Hello and good day to all! I spent the day yesterday at a good friend’s graduation party, and it was good to see her and her family again. It is strange how time seems to warp things. I haven’t seen her or her family for about 2 years, but prior to that two year break, we saw each other nearly every day. I’m still not sure what happened there. Regardless, I still hold them in fond memory. We had a bonfire after her party, and spent the evening plus most of the early morning hours doing delightfully juvenile things such as calling Live Links (an over the phone sex chat line) and making up bogus characters to talk to shifty guys who fell for every corny stripper name. We also played an outwardly childish game of truth or dare, which is always fun. However, just for the record, I took my share of chickens and did nothing that would be deemed as unfaithful behavior. It was nice to spend a night reverting back to my pre-teen state of mind. Now that I am a post-teen, things like truth or dare have been replaced with college and worries about the future. I do realize that I tend to over analyze things and “think them to death” so to speak. I need to work on giving up the control that I never really had in the first place. It’s like chasing after something that doesn’t exist-exhausting and unproductive. I need to just relax and stop overworking my gears on something that isn’t helpful anyway. But enough of my griping. I feel like my blog has turned into nothing but a place for me to sit and whine to an uninterested and most likely nonexistent audience. However, there are a few questions burning a hole in my brain, and if I could walk on water, maybe I would have the answers to those questions. I think I will be writing a letter to my Grandma Kusy and my Grandpa Everett courtesy copied to God. I will have to get a balloon to ship it in, I don’t think the mail man delivers to heaven. Maybe then I will be able to get some answers, seeing as I can’t figure it out myself. I have always been a patient person, but I have never been one who was just content to sit and see where things go. If I indeed was still a pre-teen, I would resort to my magic eight ball, or one of those paper fortune tellers, or perhaps a game of mash. However, that just isn’t going to satisfy my exhausted brain anymore. Though maybe there is something we can all learn from the childhood game of truth or dare. However, for now, my exhausted brain needs to go to sleep before four in the morning! So with that, I say goodnight. Happy dreams to you all!

Hello and good day to all! The summer has been plugging away, and I am pleased to say that it finally feels like summer! With the temperature struggling to even stay in the 60’s, I was beginning to fear that summer might never come. It has been nice enough this past week to go swimming though, which has been enjoyable. While the weather has been enjoyable, I’m not sure if my mood has been. I am trying to change my mentality and I am trying to think differently about some things and such a change has proven to be rather difficult. Not that I expected something of this sort to happen over night, but I don’t feel as though I have made any headway. I am well aware of the fact that it is not going to be easy to change a mindset that has been engrained in me since I was very small, but if I don’t, I fear that I could lose something extremely precious to me. I don’t want to lose something that is in my life right now, in this moment, because I am afraid of what might happen in 5 years, or 10 years, or 30 years. I am still trying to enjoy life in the moment instead of ten years in the future. I know logically that everything will work out as it should, and that everything happens for a reason, and that seeing as I don’t really have any control over what happens to me (within reason, of course), I should just enjoy it and handle things as they come. However, trying to convince the emotional side of things is a whole different story. A part of me would love to be able to live and think like someone of my age should; carefree and unconcerned with where their life will be or where they will end up when they are 40. I have always had a “gift” as it has been called, to look at the bigger picture, to be able to think past tomorrow, and to be able to see the consequences of what I choose to do today and how that might impact my future. It seems that this is an ability which is not acquired until one has fully sunken their teeth into adulthood, however it is something I have been able to do since a very young age. I have decided that maybe there is a reason that younger people cannot predict such consequences. It has definitely made me afraid to do things that most young people would do in a heartbeat, without a second thought. Needless to say, it has left me painfully inexperienced, in some ways, “robbed” of the full teenage existence, naïve, and terrified to act on any opportunity. This is not the way that I wish to live my life and it is something I have been grappling with for quite a while now. I choose to do something about it now because there is finally something, (or someone), in my life that would suffer from this behavior beside myself. I am not the only person I could be hurting anymore, my life is not the only one that could be affected by this. This fact has prompted me to weed out another nasty habit, though I will not go into those details. It hasn’t been easy, but I know it will be worth it. I just need to trust that everything will be okay, and that everything will work out the way it is intended to, even if it isn’t how I expected. The unexpected has been popping up in a few areas, and I can honestly say that everything has been okay. Better than okay, in fact. Perhaps it is due to some insecurity. I am never sure if what I am doing is right, or if it is what I am supposed to be doing. I wish there was a way to be certain, though I think I just need to remember that God does in fact know better than I do. After all, there is something to be said for the unexpected :)

