I THINK I JUST VERBALLY VOMITED: as you get older your life in hindsight ends up as one big pile of memories....

what is happening to me? i keep thinking about "back in the day", think of my old high school days when i randomly found my high school band's website, Kerr High School Symphonic Band circa 2001 and as i'm listening to that bitch of a song "Tempered Steel" I think of how hard it was for Ms. Price, band director, to have molded a large group of high school students...no wonder she quit after my year...and then about all those times i'd practice, and about all the people in the band...how we were back then, all the places we went as a band...and wonder how we are all now, in our own lives...and then i remember all about being a high schooler, and how i loved and hated it because i was always kind of a loner, this kind of girl who never fit into any clique, but wasnt someone to feel terribly sorry for because she was always busy with her own thing, i.e. going to college poetry readings, and just foolin around downtown, doin everything she can to get out of alief whenever possible...

well anyway i remember how easy and simple everything was, of course in hindsight now that i'm older with more problems/responsibilities, everything back then seems like a cakewalk. and i think of how far i've come (and everyone else too) since that time in our lives, listening to this old band music like some long lost piece of Alief, some strange sonic archaeology. i think of everything that's happened since that time, and try to connect the present with the past and even older past....it's all such a trip.

does anyone in the world read this blog? does anyone in the world understand what i'm trying to say?

memory is a curse and a blessing. it all piles up. gets confused. sometimes we forget and sometimes we dont even know we forget until someone sparks a memory within us and we're like "oh yah! i remember that! i almost forgot!" and then i get tripped out, because i keep thinking of my currently temporary position here in new orleans, about how much i know i'll miss city year as hard as it's been, if only for more of the people. how i'll miss living here and everything about the life i've carved out for myself (like REALLY carved for myself, as i've struggled here with only minimal help from the parents), and therefore can say that my life here in nola has truly been my very own and no one else's.

i'll miss living here so much just like i missed living in houston, and how i'll be torn, torn between here, houston, the philippines...memories constantly pulling me every which way. emotions can be turbulent. i get dizzy and struggle to sit up straight, balance my head with my body and not fall to the floor in a strange stupor.

timewarp, i guess. i get mixed up in the tempests of time. present,past, even older past, and future all get mixed up. i've died and been reborn over and over, so many times i've lost count. of course i've grown so i'm not the same person i once was, but there are still parts of me that haven't changed.

i think of friends i've gained, lost along the way, same for those i loved so much giving them all of me at that point--friendships i thought would never dissolve, they did over time. i wonder if they've forgotten about me. i obviously haven't forgotten about them. i wonder who i've forgetten without even knowing i've forgotten them. i think of people literally slipping of the landscape of my mind.

i think of all the stuff i've gone through to get to this point, this very moment in my life where i'm in a school in New Orleans, so close to the Ol' Miss River. i think of my family with a sort of love and dread. i think of how i fought to get out of houston. i think of how i've fought all this time to get to where i am. i think of all the things i have yet to do. clueless about what's in store. maybe when my life is quieter (june 18 = i graduate from city year!) i will have a better idea, be better able to see forward in time with my mind's eye.

even just coming here, deciding to say YES to doing City Year: i think of all i've gained--and most importantly lost or temporarily put on hold--to do it. i think of the positive impact i've made, that others have made on me. i think of pieces of myself i've forgotten/put on hold. i think of how hard it might be to get back on track with some things. some things just can't wait for me to get back to them, like a dog i've left in the house all alone, itching for me to come home so i can pay attention to it again...still some things are spilling out of me without my control; poetry & music in particular are doing this. some things wait for me to some back, others force their own return into my life.

i wonder if it's weird to imagine myself fragmented like this. i feel it's only normal since i've had to disssect my life, pick only certain necessary things to carry on with. some things i've willingly left behind. some things are so different and disconnected from my past that they can only be thought of as separate from other parts of me. i dont deny that they are all, indeed, parts of me though.

times like these when the weightiness of life really gets me (this shit's so deep man!) and i'd rather die now than live a lifetime of more memories, getting crushed under the weight of it all.

my mind's eye is looking back through distance in time and space, and i get all whirled up about it.