The Wedding...

The wedding. My wedding. But is it a wedding or a real marriage? Do i want a marriage or do I just dream of playing dress up and princess. Let's think about it. What does it take to really want a marriage?

Well first you need the guy. CHECK! I've got that. See below. His name is Shane and I find him simply perfect. He's the dork that I never ever saw myself being in love with, but I am. I am so in love with him that I don't know what to do with myself and I've never admitted that to myself about any other guy before. I think he's the one. So, CHECK!

Next you need a ring. So maybe this one doesn't get as big of a check as the previous need. However, we have looked and discussed and found what I like and what he likes/can afford. It's close, I can feel it. So let's say that this one is a semi-check. Almost there.

Of course you need a dress. Every little girl dreams about her wedding dress, myself included, and I want it all. I want a ball gown with beading and a train and a veil and the whole nine yards. Or at least I think I do. I will gladly try on many dresses to find the one I want. So this one doesn't get a check at all. It gets a maybe. Or a hopefully.

Above all these things, beyond the ring, and the dress, you need love. I'm there. I have that. It get's the biggest check of all. I love him, and being without him breaks my heart. I've said love before to another guy but this, this isn't the same. This is what love is supposed to feel like and I know it. He is what I want.

Meredith Dance Theater and the possibilities

I wish I was going to Italy in the Fall but then again, I think about it and would not be able to audition for MDT if I went.
MDT: Meredith Dance Theater.
I just want to go with all my friends to Italy.

MDT equals another chance to perform and dance but Italy is the chance of a lifetime. However I got interest from Study Abroad to go to Greece in the spring.
OHMYGOSH my world is going in a thousand different directions.
MDT. Meredith Dance Theater.
ITALY. Adventure of a lifetime.
GREECE. Well that's just a whole other bridge to cross.

And then there's this whole engagement ring....

My best days are ahead of me

So I was thinking today about how young I really am. I'm barely 20 years old and that's young. I've had an awkward teenage spell and I'm glad that those years are behind me because I think I was born to be 30. I know that sounds stupid and maybe a little weird but when you think about it the way I do it goes like this... As a teenager things sucked. I switched high schools my junior year to follow the dance program and I was a mess. I didn't know what to think, what to do or how to make decisions. If I'm being honest, I hated high school. There was too much useless drama and rules to follow that were simply pointless. Now that I'm in college I feel like I'm slowly growing more into myself. I can make better decisions, I can be whoever I want to be and maybe I'm still figuring that out but college agrees with me right now. But even though college sits well with me I can still feel the itch to keep moving. I can truly feel that my time of growing into the woman that I want to be is in full bloom. I think that when I am thirty I will finally have it all together. Emotionally, mentally, etc I will be settled. Hopefully by then I will have my career sucessfully underway and be happy making a life out of dance. I might even have my head wrapped around what ever the hell the point of high school and my teenage years was. If I'm not married with babies by then, who cares? I don't, that's for sure. Of course I would like to be married but it's not a race. I could be happy not getting married but simply being together for the rest of my life but that's because I am a "bad person", however that's a topic for another day. The point I'm trying to make is that when I'm thirty I think I will be where I want to be. I'll finally be happy and have my life together then. Maybe I'm wrong, but I've got ten years to figure that out.

Staring out into the wild blue yonder, so many things to sit and ponder

"I want life and not just a souvenier. I'll have to find it anywhere but here."

So I just spent the last 3 days in Cary and Raleigh, NC with my boyfriend and his family. Now keep in mind that I have been living in the Raleigh area for the last year so it's not very unusual for me to be there, however it just so happens that nowadays the school year is over and I've fallen victim to having to move back home. So like I said, I was in Raleigh and Cary and it felt like home. I felt like I knew the lay of the land and was completely and effortlessly comfortable in that big city. Raleigh is where my heart is. My school is there, the school that is more of a home that the town I was born and raised in. I'd give anything just to live there all the time. To be a permanent Meredith Angel (not that you are ever not one once you become one) would be lovely. But I'm getting beside myself at the moment because this is not what I meant to talk about. The point I was trying to get to is that I only feel like I'm truly living the life I love when I am in that town with those people. I do want life that is not a souvenier and that is what I feel like I'm getting when I'm "home". I feel like Wilson, NC is the airport gift shop that you visit just to waste time before getting on with the real deal. I'm not getting the full life experience if I stay in this town for overly concentrated amounts of time. I've come to figure out that I am only going to be able to get my shot at life if I am anywhere but here. Smalltown USA was never for me and it is never going to be for me and that's all I can really say.