Hello and good day to all! I do realize that it has been nine months since I have last written. That is not because nothing has been happening, nor is it because I have had a miniature me growing in a bean shaped organ. I have just had a whirlwind school year and most days it was all I could do to just survive getting out of bed. I am amazed at all that has happened when I look back on the past nine months, and in some ways, it all seems very surreal. It is hard to believe that I am now a seasoned 20 years old and that I will be starting my junior year of college in a matter of months. Some days, (actually most days) I still feel like a snotty nosed little kid with red popsicle juice all over my mouth. I have decided that 20 is a very strange age to be. I am stuck somewhere between childhood, adolescence and adulthood. In the eyes of the law I am seen as an adult, in the eyes of society I am seen as an awkward adolescent, and in my own eyes I am seen as a seven year old that isn’t sure how she got to this point. In any case, it makes life interesting! Seeing as there is nothing I can do about this awkward stage in my life, I might as well put on my skimpiest pair of jeans, enjoy my tight buns when I have them and live it up. The summer is just starting, and I am really looking forward to the next few months. The school year was extremely hard on me, physically and emotionally. I was in school for all of two weeks before I came down with a tremendously stubborn case of bronchitis. This strain of wonderful bacteria decided to inhabit my lungs for four months, which basically took care of my entire first semester. However, despite the incessant coughing, mind blowing headaches and losing close to 10 pounds, I still managed to pull a 3.9 GPA. Not to mention my melancholic state of mind hung on just as stubbornly as the bronchitis did. I will spare the details, but I will say that I was badly hurt and I fear what life would be like had God not rectified that. Second semester came along and was close to as equally difficult, though for different reasons. The harsh winter plus the damage done to my immune system thanks to asthma plus that whopper case of bronchitis left me susceptible to every minor cold and bug that came through the dorms. Which, needless to say, caused me to feel slightly ill all the time. I also took quite a few time consuming classes at the same time, which was a severe lapse of judgment on my part. The semester ended in an extremely unexpected way, but there are absolutely no complaints in that department. Some people are no longer a part of my life, but I realize that that is undoubtedly for the better. I realize now that they were never healthy friendships anyway and even though it was hard, I know I am going to be better off and much happier in the long run. Also, a new friendship has come into my life and I thank God for blessing me with such an amazing relationship. This person has helped me in so many ways; to list them all would be impossible. But perhaps most importantly, this person has helped me to be happy. For that, I cannot thank him enough. I went through a lot of changes, especially toward the end of the semester, and while it seemed tumultuous at the time, I know that it is for the betterment of my being and it is exciting to see where my life will go now that it is on a new and different track. Though like anything new and different, it is also petrifying and scary. Despite all the money my parents and I have put into my schooling, even after reading all the textbooks and sitting through all the lectures, the most important thing that I have learned this past school year was not learned in a class room. I learned how to trust fate and I learned to stop fighting against things you cannot change. I have always believed that everything happens for a reason and that everything will work out exactly how it should, but I have never lived my life that way until now. Like I said earlier, I am going to put my skimpiest jeans on, sit back, enjoy the ride and live it up. I have learned to enjoy time in the moment instead of thinking about where it’s all going to go, or what is going to come of everything in 5 years. That will come, and I remember my parents telling me this even when I was little, “cross that bridge when you come to it.” Not to say that I am going to live my life blind to the affect my actions might have on my future, but I am not going to live in fear of possible consequences. I have found that doing so has held me back from doing ANYTHING, which may be why I still feel like I’m stuck at seven years old. I think I have found a balance between living for now and not thinking past tomorrow, and living 5 years ahead of yourself. I now start the summer content and skimpy jeans-clad!

Hello and good day to all! I got a much needed hair cut today!! I have been growing my hair out over the summer and it has proven to be QUITE the doozie. I think my hair is the type of hair that might be more suitable for a lion. Or a bear. It grows incredibly fast and it is incredibly thick. Then throw in some natural wave, stir it up, and you get… BUSH WOMAN!! But I have kind of enjoyed it. Just put a little product in that sucker and WHAM! Afro. However, lion mains are not suitable for school. So I just got it tamed a bit. I have also been trying to get it back to my natural color, but red hair dye is extremely stubborn. I would like to grow it out really long so that I can donate to locks of love again and with the rate that my hair grows, it might only take a year. As exciting as it is to hear about my hair… I think I will move on. I still am excited to go back to school, but there is one thing concerning me. It seems as though I am one of very few people who do not find the idea of doing keg stands in a slimy basement appealing. Drinking is something that I think our culture, particularly college culture, has become obsessed with. It’s everywhere, and I think it’s something that gets encouraged whether people are conscious to it or not. Kids my age get underage drinking tickets and hang them up on their dorm room walls like they are some sort of prize. Drinking in excess really is something that bothers me. It is also something that is done frequently and is simply accepted by so many people. I think the main reason that it bothers me is the fact that so many people my age do it because they want to “fit in” or “be cool.” Even if it isn’t something they want to do, they will do it and boast about it just because it is what everyone else is doing. People change who they are because of what other people might think of them if they don’t. I also don’t understand why so many people feel that every time they drink they need to get disgustingly sloppy drunk. It’s something that I find to be exasperating and extremely unattractive in every way. Even though it is something I don’t partake in and disagree with, I still have to be surrounded by it. However, there really isn’t anything I can do about it. I have expressed these feelings to those who are close to me but ultimately it is up to them. By no means do I expect them to stop just because I don’t like it. That would be unfair on my part. I do however expect them to keep it away from me, which is something I might have to be more forceful about this year. But who knows, maybe this year it might not be such an issue. I think I will be optimistic and go with that!!

Hello and good day to all! I am starting to get very excited for school to start! Which is a huge difference from this time last year, which was meltdown central. But I have met a few amazing people while I was there last year and I am very excited to see them all. I’m excited to see my roommate, the girls that are going to be living across the hall from us, and one of my teachers whom has had a tremendous influence on me. I have missed all of those people very much over the summer and am so excited to see them all again. I just hope they all know that they have huge hugs from me waiting for them! They are all very important to me, and I also hope that they know that. It seems that when someone walks out of your life, people tend to temporarily forget about the people who have stayed-myself included in that. I had a rather large walk out a few weeks ago and I admit that those people were the only people I concentrated on for a while. Then I realized how silly that was. Why spend all my time and emotional energy thinking about the people who no longer give me a second thought when I have people who ARE thinking about me and care so much about me. If the people who have walked out have moved on, then so should I. I still miss them and care about them, but that doesn’t mean I have to spend all my time dwelling on them. I am HAPPY to say I have switched gears and am now thinking about the people I mentioned earlier and how important they are to me and how excited I am to see them, and also some of my good friends here and how much I have enjoyed being with them over the summer. I will miss them when I go back to school, but of course I will be back to visit! I hope that they can come up to school and visit me sometime this year too. I will also miss being home spending time with my parents and my little brother, having my own bathroom, having good dinners, my dog, and everything else about being home. But I can honestly say that I am more than ready to go back to school. If any of the people I have mentioned are reading this-I thank God for you all!

