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| Update on life.
Family: good as always. Brothers working way harder than I did in high
school. They will be seniors next year and will go on to amazing
colleges. Mom & Dad, my heroes as usual. Their constant support
allows me to do whatever I want with my life.
School: About to finish my third year at UCLA. It's going by faster and
faster. Have been contemplating the idea of graduating a quarter early,
but have been told by many people not to do it. I guess next year will
just be really relaxed in terms of class. Classes have long become
routine though, going through the motion every quarter. I thought
taking classes that I wanted to take would keep me interested in them,
but for some reason I'm ready to move on already.
Career: Working at Deutsch this summer in my pursuit to find out if
advertising is really what I want to do. If it isn't...then it's back
to square one.
Friends: I feel like the workoholic and emotionally withdrawn dad. Ad
team kept me running around this year. My dad always told me not to
take people for granted, but to also realize that friendships can be
temporal. It's becoming more and more true. How does one even make
friends after colllege? Through work? Do you hit up the bars in search
for buddies? (That last sentence pretty much embodies awkwardness.)
Love: Skot. Almost 11 months and counting. I will not let the influence
of anyone bring this relationship down. I will savor in the fact that
it is the best relationship either one of us has had. I will be
confident in knowing that he loves me best, most, and truly. The past
is the past is the past.
~natalie
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| I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
So I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
Pablo Neruda
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| Back at home temporarily for a family reunion. My grandfather is rapidly slipping away to Alzheimers, and it made me realize how much I take people for granted. It seems not so long ago that he was his animated self, talking and joking with us, his hair neatly combed over. And now his life consists of eating and sleeping and not fully recognizing his own children and grandchildren. Tonight we celebrated his birthday with a little karaoke at my grandparents' house. It was amazing - though he doesn't remember much English anymore, he could remember all the lyrics to his favorite Korean love songs. During one song, he got up and asked my grandmother to dance. Watching him spin her around, looking at her with such adoration, I saw love. Real, true and enduring love.
Home feels even less like home than before. I would almost rather my family come out to LA to see me, because I feel like I belong there. In Palo Alto, I feel out of place even in my own house, a guest that just eats, sleeps, and goes out with friends. I've done really well in the see-old-friends department this time around, though I've concluded that I am the master of the awkward in-the-car hug.
Will be back in LA tomorrow night. The plan for the rest of the summer is ad team work with Vicky and hopefully some sort of travel at the beginning of September. I need to find a new source of motivation. It used to be PR - hopefully ad team will take its place. Right now I feel like I'm floating without direction or passion, and I don't like it. The lack of focus makes me concentrate on things that may not be as important as they seem.
~natalie | | |
| "Seems like I had
blocked all the good parts out, focusing on my bad experiences.... but
then someone comes along and you remember what it's all about; [s]he
reminds you of how great it can be, and you hope that [s]he'll never
leave, that you could capture this summer forever, the sunsets over the
beach, the late nights, her close embrace.... is it just a summer
romance, destined to burn out in a few months? Right now, it can't be,
there's too much there for it to disappear."
Only time will tell. Right now, you're so worth it.
~natalie | | |
| So I just finished watching The Virgin Suicides for the first time and
it got me thinking. About a lot of things. I guess I've been doing a
lot of thinking in general these days, though who knows when I actually
have the time to do so with class, work, etc. First, let me just say
that the scene where Trip and Lux are watching a movie and moving their
hands closer and closer together: been there and I miss that.
Anticipation with a dash of fear. You feel like you've never been
touched before, and each millimeter gained is fireworks.
So, I'm sure many are familiar with the ladder theory. Two ladders,
side by side. I guess the distance between the ladders depends on the
situation, but I'll get to that. Let's say the one on the left is the
Friend ladder, and its neighbor on the right is the More than Friends
ladder. The pattern this year for me has been as follows: I meet a guy
and scale up the Friends ladder with ease. I climb it fast - self
disclosure, secrets, favors, outings time, I give it up without a
second thought. And why not? I adore my guy friends, I want to know
them well, I want to be there for them, etc. Here's where the problem
comes in. When I get fairly high up on the Friends ladder, I've
developed the awful habit of sticking my right foot out, hooking the
More than Friends ladder, and dragging closer to the Friends ladder.
Once it seems to be within reach - by means of misinterpreted
friendliness, drunk affection, who knows - I'll reach out and try to
grab the More than Friends ladder. I'll stretch towards it, usually in
the most awkward way possible. However, the More than Friends ladder is
always farther than it seems.
But this is unfair. I've run through the reasons why it's been like
this this year. In high school, it was never like that. I never fell
for a close friend. The people I went out with were new to me. It was
almost as if they appeared out of the blue, like, oh hello, what a
pleasant surprise. I feel like that's the way it's supposed to be. My
best reasoning is that wanting a relationship more and more (which is,
of course, positively correlated to the amount of time you've been
single) has made me look for relationship prospects in my inner circle
of friends. I guess it sort of makes sense. I mean, you know you're
compatible already, and I feel like a little sexual tension has to
exist in any close friendship between opposite sexes. But, like I said
before, it's unfair. Worst case scenario is that I reach out too far
and lose my grip on the Friends ladder and come crashing down in
between the two ladders. It hasn't gotten that far yet, thank goodness.
Attraction is harmless - it's the feelings that do me in.
My friendships are far too precious to fuck up. It ends here.
~natalie
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