I have obviously decided that posting every day is too difficult, but today I am posting my yearly recap. Pieces of things I have written during this last year, and I have no idea which entries I am going to use. I am currently listening to Kaki King’s ‘Sunnyside’ on repeat, so let’s see how this goes.

January
It’s definitely the time of year when I need to get out of town. I just want to shake off the skin of last year, and get out of this city that I (usually) love so much. It starts to become a prison in January, and I need to breathe some new air.

February
It’s possible that I am just one of those people, often restless and searching, and fine to be that way. “Make no mistake, moving is living.” That quote sticks to me, allows me to believe that this is okay, my restlessness. I hardly recognize it anymore, because it such a part of me, and I float along with it allowing the changes and internal conversations with myself. It’s only when someone points it out, tells me that they’ve caught my vibe, that I need to remind myself to chill out.

So many weird things are happening, some I can’t talk about because they aren’t my things, and some I just don’t feel like putting into words. I kind of feel like I am standing perfectly still, eyes peacefully closed, while everything around me swirls and moves and continues on. A weird sort of restless that nobody gets.

March
I once wrote this:

“There is definitely something to be said about forgiveness, learning, and truly being an adult. Becoming someone that I don’t have to explain, well, that’s pretty fucking cool. The greatest different between that last journal entry and now is that knowing that whatever choices I’m going to make in this lifetime…they won’t be because I’m settling. And that I don’t have to explain a damn thing. To anyone.”

Some days, when my brain fills to overflowing, and my mind starts going a mile a minute when all I want to do is shut it down…I try to remember that. The fact that I don’t have to ever explain myself to any person for any reason, that’s just so awesome.

April
I like change. I am actually addicted to not sitting still, and I crave learning so badly. I want more, and not just sometimes, but all the time. I refuse to believe that I can’t have it all, the happiness, the paycheck, the friends, the benefits (health). I refuse to believe that I have to sacrifice one thing for another, and so I continue to search, even when I feel like I could be content if I just sat still and tried. Call it motivation, call it drive, call it being a total flake at life. There is no accurate term for it, and sometimes that bothers me, and sometimes I really don’t care.

May
I am not even going to pretend I know what it’s like to be a mother. I have a cat that I love dearly and carry around like my “little baby”, but we all know that pets and children are not the same thing (or are they?), and my small taste of ‘motherhood’ in no way prepares me for the real thing.

I don’t even know if I would be a good mother, even though at twenty seven, that “mom feeling” that some women have when they see a cute baby is definitely there for me. It’s pretty much centered on small babies though, not kids in general, and I feel the same way about dogs too. I definitely see a dog in my future.

June
I didn’t have a good time in Montana, I am just going to come right out and say it. I know both of my sisters read this blog occasionally, but for the sake of honesty, I need to get that out. Ninety percent of my trip was everything I dislike: rudeness, drama, yelling, bitching about nothing. I came home emotionally exhausted, and didn’t even go to Gig Harbor with Jeremy for Father’s Day family dinner because I couldn’t stomach the thought of ‘family time’ anymore. Witnessing behavior during my vacation where people spoke to one another like they were pieces of shit, I will never ever understand that, and I don’t ever want to. I felt like I was making peace with that side of my family over the past few months, felt like we had all reached an understanding and appreciation of each other. It really hurt to realize that nothing had really changed, especially my tolerance for it.

July
I haven’t observed a Sabbath in 6 and a half years. I haven’t been to church in six and a half years. I lost my bible a few years ago, which made me feel sick and lonely, and I have (maybe) three photos from my time in California. To the casual observer, it might seem like church and religion were just a ‘phase’ I was going through, something I grabbed onto to make me feel less alone. That could be an accurate assumption in some ways, but I remember all too vividly what it felt like to be drowning, and then to come up for the sweetest breath of fresh air ever. Religion has gotten it wrong in so many huge ways, but being a part of the SDA church saved my life. I’ll always hold appreciation for them based on that alone.

August
Let’s just pretend for a moment that this is the country it was meant to be. That Freedom of Speech wasn’t taken too far, and Freedom of Religion wasn’t something that was constantly shoved down every throat in its path. For us to progress as a country, something has to give, and this debate is the perfect example. It is really unfortunate that there are minds out there who still want to withhold basic human rights. The right to love another person, and devote yourself to them for the rest of your life should seem pretty basic right? It should be pretty clear that everyone should be able to have this chance, whether they want it or not, and whatever their sexual orientation might be. That is not the way this country is run though, and it’s a sad fact, but we’re on our way to changing things.

