Find Yourself.

For years I've been guided
by many elder hands.
But now I'm cast into the cold
and left all alone.

Somehow I'm supposed to find my way
somehow I'm supposed to live.
And all I seem to be doing now
is fumbling blindly ahead.

I've become a stranger to myself.
I've become someone I don't know
I've been guided all my life,
and told what to do and where to go
But now I've been left to fend alone
in this brokenhearted cold
I've become a stranger to myself.
I've become somebody I don't know.

I now stumble in the darkness
holding my hands in front of me.
Feeling my way to freedom,
hoping to succeed.

Somehow they say you'll be just fine
somehow I'm going to prevail.
And all I seem to be doing now
is fumbling blindly ahead.

I've become a stranger to myself.

I've become someone I don't know

I've been guided all my life,

and told what to do and where to go

But now I've been left to fend alone

in this brokenhearted cold

I've become a stranger to myself.

I've become somebody I don't know.

And now I can see this newer me,

Is just an improvement of the old.

But as for the path I chose to tread

it's dark and it's cold.

and I've never loved the dark......

I've become a stranger to myself.

I've become someone I don't know

I've been guided all my life,

and told what to do and where to go

But now I've been left to fend alone

in this brokenhearted cold

I've become a stranger to myself.

I've become somebody I don't know.

Why Am I Still Awake?

So I haven't written recently... I've been a bad girl. But it seems like as soon as I got home to my blessed Wisconsin, I never really felt an urge to spend hours upon hours on facebook.... or my computer at all really. The only thing I use it for really anymore is skype and to look up songs to play on guitar.
Since coming home I've noticed a change in myself. Or maybe it was always there, I'm not really sure. But I seem to be more driven. I feel like I need to be busy studying or reading or just doing SOMETHING with my hands. I can't simply sit down and watch T.V. anymore. I played piano for three days straight when I came home. I learned a song that I never would have been able to play before simply because I had this new single-minded determinedness to get it right. I didn't get frustrated as easily, and to my amazement, I learned the song after just a few attempts. I played it constantly for two days. And when I wasn't playing piano, I was playing video games. Sure, I had to sit still, but my hands were moving.

And then came my visit to Whitewater. I felt like I was at home again, being back at school, walking everywhere, sleeping in a room where all my possessions seemed to be stashed, and of course, FREEDOM. But my visit was short-lived, but not pointless. Now, as I sit here in the room I called home for nearly 9 years, I realize, it doesn't feel like "home" anymore. I feel lonely, like my room is too big, and slightly claustrophobic. You don't realize just how much CRAP you have until you're back in the midst of it all after living on the bare minimum for so long. My bed has too many pillows, my floor is too soft. I have too many clothes, and just too many things I don't need, but don't want to throw away. At the same time, I feel too out in the open. I don't have someone sleeping above me, or across the room from me. I have the freedom to spread my crap anywhere I want to. But it feels... wrong now.

I haven't unpacked half of the boxes I brought home. I don't want to become re-attached to this place. After all, it's not my permanent home anymore. It struck me on my last night here before I left for CMU that I would never again sleep in this bed for more than three months at one time. I would never again be in the house year-round. I would never again be totally living here. I would never again "always be around." Each thing I did before I left I noted as my "last." My last shower, my last nap, my last song sung in the "guitar corner" I made for myself. It felt almost like... dying. I didn't realize how much I left behind until I came back and felt like my things had never left. But I felt like I'd been gone not just for a few months, but for YEARS. I felt like so much of the child who used to live there had been bullied out by the more reasonable and mature young adult that was emerging inside of me as the months passed in Michigan. I don't know if I know exactly who I am anymore. I don't know if I ever knew. But now I feel like my own mind is a stranger to me, or at least someone I've known only for a short time. My way of thinking has been altered, my way of doing as well. As some typical cheesy movie line would say "Who are you and what have you done with Tia?" That's exactly what I feel like.

Apparently I give off an "aura" now. People tell me when they haven't seen me since I went away to school that I look more "collegiate," whatever that means. Does it mean I look older? I don't think so. Does it mean I sound older? Maybe. I don't know why. I look at myself in the mirror and see a girl turned into a female in between the stages of teenager and adult. I've watched my face change over the months and I guess I don't realize how I've been altered. But others do. The people who remember my face from before. They notice a change. I have too, but it's one no one else can see. I find that I don't cry as easily as I used to. I find myself being oddly stoic more often than not. Is college turning me cold, stony, emotionless?

People say college "changes" you, but I never knew what they meant. I figured it made you seem either smarter or stupider, depending on what you filled your weekends with. I never imagined in my wildest dreams that it could make me a totally different person. Someone who wants to cry but can't. Someone who seems to now be questioning her life goals, her past actions, and her own beliefs. Why me? I ask. But why I'm asking this, or to whom, I don't know. I used to think of myself as sure of who I was, but disorganized. Now, I think of myself as a stranger to myself, a person fumbling in the darkness, trying to find her way. And I've always been afraid of the dark.

I'm such a loser.

This is what I do when I'm skyping with Anna and trying to help her do math. Obviously, I would fail the test. Do I get kudos for creativity?

Boreddd

Im basically so bored that im sitting here taking stupid pictures of myself. Just chilling in my Middleton Cardinals sweatshirt.... I wanna go home. 8 more days... Then I never have to come back to Michigan again in my life, unless it is by my own choice.
When I was younger, I used to dream about living on my own and living in California, or Arizona, or somewhere warm. Now that I'm anywhere but the place I grew up, I realize I don't want to be any where else but there. I just want Wisconsin and nothing but back in my veins....
8 days....
8 days....
Salvation comes in 8 days.

