Feeling: amazed
Listening to: Satan watching the Karate Kid in the other room
Reading/Watching: The Eye of the World, by Robert Jordan

Finally, the long-delayed Five Year Anniversary entry!

Picking up where the Two Year Entry left off (I am too lazy to sift back through all those), we begin with ruminations on being an ugly duckling (who finally recognized her swan feathers).

Even as a swan, I was too eager but mistrusting, and I knew my first *real* relationship would be doomed, since my first unreal relationship was so odd, even though I remember it fondly. I wrote a list of things I've never done but always wanted to (and while writing this entry, I was delighted to realize that I have since accomplished 24 of them).

I decided not to go to Hometown over the summer, and rented a room from some friends in Schoolville. I got a job, paid my portion of rent and electricity, and decided I loved Schoolville for more than the fact that it harbored my university. It wasn't always peachy with my roommates, particularly since one of them thought I was trying to show off when I threw "big" words into conversation, or sat on the couch reading Jane Austen instead of going partying on Saturday night. That threw me a bit. I decided against moving in with them permanently. The Roommate Search began.

I drove seven hours to meet my Dork Sister Lala, and discovered that we're just as close face-to-face as we are in the safe, sterile confines of the internet. And I got my hair straightened, which was an interesting experience. My friends stared, but strangers ignored me. Friends asked me why I didn't straighten it permanently, since it looked so attractive, and didn't get out of control nearly as easily. But I looked like a different person- an unremarkable person. With it curly, total strangers came up to me asking if it was naturally that way, saying it was pretty. (Three older women have jokingly asked me if I'd donate some of it to them for hair plugs.) I liked being unusual.

And of course, in the rising of junior year, I had stupid crushes, and dwelled angrily on the past, and decided that my time was too valuable to waste on boys. Then, in typical girl fashion, I would call myself the Undateable Teen Nun and wonder what was so wrong with me, that no one came close. The irony of it was, I wrote one such entry the night before I had my first kiss.

Even funnier? Something that's not written in the diary: I met the Air Force Boys the day after my first kiss. It is highly ironic, that within 48 hours, I whined about being a pariah, got my first boyfriend, and then met the man I was going to marry. But, I am getting ahead of myself.

Another close friend attempted suicide, and called me in the eleventh hour. My boyfriend came to comfort me, and tried to use my anguish to convince me to sleep with him (luckily, I am not stupid). Not three weeks into the relationship, he threatened to break up with me if I wouldn't have sex (or promise to, in the near future). I refused, and he cheated on me. He still had the gall to promise and plead when I left him. All within four weeks.

A friend (Dom) told me I was aloof at times. And apparently, aloofness is attractive. A few weeks later, there was a rebound boy. And no matter how nice it was initially, my heart was still tangled, and I couldn't let myself fall. I went to a cousin's wedding, which made me realize how love should be, and how different Rebound Boy and I were. I searched for the right one, and let the wrong one go. (And occasionally, I was reminded of how the ones we let hurt us are the ones we miss, not the ones who treat us like queens but can't touch our hearts. It's very backward.)

Then my Boy-Dumping karma rose up and became Car-ma.

I was cast as a replacement in the school's Woody Allen play (and discussed religious intolerance in the same entry, oddly enough).

I saved up money, and Bri and I took a train to Chicago over spring break junior year. While we were coming back, the war started. And then Bri and Satan started (or just escalated) their own war. Months passed, and in between playing their referee, I finally got ready for a new relationship, and didn't get one.

In unrelated events, driving and singing is fun. I saw Tori in concert. The night of the concert, Bri got a waiter's number, and I in turn attempted casual groping. And learned that I should never attempt casual groping. And my Rebound Boy kept flirting and wanting to get back together.

Nimsay and I got an apartment the following summer. I turned 21. Larceny was borrowed for the first time (Nimsay and I continued to return and re-borrow successive Larcenys until we eventually retired Larceny VII a few months ago). I got a (horrible) job at Victoria's Secret (for the record, Puppy told my english teacher I worked there, she thought he was joking). But it's okay, because I had healthy ways of dealing with my frustration.

