Nothing Left

I was cruising around facebook (you know, every college student's normal pasttime) when I happened upon a blog written by my closest friend in high school. I knew things had changed a lot since we graduated, that we had found ourselves in very different ways, but I had tried to cope with these things, and even hang out this summer. But when I clicked on the note, I only found a rant about what true Christianity is and why so many people keep getting it wrong.

So many things ran through my head. I thought about how judgmental it was, how the assumptions made were astronomical, how I never liked that brand of Christianity anyway. But when I flipped pages back to my own profile, only one thought rang in my head.

There is nothing left.

I hate melodramatic blogs, and I'm doing my very best not to turn this into one, but that was the only solid thought that formed in my head. There is nothing left of our friendship that hasn't been spoiled. There is no more common ground to debate. There is no more trust. In some ways, in the ways preoccupied with memories of high school, it's breaking my heart; but in ways more oriented to my current self, I'm doing just fine.

My parents and I have been talking about moving to Knoxville, and I'm really starting to think that this would be a good idea. My dad has a great job offer with twice the pay out there, and my mother could easily work as a medical coder. Both are unhappy in their jobs. They tell me otherwise on a regular basis, but I think the thing that is keeping them in Nashville is me. This is where I graduated high school, where my best friend still lives, for the most part where I grew up. But Demetria and I don't hang out much anymore, at least not in person, and I'd be happier without ever thinking of Beech High School again. What I realized tonight is that, as strange as it is to say it, there is nothing left for me here.

I want to move to Knoxville.

Erica Prologue

I feel like I haven't posted here for ages, so at the moment I'm just putting up whatever I can find in the depths of my laptop:

The prologue of a story I started about a year ago:


The wind ventured to her in a small gust, sweeping her hair off her shoulders and into her face. She could feel her locks press into her cheek lightly, but did not bother to brush them away. Her eyes were closed softly yet solidly, shutting out all but her own thoughts, her own fears, her own actions.

She licked her lips slowly, savoring the sensation. The wind was stronger now, whipping past her and throwing its chill air into her face. She felt her lips glaze over and licked them again, then opened her eyes to look down.

The water below churned ferociously, chunks of white dancing in the dark. Every now and again a silver gleam would catch her eye, the reflection of a star glaring at her as though angry, but it soon disappeared into the turning tide. She imagined she could feel it all – the fierce cold of the river, the bright stare of the stars, the invisible grasp of the night. She felt the win caress her cheek, and she closed her eyes once more.

Her eyes darted beneath their lids, rapid and desperate. Her mind jumped through thoughts and topics and ideas – What’s Lacey doing? I wonder if she broke up with Clay. Lord, I hope she ended –

She took a deep breath and threw herself forward.

For a moment she felt weightless, and she forgot why she wanted to die, as though she were truly living for the first time, adrenaline coursing through her fractured veins, her lips stretched into a small smile, the wind rushing though her hair and around her slender body, with a bright looming abyss before her; from here the waves in the water, the splashes of white, looked like candles in the dark, inviting and beautiful and lovely; she hit the water with a crash, icy cold to her soft white skin, refreshing she thought or a split second –

And then she remembered, remembered everything, and she made herself go limp and she began to let herself drown.

Surgery

I have news. And it's very cool news. I'm quite excited about it. Unfortunately, I am also exhausted -- far too exhausted to bother telling this news in an exciting way. I may get around to that later, or not. But the plan at the moment is to spit it out, and then curl up with my cat and watching Coupling until I pass out, because it's just that good of a show.

Dr. Allen invited me to watch one of his surgeries. He thinks I should be a neurosurgeon, and if I do well I might get his favor -- which is kind of a big deal. So, I'll talk to him Thursday about scrubbing in, and soon I'll find out if neurosurgery really fits me (which I'm about 95% sure that it will).

Yep. That's all.

Concert

This is in the 2008 T'vanian.

I watch the fluorescent light shine on their faces
sweat softly gleaming at the temples and their
limbs tossed into the air only to be jerked back
with the next beat of music, hanging like toys
and I watch hypnotized preparing to bat my paw
at their sensual dancing figures, so fueled
by youth and freedom and alcohol
that I cannot help but join their throng
the music beating into my ear and swimming through me
killing my voice and thought and heart
and I wonder who needs beer when you have this
your best friend’s eyeliner and your smile in her eyes
and that photo of the keyboardist on your friend’s camera
and the breath of release when you see your nail polish
reaching up towards the sky

When I sit down all I can see is shoes and grass
the careless beating of thin green blades reflecting
that same fluorescent light, and I wonder for a moment
how anyone could imagine progress

Untitled 1

when I flip through my old notebooks all I find
is poetry written about you
I trace the curves of my s’s and turns of my q’s
to a time when you were you
and you and me was all I could think about
I run my hand across torn pages
tear streaked lines of ink and pencil
and I can see the memories all over again
dancing across the blue lines and
metal twirls of those spiral notebooks
that I always carried with me when I was with you

On Blogs

To be perfectly honest, I am horrible with these things. Blogs, I mean. I set one up, design a pretty layout, and prepare myself to fully commit, to write down everything that happens to me, to be completely open and honest, to inform the internet world and the friends who find me in it about my daily happenings and, as is more often, the issues and tragedies of my not-so horrible existence. But what actually happens is that I set them up, design a pretty layout, post for a few days, and then forget about it for months, going about my daily life wondering why I have nowhere to spill my heart out, until I finally find it again and post some sort of nonsensical apology.

That will probably happen here. I apologize beforehand, because I hope it won't be quite as nonsensical. Which is a great word, by the way.

So what are my summer plans that I am so keen to write about, you ask? Or, at least, I pretend you ask as a wonderful gateway into the next point. I am working at a doctor's office. And not just any doctor's office, oh no, I'm working for the Howell Allen Clinic, and if you ever come to Nashville and want to see the most pretentious waiting room in the world, we have got it. I wear designer scrubs embroidered with our name, waste huge amounts of paper by printing charts, and deal with bitchy patients.

No, really, it's not that bad -- I'm making good money and some of the patients are quite lovely. I had a wonderful conversation today with a patient's husband, and one man even stopped by the desk after his appointment just to thank me for taking him back. But the interesting part about this job is that, in working with patients and charts and diagnoses, I'm kind of remembering why I had that childhood dream of being a doctor. Science suits me, and I like patients. The end of the story is that I've decided to attempt a Chemistry major and start thinking about pre-med. I know.. it's very exciting. So someone remind me to talk to our pre-med department when I get back to Transy.

Or I'll just write it on my hand everyday and die of lead poisoning. You know, whatever.

I have a lot more ponderings that it would be wonderful to write down, but it's nearing 8:30 and that means that it's getting relatively close to my bedtime. I get up for work everyday at 5:15 and run patients all day. Which, by the way, involves real running. So, bed is along the lines of 10:00, and I haven't even gotten in my daily dose of Battlestar Galactica. I'm off, hopefully to write again later.

By the way, I would like to add that I am currently reading Fight Club, and I am extremely confused as to what all the hype was about. It's a relatively inventive idea, but the style is so basic noir or hard-boiled detective that I keep wondering why Palahniuk didn't decide to branch out and do something special with it... I understand the "leaving the plot to stand on its own" concept, but this is just getting kind of boring (and I'm a huge Chandler fan, thanks to Fizdale, so it takes a lot for me to say that).