What bothers me about the ‘situation’ with Chick-fil-A is that now we are the bullies, we are the ones calling for protest and having mayors of cities ban their restaurants. We are now the ones crying foul and accusing a company of hate, a company that has never hidden their beliefs, because they have decided to stand up for what they believe in. Does it suck? Absolutely. Is it unfair? Yep, it looks to be. However, we can’t run around acting like we have such higher morals than the CEO of a restuarant chain, when we’re telling them that they don’t have the right to feel how they feel. If anything, our response only solidifies their choice to back up Anti-Gay Marriage organizations with a “See? They’re all fucked up and hateful anyway” attitude (maybe minus the F word, because a good Christian would never use the F word right?).

September
I called a therapist that day. As weird as it is to type that out, I don’t see it as a personal failure. I am about as in touch with my brain as I could possibly be, I know myself inside and out, forwards and backwards. I know myself so well that I know when it’s time to start talking about what’s been bothering me. I also know that I don’t want to talk to people close to me, because even with the best intentions, they won’t give me what I need. I don’t want to be talked down, or talked up for that matter, I want to be free.

Whatever that’ll look like.

Where I go from this second, onward, I am not entirely sure. How do you explain to people how much you’d love to drop everything and go somewhere new? How much you’d like to start a new life somewhere, especially when nothing in your current life is actually wrong? I can’t explain that mindset, because people don’t understand it, but I have reached the point where I actually do blame them for not “getting it”. And that isn’t really fair. And that’s why I called.

I wish September could last forever.

October
“When we say things like “people don’t change” it drives scientists crazy because change is literally the only constant in all of science. Energy. Matter. It’s always changing, morphing, merging, growing, dying. It’s the way people try not to change that’s unnatural. The way we cling to what things were instead of letting things be what they are. The way we cling to old memories instead of forming new ones. The way we insist on believing, despite every scientific indication, that anything in this lifetime is permanent. Change is constant. How we experience change, that’s up to us. It can feel like death or it can feel like a second chance at life. If we open our fingers, loosen our grips, go with it, it can feel like pure adrenaline. Like at any moment we can have another chance at life. Like at any moment, we can be born all over again.”

I shared this quote on Facebook the other day, because it makes me happy. It is also something I need to remember, the fact that people change and morph and grow, and what is fine today might not be fine tomorrow. And that’s okay. It’s okay that things change, and people change, and that life moves on into a direction you never thought you would want to know. That is something that the control freak inside of me doesn’t always remember, and it’s also a sentiment that the free spirit inside of me tries to shout from the rooftops on occasion. Change is okay! The world is not crumbling! Loosen that damn grip already!

November
It’s been a weird time of internalizing everything instead of turning to this blog for my therapy. I guess I am finding that I need this space less and less, and that thought is actually kind of sad. A little like not seeing my best friend for awhile, because I just haven’t felt up to it, and then realizing that I don’t need to rely so heavily on him/her. How is that for strange? I have been gone for a month and when I come back, I start comparing this blog to my best friend. At any rate, it’s been my most constant companion for the past nine years, showing me myself over and over again.

December
I started my little love affair with Coldplay when I was eighteen. It’s always been a private and passionate relationship, with memories of Rick and Heather Lynn rolled right into it. These memories aren’t uncomfortable, they’re just kind of…woven into me, and more than ever over the past few weeks I have realized how much I deeply love this band. I think I had forgotten.

Everything about this song screams CASSIE. I could not chose a better song to own, especially now, with twenty eight looming ahead of me. Six days, and I’ll be in “my late twenties”. Who ever thought I would be here?

When she was just a girl
She expected the world
But it flew away from her reach so
She ran away in her sleep
And dreamed of
Para-para-paradise, Para-para-paradise, Para-para-paradise
Every time she closed her eyes

When she was just a girl
She expected the world
But it flew away from her reach
And the bullets catch in her teeth
Life goes on, it gets so heavy
The wheel breaks the butterfly
Every tear a waterfall
In the night the stormy night she’ll close her eyes
In the night the stormy night away she’d fly”

Cheers to a fabulous 2013, thanks for being my friend(s) this past year.