"Cuz baby girl's a queen...but the queen's just a pawn with a bunch of fancy moves..."

You know which songs you really like when you put a lot of new music onto your player, because they're the same few songs you always gravitate toward. The title lyric is one of mine - "The Queen and I" by Gym Class Heroes. The other two are "Stripper" by the Soho Dolls(it's kind of a dirty song, but, I like it) and "Monsta" by Culcha Candela(this song is mostly in German, but I love the beat, and I've heard the English version. It's not quite as poetic(lyrical? musical? hopefully you know what I mean) as the German version, but I like it still.)

I've officially made a decision...I give up on trying to find someone to date, at least for the time being. It'll happen when it happens...someday. I'll have that fairy-tale moment where I meet him and everything's all butterflies and whatever. In the meantime...wherever I am, things aren't so bad here. Really, they're not. My friends are here, and God's here, and there's ice cream.

Lori and I are giving up one unhealthy thing every month. October was fast-food month, which worked out really well, except that we cheated six or seven times...oops. We're doing that one again in February. November is soda month. This is gonna kill me, but here goes...

Physical chemistry test Tuesday :O This oughta be good...

Will write more soon.

Love,

~Kassius~

Lessons Learned

"There is nothing like going back to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered." - Nelson Mandela

I used this in my last post, but it's so undeniably true. When everything else is the same, and your thoughts aren't, you know how you're different from the last time you were there. It's an eye-opening experience.

"When faced with two choices, simply toss a coin. It's not because it settles the question for you, but because in that brief moment while the coin is in the air, you suddenly know what you are hoping for..."

Even when I thought I wasn't sure of what I wanted, I can't think of a time that I've flipped a coin and honestly not been hoping for either heads or tails. It's how you reveal to yourself what you really want. There can be shame in admitting your heart's real desire, but there's none in thinking, "Please, please be heads!" until you realize too late that they are one and the same.

"Even when all hell breaks loose, keep your chin up and keep going. And if you can't, we'll all get behind you and push. But don't ever give up."

You might think this quote would be negated by the fact that the speaker is no longer a part of my life. Some days, it's the greatest idea in the world to me to give up, curl up in a ball and let my life crash and burn. But the sentiment - to keep pushing when everything does, in fact, seem like hell - is one that keeps me going when I can't think of any other reason to push on.

"There's something so...perfect...about being one step ahead of the world. But then steps turn to crawls, and crawls turn to dragging yourself through the mud, and all you've done is set yourself free to suffer alone."

At first, I only hid pain because I didn't want to trouble anyone else. Noble if misguided motives, right? But then I discovered the thrilling game that it is, to push yourself to suffer in silence. Fortunately for me, I have close friends that have already been down that road, who have shown me what a mistake it is.

"Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else." - Judy Garland

No matter how hard I try, I'll never be Danielle as well as Danielle is. She is her own. No matter how hard I try to find an outfit that looks like hers, it will never look as good on me as it does on her. It's her style, and though I may admire it, I'll never be able to copy it exactly. What I can do is be Kassy, better than anyone else can. It makes me feel a little bit better to be the best at something.

Those are my lessons. Take them or leave them.
Love,
Kassius

Reflection

"Who is that girl I see, staring straight back at me? Why is my reflection someone I don't know?"

At some point, life was simple. I knew who I was and what I wanted. Now...I'm not so sure. I don't know who I am or what I want any more. People say I'm not the same as I was "before." Well, I don't really know when before was, or how I was different then. But if I had to guess, I'd say "before" dates back about to Christmas of my sophomore year. That's when everything started to fall to pieces.

Maybe it's God that I miss. Maybe not the church scene to the extent that I was involved with it in high school, but just...reading the Bible and finding something helpful. Just staying out of things that aren't great for you. That sort of thing. Maybe that was what made life happier for me.

Maybe I was just destined to grow up.

Maybe I need to make breaks, painful though they may be, from everything here, so that when the time comes for me to move on from this place, nothing is holding me here.

Maybe I'm thinking too much.

Maybe I was actually a little worse off before, too idealistic.

Maybe I just want to be happy again.

Maybe I need some sleep.

I don't feel like I know the girl in the mirror anymore. But underneath her is someone I used to be, someone who was happy. And while I don't think every change in my life over the last two years has been for the worse, I do think that maybe my 18-year-old self had some things figured out that my 20-year-old self needs a little help remembering.

So tomorrow, I'm going to read the Bible for a little while. I might go exercise. And then the rest of the day is homework time. I'm going to watch Mulan, I think, and at least one other movie that I've liked for several years. I'm going to call Hannah and talk, and Bradley if I can. As Nelson Mandela put it in one of my favorite all-time quotes, "There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered."

Love from old me, new me, and the person in between,

Kassius

Running Shoes and Shitzus

Here's what I like: Running until I throw up.

