt weird at Bjorklunden again and I spent a lot of time talking down that same sick fear. We started Shonda night and it was beautiful. Lux Cantores started rehearsing. My literature class felt safe and healthy. I fought an ignorant boy about poetry.

October. My professor offered my a summer research position and I felt proud of myself for the first time. I turned in good work and contributed to the discussion and felt like I was learning. Conchordance started rehearsing and I felt like I was leading. I realized what good friends I have. Another Conversation happened, and thus ensued lots of smiling in spite of it. I woke up one night with the overwhelming understanding only one of us wanted to be there. I knew I was settling, but I didn't know I shouldn't have been. One night, we stood in front of the chapel and for a little while, I believed everything would get better from there. I decided to change my major. I decided to change my career. I decided on grad school plans. I have never felt as sick and hurt as I did on Halloween.

November. Grandma died in the early hours of the first. I researched 'queer platonic' and a friend sent me an article I did not want to read. I cried at school. Two times. Lux rehearsal became less strained, finally, and we decided to make a Christmas album to raise money. It was snowing already. I spent two solid weeks negotiating in my head, shaming myself for wanting any single thing more than what I was offered, what I was allowed, deciding on conditions for myself, deciding on boundaries for myself, deciding to settle. Deciding that it was better to put off the worst of it until later, not knowing I was in the middle of it. And then that all was trashed and I occupied a space of anger I didn't know I could before then. I had nothing I could write. I had nothing reasonable or constructive to say. I pulled only one all-nighter and cried again. The paper was my first decent paper in a long time. I took up too much space and I hated myself for it again. The country fucking failed us, again.

December. I spent days at a time alone, sleeping naked, touching my body to remind myself it's mine. I finished my notebook and put it away with letters and notes and pictures from a time which needed to be over. I started reading seriously again. I wrote a good poem. I realized approximately zero of my loose ends were ever tied up to begin with. My church recruited me to sing. They changed the Christmas Eve service, but the Long Night was a good thing for me. The Christmas candy party gave me hindsight and family. Feminism became frustrating and annoying to everyone around me, and I had to remember how to take care of myself in the face of that. I turned twenty-one. Drunkenness and flirting became a theoretical plan, which became a hope, and then a want, and then, inevitably, a worry and fear. I booked a flight to Chicago anyway. I got a smartphone, finally. Christmas night was really, really good. I realized I might have enough for myself and enough to go around. I have no idea how this year will end, which is scary and exciting both. I have no reliable way to gauge my emotions. Everything will change now.

2015
1. No milk, no real ice cream.
2. Journal more.
3. Long hair.
4. Pass jury and qualifying exams.
5. Work on sincerity.
6. Work on apologizing for the right things.
7. Stop romanticizing and performing apathy as a defense mechanism. (Quit frying.)
8. Read more.
9. Swim more.
10. Ask for help.

*Fever, C.S. Giscombe
I recognize I used this quote last year, but it is exponentially more relevant now than it was then.

Free Air

This is what lungs are for:
     Gasping and relief,
     All the freedom glow of a
          receding summer brush fire,
          no smoke for miles.

I am tired of wanting for money and I am tired of avoiding the word love and I am tired of being afraid to really sing.

Two Truths Excavated in Summer Heat

I do maybe love
her. That is terrifying,
but probably true. 

Mostly, I'm scared of my own country.

Reflections, Notes to Self, New Facts About Me, Convictions, Etc. Second Year Edition

- I am ashamed of my feelings of anger and affection, and I justify that shame by using words like 'childish' and 'naive'
- I  start sentences with "I feel" and follow it with steaming piles of indecisive bullshit, a habit with stems directly from the aforementioned shame.
- I have yet to accept the fact that as much as I have been socialized to hate the girl who is emotionally a lot, I am that girl.
- Unlearning my deeply internalized policy regarding physical intimacy is perhaps one of the most challenging things I have ever had to do.

Reminders
- I am allowed to have hurt feelings.
- I am allowed to express said hurt feelings.
- I am allowed to want things.


My memory for words that have caused me physical pain* is maybe not the best for me, but it makes for great writing. (And with that, I would compare the experience of hearing the words "I don't know" with being literally punched in the gut.)
Everything I feel is all over my face (and I should really start calculating my sharing decisions with that data in mind).
I can write good academic papers.
I like research.
*"I would be lying through my teeth if I told you 'no'."
I handpick close friends very carefully.
 - I am good at knowing when a person or relationship is toxic, and I am good at getting out of and/or away from that toxicity.
Queer feminist musicology is something new, but really familiar at the same time.
e. e. cummings' poetry set to predictable and stereotypically emotionally charged music will not make me cry, but the misogyny behind that text setting very well might (and might have, had I been subjected to it for even five minutes more).
*"No."
My poetry is not as palatable as sad white straight college girl poetry. That being said, there are times when I wish more than anything I could be straight enough to write that kind of work. I am  deeply ashamed of that desire, but in the face of that writing, I am deeply ashamed of my own writing. So, you know. Identity Politics.
Teacher crushes NEVER STOP WHY
My physical reaction to stress in the immediate vicinity is confusingly (or not at all confusingly) very similar to my physical experience of fear.
*"I don't know."
I like my body. I like my body breathing more than I like it thin. 'Chubby' feels good.
Napping is great.
(Unlearning my deeply internalized policy regarding physical intimacy is perhaps one of the most exciting things I have ever dared to do.)
(Kissing is pleasant).
Maxi dresses are my favorite.
I am generally afraid of men. 
I am learning to speak like I know I deserve to be listened to. I am unlearning that I need to excuse, qualify, and dismiss my thoughts and feelings.
I like the shape of my shoulder bones.
Being welcome and being allowed are two very different experiences.
The word 'lesbian' feels really, really right. 
Selfie nation 4ever.
I am not sorry for most things.
I still haven't cried.

It's hot here lately, humid, and I hate sweating but my hair is looking better every day.
I write about queer history and gender in music and I am very happy. I feel proud of myself sometimes.
I still haven't cried.
I was waiting for my paycheck to go through, to buy a new dress for forty-five dollars, but the circumstances dictated that I buy pepper spray instead and somehow, I feel more woman with a weapon than a dress.
For almost a week, I have been able to pass the mirror in my hall without having to turn around and change, without having to turn around and change four times, without being late to anything or missing class altogether.
The world is beautiful but I am terrified to be living in it.
I am still afraid of intimacy and the word 'dermatillomania'. 
I know what I want to do with the next five years of my life and that feels great.
I can write well. I have had five pieces published thus far and that doesn't feel like a lot, but I write well.
I feel angrier and more afraid of men every day.

It's almost midnight, and after I finish my reading for tonight, I'm going to go upstairs and fall asleep with my girlfriend.
And I really, really like her and I really want to kiss her face a lot and be near her and give her what I can.
But intimacy scares me so much. Intimacy scares me so, so much, and it overwhelms me how afraid I am to do simple things like kiss her or look her in the eyes when I'm changing for bed or touch her skin at all.
I'm afraid of being examined and I'm afraid of invading her personal space and I am terrified of wanting something that I don't know if I can have past the end of this month. I can't, I literally don't have it in me right now to lose someone else. Or my college education, you know.
And I just. This is a really good thing and she is so warm and so patient and so goddamn cute and I still feel guilty for expressing affection or being bashful or asking her a lot of questions of touching her at all. I apologize every single time I move at night and god I am already too much and not enough and I am so, so sorry.

I guess I'm saying that I am frustrating myself, and this is exactly right.