A summer I dubbed the Summer of Solitude quickly became the exact opposite, a summer of highschool-esque drama and heartbreak, endangering some long-term friendships. I still tend to think on it as the biggest mistake of my life. I was a shapeshifter, trying to find a personality I could fit into, and it became aggravating and exhausting. But better things have come of it, which is its saving grace. I found out who my real friends are (and who my real friends are not, which damaged one particular bond irreparably). But one of the boys, Lindsy, was a source of strength, of comfort. We talked for hours at night, and oddly, the only sign on my journal of this deepening friendship is his individual mention in a few entries. He became more than just "one of the Air Force Boys," and I had yet to realize how significant it was.

I struggled with money, occasionally paying bills with $2.14 to spare. But I made it. I found other jobs, I baby-sat, I made it work.

Autumn came, and Nimsay and the boys and I went to see Evanescence (I still have to laugh, knowing that Bri and I planned to go together, and when she picked another fight, I gave her ticket to Satan.) I realized I would need another year of school to finish my degree. On my 600th entry, I made plans for where I wanted to be in five, ten, and fifty years.

I worked, I went to school, I wrote the entry of joke history essays that has since gotten me hundreds of Google hits from unscrupulous students wanting an easy A. I learned how to hold my own in discussions with my father.

New Year's Eve passed, with the kiss that didn't happen. Followed by an almost-date that did. My thoughts turned directions, and suddenly I was thinking of someone, a close friend, and I couldn't figure out why. I still pined for the "perfect man", and I wrote stories about the one I knew (thinly disguised with different names, of course). But I didn't want to risk such a valuable friendship, not this time.

Then, I decided to confess my feelings, and risked a friendship. Friendship ended. Something better began. Lindsy became mon coeur.

A teacher, friend, and mentor died. My grandmother was put in a nursing home. I grieved for both things.

I tried out for another school play, this time Shakespeare's Othello, and was cast in my dream role. No matter how rough it was, I loved every minute. And I had the bruises to prove it.

The school year ended. Bri's dad left her mom, and my faith in marriage was shaken (not a good thing when just starting a real relationship).

I got a summer job working for Information, and learned that sometimes, even when you're taken, boys still flirt (and possibly more, when they know you're not available). Good thing I was in love. We would stay up all night, just talking. My life changed, because he was in it.

I didn't change entirely, though. I still remembered past friends, especially those that I let drift away, like Tiger, and the ones that were still dear after years of absence. I explored different kinds of music, like jazz, even though I didn't speak the language.

Miller graduated from St. Moo, and drove off into the sunset (or Kansas, whatever). I had my senior recital, a crowning glory of five years of hard work. Mon coeur and I celebrated a year together, but I panicked at the thought of our idealogical differences, worrying that we might not be able to work them out (and although we settle every argument, I think we're still a long way from agreeing).

I thought about whether I still wanted the friendship with Bri, and we took a trip to San Diego together. Internally, I asked myself whether we were really friends anymore, or chasing ghosts.

After that, things happened quickly. I had an ovarian cyst that landed me in surgery, and put me out of school for nearly three weeks. I did not take to bed rest, and nearly lost my mind from boredom, and worrying about make-up work. One of my classmates offered me a respite from studying for a test, and I realized I wasn't cut out for cheating.

The air force decided they wanted to send my love away to Korea. The very same day, when I went to Bri for comfort, she blew up at me over a haircut. And suddenly, ending our friendship was so easy.

But the show had to go on. I finished my thesis, and graduated from college.

After graduation, mon coeur and I drove to California so that I could meet his family, and while there, he proposed, and I accepted. It is still odd, calling him my fianc�. Perhaps it will become easier over the course of the year he's gone, but I admit that I'm grateful to have the time to get used to the idea.

I mean, hell, when I was twenty I was an unkissed virgin depending on her parents for support. Now, I'm barely twenty-three, I'm engaged, and I'm a college graduate living entirely on my own. Part of me, buried deep, is still an eighteen-year-old girl who first started this journal with such a foggy idea of how her life would be. Part of me still feels like I should be waiting for that first kiss, and part of me can't wait to discover what sort of grown-up I'm going to be.

All I can say is, it's nothing like what I was expecting. It's scarier. It's faster. It's infinitely, amazingly better. And I'm still just getting started.

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