growing up.

here it is.
in less than 50 days i will graduate with my undergraduate degree in history and political science.
yesterday my 11 year old cousin asked me what i went to college to be.
i responded, “an historian.”
she looked confused and said “…oh.”
don’t worry alyssa, that is kind of how i feel.
i would not have majored in anything else. all i have wanted to do for the last seven or so years is to go to college for history.
but i had no idea what that meant. what it means to be an historian. to try and understand critical theory and how we remember and record our history. it is amazing. it is fascinating. but not to everyone.
it made me laugh to answer that now that i am all grown up and about to graduate from Whitworth, that i do not really have a specific field in which i am entering.
my grandpa asked me a couple of months ago if i had started applying or looking for jobs in my field.
there really is not a huge field for me to go into. i do not want to work in museums or for newspapers.
when i told my grandpa that no, i am not looking or applying for jobs because there wasn’t really a job that i am fully prepared for until i go to graduate school he asked me what my education had prepared me to do.
well, it taught me to think critically about how history is viewed, utilized, recorded, and altered. it taught me about the major events and ideas that have transpired and consequently shaped the world today.

one thing i realized in my college education is the more you learn, the less you know. the amount of knowledge i wish to obtain just keeps growing every day. i like it that way. and i am more than a little scared to finish school. yes i will go to graduate school but not right away. i am so scared that my brain will stagnate and that i lose the fervor that i currently possess.

j

suit and tie.

years from now, i will look back on this time in my life.
what will come to mind?
i feel like i am on the verge of the rest of my life.
i feel like i am looking over the edge of something and the vertigo is setting in.
i could lose my balance at any moment but my past has prepared me for precipices such as this.
i am grounded. thanks family.
i am stable. thanks faith.
i was not always this way.
at times i feel so old and then i remember that i am still so young.
but if the last twenty or so years was just the beginning,
well then that brings me back to the beginning…
what will i remember when i look back?
i guess i will just have to wait and find out.

love,

jessica

make that six years next month.

Three years.
July 25, 2006 – Tuesday

I met her eyes as she walked opposite me down the hall. I had seen her three weeks before. I had walked past a door and come to a dead stop. I backed up until the eyes I was seeing now came back into view. I had stared, I knew it was her. My heart sped, it skipped, it stopped. She taught a class, something to do with Japanese, while I studied English on the same floor. There was no recognition in her features. There wouldn’t be. I had never met this woman. He had told me about her. She was an active feminist among many other things. Obviously a very intelligent, opinionated, vibrant persona to have raised such an amazing son. I was so stunned. Whenever he was brought into my thoughts, my heart and lungs ceased to function. My eyes burned as the lump began to form in my throat. Everything about him raced through my mind as I struggled to maintain my balance. I slowed as she passed me. What was I suppose to do? I wanted to stop her, to thank her. I wanted to ask, ‘Why?’ I wanted her to tell me about him. I wanted someone to talk to. Confusion and anger began to set in as I turned the corner. Confusion at why two people who knew such an intriguing, thought-arresting presence in this world wouldn’t just recognize the effects that the same person set in to motion. I don’t know their past. I know they were close, I know he loved her very much. As the anger set in, guilt was not far behind. She had sixteen years with him. I felt ashamed…I knew who he was for five years, but not until the fourth year did we talk. He was gone for the better part of the last two. Our time was brief to say the least. There is no reason to regret the years he was here. At least he was somewhere, changing someone’s life, smiling his sly smile with a simple, ‘Indeed.’ As I walked out the door and into the sunlight, I felt such an overwhelming sadness. I miss him beyond words. It was so final, so definite, so irrevocable. This is not a dream I can just wake up from. This is not something that will fade or go away. The void inside of me won’t heal and nothing will ever take it’s place. But as I looked up and saw the sun shining through the autumn leaves, I felt the strength I posess. Because if I can make it through this, I can make it through anything. ——————————————————————————————

I wrote this my senior year in high school. Ichi Ai Love, Jessica

l’océan : un

November 5, 2007 – Monday

l’océan : un

i read the words of others and am inspired to feel.
to be at home with my emotions.
to settle in and stay a while.

it wouldn’t be hard to write you and i down on paper, see what kind of story unfolds. romance or tragedy [one and the same] or something else altogether. a thing that either of us never thought to hope for.

i would write that i was an ocean. and you would nod and agree. you would laugh at the resemblance because you understood, smile clandestinely to yourself.
i would write that at times you felt as though you were a desert. and i would joke and jest while my heart deplored because i understood.
and years later i would write that we were everything in between. we would stare in wonder at the words. there would be no laughter. we’d try to make excuses for why it took us so long to comprehend.
you turn and kiss me. i can taste the melancholy on your lips. you cannot hide this from me. your details are vague. but i see it in your eyes, smell it on your skin.
and so i write the words for you.
you missed this ocean.
and the desert is only growing.
not even i can quench your thirst.

old words.

i’m reading through old blogs and journals.
some of what i come across will find its way here.

like this one…
December 11, 2007 – Tuesday

i’ve been alone since ’89

whenever that song comes on,
i stop and sigh.
i smile.

i’d say that it doesn’t make me think of anyone, but that’s not true.
it makes me think of solo drives to and from portland at night. the most amazing view of the stars and the only light besides my headlights is the moon. that cold, almost tangible, light that fills the summer air. it reminds me of windows down and heaters on low and the light smell of the river that i would catch every once in a while.