Meep.

I say meep a lot.

and I realize now I'm a masochist.

Let's Start a Union, Calling Every Human

I don't know why I do this to myself. I fall so hard so fast, and I expect them to feel the same way. Our relationship isn't even that, it's just us having a spark and that's it. But I take that spark so far, interpreting it as something so much stronger, since I hardly ever feel this strong of an attraction towards someone in such a short period of time.

Oh sure, I know he feels some attraction to me too, since he told me so. But I know he's not dreaming of the future, of what could be, of a future that included each other in every waking moment.

I dreamed last night of that. I dreamed of being married outside on a beautiful day in late August, the time in between our favorite seasons, summer and fall. The flowers all around the courtyard were in full bloom, and the late summer breeze drifted gently through the trees. People sat in white chairs, looking anxiously towards the long white carpet set out leading from the back of the clearing to the forefront of the space where a man stood. He was dressed smartly in black and white, waiting with a somber expression on his face while his hands were clasped tightly in front of his body. He was nervous, but so joyful. He was marrying the girl of his dreams.

Then, Pachabel's Cannon began to play softly, the sweet notes drifting through the trees with the gentle breeze. The crowd turned in anticipation towards the back of the courtyard, and the groom lifted his eyes, waiting to see her walk down the aisle towards him. And there she was. Dressed in all white with her arm around her father's, looking more beautiful than he'd ever seen her look before. A smile spread across both their faces at the same time, forgetting about everything else but each other. Tears filled her father's eyes as he noticed the degree of love and adoration emulating from his daughter and her soul mate standing just steps away now.

Father and daughter reached the spot where the groom stood, and her father handed the groom his daughter's hand slowly. He took it gingerly, sweetly, and they turned to face the altar, ready to commit themselves to one another for the rest of their lives. No one moved or spoke for a moment, soaking in the feeling of pure happiness that seemed to ring through the air like a sweet note sung by a child. Vows were taken, rings were exchanged, and then, the moment they'd been waiting for their entire lives, they became bonded by more than just love. Their kiss was simple and sweet, but behind their lips rested promises of eternity, faith, trustworthiness, and commitment that never would be broken.

The kiss brought memories of the day they met. They'd been introduced by a mutual friend, and things had taken off then. They saw each other for a solid day, and the feelings intensified. But she went to school in another state, and they savored the memories of that one night they spent together until they could see each other again. After that night though, they had their ups and downs. Mostly starting out with downs, but their commitment to each other only grew stronger after that first initial night together. She was brought back to the darker days after this memory, the days when she thought he didn't like her at all. The days she spent lonely, unwilling to see any one else, unwilling to smile for longer than a couple seconds. But then she remembered the happiest days of her life. The days he came to visit her, the days and nights they spent together during breaks, the summers spent in each other's arms. She remembered the day he asked her to be his girlfriend, and the night he asked her to be his wife. But no memory would remain in her memory as solidly as their first night together. The night she knew he was the one. People told her you can't possibly know he's the one after one day, but she knew. She'd always believed in love at first sight, and this only made her belief stronger. The first time she laid eyes on him, she knew he was more than just a pretty face. He was her superman, come to save her from the depths of loneliness she'd been trapped in for so long. Even though at first he was reluctant to try because he doubted his own abilities, he ended up realizing that he was strong enough, that he could save her.

He remembered the confusion he'd felt after meeting her. He'd just come out of a long-term relationship with a girl he thought he'd spend the rest of his life with, and he didn't want to deal with the feelings again. His heart was still broken, and he didn't understand the feelings he felt around her. She made him even more shy than he'd been already, she made him nervous, scared to do something wrong. He didn't know she felt the same way. But when she told him she liked him after only a few days, he got scared, not realizing that the reason for his fear was that he felt the same way, but he didn't want to accept it. Not yet. His heart was still healing. He didn't realize that she was the antidote, the bandaid he needed to heal the hole in his heart that he'd been nursing. She'd wanted to heal it, and he wouldn't let her for so long. But when he tried to cure himself with other girls, he realized they just weren't the same. He was always comparing them to her, always thinking about her. It wasn't until then he realized there was no stopping it. She was what he wanted, and he finally accepted that. When he did, the pain went away. His heart has began to heal, and he realized she really was just what he needed.

And now, they were joined together for the rest of their lives. And they knew they'd never want anyone else as long as they lived.

Yin and Yang

Sometimes amazingness can come at the strangest times... Like when you show up and someone's house with one intention and end up not doing that at all. But sometimes  you end up finding out something about yourself that you didn't think anyone could love. My eyes, my forwardness. How could anyone like that? Well.... He does. Why? I have no idea.

He said we're like Yin and Yang. We complete each other. He's the quiet calm after my crazy storm. I'm the sun to his moon. And I'm not just coming up with this now. We've gone over this together, and I know he feels the same way. Which just blows me away. I've never had a guy just straight out tell me my eyes were pretty. I don't have cool blue eyes or stormy grey or piercing green. I have flat, brown eyes, but apparently he loves them. He says they look like chocolate.... Chocolate. How sweet.

There's so much more I'd love to say, but some things about that night, I want to keep to myself. Some things I want to remember only for myself, because I want to be the only one to cherish them.