Goodbye, My Love

Note: This post seems to have caused some issues. Please read my explanation and see if it clears things up. Thank you and please enjoy – Justin.

I lost my love yesterday. It was surprising: when I woke up, she was just gone. My first crush, my one and only. She walked out and left this bitter cold in her place. The way she used to gently wake me up in the mornings, the way I would melt in her warm embrace, the times we spent together. Gone, just like that. She brought such joy to my life. What happened to those times when we would spend our days at the pool. Just her and I. Now it seems everything is dying. The trees, the grass. The birds have all left. The days even seem shorter, darker. Colder. Memories of nights we spent together will stay with me forever. The feel of sweat of the sheets; the calming cool that a soft breath would bring.

I should have seen it coming. The storm clouds over us did seem to threaten our relationship. But who would’ve thought it would have ended like this?

They say you’ll come back to me, that you always do. Perhaps. But what if you don’t? How could I ever love another the way I loved you? You will always be my first love. They say that you should hold things with an open hand, but I question that sometimes. God has taken you away from me, and I feel there is no reason. No purpose for this pain and loneliness.

There is no use in questioning it — you’re gone. Nothing I can do will bring you back. All I can do is say “Goodbye, my love.”

Yet, I still wonder:

Where have you gone? Why must you go? And I beg you to come back (As if it does any good). We’ve been through so much together. We’ve weathered every storm, made it through every long winter. But this seems different. You were the best thing that ever happened to me…

Oh Summer, where have you gone?

A Glimpse

Have you you ever felt like someone took your life and turned upside down? Well, that happened to me recently. I still haven’t worked through what happened all the way, and I’m not ready to write about it yet I don’t think, but I needed to get some stuff out. This post might seem pretty pointless and incredibly disorganized. Just call it a glimpse into my heart.

I don’t even know how to start this. I have a lot of praying to do. I’ve been seeking God for the past week, it’s pretty intense. Sleep definitely isn’t what it used to be. I’ve been staying up later that I have in a while. I’ve reconnected with a lot of really good friends. I think the thing that would give the best glimpse into what’s going on would be the music that’s been resonating with me lately. Everyday Sunday’s Wake Up! Wake Up! basically tells the story of my life right now, and some other songs fit my various moods. Mostly stuff by Relient K and Mae and Anberlin. Let It All Out by Relient K is a good one for helping me remember that things work out for the best. A Day Late by Anberlin is kinda an echo. Mae’s Someone Else’s Arms kinda describes the last few months leading up to this. Almost anything by Ivory makes me cry right now, especially Love Finds Love. It probably will for a while…

Go look at my last.fm stream and you’ll see what I’m listening to, and if you head over to blip.fm, you’ll get a bit of the story behind the songs too. Maybe I’ll eventually be ready to write about what’s going on and what led up to it. It could be a while though. Well see…

I hope that, if thing else, someone will read this and know that they’re not the only one going through some confusing stuff right now. And if you have a song or a thought you want to share, post them in a comment. I’d like to see them.

Summer!

Well, it looks like I’m finally getting into the swing of things. I got a job as a lifeguard at the city pools here in Murfreesboro and I’ve been working there for almost a week now. It’s such a fun job.  Yesterday, there was a swim meet going on, we had a tornado break, and one of the guards was having a potluck with his water aerobics class and we got to eat some of the food. That kind of stuff is exactly why I love guarding. The people are always fun too, and being near a pool to swim laps during my breaks isn’t too bad either.

I also finally bought myself a laptop. It’s a pretty slick machine with a dual core 64 bit proessor and a 15.6 inch 16:9 screen. It rocks at graphics work and movies. The keyboard is taking some getting used though – but that’s mostly because I’m a terrible typer. When I type the way I’m used to, it nds up loong like ths… yeah.

I’ve also started working on a web/marketing project and maybe found a swim team to spend some time with for the summer. I’m pretty excited. All I need now is to get some subs for the week of cornerstone. I half of the days taken care of already, but that isn’t going to help unless I get the rest of the week off too. I can’t just pull a sick day or use some vacation time.

Now it’s time to go start dinner and get ready to go see about coaching swim practice and hopefully not fall asleep in the process. Wish me luck!

Thoughts on School

I finally did it… I graduated! I’m done with school until college starts. It’s kinda different not having schoolwork to do all the time. I’ve always been homeschooled, and it seems like I’ve always been either trying to catch up on or get ahead in something. Most of my summers had at least a half load of schoolwork that I was supposed to be doing. It’s been a long few years, especially the last 4. High school has been pretty intense.

Being homeschooled through high school makes some people look at you kinda funny. It’s almost like they’re thinking “you can do that?” Other times they come right out and ask you some of the oddest questions: “what do you do for sports?” “where do you get your diploma?” “how do you make any friends?” and others like that. The answers are pretty easy, although most people look at me in disbelief when I say “friends? I’ve got the most amazing friends ever! Graduation? of course, and there’s going to be a hundred students there. And no, we didn’t have prom in my garage.” It’s been so much fun

Looking back on it though, I learned some very important lessons during the last 12 years. Here’s a list of some that come to mind as the most useful:

1. Don’t forget about biology
2. When you’re studying, classical music can be just as distracting as anything else
3. Mom’s rules always triumph
4. When in doubt, don’t cite wikipedia
5. For most people, geometry is nothing more than a method for proving the obvious
6. Don’t write papers on obscure subjects
7. Facebook is an amazing place
8. “Gmail ate my homework” doesn’t work
9. Last.fm will play the most random songs when you’re trying to study
10. Taking physics, chemistry, algebra, biology, and geometry is not the most brilliant way to spend your senior year
11. Your life explodes in the second semester of your senior year
12. Graduation is one of the oddest things you will ever go through
13. Learning almost never happens on schedule
14. Don’t bother putting your name in your graduation cap, it’ll get lost anyway
15. Going to the mall doesn’t usually count as a study session
16. Friends are an absolute must
17. You’ll never have the time, so you may as well do it now
18. Taking a break when you still have work to do (procrastinating) isn’t as fun as actually being done
19. You can’t sing along to a song and read at the same time
20. Colleges should give you a degree or a scholarship for just figuring out how to apply

Anyway, I’m pretty excited about this new chapter in my life that’s going to be starting. But that’s a subject for a whole other post.

College Classes and a Dead Camera

It’s getting more real. Seriously, college is coming. Last week, I went to the college for what they call “customs.” It’s like a cross between orientation  and registration and some other stuff. We were divided into groups by our major and got to meet the deans and advisers of our departments some of the current students and on the second day we went and had our student IDs made up, met the student organizations, and registered for classes. I was also able to take care of some other stuff like dropping off my final transcript and looking at the dorms I’m going to be staying in. But now I’m all done with that stuff, I’m an official student of Middle Tennessee State University!

Unfortunately though, my camera died while I was there. I went to take a picture with it and noticed that the screen had a lovely line through it and it was all white with black splotches. Not good. Thankfully its still in warrenty though (barely – it expires on the 3rd of June),  so I’m sending back to get hopefully it fixed. I’m so bored without that thing. And graduation is in 2 days, so there won’t be many pictures. Maybe I’ll steal Rachel’s camera and use it during the grad party.