So I guess I'll stay here for the next couple months as I wait for my chance to jump in the car and move all my stuff into another dorm room, but that's okay. I live for those days in the dorm, in a town that I can't stand to be away from. I'm only going to be able to live my life if I am anywhere but here and that's the honest truth. I know this was a short one but it's late and I'm tired.

It feels bad now but it's gonna get better someday

At this moment there are 6,470,818,671 people in the world. Some are running scared. Some are coming home. Some tell lies to make it through the day. Others are just now facing the truth. Some are evil men, at war with good. And some are good, struggling with evil. Six billion people in the world. Six billion souls. And sometimes -- all you need is one.

All I need is one person. One person to make this be okay. I don't know what I'm doing and I don't know how I'm going to get through this. There are six, almost seven billion people in this world and I know that there are those who are going through things a thousand times harder than what I'm going through but I don't know those people. Maybe I'm selfish, maybe I'm inconsiderate of others but right now I need someone, just one person to tell me that I can breathe again.

It came to the point recently where I just became numb to it all. Numb to the yelling, numb to the tears, numb to even myself. I felt nothing. I used to be in love. I used to know what it was like to be full and alive but now every time I come back to this place all I feel is nothing. Empty. I am empty. Most of the time when I'm home it's all I can do to focus on making it through the day. If I can see a way out, the day when I'll get to leave I'm okay but the second I feel stuck, all the emptiness comes flooding back and I think I'm drowning. And it shouldn't be like that when you come back somewhere that is supposed to be called "home". I've been away for so long and I've been so happy that I thought the numbness was gone, I wanted it to be gone. I want to feel the happiness that everyone else feels when they come home from college. I should want to spend time with my parents, I should want to sleep in my own bed, but when it all boils down to it, I just want to go back to school. The real place I call home isn't here; it's on that little campus in a big town where I've found my community. I've found where I belong and where I can truly be happy and calm and myself. I didn't like who I was when I left this town. I was sad, I was hopelessly empty. Over the last year I have become the person, the woman, I always wanted to be. But now that I'm back, I've turned into that little girl getting bullied around by her parents who act more like children than she ever did. When I'm home I feel nothing. I want to feel something, anything all all but I am completely numb. What can I do to feel something again? What can I do to not feel empty? Will it always feel this way when I come home? Will I ever feel comfortable here? I just don't want to be numb anymore.

All I need is one person. Just one.

I was standing on the porch, watching the heat lighting spark between the billowing clouds above the house and for the first time, it finally felt like summer. I had one exam left of my freshman year of college but it wasn't for a few days so now at this moment it felt like I had all the time in the world to stand on the porch with the boy I love and watch the sky.
For me, summer has always been a reckless, snow ball effect of days and nights running together and every day feeling like a Saturday but apparently that can be inconvenient when you work all summer. That's been the case for me since I was 16. No matter how much I let myself snow ball into the wild fun that is summer, I still felt that disappointment of knowing that I had to work the next morning. But as I go back to that night standing on the porch, drinking red wine and just letting myself bask in the love that surrounds you when you know summer is in full bloom, it's amazing to see how much I didn't care that I still had a final to take or that I had to work in the morning. I was there in that moment letting myself settle into the warmth on my skin, the taste of wine and a kiss on my lips and the absolute perfection that is an early summer evening when the heat lighting starts sparking in the sky.

So that was one night of perfection, one night that I felt like would last forever. It didn't. I had go to work the next day and take my final at the end of the week (which I didn't do so hot on). The magical, forever feeling that I associate with early summer nights is the feeling that I go back to when the days start getting monotonous. When I can tell Monday from Tuesday and tomorrow's pospectivness depends entirely on how much work I get done tonight and how much caffeine I can get at breakfast the next morning, I think back to the perfection of those few days of summer when the temperature is perfect and the lightning bugs come out for the first time and everything is so simply perfect that I could just cry. By doing this I feel relief, relief from how routine things get and how stressed I get when things get too routine. I've never felt such happiness as those nights. So I ask you this, what is your epitome of happiness? What is your relief, the thing you go back to when things get hard? Maybe you should experience the summer that I have. Let yourself get a little reckless this summer, go off the beaten path for a bit. No matter whether you have to work in the morning, drink 5 cups of coffee just to get out the door, or if you have finals looming over your head, please take time to watch the heat lightning through the clouds. It will make you happy. I promise.