how can i leave this place?

how can i start packing four years of friendships, memories, tears, laughs, nights spent dancing or fighting or writing papers or watching friends? finals are over and it's senior week and it feels so strange, like we're not really supposed to be here ... except we are. my birthday is on wednesday and we graduate on sunday and how is time moving so quickly? it honestly doesn't feel like that long ago when we got here and met each other for the first time and were enchanted by notre dame and football and the golden dome glinting in the sun.

and even though sometimes we've been jaded seniors and sometimes we've been not-so-great friends and sometimes we've hated schoolwork and anything to do with it ... i can never think of a time i've passed the dome--on a sunny day, on a cloudy day, on a snowy day, on a day where it's negative fifteen degrees and i'm wondering why i even left florida--and regretted a second of it.

you never really understand the meaning until you have to leave: and our hearts forever, love thee notre dame.

and so here i am. hum hum humming at work in last friday's dress, chairdancing to crescendos crashing through my headphones. last night i sat on a front porch ledge, legs crossed carefully with the phone balanced between shoulder and ear - it seems that i am listening my way through life. i've got a feeling (ooh, ooh) that tonight's gonna be a good night. we're picking you up in ten, be ready. meeting people and falling over backs of couches and hey, how've you been, i haven't seen you in forever! clear vodka and cloudy eyes. tan lines and summer skin. baseball games in the afternoon and shotgun wars and laughing the whole way home. i want to eat an ice cream cone and spin around in the sun. home is where the beach is where the heart is. salt water spray as the wind squeezes your eyes shut; i can almost taste it again. don't even have to pretend to smile. the beatles said it best: i want to hold your hand. i'm happy just to dance with you. and just in case you didn't know, ps: i love you. songs are poems set to music. poems are words and words are what i do best, except when words can't even come close and then you know i've got it bad. im all yours, baby, signed sealed delivered like a stevie wonder postage stamp. cheesefest 2009. just tell me we'll never get used to it.

she's not a girl who misses much
luna lovegood gen, 446 words, pg
for skweejee_me. ♥
[i'm not in many HP communities, but if any of y'all could tell me about any places where i could post this, i'd really appreciate it. :)]


( it's not that luna doesn't realize that people talk about her.Collapse )

It was right up there with Grad Nite and seeing Fall Out Boy and going to Rome for the first time and stepping into Times Square for the first time and when we made finals at Senior Zones. It was being beyond ecstatic. It was almost-crying and actual crying and yelling and screaming and jumping up and down. It was hugging your friends, it was hugging complete strangers. It was running outside, not knowing where we were going, following the noise. It was sprinting from Lewis all the way to Stonehenge, joining the masses of people pouring out of the dorms, who were running and screaming and smiling and laughing as much as we were.

We arrived at Stonehenge and it was madness, it was mayhem, it was the best craziness anyone could ask for. We were out of breath and slightly dizzy and we still couldn't stop yelling, couldn't stop screaming, couldn't stop jumping and dancing and spinning because we won, we won, we couldn't believe it, but we did and it was awesome.

Someone started chanting WE ARE! ND! and we joined in and halfway through it I stopped and looked around, taking it all in. There was something in the air last night that was, I don't know, almost tangible. I was part of something bigger and we were all in it together, and I could feel it and . . . I can't quite describe it but it was something that was truly amazing.

I love being here.

All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer.

- Ernest Hemingway

I'm going to say what I have to say, and I don't care who reads it.

This year has been one of the best years, one of the most difficult years and maybe one of the most emotional years I've had in high school. I've had days that have been wonderful, great, fantastic. I have had some awesome times with friends, times where I've felt loved and liked and accepted. And there have been days that have been downright awful, horrible, terrible. I've had times when I've felt disliked, hurt, alone. Days where it feels like nothing will ever be okay again. It's been the craziest emotional rollercoaster. But to tell you the truth, it really has been worth it. I learned a lot of things this year about myself, and a lot of things about other people that I wouldnt've known about if it hadn't been for those bad times. And then there have been the good times to pick me back up again.

And it just hit me that I'm LEAVING next year. I'm really leaving, and I'm leaving all my friends behind. I'm going in a different direction from most of my high school friends, it's really ending, I'm really going. It's not something in the far-off future anymore, it's actually sneaking up on me faster than I ever thought it would.

But the weird thing is, that even though I've dreaded this for years, I'm actually anticipating it now. Not in a bad way, like I hate it here and want to leave because of that. It's not that at all. It's because I'm, well, excited. About the future. About starting over. About new opportunities.

I'm going to miss my friends, no doubt about that. And some much more than others, no doubt about that either. I have had friends who have been amazing this year, and others who have terribly, terribly disappointed me. I'm not going to mention any names, because really, it's not my place to announce it on LiveJournal; but there are two in particular who have hurt me beyond belief and I really don't think things could ever be the same between me and them again. But I'm not going to hold grudges, and I'm not going to scratch them off of my list forever. I guess I'm just going to be relieved when we're finally apart. Which is like a huge weight off of my shoulders.

There are a handful of people at school that I am going to miss so much it hurts. Two are juniors. The rest are seniors. Some are very close to me, others not so much. And while I'm going to miss them, I realize that it's time to move on. I'm ready now. More ready than I've ever been, I think.

I know that once I leave, things won't be perfect. Who knows? Maybe I won't be perfectly happy at the beginning. Maybe I'll feel just as alone as I've felt sometimes here. But I know that with every situation, I can bring the best out of it. And that's exactly what I intend to do.

Maybe happiness didn't have to be about the big, sweeping circumstances, about having everything in your life in place. Maybe it was about stringing together a bunch of small pleasures. Wearing slippers and watching the Miss Universe contest. Eating a brownie with vanilla ice cream. Getting to level seven in Dragon Master and knowing there were twenty levels to go.

Maybe happiness was just a matter of the little upticks--the traffic signal that said "Walk" the second you got there--and downticks--the itchy tag at the back of your collar--that happened to every person in the course of a day. Maybe everybody had the same allotted measure of happiness within each day.

Maybe it didn't matter if you were a world-famous heartthrob or a painful geek. Maybe it didn't matter if your friend was possibly dying.

Maybe you just got through it. Maybe that was all you could ask for.

- Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares