A New Chapter

Something whispered to me today and told me to read some of my old stuff from 4 years ago, when I had just turned 15. And it made me really think-- I've changed so much over the last few years. Instead of worrying about a class or going to a incredibly hipster concert,I'm thinking about how weird it's going to be on my own as an adult in a few short months. My responsibilities lean towards applying for loans and making down payments instead of coloring maps of Europe. And that fact is so strange to me.

I'm also surrounded by such different people. The people you surround yourself with influence you so much, how you think and react and speak, and, looking back on it, I don't think I should have let some of those people have as much influence on me as they did. I've ended up cutting them out of my life, but now that they're gone, and that way of thinking and planning is gone, I think that the person I've been as I've navigated through high school is gone as well.

I've heard that if you don't see someone for 7 years, they're technically a stranger to you, because every single cell in their body has been replaced, the same, but slightly different. And I think that's kind of what's happened to me. I'm pretty sure that certain parts of me have been burned out, and other parts are new and better at dealing with other circumstances. But, at the same time, there are other things that I don't particularly like, because they're things that hurt and are scarred. But, regardless of the things I like or detest about the new Kira, the fact still remains that she is a new creature, and this blog was written by the old one.

So my point is, I don't think I should write on this blog anymore. I've changed so much, I don't think that 15-year old me and I should have the same place for our thoughts to figure themselves out, 'cuz our thoughts aren't the same ones anymore.

I'm pretty sure that I'll probably create a new stomping ground for my thoughts to frolic, but as of now, this is going to be my last rambling.

<3 kira a. lange

Purple Sky

Last night I was pretty upset. I had just gone through an entirely crappy audition and was feeling a little bit like a failure. I had all this pent up energy and anxiety  and I had nowhere to put it and I really didn't want to sit and strain my ears trying to hear what the directors were saying about us, so I went into the school bathroom and sat down in a stall and cried. I know that sounds really pathetic, but it was a good cry. It honestly helped a lot. I was so upset and it felt fantastic just to get my feels out without any "poor Kira"-ing or "its-not-fair"ing.

After I'd gotten myself somewhat together, I went outside, expecting it to be cold and bitter and disgusting out. But when I stepped outside, it was almost warm... and the sky was this rich, glorious shade of purple with a wind that was positively delicious. And I know that a moment like that might seem really silly and insignificant, but it made me realize how beautiful life can be... It helped me put things in perspective. Who cares what part I don't get in the musical when there are things like violet skies and sweet-smelling winds and the peacefulness of Indian-summer nights? I think it's really important for everyone to go outside sometimes and look at the sky instead of sitting inside and wallowing in self pity.

(side note: a teacher's assistant came outside and saw me staring at the sky, probably with a red nose and puffy eyes, and he just stopped and was like... "honey, are you okay?" so, yes, i looked like a complete crazy person last night. but whatever. it was a deep moment for me.)

Hard Things

Hard thing #1: Having a crush on someone.

Hard thing #2: Having a crush on someone who has a girlfriend.

Hard thing #3: Being good friends with the person your crush is dating.

Hard thing #4: Being good friends with your crush.

Hard thing #5: Not being able to ignore the crush so you don't start liking him even more. Because he's adorable.

Hard thing #6: The crush is adorable.

Hard thing #7: He has blue eyes.

Hard thing #8: His girlfriend is constantly telling me about her dates with him because they're really cute together.

Hard thing #9: The crush is a hugger.

Hard thing #10: Most boys don't really... hug... people.

Hard thing #11: Hugging is the way to my soul. 

Hard thing #12: I don't want him to have the way to my soul.

Hard thing #13: He hugged me.

Hard thing #14: I had to give him a half-hearted hug back even though all I wanted to do was bury my face in his chest and have him hold me forever because his girlfriend was standing right there and to hug him would be a really nasty thing to do.

Hard thing #15: He tried to give me a compliment after he hugged me and I had to run off like a rude person before my face gave me away.

Hard thing #16: Stupid crushes.

Hard thing #17: Stupid me.

Written While Procrastinating on My Homework

Lately, I've been thinking about a small dilemma. Over the years I've made friends within two groups; the choir nerds and the nerdy... nerds.

 Okay, I'm feeling guilty about putting off this homework. It's 9:46pm and I haven't done one shred of homework all night... I feel like a bad person. I'll be back to do this when I'm done being a responsible adult.

Later at 10:19-- Like I said, I'm pretty much friends with two major groups; the people I've known since middle school, the really nerdy nerds, and the choir nerds (people i've mostly been friends with since sophomore year). Generally, I hang out with the friends I've known for the longest because they know me the best, and, I don't know, I feel a... loyalty? to them? I almost feel like because I've been friends with them for such a long time, I have an... obligation to give them priority. So I sit with them at lunch and hang out with them before school and Skype with them because they're my main group of friends. But lately, it seems like we've been growing apart. I don't think it's any particular party's fault, but a lot of my friends (pretty much all of them) are math and science people, so they all are taking AP Calc and AP Chem and suicidal classes like that. And me, well, I'm kind of going off on my own. I'm not going about like things like I used to, where we all did basically the same smart people classes, with maybe a few differences, and if one of us was in a class, most of us were in that class too. And honestly, the different-class thing wouldn't be that big of a deal, but literally, the only thing all of my friends talk about is AP Calc. In the morning before school, I walk up to our group and they're all comparing assignments and notes. In AP Lit, they're complaining about how much homework they have in AP Calc. When I see them in lunch, they're discussing the new homework assignment. When I message them after school, they can't talk 'cuz they're working on the assignment. Really, it's not specifically AP Calc that's intolerable, its just the fact that all my friends do is talk about one topic that I have no part of. They could be discussing cheese-making for all I care, but it's just exasperating that ALL my friends only talk about this ONE thing. If I just had one friend who loved AP Calc and blabbed about it 24/7. that would be tolerable too. It's just that I feel like I don't have anything in common with ANY of my friends anymore. Do you know how hard that is to put up with that day in and day out? I used to be able to talk with my friends about TV shows or funny stories or things that made me turn so red my face was practically on fire, but now it's like all of them have been turned into Calc-robots. And the disturbing thing is, I feel like if I would meet them for the first time now, I'm not sure if I would be friends with them. It actually makes me really sad. So, the obvious solution is to find new friends, right? And I have more friends, so I should just go hang out with them, right? Because you should be hanging out with people who make you happy. And that's not how I feel hanging out with my friends. It's like... I was goofing around at lunch trying to get my friends to talk about something than AP Calc, and they all looked at me with this cold look, like they couldn't believe I would disgrace the intellectual prowess of the table with my presence. Last year, my shenanigans would have made them laugh and join in making jokes and snitching food and being generally silly creatures. And it may just be because I'm on a bit of an emotional roller coaster with my special friend of the month visiting now, but I don't think I should feel like an absolute amoeba around my "best friends." It actually made me angry. I'm sorry if I'm not a mathematical genius like you who apparently knows all the secrets of the universe and no longer has a use for such a trivial thing as laughter and happiness now that you have achieved the ultimate enlightenment of AP Calc, but I am far from being an idiot, and just because you seem to have an abacus jammed up your butt doesn't mean I need one up mine too. Okay, Kira. You've beaten that into the ground. Now what are you going to do about it? My choir friends, who I'm also pretty close with, invited me to come hang out with them. And I'm HAPPY with them. They're obviously not slackers, but they make me SMILE and don't make me feel like I've murdered the inventor of the Pythagorean Theorem by opening my mouth. But, like I've said before, I've only been friends with these people for a couple of years. And, these particular people tend to be super over-dramatic about everything. Yeah, they might be really fun to hang out with now, but two weeks from now Sharon is going to hate Maggie because Maggie was flirting with Phillip and, oh my gosh, she can't even sing on key and she thinks she's all that when she really can't even sing on pitch. And now Phillip has a crush on Sharon when Maggie likes him and Hailey hates both of them 'cuz she's Phillip's ex-girlfriend. Sure, that's completely made up, but something like that happens quite often. And yes, they've all pretty much dated each other which just makes life so much better. I just don't know if I really want to involve myself with that. All the drama is exactly why I wasn't closer friends with them in the beginning of high school. And I still feel like I should be loyal to my other friends, because as uptight as they are right now, they've still been there with me through a lot. I just feel like I should be with people that make me feel happy. I should look forward to hanging out with them. And I still do have friends that I think of and smile. People like Maya and Michael and Tyler and Beth. I love spending time with them. Unfortunately, either I don't have lunch with them, or they participate in the Calc beeswax (not necessarily the idiot-feeling part, more about the incessant talking part). This really should be a simple concept, but for some reason it's not, and it kind of sucks. Like I said before, this is probably completely hormonal period-induced angry rambling, but for now, I'm going to say this isn't overreacting? Maybe I should just lock myself in a practice room and just watch Youtubers. They'll always be my friends (that didn't sound creepy at all... ).

Question

Sometimes I watch movies of girl meets boy and they fall in love... and I can acutely feel this little hole in my heart that's empty and it hurts. Everyone around me seems to be finding someone and I'm just... here.

Assumptions

I tend to think that I'm usually pretty good at figuring out how people usually are, and how I'm going to like them based on my first impression of them. I know this isn't looked upon as the best way to deal with people, but it's not like the idea I have of a person is completely set in stone in my mind. I've had a lot of situations when I assume that someone doesn't like me, and it turns out that I was wrong and they actually don't hate my guts. But, I'm usually pretty good at determining how I'll like a class or how people feel about me 80% of the time. It is interesting, over time, to see how I feel after knowing someone for a while compared to how I thought they were in the beginning. So, here goes my first impression of my classes this year: 1st Hour: AP Literature with Mrs. Figueroa Honestly, this is the class that I'm both the most excited about and terrified of. Writing and language skills have always been, like, my thing. I'm complete crap at math, I'm horrible at science, and I'm only halfway decent at any kind of art or drawing. I would say I'm pretty good at singing, but I'm not completely incredible in music, not jaw-droppingly good, and I don't play any instruments. But, in writing and language, I'm always the best. Okay, I'm probably not the best, but language skills have always come completely effortlessly to me. Last year in my AP Language class, I literally floated through it. My teacher liked me because I gave my opinion, whether I was "right" or not. I immediately did really well in that class while the people who were more mathematically inclined or looked at the world through black-and-white eyes struggled. My teacher and I thought about everything in a very similar way, so when I wrote papers that maybe had holes in the logical process or I missed some proof from the prompt or resources, he knew what I was talking about immediately, and filled in the holes for me. We basically operated on the length all the time. However, in AP Lit, I can already tell things are operating on a very different level. Over the summer, I had to write a non-graded for the class (all AP classes in Wisconsin have summer homework, not just Literature) and I was feeling really good about mine. I wrote on Shakespeare, which I love to give my opinion on, and the prompt was one that I liked. I felt like I did a pretty good job. But when I got feedback on it, it was kind of... meh. There were a lot of grammar/directional criticisms on it, and I'm honestly not used to that. That's why I'm terrified of the class. It isn't going to be super easy for me. I'm going to have to work really hard, and I"m not sure my teacher is automatically going to understand me like Mr. Deshotels of AP Lang did. But that's also the exciting part- I really want to improve my writing, and instead of always being correct and never getting major criticism, I'll become a better writer, and that's something I'm really looking forward to. 2nd Hour: AP United States History with Mr. Pechanach APUSH is a totally different story from Lit. I feel totally comfortable in the class. My sophomore year, I took AP European History, and the teacher, Mr. Dorgan, ran his class very similarly to how APUSH is run. I'm much more confident in this class, even though United States History isn't my favorite... I do like European History a lot more. I know, I'm a traitor to my country. For bonus points, Mr. Pechanach reminds me of John Green, who is definitely a very cool dude. :) 3rd Hour: A Cappella and Choir with Spiess I'm really excited for choir. I love singing and I know that we'll be doing really AWESOME music this year. However, right now both classes kind of stink. Because we have a HUGE choir this year (140 KIDS!!!), we'll be dividing into an upper and lower choir, meaning that upper choir is going to be able to hit the ground running instead of waiting for the freshmen and newbies to catch up. But until we have placements, it means 140 of us are crammed into one room. I'm not usually claustrophobic, but being in that room almost drives me to it. And then, in a cappella, we suddenly have all these new people who have never been in any choir class before. A cappella is an upper level class, involving intense, really difficult music. If these people don't know how to count rhythms or read basic music, they should NOT be in the class, no matter how much natural talent their mom says they have. A cappella has traditionally been a junior-and-senior-only class, It was only last year that sophomores started joining the group, and that was only girls who had been taking voice lessons for multiple years and knew what they were doing. This year TONS of people who have never even been in high school choir joined, and it really freaks me out. I just they'll be smart and mature to realize that they aren't ready for how challenging it's going to be and give the group a chance to be amazing. Because the stuff we're doing this year is going to be INCREDIBLE... we're going to Orlando and the music she has lined up is amazing. I'm really anxious to start singing because I haven't all summer (unfortunately, it is frowned upon to break into random song in the middle of your shift), and if I can't sing, I'm not a happy girl. 4th Hour: Environmental Science with Ms. Waineo Last year, my classes were very well situated for Kira's "awake-ness" levels. I am NOT a morning person, so as the day goes on, I wake up more. My first class last year was Spanish II and it ended with AP Lang, so it was nice because I was able to sleep through my first hour, and then by the end of the day I was extremely awake and engaged for AP Lang. This year, I have my toughest class first hour, and I'm dead, but then for science I'm really energetic, but OH MY GOSH the people in the class are So. Incredibly. Dumb. There's a scene in Sherlock where he tells someone, "Shut your mouth, Anderson. you lower the IQ of the room just by stepping into it." I know it sounds mean, but that is literally how I fell about this class. I walked into the room yesterday, and I could feel the stupid fermenting in the air. I'm sorry, I don't have any sympathy or patience for people who choose to be lazy and dumb. I know I've already ranted about this topic, but I feel really strongly about it. These last couple of days have been kind of meh. Yesterday my contacts felt like they were going to pop out of my eyeballs and then I squirted applesauce in my lap, like the graceful lady I am. Today, I made a complete idiot out of myself in front of a cappella when I was supposed to teach everyone a little warm-up song. I didn't know that Spiess wanted me to do it until halfway through class, though, so I just stood up there like.. "Heeey... I have no idea what to heck to do right now... so how was your summer?" Needless to say, I'm not in the best mood right now.

Falling in Love

One of the many things that I love about Doctor Who is that it demonstrates all the different loves you can have towards someone. A lot of TV shows just have the romantic boy+girl chemistry going on, and maybe a little tension between a parent figure and a child, but other than that, the only relationship that is deemed "important" is a romantic one. True love's first kiss breaks the spell because that's an act of love, but the fact that your best friend had to sacrifice everything to get you to that point and put up with your moaning on top of it doesn't count for anything. Like in Frozen, I always wondered why Olaf's sacrifice for Anna didn't count as an act of true love. He was prepared to die for her, to keep her safe. But because it wasn't a boy-girl relationship kiss scenario, it didn't count. Of course, a different kind of love was showcased, but according to the spell's rule, Anna should have been saved as soon as Olaf lit the fire to keep Anna warm. But that friendship wasn't deemed important enough to break a spell. And I don't think that's the right way to go about things. The Greeks got it right. They had a word for "love" in all its senses, including friendship. And all the loves were equal. I love Doctor Who because it puts as much emphasis on friendship as it does on romantic interactions, perhaps more so. A lot of people ask me why I'm not in a relationship, and occasionally people ask me why I'm not really upset that I'm not in one, or try harder to GET in one. I usually just kind of shrug it off, but I think I should say, "I AM in one. I'm in hundreds of relationships right now." Because I am. I'm in so many crazy, wonderful, horrible, heartwrenching relationships right now, and no, they might not be romantically inclined, but they're just as real and true and gratifying as a boyfriend-girlfriend dealio would give me. It kind of makes me upset that society doesn't say that being a friend is as good as being a boyfriend. Everyone has complained at one point of being "friendzoned," as if it was a bad thing. Yes, it might be disappointing in that situation, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with being in love with someone as a friend, because that love is no less real than if you were going on dates and making out. My love for all my friends is SO strong, and I'm not just saying that. I choose my friends carefully. If I ever tell a friend I love them, its not a flippant statement. I mean it with everything in me. Because I don't think people say "I love you" enough, no matter what kind of love it is. I've been learning how to love in a different way lately. For the past six years, I really haven't been able to love my dad in the way I wanted to. It was kind of a second -hand love, something that I remembered and honored but really didn't have a direct link with. I loved him when I was a little girl, and I've loved him over the past six years, but I haven't been able to talk to him. But now, I'm able to talk to him every week, which is incredible. Because I think I'm falling in love with him, more. I'm able to know that he's there, and interested in what I have to say, and geek about TV shows and movies and plays and school, instead of just having to take my mom's word for it. And I love that. I've wanted to be able to talk to my dad about simple things, like Star Trek or cars or work, or complicated things like God and love and futures, and now that I can, it's everything I've imagined. It's an amazing thing. And that's what I mean. You can fall in love with your dad. You can fall in love with your best friend. You can fall in love with your boyfriend. They all have the same weight and importance and impact upon your life. And that's all I have to say.