my dearest friend

Dear sweet Clara Jean Coleman:

I have sent you here because I cherish our friendship so dearly, and aside from several letters, I feel that I have not expressed it enough.  But I put much love and heart into each confetti laden envelope, so I hope that you've enjoyed them.  However, as you know, I have unbridled disdain for a certain networking website's negative influence on my life, so I have chosen to do something very 2004 by starting a blog.  You are the only one who knows about it aside from me.  Hope that's not creepy.

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I know that there are often these senseless, unpredictable things that encroach upon our lives, causing us to fall into an endless abyss of insecurity, frustration, guilt, and ultimately doubt.  It's difficult for me to even admit to myself sometimes, but there is a silver lining, a beam of light on the horizon, all of that.  Because there has to be.  Because we have to keep going, or we would lose every grain of sanity within us.  To hell with those who doubt you, causing the aforementioned insecurity, frustration and guilt.  People like that need to be plucked from their public surroundings and dropped on a shitty person island together.  This past year has pummeled you with numerous challenges, and you've hung in there like a good sport.  Despite your moments of desolation and ever-changing scenery, you have churned out an impressive body of work.


It is imperative that you know the impact that you've had on my life.  You're one of the greatest people I've ever known.  Your sensitivity for others and ability to empathize with even the most common of strangers is unmatched.  When you are feeling down and bluesy, I feel down and bluesy.  When you're ecstatic, I am ecstatic.  I never want distance (or any other factors) hindering our wonderful friendship.  You are my fellow woman, my sister, and my dearest friend. 

dried apricots and inadequacies

There are heavy clouds looming outside my bedroom windows.  Even through flowered curtains, it is clear that a day spent inside could have potential, both positive and negative.  Although, I have managed to convince myself of this nearly every day this week, and I fear that it may have become unhealthy.  Days have been spent going to work, coming home, and occasionally hanging out with friends in between.  Just looking at that phrase "going to work" bores me from its active "going" beginning to its bitter "work" end.  Something must be done to fix this, or I'm afraid I could become increasingly comfortable with my current line of work, its arrogant offering of coworkers, and my gray cloud life in this dead-end town.
 
No one really teaches you motivation in college.  If found successful, universities could likely charge double the cost of an average undergraduate course.  But would everyone show up?
 
Perhaps college is just another proverbial filter, sifting through apathy in hopes of finding golden ambition, in which the worthy prove themselves and those of us who wait tables throughout college are simply meant to wait tables throughout life.  
 
Perhaps these are excuses from a woman who is too hard on herself and feels too beaten down to drive on.  I will think that very thing, on occasion.  But there has always been some glimmering element of hope in the very back of my mind, foolish and naive as it may sound.  I think to lose that would be even more foolish than to hold onto it.  I might need it someday, when I'm truly down and out.  I will think back to days such as today and think, "God, woman.  You didn't know how lucky you had it."