ecSTATIC.

My hard drive crashed and I lost all my pictures.

All of them.


Dad: Well, I've got some bad news sweetheart.

Okay. Uh-oh. He's talking with his hands.

It looks like your hard drive crashed.

It looks like? What does that even mean? Bad news, bad, bad news.

El, your computer died. This probably happens to one in every twenty hard drives, sometimes things just break. It is odd though, because, well because, this was a fairly new one - probably a year and a half. That's right, I installed this one about 20 months ago. Hm. Not too old.

HMM. Okay.

{Then mom walked in} Oh! Sorry to hear about your computer, lovely.

Why? Dad can fix it. Dad can fix it, right? You fix everything.

Afraid not, sweetheart.

So all my things are gone. All my pictures?

Whatever was on that computer, yeah.


I cried for awhile, because it really sucked. It didn't suck so much after someone I love came over and reminded me that I have a crazy-good life and things could be a lot worse.

So instead of moping about this, and wallowing in self-pity {which is a talent of mine, actually} I'm going to take NEW pictures of my crazy-good life.
I'm going to take all the pictures of all the places and all the people that make life so crazy-good.
I'm going to do new things and the new pictures I take will be what I've become because of all the old pictures, and because of all the awful things like this that happen, and because of people that pick you up and brush off the dirt and give you band-aids for your stupid bloody knees. I don't think I'm making a lot of sense right now. I'm HIGH ON LIFE. It's fine.


.

Miserable, but not really.

“I can’t explain what I mean. And even if I could, I’m not sure I’d feel like it.”

— J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

Have you ever liked someone who made you miserable? I mean really, just miserable - but you liked them, because even if they were making you miserable at least they were making you something. Never mind that that 'something' wasn't happy - it was just something. I think that sometimes we like a person or a thing solely because they make you anything; They make you sad, or nostalgic, or angry and unsure.

I think I'd rather be miserable than be nothing at all.
“She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see except standing there, leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.”— J.D Salinger

Yeah, alright.

“Sleep late, have fun, get wild, and drive fast on empty streets

with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested”

— Hunter S. Thompson

Don't let me know.

"Above all, try something."

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

I have to agree with you Frank - and, if you can't pick one thing, try everything. Try anything. See yourself in things that aren't you. Look stupid if you have to. I've been talking about, and thinking about, and freaking out about growing up lately. I'm growing up and I'm going to college - but today I decided;
I'm young. I should act my age. I still have time. I'm still figuring everything out.

I get to dip my feet in the water, I get to glance and then shut my eyes again, I get to press my face against the display-case holding my future and everything real and scary will just stay sitting inside for now, while I fog up the glass with my breathe of anticipation and smudge it with 16-year-old fingerprints.


{I'm not sure of this is really making sense even, but that's okay too. I had to try it, to try and say what's been clawing the inside of my head and making the back of my eyes itch.}


"That's impossible." "Shit, nothing's impossible."