"I threw in a life preserver, but preservation is always only temporary."

I thought I needed it to live my life more happily.
I think I may have been wrong.
I think I may be the exception.

Perhaps, I've only wanted it because I was supposed to want it. I've been conditioned to want it. The truth is, if I had it I wouldn't know what to do with it. And I doubt it would even help me at all. The funny thing is, I've known it all along but it's much too difficult to admit until now. The way I am and the way I've always been is all I've ever known. There's no need to complicate things. There's really no need at all.

There's another problematic factor in this already problematic equation. We will always refer to the feelings we once felt and the experiences we had, to judge how to approach everything that comes next, before we even see it through. We dismiss and accept things without knowing what will really happen. Never will you be able to force time you spent from your memory, no matter the lengths you may go to. And these same spans of time are the crossroads and roadblocks that prevent you from freeing yourself.

I climbed my first tree.

Yesterday, while making an early trip to McDonalds (7am) I witnessed something awesome. Picture this: A heavy set kid on a bike with a bag of McD's food and a drink. He looks in the bag (he's alone, mind you) and he smiles the biggest, most happy of smiles. He then proceeds to pick up a boom box (ghetto blaster/cassette player) with a CORD and he rides off on his bike, food, drink and boom box in tow. Where he was going, or what he intended to do with the cassette player, I have no idea. I do know, however, that it made me a very happy girl.

My worst fear is slowly coming true. Awkward silences, small talk, "catching up." I'm not sure we can repair the damage that the natural progression of growing up has done. If there was a way for me to patch up the holes that we've allowed to exist so that we could return to our sisterly state of familiarity, I would. But it takes more than that. I wish I could say I was referring to only one person, but there are a few. Le sigh.

As of tomorrow morning, I will be thrown into recycling bins and trash cans all across Metro Detroit, only to rest peacefully in my immortalized newspaper condition for ever and ever. Well, until I am recycled into something new someday.

As of lately, it seems as though the only ideas I have are bad ones. If I ever have a good idea, I'll be sure to write it down so I can have proof that I was at one point capable of doing so.

I'm better off airbrushed and retouched.

(unedited photo by Joshua Band Photography)