“is it possible to put this night to tune…”

it makes me think of me.

spokane has never made my heart beat faster than it did on my way home this summer.

hot damn.

my last post seems so ironic.
needless to say that relationship ended weeks ago.
on good terms.

my entire life right now is a whirlwind.
i feel like i walked into a story.
someone else’s life.
maybe a romantic comedy.
i feel like there is a clock ticking in my chest, counting down the minutes…

what’s going to happen when the time is up?

i feel like there’s something amazing and priceless in my hands and that it’s going to slip from my grasp.
american films did not prepare me for the possible outcome of this…
they are all happy endings but what happens if there is not a happy ending for this one?

thanks life. you really know how to keep things interesting.

love,
jessica

hello sun.

spring is here and summer is on its way.

this seems kind of bizarre but i have been in relationships pretty consistently since i turned 16. 
except every single summer since i turned sixteen there have been breakups in early, mid, and late spring.
i just find it slightly amusing considering my life right now.
even when previous relationships lasted right up until late may…i knew they were going to end.
i knew it was only a matter of time.

but i do not have any feeling like that whatsoever this spring.
i honestly feel like the luckiest girl in the world.
i wake up happy. i fall asleep happy. and throughout the day i am reminded by random little things that i couldn’t have asked for anything better.

i think over the years i always got excited for summer but i also got uneasy. subconsciously.
i also have got into the habit of expecting a drastic change in late spring or early summer because of it.

but this summer i get to enjoy life. no stress or heartache to kick it off.

just the feeling of content.

love,
jessica

this is what i daydream of…

a bonfire.
an umbrella.
weather in the 60s.
a smile.
a kiss.
long hair.
not long faces.
sandals.
tan lines.
dancing in the rain.
at night.
all night.
sunrises being better than sunsets.
[mainly because i’ve seen more with you than with anyone.]
late night drives [sans the roadkill].
windows down, heater up.
reading all day on a rainy day.
coffee in the morning, outside.
walks walks walks.
bicycles.
freckles spreading finely across cheekbones.
sno-cones.
soft lips.
soft hair.
beer, not wine.
whiskey, not water.

 

sounds lovely, J

so precise, so pristine.

i had a dream about god. i wish i could remember the details.

i woke up and felt as if i had enjoyed a rich conversation with an old friend, the kind that keeps you up all night but during which you never feel fatigued. you feel fresh and new and rejuvenated with thoughts and words and ideas. but upon full consciousness, i forgot the things of which we spoke and i was almost heartsick because of it.

i believe in god. but not like anybody else.
god is an old friend of mine. god is with me through the thick and the thin. and even if some day, someone makes a discovery that god was never there, it wouldn’t change a thing. maybe god is only in my head, my heart, and my soul. maybe god is only in the subtle grace of gravity or the slight smile that passes between friends. maybe god is only in the feeling you get when you smell fall or feel spring. maybe god is only in the way the sun feels on your skin or the smell of grandma’s house.

i think, no, i feel that god is in those things. 

god helps me with my faith in myself and with my resolve to accomplish the things that are the hardest.
god ebbs and flows with my life and my experiences. 
i feel full of god when i am the happiest and when i feel desolate. 

i am a product of my environment. it has shaped the way in which i perceive and interact with the world.
and the way in which i perceive and interact with my notion of god.
i am not a christian and i will never convert to any religion.
i appreciate the teachings of jesus of nazareth as much as i enjoy nietzsche’s idea of the übermensch. 

i am excited to continue my life of questioning things and not living within the prescribed, nonsensical confines of religion.

love,
jessica

all i need is trouble.

winter break.

i constantly feel as if i should be doing something. 
this is by far the longest break i have had since i started going to school again.
and even on my short breaks from classes, i had to work.

it’s beginning to wear on me.
not to mention the obscene amount of snow that spokane has received.

i enjoy work more as it does not take up time that i could be using for reading texts for my classes.
i did receive my nlt study bible for christmas from my dad [funny situation, the atheist giving his agnostic daughter a bible for christmas].

i am excited to start jan term although i’m thoroughly convinced that it will kick my ass. [pilates five days a week, who does that?]
i am even more excited for the history classes that i am taking during the spring [hist of vietnam, medieval islam, medieval europe] and for my old testament class.

i am excited to learn! fall semester,  my first at whitworth, pushed me a lot in my academic as well as personal life.
over the summer i had decided that school was the most important thing and that as i began my time at wu, i would focus solely on school. and because of the way things work, that meant that any plans that i had made were thrown completely off track. oddly enough, i couldn’t be more ecstatic about that. as i look back on my life over the past several years, two things strike me:

1. i never knew how true the statement was, ‘the only thing that stays the same is change.’ my life is a roller coaster. i have come to expect that. everything goes in any which direction it chooses. plans never follow through. but i love it. it is hard and it makes me grow as a person. when i was a little girl, i always had this idea that as soon as i became an ‘adult’ my life would become static. i have never been so happy to be proven wrong. what kind of life would i lead if there were not bumps and detours in my road. but there is also the second thing,

2. everything works out [somehow]. no matter how hard things get, it always gets better, even if in unexpected ways. i may not know where my road may lead me, but i know that it will all turn out alright.

i may stress out from time to time, become a complete mess and doubt myself. but this is part of life. and at some point, i remember the two things mentioned above and it becomes easier to bear. and i also have good friends, good family, and jon to constantly remind me that i am capable of accomplishing what i set out to do. i have more gratitude than they could imagine and hope that i convey at least some of that to them.

with love,
jessica