i took my ap lit exam today. i did my best on the multiple choice part but wrote half essays for the short response part because my teacher honestly did not teach us a thing. i love The Glass Menagerie, but all my friends were leaving and i wasn't going to get the ap credit anyway so i left too. now i'm home with a vodka mixed iced coffee and listening to songs from my past while writing in the journal from my past; i'm starting to absolutely believe in horoscopes because of how terribly nostalgic i am as a cancer. i was at the gas station in the middle of a terrible storm yesterday after my orthodontist appointment. as the severe weather warning played on the radio, i saw a homeless man with a backpack and a thermos wedge himself in between the propane and ice under the small remaining shelter of the gas station roof. i watched him while waiting for my mom, the slew of raindrops on the window distorting his face. i couldn't tell if his expression was one of despair between windshield wiper wipes or if it was just the raindrops. anyway, i watched him pick a half cigarette out of his Newport pack and smoke what was left. he took out another half cigarette and smoked that one, collecting the butts in his hand and walking through the rain to the trash can to throw them away instead of littering like countless people do, especially in the rain. i'm a terribly sympathetic person in situations like these. i wish i could help him. he ended up leaving as we left; i think he was looking for another place because he looked lost and walked with his bag over his head. i might be misinterpreting the situation completely. i probably could have helped him. i don't know where i'm going with this. all of the things i want to major in will leave me with no job. the school i'll be going to is fantastic for film and that would be perfect, but not "realistic". creative writing would be great too, but i'm only good at rambling and constructing half-thoughts before i digress. sometimes i wish i didn't make the decision to go to college; traveling seems so appealing but again it's unrealistic. i wish i was badass like tyler durden and could just say fuck all of this and blow things up. but then again that wasn't exactly the point of the movie.

This was my account back when I was thirteen. Four years later and I deleted all the entries out of embarrassment. This username is from a song by a band that I don't listen to anymore, but it could be worse. All those entries about my old friends, sunsets on rooftops, and those long walks through neighborhoods; the nostalgia isn't helping the existential crisis I'm having right now. I'm listening to Backseat Goodbye, reminiscing on those years and remembering how good Chad Sugg was at making songs I could relate to - whatever happened to the good old days? It's funny. In one of my old entries I talked about how I'd be a "horrible person" in high school. I said I'd probably "try drugs at least once" and "have at least one drink". I am now writing this entry as a seventeen year old girl in my last month of high school with a half-full bottle of Smirnoff in the closet and a Mystery Machine tin where I keep my weed when I'm not broke like I am now. According to my eighth grade self, I must be a terrible fucking person. These last four years have not been what I expected back in middle school, but I've had experiences I wouldn't trade for anything. I think my thirteen year old entity would be proud for the most part. I'm on the verge of tears. Since 2008 I've become riddled with anxieties. I keep myself up some nights, shaking and worrying about the inevitable. My sister left for Oklahoma after the summer before eleventh grade, and it was the second time I've seen my dad cry. On the two hour ride home from the airport he promised me he'd start doing more things with us. He knew he didn't take us many places or show us much love. He promised, and I gained a new respect for him, looking forward to our future with bright eyes. Four months later he had a major stroke. He lost movement in his right arm and can barely talk. I got the call on New Years morning from my brother, telling me they were on their way to pick me up because my dad had a stroke and was cities away in the biggest hospital. I thought he was dead. I passed out as soon as I saw him in the hospital bed. I never saw my dad so vulnerable and I never felt so weak. It happened when he was at work, and if the ambulance didn't come in time with the medication to burst the clot in his brain, he would be dead. Since then, I've spent so many times cowering at the top of my stairs, my head in my hands after calling 911, praying to a god that I wasn't sure if I believed in that my dad wasn't dying in the room beneath me. It was always a complication the doctor didn't warn us about, mostly seizures, and he was always okay. He's getting better, he can talk and walk better and understands everything. He's not the same, though, and we never got to go to Italy. We will probably never have the money now. We never got to go to Disney World. I went with my best friend's family and brought him home a mug that he uses everyday to drink his four cups of coffee (his caffeine consumption is one of the few things that has remained the same and one of the habits I inherited from him), serving as a reminder of the things we never got to experience. I know I sound awfully despairing but it's 1:30 am and I'm sitting in dark, in the room that I will only have for a few more months. I'll be off to college and I'll leave all of this behind. This town, my pets, my parents, my old friends that I will eventually never see again. This was much more well-written before songmeanings deleted my entry after I forgot the subject. That's not important anymore though. I took Hemingway's advice and I sat at the typewriter and I bled and I'm not feeling much better but I will.