Personally I find it sort of satisfying...the idea that you've pushed yourself that hard.
I love the feeling of the pavement beneath my feet. Flying forward with each step that split second where neither of your feet are on the ground. It's refreshing. It's powerful. It's...unstoppable. I've been running with my brother. Who happens to be 6'4" and legs that seem to be a mile long. He can run a 7 minute mile. I...almost can. Lol. It's my new goal to run a 6 minute mile....my competitive nature is going to screw me over some day. Maybe someday I'll be in a Nike commercial. Wish me luck.
P.S I got chased by a Shitzu today....nothing helps cut your time down like being chased by a dog behind you that sounds vicious. Also, nothing is more embarrassing than turning around and seeing that the dog chasing you is roughly the same size as your shoe.

Just passing through

So I kinda just wanted to say hey. We're having a party tonight and I need to figure out an outfit and get ready, I need to catch a nap beforehand, and Sam keeps yelling that I need to vacuum my room. Which is true...Sam's iPod has that 3OH!3 song going about "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce" so I'm getting kinda pumped.

Anyway, I always have a lot to say after our parties...so...I'll be back!

Love and 3Oh!3,

Kassius

Bob

At some point in most girls' lives, they will make a mistake. Obviously, they will make lots of mistakes, but there will usually be a mistake named after another person. Like, "what do you consider your biggest mistake?" "Bob." Bob, of course, is not a mistake, he's a person. It's being around Bob, doing things with Bob, when for some reason you know you shouldn't. Maybe he's otherwise committed, or maybe you are. Maybe Bob's not a very nice guy. Maybe your friend has a thing for Bob, or maybe you just know that Bob isn't right for you.

The problem here, of course, is that you're with Bob anyway. And you probably have a reason that's halfway justifiable but wouldn't exactly hold up in a court of law. I write this, of course, because I have a Bob. Let's call him...Alex. I don't have feelings for Alex, nor does he for me. We're friends...that happen to cuddle and sleep next to each other now and again. Nothing else happens...and it's just that he's warm and I don't like to sleep alone...And he tells me how beautiful I am and how much he enjoys being with me...And here, we have my halfway justifiable reason that doesn't stand up to any sort of attack. Bottom line? Alex is a bad decision. Maybe not now. No one is emotionally involved right now. But everything I've heard leads me to believe that it eventually heads down that road. Directly or indirectly, it messes with your chances at a relationship. Is that true? I don't know. What do I know?...That Alex is warm.

With love and bad decisions,

Kassius

2 Decades and a Top 10 List

Sometimes the only thing I can think of to say is an awful thing to say.
It's Friday night and I have no life. I'm hiding out in the living room in my PJ's watching a movie I've already watched 3 times this week... Yes, I'm watching it a fourth, not because it's so wonderful, simply becuase as I stated previously...I have no life. I'm 19 almost 20... it scares me really. I'm starting to feel like 30 isn't so old. I used to think that 25 was the end of life as you know it. Now that I'm 2 days from 20 I'm starting to feel like maybe life doesn't take as long as I thought it did. I know it sounds like something your 80 year old grandfather should tell you, but here in my life, I feel it for myself, and it's a feeling I'm growing to hate.

As I promised in the title, I do have a Top 10 List...
So here it is....

THE TOP 10 REASONS I DON'T LOVE LIFE RIGHT NOW

1. I'm bored. Sounds like not a big deal....right? It seems like the solution would simply be to go and find something to do right? WRONG. It's not that simple. I can watch tv, read a book, and text a few people and still be bored. My brain needs a challenge, a stronger way to be entertained, and I'm not getting it here.

2. There aren't enough people... If I mention that I live in a house with 7 other people who are all capable of intellegent conversation you'd probably think me and absolute idiot, but it's still true. I need a good...20 people in my life steadly to feed the little social butterfly in my insides.

3. Organized family life is not my forte... I'm not good at it, and it makes it hard for me to pretend everyday that I honestly feel like I fit here.

4. I don't really fit in with the people out here in the sticks.... Kansas wasn't much better but any college has a better variety than the small towns here...

5. I'm struggling to like myself...let alone love myself. It makes the ordinary everyday activities even harder than they should be.

6. Everyone I work with is skinny. Enough said.

7. The weather is starting to get cold. I HATE being cold with a passion.

8. There's a piece of my heart that's far far away.

9. I've been sentenced to the house for the past.... 2 months.

10. I'm bored. I told you it was bad. I have to put bored on the list twice that's how bored I am.

Have I mentioned that I hate birthdays? I'm like the Grinch of birthdays....and Christmas...and Thanksgiving....and Easter....and Valentine's Day....I am the Grinch of holidays...

Birthdays and Christmas are the worst for me. Birthdays remind me that another year has gone by and I'm still insignificant....Christmas is that hateful reminder that it's time for family to gather together and it sort of tosses up in my face that my little family of people I've scavenged for here and there isn't really a family at all...just a group of people who love me that aren't really together like a family so I'm still stuck glomming onto someone elses....

I'm grumpy and I hate the whole world tonight.