Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone. I’ll be waiting, all there’s left to do is run. You’ll be the prince and I’ll be the princess, it’s a love story, baby, just say yes!

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us here at my house.

And by “all of us” I mean Me, Grandma and Mom. And Stella, my satanic, life-ruiner of  a cat.

I did, however, learn something about Stella this week.

Lately, Tam has been been talking an awful lot about a neighbor’s cat who comes to visit Stella. It’s not that I didn’t believe her; I mean, sure, the cat probably does exist. I did, however, question the validity of her statements regarding Stella’s behavior towards this cat. I highly doubted that Stella even entertained the idea of having a little kitty friend, what, with her being a little bitch about everything.

Stella is not social. She is not going to just walk up to the window and become friends with this rando neighbor cat who sits on our front steps by the window and stares into the house, waiting for her.

That was exactly what Tam was saying was happening. She said our little brat of a cat had a boyfriend.

So right before I left to go celebrate the biggest bar night of the year with my girlfriends, Tam called for me to come quietly and watch as Stella spent time with her boyfriend. I crept up the steps and observed Stella sitting by the window, facing a big-ass white cat with the cutest little gray face.

It seemed I was incorrect in my assumption that Stella was incapable of having a friend.

It was precious. And Tam is convinced that this precious kitty cat friend of Stella’s is a boy but I don’t know how she could possibly know.

What I like best is that Stella is pretty much one of those princesses trapped in a tower. She can’t be an indoor/outdoor cat anymore because we are afraid she will get lost since she is unfamiliar with her new surroundings since we moved.  So, she just sits inside and has suitors come to her.

I forget the purpose of telling you this story about Stella. It was not at all related to Thanksgiving.

Interesting.

Well, happy thanksgiving to you and yours all the same. 🙂

You take a deep breath and you walk through the doors. It’s the mornin’ of your very first day…

For the first seven weeks of this semester, I’ll be taking the first class in my concentration. In seven weeks, I will learn an entire semester’s worth of material. This is not a new concept, as all of my classes in grad school thus far have been in the seven-week accelerated format. This is just fine by me but it does mean that things go pretty quickly and doesn’t really leave much time to slack off and miss classes. Not that I ever would, of course,since I’m such a perfect student and never skipped classes in college- ever. If life was like Pinocchio and everyone suffered from the nose-growing disorder he suffered from, I surely would look ridiculous right now.

Side Note:  Speaking of Pinocchio, I haven’t seen that movie in forevs because the live-action version with JTT (Jonathan Taylor Thomas, aka the love of my life when I was ten years old) really, really freaked me out. And I’m fairly certain the animated version by Disney was creeps as fuck too. Maybe now that I’m old and a grown-ass woman I should re-watch the movies that scared the hell out of me when I was younger. What would that list include, I wonder? E.T. would definitely be on that list. I haven’t seen that shit since before I can even remember!!

Anyway, now that this post has completely gotten away from me and gone to a way more exciting topic, I’ll go back to the boring shit I was telling you about at the beginning. My point was, it’s the eve of my first class of this school year. It’s the first class of my concentration, and just between you and me, because I’m a huge nerd and really, really like school, I’m SUPER excited to be getting into the core classes of the reason I’m going to school. I read my textbook for my pre-assignment and got really excited to be a part of class discussions. I’m excited for my brain to act as an eager sponge and just soak up all the information coming at me!

People with rolly backpacks disgust me.

The best part is, I really, really love the first day of school. As far back as I can remember, I’ve loved it. Well, except for that one year in elementary school when I was afraid of my teacher on the first day of school and was too much of a pansy to ask to go to the bathroom so I wet my pants and tried to hide the puddle of pee on the tiny chair I was seated in.  But, really, besides that, the first day of school and I are, like, besties.

I love brand new school supplies. I love shopping for school supplies. I love seeing everyone walking around campus and filing into classrooms. Everyone just seems so much happier on the first day of classes than all of the other times they walk into class. The first day of school just gives people a pep in their step! And frankly, I love that kind of shit.

I also really, really love getting the class syllabus. Sure, that gets sent out beforehand sometimes, but I like all the time the professor spends going over it, like we don’t have eyes and can’t possibly read or understand what they mean just by reading it. I love going through the class calendar and color coding my planner. I enjoy seeing how much I’m going to hate my life because seven weeks goes by in a flash and that means a large assignment is due every single week.

Anyway, I hope everyone has an enjoyable first day of school, whether it already happened for Fall 2010 or if it’s still to come after Labor Day.  I guess if you’re reading this and don’t have a first day of school anymore, then I feel sad for you. Because it’s one of the many joys in my life. And I look forward to the day I’m a parent someday (bahahaha I should never have kids) and can scar those children with how much I love the first day of school.

You’re the only thing I know like the back of my hand

For the past five months and thirteen days, my  heart has been trying to heal.

I have been fixated on the one thing I didn’t have but yearned for so badly. The sense of loss I felt consumed me and I felt like I would never feel whole again. I felt like my heart would always have a gaping hole, that no matter what I did, how much time passed or who came into my life post-war, my heart would always feel like a piece was missing.

There are just some people you can’t live without. There are people out there who impact you in a way that is indescribable, and unless someone has someone like that in his or her life, he or she just cannot understand what that feels like. There are people that your mind, body, and soul have conditioned you to believe you need them in your life, that they are your tether to reality and to things that matter. There are people out there that have marked your life so implicitly that to have to live without that, it actually hurts.  There are just certain people that know you and like you even when you don’t deserve it.

For five months and thirteen days, my person was not my person anymore. My best friend, my soul sister, was no longer a part of my life. The bond we thought to be indestructible took a hit that very nearly destroyed us. For five months and thirteen days, I didn’t speak to the one person who knew me better than anyone else on this earth, the person who knew my every move before I made it, could be honest with me when no one else could, was there when I pushed everyone else away. For five months and thirteen days, it seemed our friendship had lost its pulse. It was over, and I felt alone.

We weren’t fair to each other. We loved but we stopped liking. We stopped listening. Things changed. We changed. But this time, after so many years, we didn’t change together. We grew up, and we grew away. Unable to cope, we pushed until we broke. And break, we did.

For the first time in five months and thirteen days, my heart feels like it’s mending itself. The gaping hole in my chest is closing, and it doesn’t hurt to breathe. Time was on our side, but it was wiser than the two of us.  We needed to be apart to learn to care again.

New beginnings seem scary, but I can feel the pulse coming back. The wreckage we caused is finally being remedied. Post-war isn’t so dark anymore. It ‘s a new era. And even though I know it can’t be how it was, the funny thing about life and love is that it goes on. We have a chance to start over, to be fair and really care this time. We have the lessons we learned from the pain to guide us, to remind us to be better.

To make it to the other side, it has to be a testament to the strength of our bond.

I’ve missed you.