I'm listening to Joni Mitchell pandora station and sitting on my new bedding in my big, dim room in San Jose. Two days ago, I drove with Bryan into San Francisco from here and was astonished by the beauty, the wonder of the California landscape. The cities, gorgeous in their own right, are full of magic, miracle, energy, exuberance... at least from what I've gathered. And then you take a different road and see these rolling hills and faded colors, so pure and so natural, something to write home about.

Sometimes I feel so sad... even embarrassed... to be working retail. It's a weird feeling but I think because of school I just feel like I'm not living up to my potential or something.... but the truth in my heart is that I can't imagine being more pleased really. I get to play dress up and talk to different people every day, inspire my coworkers with a positive attitude and seemingly never-fading energy, and it feels like I am living up to my own standards, which is something I feel I've never done. And I'm on salary! I am being blonde and happy and colorful and it is beautiful to me, more beautiful to me than anything else, is that I've overcome that feeling of not being good enough, even if it's only for a few hours when I'm dancing around Jest Jewels and singing with the girls. I know that I could be writing a book or I could be tutoring little kids or I could be doing something "grand" but I can't shake the feeling that I'm doing what I need to be doing exactly in the place I'm meant to be.

I miss you, though.

<3

So many really good, positive happenings in my life lately. Only sort of problem with progress is that it means I am constantly going through a list of to-do's! Every day a million things to take care of, lots of phone calls to make, things to pick up, and yet I still feel like I never have a chance to talk to my friends and family back east. I do certainly feel blessed, so much so, for my new position at work and how phenomenally well it is going. The adjustment was so hard at first, and the responsibility of management is... INTENSE. But I am doing my best with as much enthusiasm as possible, and I think the success is showing in morale and numbers! We are doing so well on the business side of things and, most importantly to me, the girls are coming to work smiling and believing they can make the goals and it just feels right.

Bryan and I have developed a pretty sturdy system of seeing one another often enough but it still makes me sad sometimes to know he is an hour away, not just a mile. Our one year anniversary of officialness is coming up August 4th... gotta think of something good! As the queen of gift-giving, I am struggling lately being creative and it BLOWS! I need to start making a list of random ideas to perpetuate this kind of thinking. Heh... I'm off topic.

So new goals... pay off $500 a month of student loans (I'm already almost at $1000 paid off! OMG! Still so much to go but it feels good to have made a dent!) with the potential help of my mom (I'm thinking $350 from me, $150 from her) and NOT TAKING MONEY OUT OF MY SAVINGS unless for rent and unless it's already allocated in my budget!!!!!!!

:)

Stay tuned.

I would make this whole world spin around just to see you again.

I'm packing up this room... what feels like at least the tenth time I've done this in two years. Truthfully, that's no exaggeration, but I don't want to think about how many times I've left a room behind... all the rooms... my campus quad room, home room, spain room, germany room, sun room, regular cunningham room, my home room again, and again, and again. As much as I feel like it's such the drag to be running up and down the staircases from room to car, I feel impressed with the amount of stuff I've resisted accumulating in the 5 months I've lived here. I can see myself progressing, growing up, growing into someone who needs less... I just hope I have not stopped giving. Idk... It feels GREAT to be finally harnessing this position, really feeling it and knowing I'm going to do well. It's hard, too, though, because as much as all I want to focus on is positive, I am finding myself stumbling upon various negative energies just like my brakes breaking and the tifts with those I hold dear and the awkward conversations and just the fumbling mess that is my life in motion. But I have to embrace all the goodness, the Godness, and myself.

I have been having hard days but I feel that I am done focusing on that for now. I want to just embrace positivity and opportunity, the sunshine, the bubbles, all those very Kate Alice things. I know this is something I can do, or it wouldn't have been offered to me and my path. Taking the hard moments and knowing I am bigger and more prepared because of them. Going to have such the blast with my newbie sidekick and going to love the life that is happening within and without me. Make a list of what you love and make sure you're on it.

xo.

I feel like the more I pray to make it through my days without crying, the harder this seems to be. I wonder if maybe I'm speaking backwards.

I am truly so happy and so proud of myself. And I am also completely miserable.

Right now, I feel like I need to just embrace this dark time. Just for now.

Hold on, there's a hole in my heart.

I am sorting my books into different bags... novels, non-fiction, the journals of others, the journals of my own... and some of your letters fell out into my lap. As I read through sentences from the beginning, nearing on two years now, I feel your sadness too much. I feel you too much. I just wish this were easier.

Two years ago, though, from today, I didn't know what I was doing. Andy and I broke up. I was falling in love with Ryan. I was falling in love with myself. I was Zorbing, preparing for Spain, meeting Picasso and St. Teresa, giving myself a chance. I was in love with my friends, obsessed with the sun and its setting ways. I was laughing in bathtubs and working at Cookie Co and learning how to love my family as friends, learning to make my own definitions. I was entranced by how my life was moving and I was never missing a beat. It was a spiritual time in life, and all the while I was preparing to meet you-- and I just didn't know it yet.

As much as that was two years ago, that is happening now, as it's all within me, always happening, always perpetuating the next meeting, the next moment, helping all of the now happen and I am all too aware of the connections. It's frightening to see how delicately the pieces need one another, you know? But as I sort through your words from what we dub The Beginning of sorts, I feel tears welling up because I remember how hard it was on my end, to know I would be in love with you, to know you would be far away. And because I don't want you to think that just because we won't be a mile apart again that we would be regressing. We can't. You know? We can only move forward or fall apart. I just need you to know that I'm here. And I need you to be, if only for a moment, happy with me, beside me, letting me know that maybe you are proud of me. Because you are so much apart of this... so much apart of me. And I feel like if you aren't proud of me, I won't make it to feeling like this is something I deserve. But I know this is something I deserve.

Today I told you I need you because this is true. I told you because you deserve to know.

I told them, as I always do, yes.

"No healer has ever healed without having healed himself first. No believer has ever believed as strongly without first testing his beliefs. And no lover has truly loved without having loved another and let go.

I’m not afraid to let go anymore. If it looks to others like I did something wrong, made bad choices, acted selfishly, or fearful, then so what. I can say, to you I am wrong. I am selfish. etc. Big deal. Stick and stones may break my bones but I choose not to give those thoughts a home. When I am sad I will simply be grateful for the sadness as it is a gift, a miracle in fact, to experience this powerful emotion, trusting the pendulum swings both ways; embracing all of life in it's awkward perfection."

-Jason Mraz

Please believe in me.

It's already hard enough...

I was trying to write a story, but I think I started writing a poem. And I'm calling it Beginning a Story. Stay tuned....

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened. I don't believe you are lacking awareness of the presence if you wonder "what if?" now and then; it is about trying to understand a different path, even if it not the one you chose in the end.

Something about Joanna Newsom that I love is how she continuously grows on me. The more I listen to a song, the more I connect with it and feel it in my own life. Really great poetry going on there.

I feel weird knowing so many of my dearest friends are in graduation mode now... I wonder where they will go in the coming months and how their lives will pan out and if it will continue to make me worry about my own. I'm really excited for them, though, because a great sense of pride and relief come with that big walk. Very strange times, indeed.