I'm a ghost, haunting these halls.

I carved out a space for you in my heart, and now I don't have anything to fill it with. It's just empty. I don't even see you anymore. It's like you disappeared. Which is probably good for me, to get over it all, but it's still strange. I miss your laugh.

I am obsessed with this song. But the video made me cry the first time. Fair warning.

January First, 2013

I am sitting listening to The Blues by Switchfoot, as I do every single January 1st, and am so impossibly grateful for the year I've had. And while the new year is frightening, and my life is about to change entirely, I do have hope. And I know that if it gets too hard, I will always be surrounded by the best family a girl could ask for, and that every single one of my beautiful sisters are there for me. This year -- at least for the first part of it -- I am going to focus on rebalancing myself and finding my center and becoming stronger. I gave so much love this year, and now I need to take some time to myself to figure out my future and get my heart back to full capacity so that I will be ready the next time the universe puts someone in front of me who I decide to give a piece of my heart.

My last few days of 2012 were beautifully full, spent reunited with my little, and so I did not have time to sit down and ponder and reflect and mourn the end of the year, or try too hard to come up with my song for 2013. But in return, I got a wonderful New Years Eve and four sister kisses at midnight. And then while roadtripping home with two of my bests today, I intended to put my iPod on shuffle to see what came up first, to try and come up with a song for 2013. But the moment I turned it on, the song was already there. It was there all along these past three days. And it is perfect.

 

So positive and filled with hope, because anything could happen and I know it will, I know this year will take me by surprise. But at the same time I am moving on and letting go, because I don't think I need you. It's been a long year, and now it's over.

Like it never happened and we were nothing.

Even when I was in the thick of it, of being in love with you, for some reason this song spoke to me -- maybe the passion of it -- and I would  be in my room screaming the words at the top of my lungs, to you. Singing to you out my window. But it isn't a song for someone in love and deeply hopeful. I put it on your playlist anyways. The playlist I made for my heart, when it was in love with you.

Now, eight or nine months later, after making my heart let go, this song finally makes sense. I was listening to your playlist last night and it took me right back, but this song is how my heart feels now. It feels like you don't exist anymore, like there is nothing left in that space where my hope for us used to exist. Like I imagined all of it, every little moment.

I have no idea what is going to happen, when we are both back at school together. When I am in your vicinity again. I hope my heart will be strong enough.

Les Gratitudes

I am thankful for all of the blessings I was given this year -- spending the summer in DC, the fall in Paris -- because they have truly made me a different person. My view of the world has widened. I am thankful for being given the chance to care about someone so ardently this year, even if nothing came of it. I am thankful for green tea with mint and scarves and Paris during Christmastime. I am thankful for the new friends I have made this year, and the new family I gained. I am thankful for the Lumineers. I am thankful for finally getting to meet the wonderful Christina Perri this year, however brief it was. I am thankful for getting to have a face-to-face conversation with Keltie Colleen, even if it was through a webchat on the internet. I am thankful for every single person in my life. I am thankful for finding my perfect little this year. I am thankful for summer days spent with my twinny, before we both left our homes.

Won't stop till it's over.

I feel like I have spent this entire year floundering and at a loss as to what to do next, and not really receiving much assistance from the universe. I have put so many questions out into the infinite abyss and asked for guidance countless times, and I feel like nothing has changed. I still haven't found the signs that should be in front of me. The only thing the universe has placed in front of me, is people that I can want desperately only to never get to wrap my hands around them and take what I want. I don't know what to do anymore. I am reduced to spending the rest of this year getting over yet another girl I couldn't have.

Into the labyrinth of the unknown.

This Spring I fell in love with you to the soundtrack of Ed Sheeran’s +, and it was beautiful magical new. And now, with Red, I need to decide whether I want to keep holding on, or start to let it all go and move on. It's been almost eight months. You have been my most important thing, for eight months.

I have one week to make a decision, or else to wait see what happens when I see you again, and let that help me decide.

and yesterday, you were here with me.

The soundtrack to this year, for me, has been + by Ed Sheeran. Since I first heard Give Me Love in what, February? Right now, the phase that I am in is Sunburn.

Longer reflective post to follow, when I get home from work. About this summer. About this year. Expectations vs. reality. What I wanted when January 1st rolled around. And how unexpectedly different it has been.