Hello and good day to all! While the past couple of days have been better than the “injured wild animal” week, I’m still feeling a little down. I don’t know how to explain this feeling; I guess the closest adjective would be “unfulfilled.” I talked about feeling as though nothing I do is good enough earlier in this blog, and I even talked about how in many ways that is a good thing. However, such an attitude can be very unfulfilling. I feel like no matter what I do and no matter how hard I try, it is never any good. Though I do think that sometimes I am blind to the GOOD in what I do. Perhaps that is something that I need to work on. I am much too hard on myself, and my self is not thanking me. In fact it is hating me for it right now. The fact that summer is winding down and there is no longer anything to do might have something to do with it too. I’m getting bored and antsy and there is nothing to keep my over active mind busy. I am starting to look forward to school starting. I think that will help me in many ways. But let us speak of other things! There is something that I have wanted to do since I was six years old and have been thinking about lately. I want to write a book! I want to write a book NOW! I still don’t know what to write this book about, or even what kind of book I want it to be, but I think that will come. There are so many things I want to do! I want to travel, I want to meet people, I want to experience things! I WANT TO WRITE A BOOK! None of which I have done yet. Sometimes I think I have come so far in my 19 years of life, and then sometimes I think…. What the hell have I been doing for 19 years!? Granted 19 is young. But I still feel…unfulfilled. Hopefully that will change soon! You can look for books by me in the next few years!

Hello and good day to all! The past few weeks have not scored very high in productivity. I’m not sure what is wrong with me, but my energy level has seriously depleted. I’m not tired like I want to sleep, just lethargic. Because of this lethargy, I’m not burning any energy and am finding it extremely difficult to sleep at night. Last night I think it was quarter to 5 before I finally fell asleep. And I have been having the weirdest dreams lately! I very rarely remember the dreams I have, and when I do remember them, they are always disturbing on one level or another. I had a really strange dream a few nights ago. I was standing in the living room with my mom. Everything was just like it is in real life, except in the dream there was a dead guy sitting on the couch. He was extremely, unnaturally tall, really skinny and had long white snarled hair. I even remember the jeans he was wearing. Then my mom said that we had to “detach” his head and shake it around every room in our house, or else he would haunt us forever. So, as if this was nothing out of the ordinary, I “detached” his head and wrapped it up in a pillowcase and started shaking it around the room. Then, once I came to my parent’s room, my mom decided she wanted to do the head shaking. She took it from me and started to do this erratic, jerky dance around her room with it. Then, all of a sudden the dream morphed into a new scene. There was a little girl sleeping in a bed and a woman was standing next to her. She had a turtle in her hands, and once I appeared on the scene, the woman started desperately trying to get rid of this turtle, but it would always reappear in her hands. Then I woke up, sufficiently weirded-out. I think I prefer it when I do NOT remember my dreams. I have also had dreams in different languages, which would be completely normal, IF I SPOKE ANY LANGUAGE OTHER THAN ENGLISH! But I don’t. I don’t think they’re even real languages, it’s probably just some sort of fantasy dream language my unconscious mind made up. Whatever language it is, it sounds evil and scary and every time I have one of those dreams I wake up terrified.

LEAVE MY DREAMS ALONE DEMONS!!


Then, just last night I had another alarming dream. I was at this house, and I was spending the week there with my family. The people who lived at this place had a fluffy black cat with big glowing eyes. This cat was really nice to everyone in my family, but for some reason this cat had it out for me. Every time I would come near it, it would attack me. I would try to stay away from it, but after a while, for some reason, my parents and the other people in the house started subjecting me to this cat purposely. Then, when I was laying in my bed getting ready to go to sleep, my mom came in with this cat and put it down on my bed. The cat started to bite my legs-and I could feel it, even though it was just a dream. I remember seeing the blood running down my legs from the bite marks and I remember seeing the little holes in my skin from this cats fangs. My mom kept telling me not to scream, that this had to be done. After the cat had bitten me 6 times my mom took it out of the room. I got up, realizing that something was very wrong here. I started to snoop around in their house and found some letters. The letters had a gold, circular seal with some sort of symbols on it. I read the letters and they explained that this cat was ordered to be killed, but obviously it never was. It explained that the cat would bite only teenage girls, and the bites would turn them into a cat just like the one that had bitten it. (Like a vampire.) It also said the cat could morph from cat, to its former human form. I then knew that the teenage girl that lived in this house was also the cat. Then, with a sudden pang of horror, I realized that I had been turned into this cat/human/vampire creature and would forever be stuck in the body of a teenage girl and malicious cat. Then, I woke up, and I could feel pin pricks of pain where the dream cat had bitten me in the legs. Haha. I find the whole concept of dreaming extremely strange.

A couple of days ago I went to the doctor to have my head cat scanned-not because I am having alarming dreams, but because I have been having splitting headaches for quite some time now. Usually they come and go, but I have been struggling with this flare up for a good 5 months now. Originally we all thought the problem was my sinuses, but the x-rays showed that those were pretty good. My septum is a little crooked, which accounts for my stuffy nose, but not for the headaches. However, they did notice that my jaw is out of alignment. So now I am off to a doctor who specializes in jaws (haha, I didn’t even know there WAS such a thing) to see what they are going to do about that. I am just looking forward to getting rid of these headaches!!

Hello and good day to all! I write THIS post in, thankfully, a better mood! I can relate to Mother Nature’s moody disposition lately. Where I live there have been violent storms the past couple of nights. They were the kind of storms that rattle your windows, flood your basements, blow down your trees and rip apart the fair grounds. Now, the humidity has lifted, the air is much cooler, and you can actually BREATHE when you go outside! A similar thing has happened in the atmosphere of my emotional mindset. I feel much better after throwing what I will call a “dignified temper tantrum” and flooding a few basements, rattling a few windows, blowing over a few trees and ripping apart a few fair grounds. If people want to replace me-good riddance! If a few of my friends have found other people they like better and would rather be with-fine! I hope they enjoy each other. They will have to decide, based on the impressions I have left in their memories, if they are missing much or not. Does it still hurt? Of course it does, but I’ll just use this as a lesson in resilience. I have always been very sensitive and I know I take things very personally, but I am also very good at bouncing back and thriving after setbacks. I was searching the archives of my memories yesterday and found this one. I was sitting at the kitchen table with my dad when I was about 7 years old. He was drawing up some sketches for a freelance project he was doing, so I got my sketchbook and pencil and sat down next to him. I watched him draw his sketches in awe; I wanted nothing more than to be as good as him. I carefully replicated the lines in his drawings and wore my eraser down to nothing but the pink shavings scattered across the table. Obviously, my 7 years of experience were nothing compared to his 34. I threw my pencil down and said “Dad! It isn’t good enough! It’s never good enough!” He put his pencil down and picked up my sketches. He looked at them for a while, then looked at me and said “Erica, these really are very good. But once you think they’re good ENOUGH, you might as well quit forever.” I thought about that for a while, mulling it over in my 7 year old mind, and agreed that he was right. Once you think that what you’re doing is good enough, that’s when you quit trying, or quit caring. It then occurred to me that even my dad must think that his drawings are not good enough, because he continues to do it. It was a lesson in perseverance and patience, and a bit of wisdom that can be applied to any aspect of ones life. I think I will leave it with that and go rummage around my kitchen to see if there is anything good for lunch.

Hello and good day to all! I write this post to you through mildly ill fingers. I haven’t been feeling well lately, but today I woke up feeling worse. I’m not sure if it is some sort of germ or if it is my melancholy state of mind. I did eat some cheerios this morning, but I am sad to say they didn’t make me much cheerier. It did however make me chuckle, because it reminded me of my roommate and an amusing but slightly traumatizing day in our English class last year. There have been some questions on my mind lately. One being-when do you know you’re good enough? Is there even such a thing? I was thinking about what I wrote yesterday-about feeling as though I get tossed aside once people get bored of me-and the truth is, it happens to everyone. There will ALWAYS be someone smarter, better, prettier, more talented and more interesting. Always. There will always be someone better. I think that is a fact I just need to get used to. Someone better will come along and I will be old news. I feel that this is happening in more than just the job aspect of my life, but I guess such a thing is inevitable. However, I do know that I tend to think about things too much. Sometimes I wish that I could just push a pause button in my brain and give myself a break. My thoughts exhaust me and make me unbearably cranky. I’m like an injured wild animal with which you should exercise caution around because I may bite your head off and infect you with rabies and whatever else might be contracted through the foam around my mouth. HAHA eew. Nobody wants that. I certainly do hope I snap out of this mood soon, for the sake of myself and everybody around me. But if I don’t, I recommend that you all go out and get rabies shots.

Hello and good day to all! I write this post with a slightly heavier heart than usual. Hopefully the heaviness that has settled into my chest might be channeled through my fingers-they seem to be able to sort things out much better than my mind. I have been babysitting/nannying for the same family for quite some time now. The parents always told me that they are so glad to have someone who they know they can trust to do a good job, which of course made me feel great. It was nice to know that someone would trust me with their small children and that I was doing something RIGHT. They always had great things to say about me, which is really what makes this whole situation so hurtful. I found out that I am being replaced, for a reason unknown to me. I understand that I would obviously not be their nanny forever, and it may be just because they want someone who can work during the school year too-something that I cannot do now that I am in college. Even with that being said, it stings like soap in your eye to be replaced, whatever the reason may be. And, to add insult to injury, I am being replaced with a 12 year old. A 12 YEAR OLD!! All I am going to say about that is that I wish them luck. I would love to see how a 12 year old girl handles an extremely ill 6 month old when he craps all over her hand and down the leg of her jeans and then on the toes of her sock. But what hurts me more than just being replaced is the fact that they always said such great things about me. I can’t help but question the sincerity of people when their actions clash so thickly with their words. If everything they had to say about me was true, why am I so easily replaced with a 12 year old? Sometimes I feel as though people tell me things just because they know it is what I want to hear. Does it really come from the heart, or do people get some sort of sick amusement out of watching someone believe a lie? I certainly hope that is not the case. It’s not that I assume everything people tell me is a lie, but I will admit that I am much more cautious about what I believe. I am not a toy, you can’t just pump me up with all these good things and play with my emotions and then toss me to the side and get a new one once you get bored of me. It’s something that I’ve been thinking about for quite a while now, and it has left me feeling drained, and vaguely like a HOT KNIFE HAS BEEN STABBED THROUGH MY HEART! Which I would assume hurts more than being stabbed by a room temperature knife. But hopefully I will be able to sleep tonight and then be able to ease a little of the heartache with some cheerios in the morning. How can you be sad when you are eating cheerios?

Hello and good day to all! I write this post to you all from my desk-less bedroom, so my computer is sitting on my lap and burning my legs through the jeans that I drew all over today. I just finished a grotesque, un-inspiring dinner of re-heated leftover pizza and a corn dog and I am now trying to save my senses by listening to some David Bowie. However, burning legs and awful suppers aside, I have had an amazing, eventful summer. In June my cousins from Alaska came to stay with us for a while, which certainly made my June and July an action-packed blur of insanity. There are 5 of them, and then add myself, my 2 siblings, my parents and the dog to the picture and it made for a full house. It was a lot of fun, as you can imagine it would be with 8 kids in the same house, but it was also extremely hectic. We did a lot of things that I would have never gotten to do had they not come to visit. I went camping, believe it or not, for the first time in my life! I also rode a horse for the first time, and went to a pow wow! They are all half Native American and it was very interesting to see part of their culture. We also went to Valley Fair, made frequent trips to the water park, and of course-where there are 8 kids there will be fire works blowing things up in the cul-de-sac. They all went home just a couple of weeks ago, and as much fun as I had and as much as I miss them, I am glad to have some normalcy back in my house!! I have also enjoyed seeing the friends and the people that I do not get to see very often while I am in school. It amazes me how much can change in just a few months. My roommate came over for a day and went with me to the first baseball game I’ve ever been to! (Well, besides my little brother’s little league.) It was a blast and it was good to see her again. I bought a big foam finger for the absurd price of 9 dollars, but hey, it was my first baseball game and I wanted a giant, unnecessary foam finger. There is another fairly big event that has been taking place over the summer, however not many know about it. Only me, my parents, and 1 other person to be exact. But I guess now I will share it with the entire Internet, why not!! I have been in therapy all summer, trying to keep my insanity at an enjoyable yet functional level..haha. Its purpose is mainly to help me get past some trauma so I can talk to people my age “normally” without losing my vision and fainting. As you can imagine, such a thing gets in the way and is majorly unwelcome. Of course I don’t faint all the time, that would make it impossible to function. But I will save the gritty details for my therapist. I hope that through doing these appointments I will get better. Not that I think I need to be fixed, just helped. There is always room for improvement! Well, I think I will leave it with that for tonight, now that my computer has started my jeans on fire....